Download The Contemporary Caliphate - International

INTR13/71-310
2006
Lecture 9:
Alternative Global Forces: Islamic International Relations
and Transnational Flows (Case Study)
Topics: 1. Islamic Political Visions of the International Order
2. Radical Revisionism, Militant Challenges and Utopian Projects
3. Normative Transnational and International Islamic Institutions (the Ummah and
Islamic Banking)
4. Conclusion: Innovation, Reform and Conflict
5. Bibliography, Resources and Further Reading
1. Islamic Political Visions of the International Order
As we have seen cultures, religion and politics have a problematic linkage to
foreign policy and the norms mobilised by international institutions (see lectures
1-5). Different religious and cultural systems influence conceptions of national
politics, international financial institutions, and conflicting visions of international
system. These demands, moreover, place serious burdens on communities,
governments, and international regimes, and in the most militant cases demand a
violent re-ordering of the regional and global political system. In contrast to the ideas
of culture conflict and clash of civilisations, as fielded by writers such as Daniel Pipes
(1995) and Samuel Huntington (1993, 1996), we shall see that these clashes are
driven by divergent political views, different views of social and economic justice,
and different sources of authority that are mobilised. Furthermore, in the case of
Islam, there are intense conflicts and debates within Muslim communities that
have intensified over the last decade.
Islam, of course, represents one of the major religious and cultural systems of the
world. Islam is a strong social presence in most of the Middle East, Central Asia and
parts of Russia, large parts of western and northern Africa, South Asia and Southeast
Asia. Beyond this, however, Islam is growing as a religion globally, and has
adherents in most countries around the world now totalling some almost 1.5 billion
people, with 45 to 50 countries predominantly Muslim, with sizeable and often
growing Muslim minorities even in countries such as France, Britain, Germany, the
U.S. and India, with recent debates by historians such as Niall Ferguson showing
concern over the changing population dynamics of Western Europe verses Islamic
societies (Gerner 1996; Esposito 1992). Islam as a cultural system, transformed the
face of the world and its political processes from the 7-16th centuries. Islam also forms
part of a complex and rich cultural mix in Southeast Asia, and formed an important
component of political life in states such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
1
Main Muslim Populations (map courtesy PCL Map Library)
It will not be possible to do justice to Islam as a religion today. The key idea of Islam
is surrender to the will of God. Muhammad is the most perfect of God's prophets
(living in the 7th century of the Christian dating system), bringing to completion a
long line of earlier messengers (including Abraham, Moses and Jesus) who had
brought revelation to mankind. The most complete of these revelations is the Qur'an,
revealed to Muhammad. Islam is strictly monotheistic, as found in profession of the
faith: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God." Muslims
also generally accept the role of angels, revealed books, the prophets, and the day of
judgement. In terms of behaviour, Muslims are also required as far as possible to
practice the Five Pillars: - to recite the profession of faith at least once; to observe the
five daily prayers; to pay the zakat tax for the support of the poor; to fast during daylight during the month of Ramadan; and to perform if possible the hajj, or pilgrimage
to the holy city of Mecca. Islam thus emerged as a powerful ethical vision with
demands that most people could understand. It spread rapidly throughout much of the
Middle East, Africa, parts of Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia, carried by
conquest, trade, cultural diffusion, and itinerate teachers and sufis. Its message was
aided by its emphasis on social justice and its inherent devotional appeal.
Today, Islamic affairs in global affairs are represented as both a threat and
opportunity. Samuel Huntington, and other scholars through the 1990s, already
argued that the differences between the Western and Islamic civilization could form a
major area of contest in the coming decades, with this sense of threat re-iterated
through 2001-2006 (Pirio & Gregorian 2006; Hungtington 1993; Huntington 1996;
Lewis 1996; Fuller & Lesser 1995). However, this is a gross simplification of the
nature of Islam as a political entity. Although radical Islam may reject the West, the
main focus of Islam in many countries is the way to keep a core religious belief
alive and secondarily to develop a just, modern culture.
In the light of the pre-occupation with the revisionist claims of militant Islam since
2001, we will look at some of these claims first, which are not representative of the
wider Islamic community, but have posed a serious security challenge to modern
2
states in the 21st century. From there we will turn towards more normative forms
which underpin an international Islamic community, e.g. the role of the Hajj, the
conceptions of the Ummah, the community of believers (see further below), and then
explore on Islamic adaptation of modern financial institutions. The relative success of
Islamic Banking as an alternative financial system for Muslims has grown into a
vigorous network of institutions that seek to make their conduct compatible to Islamic
moral norms (though serious debates have emerged about whether such systems have
always distinguished themselves from interest-based systems, see further below). As
we shall see, with over 1.5 billion believers, and strong minority communities through
most of the Western world (as well as Russia, China and India), Islamic has tried over
the last 1400 years to position itself as a major force in global affairs, and now has
the challenge of working within and modernising, democratic and authoritarian state
systems, and working within a global system largely devised by Western, 'postChristian' states. Historically, Islam shaped a cultural space stretching from Western
Africa to Eastern Turkestan (modern Xinjiang). If today militant visions of political
order are unlikely to the need of Muslims globally, likewise, it is not clear that the
current international order has met the needs and aspirations of main stream Islamic
communities across the world. Likewise, the issue if Islamic politics has become
entangled with problematic issues such as Middle Eastern affairs, energy resource
access, migration and refugees, international terrorism, and human rights issues.
2. Radical Revisionism, Militant Challenges and Utopian Projects
Western political terminology can be problematic when applied to different cultural
systems. So-called 'fundamentalist Islamic leaders' often do not fit in with the
stereotype of an anti-modernist, backward looking traditionalism. As noted by John
Esposito 'many fundamentalist leaders have had the best education, enjoy responsible
positions in society, and are adept at harnessing the latest technology to propagate
their views and create viable modern institutions such as schools, hospitals, and social
service agencies'. (Esposito 1992, contra Lewis 1990). Indeed, most Islamic reform
groups are not fundamentalist in any literal sense, but 'resemble Catholic Liberation
theologians who urge active use of original religious doctrine to better the temporal
and political lives in a modern world' (Wright 1992, p131). Rafic Zakaria suggests a
more fruitful dichotomy, distinguishing between conservative and liberal trends in
Islam, where the 'battle between the fundamentalists and the secularists can perhaps
be more accurately described as a struggle between forces who resist change in Islam
and those who wish to accelerate it.' (Zakaria 1988, p14; see further Olesen 1995).
Islam has an indigenous tradition of 'revival' (tajdid) and 'reform' (islah), which
suggests that any judgement of Islamic revivalism (Esposito 1992, p8) needs to place
the particular reforms and ideas of a movement in their historical and ideological
context. Islamic revivalism incorporates a much wider movement than antiWestern militant groups. As summarised by John Esposito: In the nineties Islamic revivalism has ceased to be restricted to small, marginal
organization on the periphery of society and instead has become part of mainstream
Muslim society, producing a new class of modern-educated but Islamically oriented
elites who work alongside, and at times in coalitions with, their secular counterparts.
Revivalism continues to grow as a broad-based socioreligious movement, functioning
today in virtually every Muslim country and transnationality. It is a vibrant,
multifaceted movement that will embody the major impact of Islamic revivalism for the
foreseeable future. Its goal is the transformation of society through the Islamic
formation of individuals at the grass-roots level. Dawa (call) societies work in social
3
services (hospitals, clinics, legal-aid societies), in economic projects (Islamic banks,
investment houses, insurance companies), in education (schools, child-care centres,
youth camps), and in religious publishing and broadcasting. (Esposito 1992, p23)
It must be stressed that from the point of view of most Muslim reformers, Dawa is
not viewed as political propaganda, but as a serious effort at social and global
reform. These 'call' activities also include a range of social, welfare and teaching
activities (for a negative Western view, see Morris 2006). The role of the media is
thus seen as crucial in the presentation of Islam and in its relationship with other
faiths. For example, Dr Zakir Naik, the president of the Bombay-based Islamic
Research Foundation has sought to use both Western media and specialised television
outlets such as Peace TV, 'a free-to-air,24 -hour channel dedicated to comparative
religion,' headquartered in Bombay and uplinked from Dubai for satellite transmission
(Wahab 2006) There has been an effort to reverse some of the negative views of Islam
in this new media: Dr. Naik espouses a moderate view of Islam while aggressively defending it against
its detractors. “Countering Islam-bashing is the biggest challenge,” he said. “We
Muslims are unable to present ourselves well; others are coming up with new ways of
bashing Islam. We need English news channels. Our long-term aim is to have a news
channel. Thankfully, the Muslim world has realized the importance of the media. New
channels are being launched.” . . .
Contrary to the opinions of many, he equates Islam with modernity. “Modern
means what is best,” Dr. Naik said. “Islam is the most modern way of life. Islam’s
rules and regulations are the most practical way of life. Islam is the solution, not the
problem. There are black sheep in all communities and some of the media project
black sheep from among us, and then the black sheep are taken as representing all
Muslims. This is sheer media manipulation.” (Wahab 2006)
There is thus as struggle not just over the political role of Islam, but also about the
way its is represented internationally and the way it interacts with the current
international system. Major divergences with the Western tradition emerge in the
role of women1, and Islamic rights agendas are often limited by how Islamic law is
interpreted, i.e. the phrase 'according to law' may limit human rights depending on the
particular formulation of Sharia that is accepted (Mayer 1995, pp64-66). Reformist
developments in Islamic thought also lean towards human rights balanced by
economic rights, social justice, and cultural legitimacy (Monshipouri 1994). Many
Islam leaders around the world (Egypt. Malaysia, Iran), including religious and
political leaders, are in fact keen to emphasise dialogue rather than confrontation with
other value systems (Swidler 1996).
Rather than use the term 'fundamentalism', we approach these issues by addressing
the range of demands made by diverse Muslim communities. These range from
demands for human rights, greater and deeper democratisation (e.g. through much of
Central Asia and the Middle East), through to more explicit demands for state system
run directly on particular formulations of Islamic law. It is important to distinguish
among numerous patterns of demands made by different groups and ideologies. Over
the last decade the following issues have come into prominence: 1
Though Islam had not been without its own reformers since the 19th century, e.g. Qasim
Amin, 1863-1908 in his works The Emancipation of Women and The New Woman 'denounced the
subjugation of Muslim women as un-Islamic', ESPOSITO, John The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?,
New York, Oxford University Press, 1992, p58.
4
1) Greater respect for Islamic customs and sensitivities even by non-Muslims,
both nationally and internationally, including patterns of restraint, selfcensorship and limits on ‘freedom of expression’, e.g. as recently expressed
through 2005-2006 Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbaijan and much of the Middle
East over cartoons published in Western newspapers that demeaned
Mohamed.
2) Demands for the ability to pray and live freely as Muslims even within
non-Christian communities, e.g. a space legally possible in Russia but
subject to diffuse patterns of prejudice and security monitoring, a trend
repeated to a lesser degree in France, the United States and Australia.
Associated with this is the desire to freely teach and propagate their views at
the local, regional and global levels.
3) Demands for implementation of aspects of shariah law at the civil and
social level, e.g. regulation of marriage, divorce, and family law. Here
problems emerge in contrast for individual rights and gender equality. In more
extreme customary usages this can also lead back to the ‘dignity’ of the family
as the basis for honour codes. For example, even in modernising and
'secularist' Turkey until regulations from 2002 were brought into play to
recognise full equal rights for women within family structures. Shari'ah is not
just a legal code, but embraced its source concept from the root shr', the road,
with Shari'ah therefore being 'the road that men and women must follow in
this life', (Nasr 2003, p76). It therefore can include a wide range of public and
private life, including moral prescriptions as well as legal requirements.
