ALLAH’S CONSTITUTION:

A POLITICAL READING OF THE KORAN

Ramy Nima

For
B.M & F.P

Contents Page

A Note on the Text 3

Foreword: Statement of the Issue Considered 4
Introduction: The Socio-Historical Setting of the Koran 11
Pre-Islamic social conditions 13
Pre-Islamic religious conditions 17
Chapter One: The Politics of Faith 21
Revealing Faith: A Process in Reverse 22
The Koran as the Word of God 27
The Koran as The Holy Book 35
The Koran as Allah’s Constitution 39
Chapter Two: The Act of Submission 43
The Estrangement of Power 44
Personal Dependence and its Sublation 48
Islam: The Deen of Submission 52
Chapter Three: Koranic Divine Law 55
Divine Law and the Form of Domination 57
Koranic Commandments and the Sharia 60
The Sharia as Islam’s Legal System 62
The Sharia and Social Control 67
Chapter Four: Divine Power and Mohammad’s Apostleship 69
The ‘Ideal’ Form of Divine Power 69
The Personification of Divine Power 71
Towards Theocratic Rule 72
Chapter Five: The Koranic Concept of ‘Faith’ and the Right to Rule 74
The Concept of Iman 74
The Mu’mineen as a ‘Distinguished’ Group 77
Iman: the Illusion of Certitude 80
Iman and the Right to Rule 81
Chapter Six: The Divine Gift of ‘Knowledge’ 84
The Concepts of ‘Ilm and ‘Aql 85
The Political Basis of ‘Ilm 87
‘Ilm as ‘Revealed Knowledge’ 89
The ‘Will to Power’ and the Divine Gift of ‘Knowledge’ 90
Subjective Synthesis of ‘Ilm and Iman and the Justification of Authority 92
Chapter Seven: Allah’s Chosen Servants: Successors as Rulers 93
The Conception of ‘the Inheritance of the Land’ 94
The Concept of Khalifa 96
The Right of Succession 98
The Making of a ‘Ruling Class’ 101
Domination as Social Subjection and the Role of Allah’s Chosen 104
Servants
Chapter Eight: Jihad: A Divine Obligation 107
Jihad and Tawhid 107
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Jihad in the Way of God 109

Jihad: a Test of Faith and a Determiner of Status 112
Jihad: A Sure Way to Paradise 114
Jihad and Islam’s Hegemony 116
Jihad and the Notion of ‘Holy War’ 117
Jihad as a Means of Social Control 119
The Expansion of the Umma: Compulsion v. Conversion 121
The Concept of Qital 125
Fighting against Fitnah 127
‘Fee Sabila Allah’: The Koranic Justification of Violence 130
Jihad against Kufr 132
Jihad and the Acquisition of Wealth 135
Jihad and Martyrdom 137
Jihad: the Making of Arabic as the Language of Power 142
Jihad: Defensive or Offensive? 145
In conclusion 148
Glossary 150

Copyright © Ramy Nima, 2007

All rights reserved
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Note on the Text

In the use of the text of Al-Qur’an al-Kareem or the Holy Qur’an, I have taken the
liberty of citing the English translation of verses from a number of editions
interchangeably without stipulating the particular translated edition used. The
following translations of the Koran were used:
The Meaning of the Holy Quran, by Yusuf Ali, revised by Ismail al Faruqi, Amana
Publications, Beltsville, Maryland, 1996.
The Noble Qur’an in the English Language: A Summarised Version of At-Tabari, Al-
Qurtubi, and Ibn Kathir with Comments from Sahih al-Bukhari, by Muhammad Taqi
al-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Darussalam Publ., Riyadh, 1996.
The Holy Qur’an, by Muhammad Ali, Ahmadiyyah Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore
Inc. Columbus, 1991.
The Message of the Qur’an, by Muhammad Asad, Andalus Press, Gibraltar, 1980.
Holy Qur’an, by M.H. Shakir, Dar-U-Sseqafe, Qum, Iran (n.d.).
The Holy Qur’an, by S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali, the Sterling Printing and Publishing Co.,
Karachi, 1964.
The Koran Interpreted, by A.J. Arberry, Oxford University Press, London, 1964.
The Qur’an, A New Translation, by M.A. Abdel Haleem, Oxford University Press,
New York, 2004.

I have used all the above translations for cross-checking of the rendering of the Arabic
text. I have quoted verses (or even sentences and parts of verses) from which ever of
these translations I thought gave a closer rendering of the original Arabic, and where
these translations seemed to me to be inappropriate, deficient, or incorrect either
changing the translator’s rendering or, more frequently, giving my own alternative
rendering or explanation (interpretation) in parenthesis, as […]. Koranic terms are
often rendered by different English equivalents; Arabic words are constructed from
three-letter roots to which prefixes, infixes, suffixes and vowels are added; thus in
their particular context and usage Koranic terms can lead to a wide range of meanings,
resulting in translation difficulties in terms of English equivalents. In this essay I have
attempted to give the closest possible rendering by consulting a number of Qur’an and
Arabic dictionaries. However, in order to avoid confusion, where necessary I have
given the Koranic-Arabic transliteration of the term, word, or sentence in parenthesis,
as […]. The following Arabic dictionaries were used for cross-reference purposes:
Edward William Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon (originally in 8 vols., London, 1863-
93, with Book I containing the Classical words, their derivatives and their usages)
reproduced in 2 vols. by the Islamic Texts Society, UK, 1984.
Lugh’at-ul-Quran, Dictionary of the Words and Concepts of the Quran, (4 vols.),
Tolu-e-Islam Trust, Lahore, 1941.
John Penrice, A Dictionary and Glossary of the Quran, Library of Islam, Des Plaines,
Ill., 1988.
Abdul M. Omar’s The Dictionary of the Holy Qur’an: Arabic Words-English
Meanings (with Notes), Noor Foundation-Int., India, 3rd ed., 2005.

It remains to be said that in all works of translation, or even the use of existing
translations for cross-reference and cross-checking purposes, the element of
‘interpretation’ is always present. This applies, of course, to the rendering and the
choice of English equivalents of Koranic ‘technical’ terms given in this essay which,
no doubt, some may disagree with.
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Foreword: Statement of the Issue Considered

For Muslims, no matter of what denomination, faction, sect or persuasion, the Koran
is God’s Word as conveyed through the Prophet Mohammad, who is deemed to be the
last of the prophets. It is for this reason regarded as not merely a Holy Book, but as the
Holy Book, as God’s final and Absolute Word. As the verbatim Word of God, and not
an interpretation, rendering, translation or understanding of God’s message to the
Prophet, it is considered as the highest form of cognisance, of divine knowledge, and
specifically of jurisdictional and judicial knowledge – the highest form of wisdom,
judgement and authority. In its true content, as unfolded in its totality, it is, in other
words, the sum of the ways and means of the regulation of the whole matter of life –
and not merely of ‘religious life’.

The Koran is, indeed, for all Muslims, more than simply a book of scriptures or the
setting down of prescriptions of the Islamic faith; it is more than the conception of the
Truth of God in its final form; more than that knowledge as the subject of faith in its
individual form; it is, rather, the substantiality of the being of God, which has, as such
and in itself, the perfected, supreme dignity of a universal constitution.

Consequently no other scripture or prescribed code of conduct or form of wisdom, of

judgement and guidance of life as a whole, has such a dignified status. Its authority is
thus unparalleled and eternal. Not even the Sunnah or the Hadith, the totality of what
are called ‘Traditions’ – i.e. words, deeds and conduct attributed to the Prophet
second-hand, as it were, and which were only set down in writing some two or three
centuries after his death in accordance with a method of documentary recording
allegedly supported by reference to a chain of named witnesses – has such a
fundamentally universal and irrefutably absolute authority.

What is of critical importance about the Koran is that in it directives on the whole
matter of life are constituted not simply as commanded guidance outlining a process
of transition towards the personal and the spiritual ideal, but as the actual
substantiation of God’s authority in the here and now, or the realisation of the
actuality of the jurisdiction of His Word (expressing His Will) in this world. It is, as
regarded by Muslims, the absolute and complete knowledge of the Way of God to
achieve the institution of the Kingdom of God on earth. The Koran, in short, is Allah’s
Constitution.

