Download Islam and Liberalism

Islam and the Holy War
Overview
Recap: Liberalism (again)
Khomeini and the Islamic Republic
Jihad
Islamic Political Thought
 Islamic political thought
has, for the past halfcentury or so, been
most closely associated
with political violence
 Historically, that has not
always been the case
 We want to explore the
rationale underlying that
new wave of violence
The Islamic Republic
 Ruhollah Khomeini
(1900 [?] - 1989)
 Led the Islamic
Revolution in Iran
and revived the idea
of political Islam
The Islamic Republic
 Shah Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi (1919-1980)
 Came to power in 1941
 1951 Iranian parliament, led
by Mohammad Mosadeq
moves to nationalize oil
industry
 1953 Anglo-US coup to
remove nationalist Iranian
prime minister fails, Shah
goes into exile
2 years later, he is
reinstated
The Islamic Republic
 Shah begins to
Westernize Iran,
alienates both the
socialist left and the
conservative clerics
 Khomeini emerges as
leading critic and is
forced into exile, first to
Baghdad, then, when Saddam Hussein comes to
power, to Paris
The Islamic Republic
 By mid 1970s,
massive rallies form
against the Shah
and his American
supporters
 Shah goes into exile
(1979), Khomeini
returns
The Islamic Republic
 After much street
fighting, the military
opts not to intervene
 Shah’s government
collapses and Khomeini
becomes leader of
newly declared Islamic
Republic of Iran
The Islamic Republic
 Khomeini was Time
magazine Man of
the Year (1979)
 Ruled Iran until his
death in 1989
The Islamic Republic
“A body of laws alone is not sufficient for
a society to be reformed. In order for
law to ensure the reform and happiness
of man, there must be an executive
power and an executor.”
-- Khomeini
The Islamic Republic
The Qur’an (Koran) provides a body of
law to guide all action:
“The Glorious Qu’ran and the Sunna
contain all the laws and ordinances man
needs in order to attain happiness and the
perfection of the his state”
The Islamic Republic
In other words, because we have
shari’a, we can infer that we are meant
to have a government.
For to have laws means we also need
the means of their enforcement
That means we need a government
The Islamic Republic
“The nature and character of Islamic law and
the divine ordinances of the shari’a furnish
additional proof of the necessity for
establishing government, for they indicate that
the laws were laid down for the purpose of
creating a state and administering the political,
economic, and cultural affairs of society.”
The Islamic Republic
“[T]he laws of shari’a embrace a diverse body of laws
and regulations, which amounts to a complete social
system. In this system of laws, all the needs of man
have been met: his dealings with his neighbors, fellow
citizens, and clan, as well as children and relatives;
the concerns of private and marital life; regulations
concerning war and peace and intercourse with other
nations; penal and commercial law; and regulations
pertaining to trade and agriculture.”
The Islamic Republic
Contrast that with liberalism and the role
of religion and politics
 No separation of church and state
 Role of the state is to support and advance
religious institutions of Islam
The Islamic Republic
“Islam provides laws and instructions for
all of these matters, aiming, as it does,
to produce integrated and virtuous
human beings who are walking
embodiments of the law, or to put it
differently, the law’s voluntary and
instinctive executors.”
The Islamic Republic
“It is obvious, then, how much care Islam
devotes to government and the political
and economic relations of society, with
the goal of creating conditions conducive
to the production of morally upright and
virtuous human beings.”
The Islamic Republic
Because the laws are given (and
received) already, the legislature is
relatively less important than the other
branches
Need executive to enforce and judiciary
to interpret
The Islamic Republic
“[If] we examine closely the nature and
character of the provisions of the law, we
realize that their execution and
implementation depend upon the formation of
a government, and that it is impossible to fulfill
the duty of executing God’s command without
there being established properly
comprehensive administrative and executive
organs.”
