The huge body of injunctions in the Shari'a that guides the actions of [Muslim] believers may be, for analytical purposes, divided into two categories, public and private, according to the role of the state. Private regulations are defined here as those in which the state mainly intervenes to punish offenses, while public regulations involve state participation at all stages. For example, in economic affairs, prohibition on interest is private because individuals arrange loans and the state acts only to prevent abuses; but taxation is public because it involves the state from the first. Dietary restrictions, family relations, and prayer rituals are all clearly in the private domain, just as warfare and political authority are in the public. The two overlap in the judicial realm, where courts backed by the state's authority hear cases dealing with private affairs. So long as private acts do not threaten the public order, the ruling authorities stay away; for related reasons, private Shar'i precepts can be maintained in Dar al-Harb, but not so the public ones. Although fundamental to understanding the Muslim way of life, the private sphere will be largely omitted from the following discussion because it rarely touches on Islam as a political force.
Just as Jewish and Christian practices provide the necessary background to understanding the role of sacred law in Islam, so too do they clarify the connection between religion and politics. ... If Christianity never had a political program, Judaism had one which withered away. ... Today, the public aspects of the Halakha [Jewish law] are as defunct as those regulating animal sacrifices; modern Israelis have made no serious effort to conduct public life along its lines.
Such an abandonment of public ideals would be unthinkable in Islam, where, in Max Weber's view, "an essentially political character marked all the chief ordinances." The connection to politics has been immutably deep from the very inception of the religion. Muhammad founded a religious community ex nihilo. He lived in western Arabia, a stateless region where tribal affiliations dominated all of public life. A tribe protected its members (by threatening to take revenge for them), and it provided social bonds, economic opportunities, as well as political enfranchisement. An individual lacking tribal ties had no standing; he could be robbed, raped, and killed with impunity. If Muhammad was to attract tribesmen to join his religious movement, he had to provide them with an affiliation no less powerful than the tribe they had left behind. Thus did Muslim leaders offer a range of services resembling those of tribal chiefs, protecting their followers, organizing them for wars of booty, dispensing justice, and so forth. The key point is this: because Muhammad created a new community, the religion that was its raison d'être had to meet the political needs of its adherents. Unlike the Christians, who lived within a massive and enduring empire, or the Hebrews, who had ethnic bonds before becoming Jews, the Muslims depended on their religion to provide them with an authority and an identity.
Once instituted, Shar'i public ideals took on a life of their own and became the basis of Shar'i doctrines which permanently mold the life of Muslim communities. "The central position of the Shari'a in state and society as understood in classical Islam cannot be overemphasized." Its precepts cover politics, war, social relations, economics, and justice.
Unity among Muslims is the paramount political goal of Islam. Ideally, a single state should extend the breadth of Dar al-Islam; failing this, Muslim governments should be at peace with each other. The many differences between believers—geographic, cultural, linguistic, ethnic, racial, tribal, class, and ideological—must not prevent them from viewing each other as brethren in faith, nor should it get in the way of friendly, cooperative, and peaceable relations. Islam acknowledges the variety of its adherents but ascribes them no political significance; the chasm separating Muslims from non-Muslims alone matters—and it affects all politics.
A single man, the caliph, or imam is to rule all Dar al-Islam. Members of the three branches of Islam disagree about the way to select him, but they all affirm that he has a mandate to rule Dar al-Islam as the temporal successor of Muhammad. Although frequently compared to the papacy, the caliphate fundamentally differs from it. As successor to Saint Peter, the pope inherits priestly and apostolic functions, not governmental duties; in contrast, the caliph rules Dar al-Islam but has no authority over decisions bearing on the faith. (In practice, however, in both cases their authority did overlap.) The caliph has two principal duties, applying the Shari'a and extending its domain (or, if times are bad, defending it from attacks by non-Muslims). From an Islamic viewpoint, whence a ruler comes, what language he speaks, or where he keeps his capital hardly matters; what counts is that he be an active Muslim who enforces Shar'i regulations and protects Muslims.