However, the interpretation of the legal system depends upon the diverse
orientations of the four different legal schools within Islam, and the way later
sayings are interpreted to supported Koranic injunctions. Thus the moderate
form of the Hanafi legal school of Sunni Islam is dominant within Central
Asia, for example (Haghayeghi 2002).
4) Demands for full implementation of one vision of shariah law within
countries with Muslim majorities (early demands made by the Islamic
Renaissance Party and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Central Asia, for
example). These demands were also made by minority political groups in
Indonesia, under the notion of the Jakarta Charter to change the constitution,
but since 1999 this has never been able to gain more than 14% of electoral
party support (Hosen 2005; Smith 2003, p102; Crouch 2003, p23). Partial and
different levels of application of shariah law have been made in Afghanistan
under the Taliban, in Iran (but under a Revolutionary Islamic model within a
Shiite community), Sudan, and now in Somalia with a growing role for
Islamic courts (Pirio & Gregorian 2006), and in some areas of civil law in
Malaysia (relating to the Malay community) and Pakistan.
5) The implementation of an Islamic state ruled entirely by Islamic principles
and patterns of governance (claimed as the long term goal of militant groups
such as Jemaah Islamaiah (JI) in Indonesia, of the IMU for Uzbekistan, as the
past and future goal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and one possible goal for
networks of militants in Iraq.
6) Creation of a modern Caliphate as the basis of international order
providing leadership for the global community of believers, a claim made
for a social movement such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Central Asia, and implied in
some Al-Qaeda and JI communications (but needing careful consideration, see
5
below). Likewise, JI and related groups may have the vision of building and
Islamic state within one nation, but then moving towards a wider Islamic
community across much of Southeast Asia (for controversies over this, see
below). These models seem to be derived from Sunni historical traditions, but
have limited ability to be applied in the modern period (see below).
Several questions flow from this. The first is whether each of this points is a stepping
stone towards a greater and more sweeping revision of national governance and then
international order. So, for example, does toleration of Islamic political parties lead
to the prospect of governments that will move towards stronger implementation of
shariah law and then eventually towards and Islamic state, fears that have been
mobilise to the restriction such parties historically in Algeria, Turkey (until recently),
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Beyond this, however, we need to
consider the demands and problems inherent in each of these stages, the cost they
impose, and the political trade-offs implied.
2a. Politics and Propaganda
Islamist political claims, that is claims mobilising a socio-religious expression of
political dissent (Johns & Lahoud 2005, pp19-20), as represented in Western
international relations analysis and media coverage are often presented as a range of
loosely connected aims: the right to implement one version of Shariah law within
their communities (either at national or local level); justice for Palestinians; a diffuse
resentment of US and Western imperialism (at times focused into the real fear of
intervention, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, potentially Iran and Somalia); demands for
regime change in countries as diverse as Tajikistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; demands
for self-determination and independence, as in Aceh or for parts of southern Thailand;
or even the reshaping of international borders by independence movements, as in the
vision of an independent East Turkestan (now largely comprising Xinjiang
Autonomous Region within the People's Republic of China). From such viewpoints,
the current international system is viewed unbalanced and unjust, with the
United Nations and related agencies often promoting a double standard, e.g. with
irregular enforcement of Security Council resolutions based on a post-colonial system
of imperfect states.2 In this context, such claims seem to Western interests to be either
'fundamentalist', looking back to an idealised past, or dangerously revisionist, looking
toward a violent future.
Less clearly articulated are the ideas of the creation of modern Emirates and a
reborn Caliphate that would bring together believers in Islamic polities that would
reshape existing regional and international orders. The call for an Islamic polity at a
national level at times is limited to the demand for a more accountable and ‘Islamist’
government, in other cases justifying rapid transformation of political regimes (as
attempted in Algeria, and partly achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan). In the case
of early Indonesian movements (such as Dar'ul Islam from 1948-1962, under the
leadership of S.M. Kartosowirjo), there was an effort to build an Islamic state that
2
See, for example "Declaration of Jihad, August 23, 1996" in MARLIN, Robert O (IV) (ed.) What Does Al-Qaeda
Want?: Unedited Communiques, Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 2004, p3. For Osama bin Laden, the UN is
'nothing but a tool of crime', "Bin Laden Rails Against Crusaders and UN (BBC News Online, November 3,
2001)", MARLIN, Robert O (IV) (ed.) What Does Al-Qaeda Want?: Unedited Communiques, Berkeley, North
Atlantic Books, 2004, p37.
6
would give a key political role for Islam within national borders (Kearny & Wlaters
2005; McAmis 2002, p76). Likewise, Osama bin Laden has suggested that most of the
Gulf states have lost their real sovereignty and are illegitimate, a call against corrupt
regimes re-iterated by al-Qaeda in March 2006 (in Marlin 2004; JUS 2006). When
these claims are linked to the call for a Caliphate, however, they suggest linkages to
specifically Islamic forms of governance. These new forms are inspired by the past
but point towards new political projects, and are not modelled on current national
projects in Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Brunei or the Gulf states.
For a short time the so-called Emirate of Afghanistan was a partial model to which
some militants might turn,3 but one which was readily undermined by American
power and by its own limited legitimacy. In the case of recent publicity concerning
Jemaah Islamaiah operations in Southeast Asia, there has been a claim that they not
only wished to create Islamic polities in Malaysia and Indonesia, and an independent
Mindinao, but also envisaged a new Muslim polity that embraces much of the
Southeast Asian archipelago (Cochraine 2002, p32).
These more militant, revisionist notions have been played out against a wider sense
in Muslim communities that the time is ripe for further development of the role
of Islam on the world stage, either to push forward and help transform a greater part
of the world into the dar al-Islam (house of Islam), including the reform of corrupt
governments, or to find a more lasting interaction between belief, science, and
modernisation that does not undermine the pillars of faith (McAmis 2002, p2).
Several key questions are hard to avoid for contemporary Muslims, even if formulated
in rather blunt terms. A sense of historical dislocation does frustrate many Muslims
who see a 'dramatic decline . . . from the leading civilization in the world for over one
thousand years into a lagging, impotent, and marginalized region in the world.' (Fuller
2003, p1). From this viewpoint 'Is the West the greatest threat to Islam in the fifteenth
Islamic century?' (McAmis 2002, p72). 'What does it mean today to be a Muslim in a
predominantly non-Islamic World?' (Ahmed, II, 2000, p52). When will the current
negative conditions be reversed? What level of reform is needed in national
governments and the international system to sustain a renewed Islamic
civilization? For many Muslims the answer to these questions, including effective
opposition to authoritarian governments that have received support from Western
democracies, is some form of reforming Islam or Islamism (Fuller 2003, pp15-16).
These analyses have been confronted by the partial successes the Taliban through
1996-2001 and their continued embattled survival through 2002-2006, the ongoing
operations of al-Qaeda or related organisations, the reality of international and
transnational terrorism,4 and an intense debate over justice in the international system
that has re-emerged (with a vengeance) since 2001. The resurrection of the
‘Caliphate’ as a political term has been seen in popular media usage through
2005-2006, and has a strange resonance given the fractured history of the early
Caliphate, challenges to its legitimacy, its later territorial subdivision, and the
eventual withering and disbandment of the Caliphate as an institution at the end of the
Ottoman Empire (through 1922-1924). Through 2004 to late 2005 in particular, the
3
In November 2001, Osama bin Laden considered only Afghanistan as an Islamic state, which was not the case for
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, "Osama Claims He Has Nukes: If the U.S. Uses N-Arms It Will Get the Same
Response (Dawn Internet Edition, November 9, 2001, by Hamid Mir)", MARLIN, Robert O (IV) (ed.) What Does
Al-Qaeda Want?: Unedited Communiques, Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 2004, p43.
4 Transnational linkages often work across borders into adjacent states, either operating on a regional basis, as in JI
'cells' in Southeast Asia, or seeking to revise existing borders as illegitimate, as in the Jammu-Kashmir dispute.
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'Caliphate' came into usage in Washington as a term for the focus of security
threats, and was a recited in the recent past as a fear by diverse leaders such as
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Eric Edelman, the Under Secretary of Defence
for policy, Stephen Hadley, a national security adviser, General John Abizaid, the top
American commander in the Middle East, and Vice President Dick Cheney, who
stated that a failed democracy in Iraq might be the basis of this new caliphate that
would then destabilise the Middle East (Bumiller 2005). These warnings were made
in part on the basis of a letter sent by Ayman al-Zawahri, a leading member of AlQaeda in July 2005, which proposed such a project, even though only 6% of
Muslims recently surveyed in the Middle East supported such an agenda.
(Bumiller 2005). These visions of a 'totalitarian Islamic Empire that reaches from
Indonesia to Spain', as outlined by a December 2005 speech of President Bush, have
largely been mobilised to bolster waning public support for US operations in Iraq
(Bumiller 2005; Republican Policy Committee 2005).
Likewise, no modern 'Islamic state' has the strength and legitimacy needed to
carry forward the leadership claims of an international Caliphate: Iran as a Shi'a
society cannot provide this role for Sunnis, the Emirate of Afghanistan fell to
American intervention, Sudan remains troubled and unable to project any leadership
or influence, and the battle for Iraq continues, with the sharp division between Sunni
and Shi'a interests making it an unlikely prospect for a future, united Islamic state
willing to project its potential power. Likewise, though changes of power among
groups within Somalia might lead to the implementation of shariah courts and judges,
this troubled, 'fragile' state forms the locus of transnational disturbances rather than a
source of leadership.
In this setting, the claims that Jemaah Islamaiah and related Islamic dissident groups
seek to set up a new Caliphate based on a wide territorial footprint across Muslimpopulated areas of Southeast Asia seem an unlikely and remote political agenda. The
term ‘caliphate’ in this setting may be a symbol or stereotype, perhaps used as
propaganda by both proponents and critics in the current ideological wars that are
one front of the so-called ‘war on terror’. As we shall see, the aims of regional
'Islamist' organisations is actually quite diverse, with different goals and methods
deployed in a generally reformist agenda. Likewise, the term ‘caliphate’ has emerged
in some media in relations to tensions in ‘Greater Central Asia’, viewed in this
context as a band of discontent and political transition stretching from Dagestan to
Tajikistan (Saidazimova 2006a).
Though there are some proto-democratic features in Islamic thought (shura,
consultation, and consensus of judgement based social solidarity, Esposito 1992;
Gellner 1994, pp26-29; Hefner 2001)5, there is no automatic guarantee that this will
be shaped into a liberal democratic pattern of governance. Put another way, within
this general orientation there 'is no such thing as human rights without human
responsibilities', but these responsibilities are to the 'Giver of human life' and are
framed by divine revelation, not just by human laws (Nasr 2003, p30). Purely secular
political solutions, with a sharp division between religion and state, are problematic in
Islam. Thus traditional Islamic patterns of government are not so much a theocracy
5
For a reformulation of democracy 'not as a human invention, but divine intention', see KHORASANI, Rajaei
"Democracy in an Islamic System", Echo of Islam (Tehran), No. 118, April 1994, pp24-26. On the 'Pious Sultan
theory', see OLESEN, Asta Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Richmond, Curzon Press, 1995, p9.
