Abdul Rahman Al-Haj(*)

It is true that the Islamists usually fall under categorizations such as ‘Reformist’, ‘Salafi’, ‘Jihadi,’ and others, based on their degree of tolerance of levels of participation in political action and human rights alone. Nonetheless, research into the Islamists’ levels of political consciousness reveals a common structure which has undergone multiple and continuous alterations since the first moment Muslims encountered ‘the concept of the modern state’ that spawned the first period of European colonialism in the modern age. It is hard to accept categorisations that fundamentally differentiate between the Islamists on the level of political thought, since the fundamental problem with that thought is one and the same, and by that I mean ‘the concept of the state’. I argue that all of the disparities which characterize Islamic political thought on the political level can be traced to the very deficiency in that thought, and are reproduced by it. Therefore, the historical reading of Islamic political thought must take account of the changes in consciousness of the concept of the state specifically, and the effects of the political, doctrinal and historical legacies on it. Until now, the studies put forward on the Islamists’ concept of the state, for all their importance, have concentrated more on the outcomes of the problem of the concept than on the problem itself.

A Historical Approach
The Divinity of the Caliphate: An Image of the State and the Shadow of the Caliphate
The Islamists’ works are usually read as though they were multiple discourses in modern political thought until a short time ago, and if in recent years we have witnessed new shifts in the Islamists’ concept of the modern state, then we did not notice this difference clearly since the arrival of the modern state concept itself in the renaissance era.([1])

In the renaissance era, the notion of the state concept was not so much as a political entity separate from the Caliphate, as it was the organisational sphere. Organisations were the first and perhaps only notion of the concept of the state at that time, whether under Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, or Khair al-Tunisi (with regard to the constitution), or whether earlier, under ‘Al-Wali’ (Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha)([2]), whose concern was the ‘Wilaya’ [the governed province], and the ambition for expansion on principle; a principle that was just the same as the unstable ‘open borders’ principle, in the concept of the Caliphate.

In any case, the concept of the modern state had still not been crystallized definitively in Europe itself. Therefore, the similarity in the political form and the function of the ruling authority (the political regime, and the authority ruling on behalf of the general community, acting within certain limits on the basis of its interest) meant that they did not pay attention to the substantial changes in the concept of the state, nor did they concern themselves with it beyond the organisational level.

In the phase of the reformists (al-Afghani and ‘Abdo and al-Kawakebi) the Islamic Ottoman Caliphate was in a period of strife, and during these periods of strife - or the ‘death of the state’ - the end of the state([3]) (as in the Khaldun vision)([4]) tended towards violence, dictatorship and control of the state and even the Sultan by those with vested interests. Therefore new paradigms arose relating to the concept of the state or the transition to the modern state system, which were partially formed by the perception of the latter. Shura [consultation] was promulgated on the basis of its conformity with the concept of democracy,([5]) but it was not promulgated as a theoretical and political concept within the framework of the project of the modern state so much as a militant tool against the despotism of the Caliph and the Ottomans.([6])  There was no serious discussion amongst the Islamists over the concept of the state, even in the reformatory era. The discussions which went on between Imam Muhammad ‘Abdo and Farah Anton generally concerned secularism, and took the form of an ideological struggle, not the form of a political dialogue about the state.

Moreover, the political writings of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakebi  did not focus on the concept of the modern state so much as they renewed the concept of the Caliphate through the concept of ‘the Islamic Society’ and the liberation of the political field from religious exploitation in order to rid it from despotism.