Fundamental in this context is thus the notion of the political. Essentially, of course,
all religions are deeply political. As a form of ideology, religion has a profoundly
political function as a powerful means of social control; and even in its very notion of
spirituality – indeed, precisely because of it – the political is intrinsic to it. In the case
of Christianity and Judaism, for example, the scriptures embrace and engage the
political: they speak of the authority of God and set down guidance and rules, which
are meant to be and are seen as God’s commandments, as divine laws – e.g. the
Torah’s principal commandments or mitzvoth (the famous Ten Commandments,
though substantially expanded to number 613). Islam, though more closely related to
Judaism than Christianity, takes on this same political role, but with the added
emphasis of making the actual implementation of its principles, more directly and
more concretely than either of the other two monotheistic religions, an absolute
political necessity as commanded by God Himself – i.e. as a collective institutional
obligation and duty laid down in the Koran. That is to say, these principles are meant
to be directives defined in terms of the fusion of the divine, the canonical and the
legal. Basically, the Koranic directives are, in terms of their purpose and function,
similar to, for example, the commandments set down in the Torah’s Five Books, the
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Old Testament (the Tanakh) or in the Talmud (the Oral Torah, compiled and written
down in a document called the Mishnah at around the second century AD). The point
of distinction between Koranic and the other divine prescriptions, however, is with
regards to the difference of emphasis placed within the text of the scriptures on the
attribute and character of the sanctioning of the divine laws. In the Koran, the
sanction, as with the role and function of the divinely ordained earthly authority, is
more explicitly defined in political terms than in the moral sense; the moral, in other
words, is conceptually subordinate to and a function of the political. For the Koran
tends to place a greater emphasis, within the text itself (by the very Word of God
Himself), on institutionalised social power in the concrete exercise of earthly
authority. Consequently, Koranic laws have an irreducible constitutive legal form,
though they are, like Talmudic or Biblical laws, also, of course, ideological formations
and moral rules. Koranic laws, it can be said, are distinguished in their prescribed
form by the fact of the sacredness of their corporeal sanction; they do not stand apart
from the politics of submission basking in the sunshine of divine patronage.

The Koran thus accords a much more significant place to, and a more concrete and
immediate emphasis on, the actual political sanctioning of divine commandments than
do the Holy Books of Judaism and Christianity. Its moral universals, its holy language,
its rituals of propriety, serve the important politico-ideological function of domination
in the form of social subjection. Total obedience and worship of its divine authority
through the act of submission incorporates the legitimacy of its laws in this world
under the aegis of beneficent earthly authority as the executor of divine power. Thus,
the distinction between Koranic sanctioning of commandments and that indicated in
other Holy Books may appear simply as a matter of emphasis; but it has actually a
great significance.

The principle of divine power represented in this world rests, of course, in the Koran
itself, which in its totality is asserted (affirmed) as being the Word of God and not a
rendition or version of His Word – the notion of ‘being’ here is critical and central: it
declares that the collection, in its individual parts and as a totality, is unequivocally
and explicitly literal and not the result of a process of later apostolic reporting or
elucidation of the text, but that it is the result of a divinely directed process. According
to Muslim faith and myth, the process is affirmed as a series of revelations (initiated
with the aid of the Angel Gabriel in a cave on Mount Hira) that were initially
committed for the most part to memory as a means of their preservation (though some
of the revelations were, according to one Zayd Ibn Thabit, one of Mohammad’s
companions, written down by him – and perhaps some other companions – as
Mohammad dictated these) and later, after the Prophet’s death, collected and compiled
and set down firstly under Caliph Abu Bakr, then completed into its officially
presented written book form under Caliph Uthman (its master-copy, al-mushaf al-
imam, is believed to have been held at Medina). There is, however, a longstanding
debate as to the historical accuracy of this latter point – the present Koran may have
indeed been ‘made’ (composed) over a much longer historical period. Nonetheless,
whatever the actual truth of this matter, Muslim belief in the Uthman compilation as
being the veritable Koran prevails, as does the myth of the divinely directed process of
its revelations.

In its divinely directed process, the different verses were, apparently, revealed as and
when appropriate. In other words, the process of revelation, as evident from the
different verses in the Koran, had decidedly a practical function derived from the
Prophet’s life experiences. That which is revealed appears in a real process of
continuous struggle to comprehend life as it was and to provide guidance (directives)
to transform it in accordance with the Truth revealed. The process not only combines
the social and the personal dimensions, but it essentially incorporates these into a
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higher order of divinity. The revelations concerning the personal aspects of life are
thus no more than means to an end; the fulfilment of God’s commandments, revealed
to the Prophet and set down in the Koran, is not, either contextually or fundamentally,
a means of achieving individual transcendence in and for itself, but rather a necessary
stage in the realisation of the Truth of God in the spatio-temporal world. The process
of revelation is actually directly grounded on the social situation and state of affairs in
which the Prophet was actively involved; it is engaged with Mohammad’s concrete
historical circumstances of generating his Islamic movement. Mohammad’s recited
revelations, therefore, are not abstract or mystical or esoterically spiritualistic and
individualistic, but the result of a constant active overcoming of everything that stood
against his universalistic socio-political project, which necessarily, given its time, had
a religious form. The later composition of these revelations as the Koran had, at least
ideologically, the same basic aim. The Koran as the holy book, in other words, in its
very transhistorical appeal, was meant essentially to have a historical force.
Mohammad’s recitation as the Koran (i.e. his revelations later composed into book
form), thus has a distinctly political, and even polemical and fighting, character.

The Koran (as with all scriptures down the ages) is of course simply a human product;
it was fashioned and made, and like any product it has a purpose, a social function. As
a human product, both its content and form thus have the stamp of history all over
them, which as such express the conditions and relations of the time of its making. It is
history, moreover, that of course gives it its initially geographically limited and later
widespread imperial sovereignty, its absolute global authority. But for it to become
such a powerful force, it had historically to be made to appear as something
transcendent.

The formalistic message (revelations) of the Koran is thus presented through the
apotheosising of the Arabic language and within an inspirational framework and
terminology based on that language. In this, the fact of historico-linguistic necessity
(i.e. Mohammad’s native tongue being obviously Arabic) is made into the necessity of
submission to God’s Will in a language that is made holy. Arabic, in short, is the
Koranic language, period! The Koran may have been translated into other languages,
but it is in Arabic, and only in Arabic, that the act of submission must take place. The
Koranic language is the mode of being or existence of Islam. It is not something that
merely frames, conveys and communicates Islamic values and beliefs, but is their true
reality; it is the language in which all divine (Islamic) potentialities are realised and in
which all earthly transmission of the divine will reaches its highest, ultimate form.
Here, then, the language itself and in itself is a political instrument. The historical
circumstances of this are of course irrefutable: Mohammad was an Arab; Arabia was
the birthplace and home of the Islamic movement; and the language, naturally, was
Arabic. But the interdependence of history and language denotes a determination more
intrinsic than the blind forces of chance. The Koranic language possesses a definite
political role which has a determination that is over and above its accidental
birthplace. The poetical Arabic language of the Koran is the medium in which the first
integration between divine power and human submission within the Islamic movement
takes place. For Mohammad, the language was simply nothing more than his native
tongue; but the style and form of recitation, delivered in fervent and moving tongue,
and meant to be powerfully rousing, were clearly important to enhance the
significance and solemnity of his message – in this he had apparently followed the
convention of the poetic and oracular idiom of his time. For his successors, the
language itself became a key component of Islamic imperial domination;
Mohammad’s successors stake out their sphere of influence through the medium of the
language of divine revelations communicated by the Prophet to others. The language
itself thus becomes a medium of power, since, on the one hand, the knowledge (the
Truth) it communicates is made possible only in its specific form; and on the other
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hand, it is only in that language that communication with God (prayers, etc.) is made
possible in order to facilitate salvation and wellbeing in the here and now as also in
‘life after death’. In enabling access to the divine world, the language takes on a
political role and actually becomes a powerful political instrument. It is partly by
virtue of this political role that the Koranic language becomes transhistorical, and
universal. Through the Koranic language, so it is believed, Muslims overcome the
estrangement between the earthly world and the divine world; and with this they
transform their consciousness of the knowledge thus gained into an appropriate means
of Islam’s expansion. The complete subordination of the individual to the Will of God
– his/her submission to His commandments revealed to Mohammad – takes as its
starting point the reading (reciting) of the Koran in its Arabic original. Leaving aside
either the Sunni or the Shia theological apologia for such a deification of the language,
from a socio-historical viewpoint, the only reason for this is political.

The Koranic language’s political aspect is of course conditioned by the (presumed)

source of the message and the process of its communication. The presupposition is
that the language possesses a certain power because it is the language in which God’s
eternal miracle (the Koran in its totality) was revealed. The presupposition, certainly
and inevitably, appeals to faith on a grand scale and shows that the notion of faith is,
axiomatically, the basic principle of Islam, just as with any other religion. Yet,
notwithstanding the fact that for all religions all determination is posited by faith, in
Islam the message (revelations) and the mode of its communication (the Koranic
language), standing under faith’s determining influence (its force), constitute
themselves as the actuality of faith. Islam has an essential unity that contrasts with the
passive and changeable reflection of faith in its general conception; it is determinate as
it is actively determining. In other words, the faith in God, His message, His
messenger and the latter’s mode and language of communication, all as a determinate
unity, determine and justify themselves in the Koran. The Koran (and hence its
message and its language) is thus as much historically decisive as it is in itself for
Muslims the truly actual verification of faith. In the Koran faith follows the inherent
laws of its own making and remains in all conditions the same, so that to the faithful
what the Koran reveals is established once and for all, nothing in it can be changed,
nothing needs to be added; it is thus the eternal miracle, the true form of faith
actualised, God’s very own Word objectified. In this, in its determinate unity, no
change is possible – thus there can be no amendments to or improvement of the Koran
(based on this there can be no textual justification for a process of reformation in
Islam as, for example, had occurred within Christianity). The actuality of faith posited
in it is final, not subject to change; and for this reason the Koran exercises autonomous
power over the spirit of the historical movement of Islam. In this sense, it transforms
faith, which is inherently subjective, from the individual, personal level into an
objective social force; with the Koran, faith assumes a directly political role.

