Serhan Tanriverdi
Approaching the Quran
Dr. Younus Y. Mirza
Reflection Paper
The Quran and the Islamic State
Does the Quran command Muslims to establish a state or any specific political order? Many past and modern Islamic parties, religious movements, political actors and radical groups across the world assume that the Quran requires establishing the Islamic state based on the teachings of the Quran. Therefore, they are struggling in the political sphere to realize this idea. They also considered Islam as unified political framework to oppose foreign treats. Hence, many Islamic movements have emerged through the promoting an Islamic state as an ultimate concern rather than an agenda of reform in social and ethical regeneration of Muslim societies. However, the concept of the Islamic state is a recent development, rooted in the socio-political and economic transformations of post enlightenment period in modern age. The idea of an Islamic state differed from early ideas of Muslims about governance. Early scholars and Ulama haven’t used the concept of an Islamic state as the requirement of the
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The Quran emphasize the community of believers (muminun) rather than being distinct political organization. In this regard, the Quran never says that Muslim should establish an Islamic state per se as a true political system and authority to implement the teachings of Islam. But, the Quran wants from us to follow the fundamental principles provide good governance at any level and form. For example, rules of law (Shura), accountability, transparency, justice, equity, religious freedom, emr bil maruf wa nahi an al-munkar, ihsan, and others. Unfortunately, the majority of contemporary Muslims have given more attention on political power and structures rather than the moral values and spiritual meaning of the
When a group uses religious ideology to control a population, the religious texts, in the case the Qur’an, are usually interpreted to suit the agenda of the group, because “they have different values and beliefs”2. The reason that the texts are used and intentionally misinterpreted is fairly obvious. Iran, where 99% of the population is Muslim, coupled with the fact that Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the word of god, one who can...
Political order is about las in the Muslim religion. The leader of the Muslim community was Muhammad, a spiritual leader that leads the community. After their leader passed there was a rule that there will be a new leader in the next three centuries. This tells that Islam spreaded so quickly for that their religious leader up-holded powers for them to practice faithfully and fairly.
The formation of states and political legitimacy has most of the time been intertwined with the religious authority that resided in the state. In Christian Europe, the church was the initial source of legitimacy post-Roman Empire. The rise and fall (and rise again) of the Catholic church and the Protestant Reformation help shaped state structures and ultimately, the rise of the secular state. In contrast, in Dar-al-Islam, there was a unique and changing relationship between the state and the ulamas because politics and religion was more or less in the same realm. In some instances, the state and ulamas remained relatively separate but in other cases, the ulamas became the
Ayoob, M. (2007) The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim
Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. It is currently the second largest religion in the world today. Its beliefs come from the Qur'an which literally means "the recitation" which is believed to be a literal transcription of the word of God. Its main prophet is named Muhammad who began Islam by speaking with the angel Gabriel in a cave during his meditation and then acting as an instrument of God to help write the Qur’an. Muhammad then spread Islam to the scattered tribes of Arabia by becoming the leader of Yathrib and using his wonderful leadership abilities to then grow his influence over virtually all of Arabia. Muhammad is known by Muslims to be the seal of the profits because no profits after Muhammad should be considered legitimate. Muhammad also left behind the Hadith or “tradition” which is a collection of writings compiled of reports of Muhammad’s actions as leader of Yathrib. These reports are used as a more specific code of ethics in day to day life and from these reports the 5 Pillars of Islam are derived (Smith 160). Although Islam shares many similarities to Judaism and Christianity it is often viewed in the US with hate derived from preconceived notions following the attack on September 11th 2001. This paper seeks to provide an overview of Islam’s history as well as its two major sects and 5 main pillars to remove preconceived notions and provide a glance into the minds of the Islamic people.
Across the world there are countless religions, new and old, each having their own unique traditions and laws that believers abide by. As defined by World History, Sharia, the Arabic word meaning “the path” or “the way”, alludes to traditional Islamic law. (Ellis, Esler, and Beers, 255) Sharia originates within the Koran, the holy book of Islam, which Muslims consider the unaltered word of God. Along with the Koran, Sharia is derived from the teachings and examples set by the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, who Muslims view as the perfect man of faith. Muslims believe that God revealed his true conviction to Muhammad, who in turn was to spread the commands of God through the Koran. Between Muhammad’s death in the seventh century and leading up to the tenth century, many Islamic scholars worked to understand Sharia in its entirety, and apply it to the rapidly expanding Muslim Empire of the time (Dunn, 57). Sharia played a key role in uniting the Islamic Empire by serving as the precedent which dictated laws concerning both private and public behavior.
