Vahid Hallaj's essay 'Islam and the Foundations of Power'

The Life of Abd al-Razzaq

Ali Abd al-Razzaq was born in 1888 in Abu Jirj, a city in central Egypt. His father, Hasan Pasha Abd al-Razzaq, was one of the founders of the liberal constitutionalist party "al-Umma" and a close associate of Muhammad Abduh (the Egyptian reformist thinker), and his brother, Ali Mustafa Abd al-Razzaq, who had studied both at al-Azhar and in France, held liberal and reformist inclinations.

Ali Abd al-Razzaq completed his studies at al-Azhar University and was selected as a Shaykh of al-Azhar. In addition to his formal education at al-Azhar, he also frequented Egyptian universities. He also went to England for about two years and pursued his secular studies at one of the English universities.

His intellectual inclinations and those of his family, along with the environment in which he was raised, made him a political and religious reformer, which led him, with the writing of the book "Islam and the Foundations of Power," to call into question one of the most important institutions of the Islamic world, namely the institution of the Caliphate. The publication of the aforementioned book sparked protests at al-Azhar, to the extent that Abd al-Razzaq was summoned to court and, on account of his views, was sentenced to expulsion from al-Azhar.

The Era of Abd al-Razzaq

In the early 1920s, when the First World War had just ended and the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse, murmurs about the post-Ottoman era were being heard among Muslims. The Ottoman state was the last government to keep the Caliphate alive, and Sultan Abdülmecid II was the last Ottoman Caliph.

Among Sunni Muslims, there were three main tendencies regarding the post-Caliphate era: first was the view of Mustafa Sabri and his followers, who believed that a return to centuries-old institutions and models was necessary. Sabri believed that the institution of the Caliphate should be revived as it had existed during the Ottoman period. Mustafa Sabri, who was himself from Anatolia, opposed Atatürk, which led him to flee Turkey and seek refuge in Egypt. Second was the view of Rashid Rida and his followers. Rashid Rida, who was also considered a student of Muhammad Abduh, believed in a kind of reformist orthodoxy. He held that the rejection of despotism, complete harmony with the general will, and respect for fundamental moral norms would prevent Muslims from envying the Western political system. Rashid Rida emphasized Islam's irreducible characteristics: in this system, laws have a divine origin which, for whatever reason, are beyond the reach of humans and are therefore always immune to autocracy, fleeting whims, and error. The Sharia, as an inviolable legal framework, is considered the ultimate guarantor of the Islamic system. Third was the view that became known as the Ankara Declaration. This declaration was translated from Turkish into Arabic by a person named Abd al-Ghani Sani and greatly influenced individuals such as Ali Abd al-Razzaq. The Ankara Declaration was, in fact, a book titled "The Caliphate and the Authority of the Ummah," probably written by a group of scholars and supporters of laicism with the support of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The authors of the Ankara Declaration stipulated that the Caliph should be stripped of all his material powers and retained solely as the supreme spiritual authority of the Islamic world. It was at such a time that the book "Islam and the Foundations of Power" was written.

The Book "Islam and the Foundations of Power"

Ali Abd al-Razzaq wrote this book in 1925, one year after the publication of the Ankara Declaration. The book Islam and the Foundations of Power is written in three books, each book containing three chapters. In this book, Ali Abd al-Razzaq seeks to demonstrate that, firstly, the definition of the Caliphate differs from what most Muslims have understood throughout history. Secondly, the Prophet of Islam had no duty other than conveying God's message, and he did not establish a government in the conventional sense. And thirdly, the process of the Caliphate, from the first Caliph onward, gradually moved towards governance and monarchy, and monarchy differs from the method and character of the Prophet.

Ali Abdel Razek seeks to resolve the problem of the caliphate in the period following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, working toward the establishment of a form of government based on human reason and experience. His entire effort is directed at demonstrating that the institution of the caliphate, which gradually took shape and consolidated in the era after the Prophet, is not a sacred institution, and that Islam will not be endangered by its dismantling. In this book, Abdel Razek makes less use of philosophical method and rational arguments; rather, his effort is to adduce more evidence from within the Islamic tradition. The abundant references to various Quranic verses and the Prophet's Sunnah define his book more as a work within the religious tradition than one outside it.