It is true that the establishment of the modern state in its realistic and objective sense in the Arab Islamic world did not anticipate the fall of the Ottoman Islamic Caliphate. However, the fall of the Caliphate (1924), which was engraved into Islamic consciousness, created a new divinity in Islamic thought which was the ‘Divinity of the Caliphate’ (as Radwan as-Sayyid puts it). Thus, after the nationalist state became an objective fact, dealing with it became a realistic necessity, but the Caliphate was lodged in peoples’ minds, rooted in a broad doctrine in Islamic Ijtihadi [independent reasoning], historical and cultural traditions which did not disappear simply with the fall of the Caliphate. The collapse was followed by the terrible decline in the framework of the Colonial era which accompanied the appearance of new secular ideologies (meaning from religious/faith to secularism), which were opposed to Islamic culture and assumed the reigns of power in the nascent nationalist state (in many Arab countries, and in Egypt particularly). It seemed to the Islamists that there was a correspondence between the ‘Caliphate’ and ‘Islam’, and that the ‘Umma’ [nation, or in the Islamic sense, community of the faithful] was poised to confront both. So it was natural that attention was directed towards pushing the Sharia (Islam) to the fore and not the ‘Umma’. One of the outcomes of the rise of the ‘secular’ nationalist state was that it was extremely influential in gathering the Islamists anew around the concept of the ‘Caliphate’.([7]) This explains the revival of the philology of the ‘Caliphate’ and the investigation of texts on that doctrine in a completely unprecedented manner.

However, the new situation – i.e. the establishment of the modern nationalist state – limited by a fixed geographical framework, a ruling authority and a people, under the auspices of a constitutional agreement, created a hybrid concept resulting from the overlapping concepts of the Umma and the Caliphate, and this was: ‘the Islamic State’([8]). We see this for possibly the first time in jurisprudential writings and not in the writings of Islamist activists. It seems that Shaikh al-Azhar ‘Abd al-Wahab Khalaf was the first to coin this term in his short book, tellingly called ‘Sharia [‘Legitimate’] Politics, or the Regime of the Islamic State’([9]). It was easy for Imam Hasan al-Bana to steer this hybrid between the concept of ‘the Caliphate’ and the concept of ‘the modern state’ to promote this expression (‘the Islamic State’) as the slogan for his famous treatises.([10])  The essential truth about the concept of the ‘Islamic State’ is ‘an image of the state and the shadow of the Caliphate.’([11])

In fact this hybrid concept stores a contentious agenda to bring back Islam by bringing back the Caliphate, or to bring back the Caliphate for the sake of bringing back Islam. As we have already said, there was a congruity between Islam and the Caliphate, and one of the indications of this contention was that the idea of the Islamic State in itself is a temporary structure, as the writings of the Islamists, headed by Imam al-Bana, suggest.([12])

The Divinity of the Caliphate lived on within the expression ‘The Islamic State’, representing the common denominator for all Islamic movements. The difference between them was that some of them returned the concept of the Islamic State to its origins (the Caliphate), such as the Liberation Party and Jihadi movements, whilst others described the Islamic State with a twisted logic as a civic state. The shadow of the Caliphate was strengthened and its divinity consolidated, in Islamic consciousness, by the ideological struggle and the effort to preserve identity in confronting what is known as ‘westernisation’ and ‘the ideological attack’, and ‘the plundering’, etc. In this way the concept of the ‘Islamic State’ had almost become one of the accepted truths in Islamic consciousness by the end of the seventies and especially after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979.

In spite of the polarisation of Islamic movements around the poles of parliamentary democracy and global radicalism([13]), the political thought is in essence not contradictory with regard to the concept of the ideal state; on the contrary, the disagreement is located in the means of vouchsafing the arrival at an Islamic State.

It is true that this is not a conceptual controversy, but in many cases it ended up by changing into a conceptual coup. To elaborate, the concept of the ‘Islamic State’ changed, and it was abandoned by major Islamic movements such as the ‘Justice and Development’ party in Turkey([14]), followed by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.([15]) These changes indicate that it took almost a whole century for the concept of the ‘Islamic State’ to be rethought outside the framework of the divinity of the Caliphate and for there to be a closer understanding of the concept of the modern state outwith the ideology.

Repercussions (of the Dream)
Conceptual Problems of the Islamic State
The concept of ‘the Islamic State’ has led to a long series of modifications in the concept of ‘the modern State’ drawing out the corners of the state and its roles and political order, although this series of modifications is all founded on two issues: the concept of the Umma and the relationship between religion and state.

i) The Religious Umma and the Geographical Umma
The concept of the Umma [community] for Islamists is the ‘Islamic Umma’, that is, all Muslims in the world, and certainly this political doctrinal concept differs drastically from the concept of the ‘Umma’ in the modern state. This latter concept of the Umma has led to the concept of the country state being considered as a ‘temporary’ state within the framework of the international project (the Caliphate) which is also known as the call to ‘Islamic unity’.