8
as a nomocracy, focusing on the 'rule of Divine Law' and not a Church or priesthood
(Nasr 2003, p30). Though there are also strong aspects of consensus and
consultation within Islamic traditions, these do not directly equate with Western
concepts of representative liberal democracy. In this sense, the current conflict is very
much among Muslims themselves as much as with Western states, and involves both
deep religious and ideological divisions (Fradkin et al 2005, p1). It is thus much more
than a reaction to American foreign policy and the issue of Palestine (though this are
important factors), but a deeper conflict over fundamental principles, and for some
militants such as Abu Musab al Zarqawi modern democracy remains fundamentally
'incompatible with Islam' (Fradkin et al. 2005, pp5-11).
It seems that current claims made by militant Islam and its Western critics has
generated a divisive non-dialogue of propaganda and counter-propaganda directed to
divergent audiences, and leaves little space for genuine political dialogue or
accommodation.6 It may be necessary to generate a deeper we wish to open up a
social and transnational space in which violence remains the last, rather than the first,
resort to those (whether states or social movements) seeking their own vision of
justice.
2b. The Caliphate as Islamic Governance
A number of terms from Islamic governance have been imported into popular
analysis without a clear appreciation of their lineage and meaning (Kinyon 2004, p1;
Nasr 2003, pxii). Terms such as Emir (a general, prince or noble who has an
independent command or leads an independent state), Emirate, Sultan, Sultanate,
Caliph, Caliphate, Sherif and Mahdi are used to signal various pattern of religious and
political leadership in accounts of the Arabic and Muslim history.
The term Caliph in its most basic sense means successor and in its original
context means 'the vicegerent of the Prophet', or 'Deputy of God' implying a
delegated power such as that held by Abu Bakr as the first khalifah (Nasr 2003, p11;
Kennedy 2004, pxix). Although the caliph was at first viewed as the temporal,
political leader of the threatened Islamic community, it was also expected in the
earliest period that he should be 'a man of piety, trust, knowledge, strength, justice,
integrity and righteousness' (Ahmed 2000, I, p27). Traditionally, it was also expected
that the Caliph should be a member of the Quraish, the tribe to which Muhammad
belonged, though some groups such as the Kharijites argued that office should be
open to any 'capable' Muslim (Ahmed 2000, I, p61). This placed an enormous
burden on the person chosen within the community to have spiritual, moral and
pragmatic leadership abilities, though in later period it was not expected that he
would necessarily be an expert in law or its interpretation. During the early period he
was also the religious head of the community in that he led the community in prayer
and supported key legal decisions, though later Caliphs sometimes chose to delegate
this task to specialised officials, the khatibs, from the early 9th century onwards
(Ahmed 2000, I, pp275-278). During the period of the first four caliphs an effort was
taken to provide consultation among the wider Islamic community, and to try to
ensure that some form of community consensus could be achieved, i.e. it was at least
proto-democratic in principle (Ahmed 2000, I, p64, p91), though tensions emerged as
6
On the desperate need for such a political space, see ALI, Tariq The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades,
Jihads and Modernity, London, Verso, 2002.
9
soon as the claims of Ali ibn Abu Talib were deferred until he eventually became the
fourth caliph through 656-661 (Kennedy 2004, p3). The first four caliphs are
generally regarded by Sunnis as righteous and pious, signified by the term 'rightly
guided caliphs' (Khulfa e Rashidoon, though doubts are sometimes expressed about
the third caliph, and sometimes Omar bin Abdul Aziz is added as a later fifth rightlyguided caliph), but this was not sustained in the following the assassination of Ali
and the creation of Umayyad dynasty, which in effect converted the caliphate
into a 'hereditary sultanate' (Nasr 2003, p116; Ahmed 2000, pp59-73). Writers such
as Ibn Khaldun argued that dynasties based on hereditary succession were in fact not
caliphs but rather kingships (in AZRA 2005, p7). The assassination of Ali and later
conflicts also led to the split between Sunni and Shiites, with the later favouring rule
by descendents of the Prophet through his daughter Fatimah and her husband Ali.
The idea of the caliphate as a focus of political leadership and legitimacy linking the
international order back to the times of the Prophet and the first caliphs continued to
be sustained at the formal and rhetorical level. Thus in the theory of Sunni Islam,
even when the Caliphate was itself weak the 'legitimacy of rule . . . flowed from
the Caliph who bestowed his favors on ambitious princes and soldiers through a
whole range of titles' (Ahmed 2000, I, p58). The early Caliphs, plus even the Caliph
Mansur (from 754 C.E), for a time preserved the notion of 'the public performance
of monarchy', with the caliph visible at the Friday prayers, and allowing courts of
complaint and petition (the mazalim court) where any individual, even the poor and
dispossessedm could seek redress for the wrongs of officials, though this process
tended to fall to disuse and had to be revived, e.g. in 870 C.E., and strong welfare
elements for Muslims (Kennedy 2004, p14, p49, p141, p146, pp204-206).
Illegitimate government, of course, find it harder to mobilise social and religious
support, and tend to need greater levels of force to sustain their regimes (Ahmed
2000, I, p58). At the broader level, Ibn Khaldun asserted that function of the Caliphate
was to provide the conditions that allow the community of believers (ummah) to live
according to Shariah.7 Islam, with its universalist claims, its wide outreach into
communities from Africa to China, with its willingness to include diverse races and
its support for international communication and trade, could this be viewed
metaphorically as a form of 'proto-globalization' linking Africa, Eurasia, and an
emerging Indo-Asian network. It was perhaps 'the waning of this universalist tradition
that led to localization and atrophy of what was once an open and searching
intellectual society' (Fuller 2003, p5).
In the long run, it was not possible even within the Sunni world for the Caliphate
to retain real military power as the Abbasid caliphate weakened and began to
fragment: Gradually the actual military power of the caliphs diminished; real military and political
power fell into the hands of local kings, and the caliph retained only nominal authority.
Under these conditions a new theory of political authority was developed by the Sunni
jurists (fuqaha'), in which the caliph remained the symbol of the unity of the Islamic
community and the rule of the Shari'ah, and the king or sultan, with actual military and
political power, had the duty to preserve public order and protect the borders of the
Islamic world. (Nasr 2003, p111)
7
Adapting the account in AHMED, Nazeer Islam in Global History: From the Death of Prophet Muhammed to the
First World War, 2 vols., Concord, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, 2000, Vol. I, p274.
10
After the first four rightly guided Caliphs, fierce disputes would arise concerning
the leadership of the Islamic world, leading to the split between the Sunnis and
Shiites, the later supporting the claims of Ali (as son-law and married to the Prophet's
daughter, Fatimah) and his descendants to political leadership, and who still owe
allegiance to Imams. The dispute in this case was not just on the issue of who should
succeed, but also on the nature of the caliphate itself: The Sunnis believed that the function of such a person should be to protect the Divine
Law, act as judge, and rule over the community, preserving public order and the
borders of the Islamic world. The Shi'ites believed that such a person should also be
able to interpret the Quran and the Law and in fact possess inward knowledge.
Therefore he had to be chosen by God and the Prophet, not by the community. Such
a figure was called Imam. (Nasr 2003, pp12-13)
Likewise, from the 860s onwards there was a serious decline in the Abbasid caliphate,
which was now virtually controlled by its Turkish bodyguard, and which encouraged
the rise of independent dynasties in Morocco and Egypt (Ahmed 2000, I, p49). In
this context, the Fatamids (as Isma'ili Shiites) would establish their own powerful
empire (909-1171), centred on Egypt and stretching from Tunisia to Syria and make
their own claim to the caliphate in the name of their Imam , and from '910 the Fatimid
Ubaidullah had declared himself the Mahdi and the Caliph of all Muslims' (Nasr
2003, p11, p124). Thus there were three different claims to caliphal political
leadership, by the Abbasids (based on the power of the Turks), by the Fatimids from
Cairo (a claim temporarily relinquished in 1171 when Al Aazid died), and the
Umayyads from cosmopolitan Cordoba (Ahmed 2000, I, pp171-217; Ali 2002, p33).
One of the great disasters remembered within the Islamic world was the invasion of
the Mongols, who conquered Baghdad and killed the last Abbasid caliph in 1258
(Nasr 2003, p128). This led to a short period when there was one recognised Caliph in
North Africa (al Mustanir from 1260-1261), but in 1261 the Mamluke's of Egypt
'resurrected the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo' by inviting a surviving relative to come to
Egypt and continue the Abbasid link as a propaganda tool in their conflicts with the
Mongols (Ahmed 2000, I, p234, p308). Although later Mongols leaders adopted Islam
as the Il-Khanids, they and the following empire of Timur and his descendants lacked
the international credentials to be said to lead to Muslim world. By the sixteenth
century, the Islamic world had been fractured into three great polities that would
represent themselves as leaders of the large Muslim communities - the Ottomans, the
Safavids (of Persian), and the great Moghuls, controlling most of South Asia
(Ahmed 2000, I, p28).
The Ottomans were at first content to use the 'military-political institution' of the
Sultanate as their focus for governance (Ahmed 2000, I, pp124-166). The title
Caliph, though sometimes used by earlier Ottoman leaders, was formally taken over
by the Ottomans in 1517 by bringing the last surviving Abbasid caliph to
Istanbul where he abdicated in favour of Selim I (Ihsanoglu 2001, p135; Ahmed II,
p40). In part it was taken up due to successful campaigns in Iran (1514) and Egypt
(1517), and also a desire in later periods to mobilise this role within the Islamic
world as a partial balance against the growing power of European states, though
Seyyed Nasr contents that they were really only sultans adopting 'a political order that
functioned in many ways like the other caliphates' (Nasr 2003, p131; Ihsanoglu 2001,
11
p203). In some sense, the re-assertions of the Caliphate from the 13th century onwards
might be viewed as necessary 're-inventions' in order provide an international
focus for the religious needs of the wider Islamic community during the very
periods when its unity had been largely splintered (Ahmed 2000, I, p304).
The diverse line of dynasties that might take up the Caliphate could thus lead to
disputes among great powers as to where the Caliphate resided, e.g. between
Ottoman and Moghul claims: However, there was a clash of grandeur. Both monarchs called themselves 'Caliph',
'shadow of god', 'refuge of the monarchs of the universe'. Ottoman authorities
behaved with insolence to Mogul emissaries in Constantinople. The Moguls, for their
part, never forgot descent from the great Timur, who had captured the Ottoman
Sultan in 1402. Mogul emperors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries claimed
that their capital Agra was the 'abode of the Caliphate'; Constantinople was merely
'seat of the Ottoman sultanate'. (Mansel 1997, p190)
In time the Ottomans extended their claims to the Caliphate to buffer their
political power, even as it began to wain in the 18th century: This matter took on an even more active form during the reign of Suleyman I. During
that time such titles as "halîfe-i kübrâ" (greatest caliphate), "imâmete-i uzmâ"
("supreme imamate"), and "halîfe-i Müslimîm" ("caliph of the Muslims") were used.
They were expressions of a universalist perspective on the caliphate which was
interpreted as a mission bestowed by God on the sultan. As far as can be
determined, for the Ottoman sultan the caliphate took on a somewhat different
meaning than it had held during the Abbasid period. For the Ottomans, the idea of the
caliphate took on a new meaning which included responsibility for looking after the
security of the hajj routes, protection of the sacred places, the defence of Islam, and
the inclusion of all Muslims under a security blanket combined with the gazâ tradition.
