States and Religions

We were all born in a state, we saw it with its good and bad sides. Existing religions are just like that. However, Christianity and Islam followed a different course in terms of their development processes.

Christianity emerged in a region under the dominance of the Roman Empire, was subjected to the pursuit of the state upon the complaints of the Jews, and Jesus was arrested and sentenced to death. For this reason, Christianity was not spread directly by Jesus (pbuh), but by the interpretations of the clergy later.

Some words in the present Gospel, which are stated to belong to the Prophet Jesus, formed the basis for the interpretation of the state by the Christian saints after him. One of these sayings is, “to hand it to Caesar's, to hand it to God's.” In addition, according to the Bible, the Prophet Jesus (pbuh), who had previously told his disciples to take a sword without a sword, replied, “Enough” when one of the apostles replied that there are two swords here. During his arrest, one of the apostles struck with a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's slave, Jesus immediately said, “Put your sword back. All those who draw a sword will die by the sword. If I ask for help, my father will immediately send more than twelve divisions of angels.” He stopped the apostles. During his trial, he answered the question “Are you the king of the Jews”, “I am the king, but my kingdom is not in this world”. From these words of Jesus, Saint Paul, who spread Christianity in Europe, said, “Let everyone be loyal to the government they are under. For there is no government that is not from God. Those that exist were established by God. Therefore, anyone who resists the government opposes what God has established. Those who oppose will be prosecuted”.

After the Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity as the official religion of Rome in 378 A.D., Christian clergy further developed their jurisprudence regarding the state. The prevailing view was that the “State of God” was in the heavens and the states of the people were on earth. In keeping with the Christian belief that people are essentially sinners and therefore deserve punishment, the principle that every state in the world is free to persecute or be just is adopted. Augustine, who was given the title of “saint” by the church, and John of Salisbury, an archbishop, asserting that justice cannot be expected from world states, said, “If a state in the world is just, it is for its own good. No, if it is cruel, it is because people have already deserved it," by saying this he has further strengthened this principle. Thus, Christianity gave one of the two swords just described to the world state and the other to the Church, which “represents the State of God”. This belief made the Christians the most easily manageable citizens for the Roman Empire. The Christians, who succumbed to all kinds of oppression, were subjected to persecution, although they should have been very comfortable under the rule of Roman rulers who had accepted their religion. In fact, the persecution of the Church's inquisition was added to those persecutions. Even Luther, who founded the Protestant sect by emphasizing the equality of people, told the villagers who believed in him and rebelled against oppression, “Equality is only in the state of God. There will be slaves and masters in this world,” he scolded and sent the princes to slaughter them. In that process, tens of thousands of Christian villagers were slaughtered with swords by Christian soldiers on the orders of Christian princes. In other words, Luther delivered both swords in the theory of “Two Swords” to the state. As a result, the situation of the masses of the people, who were already deprived of all rights and freedoms, remained the same. Those Europeans under oppression were able to reach their present rights and freedoms through centuries of struggle, and they were able to secure these rights and freedoms with the secular system.  

When we look at the birth and development of Islam, a complete different feature is seen. There was no state in the Arabian Peninsula at the time when the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born. Two state-like structures were located in the cities of Mecca and Taif. The tribes of Quraysh were dominant in Mecca and the tribes of Sakif in Taif. Despite the fact that many believers won by preaching Islam, which started in Mecca when the Prophet Muhammad was appointed with a prophetic mission by Allah (SWT), Islam could not take root in Mecca at that time due to the pressures of the dominant polytheist society and the Muslims had not yet received the order of jihad. The people of Taif, another city that the Prophet Muhammad cared about, took a much stricter attitude towards Islam, and set a complete barrier. As a result, Medina became the most important city in the rooting and spreading of Islam. In Medina, which was called Yathrib at that time, there was no similar structure to the state, and Arab tribes named Khazraj and Evs were in conflict with each other. There were also people of Jewish and Christian religions and non-Arab communities called “Mawli”. The support given by the people of Medina who accepted Islam made it a suitable city for Muslims. These characteristics of the cities are the reason why the Hijrah was from Mecca to Medina.