Book One: The Caliphate and Islam

The Meaning of the Caliphate

The lexical root of caliphate comes from the verb khalafa, which is used to mean the succession of someone who is absent for any reason. In its technical meaning among Muslims, the caliphate is an office chosen after the Prophet of Islam by his successors for the purpose of defending the religion and managing the affairs of the community. Ibn Khaldun defines the caliphate as: "compelling the general public, on the basis of the legal perspective, toward those interests that pertain to their otherworldly and worldly affairs, for all worldly matters are measured, in the Lawgiver's view, by the criterion of otherworldly interests. Thus the caliphate is, in truth, succession to the possessor of the Law for the purpose of safeguarding the religion and administering worldly affairs through the rulings of the Law." Nevertheless, it appears that proponents of this reading have distinguished between caliphate and kingship, as Ibn Khaldun says: "Kingship, or natural statecraft, compels people toward the affairs of life based on purpose and desire; political statecraft attracts worldly benefits and repels their harms based on rational consideration. The caliphate compels the general public, on the basis of the legal perspective, toward those interests that pertain to their otherworldly and worldly affairs."

The Status of the Caliphate

Among Islamic thinkers there are two views regarding the status of the caliphate: A – The appointment of the caliphate: proponents of this view, who constitute the majority of thinkers, hold that the appointment of a caliph is obligatory. According to this view, it is incumbent upon all Muslims to appoint a caliph, and if they fail to do so, all of them are sinners. Their view rests on two proofs: first, that the Companions and the Successors proceeded to appoint a caliph after the death of the Prophet of Islam; and second, that appointing an imam is a necessary condition for the protection of religious rites and the public good of the people, and without appointing an imam, religious rites cannot be performed. B – The view of figures such as Hatem al-Asamm the Mu'tazilite, who do not consider the appointment of a caliph obligatory. In their view, only the implementation of the rulings of the Law is obligatory. According to Abdel Razek, the proponents of group A have been unable to base their claim on any verse or sound tradition.

The Caliphate from a Social Perspective

Abdel Razek accepts the authority of consensus in establishing a religious ruling and rejects opposition to it. In Abdel Razek's view, not only is there no verse or sound hadith available for the obligation of the caliphate, but no consensus has even been formed among Muslims in this regard. Nevertheless, according to Abdel Razek, consensus is only acceptable if it is solely the consensus of the Prophet's Companions, or the Companions and the Successors, or the Muslim scholars, or all Muslims.

By adducing numerous historical proofs, including the opposition faced by Abu Bakr as caliph—such as the affair of the People of Apostasy, who considered themselves Muslims but did not accept Abu Bakr as caliph—as well as the opposition and revolts against the Muslim caliphs in later historical periods, Abdel Razek concludes that throughout the history of Muslims, no consensus has ever existed on the matter of the caliphate.

After rejecting the existence of evidence in the Quran, the Sunnah, and consensus, Abd al-Raziq considers the last recourse of the proponents of the caliphate to be the statement that

Prior to the conversion of the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam, there was no unity among the Arab tribes; rather, they were constantly in conflict and war with one another, plundering each other's property, and either killing members of opposing tribes or taking them captive. Islam and the prophetic authority of Muhammad ibn Abdullah enabled the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to unite with one another and set aside their hostilities. This union of the Arabs was, of course, not a political one; the Prophet did not interfere in the political affairs of the various tribes, nor did he ever seek to change their systems of government or their administrative or judicial structures. Their union was a religious one, which gathered them under the shadow of a banner called Islam and a prophet named Muhammad. But as soon as the Prophet passed away, the past differences of the Arabs resurfaced. Each community recovered its sense of distinct identity and independent existence. The Arab collective that had been realized during the Prophet's life was on the verge of dissolution: the majority of Arabs, with the exception of the people of Medina, Mecca, and Ta'if, apostatized.

According to Abd al-Raziq's claim, the Prophet of Islam did not designate a successor for himself among the Muslims, and this demonstrates, firstly, that the Prophet did not consider himself to have a political mission, and secondly, that the Arabs had not united and embraced faith for political objectives. The manner in which Abu Bakr came to power, and the opposition he faced from some of the Prophet's Companions, such as Sa'd ibn Ubadah, shows that even among the Prophet's Companions—as has been noted—there was no consensus for Abu Bakr's succession to the Prophet. Even Abu Bakr himself did not perceive that he was the Prophet's successor in religious matters; rather, he considered himself on a par with other believers in religious affairs.

Nevertheless, and erroneously, the belief gradually spread among Muslims that the Caliph of the Messenger of God—a title first attributed to Abu Bakr—was a religious office, and that the Caliph possessed the same status as the Prophet. The kings who came after the four Caliphs and adopted the title of Caliph found it expedient to use religion as a tool to defend their thrones and suppress their opponents. Over time, this belief became entrenched among the Muslim populace that the Caliphate was part of their religion, and that without it, their religion would remain incomplete. Yet historical evidence and religious sources, including the Qur'an and the Sunnah, do not attest to the existence of an institution called the Caliphate as a part of the Islamic religion. According to Ali Abd al-Raziq's belief, the Caliphate, or the office of judge, or any governmental or state function, are never considered religious matters, and God has entrusted these affairs to human reason and experience.