Crisis in Tunisia: Defining Shari’ah and Caliphate

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

    The issue of the “6th caliphate” is at least temporarily blocking political progress in Tunisia. This crisis is important because Tunisia is the closest the Arab Soring has come in any country to generating a politico-economic model of governance.

    The time has come therefore for the spiritual head of Al Nahda in Tunisia, Shaykh Rachid al Ghannouchi, immediately to set the record straight by declaring that the concept of a caliphate in classical Islamic thought was in no way political and instead consisted only of a consensus among the wise persons and shari’ah scholars on the definition and application of justice.

    No other explanation of the Nahda Secretary General’s use of the term “sixth caliphate” as a model for the future will hack it. Failure of the Secretary General Hemadi Jebali to support Shaykh Rachid’s declaration should disqualify this pending prime minister of Tunisia from all future puiblic office.

    Fortunately, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the only movement legitimately designated as Islamist, is split in every country, so now is the time to rehabilitate Hassan al Banna as the spiritual founder of the Ikhwan and to reject Seyyed Qutb as an ideological modernist totally foreign to classical Islam. This rehabilitation of the spiritual origins of the Islamist movement should include adoption of the maqasid al shari’ah as a paradigm of human responsibilities and human rights essentially the same as the classical paradigm of thought that gave rise to the Great American Experiment in its rejection of the secular extremism of the French Revolution.

    The future of peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice requires Muslim leaders to avoid weasel-worded fudging and instead to call a spade a spade, and the time to do so is now.

SEE ALSO:

Ennahdha Discourse: The Sixth Caliphate or a Misunderstanding?, Sana Ajmi http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/11/16/ennahdha-flipflopping-the-sixth-caliphate-a-misunderstanding/

Through a dark glass, Khalil El-Anani http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1072/op41.htm