Incoherence
Islam, Power, and the Nation-State
Eesa Ansari
Introduction: Primordial Truths and Modern Blindness
In John Steinbeck’s classic novel East of Eden, we are introduced quite early on to two half-brothers, Charles and Adam, who serve to contrast one another. Charles, despite being a year younger, is shown to be not only the stronger of the two but also the more intelligent; he tends to outshine his brother by any measurable metric. Yet, at the same time, Charles is shown to be cruel, selfish, and relatively jaded towards the world. Beyond this, Adam is shown to not only value life, but is also valued himself. While Charles craves the love of their father, it is shown that it is Adam who receives it, because while Charles may be more alluring on paper, Adam is in possession of something far greater than any physical characteristic. Some may simply say that Adam has a heart, and as he loves life, he is given love in return. Charles eventually attempts to kill Adam, envious of the love he received. Of course, you have undoubtedly heard this story before in some regard, as Charles and Adam are very poignant allusions to the biblical Cain and Abel, and it is perhaps through this reframing that we can garner an understanding of one interpretation of what the story of Cain and Abel, or Qabil and Habil, may be communicating to us today. Put simply: “All that glitters is not gold.”
There comes a point in any study of history where it becomes easy to get lost in the reeds, to find a tangle of murky details with little discernible story, and to keep searching until one finds themself at the present day with little to show for it, knowing what events led us here but not knowing how we got here. For this purpose, sometimes it becomes useful to discern history through a specific lens and craft a story, or at least part of one, from that point. Yet, even in this regard, modern histories are often over-compartmentalized and lacking in some regard. Simply put, we look at symptoms but often ignore the root cause. It is here where one might attempt to craft a spiritual narrative of history, which, of course will also weave together other areas of study but still attempt to remain rooted in a unified epistemology; if we are to claim belief in a higher power, then would it not make some sense to craft our history in relation to Him? But, I hear you asking, what does this have to do with Steinbeck? Moreover, what purpose do Cain and Abel have in our history apart from, presumably, taking part in it? The point is that amongst the first humans on this Earth came forth a primordial truth, such being that our station, our strength, in this world is not necessarily reflective of our station in the hereafter. To hark once more unto Steinbeck’s interpretation, we can view Charles as a stand-in for many things, which may be ever-changing themselves. To some, Charles is modernity; to some, he is humanism; to some, he is simply wealth or power; or to others, he is the worldly life (dunya) in general. But what does not change, or what should not change, is the position of Adam, who is representative of the true guiding light, the primordial tradition, and it is upon this that we should base much on, specifically, law and nations, as this paper is concerned.
The unfortunate truth, which we find ourselves facing today, is the reality of the post-colonial stage (if we are to concede that there is such a thing as post-colonial). This reality, as such, is post-colonial insofar as it is post-destruction, and no one destruction may have been more impactful than that of our institutions, because it is from these institutions that we derived knowledge, and more importantly, knowledge based upon an epistemology which was our own. It is now that our knowledge, our basis of life, is not our own, and as such, it is no wonder that our goals and, as an extension, our societies are lost within themselves. As Fanon bluntly stated, “for the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.” (Fanon, 12) I fear our destiny to be the same.
The Modern State as Epistemic Break
To many of us today, the state and the nation are two near-metaphysical identities, and I would even venture to claim that the predominant view of the state is that in which it forms the collective actualization of the nation. Indeed, many of us take on the national view of the German romantics, wherein the nation attains its own individuality, complete with a supposed unified will and destiny which it seeks to fulfill (Kohn, 446). More importantly, national culture is such that it is based upon not only language (with some exceptions), but also a unified history; indeed, one can argue that the history of a nation is at times more a mythology. Indeed, as Benedict Anderson points out in his seminal work Imagined Communities, despite the personhood we ascribe to a nation, the nation is not an individual and as such does not have a discernible birth or life-cycle; the rectification of this dilemma being to fashion a story ‘up-time’ towards a certain point in history, setting forth a historical ideal (Anderson, 205). Take, for example, the American Revolution, and the near-deific status that has been ascribed to the so-called “Founding Fathers,” especially names such as Washington and Jefferson. Indeed, much modern political discourse revolves around what these figures would have wanted, or what they intended in regards to the United States. Beyond this, we can look towards national considerations such as Catalonia or Kurdistan, where populations feel a need for their own state, largely due to presumed (and often real) encroachments by the state or nation where they currently reside. With this said, among the diverse peoples of the world, one preeminent unifying facet of the epistemology of a nation is its history, as was previously stated, which is in itself problematic, as society is then cast as not progressing towards something, but rather “emanating” from something. In this manner, as was described in regards to United States politics, the past becomes the ideal which the present must honor in some capacity. For the German romantics, this time was the Middle Ages, regardless of the actual historical record, and of course, for many so-called “Muslim states,” that time would be the time of the Prophet ﷺ and his companions (Kohn, 446). However, this view does not necessarily mix well with statecraft, especially in regards to the law, as we will soon see.