The task of faith, then, consists in the transcendence of Mohammad’s proclamation

from its mere appearance of divine revelation to the essential jurisdiction of God’s
Word, which manifests itself in the Koran only. With this, the Koran expresses divine
power and exercises a definite authority over the community of believers, the faithful,
so that the truth of its authority becomes a force in the here and now as the law of
God. The realm of its authority is not, therefore, a blind play of miraculous, spiritual
or unearthly forces, but a domain of permanent laws determining the perception of
social reality.

Power and authority, however one looks at or defines them, need agency and
mediation. In the case of the Koran, too, there is mediation, of course: there is firstly
what can be called primary mediation, i.e. that of Mohammad himself in initiating and
establishing the Word of God. Here the mediation is believed to be first-hand. With
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the Koran, God speaks not ‘to’ Mohammad, but through him. The Prophet is, as it
were, the vocal instrument. The claim (and the belief) is that God (even when using
the Angel Gabriel) puts across His Will and authority, in verses, through Muhammad
as the medium. The Koran is, thus, a unity of the words of God that prevails only as
the result of a process of mediation between the living, active messenger as the subject
and his objective conditions. The mediation is, indeed, the proper function of the
Prophet as an actual subject, and at the same time it thereby affirms his being a living,
active divine messenger. The Koran is the first form in which the substance of Islam is
conceived as the subject of a universalistic movement and is thus the first embodiment
of divine jurisdiction, authority and governance. Only God, in the eyes of believers, by
virtue of His all-knowingness, can achieve such a perfect union of subject and object
of the matter of life as it is revealed in the Koran. The union, of course, presupposes
the Truth, meaning divine cognisance of life without boundaries of time and space.
The Koran, thus, is in turn a medium for an individual’s subjective development. And
the Truth it holds is meant and believed to free not only the individual’s own
potencies, but those of society as well. It brings the Truth into the world, and with it
everything (the whole matter of life) in the world is organised in conformity with
God’s Will.

The Koran is seen as the Truth enduring throughout a movement in which it unifies
and holds together the various states and phases of human existence. This is
significant. For, the Koran, in its original recitation form, can be regarded as a
‘manifesto’ (that is, Mohammad’s manifesto of his Islamic movement) declaring that
the world must be transformed to become the reality of the divine truth it proclaims.
Human reason and the truth of human existence are but a weak estimation of this
Absolute Truth, which is their prime mover towards the highest form of life and the
highest good on earth.

The understanding of this primary mediation is, however, intimately connected with
what can be called secondary mediation in the reality of the concept and exercise of
power. And the agency that achieves this mediation is no longer formally abstracted
from the actuality of political power. Here mediation manifests its concrete political
significance in the agency of Mohammad’s Islamic movement and its eventual
transformation into a theocratic state. This elevation of the realm of power to the
position of the sole domain of divine truth was conditioned by and in opposition to
what is in Islamic thought referred to as a world dominated by ‘ignorance’; pre-
Islamic world of Arabia, according to Muslim theological thought, was at a stage of
ignorance or Jahiliyah, which is a term that refers to the conditions of idolatry (though
this should be seen in the historical context of tribal conflicts and rivalries, and of the
clash of the empires of Byzantium and Sasanid Persia). Thus, the historical conditions
that prevailed during Mohammad’s time were of course the necessary backdrop to this
secondary form of mediation. It is, moreover, significant that it was within those
conditions and upon the continuing historical development of the nascent Islamic
socio-political system that the mediating political agency became self-conscious of its
divinely ordained function to use all means at its disposal in the interest of and
towards the establishment and expansion of the Kingdom of God.

From its very inception, in short, in its actual religious form, Mohammad’s movement
was a political medium. And after the Prophet’s move (hijrah, emigration) from
Mecca to Medina (in AD 622), the established community of Muslims there (the
umma) became essentially a proto-political institution (a ‘community-state’). The
place of settlement, an oasis town called Yathrib, where the umma was founded, then
became known and was renamed al-Madinat an-Nabee, or the City of the Prophet,
shortened to al-Madinah (or Medina, meaning the City). The symbolism of this
renaming is inseparably connected to the political significance of the
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institutionalisation of Mohammad’s politico-ideological movement. From this moment

on, the community of the faithful, of believers in ‘the One God and Mohammad as His
Messenger’, identified itself with a single all-embracing political institution based on
and defined by Mohammad’s divine message. It is also not at all accidental, therefore,
that the Islamic calendar (instituted by ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph of
Islam) dates from this fundamental transformation (in AD 622). Here, then, the
activity of mediation is the activity of the Islamic proto-state (initially, as the Arabic
term umma signifies, it was simply as an institution founded on the community of
Mohammad’s companion migrants, followers and supporters, which had taken on the
basic characteristics of the prevalent tribal mode of social relations, though with some
essential modifications, particularly as regards the subordination of the individual).
With the formation of the umma Mohammad transforms his movement into an
apparatus of power, and concomitantly his revelations become more explicitly
legislative in content and take on a more peremptory and a more expansionist
character. This proto-state, then, becomes an appropriate medium for the expansion of
Islam. The defence of the umma and its expansion, moreover, becomes a divinely
sanctioned obligation on the part of each and every Muslim. The notion of political
power is thus not peripheral in the revelations compiled in the Koran, but is the central
notion through which they conceive the development of the Islamic social relations
and form of domination from the stage of ignorance (Jahiliyah) to the proposed
eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

The idea of Islam as a religion that is behind the consciousness that separates the
spiritual inner world from the outer world of societal relations, a set of beliefs
removed from politics, is rendered absurd by the conception and the historical role of
Mohammad’s community-state (umma). Accordingly, in the reality of Islamic social
relations, the individual bears primarily the relation of submission, and of duty, to the
state (initially in the shape of the governing form of the umma) and his/her right is
subordinate to it. State-power is sanctioned by the divine authority of the Prophet’s
revelations, later arranged as the Koran, and the Islamic state’s very existence is
conditioned only through the medium of Koranic jurisdiction of divine directives,
which were at a later date (long after Mohammad’s death) transformed and modified
into the legal system known as the Sharia. The Sharia is meant to (and believed to)
express the interests of all Muslims, and since its ultimate jurisdiction has the Koran to
thank for, it is, in spite of its later historical determination and political formulation
(based on certain theologically developed rules and principles chiefly justified on the
basis of the ‘sunna of the Prophet,’ or the tradition or custom of Mohammad’s
conduct), presented and promoted as if divine and perpetual. It is, of course, only the
Koran that contains the Divine Law, which establishes the highest, absolute standard
of authority. Society cannot be bound by a higher law, for such a law would amount to
an external restriction of the authority and jurisdiction of the Word of God (the
Koran). Upon this notion, the sovereignty of the Koran, in its fundamental sense,
cannot be circumscribed by civil laws grounded in a secular political institution. Any
challenge to its sovereignty, any restriction or circumscription of the Koranic
jurisdiction (and that of the Sharia), thus must as a matter of necessity (by the very
command of God) be met and counteracted by the all-embracing struggle of the
faithful, by a jihad. The Koran, moreover, sanctions the use of force, violence and war
in its own defence. For the Koran, as Muslims see it, brings to a close the entire world
religions and to oppose its authority or corrupt its absolute knowledge is tantamount to
a declaration of war against God Himself. The notion of jihad is, indeed, the ultimate
and highest form of duty, of reverential obligation; and in it religion and politics are
finally and absolutely fused.

The Koran thus has a distinctly political character. It proclaims the hegemony of the
political within the conceptual structure of religious dogma, in the emphatic sense of
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the word. The political comes to mean not actions and institutions that actually exist,
but those that must exist in forms concordant with divine standards. The political in
the Koran is an immediate unity of divine sovereignty and earthly authority. It is this
understanding of the political that I believe is the propulsive force of Koran’s
message.

The content, the divine message, of a holy book such as the Koran, by definition, does
not change with time. But if the Koran’s message has an essential bearing upon the
attitude and behaviour of the believers, then, the ever-deepening contradictions and
changes in the global situation today do make its commandments and its teachings
politically relevant. In our time, the conflicts and struggles being waged increasingly
in the name of Islam, which are as much conducted within the Islamic world itself as
against the perceived external enemies of Islam, call for a political reading of the
Koran. The conflicts are of course socio-historically conditioned; though in this, they
do not signify what is in some quarters referred to as a ‘clash of civilisations’ (which
is nothing more than an unhistorical and ideologically motivated conception). They
have, indeed, deep-rooted economic and geopolitical causes that are essentially
systemic, in that they are the necessary attributes of the inherent contradictions of a
single globally dominant ‘civilisation’ (the ‘civilising’ empire of capital).
Notwithstanding this fundamental (conceptual) understanding, the religious
appearance of these conflicts is, however, profoundly significant; it is foolhardy to
dismiss this appearance as irrelevant.

