On Separation of Religion and State in Islam

The Politics of Islam in the Former Communist World: First short essay
On the Separation of Religion and State in Islam
A commonly held belief amongst non-Muslims and Muslims alike is that Islam is not compatible with democracy because separation of religion and state, a fundamental pillar of democratic systems of government, is not feasible in Muslim society. The concept is identified in Islamic thought as din wa-dawla, the indivisibility of religion and state1. Using the theoretical frameworks provided by several different Western scholars of Islam whose texts we have discussed in class, this essay aims to dissect this claim and to highlight the fundamental problems and inconsistencies underlying it.
How are Muslims supposed to approach the modern trend of a secular state in their countries? The basic belief in Islam is that the Qur'an is the purest word of God, it lays out a divine code that cannot be disputed. Islam cannot be separated from the state because it provides a guide for Muslims in every detail of running the state and their lives, it is all-encompassing. The arguments that Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris, Chairman of the Founding Council at the American Open University, lays out in his essay published in Islam World reflects the broader opinion that champions the primacy of din wa-dawla . Idris points out that “secularism cannot be a solution for countries with a Muslim majority, for it requires people to replace their God-given beliefs with an entirely different set of man-made beliefs. Separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims because it requires us to abandon God's decree for that of a man.”2 Idris position emphatically claims that Muslims have no choice but to reject secularism because it excludes the laws of God.
The above argument is problematic in several fundamental ways. The first is that in its vision of a state fused with religion, it blatantly overlooks the fact that under any system of governance, a man or group of men are put in charge of transforming the ideals and principles by which they think society should live into a legal framework which can then be implemented. In Islam, the holy texts of the Quran and the Sunnah supply the precepts that inform the legal and political system. This code that dictates relations between members of society and political and religious institutions nevertheless requires first a human interpretation. Ultimate authority in any given theocratic regime (no separation of religion and state implies theocracy) is the supreme deity, God is the source of the one and only truth. God’s transmissions, that is, the sacred texts revealed through a chosen prophet, must be interpreted and reproduced once the prophet who had originally had divine access ceases to exist. The point I am trying to make is that God’s decree is already abandoned as soon as the prophet disappears. We know that interpretations of the Quran vary widely and it is an illusion to think that Islam is static and immutable through time. The claim that some opponents of separation of religion and state make echoes the claim of Salafis; that the will of God can only be manifested by directly referring to the sources which contain the timeless blueprints to a true Islamic society and the key to being a faithful Muslim. It is critical to point out that in an Islamic state the political system is necessarily informed by a human understanding of the divine words laid down by the prophet which may or may not correspond to his original vision. James Piscatori and Dale Eickleman critically point out that “the permanence of doctrine is a conceptual fiction” and that ideas change through time and space.3 Meaning is lost in translation and is manipulated diachronically as political and cultural circumstances change, it must be constantly re-contextualized. In his critique of Salafism, Alexander Ignatenko illuminates this point well:
“The very fact of quoting from the Koran in a non-canonical context is an interpretation, a human understanding of the Divine words. This is even more true of establishing a meaningful connection between certain contemporary phenomena, such as secular laws or parliaments, and certain places in the canonical texts. In other words, the Salafis cannot but interpret the Divine revelations to adapt them to the contemporary conditions; this is Ijtihad.”4
There can be no circumventing ijtihad, the practice of independent reasoning, at some level. In his essay that praises the diversity and adaptability of Islam, Ignatenko refers to this as “the inevitable human factor” in coming up with a system of norms.5 Advocates of din wa-dawla seem to be under the false impression that living in an Islamic state means living under a system of God’s law that has been untainted by humans. In a similar critique, Hamid Algar addresses this false idea of a pure and unchanging divine law:
“It is…illusory to suppose that either individual or society is a blank space on which Quran and Sunna can be authentically imprinted without admixture from either historical or contemporary circumstance.”6
