TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: REFUTING THE CLAIMS OF EXTREMIST SEPARATISTS Rashad Ali, Dawud Masieh & Dilwar Hussain Fore 1 Contents Foreword 4 Introduction 5 Are ‘Islamic’ political parties ordained in the Quran? 7 Is sovereignty given to Shariah or the rule of man? 11 Are judgements only for God? 14 Governance isn’t about imposing interpretations of the Shariah; it’s about taking care of society’s needs and interests 17 The social contract – scholars’ views on agreements of governance and imposing interpretations of Shariah 28 Taking part in governance within non-Muslim majority countries 33 Is the land Dar al-Kufr even if we can manifest and practise Islam? 37 Citizenship and civic participation 42 Voting for parties in a general election 45 Conclusion 49 3 Foreword Religion needs authority – that is, an authentic way of interpreting its claims. In Islam,This pamphletthe overwhelming aims majorityto distinguish of Muslims, authentic across the Islamicvast spaces teachings of time, have from recognisedthose proposed that authority by extremists lives in the heirs today. of the It companions. tackles the seperatist ideology,In the Qur’ an,and these the are civilisational ‘the people of remembranceconflict mindset’: Ask the of people organisations of remembrance, and modern ideological movements like that of ISIS, and al-Qaeda and if it should be that you do not know. [16: 43] less well known, non-violent but ideologically extreme groups like These people, who have the authority to interpret the sharia, are the mujtahids – Hizb ut-Tahrir. All of whom reject democracy, political participation, theand ulema even and condemn the scholars. voting for governing parties in elections. It showsThe tale that told bymainstream Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic and others scholarship is that Muslims was must less live about under thea forms Caliphof governance, in a Muslim stateideological – one, moreover, conflict, who and’s selected more by about them. shared All other values, politicalcommonality, dispensions the are greater essentially interests kufr – which and is whybringing Muslims people in Britain together. should It shuntackles voting, this politics, through and society.showing both how the teachings of the Qur'ān andDrawing the onprophetic the authoritative traditions teachings were of theunderstood ‘“people of throughoutremembrance’” a, thisthousand brilliantyears ofessay Muslim demonstrates scholarship, that from and an Is howlamic itperspective has been the understood case made by in Hizbcontemporary-ut-Tahrir and times others isthrough fundamentally the lens flawed, of andthose nothing diverse in that traditions, case is left as standingopposed by tothis puritanical essay’s conclusion. ideological extremists today. It should almost go without saying that this work will help moderation, harm Dr Azeem Ibrahim extremism, and build integration and cohesion. But in my view, it does something Chair thatIbrahim’s arguably Foundation even more important. Namely, it demonstrates to non-Muslims the subtlety and sophistication of the traditional, classical Islam. I’m not a Muslim but the more I delve into the real Islam, whose spirit breathes through this essay, the more I’m overcome by wonder, admiration, and reverence for this ‘ocean without shore’. Paul Goodman – Former Conservative Party spokesman on Communities and Local Government 4 Introduction There is a small but growing number of Muslims who hold the view that political participation outside an ‘Islamic system’ is forbidden (haram). Such conclusions depend on a variety of antecedent conclusions: that sovereignty belongs to God; that Shariah rules must be imposed upon people by the state; that taking part in the governments of non-Muslim majority governments is also haram; and the like. This pamphlet aims to set out in detail why these antecedent conclusions, and therefore the whole extremist-separatist project, are wrong. Such positions are inimical to the real interests of Muslims living in the modern global order; but they are also a clear departure from centuries of well-established religious thought. And in case anyone should suggest that during all those centuries of profound scholarship, the great thinkers whom Muslim tradition has preserved for us were far astray, the Islamist separatist position is just as patently a departure from the practice and world-view of the Prophet of Islam himself, God’s prayers and peace be upon him. Without wanting to give such ‘political parties’ too much prominence, groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir have played a part in popularising these erroneous ideas. Of course, it is debatable whether they have actually come any closer to their own objective of establishing a Caliphate (in their understanding, an autocratic, expansionist state, seeking to impose a single interpretation of Shariah on the people). But the guiding ideology is dangerous unless soundly rebutted. For the purposes of this pamphlet, Tahrir is taken as the archetype