It is hoped that the political reading of the Koran offered here would shed some light
on the condition peculiar to Islam (certainly more so than to other world religions) of
the fusion of the religious with the political. The light, however, is finely focused, like
a spotlight; it ‘homes in’ on one single source – the Koran. I am well aware that there
are a host of other factors, historical, cultural, socio-economic, and, indeed, emotional
and psychological, that are clearly significant to the making of Islam as a world
religion and as a potent political force. And in concentrating on the Koran, I am in no
way denying or belittling the considerable importance of such factors. Nonetheless,
there can be no denying the fact that the Koran is unquestionably the ‘heart and soul’
of Islam. Its study is without a doubt essential to the understanding of Islam. There
are, of course, a great many studies of the Koran (from within the Muslim tradition
itself, dating back to the very early days of Islam, and perhaps equally as many from
well beyond that tradition, from a wide variety of non-Muslim perspectives, both
hostile and sympathetic towards Islam); and there are many that touch on some or
other aspect associated with the ‘politics’ of Koranic edicts and directives. But, as a
rule and for the most part, the specific issue of political power is peripheral, often
even incidental, and if or when considered at all is as part of a wider more general
discussion of Islam as a religion or that of the problematic of the Muslim world. Here,
however, power is the central issue; and thus the essay focuses exclusively on the
political reading of the Koran as such.

The reading here, however, is not an exegesis, in the strict theological terms; it is
exegetical in the expository sense of textual interpretation from the ‘outside looking
in’, as it were. Consequently, it might be regarded as polemical. But though I do not
shy away from this, the intention is, strictly speaking, the examination of the text from
a critical social perspective; my reading of the Koran is, in other words, a non-
believer’s attempt at its political interpretation, with due regard to fairness and honesty
of approach and indeed respect for the source. Yet, I give notice here that honesty and
fairness of approach and respect for the source does not mean neutrality. I am of the
firm opinion that religion as such (all religions), and Islam in particular, is inherently
antidemocratic and irreconcilably opposed to the socio-political forces and tendencies
that struggle for the attainment of justice and human-rights and democracy based on
 11

the very earthly notion of self-emancipation. According to my understanding of the

politics of freedom, of democracy, justice and human-rights, the notion of self-
emancipation is not optional, it is a necessity. This necessity is freedom because
freedom (democracy, justice, human-rights, etc.) is not determined from the outside,
by external forces, but is the result of a self-development based on self-consciousness.
No external force, so-called divine, beneficent or otherwise, can give freedom and
justice; for that which gives freedom can equally well take away that freedom! The
power of ‘giving’ presupposes its negative potentiality, that of ‘taking’. With Islam
(indeed all religions) this power, being divine, is supreme and absolute. It is thus
hoped that my attempt at a political interpretation of the Koran will contribute towards
the dispelling of the myth that somehow Islam is a force solely in the service and for
the freedom of the oppressed and the dispossessed. Such a reading, moreover, will, I
hope, demonstrate the erroneousness of the arguments put forward, both from within
and outside of Islam, for there being a spiritual, transcendental preponderating
tendency in Islam in contradistinction to its worldly social-political one, and for it
being in any way capable of having a non-political role in society.

No ‘reading’ is, of course, wholly innocent. It would, therefore, be quite dishonest of

me to claim that the political reading of the Koran presented here is innocent; that is,
lacking the force of my own (ideological) convictions, free of preconceptions,
independent of my socio-political predispositions, interests and commitments. All I
can say, as already noted, is that there is honesty of approach, observance of regard for
textual accuracy (insofar as translation allows), and an endeavour to be respectful to
what is after all a ‘document’ revered by millions of individuals of whose sincerity of
belief, for the most part, I have no doubt (and whom I do not wish to insult or offend
in any way). All this apart, my interpretation, though not a critique of the theological
foundations and fundamentals of the Koran, is, nonetheless, the result of a critical
reading strictly and exclusively concerned with the political substance of the Holy
Book. In other words, and this is extremely important to point out at the outset, I take
the Koran as Muslims perceive it in terms of its holiness, its divine status. This,
indeed, is crucial to the understanding of the potency of its ideological force; for it is
because millions of people actually believe it to be the Word of God, that the Koran
can take on such an instrumentally powerful role – to be sure, the locus of the truth of
this is not the supposition of its divinity, but the dynamic social reality of the need for
such a faith. Even today this need is so great that what is a very human invention
seems to result in endowing the ‘book’ and the ‘word’ with power; and the illusion is
so intense and great that even the brilliant and spectacular ‘light of science’ seems still
quite unable to clear up the affected darkness of ignorance. The challenging of such a
supposition, or that of the force of its illusion, is the aim (ambition) of my critical
reading. My reading is thus restricted to an attempt to see with a political eye through
the Koran’s divine ‘veil of appearance’, and to look beyond its mode of mystification
of the politics of subjugation and domination in its making eternal the act of
submission.

Introduction: The Socio-Historical Setting of the Koran

The history of the making of the Koran is less than precise; it relies heavily on the
tradition and custom of oral historiography. The ‘Recitation’ (Qur’an means
‘recitation’, from the root verb qara’a ‘to recite’) which is the Koran was for a long
while during and after the death of the Prophet Mohammad transmitted for the most
part by word of mouth. In its early stages, moreover, memory was its chief means of
preservation (the evidence supporting its documentation in written form during
Mohammad’s lifetime is scant, and much of it based on hearsay). Its making was
piecemeal, and it took Mohammad some twenty-two years or so to proclaim its verses
(ayah, pl. ayat, meaning ‘sign,’ as in divine communications, revelations), later
 12

arranged in 114 chapters (surah, pl. surat) – though it should be noted that both Sunni
and Shia traditions seem to agree that the Koran was first sent down by God in
complete form, from which verses were recited by Mohammad during his mission (the
ayah that is often quoted as the confirmation of this fiction is II:185). It was, at any
event, left to Mohammad’s ‘companions’ (Sahaba) to commit these revelations to
memory. Neither memory nor the word of mouth is a precise or satisfactory method of
recording. Both are treacherously unreliable; as purely subjective means and method,
they are not innocent of corruptions, of interpretive pollution, of distortion,
exaggeration and even falsification. But even if we leave these problems aside, what
cannot be ruled out are distortions based on political expediency, or even personal
self-interest, in the recording of the Koran, in its actual documentation. There were,
moreover, grammatical problems in its first written form – Arabic writing was at the
time of early Islam still quite undeveloped (the grammar of written Arabic was
established during the Abbasids Caliphate, about 780 AD, some 150 years after
Mohammad’s death). The earliest collection of the revelations is said to have begun,
though this is unsubstantiated, under the first Caliph, Abu Bakr (and continued under
‘Umar, the second Caliph). But the first compilation proper apparently dates back to
the reign of the third Caliph, Uthman (644-56 AD), and it is this supposedly
‘standardised’ consonantal text that became the officially authorised written form of
the collected revelations recited by Mohammad – though consonantal variations and
grammatical problems persisted until the 10th century AD (it was under the influence
of the notable scholar Ibn Mujahid of Baghdad that consonants or huruf were fixed
and variation in vowels restricted to seven different systems of pointing and thus
standardisation was instituted). In fact, diacritical points (borrowed from Hebrew and
Aramaic) had not been in existence at the time of Uthman, and until well into the
Umayyad Caliphate. Therefore unless orally instructed or already familiar with its
recitation, the reading of this original text, still lacking proper standardised diacritical
points for identifying consonants, could result in uncertainties of interpretation,
understanding and meaning; in short, there could be (and were) alternative readings.
Indeed, even after Ibn Mujahid’s so-called standardisation, there were perhaps as
many as 14 canonical variations in Koranic reading. Nonetheless, it is this ‘official’
text, the Uthman Codex, that was to become, after a process of development and
refinement (perhaps taking as long as about 300 years or so), the complete written
version of the Koran now before us.

