[Islam-Online- Politics]

Footnotes

1	-	I will confine this discussion to Sunni Islamic thought. Shi'i Muslims, some 12-15 percent of the world's Muslim population, maintain a different theory.
2	-	Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 32. Historian of Islamic law N. J. Coulson puts it this way: "The ideal code of behavior which is the Shariah has in fact a much wider scope and purpose than a simple legal system in the Western sense of the term. Jurisprudence (fiqh) not only regulates in meticulous detail the ritual practices of the faith and matters which could be classified as medical hygiene or social etiquette-legal treatises, indeed, invariably deal with these topics first; it is also a composite science of law and morality, whose exponents (fuqaha', sing. faqih) are the guardians of the Islamic conscience." N. J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: The University Press, 1964), 83.
3	-	W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: The University Press, 1968), 32 ff. Here, he discusses the meanings of the term khalifah at the time Abuµ Bakr seems to have used it. His conclusion that the term had no more specific meaning than "one who comes after" is generally accepted by scholars, although the term is used in the Qur'an in a few places with the connotation of "deputy" or "vicegerent."
4	-	Articles 23 and 42 of the Constitution of Madinah, from Ibn Hisham's al Sirah, translated by Watt in ibid., 132-33.
5	-	The general pattern was for Muslim conquerors to exact some sort of tribute to reflect their sovereignty while leaving it to local authorities to collect taxes according to their established customs. The local officials' degree of autonomy was often affected by the nature of the conquest. When the lands were acquired through military conquest, the administrative system established generally reflected more the conqueror's discretion than those acquired by a treaty of capitulation. At times, however, a system of taxation was simply imposed regardless of the means of conquest, or the amount of tribute expected may have been fixed in advance of the conquest and only the means of collection left to local officials. Iraq, for example, was conquered by military victory over the drained Sasanid forces and with the help of the Shayban bedouins. Native Arab subordinates were left in control of taxation and followed the Sasanid tradition, which included both a land tax and a poll tax and varied according to the degree of wealth among the populace (except for the aristocracy, who were exempt from the poll tax). In order to maintain this exemption, the aristocracy generally converted to Islam. In Syria, on the other hand, where Islamic dominance was achieved largely by treaty, tax collection and tribute were left to the discretion of native administrators. In general, they followed the fiscal system of the previous Roman overlords. More complex than the Persian system, the Roman model included a personal tax only on colonists and non-Christians and a property tax that varied according to estate size. A small parcel was apparently taxed according to the measure of its cultivation, while larger estates were taxed according to the number of people working the land. In Iran and the Transcaucasus/Central Asia, the Sasanid system of land tax and poll tax, regardless of conversion, seems to have remained intact. A tribute was simply fixed by the conquerors, and local chieftains were left to administer taxes as they saw fit. See al Baladhuri, Futuh al Buldan, ed. DeGoege (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1866 [translated by Phillip K. Hitti as The Origins of the Islamic State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916)]), 110-12; Ahmad B. Abi Ya'qub al Ya'qubi, Tarikh, ed. Th. Houtsma (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1883), 2:150-51; al Tabari, Tarikh al Rusul wa al Muluk, ed. M. deGoeje et al. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879-1901), 1:2111-12, 2121-24; Ibn 'Asakir, al Tarikh al Kabir, ed. 'Abd al Qadir Badran and Ahmad 'Ubayd (Damascus: 1329-51 a.h.), 1:130; Ibn al Athir, al Kamil fi al Tarikh, ed. C. J. Thornberg (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1867), 2:312-13; see also Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., Conversion and the Poll Tax (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), 12 ff.; C. Cahen, "Djizya," Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed., 2:259; H. Lammens, Etudes sur le regne du Calife Omaiyade Moaiwa 1er (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1930), 226.
6	-	See Coulson, History, chapters 2-3, upon which this account is based.
7	-	Ibid., 70-71, and Wael B. Hallaq, "Was al-Shafii the Master Architect of Islamic Jurisprudence?" International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, no. 4 (November 1993): 587-605.
8	-	Coulson, History, 37.
9	-	In Marshall G. S. Hodgson's analysis, dynastic families had seized control of the central political power of the Muslim empire (the army and the treasury that supported it) before there was any theory of political legitimacy in Islam. But by the tenth century, regional principalities had emerged and, while they were generally content to pay nominal allegiance to the Baghdad caliphate, they posed a challenge to the central caliphate's real power. Hodgson says: "The caliphate itself was in question, in a world ruled by arbitrary amirs [princes], and the caliphate had proved willing to turn to Shar'i principles in its crisis. Hence the scholars set about developing the theory of a siyaµsah shar'iyyah, Shar'i political order." See The Venture of Islam, vol. 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 55. It should be noted that even in al Maµwardبµ's formulation, the term imamate is used rather than caliphate. Scholars agree, however, that the terms are interchangeable in this context.