It is true that the practices of many Islamists in a number of countries were not in tune with the international call in practical terms, but it has in any case remained a deep-rooted theoretical idea. We can now see how nationalism is founded from the viewpoint of ‘the doctrine of the necessary’, on the basis that the nationalist state is a reality, and Islam accepts this on the basis that Islam does not impose that which is impossible on Muslims. From this perspective, yes, Islam is clear (‘God burdens no soul with more than it can bear’ [al-Baqarah: 286]. The precept in Islam and amongst Muslims to be one Umma and one state is accepted, settled and recognised by history, but when we disregard this fact for multiple reasons, then at least the unity of the Umma is unflinching, proven by the fact that Muslims everywhere feel that they belong to this Umma. The reality is, however, that we are partly ourselves and partly the single state which lies between heaven and earth.

So, we are not required to stretch our hands and heads to heaven – we do not have the power to do that – and in Islam, whether on the level of individual piety or on the level of the Umma, ‘God burdens no soul with more than it can bear’. The question to be answered is, what is bearable and what is not? Regionalism is a natural thing, and even if it were the case that we Muslims were, for argument’s sake, one single nation, or just short of the mark, all the same the people of Morocco must work in Morocco, and the people of Indonesia must work in Indonesia([16]).

Nevertheless, and in spite of it being a discourse of necessity, this necessity (as is the way with necessities) serves as a powerful basis for a long-term Islamic political intellectual strategy for the shift towards nationalism as a historical fact which must inevitably be recognised.  By accommodating the doctrine as a discourse of necessity, an important step is taken towards grounding nationalism into the political Islamic discourse concerned with it.

There is also a problem produced by the concept of this ‘Islamic Umma’ in the framework of the modern state, and that is the concept of ‘citizenship’. Despite the fact that certain Islamic political parties were theoretically established to deal with citizenship as a source of complete parity amongst the people of the state([17]), their theoretical tenets remained a compromise, which did not rely on a new doctrinal treatment so much as on practical given facts. It was subsequently possible to use these given facts, perceptible in the framework of the political democratic movement, to classify the intellectual and conceptual precepts surrounding citizenship in the modern state. Moreover, perhaps if it had continued, it could have rapidly restored balance to the concept of the modern state in the active Islamic consciousness and curtailed the wastage of long years.

At the same time, in the framework of citizenship, the definition of the ‘Umma’ as ‘the Islamic Umma’ requires a definition of the minorities involved in the framework of the ‘Islamic State’ in general. Many Islamic intellectuals have tried since the beginning of the eighties to rethink the concept of ‘citizenship’ and to take apart the concept of ‘the Dhimmiya’ [non-Muslim monotheistic subjects protected by a duty of care] sometimes by referring it to a historical position([18]), or by establishing a doctrine for it on the basis of the principle of universal equality in the Holy Quran and the Islamic Sharia, or by the interpretation of the verses and texts of the Prophet, or by returning to the famous ‘Sahifat al-Madina’ [Al-Madina Covenant] (al-Turabi and al-Gannouchi).([19])

Fahmi Huwaidi’s book ‘Citizen, not Dhimmis’, may be the first book to undertake the re-evaluation of the concept of the Dhimmiya in the framework of the modern state. Likewise, the contribution of counsellor Tariq al-Beshri in reconstructing the concept of the citizen in ‘the Islamic State’ on a geographical basis, which demands a shift from considering religion as the grounds for citizenship, provides a unique model for approaching the concept of citizenship in the modern state.

‘But all of these are intellectuals, and even if they belong to the general Islamic trend, they are not members of the politically active Islamic movements.  Hence their thoughts have not been immediately embraced by these movements’([20]). Despite their numbers, they do not comprise the majority. The academic thought of Islamic movements in general deals with the issue with a degree of conciliation and contradiction without settling it, particularly since the concept of Dhimmiya has a great doctrinal heritage in the understanding of the Caliphate and legitimate political regulations, and most Islamic religious authorities until now have been reserved about the subject of non-Muslim minorities or ‘non-Muslims in a Muslim society’ (as in the title of the well known book by Dr Yusif al-Qardawi).

Neither, on the other hand, can there be many Islamic movements like ‘the Justice and Development Party’ in Morocco, or ‘The Centre Party’ in Egypt, ‘the Association of Liberal Islamists’ and other movements in Indonesia, the ‘Justice and Development Party’ in Turkey and others, and those in Sudan, where the Islamic-inclined government accepted a constitution guaranteeing equal citizenship for all after signing a peace and government participation agreement with the southern rebel movement whose leadership is predominantly non-Muslim([21]).

Whatever the case, the political concept of the ‘Islamic Umma’ traced back to the understanding of the Caliphate and its divinity is still taking effect on contemporary Islamic political thought, and it is easy to find parallel traditional concepts which conflict with the concept of the citizen, even with the attempt to modernise the traditional concept of religious citizenship in the Caliphate’s state and to transfer it to the modern geographical concept of citizenship. Fahmi Huwaidi – who was the first to write a critical review on the concept of the Dhimmiya, replacing it with the concept of modern citizenship – identified nationalism as follows:

‘…an expression of the essence of the links existing between the empire of Islam and those Muslims and protected Dhimmis who live in this empire’([22]).

The concept of citizenship has remained confusing until today([23]), whilst Salafis and Jihadis talk of disavowing the concept of modern citizenship as a violation of the Islamic Sharia!([24]) It is easy here for us to understand how ‘Al-Qa’ida’, in its political discourse to justify the 11th September attack, relied on the concepts of ‘the Empire of Islam’ and ‘the Empire of the Unbeliever’ (the ‘Fustatin’ stance, as revealed in the first appearance of Bin Laden after the event).

The concept of the religious ‘Umma’ also requires the refusal to commit to fixed borders, for state borders are moveable, stretching with the expansion of Muslims in populated places. This is another paradox that diverges from the concept of the nation and contrasts with the concept of the modern state, even though Islamists’ literature is not generally forthcoming in mentioning this and indeed often ignores it, with the exception of the new Jihadi organisations.

ii) Religion and the State: The State and Religion
One cannot look at Islamic political history as a history of theocratic rule (a religious state), since no one has ruled in the name of the Godhead, rather he ruled in his capacity of representing the Umma, or deputising for it. With the exception of Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi (and perhaps also the ‘Liberation Party’), there is a consensus among Islamists that the Islamic State was never a theocratic state. Instead, the source of authority of the regime was also the source of authority on established religious texts and separate (for the most part) from the rulers. Together these texts comprised an agreed upon source of authority, before which everyone submitted, and even although there have been many attempts throughout history to circumvent them, they are at the heart of the idea of the ‘Caliphate’ as an undisputed source of reference, to whom the headmen and their people submit equally. This was an essential factor in the premature separation of the religious institution from the rulers.

We cannot simplify the Caliphate regime into the form of Imperialism which followed the age of Islam, nor can we say that the Caliphate regime corresponded completely with the modern state with minor differences which may be amended. The truth is that researchers have fallen victim to both of these narrow views, and while modernists are attracted to the first, the Islamists are attracted to the second! It seems to us that the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ is a middle of the road concept, between the two concepts of imperialism and the modern state, and it represents a state of transition towards the modern state. I do not consider it at all unlikely that the representations of the Islamic Caliphate inspired the Europeans and helped them to make the transition towards the modern state, although this whole issue calls for specialised study. However, what is certain in our view is that the Caliphate regime contained some things which the concept of the modern state built upon, and others which formed part of the Farsi and Greek Imperialist legacies. It would not have been possible to arrive at this transmission were it not for the concept of the complete and binding Sharia, distinguished from the human condition. This is what makes the relationship of religion with the state and of the state with religion such a complex one, particularly when taking into account the effects of the Imperialist logic on the Caliphate regime.

