WHAT IS ISLAMIC STATE?
Introduction
At this age, undoubtedly, Islam as a faith is going through a pivotal epoch since its beginning fourteen centuries ago. After the collapse of the last Muslim Empire (Muslim Empire rather than ‘Islamic’ Empire since that very term, ‘Islamic’ will be the focus of this paper) and abolition of the Kalifate which was established after the Prophet (PBUH) and lasted thirteen centuries without interruption, umma got scattered all over the place as a sheep herd attacked by a pack of wolves. Almost all of the Muslim lands were colonized by Western powers except the cradle of the Ottoman Empire, Anatolia. Although Turkey was not colonized militarily, it was colonized culturally just like the rest of the Muslim nations. This cultural colonization deeply traumatized Muslim nations. Their bond with their histories and thus with the glorious Islamic Civilization has been broken; they have lost their identities and could not come up with a new identity yet.
Almost in all Muslim nations, societies are broken into two segments; culturally Westernized minorities and conservative masses who see the West as the source of all sorts of evil for their misfortunes. As one segment is looking up to the Western civilization as a salvation and a solution for all their socio-economic problems, the conservative masses are hoping to bring back ‘the Sharia’ in order to revitalize their glorious history. They are striving to establish their utopic ‘Islamic’ states so that they can teach the descendants of the barbaric Crusaders what true civilization really is. “But you killed the Indians” is a political joke in Turkish. When politicians are criticized for human right abuses, instead of taking responsibility; they point out to the Western civilization accusing them the genocide of the Native Indians.
In this paper, I will try to shed some light on the Muslim majority nations’ soul-searching and what is meant by the adjective ‘Islamic’ as it is used prevalently today. I will try to answer the question; “is it possible to establish an ‘Islamic state’ that will be governed by the Divine Law, Sharia.” I also want to tackle the questions, what makes a specific judicial ruling ‘Islamic’ and what makes a state “Islamic.” I will look at the constitutions of “Islamic” Republics of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan and elaborate whether they are living up to their ‘Islamic’ reputations.
A Nation Looking for Its Identity: Turkey
Turkey is unique among the Muslim majority countries that it was never colonized. As the Ottoman Empire ended in 1923, completing its natural lifespan way beyond what Ibn Khaldun determined for empires, a new promising state was established with the participation of all segments of society. However, that hope didn’t last long. As soon as Kemal Ataturk secured his power over the parliament, he took Turkey to a different route. In the first constitution voted by the parliament in 1921, the religion of the state was written as Islam. Also, the language of the constitution was more inclusive towards Kurds, the second largest ethnicity that constitutes 15-20% of the population. However, with a revision in 1928, the statement of “religion of the Turkish Republic is Islam” has been removed from the constitution.
The new Turkish Republic turned out to be an autocracy with French-style secularism which forced European lifestyle as well as the European legal codes in their entirety to the conservative Muslim society. As Asli Bali summarizes in her talk at Yale Law School, that French laicism is based upon the notion of protecting politics from the influence of religion; as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon secularism which aims to protect religious freedom from government’s influence.[1] The laicism adopted by the Turkish government was even stricter than French-style secularism whereas the government established a state department in order to unify and control all the religious affairs in the nation and undertook crafting a limited version of Islam as the nation’s religion. The government also abolished all the religious orders and tariqas, assuming their properties. By law, adhan was forced to be called in Turkish from 1932 to 1950. Also, European dress style was enforced to the government workers by law. There is still a statute today as a remnant of those days that mandates public workers to wear fedora hats, which of course is not enforced. House Bill 671 which was adopted in 1925 reads; “All Representatives of the House and all other federal and local government workers are mandated to wear fedora which was recognized by the Turkish Nation. Nation’s official headwear is fedora and all other hats are prohibited.” In the following years, dozens of people were executed by the revolutionary courts for violating this law. With another law niqab and burqa was prohibited.
