Abstract
This chapter is the key chapter of the book. It is in this chapter that I try to outline a vision of transition from politics as we know to a politics of Ihsan. In this chapter, I offer an alternate way of thinking about Islam’s role in politics, especially distinct from that of Islamists and Jihadis. The book critiques the focus of Islamic political thought on structure and law and instead argues that perhaps a focus on process will yield more benefits for society. Advocates of Islam are seeking power to “implement shariah” and in the process are either leaning toward autocracy or making ethical compromises to accommodate democracy. In either case, the cause of the normative principles is lost. This chapter argues that rather than seeking power, advocates of Islam should seek to bring Ihsan into society. Muslims should focus on the process of governance, make it inclusionary one that privileges ethical and normative elements of Islam. And by permitting political criticism and activism, keep the social conscience of the soceity alive. This chapter will lay out the Islamic principles that encourage good governance and politics in pursuit of goodness. It imagines a State of Ihsan and a society of Muhsins (those who practice Ihsan).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Mustafa Köylü, “Religion and Citizenship education: The Case of Turkey,” in Ednan Aslan and Marcia Hermansen, eds., Islam and Citizenship Education (New York: Springer 2015), pp. 201–201. See also M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Islamic governance and democracy,” Islam and Democratization in Asia (2009): 13–27.
- 2.
See An-Na‘im, Islam and the Secular State.
- 3.
Asma Afsaruddin, “Obedience to Political Authority: An Evolutionary Concept,” Islamic Democratic Discourse: Theory, Debates, and Philosophical Perspectives (2006): 37.
- 4.
See Murata and Chittick, Vision of Islam, pp. 60–62.
- 5.
See the collection in Sahih Bukhari, Book 33, and #6426.
- 6.
See M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Sovereignty in Modernity and Islam,” East-West Review 1.2 (Summer 1995): 43–57.
- 7.
M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Sovereignty in Islam as Human Agency,” Ijtihad. Available from: http://www.ijtihad.org/sovt.htm (Dec 30, 1999).
- 8.
M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “The Compact of Medina: A Constitutional Theory of the Islamic State,” The International Mirror (2001). M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Islamic governance and democracy,” Islam and Democratization in Asia (2009): 13–27.
- 9.
The full text of the English translation of the constitution of Medina can be read here: http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm.
- 10.
Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic political thought (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005). Antony Black, The history of Islamic political thought: From the Prophet to the present (London: Edinburgh University Press, 2011). Patricia Crone, God’s rule: Government and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
- 11.
See Ahmad Al-Raysuni, Al-Shura: The Quranic Principle of Consultation (Herndon, VA: IIIT, 2011). Taha Jabir al-Alwani, Ijtihad (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993).
- 12.
See Pew Studies Survey, which found that large percentages of Muslims prefer democracy. Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, July 10, 2012). http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10/chapter-2-views-of-democracy/.
- 13.
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption (London: Cambridge University Press, 2015). See also M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Islamic Governance and Democracy,” Islam and Democratization in Asia (2009): 13–27. Abdul Rashid Moten, “Striving for Islamic Governance: Varying Contexts, Different Strategies,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (Spring 2015): 68–99.
- 14.
Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and identity in world politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
- 15.
For a discussion of Iranian and Saudi Arabian foreign policies, see M. A. Muqtedar Khan, Jihad for Jerusalem: identity and strategy in international relations (New York: Praeger, 2004).
- 16.
M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish identity and foreign policy in flux: The rise of Neo-Ottomanism,” Critique: Journal for Critical Studies of the Middle East 7.12 (1998): 19–41.
- 17.
See M. Ali Lakhani, ed., The Sacred Foundations of Justice in Islam: The Teaching so Ali Ibn Abi Talib (Vancouver, Canada: World Wisdom, 2006), p. 27.
- 18.
Plato, The Republic of Plato, Vol. 30 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945).
- 19.
See Jasser Auda, Maqasid Al-Shariah: A Beginner’s Guide (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008), p. 7.
- 20.
See Gamal Eldin Attia, Towards Realization of the Higher Intents of Islamic Law: Maqasid Al-Shariah: A Functional Approach (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008), p. 83.
- 21.
Syed Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, p. 67.
- 22.
See Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 145.
- 23.
Ibn Al-Arabi, On the Mysteries of Bearing Witness to the Oneness of God and Messengership of Muhammad, trans. Aisha Bewley (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2010).
- 24.
Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), pp. 100–101.
- 25.
This discussion is partly informed by Ibn Arabi’s discussion of the hadith of good counsel. Ibn Al-Arabi, On the Mysteries of Bearing Witness to the Oneness of God and Messengership of Muhammad, trans. Aisha Bewley (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2010), pp. 97–101.
- 26.
Schudson Michael, The Good Citizen: A History of American civic life (London: Oxford University Press, 2001). David Batstone, The Good Citizen (London: Routledge, 2014).
- 27.
Andrew F. March, Islam and liberal Citizenship: The Search for an overlapping consensus (Oxford University Press, 2011).
- 28.
Claire Mercer, “NGOs, civil society and democratization: a critical review of the literature,” Progress in development studies 2.1 (2002): 5–22. Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, Funding virtue: civil society aid and democracy promotion (Carnegie Endowment, 2000).
- 29.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Citizenship and accountability of government: an Islamic perspective (Islamic Texts Society, 2011).
- 30.
Authentic Hadith from the collection Sahih Muslim #91 and Al-Mu’jam al-Awsaṭ #6902.
- 31.