. . . Later, particularly during the period of loss and diminution of the empire, the
Ottomans began to place great emphasis on their being the caliphs for all Muslims so
as not to lose the authority they had possessed within the Muslim world. (Ihsanoglu
2001, p31; Ahmed 2000, II, p72)
In such roles the Ottoman sultan might also be described as 'God's shadow on earth',
'the leader of the believers', and 'protector of Islam' (Ihsanoglu 2001, p494). One of
the specific claims and duties of the later Caliphs was that they protected (directly
or indirectly) the holy places of Mecca and Medina, and the major hajj caravans.
This could be hard to sustain, with the Caliphate soon finding itself unable to cover
the breach between different reform and nationalist movements.
In Arabia, the thought of Ibn Wahhab aimed at a return to a 'golden age' of a pure
and early Islam, but was in fact the force both for a reformist revival chained to
Saudi political ambitions: Ibn Wahhab provided a theological justification for almost everything Ibn Saud
wanted to achieve: a permanent jihad that involved looting other Muslim settlements
and cities, ignoring the caliph, imposing a tough discipline on his own people and,
ultimately, asserting his own rule over neighbouring tribes in an attempt to unite the
Peninsula. After lengthy discussions, the emir and the preacher agreed to mithaq, a
binding agreement, that would be honoured by their successors in eternity. The two
clauses inserted by Ibn Saud indicated what he had in mind. Spiritual fervour in the
service of political ambition, but not vice versa. (Ali 2002, p75)
12
Even through the 19th century Muslims were keen to invest concern with the presence
of a Caliph on the world stage, perhaps in part due to the increasing of colonialism.
Thus once the Moguls fell, Indian Muslims were politically supportive of the Ottoman
Caliphate (the pro-Ottoman Khilafat movement), and one British Viceroy suggested
that if Britain allowed Istanbul fell to Russian control this would cause violence in
India (Mansel1997, p306, p384). For a relatively short period in the late 19th and early
20th century the Ottomans gained some international prestige as the last
independent Muslim power and defender of Islam. (Mansel 1997, pp320-322)
Thus, even some modernising Sultans would provide a short-term focus for the
Islamic world: The greatest tribute to Sultan Abdul Hamid is that even today many Muslims around
the world invoke his name with nostalgia for a bygone era when a venerated caliph
provided a semblance of political focus for the global Islamic community and gave it a
sense of universal brotherhood. Muslims as far away as India and Nigeria looked to
him for guidance in maters small and large. His office radiated religious, political,
cultural and social influence across the Islamic world. The Ottoman fez became not
only a hat for the Turks but for Indian Muslims, Egyptians, Moroccans and
Malaysians. His failure was that he pursued his modernization program through a
highly centralized, personal style, which opened him to charges of despotism.
(Ahmed 2000, II, p279)
This tilt towards Islam did provide some groundswell support for the Ottomans, but in
the late 19th century it also undermined their claims towards building a multireligious, cosmopolitan state (Ahmed 2000, II, p275). Even as late as 1914 the
Ottomans may have hoped to strike at the British through an eastward campaign to
link up with Muslim populations in north-east India, a move that was pre-empted by
Russian pressure on north-eastern Turkey and northern Persian (Ahmed 2000, II,
p94). In turn, some Indian soldiers were reluctant to fight fellow Muslim Turkish
soldiers in Iraq (Ahmed 2000, II, p312), but overall British control remained intact.
Indeed, both the British and French were keen to see the collapse of Caliphate as
one of the few symbols around which resistance to their geo-political and colonial
projects might be focused (Ahmed 2000, II, pp316-317). British willingness to
weaken the Ottoman's at various stages helped mobilise opposition in South Asia: In 1919-24 India was swept by the Khilafat movement, an explosion of hostility to
Britain and the loyalty to the Ottoman Caliphate which had resurfaced in 1877-8 and
1912-1913. Indian Muslims' concern for the future of Constantinople was shared by
Gandhi and some Hindus. The All-India Khilafat Conference organized mass
meetings in Delhi, Bombay and Karachi and sent a delegation to Constantinople.
There was a pro-Khilafat rising in the Muslim province of Kerala. (Mansel 1997, p391)
Thus the future of the Caliphate as either a religious or temporal institution was of
major issue of the modernising Turkish Grand National Assembly, leading to
expressions of concern being send to this body from India by the Aga Khan and
Ameer Ali in November 1923. Ataturk's modernising policies saw Islam as an
obstruction to modernisation and national-building. Furthermore, the last two
Caliphs had become a foci of resistance to Turkish national forces, thus forcing the
National Assembly to abandon the institution as a burden that could not be sustained
(Ahmed 2000, II, p320). The Caliphate was abolished through early 1924
(Ihsanoglu 2001, p131; Mansel 1997, p413).
13
It is not surprising that powerful monarchs such as the Ottoman Sultan saw the
Caliphate as a mean of reinforcing their (waning) power and authority, with 19th
century scholars in such as Abu'l-Huda and Jamal al-din al-Afghani supporting the
idea of absolute obedience to the Caliph (Mansel 1997, pp322-323). Thus, for a short
time, there was a linkage between pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic ideals, but this could
be sustained in the face of nationalist and modernising trends in Turkey and the
Arabic world (Mansel 1997, pp357-358). This eclipse of the Ottoman Caliphate
remains significant, and is explicitly cited as a turning point in the weakening of the
Islamic world in an al-Qaeda training manual: After the fall of our orthodox caliphates on March 3, 1924 and after expelling the
colonialists, our Islamic nation was afflicted with apostate rulers who took over in the
Moslem nation. These rulers turned out to be more infidel and criminal than the
colonialists themselves. Moslems have endured all kinds of harm, oppression, and
torture.8
It is in this context that the effort of various Islamic reformists and modernists
became extremely urgent from the late 19th century onwards. One of the most
controversial of these was Seyyed Jamaluddin Afghani, who sought to unite the
Islamic world under one caliph in Istanbul, which would require a reconciliation
between Persia and the Ottoman Empire (Ahmed 2000, II, p286). He also sought to
modernise Islam, and his followers influenced reform movements in Egypt, India, and
Indonesia, but his efforts to create a wider Renaissance in Islamic thought were not
initially successful (Ahmed 2000, II, pp286-287). This call for revival and reform, in
different forms, has become more urgent in the late 20th and 21st centuries (see further
below). In general, the sense of crisis due to the collapse of the caliphate and the
growing power of the West and nationalism has been threefold: In general, I would suggest there were three kinds of responses. First, confronting the
European through jihad, which eventually failed. Second, accommodating and
adopting European ideas, concepts and practices. This second type of response was
the most common one that resulted in the adoption of European ideas, concepts and
institutions such as "nationalism", "nation-state", "modernism", "secularism", and the
like. The third response was proposing alternative concepts and institutions by
returning to the romanticized and ideal Islamic concepts. With respect to this, some
Muslim scholars and activists such as al-Afghani and 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi,
for instance, appealed for the re-invigoration of the caliphate (al-khilafah) as the
single, universal Islamic political entity, which, it was believed, would unify the
fragmented ummah. Other Muslim theologians, who found that it was very difficult to
establish such a caliphate, proposed another alternative concept, namely the dawlah
Islamiyyah (Islamic state), which would be founded in a certain Muslim country. (Azra
2005, pp7-8)
8
Declaration of Jihad (Holy War) Against the Country's Tyrants: Military Series (Al Qaeda Training Manual),
UK translated document posted on United States Department of Justice Website, Accessed 2005, p7 [Internet
Access via http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/trainingmanual.htm]. The document was found by Manchester police in 2000,
and thus is also known as the Manchester Document but copies have also apparently been found in Afghanistan,
and was used in a 2001 U.S. trial of terrorists (MILES, Donna "Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behaviour at
Guantanamo Bay", American Forces Information Service, 29 June 2005 [Internet Access at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2005/20050629_1901.html). The presence of this manual on a hard disc
itself seems to be a breach of the kind of security precautions it outlines, while the technologies in the document
itself seem somewhat dated, e.g. facsimile and wireless are discussed but not email, computers, or mobile phones,
e.g. see pp29-31. The material seems to reflect lessons learned in the 1970s and 1980s, and may reflect experience
from the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, with the manual mentioning travel security when going for
training in Afghanistan via Pakistan, pp58-59.
14
2c. Resurrecting the Caliphate for the 21st Century?
In the current period, no Muslim state is strong or legitimate enough (from Islamic
viewpoints) to allow its leader to claim the title of Caliph with any credibility.
However, the broader issue of credibility of militant leaders is worth discussing since
it is within these groups that the notion of a revived caliphate may have some limited
credence.
In spite of Western efforts to de-legitimize Osama bin Laden as a psychologically
warped extremist, in fact he not only been able to maintain a following but has also
been granted some limited credibility within wider Islamic sensibilities (Kinyon 2004,
p1). This is not based on being a learned or holy man, but rather his role as a warrior
who claims to be acting in defence of both the holy places of Islam and in defence of
the wider Islamic community which he sees as being under attack both from US (and
its allied) military power and from insidious Western values. In this context his
apparent popularity in parts of the Islamic world rests on a sense of more generalised
dissatisfaction with the global system, and specific sense of political dislocation. He
has also tried to mobilise historical and traditional elements of Islamic thought.
The warrior tradition was a noted part of the early expansion and defence of Islam, as
well as re-iterated in the defence and expansion of the borders of the Islamic world as
the Ottomans expanded their own frontier. Today: Bin Laden's support rests on his claim that he is a self-declared amir (commander),
who is willing to do what no other Arab leaders are doing. In the absence of true
leadership, he is a de facto military commander, the only one willing to stand up
against the western infidels and occupiers. In Islam, there is no obligation for the
military leader to be a religious man as well, and bin Laden makes no claim on being
one. (Kinyon 2004, p1)
Although Bin Laden might claim a role as Amir, he is not able to assume other titles
such as Caliph (since he is not the leader of a powerful Muslim state), and does not
meet all the criteria for the Mahdi, whose apocalyptic proclamation in any case would
probably not sit well with the revolutionary agenda of al-Qaeda and related groups,
contra the confused comparative efforts made by some Western writers (see
McDonald 2002; Nasr 203, pp73-74). Nor does Osama bin Laden have the kind of
religious training that would normally entitle him to issue a fatwa, which in any case
are usually only viewed as valid if they have been debated by religious scholars and a
wide consensus reached (Marlin 2004, p18).
It is possible, however, that both al-Qaeda and JI seek to establish a strong Islamic
state within initial borders, before a wider range of regional operations that might
reshape international politics. On this basis, a letter from Ayman al-Zawahri, a key alQeada leader, to Iraqi insurgents suggests that the collapse of the US presence was
crucial as a prelude to establishing an Islamic state in Iraq that would then take the
conflict to key 'secular' neighbours including Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and only
then confronting Israel (JUS 2006). There are some scattered political claims that
suggest a more pragmatic approach towards sustaining a project future caliphate.
One of these is not just the protection of holy sites and Muslims, but also an effort to
protect the physical resources of the Middle East, as noted in one of the early Al
Qaeda communiques: -
15
I would like here to alert my brothers, the Mujahideen, the sons of the nation, to
protect this (oil) wealth and not to include it in the battle, as it is a great Islamic wealth
and a large economic power essential for the soon-to-be established Islamic state, by
Allah's permission and grace. We also warn the aggressors, the U.S.A., against
burning this Islamic wealth (a crime which they may commit in order to prevent the oil,
at the end of the war, from falling into the hands of its legitimate owners, and to cause
economic damage to the competitors of the U.S.A. in Europe or the Far East,
particularly Japan, which is the major consumer of oil of the region). 9
These warnings, made in 1996, now seem ironic, bearing in mind the rather diffuse
efforts by resistance groups in Iraq through 2003-2006 to disrupt oil pipelines and
production, perhaps in order to reduce gains for both the new Iraqi administration and
the U.S. itself.