The Islamic Republic
 Regimes which fail in this duty are not worthy
of our respect and should be replaced
“Both law and reason require that we not permit
governments to retain this non-Islamic
character…It is also our duty to create a favorable
social environment for the education of believing
and virtuous individuals…”
The Islamic Republic
“In order to assure the unity of the Islamic umma, in
order to liberate the Islamic homeland from occupation
and penetration by the imperialists and their puppet
governments, it is imperative that we establish a
government. In order to attain the unity and freedom
of the Muslim people, we must overthrow the
oppressive governments installed by the imperialists
and bring into existence an Islamic government of
justice that will be in the service of the people.”
The Islamic Republic
Note, the government is not a hereditary
monarchy
Rather it is democracy, but not a mass
democracy since ultimate power must
rest with the “trustee” of the people, one
ruler
The Islamic Republic
“The wisdom of the Creator has decreed that
men should live in accordance with justice and
act within the limits set by divine law. This
wisdom is eternal and immutable, and
constitutes one of the norms of God Almighty.
Today and always, therefore, the existence of
a holder of authority, a ruler who acts as
trustee and maintains the institutions and laws
of Islam, is a necessity…”
The Islamic Republic
“[A] ruler who prevents cruelty, oppression,
and violation of the rights of others; who is a
trustworthy and vigilant guardian of God’s
creatures; who guides men to the teachings,
doctrines, laws, and institutions of Islam; and
who prevents the undesirable changes that
atheists and enemies of religion wish to
introduce in the laws and institutions of
Islam…”
The Islamic Republic
“It is a righteous government, of course,
that is needed, one presided over by a
ruler who will be a trustworthy and
righteous trustee. Those who presently
govern us are of no use at all for they
are tyrannical, corrupt, and highly
incompetent.”
The Islamic Republic
“It was our lack of a leader, a guardian,
and our lack of institutions of leadership
that made all this [the degradation of
Islam and the Islamic nation] possible.
We need righteous and proper organs of
government; that much is self-evident.”
Jihad
 In order to protect and
restore the Islamic
nation two issues need
to be addressed:
1.replace non-Islamic
regimes at home
2.remove non-Islamic
regimes from the region
Jihad
“The Arabian Peninsula has
never been stormed by any
forces like the crusader armies
spreading in it like locusts,
eating its riches and wiping out
its planations. All this is
happening at a time in which
nations are attacking Muslims
like people fighting over a plate
of food.”
-- Osama bin Laden
“Jihad AGainst Jews and
Crusaders” (1998)
Jihad
 In 1998, Bin Laden argued that we can take 3
facts as given in the Middle East:
 “For over 7 years the US has been occupying the
lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian
Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its
rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its
neighbors, and turning its based in the Peninsula
into a spearhead through which to fight the
neighboring Muslim peoples.”
Jihan
“Despite the great devastation inflicted
on the Iraqi people by the crusaderZionist alliance, and despite the huge
number of those killed, which has
exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the
Americans are once again trying to
repeat the horrific massacres...”
Jihad
 And finally:
 “If the Americans’ aims behind these wars are
religious and economic, the aim is also to serve
the Jews’ petty state [Israel] and divert attention
from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of
Muslims there. The best proof of this is their
eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest
neighboring Arab state, and the endeavor to
fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper
statelets and through their disunion and weakness
to guarantee Israel’s survival...”
Jihad
 When combined, each of these, Bin
Laden argues, amounts to a declaration
of war on Islam and Allah and that
Islamic scholars have always recognized
“that jihad is an individual duty if the
enemy destroys the Muslim countries.”
Therefore it follows that...
Jihad
 “We issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -civilians and military -- is an individual duty for
every Muslim who can do it in any country in which
it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the alAqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and holy mosque
[Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their
armies to move out of all lands of Islam, defeated
and unable to threaten any Muslim.”
Jihad
“We -- with Allah’s help -- call on every
Muslim who belies in Allah and wishes to
be rewarded to comply with Allah’s order
to kill the Americans and plunder their
money wherever and whenever they find
it.”
Jihad
“We also call on Muslim ulema
[scholars], leaders, youths, and soldiers,
to launch the raid on Satan’s US troops
and the devil’s supporters allying with
them, and to displace those who are
behind them so that they may learn a
lesson.”
Jihad
 From bin-Laden’s
perspective, then,
the 9/11 attacks
would be a
defensive reaction
to American and
western incursions
in the area.