Peace Be Unto Those Who Follow Right Guidance.

Recently I came across an interesting abstract for an article entitled:

"Islamic Foundations for a Social Contract in non-Muslim Liberal Democracies" by Andrew F. March, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University.

In the abstract, the author (who I have contacted for a re-print of the paper) states that

Islamic legal and political traditions have traditionally held that submission to non-Muslim political authority and bonds of loyalty and solidarity with non-Muslim societies are to be avoided. In this article, I examine the Islamic foundations for affirming on principled grounds residence, political obligation, and loyalty to a non-Muslim state. My research shows not only that such grounds exist even in classical Islamic legal discourses, but also that the concerns of Islamic scholars vindicate political liberalism's claim to successfully accommodate the adherents of certain nonliberal doctrines by refraining from proclaiming controversial metaphysical truthclaims.

From an Islamic/Qur'anic counter-racist perspective, I find the above statements highly significant on a number of counts. However, in order to make sense of my observations, it is necessary to have a "working definition" of political liberalism.

[More:]

According to the entry in Wikipedia, Political liberalism is the belief that individuals are the basis of law and society, and that society and its institutions exist to further the ends of individuals, without showing favor to those of higher social rank. Political liberalism stresses the social contract, under which citizens make the laws and agree to abide by those laws. It is based on the belief that individuals know best what is best for them. Political liberalism enfranchises all adult citizens regardless of sex, race, or economic status. Political liberalism emphasizes the rule of law and supports liberal democracy [emphases added].

Political liberalism appears to be a doctrine encapsulating a universal ideal. However, as Charles W. Mills convincingly argues in The Racial Contract, under conditions of White Supremacy (Racism), there is an invisible Racial Contract underpinning the manifest Social Contract associated with political liberalism that undermines the universalism of the latter. (NB: Enlightenment [=En-whitenement] universalism is not exclusive; other 'universalisms' are quite possible, for example, the 'universalism' of Al-Islam [=voluntary self-surrender to God/Allah].) Furthermore, this Racial Contract is continually being rewritten - counter-racist thinker, Neely Fuller Jr. would say "being refined" [=adapted] - in order to effect the perpetuation - or maintenance - of the terms of the contract under changing environmental conditions, which means that if WS/R has to make certain concessions - for example, "refraining from proclaiming controversial metaphysical truthclaims" - in order to maintain and expand itself, it will do so.

White Supremacy (Racism) is also expansionist in nature, which means that any concessions it makes must be evaluated from the perspective of a committment to the maintenance of a White Supremacist (Racist) political agenda. For this reason, political liberalism's "successful accommodation" of "the adherents of certain nonliberal doctrines" [i.e. Muslims] needs to be interpreted in terms of its ability to functionally co-opt via assimilation/integration a politically-defanged "Islam" (sic), that is, an "Islam" that it consistent with the maintenance and expansion of White Supremacy (Racism). The co-optation of the classical Islamic juristic discourse, suitably re-interpreted in pursuit of such ends, is nothing other than a manifestation of neo-Orientalism, one of the "academic strongarms" of White Supremacist (Racist) ideology.

However, beyond the critique of political realism on the basis of its grounding in White Supremacy (Racism), there is the question of its consistency as a universal political doctrine vis-a-vis Al-Islam in a (possible) future post-supremacist, pluralistic political setting. In short, is a post-WS/R political liberalism compatible with Al-Islam? The answer to this question turns on whether Al-Islam is consistent with secularism viewed as a socio-political doctrine since it is clear that a secularistic worldview underpins the political liberalist project. For my part, I think that it is relatively straightforward to establish that Al-Islam is not consistent with secularism of any stripe, socio-political or otherwise. In this sense, secular Islam, like political Islam, democratic Islam, liberal Islam, conservative Islam, moderate Islam, radical islam and other adjectival variants (ad nauseum) are simply oxymoronic. Without being committed to an authoritarian position which fixates on a singular, monolithic understanding of what Al-Islam means, it remains the case that Al-Islam is Al-Islam. (As Salman Sayyid rightly points out in A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and The Rise of Islamism, there are no multiple "Islams"; rather, there are a range of politically-contested interpretations of Al-Islam which invoke Islam as a "master signifier" in the associated discourse.)

