Muslim Nostalgia Won’t Bring a Renaissance

“Muslims had a golden age, ruled the world and created a great civilization when they lived under an Islamic caliphate that ruled by Islamic law. In modern times, imperialism succeeded in overthrowing the caliphate and polluting the minds of Muslims with Western ideas when they fell on hard times and were weak and backward. The only way to bring about a Muslim renaissance is to restore the Islamic caliphate.”

I’ve often heard this line from preachers in mosques and from members of Islamist groups, and no doubt many people in Egypt and the Arab world believe the argument, which makes it necessary to discuss it. The fact is that Islam really did create a great civilization for the world, and for centuries Muslims excelled in every field of human endeavor—art, philosophy, and even chemistry, algebra, and geometry. I remember when I was studying Spanish literature in Madrid and we were being taught Andalusian history, and at the start of his lecture the professor realized there were three Arab students in the class. He smiled and said: “You should be proud of the civilization your ancestors achieved in Andalusia.” The first part of the argument, the part about the greatness of Islamic civilization, is quite correct. The problem lies in the second part. Did the successive Islamic dynasties apply the principles of Islam, either in the way they came to power, the way that power changed hands, or the way they treated their subjects? A reading of Islamic history suggests otherwise.

After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Islamic world experienced good governance for only 31 years, the sum of the lengths of the reigns of the four “rightly guided” caliphs—Abu Bakr, Omar ibn al-Khattab, Othman bin Affan, and Ali bin Abi Talib—plus the reign of the Umayyad caliph Omar bin Abdel Aziz, who ruled for only two years in the early eigth century. Out of 14 centuries, there are just 31 years when there was sound and equitable government in line with the real principles of Islam. For the rest of Islamic history, government was not at all in accordance with religious principles. Even during the best 31 years there were shortcomings on the part of Caliph Othman, who did not treat Muslims equally but favored his relatives with jobs and grants. In the end, people rebelled against him and killed him. Not only that, but they attacked his funeral, got hold of his body, and manhandled it, crushing one of his ribs. Then there was the great civil war that divided Muslims into three camps—Sunnis, Shiis, and Kharijites—and which ended in the murder of Ali bin Abi Talib, a great and learned Muslim who was close to the Prophet, at the hands of Abdel Rahman bin Muljam the Kharijite. Muawiya bin Sufyan then set up a despotic and bloody system of government and forced people to pledge allegiance to his son, Yazid, as his heir, abolishing forever the right of Muslims to choose their rulers and changing the caliphate from an office to ensure justice into a predatory kingship.

Anyone who reads the history of the Umayyad dynasty will be surprised to learn that the Umayyads had no scruples about committing the most heinous crimes in order to stay in power. At the battle of Harra, the Umayyads attacked the city of Madina and killed many of the inhabitants to subdue them. Caliph Abdel Malek bin Marwan sent an army under Hajjaj bin Youssef to subjugate Abdallah bin al-Zubair, who had rebelled against Umayyad rule and taken a stand in the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Hajjaj surrounded Mecca with his army and damaged the Kaaba by shooting boulders at it with catapults. He then stormed the mosque and killed Abdallah bin al-Zubair inside it. Everything was legitimate in order to stay in power, even attacking the Kaaba, the most sacred place in Islam. If we then move on to the Abbasid dynasty, we come across further massacres by which the Abbasids seized and retained power. The Abbasids tracked down and killed all the Umayyads without charge or trial. They dug up the graves of the Umayyad caliphs and desecrated their bodies out of vengeance. The second Abbasid caliph, Abu Jaafar al-Mansour, killed his uncle Abdallah in case he might challenge his authority. He then turned against Abu Muslim al-Khorasani, the architect of the Abbasid revolution, and killed him. The first Abbasid caliph was Aboul Abbas al-Saffah, who acquired the nickname Saffah (butcher) because of the number of people he killed. In one famous story he gathered together the remaining Umayyad princes and ordered them executed in front of his eyes. He then had their bodies covered with a carpet, called for food, and proceeded to eat and drink while the princes were still in their death throes beneath. Then he said: “By God, I’ve never had such a delicious meal.”