It is important now to point out that I do not intend to “essentialize” or lump all the supporters of state-religion fusion into the category of a misguided group of people. Certainly there are individuals who make this claim that reject Idris’ monolithic notion of God’s decree, recognizing the fact that the application of din wa-dawla varies greatly in degree and form in different places in the Muslim world. They are, however, still under the false impression that regardless of variation all law, government and civil authority rests entirely upon an Islamic religious establishment in Muslim societies. This myth continues to be propagated despite much evidence pointing to the fact that the political and religious structures were clearly divided soon after the death of the prophet (he was the only one that managed to embody a religious and political leader at once) and have evolved as semi-independent though frequently overlapping structures.7
In order to deconstruct the concept of the religion-state, Eickelman and Piscatori took a novel anthropological perspective and devised the concept of “sacred authority” which describes the complex relationship between religion and politics in the Muslim world. Starting with the premise that politics are a competition over the meanings of symbols as opposed to strictly ruler-subject relations of domination and subjugation, they illustrate how Islam is deeply intertwined with the language of politics in the Muslim world. 8 The articulation of Islamic symbols as a political tool is both a top-down and bottom-up process and is used by both authority figures and subordinate groups to make claims about rights and property. Eickelman and Piscatori argue that on one hand religious discourse and symbols are used by politicians to reinforce the legitimacy of political programs and on the other hand, religious figures abuse political power to supposedly protect Islam. In the former case, application of the doctrine is pursued to the extent that it furthers symbolic ownership, and in the latter a political hierarchy exists outside of the Islamic state. Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran constantly justifies his unrestricted political power by invoking the discourse of “’guardian of the jurist,” that is, the necessity of ulema to protect the Islamic state and to safeguard Shari’iah at any cost.9 In Saudi Arabia, the ulema and the monarchic coexist in a symbiotic relationship where both the political and religious establishments draw from each other for resources and legitimacy.10
In Tatarstan, a somewhat less authoritarian but nevertheless political agenda characterized the initial phase of the so-called Islamic renaissance at the end of the 1980s. The lifting of legal restrictions on religion opened up the door for Islamic expression in the public sphere but these expressions were at first not directly aimed at a spiritual reawakening. Rather, they were hijacked by Tatar national and socio-political organizations who invoked Islamic symbols in order stir up national consciousness. The end goal was to bolster nationalism and to win support for declaring independence from the Soviet Union which was collapsing on all sides. Here, we see the use of Islamic symbols by groups vying for political power in a very unpredictable future before the appearance of the first independent religious institutions and Spirutal Directorates which is where the revival later shifted to. One could speculate that if the independence movement had been successful it is doubtful that the national project would have integrated any kind of real social reform based on Islamic doctrine. It wasn’t even possible until recently with the appearance of institutes of Islamic higher education (RIU, Muhammadiyya) to get local specialized training in Shari’ah.11 Drawing from my own interactions with various figures in the Muslim community in Kazan, I recall the topic of secularism often coming up. I would ask my interlocutor how he or she felt about being an actively practicing and devoted Muslim and at the same time living under a secular regime. Their reactions invariably expressed approval and acceptance of the status quo and maintained that living under a secular democratic regime was ideal because it presented no hindrance to their lives or duties as Muslims. Of course it is important to put the unique position of Islam in Russia into context, but this example serves to illustrate that many devout Muslims in secular countries wouldn’t consider the absence of a religion-state fusion as problematic and may even see it as undesirable.
Finally, the discourse about din wa-dawla is also problematic because it indirectly reinforces Orientalist ideas of the Muslim world as archaic and stuck in time. Muslims cannot be rational if religion informs every aspect of their lives, which perpetuates the notion that they are “passionate and uncontrollable.”12 It also reproduces the myth that Islam is a monolithic entity devoid of plurality and internal dynamics, reflecting the belief of some Muslims that God’s decree is once and for all.
This essay has served to point out some problematic assumptions that are made by the statement that in Islam, religion and politics can’t be separated. The argument assumes that the absence of din wa-dawla means a departure from God’s law and a meddling of human interpretation which cannot be divinely sanctioned. In reality there is no such thing as a fixed doctrine which contains a universally applicable code, there are necessarily human agents involved in deconstructing it, making deductions from it, and then enacting it in various forms. The argument contradicts the reality that Islam has from its offset evolved into a variety of different forms and sects and has adapted to, shaped, and comprised different political structures. In the Islamic world religious and political institutions often overlap and have a complex interplay that cannot be dichotomized or assessed by considering one without the other.