See Khaled Abou El Fadl, “The ugly modern and the modern ugly: Reclaiming the beautiful in Islam,” Progressive Muslims: On justice, gender, and pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), p. 45. Also see Khaled Abou El Fadl, The search for beauty in Islam: A conference of the books (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
- 32.
See the webpage of UNDP: http://hdr.undp.org/en.
- 33.
See Abu Amina Elias, “Good Character is the path to salvation in Islam,” on the World Wide Web at: https://abuaminaelias.com/good-character-is-the-path-to-salvation/.
- 34.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic jurisprudence (Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 2003). Also see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Shari’ah law: An Introduction (London, UK: Oneworld Publications).
- 35.
See for classical schools, Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni usul al-fiqh (London: Cambridge University Press, 1999). For liberal Islam, see Charles Kurzman, ed., Liberal Islam: a source book (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). And for Progressive Islam, see Omid Safi, ed., Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld Oxford, 2003). For the Maqasid school, see Jasser Auda, Maqasid al-Shariah as philosophy of Islamic law: a systems approach (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008).
- 36.
Most Friday sermons end with the recitation of the Quranic injunction to balance justice with Ihsan (Quranic verse 16:90).
- 37.
James Bohman, ed., Deliberative democracy: Essays on reason and politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).
- 38.
Quran 9:60: Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect [Zakah] and for bringing hearts together [for Islam] and for freeing captives [or slaves] and for those in debt and for the cause of Allah and for the [stranded] traveler—an obligation [imposed] by Allah. And Allah is Knowing and Wise.
- 39.
See Ahmad Al-Raysuni, Al-Shura: The Qur’anic Principle of Consultation (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2011).
- 40.
See Tariq Ramadan, “Ijtihad and Maslaha: The Foundations of Governance,” in M. A. Muqtedar Khan, ed., Islamic Democratic Discourse: Theory, Debates, and Philosophical Perspectives (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), pp. 3–20. Also see Felicitas Opwis, “Maslaha in contemporary Islamic legal theory,” Islamic law and society 12.2 (2005): 182–223. See also Asma Afsaruddin, “Maslahah as a Political Concept,” in Mehrzad Boroujerdi, ed., Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013), pp. 16–44.
- 41.
For a summary of the argument that the real source of authority in Islamic law comes from consensus or Ijma, see Wael Hallaq, “On the authoritativeness of Sunni consensus,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18.4 (1986): 427–454. See also George F. Hourani, “The basis of authority of consensus in Sunnite Islam,” Studia Islamica 21 (1964): 13–60.
- 42.
M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “The Islamic States,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Political Science (2004).
- 43.
See, for example, Fathi Osman, “Islam in a Modern State: Democracy and the concept of Shura,” MF Osman, Islam in a Modern State: Democracy and the Concept of Shura (Occasional papers series) (2001): 3–23.
- 44.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Freedom, equality and justice in Islam (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2002), pp. 2–3.
- 45.
See Franz Rosenthal, The Muslim concept of freedom prior to the nineteenth century (London; Brill, 1960). Also see Michael Cook, “Freedom,” in Richard Bulliet et al., eds., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 174–175.
- 46.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Freedom, equality and justice in Islam (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2002). Abdullahi A. An-Na‘im, Islam and the Secular State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008). Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Islamic roots of democratic pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Khaled Abou El Fadl, ed., Islam and the Challenge of Democracy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2015). Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, freedom, and democracy in Islam: Essential writings of Abdolkarim Soroush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). M. A. Muqtedar Khan, ed., Islamic democratic discourse: theory, debates, and philosophical perspectives (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006). Nader Hashmi, Islam, secularism, and liberal democracy: Toward a democratic theory for Muslim Societies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
- 47.
Quran 2:256: There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So, whoever disbelieves in taghut (false deities) and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing. Quran 10:99: And had your Lord willed, those on earth would have believed—all of them entirely. Then, [O Muhammad], would you compel the people in order that they become believers? Quran 88:21–22: So, remind, [O Muhammad]; you are only a reminder. You are not over them a controller.
- 48.
Isaiah Berlin, Two concepts of liberty: an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959).
- 49.
M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Two Theories of Ijtihad,” Common Ground News Service (2006). Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, Ijtihad (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993). Tariq Ramadan, “Ijtihad and Maslaha: The Foundations of Governance,” in M. A. Muqtedar Khan, ed., Islamic Democratic Discourse: Theory, Debates, and Philosophical Perspectives (Lanham, MD: 2006): 3–20.
- 50.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Freedom of expression in Islam (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1997).
- 51.
Hisham A. Hellyer, A Revolution Undone: Egypt’s Road Beyond Revolt (Oxford University Press, 2017). Also see Bahgat Korany, and Rabab El-Mahdi, eds., Arab Spring in Egypt: revolution and beyond (American University in Cairo Press, 2012).
- 52.
John Graham, Timothy Wynne Plumptre and Bruce Amos, Principles for good governance in the 21st century (Ottawa: Institute on Governance, 2003). David Levi-Faur, ed., The Oxford handbook of governance (London: Oxford University Press, 2012).
- 53.
See Maszlee Malik, Foundations of Islamic Governance: A Southeast Asian Perspective (London: Taylor & Francis, 2016). Joseph J. Kaminski, The Contemporary Islamic Governed State (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). See also Abdul Rashid Moten, “Striving for Islamic governance: Varying Contexts, Different Strategies.” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32.2 (2015): 68.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khan, M.A.M. (2019). Ihsan and Good Governance. In: Islam and Good Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54832-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54832-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55718-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54832-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)