As the ruler's second duty implies, the division between Muslim and non-Muslim has dominated the military sphere too. While the Shari'a prohibits fighting between observant Muslims, it permits (and on some occasions even requires) Muslims to make war on non-Muslims. War on behalf of Islam is known as jihad and is usually translated into English as "holy war." But "holy war" brings to mind warriors going off to battle with God in their hearts intent on spreading the faith—something like medieval European crusaders or soldiers of the Reformation. Jihad is less a holy war than a "righteous war," fighting carried out in accordance with the Shari'a. Of course, jihad must be on behalf of Islam, but the emphasis of its definition is on legality, not on holiness. A Muslim may go to battle with thoughts of Allah or he may dream of booty; the key is that his behavior should conform to the Shari'a and thereby increase the scope of its application. Not every attack on non-Muslims qualifies as jihad; there are elaborate restrictions which, if transgressed, make the fighting non-Shar'i and therefore not jihad. For instance, if an attack breaks an oath, it is not righteous war. Conversely, jihad can be directed against Muslims who flout the Shari'a, including apostates and brigands—hardly what "holy war" brings to mind.
More important yet, jihad is not holy war because its purpose is not to spread the faith. Non-Muslims commonly assume that jihad calls for the militant expansion of the Islamic religion; in fact, its purpose is to spread the rule of Islamic law. The logic behind law being the central concern of jihad has special importance for the topic of Islam and political power: to approach God properly, man must live by the Shari'a; because the Shari'a contains provisions which can only be executed by a government, the state has to be in the hands of Muslims; Muslims must therefore control territory; to do this, they need to wage war—and thus, the provision for jihad. If Muslims do not rule, kafirs do; by definition, the latter do not see the Shari'a as a sacred law. For expediency's sake, to minimize Muslim antagonism toward their rule, non-Muslims may enforce some Islamic precepts, especially private ones, but they would never go to the effort of implementing Shar'i public regulations. For these reasons, Islam requires the expulsion of non-Muslims from power and their replacement by believers, by force, if necessary.
Jihad, offensive in Dar al-Harb, defensive in Dar al-Islam, takes many forms: insurrection, invasion, aid to neighbors, self-defense, or guerrilla action. In addition to polities, tribes and individual warriors can launch a jihad on their own. Muslim power should be extended both to areas where Muslims already live and to where they do not, for Shar'i rule (in the Islamic view) brings advantages even to non-Muslims by preventing them from engaging in practices forbidden by God. Jihad, Muslims believe, should continue until they take control of the entire planet and all mankind becomes subject to Islam's law.
This goal has little in common with the widespread image of jihad as "Islam or the sword." Jihad impels Muslim conquests, not Islamic conversions, leading to the political subjugation of non-Muslims, not their religious coercion. "The primary aim of the jihad is not, as it was often supposed in the older European literature, the conversion by force of unbelievers, but the expansion— and also the defence—of the Islamic state." In no case may the vanquished be compelled to embrace Islam; as the Qur'an puts it, "There is no compulsion in religion" (2.256). Conversion to Islam is not the purpose of righteous war, only its sweet by-product.
Islam makes no distinction among non-Muslims who resist Muslim political control; known as harbis (deriving from the Arabic harb, "war"), they must all be subjugated. Once defeated, however, their faith takes on crucial importance; for while the Shari'a allows some religions to continue to be practiced in Dar al-Islam, it proscribes others. Polytheists (mushrikun), whose beliefs Islam considers wholly repugnant to God, may not practice their faith under Muslim rule, When conquered, they must convert to a monotheism or flee Dar ai-Islam; otherwise, they face enslavement or even execution.
More fortunate are the Jews, Christians, Sabaens, and Zoroastrians, those peoples who believe in a single God and possess a holy scripture. Islam considers the faiths of these, known as People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab), faulty but nonetheless acceptable to God. Peoples of the Book who submit to Muslim political dominion are dhimmis (protected peoples). In return for the right to practice their ancestral religions, dhimmis pay extra taxes and must accept civil constraints and disabilities. They may not proselytize or build new places of worship; they may be subjected to petty and humiliating sumptuary regulations (such as prohibitions on certain clothes, the riding of horses, or living in multistoried dwellings). In court, dhimmis resemble slaves and Muslim women; the testimony of each of these counts about half that of a free Muslim man. Dhimmis also may not serve in the government or the military, for the public domain is a Muslim preserve. They may not make policy, administer, judge, or fight; these activities have direct implications for implementation of the Shari'a and are thus unsuitable for non-believers.