In 1928, the alphabet was also changed from Arabic to Latin. The Arabic alphabet was being used by Turks since the tenth century when they first encountered and converted to Islam in Middle Asia. Another government agency was formed in order to ‘purify’ Turkish language by getting rid of Arabic and Persian oriented words from Ottoman Turkish by making up new words. This meant that new generations would not be able to read any of the literature that was created by two great civilizations, Seljuks and Ottomans which was accumulated over a millennium. This top-down so-called modernization efforts, unfortunately, caused the Turkish nation lost its cultural memory and fractured the society to its core, as seculars and conservatives, as educated and uneducated. Up until the 1980s, for the majority of conservative masses, education meant losing all your religious and cultural values.
Out of the war-worn conservative Muslim masses, a modernized, secular, Western-educated, elitist minority emerged with the reins of the government in their hands. For this secular minority, religion was the symbol of backwardness and its role was supposed to be restricted to merely to the cultural sphere and utilized as needed; such as in funeral ceremonies or patriotic speeches. Then, in the 1950s, the Turkish state was forced to try Democracy due to the international contexture, in the search of allies against the threat from the Soviet Union. Then, came the secularist military interventions, once every decade, shocking conservative Muslim majority who clung to the dreams of glorious times of the Ottoman Empire. Although 1924 constitution was discarded and two new versions were made after 1960 and 1980 military coups and numerous of revisions were adopted, this Jacobin, secularist ideology, encrypted into the culture of the government and bureaucracy carried out until to this day and guarded by the military.
For the Turkish secularists on the far left (it is rather flat-out fascism but named as left in Turkish politics), Ataturk is a God-sent savior and if Turkey could go back to 1930s, where all the religious orders and tariqas were banned, all the problems of the society would be solved. For them, religion and Ottoman Empire symbolizes backwardness. As Nicholas Danforth describes it, “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk built his new national republic on a vigorous rejection of the Ottoman past. He condemned the Ottoman sultans as foreign interlopers, accusing them of promoting religious bigotry, suppressing their people’s Turkish identity and cravenly collaborating with European powers. Completely ignoring the Ottoman past, Ataturk gave his
people a glorious and invented history of Central Asian Turks to serve as a basis for their national pride.”[2]
Yet Republicans didn’t refrain using the legacy of Ottoman Empire in their nation-building efforts, especially its glorious era until the seventeen century before its stagnation and downfall. They associated anything that was to be proud of in the Ottoman era with its Turkish roots and Turkishness and any of its sins with its ties to religion and the influence of European powers and minorities in the Empire. “Then, beginning in the 1990s, a newly pious, newly democratic Turkey ‘reconnected’ with its Ottoman ‘roots’, finally embracing the national history Ataturk had denied them. This trend culminated, of course, in the full-blown, Islamically rooted Ottoman nostalgia – not to say Ottomania – of today.”[3]
Turkish secularists are okay with Islam as long as it stays as a cultural motif in the lower end of the society and within the walls of historical mosques and funeral ceremonies, but Islam as a religion that shapes the morals of the society and the law of the land, it is evil. It is “the Sharia;” stoning people to death, chopping off hands and heads, marrying nine-year-old girls to old men, etc… Turkish left is also quite nationalistic rather racist. Up until the 1980s, the government did not recognize an ethnicity as Kurds or a language as Kurdish, not in Turkey nor in the bordering states. Writing, speaking, singing in Kurdish was banned and punished harshly. Up until this day, there is no public education in Kurdish for 15 million Kurds in Turkey and private education is very limited due to the government’s pressure.
This very ideology created today’s Turkish political Islam as a reaction to itself. Although political Islam claims to be the exact opposite of Turkish secularism, it shares the same features as its nemesis, Kemalism.