I am committed to the correctness of the view of "moderate" (sic) Islamic jurist, Khalid Abou El Fadl, author of Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women, that a distinction must be made between what is authoritative - the text (i.e. fundamentally and absolutely, Al-Qur'an, and derivatively and contingently, other sources such as the "traditions" and the accumulated precedent of Islamic discourse) - and what is authoritarian, i.e. exclusivist readings/interpretations of the text. I am of the view that the former must be upheld and the latter contested. This entails a position of humility in engaging with the sources and recognition of the possibility of divergent interpretations of them.

However, this view excludes the possibility of a secular worldview in which the position of the human being - and who counts as human as under conditions of White Supremacy (Racism) or any other kind of supremacism (?) - is afforded ultimacy/absoluteness in relation to issues of law, ethics, values, norms etc. Contrary to the secular/humanist view of White Supremacists (Racists), "[The white] man is not the [ultimate] measure[r] of all things". God/Allah alone is The One Who sets the measures of all things, although man does indeed measure them, contingently and partially as a finite being grappling with The Infinite.

The Qur'an categorically states that the fundamental nobility/worth/value (karam) of the human being is something that has its source in God/Allah (17:70). According to The Qur'an, God/Allah is The Most Noble/Worthy/Valuable (Al-Akram) (96:3); in fact, He is Ultimate/Absolute in Worth (Al-Kareem) (82:16). Furthermore, human beings can develop their nobility/worth/value (karam) by preserving their "self" (nafs) from corruption or disintegration as it develops through the life-transactional process (91:7-10); the one who preserves his or her "self" most is the one with most worth/value (karam) according to God/Allah (49:13).

Thus, it would seem that Al-Islam - as opposed to a co-opted and politically defanged "Islam" - is fundamentally imcompatible with political liberalism. (In fact, Al-Islam is a challenge to -ism per se, but that is a matter to discuss on another occasion.)

Finally, there is the whole "problematic" of the relation between the civil/social contract and the contract ('ahd) between the individual "self" (nafs) as 'abd (subjugated) and God/Allah as Rabb (dominator) in the power-relation and/or life-transaction (i.e. deen) that is Al-Islam. As Syed Naquib Al-Attas has argued in Islam and Secularism,

The man [or woman] of Islam is not bound by the social contract, nor does he espouse the doctrine of the Social Contract [i.e. political liberalism]. Indeed, though he lives and works within the bounds of social polity and authority and contributes his share towards the social good, and though he behaves as if a social contract were in force, his is, nevertheless, an individual contract reflecting the Covenant his soul has sealed with God; for the Covenant is in reality made for each and every individual soul. The purpose and end of ethics in Islam is ultimately for the individual; what the man of Islam does here he does in the way he believes to be good only because God and His Messenger say so and he trusts that his actions will find favour with God. Neither the state nor society are for him real and true objects of his loyalty and obedience, for to him they are not the preogatives of state and society and to the extent that such conduct is due to them as their right; and if he in an Islamic state and society lives and strives for the good of the state and the society, it is because the society composed of individual men [and women] of Islam and the state organised by them set the same Islamic end and purpose as their goal - otherwise he is obliged to oppose the state and strive to correct the errant society and remind them of their true aim in life [emphases added]. (pp.74-75)

In conclusion, I maintain that Muslims have no choice but to resist political liberalism in both its White Supremacist (Racist) and post-WS/R incarnations since, being a secular humanist ideology, it is incompatible with Al-Islam. In fact, political liberalism is a supremacist ideology since, like all -isms, it posits itself as ultimate, absolute and universal. For this reason, it must be resisted by Muslims.

There can be no supremacy other than the supremacy of God/Allah.

All else is theo-mania.

Peace