While this idea of society as being organized from a point may seem natural to the modern man, Wael Hallaq points out in his work Impossible State that for much of human existence on the planet many cultures have sorted their history in the opposite manner; he describes this as an eschatological framework in which we progress towards a point (for Abrahamic faiths we can imagine end times and a final Day of Judgment) which then creates a narrative of life as a series of conscious moral choices (Hallaq, 21). With this framing in mind, morality is put at the forefront of the human experience, which Hallaq defines as refraining from an action because one cannot allow oneself to live with the consequences (Hallaq, 14). In contrast, our current paradigm, which flips the narrative, has humanity working towards not a point but an abstract, which Hallaq simply calls the “doctrine of progress.” This progress, believed as such to be the ultimate goal of a society, is self-affirming and, as such, Hallaq argues, is a god in that it forms its own authority (Hallaq, 21). This forms an epistemic basis, among others, of the modern nation-state: that the state is the most efficient means of allowing the nation to achieve its desired goal and progress. Hallaq defines a modern state himself later on as consisting of five parts; however, for the purposes of this paper, the two that will be discussed are the state’s constitution as a relatively local and specific historical experience, as well as the legislative monopoly of the state (which Hallaq links with a monopoly on violence as well) (Hallaq, 26).
To begin with the former, we have already established the mythologies of nations as a historical experience, and this too bleeds into the state. The concept of citizenship, for example, is in many ways an homage to the population history or the historical personage that constitutes the state. This is often where nativist or anti-immigrant sentiments arise from, which transcends religious and even ethnic lines; Pakistan’s deportation of nearly 1 million Afghans between 2023 and 2025, many of whom share both ethnic and religious patronage with a sizeable portion of the Pakistani population, can be seen as an example of the phenomenon. It is important to note that already this concept of citizenship is an adoption of Western norms, and it would be anachronistic to claim any precedence in Islamic law of citizenship; indeed, arguably the first use-case of what we consider citizenship would be during the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire, where citizenship was extended to all subjects regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation. As we can see, and as Hallaq much more eloquently and masterfully explains, the concept of an “Islamic state” as we might know it is already on faulty ground. The states that we know, and that modernity has brought, are in many ways inherently opposed to Islam itself, which in theory should transcend racial or ethnic boundaries, based on both Quranic and Hadith evidence (Qur’an 49:13). In contrast, how the modern state operates as seeking the self-interest of a particular nation even at the expense of others reinforces not Islamic but Humanist principles. From a Subject-Object perspective the nation must view itself as the subject in order to secure itself, and the people it serves will thus be the subject as well whilst other populations are simply an experience of the nation; in the so-called “Islamic world” we might look at the treatment of migrant workers in the Arabian Gulf, or even Turkish-Israeli collaboration in the Azerbaijani onslaught of Armenia; in these cases, self-interest and personal preservation are the main determinants, not any question of a higher purpose or atonement in the hereafter. As the self-interest of the modern state has now been established to some degree, we must now consider its interest in regards to its own people, and it is from here that the law of the state plays a role. While it would be out of this paper’s scope to examine the laws of every state in the Islamicate, I will rather attempt to describe how we approach the law, and more importantly, how we think about Islamic law in particular.