Turkish Political Islam: Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Justice and Development Party (AKP) was established in 2002 by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a group of politicians as an offshoot of the Saadet Party which was the only political Islamist Party at the time. Saadet Party, previously known as Refah Party and Milli Selamet Party was established in the 1960s by Necmettin Erbakan (d. 2011) who was the founder of political Islam in Turkey. Erdogan started his political career in the 1980s when he was working at the Istanbul’s public bus company. He is a graduate of ‘Imam Hatip’ High Schools which were established by the “secular” state back in 1951 in order to train imams for the state mosques. From 1933 to 1949 all divinity education at the secondary level and college level was banned in the country. So, Erdogan’s religious knowledge is limited to what he has learned at the high school. His college education is the subject of a big controversy in Turkey. Because a college degree is one of the conditions of the presidency according to the constitution and up until now Erdogan couldn’t present his original diploma nor are there any witnesses that he ever attended college. It was revealed that copies of diplomas provided to the National Board of Election at various elections are different from each other and obviously forged.[4]
Erdogan and his friends left the Saadet Party in the aftermath of 1997 military intervention. At the time, Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul and served a three month jail time for a religio-nationalist poem he had recited at a rally. February 28 intervention was named after a series of resolutions which Erbakan’s government was forced to sign at the National Security Assembly on February 28, 1997. As a result, Erbakan’s Party had to resign from government, tens of thousands of people deemed as ‘irticacı’ (backward) were purged from government and academic posts, and hijab was prohibited at the colleges. As Erdogan and his friends were founding AKP, they denounced political Islam and sought cooperation from other segments of the society such as Gulen Movement,[5] liberals, moderate seculars, Alevites, Kurds and other minorities who have been a victim of the hardcore Kemalist ideology engraved in the arteries of the state.
Within the six months, after its inception, AKP surprisingly won 2002 elections with enough votes to form the government. For the first two terms, AKP managed to maintain its mainstream stance keeping the support of its allies most notably Gulen Movement’s and provided a significant boost in areas of human rights, rule of the law, press freedom, economic growth, and Turkey’s long European Union membership dream. However, after the victory of the third parliamentary elections in 2011, Erdogan’s discourse changed significantly leaning more towards his political Islamist past. He started to use populist speeches, constantly using expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them;’ us being the conservative Muslim majority and them being the seculars, Western powers, Israel, Vatican, Crusaders, imperialists, and everything that has a negative connotation in the public memory.
With these arguments, he managed to keep his popularity and even got himself the Presidency amid the biggest corruption allegations in the history of Turkey involving his four ministers, his son, and himself. On December 17, 2013, Turkey woke up with the news of arrests of dozens of people including sons of four cabinet ministers, municipal mayors, president of largest state bank and bosses of construction tycoons due to corruption charges:
Turkish police have arrested the sons of three cabinet ministers and at least 34 others in orchestrated raids that appeared to represent the biggest assault on the authority of the prime minister. The detentions went to the heart of the Erdoğan administration and included leading businessmen known to be close to the government and officials said to be engaged in suspected corruption, bribery and tender-rigging. According to Turkish media reports, the sons of the interior minister, the economics minister and the environment and city planning minister were among those detained. Other detainees included the head of the state-controlled Halkbank, the mayor of an Istanbul district considered to be a stronghold of the ruling AK party as well as the three construction sector tycoons, Ali Agaoglu, Osman Agca, and Emrullah Turanli. Agaoglu has recently made headlines with controversial mega-projects and works for the notoriously opaque state housing agency (Toki).[6]
Erdogan’s government immediately fired the police chiefs, prosecutors, and judges who were doing the investigations and named the operations as a coup attempt to the democratically elected government. He also waged a war on Gulen Movement, his biggest ally for the first two terms, naming its members as the ‘parallel state’ within the state. The government started to seize the Movement’s schools, its media outlets, and properties of businessmen who were supporters of the Movement and also AKP up until very recently.
On July 15, 2016, Turkey took another turn towards dictatorship after the so-called coup attempt. Turkey had seen many coups and coup attempts before, but this one was quite awkward. During the prime time around 10:00 pm while everybody was watching their favorite TV shows, a few tanks occupied and stopped the traffic at the Bosporus Bridge in front of the cameras. Then some war jets started to fly low and make noise in Ankara and Istanbul. A squad of soldiers occupied State’s National TV station and the news anchor read a short statement that the Turkish military took control of the government. It is alleged that Military Chief was taken hostage at a military base. One military helicopter attacked and bombed a police station. A war jet bombed the yard of Erdogan’s palace and killed scores of people who were waiting outside. Erdogan was at his summer vacation in South Turkey. Around midnight he appeared on TVs through a Whatsup connection and immediately accused Gulen Movement as the perpetrators and called all his supporters to take the streets. At the same time, all around the country, athans started to be called and they continued non-stop until the next day. A total of 6000-7000 soldiers, mostly privates and military academy students were sent to the streets whereas remaining the 99% of the army didn’t take any part in the pseudo-coup attempt, 276 people died in the turmoil, and more than 3,000 injured. The Congressional Committee that was established to investigate the coup attempt has been dismissed within a few months without questioning the top officials who played major roles on both sides. Since then more than half a million people have been interrogated, more than 150,000 have been purged from public service without any chance to find jobs in the private sector because of the government’s pressure. Passports of more than one million people have been revoked with no reason. Tens of thousands of people have been fleeing through illegal routes since then.