10	-	The following account is taken from pp. 3-6, 14-15, and 19-20 of al Mawardi's al Ahkam al Sultaniyah, trans. by Bernard Lewis in Islam, vol. 1: "Politics and War" (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974): 171-79.
11	-	Nevertheless, al Mawardi notes that the caliph may delegate the following four kinds of authority: a) Those who have unlimited authority of unlimited scope. These are the viziers [ministers], for they are entrusted with all public affairs without specific attribution; b) Those who have unlimited authority of limited scope. Such are the provincial and district governors, whose authority is unlimited within the specific areas assigned to them; c)Those who have limited authority of unlimited scope. Such are the chief qadi [judge], the commander of the armies, the commandant of frontier fortresses, the intendant of the land tax, and the collector of alms, each of whom has unlimited authority in the specific functions assigned to him; and d) Those with limited authority of limited scope, such as the qadi or a town or district, the local intendant of the land tax, collector of tithes, the frontier commandant, or the army commander, every one of whom has limited authority of limited scope.
12	-	See Fazlur Rahman, "The Law of Rebellion in Islam," in Islam in the Modern World: 1983 Paine Lectures in Religion, ed. Jill Raitt (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri-Columbia Department of Religious Studies, 1983), 1-10.
13	-	Muhammad al Juwayni, Ghiyath al Umamah (Alexandria, Egypt: 1979), 274-75: "If the sultan does not reach the degree of ijtihad, then the jurists are to be followed and the sultan will provide them with help, power, and protection." Quoted by Wael Hallaq, "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?" International Journal of Middle East Studies, no. 16 (1984): 13
14	-	Ibn Taymiyah quotes the Prophet in this regard: "If three of them were on a journey, they should choose one of them as a leader [qa'id]." Ibn Taymiyah, al Siyasah al Shar'iyah fi Islah al Ra'i wa al Ra'iyah, ed. Muhammad al Mubarak (Beirut: Daµr al Kutub al 'Arabبµyah, 1966). Except where specifically noted in brackets, English quotes are taken from translation by Umar Farrukh, On Public and Private Law in Islam (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), 187-89.
15	-	Ibid., 2.
16	-	Ibid., 165; cf. p. 12, where Ibn Taymiyah says that those in authority "should make over trust to those worthy of them and . . . administer justice fairly."
17	-	Ibid., 191.
18	-	Ibid., 83.
19	-	Ibid., 55. Erwin Rosenthal points out in his Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge, 1958) that Henri Laoust translates ummat wasat\ as "la nation de just milieu." "It may be asked," Rosenthal states, "whether this meaning was actually in Ibn Taymiyah's mind. In view of his rigid Hanbalism I am rather inclined to give preference to my second translation, 'the just, equitable nation,' and to take wasat in the sense of Aristotle's mesotes. The term occurs in the Qur'an (2:137) in this sense."
20	-	Ibid., 12; cf. 188-890, where Ibn Taymiyah quotes the maximum "sixty years domination by a despotic ruler are better than one single night without a ruler."
21	-	Cited by Victor E. Makari, Ibn Taymiyyah's Ethics: The Social Factor (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 136 from Ibn Taymiyah, al Siyasah al Shar'iyah, 7.
22	-	Ibn Taymiyah, al Siyasah al Shar'iyah, 17.
23	-	See Laoust's discussion, Political Thought, 282 ff.
24	-	See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu'at al Rasa'il al Kubra, ed. Muhammad 'Ali Subayh (1966), 1:312 ff.
25	-	Ibn Taymiyah, Raf' al Malam 'an al A'immah al Al'am, ed. M. H. al Faqqi (Cairo: Mat\ba'at al Sunnah al Muhammadiyah, 1958), 9.
26	-	Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 12, quoted from Ibn Taymiyah, al Ihtijaj bi al Qadar in his Rasa'il (Cairo: 1323 a.h.), 2:96-97.
27	-	Contrary to what Coulson said was the ahistoricity of the orthodox position, Ibn Taymiyah, in Rahman's words, "seeks to go behind all historic formulations of Islam by all Muslim groups, to the Qur'an itself and to the teaching of the Prophet." See Fazlur Rahman, "Revival and Reform in Islam," The Cambridge History of Islam, eds. P. M. Holt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 635. He criticizes limitations in Ibn Taymiyah's work, including "the fact that rationalism is condemned on principle" and that "the Sunna was taken in a literalist sense," Ibid., 636. Ibn Taymiyah's critique of rationalism, however, was in the context of Greek philosophers who rationalized without regard for revelation. His view on rationality in general, by contrast, was very positive: "[T]raditional authority can never be divorced from reason. But the fact that something is a Shari'a value cannot be validly opposed to something being rational," as Rahman quoted in Islam, 111 from Ibn Taymiyah's Muwafaqat Shari'ah al Ma'qul li Sahih al Manqul (Cairo: 1321), 1:48.
28	-	See his Raf' al Malam 'an al A'immah al Al'am, 3d ed. (Beirut: al Maktab al Islaµmبµ: 1970).
29	-	See his Fatwa fi al Ijtihad in the appendix of Raf' al Malam 'an al A'immah al Al'am.
30	-	Translated by Victor E. Makari in Ibn Taymiyyah's Ethics, 98 from Taymiyah's al Fatawa al Kubra (Cairo: Dar al Kutub al Hadithah, 1966), 1:484.
31	-	See Makari, Ibn Taymiyyah's Ethics, 106-7.
32	-	See Henri Laoust's classic discussion in Essai sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politique de Taki-d-Din b. Taimiya (Cairo: Institute Francçais d'Archaeologie Orientale, 1939), 253 ff.
33	-	The usage is generally traced to hadith reports. See discussion by A. Abel, "Dar al-Islam" in Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963), 2:127.
34	-	Hallaq, "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?," 5.

Islamic Science Back