T H SHAH
Human civilisation is
not the outcome of geological changes rather it is aggregate of human behaviour
expressed in art and literature. Apart from other components of human
civilisation, the political behaviour is central to its composition. The
gregarious nature of man has given rise to tribe, society and state where also
emerged the need to avoid the conflict of interests and usurpations which can
be seen in controlling the political power. Political thinkers have always been
grappling against the labyrinth of how to set up the political system able to
do away with the accumulation of power in one hand. The evolution of state is
the struggle to smash the complex web of political control subjecting it to public
accountability either in the form of separation of powers, judicial reviews and
questionnaires hours within the precincts of the parliamentary bodies.
In one way or the
other, some religious movements have also played pivotal role in unshackling
the human race from the yoke of political slavery. The contributions of King
Martin Luther rumbled the net of Inquisition
thus liberating the slavish minds from the crafty mechanisations of Roman
Catholic Church and placed the Holy Bible in the hands of common man to
understand. The philosophy of Ahimsa
in Hindu, Buddhism and Jainism stresses upon renunciation of all forms of
violence respecting all living things. In similar, the glaring feature of Islam
is not only to preach the monotheism, but to lay the foundations of the state
and society on the principles of equality, justice and accountability
announcing explicitly in Verse 70 of Sura Al-Israa آدَمَ بَنِي كَرَّمْنَا
وَلَقَدْ Now,
indeed, We have conferred dignity on the children of Adam.
But the way in which
this respect and dignity of the children of Adam is flouted in Saudi
monarchical system makes the mockery of this basic Quranic principle which in
theological context is termed as Nus whose
deviation and violation is considered blasphemy.
In Saudi Arabia the sentence
of 300 lashes and four years imprisonment to political and human right activist
Mr Omer Al-Saeed brings to fore the true face of Saudi Monarchical dispensation
being run on absolute personal whims and caprices of the king and the princes. To
add insult to the injury, the ways in which the beheadings are committed by the
Saudi Judicial System are not only inimical to Islam but flouts the moral and
human values due to the secretive nature of such proceedings. Same is the
situation in other princely states of Middle East where reigns the family but with
some laxity. These are the contradictions which brand the Islam with the brands
like democratic Islam, political Islam, tribal Islam and terroristic Islam, the
term which is the recent contrivance.
In most of the Muslim
countries the religious books either taught in curricula of formal educational
or religious institutions, Islam, per se of its divine nature, is presented as
system and code of life incomparable with any ism or system devised by human
reason. The sermons of the religious leaders and preachers continue trumpeting
salvation only and only lay in being Muslim and dying on Islam. When some
novice or any person socialised in secular environment come across the
monstrosities like these in Saudi Arabia would start assuming Islam such a
religion based on negating human and moral values. While in actuality, the
Islam has nothing to do with such types of absurdities and contradiction when
analysed on the divine criteria of Al-Quran, Islamic theology and acts of the
pious caliphs.
It is to be noted that
Islam has not given any political system instead it has provided the glaring
principles on which any political system whether parliamentary or presidential
can be tailored. The pious caliphs remained in power as long as they upheld
justice, accountability and equality in the matters of the public concerns. This
main justification for a person to be the political ruler or leader of the real
Islamic State as well as to remain in power is explained in the verse 44 of the
Sura Maida of the Holy Quran. It says;
“.الْكَافِرُونَ هُمُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ
اللَّهُ أَنْزَلَ بِمَا يَحْكُمْ لَمْ وَمَنْ”
Those who do not judge
by what Allah has sent down —it is they who are the faithless.
When the first Caliph Hazrat
Abu Buker Saddique of the Islamic State in Medina took the rein of the
government, he delivered remarkable words at the time of his oath/sermon. He
said;
"O People! I have
been appointed the head of your caravan though I am not better than you are. If
I work properly, help me and if I do not work well, correct me. Truthfulness is
a deposit and falsehood is defalcation. The weak amongst you is strong in my estimation.
I will surely try to remove his pain and suffering. And the strong amongst you
is weak to me I will - Allah willing - realise the right from him fully....When
obscene things spread among any nation, calamities generally continued to
descend upon them. As long as I obey Allah and His messenger, you should obey
me, and if I do not obey Allah and His messenger, then obedience to me is not binding
upon you.”
Without being enmeshed
in religious polemics or historical enigmas, if ones judge the level of
so-called Saudi Islamic state on the principles on which it is based, it
demolishes the whole edifice of Islamic political ethics. How the acts and
policies of the political, civil and military bureaucracy justified when the
troika is thronged with royal relatives. Moreover, the interpretation of Islam
is in the hands of those clerics whose fatwas
(Islamic Rulings) do not enfold princely acts and edicts leaving them reinless.
The grandson of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Imam Hussain refused to take the oath
of allegiance at the hands of tyrannical head of the state Yazid because he was
going to base the state not on the political morality of Quran and Sunnah, but
on his personal whimsical rash morality as can be seen in Saudi Arabia,
princely states of Middle East and so-called Islamic democracy of many Muslim
countries.
The caravan of Hejaz
doesn’t have another Hussain amongst it, although the tresses of Euphrates and
Tigris are still shine and bright as ever.
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