Such issues are, undoubtedly, of fundamental importance for any appraisal of the
history of the making of the Koran. But they are impossible, in view of the scantiness
and unreliability of the available evidence, to verify with complete certainty.
Nonetheless, even if one were to accept the Muslim point of view as regards the
compilation of Mohammad’s revelations as historically authentic and genuine, it is
certainly not unreasonable to suggest that from the time of its presumed initial
collection during the reign of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, to its supposed official
version at the time of the third Caliph, Uthman, and even well beyond this point, some
verses of the Koran were deliberately manipulated, or at the very least modified, in
order to meet the ideological requirements and political agenda of the rising political-
religious class. However, notwithstanding problems of such kind, in whatever way,
and at whatever historical period, the ‘final’ official version of the Koran was actually
made, the revelatory content of the composition is firmly believed by Muslims to be
divine in origin. In other words, the widely accepted view among Muslims (Sunni and
Shia, as well as other sects) is that what we have now before us, as the presumed
historical document put together under Uthman, is a presentation in content (though
not form) faithful to Mohammad’s own recitation of his revelations. It is this officially
compiled document (noting here the reservations and qualifications raised above), at
any rate, that has ever since the rise and expansion of the Islamic order been taken as
the Holy Book of Islam. And it is in this written form that the compilation has come to
 13

be accepted as the Prophet’s message, containing his true revelations of God’s Will;
and thus also as a ‘documented representation’ of the epoch and for the epoch of the
rise and formation of Mohammad’s Islamic movement.

The Koran’s message – that is Mohammad’s recitation as complied into the Holy
Book, or the Koran as we have it today – can thus be regarded as Mohammad’s
‘manifesto’ for the establishment of an Islamic movement. This does not imply, as
already hinted at, that Mohammad furnished a ready-made finished recitation, let
alone a document, of policies and principles, but that he publicly declared his aim and
objectives (his message) largely as a response to the challenges facing him in the
reorganisation of pre-Islamic life and the social institutions dominant at the time. It is
sufficiently clear from an examination of the text that (however one views it) aspects
of Mohammad’s recitation (even if modified at later stages), at least in the main, show
it to be a product of pre-Islamic western Arabia, albeit during an epoch of social crisis
and ‘tribalism’. Moreover, in the figure of Mohammad as a ‘leader-in-the-making’
pre-Islamic Arab features have, naturally, a definite and determining role: his form of
communication (as the reciting of revelations) presupposes the custom and tradition
prevalent at the time; his vision and programme have all the hallmarks of a tribal
mode of life (with its principles of ancestry and kinship, and the essential historical
modifications brought about locally which comprised the existence of nomadic forms
alongside forms of clan settlements in certain specific sites); and the prescriptions he
initiated presuppose the objective conditions of the given social reality in terms of its
contradictions and their resolution. Thus despite the bitter condemnation of the
prevalent pre-Islamic social norms and institutions and forms of beliefs, Mohammad’s
revelations are actually to a great extent based on the conceptual structure of the socio-
religious systems in existence at the time of their original making (recitation).

Pre-Islamic social conditions

The pre-Islamic life of the Arabs proper (as distinguished from the Semitic peoples of
Ma’in, Saba’, Qataban, and Hadramawt, who are sometimes collectively referred to as
the Yemenites, inhabiting the south-western triangular part of the Arabian peninsula,
as well as those of Mesopotamia and those settled on the western edges of the
peninsula by the Mediterranean sea) was based on tribal social relations that had two
distinct forms of existence: the nomadic, often characterised by the term Bedouin, and
the sedentary, the tribal settlements of former Bedouins in the oases. The interaction
between these two forms and between these and their neighbouring regional power
structures provided the dynamics of pre-Islamic Arab history. Both forms, moreover,
contributed to the rise and expansion of Mohammad’s movement: the former, the
Bedouin proper, were to play a crucial military role, as fighters in the Islamic army,
similar to the one they had effected in pre-Islamic times; the latter, the settled and
town dwellers, played the economically crucial role, some as important trading
establishments, such as Mecca, and others as agricultural communities, like Yathrib,
later renamed Medina. Both forms, also, influenced the making of the Koranic
revelations.

The ideals of Mohammad’s movement had therefore their birthplace in the Hijaz in
western Arabia and their resting-place in the processes of the development of the
caravan trading communities and that of the Bedouin culture of militancy. Their
historic precondition was what has come to be called the age of Ayyam al-Arab – the
beginnings of the rise of the specifically Arab identity (an identity which was,
however, still fully tribal and ethnic rather than national or remotely nationalistic in
the proper sense). It was in that age that the linguistic foundations of expressing these
ideals were evolved in the form of al-‘arabiyya, becoming eventually the ruling
 14

language of Mohammad’s Islamic movement, and much later to be cultivated and

developed into Classical Arabic which was to become the language of the Koran.

It was during this age that the sedentary communities of the Hijaz, in particular
Mecca, gradually gained their greater strategic significance as trading settlements on
the Near Eastern trade route between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean regions.
The background to this was, on the one hand, the heightening of the territorial
conflicts between the Sasanid and Byzantine Empires as the two most powerful states
in the region, and on the other, a decisive shift in the overland trade-route, especially
after the fall of Petra and Palmyra as the two most important centres of commerce, as
a result of the increasing regional instability caused by the confrontation and wars
between the two Empires. It was from this historical background that the birthplace of
Mohammad, Mecca, gradually emerged, by the sixth century AD, as perhaps the most
important trading centre in western Arabia. Its ascendancy as a caravan trading station,
of course, depended on its geographical situation and crucially on having access to a
source of water, the famous well of Zamzam. Given the extreme aridity of the region,
which thus makes access to water the most decisive of all factors, the overland trade
naturally necessitated oases settlements as staging posts. As an oasis-settlement,
Mecca had long been slowly growing in importance as such a staging post on the
trade-route linking the Yemen with Damascus. Its geographic situation and source of
water had, then, already placed it at the junction of the important caravan-route going
from south to north. But later on, with the change in the east to west overland trade-
route, as well as that connecting the Red Sea coast with the Persian Gulf, Mecca
became a much more significant staging post in this alternative route, all be it not a
direct one, that was established through Arabia. It was under these historical and
geographical circumstances that by the time of Mohammad’s birth, this once small
caravan staging post had raised itself to become an extremely prosperous commercial
and trading centre.

But there was yet another factor, directly connected to its source of water (the well of
Zamzam), that had made Mecca a special place, and raised its status in addition to its
growing prosperity as a trading-post: Mecca (known in pre-Islamic times under its
early Arabic name of Makorba, meaning a ‘shrine-setting’ or ‘temple-site’) had been a
sanctuary of long standing. Constructed beside the well of Zamzam, and certainly
directly related to and in worshipful recognition of this source of water as the original
community’s life-giving source, was a shrine in the shape of a cube, known as the
Ka’ba (meaning ‘cube’). The pagan shrine had long attracted pilgrims, who performed
idolatrous rites in worship of numerous gods represented by idols at the shrine, and
was, in itself, for this very reason, a very important source of income, prestige and
power for the oasis-settlement and of course for those who controlled access to it.
Consequently, given the shrine’s reverential status even in pre-Islamic times, besides
its slowly growing commercial position, Mecca was, moreover, both a sanctuary,
ensuring the safety of the caravan traders and merchants against plundering Bedouins,
and an ideologically and culturally significant focal point in western Arabia. By
serving to secure access to the gods, and to the well of Zamzam, the shrine had thus an
important political role not only in Mecca itself, but in the region surrounding the
settlement, and gave those who controlled it great political influence. The original
conditions of this proprietorial control, naturally of course, given the dominant social
relations and mode of life at the time, rested on the tribal or clan system. Initially, this
control rested with a tribe called Jurhum, which at some stage was passed on to (or
taken over by) another tribe known as the Khuza’a. By the end of the fifth century AD
(though by some accounts around the beginnings of the sixth century), however, it had
already been taken over (by force or other means) by the tribe of Quraysh, under its
then head and strongman, Qusayy, an ancestor of Mohammad’s, whose control over
 15

the shrine (and hence essentially over the source of the water of Zamzam) had thus
made the Quraysh the most powerful tribe in the whole of Hijaz.

The Quraysh, an assembly of several clans, was subdivided by ‘tenure’ or territorial

occupancy into the Quraysh az-Zawahin (or the ‘outer’ Quraysh) occupying areas on
the periphery of the Ka’ba, and the Quraysh al-Bata’ih (or the ‘inner’ Quraysh)
dwelling in the actual shrine quarter of Mecca, immediately around the well of
Zamzam. Yet within this structure, there was intense, almost constant rivalry among
the various clans (or coalition of clans) over the control of the shrine. Among the
Quraysh, decisions concerning disputes and allocation of authority (though not
absolutely binding or backed by the use of force) were taken within the context of the
mala’, or the assembly of the chiefs and notables of the principal clans. At some stage
in the sixth century, most probably after one or more of such assembly meetings,
among all the clans two were to achieve prominent positions: the Hashim, to which
Mohammad belonged, and the Umayya. The prominent position of the Hashim clan
within the Quraysh and within Mecca’s socio-political structure was the result of its
having gained the custodianship of the Ka’ba; while that of the Umayya clan rested on
its militaristic role, based on its hereditary leadership in war, as the defender of the
Ka’ba and Mecca.