“ARRESTS: Some 160,000 people were detained (pre-trial detentions can take years) for questioning, of which over 77,000 were formally arrested for alleged links to terror organizations, including Gulen’s network and outlawed Kurdish rebels. Those arrested include military personnel, police, journalists, lawmakers, judges and prosecutors. According to Justice Ministry figures, close to 35,000 people put on trial for links to Gulen’s network have been convicted so far. Around 14,000 others were acquitted.
PURGES: More than 130,000 people have been purged from the public service through emergency government decrees. Those dismissed include tens of thousands of teachers and close to 6,000 academics. Around 1,300 people were re-instated to jobs by a commission that was set up to review cases but 18,000 other appeals were rejected.
MILITARY: Some 170 generals and around 7,000 other senior military officers were arrested as part of the crackdown. At least 58 generals and 629 senior officers have been convicted to life terms in prison so far in trials against military officers, according to Justice Ministry figures. Eight generals were acquitted.
MEDIA: At least 143 journalists or media workers are currently behind bars, most accused of links to Gulen or Kurdish rebels, according to the Turkish Journalists Syndicate. Using emergency decrees, the government closed down around 200 media organizations, including newspapers, periodicals, radio stations and television channels.
POLITICIANS: Ten legislators from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, are in prison on terror charges for alleged links to Kurdish militants. Enis Berberoglu, a legislator from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, is in prison convicted of espionage for giving an opposition newspaper images allegedly showing Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria.
ACTIVISTS: Human rights activist and businessman Osman Kavala is in jail pending trial, accused of seeking to overthrow the government and having alleged links to Gulen. Eleven prominent activists were arrested last year at their hotel on an island off of Istanbul while on training. They were eventually released from jail pending the outcome of their trial for supporting terror groups. Among them was Taner Kilic, Amnesty International’s former Turkey chairman, who was released earlier this month.”[7]
Political Islam in Turkey is a reaction to Kemalist fascism. It defines itself with its adversaries rather than its own values and constantly needs foes to stay relevant. At a very pragmatist level, it is always anti-something; anti-Kemalist, anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Europe, anti-Vatican, etc. They are anti-Israel yet Turkey’s trade volume (both exports and imports) with Israel steadily grew and tripled in the last 15 years during AKP governments.[8] Erdogan’s sons’ fleet transporting goods and Kurdish petrol to Israel played a big role in this trade volume. It is Islam is anti-European, yet AKP celebrated the launch of reinvigoration of accession process to the European Union in 2012 with pompous ceremonies. It is anti-Vatican, yet the first guest of Erdogan’s famous 1150-room palace was The Pope himself. It is anti-American, but Turkey is a part of NATO, hosting several American bases in Turkey, and depends heavily on the American arms in its defense. But the base of AKP zealously believes that the US was behind the 2016 coup attempt and wants to topple down Erdogan and destroy the country. Every increase in Dollar-Lira indexes is attributed to US attacks on the Turkish economy, rather than the bad economy management on the government’s side. It is anti-Zionist, but Erdogan meets with pro-Israel lobbies almost every year during his visits to the US.