To begin thinking about the law, we must first consider its purpose. In an Islamic context, it is not uncommon to move towards a function-follows-form explanation for the law, in the sense that the law is divinely ordained through either the Quran or the Hadith, and it is also not uncommon to see, especially in the modern day, literalist interpretations placed directly into a certain code of law for a Muslim state. The idea, in this case, being that the law must be ethical because it comes from God, but this line of thinking errs in the sense that by placing Islamic rulings in a relatively strict legal system, especially compared to previous fatwa systems, Islamic law is not Islamic law as it is intrinsically changed. To expound on this point, one could consider the epistemic purpose of Islamic law as being to enforce an ethical society, as the Prophet ﷺ himself stated that “Verily, I have only been sent to perfect righteous character,” and due to this the fatwa system was very much case-by-case, to the extent that the Ottoman empire, for example, had not only different courts at a time for each madhhab, but also court systems for religious minorities to live by their own rulings (Musnad Ahmad 8952, Gör 212). When placed into the constitution or legal system of a modern-day nation-state, however, the basis of the law becomes determining, or more importantly, defining criminality. By this process, Islamic law, as we know it, sees a significant modal shift from regulating an ethical society to enforcing a perceived normative behavior. To call upon an extreme manifestation of this phenomenon, we can turn to Pakistan’s 1979 Ordinance on Zina (The Offence of Zina Ordinance, No.VII of 1979). In this instance, Pakistan’s Ordinance categorized rape as a form of zina (extramarital sex) and, as such, also placed the same requirements of providing four witnesses upon victims as rape as would normally be placed upon one accusing another of zina (Quraishi, 403). Of course, the nature of rape as an often solitary crime made this quite difficult, which was already concerning, yet the problem becomes more harrowing when also accounting for the fact that the courts generally took pregnancy as a sign of sexual action occurring. What this resulted in was victims of rape, upon getting pregnant, actually being charged for adultery under the zina ordinance, and subsequently arrested– amongst these cases are one in which a fifteen year old girl, Jehan Mina, was forced to give birth in prison after being convicted when she was unable to provide the required witnesses to prove her rape case (Quraishi, 407). We must, when faced with these facts and when reading through the horrifying accounts of suffering, ask ourselves what it is that Islam stands for. Is the Islam I know one that punishes the victim, whilst allowing the perpetrator to walk free and unharmed? Certainly not. So, in what world could we call such a law, or even the legal system that created it, Islamic? This, of course, is an extreme case, but we must ask ourselves what makes something Islamic and what makes something the opposite. Just because something is theoretically derived from an Islamic basis (in this case, zina) cannot, and should not, endear us to it any more than any other form of law if it fails to fulfill the basic tenets of justice and human dignity. The legal systems which we see, based often upon a specific constitution or strict legal codes, are modernist concepts insofar as they suffer from the same plight which the French scholar Foucault noted in his work Discipline and Punish; that being that the justice system of the modern state serves more to rectify deviant behavior than it does to judge and rectify the actions of the individual. In the case of the Ordinance on Zina, one might look at the mere act of speaking out against sexual assault, or bringing attention to societal dishonor, as itself the deviance; this charge is only strengthened when considering that not only did the police in Pakistan threaten women with charges of zina when they tried to lodge cases of rape, but also there are multiple cases of the police sexually assaulting women themselves, including those in their custody who had been sexually assaulted before and charged after trying to lodge cases (Quraishi, 407). Indeed, the Ordinance on Zina proves to be a particularly dark example of the attempt to graft Islam onto the apparatus of the modern state, and shows in particular the way in which the true root of Islam has been subsumed to an aesthetic meant not to direct, but rather to justify the actions of an unjust society. The selfishness of the modern state is in its insatiable thrust for dominance, even over that nation which it serves, and in setting a normative for that nation it then seeks its way to enforce that, and in the context of an “Islamic” state like Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (both close allies of the United States), the answer comes in creating an Islam fashioned for the citizen, theoretically steeped in its own culture, and unassailable in its supposed connection to the divine; this then creates a model citizen, and allows the state to maintain its veneer of benevolence regardless of its own actions. We should not be fooled, and must understand that even “our” nation-states will still act as nation-states, and we live in a time where religion is not the end, but rather a means by which to achieve it.