In the meantime, it is necessary to mention some of the possibilities that Islam has compared to Christianity. Islam did not develop as dependent on a state, but established its own state in a stateless society. All the creed, social and political principles of Islam were explained and applied directly by the Prophet, based on the Qur'an. The most important of those principles in the socio-political field has been “justice”. In this respect, neither individuals nor the state are left free to decide whether to be fair or not. Being fair is a definite and fundamental duty.

Islamic, Non-Islamic States and Democracy

In one of the accepted definitions on the state, it is said that “The state is a government and a nation organized under common laws”. This definition has no other meaning than to reflect the understanding of “modern nation-state”. In fact, there has not been a full agreement on the definition of "nation" expressed in that structure of state. Discussions on many unrelated definitions are still going on, and it is not within the scope of this topic to describe that situation. But even taking into account the fact that there are social groups that say, “According to your definition, we are a separate nation, so we must be a separate state” in almost all established states, including Turkey, is enough to see the inadequacy of the definition. Moreover, it is a separate problem that the organization and laws in the definition made for the state are made by whom. Whether it is a nation-state or not, Norman Barry is the thinker who makes the most accurate feature of the state in general. He says; “The characteristic feature of the modern state is political inequality; some individuals are empowered to carry out activities that no one else is allowed to do, to impose taxes, to forcibly recruit individuals, and perhaps more importantly, to create law.”

The “authority to create law” mentioned by Barry is remarkable in terms of our subject. In Islamic understanding, the authority to create law belongs only to Allah. Everyone, including the head of state, is equal before that law. In fact, state administrators have more responsibilities in terms of being fair in applying the law. In the allegiances in the Aqaba meetings, even the Messenger of Allah was attached with the annotation “for the good deeds you will do”. Apart from this, the participation of the public was also requested, whether in the election of the administrators or in expressing their opinions in the consultations. Taking this principle into account, Imam Ghazali said that some issues should be left to the people of the subject and gave as an example the authorization of persons with the necessary qualifications for a peace agreement. In the voting of the issues that will be presented to the vote of the whole public, only the children and the insane are excluded.

Christianity was already unsuitable for democracy, as it exempted the state from legal responsibility and ordered the people to obey in any case. Christians were able to reach democracy only after struggles that resulted in the transition to the secular system.  

Unfortunately, some influential circles among religious Muslims are very cold towards the concept of democracy with the paradigmatic factor of being against Western systems; they even accuse those who say that there is an Islamic democracy, of “patching democracy to Islam”. However, today's democracy is closer to Islamic democracy than the Athenian and Roman democracies. In them there was only the participation of wealthy individuals, while in the first Islamic State a strong foundation was laid for the participation of all sections of the population. Especially the fact that the treaty, which was signed in Medina at the house of Hazrat Anas and was the first constitution, was made with representatives of Muslims and other religious groups, means that difference and diversity are also accepted. However, diversity in Western modernity could only be brought to the agenda by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century.

A common misconception among Muslim intellectuals is that the Qur'an and Sunnah, which are the main sources of Islam, do not specify a state model as a kingdom, sultanate or republic. Although those concepts were not used, it is obvious that the ruler was directed to make choices based on merit rather than lineage, and a separate consultation and allegiance was made for the election of each new caliph. In this respect, the sultanate system that was established later was a very important deviation from the Islamic understanding. The individual makes the allegiance to the individual, not to the sons and grandchildren of the pledged person.

In fact, many types of democracy such as “pluralist democracy, majoritarian democracy, participatory democracy” are counted in today's political science.  In that context, it should not be seen as objectionable to talk about Islamic democracy. It should be known that the purpose of it is not to put the haram and halal to the vote.

Women in Christian, Secular States and the First Islamic State  

In Christianity, man could not have any rights and freedoms in the face of the “world state” because he was considered guilty of “original sin”. The situation is even worse for women. St. Paul reminded of “original sin” and said, “It was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and committed a sin.” Because of this feature of Christianity, Westerners also say that women were given rights in secular periods. However, those rights were not recognized by rulers or even liberal thinkers, and women have won by fighting for centuries.

