Foundations of Islamic Governance by Malik Maszlee;

Author:Malik, Maszlee;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

7

Architectonics of Islamic governance

Locating the axioms, foundational principles and working mechanism

“Allah commands you to deliver the trusts to those to whom they are due; and whenever you judge between people, judge with justice….”

(Al-Qur’an, 4:58)

Introduction

For centuries, most classical and contemporary Islamic scholars have intensively and widely utilized the legal positivistic fiqhi method when dealing with Islamic political or economic issues. For most of them, the rationale behind this was that the nature of those things was part of the Shari’ah body of legislation. This is simply due to the classical usul al-fiqh’s (Islamic jurisprudence) deductive method, which was/has been adopted as a major prevailing discourse in establishing the status of fiqh, in legislating most human affairs. This normative legal positivist method inspired the establishment of governance institutions in the past. Consequently, contemporary neo-Classical literalists have frequently echoed this classical approach. Upon such idealism, current global Islamic revivalism has ignited a kind of consciousness by redeveloping a ‘utopia’ of a fiqh- oriented Islamic ‘state’ or ‘commonwealth’ as an ideal model of ‘Islamic’ governance. This situation has resulted in a call for the resurrection of archaic mechanisms and structures of the classical administrations of Muslim empires to be transformed into a reality. Nevertheless, any thorough scrutiny of the classical governance models of the past will show that they were developed according to the particular context of the time.

For instance, Omar, the second righteous Caliph according to Muslim history, emulated many Persian administrations in his style of governance. Accordingly, succeeding Caliphs and rulers have followed his example. This dynamic, but non-systematic attitude implies the pivotal role of ijtihad and reasoning in formulating the governance models historically. The dynamism, however, gravitated toward certain core principals and immutable foundations in creating the fiqhi-inspired theory of political governance. Hence, any literal imitation of the classical structures of governance, without understanding their underlying philosophy or objectives, will end up in imposing a utopia onto reality. For this reason, this research will adopt a non-conventional way of dealing with the governance issue when developing an ideal Islamic model.

As was discussed at length in the previous chapter, the approach applied in this book to formulate a new model of Islamic governance will be inspired by and founded on a specific Islamic ontological-determined epistemology instead of emulating the classical normative legal discourse to explain the nature of Islamic governance.

Appropriately, this model will be articulated through logical expression by using axiomatic formulation to explain its philosophy and fundamentals so that its working mechanism can be identified. Bachelard (1964) maintains that ideas can be conceptualized genuinely in a geometric form, which he believes to be the most proper language to validate and soundly explain itself. He adds that mathematical expression is the best language to express concepts and ideas, for exact scientific concepts can be conceptualized through mathematical forms. Consequently, the expression of philosophical or ideological ideas through mathematical or geometrical language will present the best proof of the fact that intellectual ideas are logical and scientific as opposed to conventional philosophies and

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