of these ideas since, compared with other groups such as ISIL, they have been more detailed in their exposition of them and have a much more detailed narrative within which their ideas are situated. While their presentation of extremist ideas is the one most frequently referred to, the arguments apply a fortiori to most other Islamist separatist movements also. Our pamphlet aims to show that Tahrir’s ideas are far from being definitive. Tahrir openly state, and would have Muslims believe, that their conclusions on a whole range of issues are definitive and represent the only tenable view in Islamic legal orthodoxy. Moreover, they would seek to impress upon non-Muslims that their ideas are the pure realisation of Islam and that they are somehow representative of what the Prophet himself (pbuh) would advocate. 5 We hope that opinions from the classical jurists presented here will serve to challenge and rebut their claims as well as reinvigorate debate by presenting new or unfamiliar evidences related to political ideas. Also that, with time, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike are able to see that far from having religious ideals, the current Islamist rejectionist organisations have at their heart only ideological and political concerns. We identify a number of erroneous positions advanced by Tahrir and similar movements, and set out exemplars from the classical tradition that show the inadequacy of their interpretation of the Quran and the Sunna. In essence, our argument can be summarised as follows: Modern rejectionist movements project modern political categories backwards into sources that make no mention of them. Traditional Muslim understanding of Sharia (Divine Law) has always been pluralistic, due to the human incapacity to definitively discern God’s will. Early Muslims and the tradition show that governance is for securing society’s needs and interests, not for imposing interpretations of Sharia. Early Muslims and the tradition show that full engagement in civic life with non-Muslims is recommended, and sometimes obligatory. ‘Dar al-Islam’/ ‘Dar al-Harb’ are not intrinsic to scripture. It is enough for a Muslim that they are able to profess their faith in a given state, to call that country their home. Are ‘Islamic’ political parties ordained in the Quran? In the later 20th century, some Muslim groupings have advocated that there is a need to establish ‘Islamic’ political parties and that to establish such parties is an Islamic legal obligation in the same way as praying and charity are legal obligations (wajib). Since it is seen as an obligation, those not participating in the activities of such political parties are seen as blameworthy and negligent of the Shariah rules. Aside from the religious jurisprudential problems with this argument, there is also an intellectual problem. That is, the whole notion of political parties is relatively modern and this itself rules out the possibility that establishing such parties is a religious obligation: how can something that wasn’t in existence at the time of the Prophet (pbuh) be the definite subject of a Quranic verse? Still more far-fetched is the claim that establishing ‘Islamic’ political parties is an obligation of similar standing to the ritual worships such as prayer. If one considers that political parties emerge from the modern nation state and also considers the vehement opposition of groups such as Tahrir to the idea of a nation state in the first place, one begins to see the inherent contradiction in their thought processes. From a jurisprudential and religious perspective, this view is held only by a few groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and controversial recent figures such as Mawdudi.1 1 Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi mentioned the following in his book ‘Islamic concepts regarding religion and state’ under the chapter on: The obligation of enjoning the maruf and forbidding the munkar; “What is apparant from the partative in the ayah; ‘And let there arise out of you a group inviting to all that is khair (Islam).’ It does not mean that the Muslims are ordered to have a group that will undertake the obligation of dawah to Islam, enjoining the maruf and forbidding the munkar, whilst it is not an obligation on the rest of the Muslims to undertake this task in origin. Rather its meaning is the obligation that the Ummah should not be at any time without -at least- one group that will guard the light coming from the lamp of truth and goodness, and struggle against the darkness of evil and dangers of falsehood. When no such group exists amongst the Muslims, then it is impossible for the Ummah to be saved from the curse and severe punishment of Allah (swt), let alone be the best Ummah brought forth for mankind.” This is the only reference provided with an actual quotation by HT for the formation of political parties or “groups” being necessary religiously. This is quoted by the senior HT member and ideologue Ahmed Mahmoud in his book Dawa ilal-Islam - ‘The Call to Islam’.