A Common Language for a Muslim Spring in America: Challenge and Response

Dr. Robert D. Crane

Posted Jan 3, 2012      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
Bookmark and Share

A Common Language for a Muslim Spring in America: Challenge and Response

by Dr. Robert D. Crane


I.  Challenge and Response

As a professional long-range global forecaster, it is apparent to me from simple trend analysis that both the Muslim Umma and civilization on earth may not have a long future.  The future of the world will depend in large part on the Muslim umma, especially in America, but the future of the global Muslim umma will depend on whether it responds to its internal challenges as a distinct civilization.

The rise and fall of civilizations as a repetitive phenomenon was first studied by Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee more than half a century ago and by Toynbee’s Muslim mentor, Ibn Khaldun, eight centuries ago.  The dynamics are simple.  Civilizations rise when the leaders of society recognize challenges and mount appropriate responses.  Civilizations fall when they do not.

The challenges to the Muslim umma and to a world of diverse civilizations are threefold. The first is spiritual.  In an era of increasingly militant secularism it seems clear that the 21st century will be a century of spiritual renewal in all religions or there will be no civilization in the 22nd century.

The second challenge is militant secularism embodied in the financial institutions that are producing a rapidly growing wealth gap within and among countries and a rapidly growing awareness of such a gap, which are producing alienation and will produce wide-spread terrorism in the future unless reversed.  The concept of virtue and justice has no place in such a culture of secular extremism, yet such values are fundamental to the survival of civilization. 

The third challenge to the survival and prosperity of civilization is the elemental fact that whoever owns the wealth in society also owns the government.  Without widespread ownership of the trillions of dollars of future wealth in the world, the very concept of political self-determination within and among nations must remain a dream.  And without such political freedom, the concept of a republic is even unthinkable, where the nation is governed by leaders who are governed by God.

II.  The Response of a Common Language
 
Two thousand years ago, Cicero, the great Roman philosopher, advised that, “Before you discuss anything whatsoever, first agree on common terms”.  Otherwise the discussants will talk past each other and engage in futile debate.  A common language is essential to promote agreement on common purposes, because without such agreement any agreement on common policies may be superficial and preclude common action.

When the subject is so fundamental as individual identity and group survival and how both the person and the polity can best prosper in peace and freedom, which are the major priorities in the American Declaration of Independence, the language used is critical.  The founders of the Great American Experiment in self-governance stated in the Preamble to their Declaration that the first requirement is justice, from which all other purposes flow.

Justice is the governing paradigm of what is called traditionalist American thought, just as it is the paradigmatic core of traditionalist Islamic thought and of every world religion.  But, what is justice?  Justice in this sense requires a common language, though different religions and cultures may express it differently.  In the Islamic culture, this language may be termed, ‘Ilm al ‘Adl, which translates as “The Knowledge of Justice” or “The Art and Science of Justice”. 

III.  A Framework for ‘Ilm al ‘Adl

An Islamic framework for justice can be explained in a decision tree proceeding from purpose,  to mission, to sources, to method, and to programs and actions.

A. Purpose

The purpose of ilm al ‘adl is to promote human responsibilities and thereby to secure human rights.

B. Mission

1. Guiding Principles of Islamic normative jurisprudence or maqasid al shari’ah are:

a. Haqq al Din, which requires respect for religion, consisting of:

1) Taqwa or loving awe of God
2) Shukr or thankfulness for God’s love and our capacity to respond in love
3) Freedom of religion

b. Haqq al Nafs or respect for the sacredness of the human person, which at a subordinate level of purpose requires respect for human life, haqq al haya, through the limitations of the just war doctrine so clearly laid out in the Qur’an.

c. Haqq al Nasl or respect for the human community, from the family all the way to the nation, which derives its legitimacy from the sacredness of the individual person.

d. Haqq al Mahid or respect for the physical environment and ecological balance.

2. Operational principles

a. Haqq al Hurriyah or respect for the rights of individual and community self-determination, usually known as political freedom.

b. Haqq al Mal or respect for the universal right of every person to own productive property.

c. Haqq al Karama or respect for human dignity as provided by the other seven maqasid, but especially gender equity.

d. Haqq al ‘Ilm or respect for knowledge, including the subsidiary elements or hajjiyat known as freedom of speech, publication, and assembly.

C. Sources

The source is the Sunnat Allah or natural law, which consists of:

1. Revelation or haqq al yaqin, which is defined as the certain knowledge that persons are created to seek .
2. The scientific method in observing physical creation, known as ‘ain al yaqin.
3. Rational thought to understand the first two sources, known as ‘ilm al yaqin.

D. Method

Two primary examples are:

1. Nadm or coherence of the Qur’an as an inductive means to understand the other two primary sources, namely, through the matn or substance of the hadith and sunnah (sayings and practices of the ProphetMuhammad).

2. The theory of limits, one of the controversial rules of fiqh or deductive reasoning, which permits the application of the hudud or punishments as a maximum for a given case rather than merely as a prescription.

IV.  Programs and Actions at the Secondary and Tertiary Levels

The secondary level of purpose designed to explain and to carry out the highest level purposes is known as the hajjiyat, which might be compared to programs..  The third level, which might be compared to projects or actions, is known as the tahsiniyyat.  Examples in the fields of political and economic self-determination are the following:

 

A.  Haqq al Hurriyah (political justice)

In classical Islamic thought the just polity consists of four aspects:

1. Khilafa.  The principle of khilafa enjoins everyone, both those who hold political authority and their followers, to follow the best of their predecessors’ wisdom in upholding human responsibilities and rights as servants and stewards of God.  This spiritual principle of stewardship is designed to promote a society governed by people who are governed by God. 