As a tribe, the Quraysh (who, in the mythology of Islam, were said to be the
descendants of Ishmael) were to provide the leaders, commanders and caliphs of early
Islam. It was under the Quraysh, then, that Mecca grew in prosperity, attained its
position of commercial supremacy and its central position as a holy place in the whole
of western Arabia.

Pre-Islamic Mecca had thus already the makings of a ‘holy city’, which was later, in
the seventh century AD, to be reconstituted, purged of its pagan and idolatrous
custom, as the holiest place in the world of Islam. Indeed, in Mecca we have the
symbolic fusion of religion, politics and economics so characteristic of Mohammad’s
formulation of Islam as represented in the Koran.

The formulation of divine revelations, or the divine message, reflects and deals with
the pre-Islamic social, economic and political tensions which Mohammad had become
aware of during his life and work in and beyond Mecca. Mohammad, though not a
fully-fledged merchant, made his living from an early age possibly initially as a
‘camel-driver’ in the caravan trade and subsequently, it is said, as a trading agent for a
twice-widowed Meccan wealthy woman, named Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid, much his
senior in age, whom he married at about the age of twenty-five. It was his work as
such an agent that no doubt provided him with insights into the conditions of trade, the
importance of mercantile activities in the region, the tribal divisions and antagonisms,
the tensions associated with rivalry among the fast emerging caste of wealthy and
powerful merchants, the hazardous nature of the caravan trade, and its exposure to
great vicissitudes and dangers, all of which are, in the specifically religious language
of the time, in one form or another reflected in the Koranic revelations.

Economically, therefore, the Koranic revelations reflect something of the mercantile

features and attitudes that had developed by the time of Mohammad, which were
increasingly coming into conflict with those of the tribal communal mode of life. By
the early seventh century AD, there were definite signs of the formation of a caste of
merchants (still perhaps rather embryonic in form) within the Qurayshite controlled
Mecca. Social divisions were taking shape both between the different clans and, to a
much lesser extent, within the clans. Powerful merchants, as heads of clans, while
united in attitude and behaviour as merchants and in opposition to the restrictions of
tribal traditions and custom, were, by the very nature of their activity, becoming
 16

significantly more engaged in power struggles. Rivalry and competition divided them,
while their wealth, their activity as merchants, brought them together in association
and against members of their own clans. By at least around the time of Mohammad’s
fortieth birthday, it appears that the mercantile spirit of greed and selfishness was
debasing the clan and kinship conventions; communal property of the clan was
becoming increasingly subject to the will of the merchant clans’ heads; distribution of
gains (profits of trade) within the clan was beginning to be tightened up, controlled
and redirected to the advantage of the heads of the clans; the traditions of protection
and assistance provided by the clan to its weaker and more needy members were being
more and more neglected; and there was a distinct move towards exclusive control
(monopolisation) of the very lucrative caravan trade by certain powerful clan-chiefs
and notables.

In short, by the time Mohammad proclaims his mission, there were clear indications of
the beginnings of discord, dissociation and incohesion in the tribal mode of life. It
would be wrong, however, to conceptualise such a changing status of merchant clan-
chiefs as the formation of a ruling class or to see the appearance of the elements of
disintegration of tribal relations as a sign of class division and the rise of the Islamic
movement as a form of class struggle. There was as yet, at this period of social
transition, no actual class distinction between an ‘aristocracy’ of merchants and a
dispossessed mass of ‘plebeians’. What seems clear, nonetheless, is that Mohammad’s
revelations (later composed into the Koran, the Holy Book) are, on the one hand,
reflecting the process of dissolution of the old property relations, the clan system, as a
result of the development of trade; and, on the other, attempt to deal with the
contradictions of such a process with ‘idealised’ (religiously constituted) resolutions
that support the formation of a dominant political structure, which seems, in
appearance, simply an extension of the older system of tribal/clan assembly, yet, in
substance, having definite features that gives it an absolute power of control.

The conflicts during the period in question were still, thus, tribal in form; and
Mohammad’s struggle for power was confined firmly within the orbit of tribal
politics. With the rise of the Islamic movement, specifically after 622 AD, however,
relations of tribal dependence were incorporated into Mohammad’s newly formed
proto-state (the community-state, or umma). Submission to the Will of the One and
Only God, became the mediated form of direct and immediate subordination, and
upon this basis, relations of tribal dependence became transformed into a religiously
coloured form of relations of personal dependence, whereby submission to God’s Will
was at once submission to Mohammad as God’s messenger. Thus, for example, at
what has come to be known as the Second Pledge of al-‘Aqabah, a number of
Mohammad’s followers in Yathrib (Medina) were bound to his person under a pledge
that carried the promise of fighting for him to the death (this is also referred to as the
Pledge of War). Within about three years of the establishment of the umma in Medina,
submission to the Will of the One God, to Allah’s Will (i.e. becoming a Muslim, from
musalman meaning the ‘submitted’) clearly and unequivocally meant a pledge before
God of being bound to the person of Mohammad as God’s messenger (rasul-allah)
and, by divine decree, as the Head of the umma. With this the ground was prepared for
the spread of Islam by means of jihad which invariably involved the force of arms,
with military expeditions (actually ‘raids’ or razziah, very common among Arab
tribes) led by Mohammad himself (referred to as ghazwah) particularly against the
Quraysh of Mecca who were Mohammad’s great adversaries. There were numerous
such expeditions headed by Mohammad (there were also many others which were
headed by an appointee, referred to as sariyyahs), which were intended to disrupt the
caravan trade and hit the Meccans where it most hurt and where they were most
vulnerable. It was under this condition of armed conflict between Mohammad’s umma
and the Qurayshite Mecca (particularly its Umayya clan under its head Abu-Sufyan)
 17

that the young Islamic state became, specifically after its victory at the Battle of Badr
(624 AD), conscious of its own power. By around 630 AD, with his victory over Abu-
Sufyan, Mohammad had taken Mecca, and with this move had proved the strength of
his umma as the expression of God’s jurisdiction in the here and now. The force of
arms was thus crucial to the development of the umma and its powerful role in the
unification of Arab tribes (with the exception of those bordering Mesopotamia and
Damascus), whether through alliances or conquest, under the banner of Islam. From
this basis a political structure was thus forged that had all the necessary attributes of
what is known in anthropology as a ‘conquest state’, which was to (after the death of
Mohammad in 632 AD) further develop under the so-called ‘Rightly-Guided Caliphs’
(i.e. the first four successors, or khalifas, of the Prophet who headed the young Islamic
state from 632 to 661 AD). During this period, this form of conquest state had become
fully institutionalised, and no longer bore any real resemblance to its origins as a
community-state; and by the end of this period, the Islamic state, under the Caliphate
regime, was increasingly taking on the characteristics of the form of despotic state
hitherto dominant in the Near East. The myth of the umma as the ‘ideal’ form of an
Islamic state based on the community of Muslims, however, prevailed down the ages.
But even in its original formation (though modelling itself on the dominant Arab tribal
political structures in existence) it contained, within its very conception and structure,
the fundamental element of its later transmutation. For at the heart of its very
conception was not only the notion of submission to God’s Will, but that of the
acknowledgment, the unquestioning acceptance, of the will of Mohammad, as the
Messenger of God, as law. Essentially, therefore, it already had the elemental force of
its later profound transformation that involved the fusion of the personal and the
strictly political into an all-embracing state-structure as a ‘higher unity’ standing
above all the communities and peoples conquered and (to a varying extent) converted.
It was, however, actually under the Umayyad Caliphate, and subsequently under the
Abbasid Caliphate, that it was completely transformed to model the form of despotic
state so characteristic of state-forms throughout the history of the Near East – i.e. a
pyramidal form of hierarchical (‘bureaucratic’) state structure with a state-head (God-
King, King of Kings, Caliph. Sultan, etc.) appearing as the ‘higher unity’.

The Koran is necessarily (because of socio-historic conditions of its time) associated

with the political order essentially derived from relations of personal dependence. The
dialectic between God’s messenger and the myth of the umma is not incidental in the
Koran’s ‘vision’ of power. The Koran’s basic message is, on the other hand, but the
culmination of the entire tradition of pre-Islamic religious ideas. It becomes
understandable only when interpreted within this tradition.

I have thus far attempted in brief compass to place Mohammad’s making of the
foundations of the Koran in its socio-historical setting. What is needed now is to trace
the starting point of Mohammad’s ideas, his message (set out in the form of recited
revelations later collected and composed into the Koran) to its sources in the religious
situation of his time.

Pre-Islamic religious conditions

Religious ideas and belief systems of pre-Islamic life in Arabia proper appear at the
very core of the Koranic message. Within this life polytheism dominated the realm of
morality, beliefs and religious thoughts, which was not shaken by the monotheistic
religions that had long existed in the surrounding regions and had even made some
inroads into the region of western Arabia itself (as, for example, with Jewish tribes of
Yathrib, Medina). At the time of Mohammad, religion here and particularly in his
birthplace, Mecca, was, then, essentially pagan, occupied with idolatry. The Ka’ba in
Mecca was a shrine (‘bethel’ also known before Mohammad’s day as the Bait Allah or
 18

the ‘House of God’) to a number of deities, and the shrines at Ta’if and others in the
region of Mecca were ‘homes’ to gods and goddesses among whom one seemed to
have a superior position. Known as the ‘Divine One’ or in Arabic as al-ilah or Allah,
with a triad of goddesses, al-Lat, al-‘Uzza, and Manat, as his daughters (banat Allah),
he was in this ‘paganish’ form worshiped in western Arabia long before as the Divine
One he became the One and Only God of Mohammad’s Islamic movement.

