IDEA 32
Anarchism and Islam
You acknowledged God as your king by accepting membership of His polity, to live by His law as brought and executed by His agents. God’s government was coercive. He would not, of course, have to use force if His subjects would obey Him of their own accord, but for some reason or other they all tended to be rebellious. There was nothing special about humans in this respect. God had sent armies against disobedient creatures even before humans had been created, and the human fall plays no role whatever in the Muslim view of why coercive government exists. Government had always existed and always would; it was an inescapable feature of the universe. Consequently, the Muslim golden age myth is not about the absence of government, but rather about its ideal form. [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/patricia-crone-ninth-century-muslim-anarchists]
Anarchism is often associated in Western accounts with the utopian activism and terrorist assassinations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while ‘anarchy’ is understood to mean nothing more than disorder and lawlessness.
Unlike Greek, Roman, and European theories of a ‘state of nature’ in which men lived in harmony with one another and had no need for any form of government or authority, the main aim of what we might call Islamic anarchism has been to remove all superfluous government — the acts of illegitimate despots and dynasties — and to return to the pristine rule of GOD alone, such as during the first forty years of Islam.
Western anarchism is characterized by three prominent features: opposition to the rule of states, utopianism, and organization of society by means of voluntary contracts.
As the quotation above makes clear, government in Islam is not essentially oppressive or unnatural. There will always be situations in which the established power or authority is potentially unjust, but many of them will be beneficial when justice is upheld and social conflict and lower-level oppression are minimized. It is not government itself that is naturally oppressive, but mankind, as the Qur’an itself declares in Q33:72 – Truly he has been oppressive, ignorant.
As for utopia, Islamic theories of government temper their expectations and aims by what we find in the Qur’an. Even during the rule of the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace), as so many verses reveal to us, Islamic society was far from perfect. Crimes were committed, sedition was frequent, factions arose, enemies never ceased their provocations, and defeats and disappointments were a constant feature of life under what Muslims today consider to be the ideal government. Lofty principles, laudable morals, and exemplary piety coexisted with drunkenness, adultery, civic unrest, and, after the Prophet’s death, rebellions and corruption, culminating in deadly clashes between various parties of believers, all claiming to be his true followers. Muslims today can not realistically hope to enjoy better outcomes than those turbulent times.
Compare that with the breathless, excited, and fantastic visions of universal peace that constantly crop up in Western programs for reform and progress. There is always a better future over the horizon — an age when poverty, pollution, and environmental degradation are eliminated, leisure is abundant, personal development is maximized, and some system of government or new technology has finally solved all the problems of humanity. Books, articles, and speeches are forever depicting new solutions that claim to be revolutionary, and would be sure to work if those in power would only stop what they are doing and change course, or if the oppressed masses would only rise up and put an end to the current system.
Muslims can be heard talking about the Islamic state in similar terms, caught up in the frenzy of utopian dream-weaving and wish-predicting that characterizes so much of popular activist discourse. ‘If-only’ pontifications of this sort are like rainclouds that cross the desert of our daily lives at high speed and a spectacular height … good for pointing at and admiring as the sun sets on yet another day of mundane reality.
This is yet another reason why I believe that too much talk about the Islamic state is not only useless but even counterproductive. Muslims are forever arguing about the design and construction of political castles in the air while cooperating with kafir institutions on the ground for lack of any better ideas in the here-and-now. We have before us the tools and circumstances with which to work on concrete Islamic government, namely our mosques and local organizations. We could be turning them into ground-breaking centres of excellence. But are they run fairly and honestly? Do they encourage complete public participation? Are they financially transparent? Do they mobilize the volunteer resources of the community effectively, or come to rely on hired professionals who make a living out of Muslim incompetence and apathy? Do they engage in taking care of the poor and disadvantaged, making connections that combine charity with efficiency and justice while wiping away the divisions between classes and ethnicities that bedevil us today? Or are they incessantly asking for money to fund more building projects that foist the legacy-obsessed and prestige-centred concerns of the Muslim donor class onto the community?
I have yet to touch on the matter of voluntary contracts, the third pillar of Western anarchism, and what that would look like in Islam. (We call it bai’ah.) Next week, GOD willing …
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazon.ca.
Photo by Sam Kolder