It is really hard to describe Turkish Islamists relationship with Islam. It should definitely be the subject of a book. After the 2013 corruption cases erupted, its voters’ view of AKP can be described with the motto at the time, “they steal, but they do the job.” After the corruption allegations broke out, one of the prominent scholars of fiqh in Turkey and also a strong supporter of Erdogan, Hayrettin Karaman wrote in his column that corruption cannot be considered as theft.[9] Corruption, nepotism, crackdown against minorities, wasting public resources on lavish government palaces/vehicles/planes, extra-judicial kidnapping/killings[10] of dissidents (especially the members of Gulen Movement) has increased at a rampant rate since the 2016 coup attempt. Another prominent scholar of Ottoman History and Erdogan’ supporter, Ahmet Akgunduz, who is also the Dean of Rotterdam Islamic College in the Netherlands was saying, “Everybody steals, the previous governments were stealing 80 percent and working 20, AKP is stealing 20 percent and working 80.”[11] Ahmet Akgunduz also gave another fatwa on TV for the killing of Gulen Movement followers that it is permissible (jaiz), because with the coup attempt they revolted against the state. He was basing his fatwa on the ayah “And if two factions among the believers should fight, then make settlement between the two. But if one of them oppresses the other, then fight against the one that oppresses until it returns to the ordinance of Allah” (Quran: 49:9)[12].
Since Islamist AKP came to power in 2002 (they had denounced political Islam at the time but they rolled back in 2011 after they won their third term), the only visible change was abolishing of the hijab ban in the universities in 2012 and hijabi woman became more and more visible in the government jobs. There is no need to say that all those women along with their male counterparts who have been taking government post are hardcore Erdogan fanatics. Policy-wise, there has been no structural change that can be considered Islamic. The National Lottery is still being administered by the State. Salaries of the imams are still being paid from taxes collected from all segments of the public including seculars, Alevites, Jews, Christians, and atheists. Those taxes also include revenues from National Lottery and taxes from thousands of brothels all around the country. State Department of Religious Affairs and Friday hutbas became an AKP mouthpiece. Press freedom has been diminished; as all the media outlets have been bought out by Islamist oligarchs who accumulated inconceivable amounts of wealth with the AKP’s rise to the power. Gulen Movements dozens of media outlets, including the most selling paper in the country, Zaman had already been seized in 2015. Freedom House graded Turkey as ‘Not Free” since 2018.
“Indeed, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become the world’s biggest jailer of journalists with more than 150 imprisoned since the failed coup attempt in July 2016. They have been charged with terrorism offenses as a result of articles they have written, posts they have shared on social media or opinions they expressed. Several, such as Ahmet Altan (a world-renowned writer), have received life sentences.
More than 180 media outlets have been shut down and an estimated 2,500 journalists and other media workers have lost their jobs. Unsurprisingly this year’s World Press Freedom Index placed Turkey 157 out of 180 countries, sandwiched between Rwanda and Kazakhstan. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that of all the imprisoned journalists in the world, one third are languishing in Turkish prisons.”[13]
Therefore it is really hard to say what is Islamic about Turkish Political Islamists other than their anti-Kemalist, anti-American, anti-Israel statements and millions of dollars spent for mosques along with Erdogan’s propaganda in Turkey and all around the world. Continuous populist utterances and playing to virtual internal traitors and external enemies cloud people’s judgment and prevent them to see the country is at the edge of total destruction. Masses keep believing Erdogan, as long as he shows up for the Friday prayers in front of cameras and recites some Quran from time to time. The current constitution was made by the military after the 1980 coup d’état which states The Republic of Turkey is a secular state and it was built upon the principals of Ataturk. The army is still in the hands of ultra-secular, ultra-nationalist clique, especially after the purges of tens of thousands of officers who might have any links to Gulen Movement or seculars who don’t share the same hardcore Kemalist ideology.
Patrick Gaffney describes not only AKP’s Islamism but also the general political Islamist ideology all across the Muslim majority countries as ‘popular Islam.’ “Furthermore, the heavy emphasis of Islamicists on the refuting of the godless, alien, unjust, and immoral contents of so many modern “isms” points to another perceived deficiency of the movement, namely, its penchant for negativism. While it has proven capable of opposing programs and denying legitimacy to regimes, it has never succeeded in elaborating concrete and constructive alternatives upon which Islamic activists themselves could agree. In part, surely, this shortcoming stems from the unresolved contradictions within the movement itself.”[14] Popular Islam or political Islamism to me is an ideology rather than the religion itself. It is statist and nationalistic. The most popular saying used in order to promote patriotism in Muslim majority countries is the saying of ‘Hubbul-watan min al-iman.’ This saying is generally related as a hadith. However, when I searched for it I found out it was a saying of Abdul Wahab Hasbullah, an Indonesian scholar (d. 1971). Unfortunately, it is used extensively both by politicians and scholars as a hadith. The concept of umma, one of the basic concepts of Islam is entirely ignored by Islamists. For instance “Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has dodged a question on the reported detention of as many as two million Muslims in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, saying he “didn’t know much” about the issue.”[15] For Turkish Islamists, umma starts and ends with Palestine inasmuch as it increases their votes. None of those so called Islamist governments take any action to stop the starvation in Yemen.