The Constitution and ‘Hakimiya’ "governance, which has to be exclusively in the hands of God": The Sentinel State

There is nothing in the Islamic texts (the Holy Quran and the noble Sunna) that can be taken as a basis for the idea that the function of the community’s political entity is ‘the politics of this world and the protection of religion’. This is the saying which defines Al-Imamah in the compounds ‘al-Siyasah al-Shara’iya’ [Sharia Politics] and ‘Ahkam al-Sultaniya’ [Sultanate Rulings], and their associated ethics. Similarly, our political legacy reference books point firmly towards Khasrawi Persian precepts. If we added to that the correspondence in Islamic consciousness between bringing back religion and bringing back the Caliphate (which is clear in the concept of ‘The Islamic State), then we would be faced with a new collection of mutations to the concepts attending ‘the modern state’. At the forefront of these is the concept of ‘Hakimiya’ [governance, which must be exclusively in God’s hands].

The functional role of the state as the ‘sentry of religion’ throws up the issue of ‘God’s Governance’ on the basis that the Islamic Sharia’s sovereignty is equal to the Umma’s sovereignty (by virtue of that being a Muslim Umma). So its sovereignty must be (hypothetically) equal to the sovereignty of Islam. From there it becomes easy to form a contradictory opposition between ‘the People’s Governance and ‘God’s Governance’, which sometimes is extended to the expression ‘Satan’s Governance, versus ‘God’s Governance’!

The appearance of the term ‘Hakimiya’ itself (which was coined by Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi and taken over by Sayyid Qutb), was born of the concept of the Islamic State, its image (which confers the theory of the Caliphate) and its struggle against the secular state (in a doctrinal, not political, sense according to secularism).  Therefore the slogan ‘Application of the Sharia’ arose, as a realisation of Hakimiya. Hence the sensitivity of the secular ruling elite about the Islamists, and their eternal scepticism over the latter’s sincerity in the exercise, seems to have been partly justified. But the Islamists also, despite their collective belief in the necessity of imposing the regulations of the Sharia, differed on the means of achieving this. They dithered between adherence to democracy and welcoming its outcomes, and holding that there should be popular choice, not authoritarian decision-making descending from the highest levels of governments, and between unwillingness to accept that the site of bargaining and decision-making could be an Umma who did not know what their interests were. In general, most Jihadi movements, as well as many of the political Islam movements, tended towards this last logic. There is no doubt that the secular ruling beneficiaries of power have always exploited this idea to topple democracy, or to prevent the Islamists from benefiting from it. This has been demonstrated by the political history of many of the political Islamic Parties and independent Islamists. In spite of their belief in the Governance of the Sharia, they have often been committed to democratic action, and perhaps we are now seeing a clear commitment to democracy by most political Islamic parliamentary movements. Indeed, sometimes the Islamists have engaged in political activity under the umbrella of secular parties (as is the case in Syria during the fifties)([25]).

From the image of the Islamic State’s role as ‘sentry of religion’ a subsequent slogan was created. That was the phrase coined by Imam al-Banna - ‘Our Constitution is the Quran’; a rallying expression, but one which also suggests a reduction in consensual constitutional action. This phrase, which enabled the expression ‘Hakimiya’ to dominate political Islam discourse, led to a sort of nonchalant lack of attention to the constitution, by virtue of it being a document of compromise. The ideologically rallying cry of the ‘Hakimiya’ concept led to the predominance of a tutelary perspective by the Islamic movements (in complete opposition to the tutelary revolutionary perspective in the Arab and Islamic worlds) whose victim was always the Umma itself.([26]) Thus, Islamists talk seldom about the constitution, but talk eternally about the Sharia.([27])

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* Researcher in Islamic Studies, President of the Ideological Forum Club, Syria

[1]- However, this conformity with regard to the substance of political thought does not hold true if applied to the modern Islamic intellectual cultural and social realm. There are real and fundamental differences between modern contemporary Islamic intellectual trends, based on conceptual disagreement over the text, the tools for analysing it, and for viewing the world. In fact, Nassar Abu Zaid made this erroneous generalisation (see ‘Religious Discourse Criticism’, Madbouli Library, Cairo, 4th edition, 2003).

[2]- I believe that the expression ‘Wali’ itself is an indicator that Mumammad Ali did not initially think of the concept of the ‘modern state’.

[3]- ‘State’[Dawla]  here is not meant in the modern sense, but rather in its traditional sense, used as closely as possible to its linguistic meaning, i.e. ‘al-Diyala aw al-Dawlan’, or to the meaning of what is now called ‘the political regime’. Within these limitations, phrases such as ‘Dawlat Bani Marwan’, ‘Dawlat Bani al-Ahmar’ and ‘Dawlat Bani al-Abbas’ can be expressed without surpassing this meaning. At the same time we find concepts that describe the political entity in the titles ‘kingdom’, ‘wilaya’, ‘principality’, ‘caliphate’, ‘empire of the caliphate’, and ‘empire of Islamic’

[4]- By this I mean Ibn Khaldun’s theory on the conditions of the state.

[5]- This may point to the writings of Rashid Ridha on the concept of Democracy and Shura and their conformity before the collapse of the Ottoman State.

[6]- The Shura, presented by the Islamists to counter democracy, took its form according to cultural and historical conditions, and it began with ‘governing the community’ and ended with the idea of ‘Ahl al-Hal wa al-Aqd [Those who loose and bind] which brought together a select few, and the characteristics of which are unclear.  When the political factions restored the Shura, it was invoked to legitimise the idea of the constitution. However it always remained restricted by opposition from despotism (not all despotism!), and by the Ahl al-Hal wa al-Aqd. The ‘Consensus’ remained the consensus of the elite not the consensus of the community.  (Radwan al-Sayyid, ‘The Crisis of Arab Political Thought’, in collaboration with the Ideological Centre, Damascus, 1st edition, 2001).

[7]- See reference 8.

[8]- Other hybrid concepts arose which were unsuccessful because they were less of a marker for the contemporary, such as al-Sanhuri’s term ‘state of the caliphate’.

[9]- ‘Sharia Politics or the Regime of the Islamic State’, by ‘Abd al-Wahab Khalaf, fifth edition, Beirut, Lebanon, Institute of Writing, 1993.

[10]- Imam al-Bana says for example that the goal of the Islamic Movement (the Muslim Brotherhood) is: ‘to set up in this free land a free Islamic State which operates under the regulations of Islam, applies its social order, proclaims its fundamental nationalist concepts, and informs the people of its rightful calling…’ (See – The Treatises).

[11]- See researcher’s article - ‘Islamists and the Islamic Political Regime: A representation of the state and the shadow of the Caliphate’, al-Hayat newspaper, no. 5 March, 2005.

[12]- Al-Bana mentions in his treatises that: ‘the Muslim recognises the political entity that links his progeny with a common history and considers that this land is his own nation by virtue of actuality and of membership, but he does not comply with geographical borders or territorial frontiers because for him the borders of the nation are governed by faith which extends all over the earth where Muslims associate’. (‘Al-Bana, source previously cited, collection of treatises.)

[13]- It is of course not strange that we see historical concepts linked to the Caliphate regime resurrected by Jihadi movements who call for the Islamic State. Examples of this are the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan, and the Madrid bombings (explosions in the metro on 11 March 2004).

[14]- See ‘Secularism, religion and the state in Turkey: is it a model to be emulated in the Arab World?’, Muhammad Nur ad-Din, paper submitted for the conference ‘Human Rights and the Renewal of Religious Discourse; How can the Arab World benefit from the experiences of the non-Arab Islamic World?’, Alexandria, 18-20 April 2006, Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies. See the paper at the following site:

http://www.almultaka.net/home.php?subaction=showfull&id=1147841459&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&

[15]- There is also now the Islamic Syrian ‘Justice and Construction’ movement which announced itself at the beginning of May 2006. It also tends towards this trend

[16]- Ahmed al-Raisuni (on al-Jazeera, 7/8/2005, programme on the Sharia and life, series called ‘Global Islam’, former head of the Moroccan ‘Justice and Development Party’. See link:

http://www.aljazeera.net/Channel/archive/archive?ArchiveID=132848

See also: Fadi Shamia, ‘Direct Means of Rightly Guided Government’, introduction by Faisal Mawlawi, first edition, 2005.

[17]- Especially pertinent here is the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Dr Mustafa al-Saba’ai, the first public observer, suggested the following to a Constitutional Committee in the Founding Council for the Syrian parliament in 1950: ‘Citizens have equal rights, and a citizen cannot reach the highest positions in the state on grounds of religion, gender or language.’ See the proposed text in the Muslim Brotherhood document on ‘Reform in Syria’ in the al-Atasi Society (2005), at link (p16 of the dossier): http://www.syria-ews.com/files/The%20dialogue%20of%20the%20reform%20in%20Syria.zip

[18]- See: Muhammad Salim al-‘Awa, ‘the Political Order in Islam’. According to al-Awa, the position of non-Muslims in the traditional Islamic state was based on their status as subjects of the Islamic conquest. However non-Muslims became full partners in the membership of the modern state when they participated in the struggle for liberation.

[19]- Rashid al-Gannouchi mentions that it was no longer necessary to use the term ‘People of the Thimma’ [protected monotheistic non-Muslims] in Islamic political thought, so long as integration was achieved amongst citizens, and the state was established on the basis of citizenship, or equal rights and duties.  Gannouchi cites the first Islamic State, when ‘the Sahifa [covenant] laid down by the Prophet (peace be upon him) came across certain problems, such as the problem of citizenship. It considers everyone, irrespective of their religious affiliations, to be one Umma [one community], and that is the political Umma whose members take part in the common administration in all circumstances’. (Rights of the citizen, 1989)

[20]- ‘Abdul Wahab al-Effendi, ‘The Islamists and the Concept of Citizenship’, al-Jazeera.net,  al-Ma’arifa page, 26/04/2006, see link: http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/36249DEE-D54E-4F04-8ABD FDBBD602C8.htm?NRMODE=published&wbc_purpose=Basic

[21]- Ibid.

[22]- Quoted from: Khalid Bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz al-Sharida, ‘Forging Citizenship in a Changing World: An Insight into Social Policy’, paper presented for a meeting with leaders of educational action in the Ministry of Education and Teaching,  Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, al-Baha, 2005, p4. See the paper at link: http://www.informatics.gov.sa/ebook/redirect.php?dlid=24

[23]- See the previous reference.

[24]- Muhammad Qutb (in his book ‘Contemporary Intellectual Beliefs’, 1983) goes as far as criticising the concepts of nationalism and the ‘homeland’ as being western constructs, saying ‘nationalism means that all of the people of one nation feel allegiance and zealousness towards it, no matter what their origins or the nationalities they are descended from’. Concepts of nationalism and the ‘homeland’, he continues, ‘were produced by the west in order to exterminate the Islamic Jihadi trend against colonialism and to be subsequently converted into nationalist movements which could be transformed into nationalist political forces which would be easier to deal with because they did not use the language of Jihad. Significantly, this imported trend was born in the house of the British High Commissioner to be a substitute for the Islamic flag.  This intellectual path means in simple terms that the participant who takes part in your homeland is closer to you than the Muslim who belongs to another’  (p588)

Some of the Salafis stipulate in the concept of citizenship ‘faith in the one God without polytheism’, and others stipulate determinant ethical conditions. (see the previous source, p5).

[25]- The Syrian Islamists in the fifties did not find a problem in political secularism, and many of them engaged in political activity under the banner of ‘the People’s Party’ (Liberal Conservative), such as Ma’aruf al-Duwalibi, and the scholar Mustafa al-Zarqa, and the jurisprudent expert Fawzi Fayyad Allah, and others.

[26]- Radwan as-Sayyid points to this paradox. At a time when the Jihadi Islamists abandoned the faith of the ‘Umma’ in Islam, the ‘Sharia’ was assuming in the Islamists’ consciousness something akin to ‘the ideology of the elite’, rallying to bring back Islam, not only to power, but also to the consciousness of the masses. Hence the concepts of the ‘Jahlia of the Umma’ [ignorance, as in the days of pre-Islam], and the ‘sovereignty’ of the Quran were born and established in the midst of this struggle. The Sharia became an ideological criterion (faith of the community or lack of it), and there were still no compromises! (See Radwan as-Sayyid, ‘The Crisis in Arab Political Thought’, previous source.

[27]- For example, in his book ‘The doctrinal role of the Islamic State: Methodological Study in the Political Theory’ (forwarded by Mustafa Mashur and Mahmud Abu al-Sa’ud, Islamic publishing house and distribution, Cairo, first edition, 1993), Hamed ‘Abd al-Majid does investigate the constitution at all, as though the subject were not important.