Lafraie, Najibullah (2009). Revolutionary Ideology and Islamic Militancy : The Iranian Revolution and Interpretations of the Quran. Tauris Academic Studies. Retrieved March 23, 2012, from Ebook Library.
The Islamic revival trend of the late 20th century forged the intellection that the ‘resurrected’ Muslim nations were akin to Islamic states. The region considered to make up the Muslim world indisputably comprises nations that maintain majority Muslim populations. The extent to which these nations may be labeled Islamic, however, is dubious. As the omnipresent uniformity ascribed to Muslim nations has intensified with heightened media attention, the variance among systems of governance in these countries has continued to be overlooked. The Islamic presence in these countries, in fact, ranges vastly, from Islamic social groups that strive to revive social morality and eradicate Western culture to established political systems that endeavor to enforce Islamic law.
Verily God sent Muhammad "with the Guidance and the Religion of Truth that He should make it supreme over every form of religion, rage the associators of gods with God as they may." [Koran, 9:34] And verily the religion of God wherewith He sent Muhammad is His Book which He sent down upon him, that God should be obeyed therein and that His command should be followed and what He has forbidden be avoided, and that His limits should be upheld and His ordinances observed, that what He has made unlawful should be prohibited, and that His right should be confessed and that men should be ruled by what He has revealed therein. Wherefore whoso follows the guidance of God is guided aright, and whoso turns away from it "he hath erred from the even way." [Koran 2:108] And verity of obedience to God, as He has revealed in His Book, is that all men everywhere should be summoned to Islam and that the gate of emigration should be opened to all the people of Islam, that the alms and fifths should be applied according to the decree of God and His ordinances, and that men should seek their livelihood with their own possessions on land and sea, being neither hindered nor withheld.
Through day-to-day knowledge of what is happening in the world there is observable evidence that Islamic followers have employed different techniques to proclaim ‘power’. The techniques being employed are basically inflicting pain in the opponent by methods of kidnapping, hijackings, and recruiting members (such as Al-Qaeda in the Middle East) in order to make them a more powerful and a more appealing group in their societies. According to Mandaville, Islam is directly linked to politics (they cannot be separated); Muslims wanted to challenge new technological innovations as well as new institutions without forgetting about their religious values. Mandaville proclaims an important aspect of the Islamic religion. During the Ottoman Empire many Muslims gained important power and began to interact with Europeans in order to move into a more modern system; but times have changed.
In the Quran it is said that: "Let there be no compulsion in religion."(2:256) If someone does not want to believe God and obey his rules, he cannot be forced to do. If even God's rules cannot be imposed by using force, a person can never have the right to impose his own rules by using power. Although all Muslim dictators claim that their state is the most Islamic one, this is evidence that dictatorships are un-Islamic. Dictators know that what they say is not true, but they also know that gaining and staying in power is much easier by hiding their aims under the cover of Islam. As Mir Zohair Husain, professor in University of South Alabama, says,
The Origins and Importance of the Quran The Quran is the Islamic Holy book. The word Quran means recitation and its verses are recited by Muslims throughout the world. The Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad in Ramadan, the holy month of the Islamic calendar, in the year 610CE. One night that came to be known as ‘The night of power’, when Prophet Muhammed was 40 years old, while meditating in his usual place, Cave Hira on Jabal-al-Nur ( mountain of light), he suddenly saw an angel appear before him. This angel was angel Jibr’eel (Gabriel).
According to Islamic worldviews, in the beginning, “Allah created seven heavens, one above another” (Noble Quran 67:3), and one made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a glorious lamp (http://islam.about.com/). Muslims believe that human life began with Adam and Hawwa (Eve), (http://islam.about.com/). It is also explained in the Quran that Allah created all the humans and animals from water. The bible tells a similar story about how life began. According to biblical worldviews, God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. Muslims do not believe this. Christians believe that human life started with Adam and Eve, which is a shared belief between Muslims and Christians. Biblical worldviews also carry the belief that humans were created from dust, which also differs from Islamic worldviews.
...Islam. The Islamic Advisory Council was made to recommend ways and means to make existing laws of the country in conformity with the Islamic principles.
As of now, we can say that the process of forming the national government identity of Muslim countries is not yet complete. It is being affected by radical religious and social changes, that doesn't allow us to speak about the Muslim world being ready to walk side by side with other civilizations. However, we cannot ignore the obvious breakthrough of some individual Arab countries.