Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Islamic Law and Constitution

Written by Syed Abul Ala Maududi
Published in 1955.

Maududi was the great champion of a theocracy in Pakistan. He was also the founder of the Jamaat-i-Islami. His writings are enlightening in that he is not as much of a monster as I would imagine. He did want the rule of Allah but a lot of the fine print was quite idealistic, even utopian. He was for an independent judiciary and for free access to justice; he was also willing to concede non-Muslim Pakistanis way more rights and protections than I would have thought. Of course, he also wanted to prevent non-Muslims from playing any role in governing the country.

The fundamental difference between him and secularists lies in that he would like the state's chief purpose to be the creation of a moral people while secularists would like the state to worry about effecting economic and social change that would improve people's lives materially, but not necessarily spiritually.

The difference between him and Iqbal rests in their understanding of the concept of free will in Islam. For Iqbal it is a central concept and the individual Muslim must make his own choices in following Islam instead of having the state force Muslims to make those choices. Righteousness as the result of free will is the highest form of worship and piety. Maududi saw differently. A Muslim's freedom was limited. Perhaps his freest choice is conversion into Islam, but once that person chooses to become a Muslim he must abide by the laws of Islam and he has no choice in that matter. So it is completely acceptable for the state to force Muslims to obey; it could be considered the work of God even. So to arm the state with laws that it must enforce, Maududi scours the Quran and takes injunctions about personal behavior and makes them into laws; stuff like help the poor and the orphans. It is ultimately quite unconvincing and I have to agree with Ayesha Jalal that as much as the likes of Maududi frown upon bidat this political Islam is to a large degree a modern invention cooked up by Maududi himself.

No comments: