Faith, Reason and Statecraft in Contemporary Islam: Interpretations, Interface and Distortions

Muhammad Feyyaz

doi:10.32350/jitc.31.04

Abstract

Role of reason in faith and statecraft in Islam is the central feature that this article attempts to investigate. The underlying argument that constitutes the premise of the paper is the suggestion that faith and reason are mutually amenable, and their sustained bondage is essential for forward movement of the state, its citizenry and the statecraft. A key question being looked at is whether or not intellectual movement in Islam is experiencing stagnation or otherwise. Following a systematic enquiry pathway, the discourse thereforeexamines how, to what extent, and for how long reason has guided development of Islamic jurisprudence and political thought with contingent bearing upon direction of the state and statecraft until contemporary Muslim environment. Among others, the discussion engages with controversies surrounding ijtihad as well as the question of Islam versus modernity with necessary reference to secularism. The paper concludes by resolving the issues raised.

Highlights

Religious and anti-religious people alike habitually ask about reason – faith linkage from time to time, partly because it has a deceptively simple meaning and partly because, as it stands, it is a vague question, it refers to something of vital, burning importance with which every believer, in every religious tradition, has to come to terms with over the course of his religious life.[1]
Intriguing enough, the analysis finds that the majority of states which declare separationist or secularist-laicist policies in their constitutions do not adhere to these provisions perhaps implying tacit role of religion in politics
PostIslamism is the emerging buzzword resonating in intellectual reformation confines, which has been characterized by thinking in some major Islamic religio-political and politicoreligious movements on how to combine Islam with the values of modernity by embracing the idea that modern values are inherent in Islam.[134]

Summary

Why this Discourse?

Religious and anti-religious people alike habitually ask about reason – faith linkage from time to time, partly because it has a deceptively simple meaning and partly because, as it stands, it is a vague question, it refers to something of vital, burning importance with which every believer, in every religious tradition, has to come to terms with over the course of his religious life.[1]. 62 Significantly, Muslim modernists draw a conceptual parallel to indicate structural resilience of the state by arguing that the whole quest of creating an Islamic form of government [though] must always be in the style of the model of the first Islamic state established at Medina, but not in form rather in higher spiritual purpose of life.[63] systemically statecraft in Islam can be reckoned close to politics that in Arabic is translated as 'siyasa' [or siyasah] which denotes the manner in which a ruler tends and manages his subjects, based on the way that a shepherd tends his flock, which is the primal metaphor of revealed siyasa.[64] An important aspect that has to be kept in view is that fiqh which is the domain of jurists and ulama, has not and cannot work in isolation from 'siyasah' (the operation of legal system i.e., statecraft). The structure of an Islamic legal system arises most essentially from the complex interaction of these two institutions – siyasah and ruler on the one hand, and fiqh and the ulama on the other, the indispensability of siyasah cannot be neglected. 65

Fundamental Muslim Schools and their Traditions

Conclusions

Selected Bibliography