Contemporary Islamic States
Today in the world, there are many states that call themselves ‘Islamic’ in their constitutions. Obviously, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan are the most famous or rather notorious ones about their Islamism due to their size, influence and how they apply Islam to their legal systems. Others include Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, and the other Gulf States.
The first article of Saudi Arabia’s constitution states “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State,” and “Constitution of the State is The Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunnah (traditions).” And the fifth article states that the system of the government will be monarchial and “The dynasty right shall be confined to the sons of the Founder, King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (Ibn Saud), and the sons of sons. The most eligible among them shall be invited, through the process of “bai’ah.” To me, from the very beginning, it is full of contradictions. It reads it is an Islamic Arab state. Islam is not exclusive to Arabs, it is beyond ethnicities. If a state claims to be ‘Islamic,’ it should be open to all Muslims and all the subjects of Allah and give each and every one of them equal rights. From this perspective United States seems to be more ‘Islamic’ because it doesn’t choose an ethnicity over another inasmuch as to its citizens. From this regard, if US constitution had given equal rights to every human being regardless of their citizenship, it could have been ideally ‘Islamic.’ Saudi constitution says the Quran and the Prophet’s Sunna is the constitution within the constitution. If the Quran and Sunna is the real constitution why do they have another constitution? It says government will be monarchial and right of the rule will be given to the progenies of Ibn Saud. Yet, the Quran and Sunna don’t prefer a governance model for the UMMA and definitely, it doesn’t give the right to rule to the decedents of Ibn Saud. The Saudi government might be applying some cherry-pick laws from classical sharia books but the basic structure and main principles of the Saudi State obviously have nothing to do with Islam. Article 6 reads “Citizens shall pledge allegiance to the King on the basis of the Book of God and the Prophet’s Sunnah, as well as on the principle of “hearing is obeying” both in prosperity and adversity, in situations pleasant and unpleasant.” Again here it doesn’t say what makes the King the rightful ruler for the believers according to the Quran or the Sunna. Thus I think any sort of monarchy cannot be directly associated with Islam and called ‘Islamic” because the monarch will lack legitimacy from Quran’s perspective. In Islam rulers, be it elected politicians or monarchs are neither the shadow of the God nor the representatives of the Prophet.
Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution is no different than the Saudi constitution. The introduction part of the constitution states that “The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a declaration of the social, cultural, political, and economic foundations of the Iranian society based on Islamic principles and norms that reflect the heartfelt desire of the Islamic community.” However, it goes into discussing the Iranian revolution in depth, venerating Imam Khomeini all over the text. It is quite an irony that nobody questions the conflict between being Islamic and of/and about Iran. Islam is universal and divine, and there is nothing neither universal nor divine about the Iranian Uprising. It was a socia-political uprising against an oppressor and as in many cases, the oppressed became the oppressor once they gained the power. It says “After experiencing the anti-despotic constitutional uprising and the anti-colonial uprising for the nationalization of oil, the Muslim nation of Iran learned the invaluable lesson that the specific and essential reason for the failure of these uprisings was the non-doctrinal quality of the struggles.” Islam is likened here to a doctrine that is needed for the uprising to succeed against the Shah.
In the introduction part, it reads “The catalyst for the nation’s united movement was Imam Khomeini’s objection to an American scheme, “the White Revolution,” which was a step toward strengthening the foundations of tyranny and increasing Iran’s political, cultural, and economic dependency on world imperialism.” The ideology in these lines is the same ideology behind the Turkish Islamism; it is reactionary and defensive, it is defining itself with its enemy, and constantly needs an enemy to stay relevant. Under the title of Islamic Government it discusses, “The struggle continued on this path until finally the discontent and intense anger of the people as a result of internal pressure and state suppression on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the exposure of these actions at the international level through the actions of the clerics and the students, seriously weakened the foundations of the regime.” The following sections are titled as “The Anger of the People,” “The Price Paid by The Nation.” It is more like an indoctrination booklet rather than a constitution which in the essence should define the rights of it subjects and boundaries of the government.