The situation in Southeast Asia is equally problematic for groups seeking to
sustain radical political projects. In general terms, Islam in Indonesia has been
strongly influenced by pre-Islamic syncretic systems (leading to 'Kejawen' forms of
Islam), a strong mystical inclination, and the importance of Sufism (Aveling 1979;
McAmis 2002, p45). In part, this divergence has been accommodated by the concept
of adat or local customary law, which has in most areas has run alongside the core
religious tenants of Islam, creating a wider social space for divergence (McAmis
2002, p63). Other patterns that may have been influenced by the Hindu past include a
special reverence for the teacher (guru), though this has in part converged on the idea
of the special blessings that Muslim teachers and holy persons can impart on their
students (McAmis 2002, p69). However, it is also true that small but influential
numbers of Arabs, Persians, South Asians, those who returned from the struggle in
Afghanistan, and those returning from the Hajj have also added new layers of Islamic
belief since the 17th century. We should note that large numbers of Southeast Asian
Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca each year, and in the past the Indonesian
government gave some financial support for up to 10,000 people making the trip
(McAmis 2002, p69). Arabic has also remained the primary language of advanced
Islamic instruction, though in many cases used ritually rather than fully understood
linguistically, and Malay became a secondary vehicle for commentary and dialogue
on Islam at least as early as the late 17th century when an interpretation of the Qur'an
was provided in Malay by Shaykh Abdul Rauf al Sinkili (Ahmed 2000, I, p396; see
further Mansurnoor 1990). During these centuries Malay was not only one of the key
lingua franca for regional trade, but was also one of the vehicles for religious
transmission as well (Ahmed 2000 I, p398). This transnational linkage provides a
direct sense of community with the wider Islamic global society, as well as being a
focus for renewed missionary and 'call' activities, da'wa, including the call
religious renewal (McAmis 2002, p80). People who have been through this
experience not only have increased prestige within their local communities, but are
unlikely to impressed by Western visions of global affairs as presented in modern
media outlets and foreign policy agenda.
It is in this context that we can see the enormous prestige and influence of Muslim
religious leaders both via village institutions and through teaching institutions such as
the pesantren, madrasah (theological schools, whose role became formalised in the
Islamic world from the 11th century onwards), sekolah Islam (Kennedy 2004, p260;
9
"Declaration of Jihad, August 23, 1996" in MARLIN, Robert O (IV) (ed.) What Does Al-Qaeda Want?: Unedited
Communiques, Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 2004, p9.
16
McAmis 2002, p65). Though local custom have been strongly influenced by local
belief systems at the level of the 'abangan', sometimes viewed as nominal Muslims, it
now seems that the santri as devout Muslims seem to have gained some greater
influence at the grass roots level in recent years (McAmis 2002, p49). It is such a
context that figures such as Abu Bakar Bashir, via the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia
(MMI), can gain a certain degree of influence among a strong religious minority
within Indonesia. In is important not to exaggerate the conservative or negative
teaching of some pesantren in Indonesia. In fact the pesantren are a key element in
the national educational program and since 1994 of these have been modernised
through the adoptions of the curricula developed by the Ministry of National
Education and the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Azra 2005, pp13-14). Likewise,
Indonesia remains a multi-religious society, with most Muslims in the country
supporting a pluralist democracy and not favouring a move towards an Islamic state,
nor supporting wholesale extension of strict shariah codes of law (see Hosen 2005).
It can be seen, then, that the political project of the Caliphate as put forward by alQaeda, JI and related groups is at best fragmentary, often mixed with
revolutionary elements of 20th century European political practice (Nasr 2003, pp181184), and at worst a utopian reworking of a call to the past that does not coincide with
the current challenges facing Islamic communities, in spite of some superficial
similarities. Thus: The modernism and so-called fundamentalism that are evident in certain sectors of
Islamic society and in certain lands have caused traditional Islamic life to wither, but
have been unable to create any significant theological world view that could challenge
the traditional one (Nasr 2003, p174).
This project might seem unlikely in the face of the U.S.'s dominant strategic power,
the ongoing political interests of the G8, continued Russian and Chinese tensions with
Islam, continued international interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, and
the apparent robustness of governments in Southeast Asia, though Thailand and
Philippines have come under increasing pressures through 2006 (see Strategic
Comments 2006a; Yong 2006). However, militant Islamists
have viewed
themselves as the victor in the war against the Soviet Union (in Afghanistan from
1979), as slowly winning the war of hearts and minds in the Islamic world, and Al
Qaeda has spoken of its victory against the U.S. in Beirut, Aden, and Mogadishu (in
Marlin 204, p13, p73). From the point of Osama bin Laden, these different conflicts
are part of a longer chain of an integrated war between Crusaders and Muslims (in
Marlin 2004, p39), thereby engaging a long-term viewpoint and a global strategy of
conflict. From this point of view, conditions in Pakistan, Palestine, and Iran are far
from positive, while ongoing repression in the Central Asia also provides a possible
focus for conflict. Problematic and slow stabilisation efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan
suggest that there is a need for sustained multilateral international support for these
new governments if they are to become genuinely accepted as local and legitimate
sources of governance. At present, groups such as JI and Al-Qaeda seem able to
disturb the current international order but destroy it. Nor do their statements suggest
an adequate vision of alternative governance. In the contemporary setting, this
leave open the issue of how Islamic society should sustain itself in the modern period
of Western global dominance.
17
3. Normative Transnational and International Islamic Institutions
It is possible to conceptualise key elements of Islam's religious system as
supporting current normative roles for Muslims within global society. The five
pillars of Islam, of course, are the Shahada (profession of faith), the Salat (five daily
prayers), the Hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina where possible, Zakat (giving of
money to hose in need) and Sawm (fasting in daylight hours of the month of
Ramadan, see further Nasr 2003). We can link some of these fundamentals to wider
flows in the transnational system today, e.g. the Hajj which brings together hundreds
of millions of Muslims each year, with the number reaching 1,557,447 pilgrims in
2006 (BNA 2006). The geographical centrality of the holy places in Arabia is also
reinforced by the tradition whereby prayer is conducted facing towards Mecca, with
the mihrab, a niche, or even small plaque, showing the direction of the holy site
(Kennedy 2004, p141)
3a. The Ummah as the Community of Believers
Likewise, the ummah, the community of believers, provides another focus for a
transnational network that is nearly global in reach and comprises almost 1.5 billion
members. It is crucial to note that for many Muslims this is a key level of their
identity, especially when state or governmental structures have been problematic. As
noted by Seyyed Nasr: One of the key concepts in Islam is that of the ummah, or the totality of people who
are Muslims and constitute the Islamic world. Islam sees history itself in religious
terms and refers to other people not primarily by their linguistic or ethnic affiliations
but their religious identity, hence the reference to the ummah of Moses or Jesus so
often found in Islamic text when discussing Judaism or Christianity. The Islamic
ummah is one, bound by solidarity to the Quranic message of Divine Oneness and
Sovereignty, the messengership of the Prophet, and acceptance of the Divine Law
(al-Shari'ah). Muslims are united by the powerful bond of brotherhood and sisterhood,
a bond that is felt strongly to this day despite all the turmoil that has pitted and
continues to put Muslims against one another. (Nasr 2003, p15)
This sense of solidarity and brotherhood, ukhuwwah, helped make Islam an
appealing religion not just to Arabs, but soon spread to Persian, Turks, Egyptians and
a wider community that stretched from Western Africa through Central Asia to
enclaves in southern China (Nasr 2003, pp15-16; Quran 3:103). In theory,
membership within Islam overcame barriers of ethnicity, race, and status, and
'rejected all forms of racism and tribalism' (Nar 2003, p16, following Quran
49:13), making it an ideal universalising religion. In theory, alongside its core
religious believes, Islam could benefit from the great diversity of its followers.
Thus Persians, Turks, and Indians would soon contribute to the rich culture and
intellectual tradition of Islam. Thus, 'Islam is like a vast tapestry into which all these
local cultural modes and varieties are woven like arabesques; the larger pattern they
make reflects the Oneness of the Divine Principle' (Nasr 2003, p24).
Having said this, political unity became problematic as soon as the Prophet died,
and could not even be easily sustained even through the Abbasid period (Kennedy
2004). The division between Shia and Sunni groups, different claims by different
leaders to the prestige of the Caliphate, and a range of orthodox and non-orthodox
practices soon created a range of division within the Islamic world. This can be seen,
18
for example, in secondary pilgrimages made to the shrines and tombs of saints by
many Muslims, a practice common in Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan), Iran, parts
of Iraq Pakistan, and parts of Indonesia, especially Java (Kennedy 2004, p239). This
belief in the intercessory power of saints, teachers, and Sufi sheikhs has been viewed
as at best unorthodox and verging on idolatry by stricter interpreters, e.g. in modern
Arabia and Malaysia. Likewise, the impact of de-colonisation, nationalism and
modernisation has left a checkerboard of Muslim societies whose states are often at
odds with each other, e.g. historical tensions between Syria and Turkey, Iran and
Turkey, and between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In such a context, the identity with the
umma remains as an ideal and aspiration, but the structures of family and local
community may become a stronger reality for many Muslims (Nasr 2003, p103).
Early Islam focused on the ideal of Tawhid as a widely concevied 'God-centred
civilization' which could be established on earth (Ahmed 2000, I, p74, p89). This also
implied a debate on authentic and 'unauthentic' traditions and practices, and a
utopian push towards a universal political order based on a unity among believers
across diverse cultures and transcending states: Islamists furthermore suffer overall from a tendency to seek an idealized social unity,
and idealized homogeneous national - or even umma - identity that discourages
diversity and difference that is seen as fractious, divisive and harmful to the umma.
(Fuller 2003, p19)
Likewise, Muslim communities under pressure within Western countries, e.g.
France through 2003-2006, have at times rebounded towards a stronger Islamic
identity focused on the ummah, particularly if they remain within minority
communities and do not work within the wider French community (Spencer 2005).
Islam emerges as the second largest religion in France, with over 4 million Muslims
in the country in the late 1990s and heading towards 10% of the population in the 21st
century (see Caldwell 2000; Crittenden & Ferguson 2006), and when compared with
the 8-9% of highly active Catholics, this has worried conservative commentators
(Hanley 2003, p28). At the broader level, it can also be asked in the post-2001
whether France and Europe as a whole is really willing and able to protect the
rights of its Muslim Minorities, in spite of the legal requirement to do so. From
1989 the 'Islamic Scarf' case was concerned with the refusal of a junior high-school
principal to allow three Islamic girls to wear scarves in school, basically on the basis
of secularism in schools and egality in education, a debate that continued through the
1990s down to 2004 (Milner & Parsons 2003, p12; Wieviorka 1994, p250). The issue
of the division between Church and State, laicité (Pierre & Quandt 1995, p140), a
core tenant of French republican tradition, was re-iterated through February 2004 with
the National Assembly banning all religious symbols in state schools, including
headscarves, turbans, skullcaps, and large crosses (Milner & Parsons 2003, p12).