Mohammad’s form of recitation had also antecedents in pre-Islamic Arabia. Arab

poets were known to recite verses as if inspired by ‘spirits’, and the language they
used was of the form Mohammad had employed. More importantly, there were the
Kahin or soothsayers, who were known and believed to have visions and also
possessed ‘spirits’ called ‘companions’ or ‘seers’, which spoke through them
revealing visions in ‘poetic’ form and in breathless, rhythmic voices through their
mouths. The Kahin were highly and widely respected and were consulted as oracles,
seers, and priest-like advisers in both public and private matters. There is however no
evidence at all that Mohammad was either regarded as a Kahin or himself acted as
one. Yet from what is related about his manner and form of recitation, of the modus
operandi of his revelations, he appears to have had many traits in common with such
‘seers’ or perhaps more likely, he had adopted, borrowed, their formal method of
reciting his God’s revelations.

Now, whatever is the truth, it is hardly surprising or strange that, in attempting to

bring about a new movement, Mohammad had used all the techniques and ideas
commonly practiced by such highly respected spiritually-inspired persons. Both
religiously and politically such embracing of prevailing practices is clearly a shrewd
move. There is also no question that he was not alone in taking up such practices or in
his proclamation of prophethood. Pre-Islamic Arabia at this time, as with other parts
of the Near East at the time of other prophets, had its own share of men who rose up
and proclaimed to be prophets of one sort or another. At this historical time, for
example, one of the best known of such men that Arab historians mention was one
who called himself Maslama (or Musaylima) of the tribe of the Banu Hanifa in the
Yamama, a place in the middle of Arabia. Maslama, too, had a mission. He clearly
regarded himself as a ‘messenger’ of a one and only God he called Rahman (meaning
‘merciful’). Evidence from inscriptions of the period confirm that the word
‘Rahmanan’(in Aramaic/Hebrew usage) was that which in Southern Arabia was used
to refer to the God of Jews and to God the Father in the Christian Trinity, meaning
‘The Merciful’. It is known that Maslama was referred to and/or called himself
Rahman, after this God the Merciful. And according to some historians Mohammad
was accused of gaining some of his ideas of monotheism from a person widely known
as ‘Rahman of the Yamama’. Yet by some accounts the reverse is the truth; i.e. that
Maslama, as well as yet another prophet in the Yemen called al-Aswad, was copying
Mohammad.

At any rate, historically speaking, there is no doubt that Mohammad had naturally
been influenced by the religious ideas and practices of his time and had by the age of
forty come to realise the political significance of monotheism at a time when there was
a great deal of tension in the tribal life and relations in Arabia. Politically, the vision of
one God was recognised as clearly supremely crucial in dealing with contemporary
tensions and in facilitating tribal unity under the specifically Arab identity.

In the Near East as a whole, for some centuries before this historical juncture,
monotheism had already advanced its ‘rescue’ of religion from the thousands of years
of domination by polytheism, and the struggle between the two had by the time of
Mohammad become not merely a localised clash, but a worldly struggle for the very
notion, the heart and soul and life, of religion as such.
 19

Religion, of course, had always claimed the absolute right to ‘guide’ human ways of
dealing with tensions and problems of a natural or societal kind, and based this claim
upon the elaboration of the highest form of ‘knowledge’ as being divine in origins.
With Judaism, which was by far the most developed and organised monotheistic
religion, the practical bearing of religion had assumed a new form, which accorded
with the sweeping changes of ancient societies. It had announced a ‘practical’ religion
by means of which humanity could (would) progress towards the kingdom of heaven.
The achievement of this task was, to an ever increasing extent, bound up with the
establishment of universally valid laws within the conceptual structure of divine
knowledge and the affirmation of the existence of one God. The truth of this was
claimed and believed to be universal, as contrasted to the multi-kind appearance of
gods, which were generally localised in their immediate forms and thus in the
perception of individual groups (tribes, clans, or settled village communities).

The conception of a single God was a unifying principle that was meant to preserve
the basic ideals of communality of individual groups without falling victim to its
antagonisms. With polytheism not a single god or law could lay claim to universality
(one god could be dominant or superior for a certain period and/or in certain locality,
but could never assume universality); the unity of deities was based on localised
custom or habit, adhering to the facts of life but never governing them absolutely and
universally. The struggle between monotheism and polytheism was thus not merely a
religious struggle, it was a struggle born of the history and evolution of human society
and concerned the historical destiny of humanity. The Koran gives not only a clear
expression of this struggle between monotheism and polytheism, but also voices its
own struggle for the overthrow of all other past monotheistic religions.

Ever since the age of Ayyam al-Arab, the Arab tribes had become more aware of their
own distinctly Arab identity. A long process of cultural adjustments, under conditions
of imperial domination (Byzantium to the north, but particularly Persian Sasanid to the
east), had introverted the idea of Arab identity but only within the context of tribal
relations. The tribes, nomadic and settled, distributed among numerous oases, each
with its own ‘governing’ authority and its own local interests, were impotent to
crystallize and effectuate any serious progress towards unification based on the
recognition of their Arab identity. Culture at this age was, then, essentially occupied
with the mere idea of Arab identity rather than with a unified Arab entity. This
development is an important source of a tendency widely visible in western Arabian
religious beliefs of reconciling the social reality of the ‘tribalism’ of Arab identity
with polytheism. It is a tendency, however, that became frustrated and was eventually
transformed into its opposite – a complete break with polytheism.

Mohammad’s message, later set forth in the Koran, is the first great expression of this
complete break with polytheism within the Arab tribes, and yet, at the same time and
paradoxically, the last great attempt to reconcile Arab tribal identity with pagan
religious beliefs by giving a refuge to its gods. Mohammad’s message is a synthesis; a
system subsuming all the gods of Arab pagan religions under the all-embracing idea of
a single God, already widely worshiped as a ‘superior’ god, as mentioned above,
known and referred to in Arabic as Allah, meaning the Divine One. This one and only
God becomes the veritable form of the reality of all gods in which all antagonisms of
beliefs are integrated to form a genuine unity and universality. The task of
Mohammad’s revelations in this period of tribalism was thus to set forth and
demonstrate the religious principle that would bring about the realisation of the ideals
of Arab identity which had surfaced in the age of Ayyam al-Arab and to institute the
missing concrete unity (unification) of all the Arab tribes.
 20

The dialectic between these ideals and monotheism is not, then, incidental in the
Koran. It of course presupposes the social reality of pre-Islamic life. It is the product
of the given historical situation and its principle rested with the unification of
opposites in religious ideas and beliefs upon which there could arise the fulfilment of
the potentialities inherent in the notion of Ayyam al-Arab. The realisation of this was a
political task that could have only been executed in the form of a religious struggle.
The form in which this religious struggle initially appeared was, however, not yet its
true form. It was at first negative; the smashing of idols, Mohammad’s constant
struggle to ‘prove’ his prophethood, his needing to establish a direct line between his
mission and those of the past prophets, etc. It took on its true form only in the process
of overcoming this negativity, so that the birth of Islam required the death of the given
state of religious beliefs, specifically polytheism.

Mohammad’s task, or mission, was, moreover, to not only abolish idolatry, replacing
it with monotheism, but to also ‘dethrone’ the existing monotheistic religions
(specifically Judaism and Christianity) by ‘completing’ what those religions had
started with a restatement of the transcendental notion of the divine in a form that
makes the divine experientially realisable. The revelations, later collected in the
Koran, had this practical aim of moving from the negative to bring about the truth of a
new religion. Consequently, in Mohammad’s revelations tenets pass from one form to
another governed by the dynamics of his state of affairs and reflecting the fact that in
his task he had the practical political aim of dealing with particular conditions and
problems as and when they occurred. This is why the revelations were said to come to
him as and when appropriate; and that in their final compilation, the order of which
has no bearing on the actual chronology of their recitation by Mohammad, they seem
to be contradictory – an ayah in one place being incompatible with another or
contradicting some others.

Mohammad’s religious mission, however, which began with the negation of the given
state of religious beliefs and retained this negativity throughout, was concluded only
well after his death with the proclamation of his collected revelations as the holy book.
The publishing of the holy book, bound to the Islamic state symbiotically, was the
declaration (by his successors) that Mohammad had achieved the institutional stage of
his mission and that Islam had finally attained the status hitherto only conferred upon
the great religions of Moses and Jesus with their holy books.