Under the section of ‘The Form of Governance is Islam,’ it barely touches the concept of umma, “Specifically, it strives to expand international relations with other Islamic movements and people in order to pave the way for the formation of a single, universal community, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse, “Verily, this Brotherhood of yours is a single Brotherhood, and I am your Lord and Cherisher: therefore Serve Me (and no other),” yet even the language of these sections is quite hostile. You cannot see the concept of compassion anywhere in the text. Thus it is quite autocratic, placing the ‘Guardian Council’ to the core of the government to safe keep the revolutionary ideology, pretty much same with the Turkish constitution. But from other perspectives such as women’s rights or minority rights, I should say I found it much more lenient than the Turkish constitution. If allows speaking and education in local languages, something that is not recognized in the Turkish constitution. Also, its emphasis on the rights of women is applaudable.
Pakistan’s constitution is quite lengthy; it is 138 pages as opposed to 38 pages and 26 pages to Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s constitutions respectively. Again it states the religion of the state as Islam in the second article. It is obvious that it was affected by British laws. It emphasizes human rights and equality under the law. However, its statist nature is quite obvious. Article 5 talks about how the loyalty to the state is every citizen’s duty and “Obedience to the Constitution and law is the inviolable obligation of every citizen wherever he may be and of every other person for the time being within Pakistan.” Interestingly article 6 talks about high treason which is always a loose cannon. Article 31 discusses how the Islamic way of life should be implemented in the community. It also establishes a Sharia along with the Supreme Court which will make sure all the laws and regulations of the State are in conformity with the Sharia. It states the power and function of the court as “If any law or provision of law is held by the Court to be repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam,- (a) the President in the case of a law with respect to a matter in the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List, or the Governor in the case of a law with respect to a matter not enumerated in either of those Lists, shall take steps to amend the law so as to bring such law or provision into conformity with the Injunctions of Islam; and (b)such law or provision shall, to the extent to which it is held to be so repugnant, cease to have effect on the day on which the decision of the Court takes effect.” If this court functions as it is described in the article it is quite possible that it will collide with the parliament and the Supreme Court. Among these three states, I think Pakistan’s constitution seems to be the most liberal and inspired from Islamic principles as well as British Bill of Rights.
Conclusion
In his book The Impossible State, Wael Hallaq discusses the characteristics of the modern nation-state in the context of law versus morality relations. Hallaq identifies five basic features of the modern state as “1-its constitution as a historical experience that is fairly specific and local, 2-its sovereignty and metaphysics to which it has given rise, 3-its legislative monopoly and related feature of monopoly over so-called legitimate violence, 4-its bureaucratic machinery, and 5-its cultural-hegemonic engagement in the social order, including its production of national subject.”[16] He discusses that modern state deems itself, as the ultimate sovereign and lawmaker and expects ultimate loyalty and sacrifice from its citizens. However, in an ideal ‘Islamic State’ that is founded on the Islamic principles, the ultimate loyalty should only be to Allah. Subjects of Allah should not owe any devotion or loyalty to any ruler, politician, or constitution. The Quran and Sunna ordain believers to respect the rulers and governments as long as they are in conformity with the Islamic principles permeated from the Quran and Sunna.
Hallaq idealizes the Muslim Empires in the history with respect to the independence of the judiciary from the executive branch which I don’t entirely agree. Because in the Ottoman Empire Seyhulislams were appointed by the Sultans and they were forced to issue fatwas quite often. Those fatwas were generally putting the State’s and statesmen’s rights before the induvial rights. The maxims of “Private harm is borne in order to repel public harm” and “A severe harm is to be removed by way of a lesser harm” are always used to curb individual rights of its subjects. These maxims were the source of the fatwa that made the execution of brothers of ascending Sultans permissible, even if they are infants. But we can say, the judiciary in the Ottoman Empire and previous Muslim Empires were relatively more independent than the modern state. Yet Hallaq makes an excellent point that lawmaking is one of the functions of the modern nation-state and cannot be entirely independent of the executive branch of the same state and be delegated to scholars like it used to be in the first centuries of Islam. Nation State is a sovereign entity of its own with its own interests. So, the judiciary of nation-states will always favor the state’s interests over its citizens’ rights.