Conclusion: Toward a Reclaimed Epistemology
To say that our current condition is bleak would perhaps be an understatement; indeed, it would seem that we are faced with an enemy which is unassailable in that it is in many ways rooted in ourselves, derived from our own desires. The hand of progress latches on to us, beckoning forth with promises of riches; our current state is theoretically pious and teleologically wicked. One might go so far as to say that the version of Islam which we practice has become so entrenched in abstracting piety so as to serve the whims of elites that it has been neutered of its revolutionary potential. While there may be some truth in such a claim, it would be in itself a disservice to the true plurality of our religion, as well as the revolutionary nature of its message which is itself transcendent and eternal in its cosmic reality.
In our march towards the basic Islamic tenet of “[enjoining] good and [forbidding] evil” (Quran 3:110), there are two tenets which I believe give some inspiration in this time. The first amongst these is Karbala, and the martyrdom of Hussain. The second is the hadith, wherein the Prophet ﷺ states that “even if the resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it” (Musnad Ahmad 12902). In regards to the former, we must question ourselves the theological implication of the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, not very long into our history, being martyred in a battle which was in many ways against an insurmountable foe, and doing so against not any tyrant, but one who claimed the crown of Islam. This ties to the second, because the hadith is not just about the sapling, not just about the trees. Rather, it serves as a testament to the basic call to do any bit of good which we can in this life, even if it seems ultimately futile. That is our call, our duty on this Earth. Beware anyone who is enriched, who lives well amidst the suffering.
Islam is not a religion for the elite, for the wealthy, but it is one which reinforces and reaffirms the basic rights of all humanity. When we look at our history and at the message of Islam, this much is apparent. Be it the Maliki jurists who pioneered the expansion of divorce rights through defining dharar, or the basic concept of maslaha (common good), or the Muslim slaves leading rebellions against their Spanish masters, or the sufi sheikhs rallying their followers against the French, or the Iranian people rallying against the yoke of colonial oppression, or Zayd Ibn Ali’s martyrdom against Umayyad tyranny, or the Prophet’s ﷺ first followers who came from amongst the poor and the slaves, or the concept of zakat, or even the basic idea of equality between believers, and that there is none who is superior aside from their faith, Islam has always in its essence been a theology deeply rooted in liberation tied to recognition of the intrinsic truth of the human condition. You cannot tie Islam to a power structure, or a code of law, because you cannot police faith itself.
And it is here where we must reconcile with the fact that Islam has in very many ways been subsumed into a system of global capitalism, and that our normative version of Islam in many ways entrenches this system. We must consider, for example, the way in which our messaging regarding wealth has become Christianized into an Islamic doctrine of progress, wherein charity is put over attainment, where the focus becomes shifted from communal organization to private practice. Why is it that the hijab, or gender segregation, or the LGBT movement becomes means for “mobilization” of the community, but BDS is in many cases a conversation that is treated as too complex? Why is it that Dubai is treated as a case of Muslim excellence, with its Western architecture and slave society, with its funding of colonial wars, simply because Muslims are at the top of the capitalist pyramid (even if Muslims are at the bottom as well)? Moreover, why is it that the seemingly most conservative Islamic states (Saudi, Pakistan, etc) are deeply entrenched and aligned with global United States foreign policy? The only conclusion that can be found is that our modern version of normative Islam, and its discursive formulations of what debates are both allowed and centered, has been carefully crafted as to create a semblance of religious plurality whilst denying the necessary conversations which would meaningfully lead to a large-scale rejection of both the capitalist system and the dominance of the Global North.
In the sense that we must rebuild our epistemology anew, we cannot continue forth by simply fitting hadith into Western legal systems or simply grafting the aesthetics of Islam onto the very same world order that destroyed its essence. If the root of Islam is ethics and the liberation of mankind, then any and all steps must be taken to ensure this, even if facing insurmountable odds. It is in this spirit that we must question our own profit, as Muslims in the Global North, and our attachment to nation and capital. Because for all our nations, and for all our capital, we have never been so weak a people. Genocide after genocide, atrocity after atrocity, befalls us, and what have we to show for it? We must rebuild our worldview, centered not on abstraction and private faith, but on morals, and on liberation by any and all means.
Eesa Ansari is a writer whose interests lie at the intersection of Islam and decolonial studies.
Disclaimer: Material published by Nuun Collective is meant to foster inquiry and rich discussion. The views, opinions, beliefs, or strategies represented in published media do not necessarily represent the views of Nuun Collective or any member thereof.
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