The first influential philosophical voice on women's rights came from the woman writer Mary Astell, who was awarded the title “The First British Feminist”. Astell, in his discussion with the famous English liberal philosopher John Locke, found it unacceptable that sovereignty should be granted to men. Mary Wollstonecraft, also a British woman writer, needed to appeal to dominant men with their logic in order to get their demands accepted, and she said: “If children are to be educated to truly understand what patriotism is, mothers must be patriots... The conclusion I want to reach is clear: Turn women into rational beings and free citizens, and they will soon be good wives and mothers.” The right that Wollstonecraft wanted to impose was to go to school.

The emphasis in Wollstonecraft's statements to be good wives, good mothers and raising patriotic children is particularly striking. Because only those virtues were expected from women.

In the following period, the most determined fighter for women's rights in Europe was Olympe de Gouges, who actively participated in the French Revolution. The woman thinker who opposed all kinds of injustices committed by the revolutionaries, most of all, objected to the injustice done against women. In the tenth article of the “Declaration of the Rights of Women and Women Citizens” issued by the revolutionaries against the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, she said: “A woman who has the right to stand on the execution bench should also have the right to stand on the oratory.”  But the “righteous and libertarian” (!) Secularists of modernity only granted her the “right to be executed”. Gouges was sentenced to death by the administration that came with the Revolution, in which she also participated, and was killed by beheading with a guillotine.

It is very interesting that women in Western societies were able to get to vote and to be elected, which is one of the rights they gained through struggles, only in the twentieth century.

In the first Islamic State, women were active in the socio-political field in proportion to the conditions at that time. For example, two of the seventy-five Muslims from Medina who came to the second Aqaba meeting before the Hijrah and pledged allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad were women. The acceptance of women's allegiance was based on Allah's command. The verse on the subject is as follows: “O Prophet, believing women ... when they come to you to pledge allegiance not to oppose you in any good deed, accept their allegiance.” In the first Islamic State, there were women who were in business, who received knowledge, whose opinions were consulted by the state administrators, especially the Prophet and his caliphs, and were assigned to supervise the bazaar and market.

Conclusion

Thinkers such as Weber, Huntington and Fukuyama introduce the current level of freedom and prosperity of the West as “Christian civilization”. How can the rights won by centuries of struggle against Christian rule be Christian civilization? It should not be forgotten that the same struggle was waged in the secular era and even against liberal philosophers. 

In the first Islamic State, those rights and freedoms have been the basic principles of the state since its establishment. In this way, the Islamic State gained strength in a short time, became far superior to the most powerful empires of that period such as Rome and Sassanid in every field, including science-technical and economic prosperity, and defeated them on the battlefields.

In order to appropriate this superiority, the Westerners attributed it to the translation and reading of the works of ancient Western philosophy in the Islamic State. Another Christian thinker revealed the falsity of this thesis. That thinker named Geoge Saliba stated that the progress in the Islamic world was not due to those translations; on the contrary, those translations were due to a progress that had been born before.

Westerners and extreme secularists in Turkey attributed the decline experienced in the Islamic world centuries later to Imam Ghazali's exclusion of philosophy and said that there has been a decline since the thirteenth century. However, in the thirteenth century, there was a Mongolian invasion, the Islamic world, including Anatolia, suffered a great destruction, the cities and the Baghdad Library were burned down, the states were fragmented and interregnum periods were experienced. Despite this, the Ottoman Empire became stronger again and became the world's greatest power in every field until the end of the sixteenth century. Al-Ghazali opposed philosophy in matters related to the principles of faith, not philosophy as a whole. What he did even on that subject was to refute the explanations of philosophy philosophically.

Today, the intellectuals of the Islamic world seem right to turn to Islamic references when seeking solutions to their own and the world's problems. In those pursuits, it is necessary to carry out studies not only in the religious field, but also in different scientific fields due to the complexity of today's socio-political conditions. The religious validity of those studies can of course be understood by the examination of religious scholars. Despite all kinds of meticulousness, of course, faulty solutions can also be put forward. It is necessary not to slander people who make sincere efforts because of their erroneous thesis, but rather to try to find the correct one. Undoubtedly, only Allah (SWT) knows the truth.    

Hasbinallahu ve ni’mel vekil, ni’mel Mevla ve ni’mel nasir.

With my best regards.