At various time Islamist groups have also sought an internationalised approach
through linkages into the wider umma. Thus from 1990 with the formal creation of
the 'all-Union' Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) which aimed to create a revival of
Islam in Eurasia and Central Asia, with three main structures: the first in Central Asia,
plus a Moscow based centre to help Muslims within Russia, and another group based
in the North Caucasus. The group soon set up branches in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,
aimed at helping propagate Islam and be involved in 'cultural, sociopolitical and
economic life'. (Akcali 1998). This organisation, however, had a strongly
19
internationalist orientation, based on the view of a global community of believers
(the umma), leading to early contact and cooperation between members in Tajikistan
and the mujahidin in Afghanistan. For many Central Asians, the ability of
Afghanistan to resist the Soviet invasion during the 1980s, showed it was possible for
Islamic communities to resist Russian domination in the 1990s (Akcali 1998), a
lesson being partly repeated through the continued resistance of the Taliban parts of
southern Afghanistan through 2005-2006. These patterns of local and transnational
identity have made it very difficult for the top-down approach of nation-building to be
applied in Central Asia, especially if religious and opposition are effectively excluded
a political voice (see further Akcali 2003). Likewise, for radical thinkers such as
Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi (1903-1979) Muslims should constitute a jama'at, a community
rather than a nation, and as such 'secularism, nationalism and democracy are the roots
of calamities' (Johns & Lahoud 2005, p12). ). More generally, for many Muslims
living in troubled states there is a real tension between religious and national
identity.
3b. Islamic Views on Trade and Banking
The Islamic tradition, of course, has a generally positive view of trade, largely based
on the early history of Mohammed’s involvement in the Arabian caravan trade. The
view of Mecca as a major trading centre with direct connections onto the incense
trade has recently been challenged as invalid since Mecca is not directly on the
incense route, and since Mecca itself was only a centre for pilgrimage after the rise of
Islam (Crone 1987, p196). This does not reduce the reality of some form of local
caravan trade being conducted between Mecca and southern Syria (Crone 1987,
pp160-168). Montgomery Watt suggests that in the 7th century Mecca had already
established a commercial network, with recorded winter caravans to the Yemen,
and summer caravans to Syria, along with relations with Abyssinia (Watt 1988, pp3944; Qu'ran 106:2). Once Mohammed had established his role as the foremost prophet
in Arabia, this meant that both Mecca and Medina in turn became centres for much
more than just local pilgrimage and trade, a trend which continued for over a thousand
years (Crone 1987, p172; Meilink-Roelofsz 1962, p225). Pilgrimage and attendant
trade in Mecca developed more strongly after the rise of Islam (Crone 1987, pp173177). From this perspective, a pre-existing Meccan trade cannot explain the rapid
spread of Islam (Crone 1987, p231-250)10, though certain aspects of Islamic culture
may have facilitated trade in the Arabic world.
Even though Islamic morality is strongly opposed to usury (Udovitch 1970, pp61-62;
see further below), its demand for truth and honesty in contracts, oaths and
verbal agreements has meant that it is a religious ethic which aids the role of trade in
wealth generation for the community. The hadith tradition itself repeatedly
emphasises values such as 'acting justly, trustworthiness, diligence, perseverance,
initiative, creativity' (Ghazali 1996, p15). Likewise, good reputation and honest
conduct were essential for business activities such as the 'credit partnership', as found
in Hanafite law (Udovitch 1970, pp54-55). Therefore, in order to create a just, Islamic
economic system, it was necessary for many Islamic values, 'including honesty in
business dealings, faithfulness to contracts, and the duty of sharing with others' (Iqbal
10
Contra the formulation of Mecca as already the centre of a strong nexus of caravan routes, and
already a popular place for trade fairs due to its sanctuary, WATT, W. Montgomery Muhammad's
Mecca: History in the Qru'an, Edinburg, Edinburg University Press, 1988, p40.
20
& Mirakhor 1987, p23) to be internalized individually and enculturated within society
as a whole.
Islamic jurisprudence also readily allowed the creation of responsible and flexible
business partnerships which facilitated long-distance trading arrangements
(Udovitch 1970, p38), probably aiding the success of Muslim traders in long sea
voyages into the Indian Ocean and further eastwards (see further Chaudhuri 1990). In
particular, this included 'partnership and commenda contracts which were the two
basic legal instruments through which these economic functions could be
accomplished' (Udovitch 1970, p38; see also Meilink-Roelfofsz 1962, p296). The
commenda was particularly useful for investment in such trade and has been concisely
defined by Abraham Udovitch:
The commenda is an arrangement in which an investor or group of investors entrusts
capital or merchandise to an agent-manager, who is to trade with it, and then return
to the investor(s) the principal and a previously agreed share of the profits. As a
reward for his labour, the agent receives the remaining share of the profits. Any loss
resulting from the exigencies of travel or from an unsuccessful business venture is
borne exclusively by the investor(s), the agent is in no way liable for a loss of this
nature, losing only his expended time and effort. (Udovitch 1970, p47)
Qurannic principles formed the basis of a virtual 'merchant law' designed to exclude
'unjustified enrichment', and reduce elements of chance in contracts (Udovitch
1970, p40; see further Attia 1986, pp101-102). The most commonly used form of
trade during the late 15th century in the trade networks focused on Malacca was this
commenda system, though local rulers would often send out their own ships as well
(Meilink-Roelofsz 1962, p51. It should not surprise us therefore that a fourteenth
century thinker such as Ibn Khaldun (1332-1402) should argue that the most
advanced form of sedentary civilisation required mutual trade and cooperation,
international trade and economic growth (Mehmet 1990, pp82-83).
Islamic economic systems, including banks, investment houses and insurance
companies, are part of a broadly based Islamic revival in many parts of the world,
seeking to return Islam to a central social role in modern life (Esposito 1992, p23;
Ferguson 1996). Islamic banking is an area where different cultural systems have
interacted vigorously. Any Islamic institution must seek to correlate its activities
with the basic tenants of Islamic law, but due to the very changed economic
environment of the modern era, sustained debate has emerged on appropriate limits
of Islamic financial activities. Developing a just conception of Islamic banking draws
on principles such as Ijma, legal consensus, and Qiyas, analogical reasoning (Kandil
1995). Bearing in mind the complex problems of establishing the welfare of Muslim
communities in the modern period, it is likely that a considerable amount of
independent interpretation (ijtihad) of Qurannic, Sunnah and Hadith sources will be
required to establish these economic principles.11
11
On the need for independent interpretation, see AL-GHAZALI Deliverance from Error, pp48-9;
OLESEN, Asta Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Richmond, Curzon Press, 1995, p237; MAHATHIR,
Mohamad “Islamic Development Bank Seminar: Speech by the Prime Minister at the Opening
Ceremony of the Seminar Entitled ‘Developing a System of Islamic Financial Instruments’ at the
Islamic Centre, Kuala Lumpur, on April 28, 1986”, Foreign Affairs Malaysia, 19 no. 2, June 1986, p22.
Formerly, the 'Gate of Ijtihad' had been closed in the tenth century under the Abbasids, on the basis that
the Islamic way of life had been 'adequately delineated', but from the 19th century Islamic modernists
argued that interpretative reasoning was once again needed to adapt to the conditions of the modern
21
The main divergence between Islamic and Western economics, of course, is the
rejection of unfair interest in money lending, and an effort to reconcile social
justice with the needs of market economies, resulting in various combinations of
social intervention and planning alongside market mechanisms (Kandil 1995; Khan &
Mirakhor 1990, p353; Preley & Sessions 1994, p585). A concise formulation of the
interaction of Islamic conceptions of social justice with the economy has been
provided by John Presley and John Sessions: Justice and equality in Islam means that people should have equal opportunity and
does not imply that they should be equal in poverty or in riches . . . However, it is
incumbent on the Islamic state to guarantee a subsistence level to its citizens, that is
a minimum level of food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education (Quran 2:2759). The major purpose is to moderate social variances within Islamic society, and to
enable the poor to lead a normal, spiritual and material life in dignity and
contentment. (Presley & Sessions 1994, p585)
Expressed another way, Islamic law 'prevents injustice in the acquisition and disposal
of material resources in order to provide satisfaction for human beings and enable
them to perform their obligations to Allah and society' (Nienhaus 1986, p1).
At present, it does not seem possible to reach definite agreement on the difficult
problem of whether interest should be banned altogether, a view taken by many
Islamic jurists, or whether some sort of low interest rate indexed to inflation (Mehmet
1990)12 is allowable under Islamic principles. A few statements, however, can set this
contentious debate on interest in its modern context. Even within Islamic scholarship
opinions vary. In 1995, for example, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheik Mohammed
Sayyed Tantawi, had suggested that there was little real difference between fixed
interest rates of Western banks and the investment schemes offered by Islamic banks,
a view not supported by many traditional scholars ((Evans 1995). It is possible to
make some theoretical distinction between usury in ancient usage and interest in the
modern economy. For Muslims the key moral concern with usury is that it often
exploits the poor (Haque 1995, p1). As noted by Prof. Bob McKeon at the University
of Alberta: 'In static economies, it's extortionary to take any interest from the needy.
But in advanced economies, where concentration of capital multiplies productivity,
interest is no longer simple usury.' (in Woodward 1995) Usury, Riba, seems to be
based on the notion of unfair addition added to a loan in its repayment (Mehmet 1990,
p78). There are 20 injunctions against Riba in the Koran, of which 2:275 is extremely
clear where it states: 'But God has permitted trading and made usury unlawful' (in
Maurer 2005, p55). Ozay Mehmet suggests that it is, 'therefore, open to debate as to
whether the Islamic prohibition refers to the interest rate (as the opportunity cost of
capital) or usury (as an unjustified extra value in excess of the allowable opportunity
cost of capital)' (Mehmet 1990, p78). On the other hand, most Islamic scholars insist
that any sort of set interest is forbidden under Shariah, including any indirect
advantage or benefits that might be owed to the lender (Nienhause 1986, p3; Afzaal
1997; Nomani & Rahnema 1994, pp1-20). Put another way, an 'individual who
world, MEHMET, Ozay Islamic Identity and Development Studies of the Islamic Periphery, London,
Routledge, 1990, pp60-61.
12
Arguments against allowing for inflation in loans, see "The Principles of Islamic Banking and Its
Application in Australia", [Internet Access: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/economics.nbank1.html],
originally published in Nida'ul Islam, November-December, 1995.
22
abstains from consumption, by saving, is not entitled automatically to a financial
reward for that abstention' (Presley & sessions, p586). In general terms, the aim seem
to be to ensure that both the lender and debtor share risks and uncertainty, and become
more equalised in the transaction (Maurer 2005, p56).
Fortunately, a number of financial operations which do not involve interest at all,
and which work quite differently from the creation of debt, are open to Islamic banks.
These include Murabaha, where the 'bank buys the goods in question from suppliers
and delivers them to the customer at an agreed marked-up price', Mudaraba, where
money is invested for worthwhile projects in trade and commerce with some of the
profits returned to the investors, and the bank receiving a management fee,
Musharaka, similar to normal joint ventures, Modaraba, a form of capital trust
financing, and Ijara, similar to leasing.13 Mudaraba, profit sharing, and the business
organisations built around the shirka (partnership) were the bases of commercial trade
in Muslims societies of the past (Haque 1995, p129). In all these operations, some
real service, good, or resource is transacted, i.e. the bank provides some direct
business function, and is not simply involved in manipulating paper values. It was
through these mechanisms that capital and traders were brought together, sharing a set
ratio of the profits of any venture, but not a set rate of return on a principle sum
invested. Risk and responsibility was also distributed legally beforehand in these
operations, depending on the type of relationship between the different parties (Haque
1995, pp160-162).