The Shari'a also legislates a system of taxation, which is based on the requirement to give charity. Zakat, or almsgiving, is a spiritual obligation connected with prayer, a way for a Muslim to purify himself from sin, to thank God for his well-being, and to demonstrate his concern for the brotherhood of Muslims. Although theoretically voluntary, zakat contributions already were obligatory in Muhammad's lifetime; and it was the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who made the zakat a tax collectible by the state. After that, the terms of zakat hardly changed; despite great economic and legal development, the original precepts from the time of Muhammad have remained "the only levy for Muslims ever sanctioned by religious law."
The exact terms of zakat collections derive from the Hadith Reports. Zakat regulations distinguish between five forms of wealth: crops, fruit, livestock, precious metals, and merchandise. On annual crop and fruit yields Muslims pay one-tenth. Provisions concerning cattle are more complex: the herder must own a minimum number of head before he pays zakat; animals have different values; work animals are a special case; domestic beasts differ from wild ones; and so forth. Finally, precious metals and merchandise are taxed at a rate of 2.5 percent. Zakat regulations allow very little scope for either taxpayer or government to modify these rates of assessment.
Islamic law provides for the disposal of property to a corporate body for perpetual ownership, waqf ("mortmain"). Liberal provisions made it possible for families to enjoy the benefits of the waqf, although this was not their original intent. Finally, the Shari'a requires that the government sponsor a judicial system to apply the civil, criminal, and commercial laws of Islam. Judges should be picked from among the legal scholars, the faqihs. The ruler personally must live by the Shari'a and in particular by its prohibitions against drinking, gambling, dancing girls, unregulated sexual activity, and punishments that lack Shar'i sanction. The Shari'a bestows a unique importance on the behavior of political leaders. Governments monopolize the right to declare war, set tax rates, or punish crimes; for the implementation of these and other regulations, individual Muslims depend on their leaders to act in accordance with the Shari'a. The government falling into improper hands—those of lax Muslims or non-Muslims—jeopardizes the standing of its citizens before God. For this reason, Muslim rulers have a far greater religious significance than do ordinary citizens. The individual who neglects the fast of Ramadan harms only himself, whereas the king who wages unrighteous war injures the entire community.
These observations lead to two general conclusions about Islam and politics. First, Islam and government are interdependent. Islam needs the state to effect public Shar'i precepts, while the premodern Muslim government derives most of its legitimacy from maintaining the law. Thus, Shar'i precepts connect the divine will to government policy, combining the two so thoroughly that devout Muslims (with the exception of some mystics) cannot disengage from being concerned with public life. A Muslim intent on fulfilling all Islam's requirements must live under Shar'i rule; to assure this, he must involve himself in politics. "To be a Muslim is not simply a matter of individual belief; it means participating in the effort to implement God's will on earth." The Shari'a involves Islam so intimately in state affairs that no boundary can be drawn between religion and politics. Religious imperatives have political implications, political actions have religious significance.
Second, action on behalf of the Shari'a takes two forms, depending on political conditions. Where Muslims rule and non-Muslims do not threaten, implementing the Shari'a is a matter of getting the leaders to act in accordance with its precepts by pressuring them to apply the law or by replacing them with other leaders who will; borrowing a term from Christianity, I call the spirit behind such efforts "legalism." But where kafirs rule or threaten Dar al-Islam, the first priority is to establish Muslims securely in power; only after that is achieved can devout Muslims work for legalist goals. Muslims under attack in Dar al-Islam have to repulse their enemies, while Muslims living in Dar al-Harb can either break away from their rulers or overthrow them. I call the impetus behind any of these efforts against non-Muslims "autonomism."
Legalism and autonomism together define the entire range of mainstream Islamic political action. In Islamic terminology, legalism corresponds to the goal of al-amr bi'l-ma'ruf wa'n-nahi 'an al-munkar ("the promotion of virtue and the punishment of vice"), while autonomism is the urge behind jihad. Legalism is concerned with the status of Islam, autonomism with the power of Muslims. Legalism aims to apply the Shari'a, autonomism to establish its prerequisite conditions. In the end, both movements have the same goal: to create a government conducive to a fully Shar'i way of life, unimpeded by unwanted alien influences. These are the timeless imperatives of Islam, defining the goals of all movements on its behalf, whether premodern or modern, West African or Southeast Asian, governmental or oppositional, conservative or revolutionary, defensive or offensive, practical or visionary, peaceful or militant, minoritarian or majoritarian, and regardless of temperament or motives.