This principle is basic to the system of government known as a republic, which is based on the recognition that man does not create truth nor is he the ultimate authority on anything, as distinct from a democracy, which is based on the principle that a majority of 51% has the ultimate authority to decide right and wrong.

This principle is the basis of constitutional governance and is expressed also in the maxim, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”.

2. Qada’ah.  This principle requires an independent judiciary charged with determining whether the legislative and executive branches of government are abiding by the polity’s constitution and their obligations toward it as stewards of justice, but it prohibits judicial legislation that preempts the rights of the legislators as the court of first resort.

3. Shurah.  This principle of consultation is designed to assure that all branches of the government are responsive to the citizens on issues of conscience.

4. Ijma.  This principle of consensus requires the citizens of a polity to reach agreement on their needs and aspirations based on cultural awareness of the values necessary for good government, namely, khilafa and shurah.

Thomas Jefferson expressed the basis of good government as follows: “No people can remain free unless they are properly educated.  Proper education consists in teaching virtue.  And no people can remain virtuous unless the life, both private and social, of the individual is infused with awareness and love of Divine Providence”, by which he meant God.

B.  Haqq al Mal (Economic Justice)

1. Economic justice is the key to political justice, because power follows power more than it does principle.  Whoever owns the wealth in society owns the government.

2. The threats to justice. 

a. The first modern challenge to economic justice arose when physical capital outstripped both land and labor as the major source of wealth, so that ownership of the tools of production or capital outweighed ownership of land as the source of power in society and therefore had the power to turn people into wage slaves.

b. The second modern challenge arose within the last couple of decades, especially in advanced economies, when the militant secularism embodied in sophisticated financial institutions transformed the era of industrial capitalism into an era of financial capitalism.  When the so-called developed world started to lose its manufacturing base long before the end of the 20th century, the major owners of wealth shifted their investments from productive assets requiring long-range planning to financial speculation in buying and selling debt with a vision that necessarily did not go very far into the future, sometimes less than a minute or even a single second in trading derivatives. 

c. The wealth gap. 

The concept of virtue and justice had no place in such a culture of secular extremism, yet such values are fundamental to the survival of civilization.  The result of this phenomenon in the 21st century is a rapidly growing wealth gap within and among countries and a rapidly growing awareness of such a gap, which are producing alienation and will produce wide-spread terrorism in the future unless reversed.

d. Political corruption

The fourth threat to the survival and prosperity of civilization is the elemental fact that whoever owns the wealth in society also owns the government.  Without widespread ownership of the trillions of dollars of future wealth in the world, the very concept of political self-determination within and among nations must remain a dream.  And without such political freedom, the concept of a republic is even unthinkable, where the nation is governed by leaders who are governed by God.

3. Paradigmatic Response.

The just response to these four threats must be a paradigmatic revolution to revive investment in real goods by removing the financial barriers to broadening capital ownership, so that credit is based not on past wealth accumulation but on future profits from productive assets.  The new paradigm must recognize every individual’s universal right of access to ownership of productive capital without the burden of financial interest in a capital-intensive world where capital not labor is the engine of growth and the key to economic justice.

The mechanisms for universalizing capital ownership have long been developed in great detail in many books and position papers.  The best available on line are the following, starting with the more technical and concluding with the more general:


A Summary of the Capital Homestead Act:
http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm

Declaration of Monetary Justice:
http://www.cesj.org/about/programs/declarations/monetaryjustice.htm

The Federal Reserve Discount Window:
http://www.cesj.org/homestead/reforms/moneycredit/discountwindow.html

“A New Look at Prices and Money: The Kelsonian Binary
Model for Achieving Rapid Growth Without Inflation”:
http://www.cesj.org/binaryeconomics/price-money.html 

The Foreword to republication of Harold Moulton’s
1935 book The Formation of Capital:
http://www.cesj.org/homestead/reforms/moneycredit/formationofcapital_cesj.pdf 

The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic
Growth from the Slavery of Savings by Kelso and Adler
(1961): http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/nc-entire.pdf
http://www.cesj.org/publications/freedownloads.html)

http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm

http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/paradigmpapers/csid-040528.htm

http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/regional-global/abrahamfederation-nk.html

http://www.americanrevolutionaryparty.us

http://www.americanrevolutinaryparty.us/partyplatform.htm

V.  The Role of a Common Language

What do these dynamics of civilizational rise and fall in the new era of the twenty-first century have to do with a Muslim Spring in America.  The purpose of such a Muslim spring in America or anywhere else in the world is first to bring unity among Muslims in recognizing the normative principles of justice.  For this we need a common language.

Although all of these principles are found in every religion and culture, these principles in classical Islamic jurisprudence have been known as the maqasid al shari’ah.  The constitute the Sunnat Allah or what is known in classical Roman Catholic thought as natural law. 

The role of justice is emphasized throughout the Qur’an, but perhaps most succinctly in Surah al An’am 6:115:  wa tama’at kalimatu rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “the Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and justice”. 

This, in turn, is the task of the third jihad, the intellectual jihad, which is specifically called for only in the Qur’an, not in the hadith, namely, the jihad al kabir or great jihad in Surah al Furqan 25:52, wa jahidum bihi jihadan kabiran, “and strive with it (divine revelation) in a great jihad”.

The challenge to the leaders of Muslim national organizations in America and to every Muslim citizen of America, as proposed by the new American Spring in the Association of Muslim Social Scientists is to wage this intellectual jihad in order to bring out the best of classical Islam and of every religion, culture, and nation as a vehicle to promote unity within the global Muslim umma, and on this basis to promote interfaith harmony and cooperation in a global strategy to pursue a pluralist global civilization of peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice for every person and nation on earth.

end  

 

Permalink