In general, Muslim economic principles accept the notion of normal profits and the
operation of a generally free market, but are opposed to exploitative practices
based on interest, unfair profits, monopolies, oligopolies, hoarding, the sale of future
values of crops, and speculation (Mehmet 1990, p77). Certain types of investment,
e.g. in brewing or gambling, pork processing industries, or industries associated with
pornography prostitution, are also prohibited in Islamic thought, with armaments
13
KHAN, Mohsin S. & MIRAKHOR, Abbas "Islamic Banking: Experiences in the Islamic Republic of
Iran and in Pakistan", Economic Development and Cultural Change, 38, January 1990, p355; IQBAL,
Zubair & MIRAKHOR, Abbas Islamic Banking, Occasional Paper No. 49, Washington DC, IMF,
March 1987, pp3-4; PRESLEY, John R. & SESSIONS, John G. "Islamic Economics: The Emergence
of a New Paradigm", The Economic Journal, 104, May 1994, p587; WARREN, Peter M. "With a
Scholarly Touch, Citicorp Makes Its Pitch for Islamic Investors; Finance: Bank Counts on 'Guardians
of the Faith' to Make Sure Money is Handled in Accordance with Laws of the Koran", Los Angeles
Times, 11 August 1996, (Orange Country Edition, pD-9) [Electric Library, Internet Access];
NIENHAUS, Volker "Islamic Economics, Finance and Banking - Theory and Practice", in EL HELW,
Mahmoud (Chairman) Islamic Banking and Finance, London, Butterworths, 1986, pp9-10;
ALTAMIMI, Younes "The Experience of Islamic Banks in the Middle East", in EL HELW, Mahmoud
(Chairman) Islamic Banking and Finance, London, Butterworths, 1986, p33; ALLAWI, Luay
"Leasing: An Islamic Financial Instrument", in EL HELW, Mahmoud (Chairman) Islamic Banking and
Finance, London, Butterworths, 1986, pp120-127. At least until 1990, it has been argued that many
Islamic banks often in fact rely on short-term trade financing, since mudaraba and musharaka involve
'an unusually close and trusting association between the bank and the borrower', MOORE, Clement
Henry "Islamic Banks and Competitive Politics in the Arab World and Turkey", Middle East Journal,
44 no. 2, Spring 1990, pp234-235. For other permitted types of loan and investment structures, see
KHAN, Mohsin S. & MIRAKHOR, Abbas "Islamic Banking: Experiences in the Islamic Republic of
Iran and in Pakistan", Economic Development and Cultural Change, 38, January 1990, pp355-356.
Islamic Banks have also used Profit-and-Loss-Sharing (PLS) investment schemes to some extend,
though this does expose the bank to greater risk, NIENHAUS, Volker "Islamic Economics, Finance
and Banking - Theory and Practice", in EL HELW, Mahmoud (Chairman) Islamic Banking and
Finance, London, Butterworths, 1986, pp9-11.
23
industries and tobacco sometimes included in this list of prohibitions (Maurer 2005,
p62; Mustrull 1996; Mehmet 1990, p77; Allawi 1986, p122). Riba is thus a much
wider concept than just set interest on a loan, it includes a wide range of economic
activities which are conceived of as unjust, exploitative, or not offering a fair
balance between the parties involved in a transaction (Haque 1995, p168). It must be
stressed that this condemnation is not just on technical grounds: it is a powerful moral
argument that those who 'devour riba' are wicked, greedy and sinful (Haque 1995,
p8). From this point of view such persons deserve punishment since they are
destroying others and undermining their own communities.
There has sometimes been an unwillingness to see a distinction between interest on
loans and shared profits or dividends from investments, but this distinction between
interest and shared profit systems is not just a matter of semantics or clever
accounting (Maurer 2005, p57; Economist 1993;Ingram 1986, p54; Carlson 1986,
p79). Although these criticisms might be valid in some particular cases, there are
substantive reasons not to be dismissive of the role of the Islamic economic
institutions globally. There are four immediate reasons which suggest that Islamic
economic institutions will remain important. Firstly, for Muslims globally, many
of whom are seeking to retain the heart of Islamic belief during periods of rapid
industrialisation and modernisation, there is in fact a huge global market for a
religiously acceptable and culturally compatible form of banking. In the past, some
observing Muslims have either had to refuse interest on conventional bank accounts,
to donate such interest to a charity, or to rely on investing in stocks directly (Mastrull
1996). Recent estimates suggest that Islamic banks globally have assets of over $60
billion, and are actively involved in infrastructure development, with total financial
assets of Islamic Banks and companies in 2005 at $250 billion 'not including
Islamic investment funds and insurance' (BNA 2006b; Mardini 1996; Warren 1996;
Aziz 1997). Private-sector commercial banks offering these services have greatly
expanded since the opening of the Dubai Islamic Bank in 1975 (Moore 1990, p235).
It has been estimated that there from the mid-1990s some 300 Islamic banks and
financial institutions have been operating in 25-40 countries (Mardini 1996;
Warren 1996). Islamic banking has grown rapidly recently and although at first
mainly located in the Middle East, Africa, South and South-East Asia, this tradition
has now spread to North America, Europe, Central Asia (Mardini 1996; Kamaludin
1989; Khalaf 1995, p35; Al Bahar 1996), and Australia. This growth has meant that
even traditional Western banks are willing to open Islamic branches, e.g. in July 1996
Citibank opened such a branch in Bahrain (Citi Islamic Investment Bank), with the
Netherlands' largest bank, ABN Amro, following suit later in 1996. 14 In the Citibank
case, special Sharia boards will oversee investment schemes to ensure they confirm to
religious requirements (Warren 1996). Bearing in mind the growth of Islam globally,
and the continuing economic development that is occurring in much of the Middle
East, South and South-East Asia, this area of banking is likely to continue to grow.
Such Islamic assets in the 1990s have been growing on a global basis at 10-15%
14
WARREN, Peter M. "With a Scholarly Touch, Citicorp Makes Its Pitch for Islamic Investors;
Finance: Bank Counts on 'Guardians of the Faith' to Make Sure Money is Handled in Accordance with
Laws of the Koran", Los Angeles Times, 11 August 1996, (Orange Country Edition, pD-9) [Electric
Library, Internet Access]. In fact major Western banks have been helping channel excess liquidity from
Islamic banks into non-interest based investment for some years, with an estimated 10% of Islamic
funds being channelled into major Western banks, KHALAF, Roula "Banking the Islamic Way", World
Press Review, January 1995, p35.
24
annually, while total assets for Banks (outside of companies) rose in 2005 from $ 61
to 85 billion, marking a 35% increase rate (BNA 2005b; Khalaf 1995; Straits Times
1996), and are likely to become an important element of the global financial system.
Although US and Canadian institutions are not all fully compliant with Shariah rules,
and there has been greater scrutiny of such funds and informal money transfer
systems (hawala) since 2001 (Maurer 2005, pp59-60; Abuza 2003; Parker 2006), they
have made efforts at accommodating these markets: American banks such as Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Bank of
America traditionally have been large depositories of short-term funds from
Islamic banks and wealthy Muslim clients. Citibank structured the first Islamic
corporate finance deal for Shell Malaysia through its London office in 1983.
Institutions such as Lariba American Finance House, in California, and the
National Housing Co-operative, in Toronto, were experimenting with Islamic
mortgages years before others in Europe and the Middle East. And US regulators
such as the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve levelled the
playing field for Islamic mortgages with conventional ones before Gordon Brown,
the Chancellor, abolished double stamp duty on Islamic mortgages.
The Americans went a step further and reduced the risk weighting (money set
aside by banks to cover their lending) for Islamic mortgages to 50 per cent
-the same as for conventional mortgages. (Parker 2006)
Second, one of the great concerns of the modern period, both in developed and
developing economies, has been the fact that in spite of high growth rates and
strong national economies, not all share from this increased wealth. The gap
between rich and poor expresses itself in various ways. In developing countries, of
course, there is a possibility that segments of the population remain trapped in real
poverty or development lags. These trends suggest that alternative economic
systems, which do not reject the notion of social justice as an external economic cost,
may have a major role to play in aiding social cohesion and distributed economic
development.15 At the community level, Islamic banks or credit unions can provided a
needed source of 'social investment'. Thus a Muslim credit union recently in
Philadelphia has also planned a 'community development initiative, known as Medina
2000', which 'includes the establishment of a medical center, a chamber of commerce,
a recreation centre, Islamic schools, a food coop, community housing and a prayer
facility' (Mastrull 1996). Third, Islamic banking can therefore provide a focus for
communally-based financial operations. Islamic banking can also provide more
affordable ways for ordinary people to buy homes, utilising interest-free credit
unions. The scheme is for prospective house buyers to pay into a fund, receiving the
entire amount for their house 'when their turn comes up, and keep paying until the
fund is reimbursed' (Woodward 1995). Other possible uses for this type of 'social
lending' include financing student education (Ingram 1996). Of course, Islamic banks
15
From this point of view, economics in its application cannot be value-free, as western economics
sometimes claims to be as a discipline, see NIENHAUS, Volker "Islamic Economics, Finance and
Banking - Theory and Practice", in EL HELW, Mahmoud (Chairman) Islamic Banking and Finance,
London, Butterworths, 1986, pp1-2. In 1991 the then Finance Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim
made the point in an interview that ‘Economics devoid of ethical, moral, cultural dimensions can create
problems’, BOWRING, Philip “The Anwar Doctrine”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 June 1991,
p56. In some circles in Indonesia and Malaysia ‘Islamic ideals have succeeded socialism as the
ideology of choice for those wishing to create a more equitable, moral society’, “The Politics of Islam
in Southeast Asia”, Strategic Comments (London, IISS), 3 no. 5, June 1997.
25
or credit unions would be prohibited from taking over or refinancing existing interestbased debt: they are not a source of 'free money'. At the same time, moreover,
interest-free banking of this type could be attractive not just to Muslims, but also to
Christians and Jews who strictly follow prohibitions against usury in their own
traditions.16 Likewise, certain Western intellectuals might argue that Islamic patterns
of investment are beneficial in that they focus on real business activity, rather than
simply manipulating financial risk (Mudawi 1986, pp130-131).
Fourth, Islamic banking may offer opportunities to specific countries in the South
Asian, Asia-Pacific and Afro-Middle Eastern regions. Malaysia in particular, with
it developed economic and communication infrastructure, combined with its
understanding of Islamic realities, has provided a major service in helping further
develop Islamic banking in South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean region, South Asia, and
the Middle East, and in the developed nations with Islamic populations. Malaysia has
had experience with Islamic banks since 1981, and has also been active in the creation
of an Islamic insurance company, an Islamic Economic Development Foundation and
IKIM, the Institute of Islamic Understanding, and an Islamic University (Camroux
1996). With strong government patronage, major Islamic banks, e.g. Bank Islam
Malaysia Berhad, have been operational since 1983, with commercial banks also
encouraged to offer Islamic or profit sharing investment schemes (Straits Times 1996;
Economist 1993). Bank Islam Malaysia has offered non-interest operations, including
‘equity financing, leasing, sale and purchase, and trade financing’ (Teik 1995, p178).