The contemporary concept of ‘Islamic State’ is a nation-state in essence and it can never be considered as ‘Islamic.’ Because it is local, it is limited to its citizens, and it is statist expecting ultimate loyalty from its citizens whereas Islam is universal, it regards the entire umma rather than the citizens of one state, and it deems the ultimate loyalty is only to Allah. Therefore, political Islamists are running after a shadow. As we have seen in Turkey, as soon as they come to power, they transform from the oppressed to the oppressor. Because, it is not the Islam or the Islamic principles they are after, they are simply after the power, and knowingly or unknowingly they are using Islam in their adventure.
Bibliography
[1] Asli Bali, “Ataturk’s Legacy: Negotiating Laiklik [secularism] in Modern Turkey.” Accessed on May 9, 2019. https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/yale-law-school-videos/asli-bali-ataturks-legacy-negotiating-laiklik-secularism-modern-turkey
[2] Danforth, Nicholas. “Multi-purpose Empire: Ottoman History in Republican Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies, 50:4, published May 30, 2014.
[3] Danforth, Nicholas. “Multi-Purpose Empire: Ottoman History in Republican Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies, 50:4, published May 30, 2014.
[4] Cengiz Candar, “Is Erdogan’s University Diploma Forged?,” Al Monitor, published on June 15, 2016.
[5] Gulen Movement is a non-political, social movement and a world-wide network of schools/universities and cultural centers focusing on education, entrepreneurship, and interfaith-intercultural dialogue. It was founded in the 1960’s by Fethullah Gulen, a self exiled scholar living in Pensilvania since 1999. It used to be the most influential sect in the Turkish society until 2016 coup attempt (or false-flag coup for many including myself) due to its schools, media, and business network both within Turkey and all around the globe. Since the very beginning, the movement has been in the target of ultra-secularist/ultra-nationalist establishment in Turkey, as well as political Islamists who saw the movement as their competition.
[6] Constanze Letsch, “Turkish Ministers’ Sons Arrested in Corruption and Bribery Investigation,” The Guardian, published on December 17 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/opinion/a-golden-reign-of-tolerance.html
[7] “A Look at Turkey’s Post-Coup Crackdown.” AP, published on August 30, 2018.https://www.apnews.com/dbb5fa7d8f8c4d0d99f297601c83a164
[8] Gullu, Ihsan. “Describing Turkey Israel Relationships with Its Trade Dimensions.” International Journal of Commerce and Management, Volume 4, Issue 10, p/107. (October 2016)
[9] Hayrettin Karaman, “Corruption One Thing, Theft is Something Else,” Yeni Safak, December 21, 2014. https://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/hayrettinkaraman/yolsuzluk-baka-hirsizlik-bakadir-2006694
[10] Rick Gladstone. “Turkish Secret Agents Seized 80 People in 18 Countries, Officials Say.” New York Times, published on April 15, 2018.
[11] Ahmet Akgunduz, “Erdogan Governments Stole Only 20 Percent of Public’s Wealth,” t24, published July 2, 2014, https://t24.com.tr/haber/tayyip-beyin-hukumetleri-milletin-malinin-sadece-yuzde-20sini-yedi,263031
[12] Ahmet Akgunduz, “Killing of Hizmet followers is permissible.” Accessed on May 8, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqROH3OH1kE
[13] Joanna Hong, “Erdogan’s Turkey: The World’s Biggest Prison for Journalist.” Newsweek, September, 8, 2018, accessed on May 12, 2019.
https://www.newsweek.com/erdogans-turkey-worlds-biggest-prison-journalists-opinion-1125718
[14] Gaffney, Patrick. “Popular Islam.” American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol 524, (November 1992)
[15] Ben Westcott, “Pakistan’s Khan dodges questions on mass Chinese detention of Muslims.” CNN World, March 28, 2019.
[16] Hallaq, Wael B. The Impossible State, Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013, p 23.
Bir Muhacirin Günlüğü 