With the exception of a few kings who were famous for their piety, most of the Umayyad and Abbasid kings drank alcohol openly with their companions every night. So the philosophy of government had nothing at all to do with religion. On the contrary, it was a ruthless and bloody struggle for power, influence and wealth in which they shrank at nothing, not even attacking and damaging the Kaaba. So don’t speak to us about good Islamic governance based on sharia because over a period of 1400 years that existed for only 31. The question here is the difference between good Islamic governance, which lasted only a few years, and this long history of despotism in the name of Islam. It’s the difference between justice and injustice, between democracy and despotism.

Real Islam practiced modern democracy many centuries before the West practiced it. The Prophet refrained from choosing a successor to govern the Muslims, and merely delegated Abu Bakr to lead them in prayer in his place; as if he were sending a signal that he favored Abu Bakr as his successor, but without depriving Muslims of their right to choose their ruler. When the Prophet died, the leaders of the Muslim community gathered in Madina to choose a caliph. In modern parlance, this was a parliamentary meeting in which representative Muslims discussed the matter and then chose Abu Bakr to assume office. Abu Bakr made a speech in which he said: “People, I have been chosen to govern you, but I am not the best among you. Obey me as long as I obey God and His Prophet, but if I disobey them, you owe me no obedience.” This sermon was in effect a new constitution defining the relationship between the ruler and the citizens, like the best democratic constitutions. Notice here that Abu Bakr did not say that he was the successor of God and he did not speak about any divine right to govern. He merely said he was one of the people—not the best of them. This democratic concept, which is the essence of Islam, would continue for a few years, and then change into another incompatible concept—the idea that the ruler is the shadow of God on earth. As Muawiya himself said, “The earth is God’s and I am God’s successor. What I take is mine, and if I leave something for others, I do so as a favor.” Abu Jaafar al-Mansour said: “People, we are now your rulers and your protectors. We govern you in the name of God, who granted us this authority. I am God’s successor on His earth and the protector of His wealth.” Abdel Malik bin Marwan, preaching from the Prophet’s own pulpit, said: “By God, if anyone orders me to be pious after I’ve stood here, I’ll break his neck.”

The democratic concept, which represents the essence of Islam, changed into government by divine right, where opponents are considered infidels and apostates who must be killed. For the sake of fairness, we should recall two facts at this point. Firstly, the caliphs who came to power through murder and conspiracies were often competent rulers who ran the Muslim state well and built it into a vast empire. But their way of taking and retaining power can in no way be seen as a model that is compatible with the principles of Islam. Secondly, bloody struggles for power were not confined to Muslim rulers in that age. The same thing happened in Europe between those trying to usurp and retain the throne. The difference is that Westerners now consider those bloody struggles to be a phase that had to be gone through in order to reach democracy, while there are still some Arabs and Muslims who advocated a return to the Islamic caliphate and claim that it was just government that followed the law of God. The appalling history of political struggle in Islamic countries is available and well-known and it could hardly be further from the real law of Islam. I have been puzzled by this strange call to restore the caliphate and I have found that those enthusiastic about the idea fall into two groups. Some of them are people who have never read Islamic history or have read it but avoided seeing the truth because their religious feelings have overwhelmed them. On top of revering Islam, they now revere Islamic history itself and try to re-imagine it in a way it never was. The second group calling for a caliphate are members of political Islam groups who play on the religious feelings of simple people in order to obtain power. They usually give you a choice: either you accept their fanciful image of the caliphate or they accuse you of being a secularist and an enemy of Islam. Either you help bring them to power by spreading lies and delusions about history or else they will call you an infidel and bring a sword down on your neck at any moment.

The essence of Islam is justice, freedom and equality. This essence was accomplished for a short period when the principles of democracy were adopted. But for the rest of the history of Islamic government there were no principles or ideals, just a bloody struggle for power in which everything was legitimate, even attacking and damaging the Kaaba. This is the truth, whether we like it or not. But trying to produce an imaginary history of the Islamic caliphate will be no more than concocting mental images that may be attractive but unfortunately are unreal, like the images Cervantes described in Don Quixote when the old hero lives in the past, so engrossed in reading ancient books that he is overcome by an urge to be a knight, at a time when the age of chivalry was over. He puts on his armor, draws his sword, and imagines that the windmills are enemy armies that he attacks and tries to conquer.

The only way to bring about a renaissance is to apply the real principles of Islam: freedom, justice, and equality. This can be achieved only though a civic state where all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of religion, gender, and color.