Thus Majid al-Refai, chief executive officer of the Bahrain-based First Islamic
Investment Bank suggested that ‘Malaysia is the perfect market’ since ‘Everything is
there, including the political will.’ (Straits Times 1996)
Malaysia devleoped a sizeable Islamic banking sector, a true Islamic interbank
market, and strong international operations being developed on the island of Labuan,
an international offshore financial centre, IOFC (Aziz 1997; Khalaf 1995). Likewise,
Islamic banking, aided by Bank Islam Research and Development (BIRD), was
developed in Singapore by SKSGMS (Syarikat Kerjasama Serbaguna Guru-Guru
Melayu Singapura), with an Islamic insurance scheme being run by Keppel Insurance
and NTUC Income (Star 1997). There are several opportunities for this international
role to be extended. Malaysia was given the brief to develop Islamic banking and
insurance within the D8 organization, a grouping of Islamic states designed to
cooperate with each other and act as a parallel organization to the G8. The D8,
launched in June 1997, includes Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia,
Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, and aims 'to develop trade, industry and financial
projects’ (Butler 1995). Within this organization each country has been given areas
for special attention, with Indonesia focusing on human resources, while Malaysia
focused 'on privatization, banking and Islamic insurance' (Butler 1997). The
Declaration of the D8 stressed the need for development and the eradication of
poverty. The group also noted that ‘old policies of double standards, discrimination
16
Both religions were originally deeply opposed to interest on loans, e.g. in the Middle Ages Christians
were not supposed to be involved in money lending. However, by the early modern period,
justifications were found to step around this regulation, HAQUE, Ziaul Riba: The Moral Economy of
Usury, Interest and Profit, Kuala Lumpur, Ikraq, 1995, p169. The ability to raise and use capital, of
course, was one of the pre-requisites for the capitalist age, and for the great trading expeditions that
spread around the world from the 16th century onwards. Put another way, the West decided to legally
regulate interest on loans, rather than ban it.
26
and oppression have continued and in some cases intensified’ and ‘the insufficient
share of our economies in the global trade activities as well as the inadequate role of
our countries in the global economic decision-making’ (D8 Declaration 1997). The
fifth D8 Summit was held in Bali in 2006, with poverty and energy issues being
central issues discussed (News Agency Qatar 2006). Malaysia, with its careful
positioning of an important but not dominant role for Islam within its multicultural
state17, has been well suited to develop Islamic banking in this wider regional context.
Islamic banks, though serving particular needs, can be effective in competitive
economic and political environments (Moore 1990, p235). In general terms, Islamic
banks, with careful and sustained management, can offer competitive returns to both
shareholders and depositors (Nienhaus 1986, p7). Under certain circumstances, these
types of investments schemes can even 'lead to an enhanced level of capital
investment'.18 Here, of course, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), founded in
Jeddah in 1974 by 37 Islamic countries, and active in some 45 countries or more, has
played an active role in 'co-financing projects, trade financing, equity participation,
promoting training and research in the fields of Islamic banking and economics'
(Altamimi 1986, p31; see also El Helw 1986). From 2005, the IDB has developed a
future vision statement looking toward major poverty reduction in Muslim countries
through till 2020 (News Agency Emirate 2005). However, the IDB has taken up a
very wide scope of activities, as can be seen by a selected sample of their activities
and meetings through 2005-2006.
IDB Events 2005-2006 (modified from http://www.isdb.org/english_docs/idb_home/news.php)
08/07/2006
02/07/2006
Moody's Investors' Service Assigns Aaa Long-Term and Prime-1 Issuer Ratings to
the Islamic Development Bank
Workshop on Capacity Building in Facilitation of Trade and Investment
17
For the phases of the relationship between the local resurgence of Islam and its relation to the
government in Malaysia, see CAMROUX, David "State Responses to Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia:
Accommodation, Co-Option and Confrontation", Asian Survey, 36 no. 9, September 1996, pp855-858.
In some cases this has led to the suppression or 'rehabilitation' of deviant Islamic groups, e.g. the Al
Arqam sect, see CAMROUX, David "State Responses to Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia:
Accommodation, Co-Option and Confrontation", Asian Survey, 36 no. 9, September 1996, pp863-865.
The Islamic Religious Development Department has reported that it has reduced the number of
'religious deviant movements' from 65 to 22, AHMAD, Zailani "Only 22 Deviant Groups Because of
Rehab Plan", The Star, 6 July 1997 [Internet Access]. For the rational for bringing deviationists back
into line, see "No Freedom Without Responsibility", Speech by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mahathir
Mohamad at the International Conference on 'The Future of Asia', Tokyo, 19 May 1995 [Internet
Access. http://www.jaring.mu/at-...ia/speech/msp_word4.html]. For a public effort expressed by an
IKIM research officer to find a balance between excessive conservatism and slavish modernism, see
RAHMAN, Ahmad Faiz Abdul “Islamic Way of Life as Best As We Can”, The Star, 29 July 1997
[Internet Access]. On the need for a future directed form of Islam which can help distribute wealth and
operationalize values in the community, see MAHATHIR, Mohamad “Seminar on Islamic Thoughts:
Speech by Prime Minister Dato Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the Opening of the 3rd International
Seminar on Islamic Thoughts at Kuala Lumpur on July 26, 1984”, Foreign Affairs Malaysia, 17 no. 3,
September 1984, pp226-231. See also TEIK, Khoo Boo Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual
Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Kuala Lumpur, OUP, 1995, pp159-197.
18
For the modeling of this in relation to mudarabah schemes, see PRESLEY, John R. & SESSIONS,
John G. "Islamic Economics: The Emergence of a New Paradigm", The Economic Journal, 104, May
1994, pp587-595. It is also possible that Islamic banking practices might dampen inflation, see
INGRAM, Tim "Islamic Banking: A Foreign Bank's View", in EL HELW, Mahmoud (Chairman)
Islamic Banking and Finance, London, Butterworths, 1986, pp67-68.
27
26/06/2006
20/06/2006
15/06/2006
29/05/2006
14/05/2006
10/05/2006
08/05/2006
27/04/2006
10/04/2006
09/04/2006
01/04/2006
25/03/2006
15/03/2006
14/03/2006
21/12/2005
01/10/2005
Workshop on "Capacity Building for Facilitation of Trade and Investment for OIC
member countries"
Speech Delivered by RT Hon Gordon Brown MP, The Chancellor of the Exchequer,
HM Govt., UK, at the Islamic Finance and Trade conference 2006, London
Chancellor of the Exchequer Announces UK to Become Gateway for Islamic Trade
And Finance
Islamic Development Bank Provides Urgent Relief Assistance to Indonesia for
Victims of the Java Earthquake
Proclamation of the Three Academic Research Institutions and Centres that Won the
IDB 1427/2006 Prize for Science and Technology
IDB support for infrastructure projects in Pakistan
Proclamation of the Winners of the 1427H/2006 IDB Prize for Women's
Contribution to Development
US$ 36 Million from IDB for University Reconstruction in Indonesia
IDB Extend US$ 10 million For trade financing operation in favor of Tunisia
IDB Manages Islamic Financing to Rabigh Refinery & Petrochemical Project in
Saudi Arabia
Yemeni Trade and Industry Minister seeks IDB assistance for joining WTO
HRH Prince of Wales Endorses the Establishment of Youth Enterprise Programmes
in IDB Member Countries .
IDB Allocates US$ 103 Million for Combating Bird Flu in affected Member
Countries
The Islamic Development Bank Extends US$ 52 Million for Two Development
Projects in Lebanon
The Islamic Development Bank 1440H Vision Commission Finalizes Vision
Document
The Islamic Development Bank conducts a regional vision workshop for member
countries in Africa
Islamic banking has in general terms taken up a practical institutional role which leads
towards the placement of 'a modern and tolerant Islam within a pluralistic world', and
a resurgent Islam is compatible with Asian and global developmental needs
(Camroux 1996; Ibrahim 1994; Strategic Comments 1997).. There have also been
efforts to harmonise international Islamic banking, shariah commitments, and
international banking rules via a review process, conducted by liaison among
groups such as the OIC, and the Bahrain-located Accounting and Auditing
Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, AAOIFI (Maurer 2005, p60), the
Islamic Financial Services Board,19 and the IDB: Approving a product for Islamic banking purposes is a laborious affair that
can take up to two years. Researchers are commissioned to examine a paper on
the subject. This finding is then discussed by up to five members of the Sharia
board supervising the given institution. They will accept, amend or reject the
paper.
The board will then refer it to another Sharia committee who will review it in
19
The IFSB describes itself as ' The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) , which is based in Kuala
Lumpur, was officially inaugurated on 3rd November 2002 and started operations on 10th March 2003.
It serves as an international-standard setting body of regulatory and supervisory agencies that have
vested interest in ensuring the soundness and stability of the Islamic financial services industry, which
is defined broadly to include banking, capital market and insurance. In advancing this mission, the
IFSB promotes the development of a prudent and transparent Islamic financial services industry
through introducing new, or adapting existing international standards consistent with Islamic Shari'ah
principles, and recommend them for adoption. To this end, the work of the IFSB complements that of
the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, International Organization of Securities Commissions
and
the
International
Association
of
Insurance
Supervisors'[
http://www.ifsb.org/index.php?ch=2&pg=1&ac=1].
28
conjunction with the person who originally launched the inquiry.
Next a board of 15 scholars, who meet twice a year in Mecca and Medina, will
undertake a further review. The outcome is then reviewed by the entire industry
from bankers to legal bodies across all the Islamic states. . . . (Watts & Gamazo
2006)
Islamic Banking and other services could provide another needed area of trade
and investment in underdeveloped regions. Here we see the meeting of standing
modern economic cultures (accounting, communication and investment systems) with
the demands of social justice and shared risk emphasised in the traditional Islamic
economic system. Furthermore, the enhancement of linkages in the region via Islamic
Banking is likely to further strengthen regional trade and investment, in some ways
resurrecting the once unified Eurasian trading systems that developed through the 15th
to 17th centuries (Chaudhuri 1990). Here, the development of culturally compatible
forms of banking could help mobilise more savings and act as a source of funds to
allow further development and investment.
4. Conclusion: Innovation, Reform and Conflict
As we have seen, there has been considerable innovation in making modern
institutions, from elective democracy to modern banking, more compatible with
Islamic norms. However, with current relative failures in some states with Islamic
populations, and the limited accountability of others, its remains to be seen whether
these nations will meet the need of the wider ummah. Fortunately, radical utopian
projects such as a revitalised caliphate seem to have limited resonance with modern
Muslim populations. We can question, however, whether the international system is
responsive enough to meet the deeper aspirations of almost one quarter of the global
population.
5. Bibliography, Resources and Further Reading
Resources
The Islamic Development Bank group, a 'multilateral development financing institution,
established to foster social and economic development of it's member countries and
Muslim communities world-wide', has its homepage at http://www.isdb.org/
Basic information on the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) can be found at
http://www.icci-oic.org/oi/1.htm and http://www.oic-un.org/
Al Nakhlah is a useful, free, on-line journal on Middle Eastern and Islamic affairs,
provided by the Fletcher School, Tufts University, located via
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/al_nakhlah/
A range of critical views on Islam in world affairs can be found at the Hudson Institute,
located at http://www.hudson.org/
Further Reading
ALI, Tariq The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, London, Verso,
2002
29
ESPOSITO, John The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, New York, Oxford University
Press, 1992
HARON, Sudin & SHANMUGAM, Bala Islamic Banking System: Concepts & Applications,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Pelanduk Publications, 1997
NATHAN, K.S. & KAMALI, Mohammad Hashim (eds) Islam in Southeast Asia: Political,
Social and Strategic Challenges for the 21st Century, Singapore, ISEAS, 2005
JOHNS, Anthony H. & LAHOUD, Nelly (eds) Islam in World Politics, London,
Routledge, 2005
KINYON, Rebecca "Osama bin-Laden: Legitimate within Islamic Legal Thought?", al
Nakhlah,
Spring
2004,
pp1-5
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via
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