With the publishing of the Koran, Islam’s position in the world was no longer
dependent on the negation of other forms of religious systems or merely on some
transcendental ‘abstraction’, but on its own mode of practice. Religion, with Islam, at
least according to its followers, had passed the long period of ‘immaturity’ during
which it had relied on and attempted to incorporate into itself the existing forms of
beliefs, and had become, with the Koran, an autonomous force, subject only to its own
universal laws. From the publication of the Koran, the struggle of believers with social
forces and organisations external to Islam was to be guided by their own practice of
the knowledge contained in the Koran. The world was to be the actual realisation of an
order based on divinely commanded submission to the Will of God and His
Messenger, as set down by His Word.

At this point in time (roughly from the mid-seventh century AD) socio-political reality
contained the conditions necessary to materialise the ideological force of faith in the
Koran in fact. The specifically religious element of faith did not cease, of course, but
assumed a new form. Faith in the Koran became a powerful political weapon for state-
building, for the creation of an Empire.
 21

There is no doubt, at any rate, that from its very conception, the Koran was deeply and
irrefutably concerned with the politics of faith. It is with this ‘politics of faith’, then,
that I shall begin my political reading, interpretation and examination, of the Koran.

Chapter One: The Politics of Faith

Faith is to the Koran what matter is to life. It is at once its most general and its most
elementary substance. Faith is the indispensable condition for the sacredness of all the
Koran’s textual representation of revelations. Every single verse in the Koran has faith
as its absolute foundation. Faith is what determines the essence of the Koran: ‘And in
the earth are signs [ayat, revelations] for those who are sure in faith.’(LI:20) And: ‘We
have indeed made manifest the signs to people with certitude [who are certainly sure
in faith].’(II:118)

Without faith the Koran is nothing more than a mere historical document, having no
basic function in world history. The concept of faith incorporates all the elements that
characterise the Koran as in origin divine. This determination cannot, however, be
grasped as a simple relation; for with faith we are in the realm of mystification. As it is
famously put (Heb 11:1): ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen.’ The relation between faith and the Koran must therefore be
apprehended in a way which subverts rational understanding; the relation must be seen
as created by the Koran’s own reality. The Koran must be seen not as a mere ‘object’
of faith, but as a ‘subject’ in its relations to its ‘otherness’ which is faith. In other
words, the Koran is regarded as divine, but that this divinity appears as a property of
the Koran itself. The divinity of the Koran seems to be independent of this or that
individual’s faith in it. Hence the divinity of the Koran appears to be something purely
and objectively outside of the realm of human relations and consciousness, and
consequently inherent in the text itself. The Koran, thus, manifests itself as a text that
by its revelations answers faith that it itself establishes. In appearance, then, the
necessary relation of the Koran to faith is one that makes its divinity in all conditions
not contingent but necessarily determined by itself. The understanding of this
mystification is necessary in order to grasp the political force of faith in Islam; for it
presupposes that the Koran has a definite power over the development of faith, so that
it can remain itself a force in spite of the fact that its existence is purely subjective.
Thus, the Koran exalts the notion of faith and articulates the proof of faith-as-such,
that is, as its most profound testimony or confirmation. It is as if it is the Koran itself
and in itself that produces and determines faith.

Essentially having faith in the Koran makes the nature of the divine order presented in
it something apparently real. Yet there is an intrinsically reverse relation between faith
and the nature of the divine order in the Koran: it is the representation of the divine
order as given in the Koran that appears to reproduce the expression of faith and
brings it to its true form. In this mystification, faith in the divine order is conditioned
by faith in the document which is the Koran; the text itself becomes the divine
element, seemingly providing the very cognisance of the divine through the divine,
which then rediscovers itself in the believer as faith. The subjectivity of faith seems
transformed to become the objectively ideal. Faith appears externalised: it seems and
is perceived to have an external source, having external causality and substantiality in
the Koran. In other words, the subjectivity of faith passes into the form of ‘divine
revelations’, of the Word of God, into the Holy Book, which, accordingly, attains a
universality and permanence that seems independent of the particular individual
believer. The Koran assumes the dignity of the ‘objectivity’ of faith, and its ‘pure self-
existence’ seems assured by this means of faith’s apparent objectification – as the
Word and the Holy Book. By this means the Word of God takes on the appearance of
an independent power – in the form of Allah’s Constitution. But the Koran assumes
 22

this form as a consequence in essence of the fact that the power of the divine Word
has become, through faith itself, the manifestation of an actual earthly power – the
Islamic state. It is in this process that the politics of faith operates.

There are basically two interlinked aspects to the politics of faith that can be discerned
in the Koran: One is concerned with the substantiation of faith in the divinity of
Mohammad’s revelatory message, which, axiomatically, includes substantiating faith
in his vision of the Oneness of God, divine power and God’s Will. The other is the
establishment of faith in the actual textual representation of divine revelations, of the
divine message, as the true Book of Commandments, the Holy Book, and hence as
Allah’s Constitution. These two aspects are concerned with and reflect changing
power relations but within the continuum of Islam’s ideological movement. Both
aspects, inseparable though distinct, are concerned with political interests and the
direction of the structural adjustments to the institutions of power within the
specifically Islamic mode of domination. Fundamentally, they are concerned with
power and its exercise.

Revealing Faith: A Process in Reverse

The politics of faith as reflected in the Koran appear in a form that reverses the
process of revelations. Assuming the historical authenticity of the revelations given in
the Koran, the presentation of these is more or less and for the most part the direct
opposite to that of their actual (or presumed) recitation by Mohammad. The Koran
begins not with the revelations recited by Mohammad at the beginning and early
period of his mission but with those affirming and substantiating faith in the Divine
Order. The design of this format was not for mere religious reasons; or, to put it more
precisely, the apparent religious motive behind this deliberate formulation rose out of
political considerations. Let us look at the manner in which this is reflected in the
Koran.

The Koran’s first and foremost task is in the revealing of faith in the Divine Order as
the well-spring of faith in itself as the Word of God. It is this first-principle task that
underlines its formal structure. The first surah (The Opening or Fateha) thus opens the
composition with the affirmative, unequivocal statement of faith in the omnipotence of
God. It is a concise and simple declaration, firstly asserting the absolute sovereignty of
God:

‘Bessmellah-e Rahman-e al-Rahim’

‘In the Name of God [Bessmellah – has also the connotation of ‘In the Service of
God’], the Beneficent, the Merciful.’

‘Praise [al-hamdu – stresses the glory that is God’s] belongs to God, the Lord of the
worlds [al-‘alameen],
The Beneficent, the Merciful,
The Master of the Day of Judgment [Yaumiddeen – Yaum, or ‘Day’, can mean
‘moment’ in its metaphysical sense; Deen means ‘the way of life’ according to the
Will of God; here God is thus stated to be ‘the Master of the Moment of Judgment in
the way of life and throughout the way of life of all beings’ – in short, He is the
Absolute Judge, Final Authority in all aspects or matters of life.].’

It then goes on to confirm the believer’s faith in God’s Mastery:

‘Thee only we serve [na’badu – we do obey and worship in subjection and servitude –
from ‘ibadah, root word ‘abd]; of Thee alone we seek help.
 23

Guide us in the Straight Way [Ihdina – also meaning ‘confirm’; thus: Confirm upon
us the Straight Way],
The Way of those whom Thou hast bestowed favours [a-n’mata, bounties, reward for
services],
Not of those against whom Thou art wrathful [al-maqzub – those inflicted with God’s
anger], nor of those who are [or gone] astray [al-zalayoon].’

This beginning (or Opening), in its pointedness, is an astute political statement worthy
of a party-political manifesto. It is, in its Arabic, elegant in language, precise in its
aim, lucid in its demand, and positive in its claim. The importance of this surah is
quite evident from its compulsory recitation in every prayer, without which no prayer
is wholly perfect – hence it is referred to as ‘Ummu Qur’an, the Essence (or ‘Mother’)
of the Recitations (or the Koran). It proclaims God as the Master; it does not invite one
to believe in Him, it asserts faith in His Mastery. He is the Absolute Judge, the
Absolute Law-maker; the one and only one who confirms and establishes the way of
life to be followed; He is the only one who bestows favours and this upon those whom
he chooses, who are thus blessed as his favoured ones. The surah, in other words,
gives clear-cut direction, leadership. It thereby establishes at once the essence of the
faith in God as based on the Master-servant relation of dependence. The relationship,
moreover, is not passive; opposition to His sovereignty will meet His wrath, while to
Him alone is due praise for guidance and help. One is left in no doubt from the start as
to the fundamental purpose of the whole composition of the Koran. The opening sets
the agenda that underline the structure of the whole composition. The surah-e-Fateha,
being regarded as the ‘Essence’ of the Holy Book, is a fundamental declaration of the
supremacy of God’s power and the assertion of mankind’s obedience and worship of
His absolute authority – it is the assertion of mankind’s servitude within the Divine
Order. The placing of this surah at the beginning of the Koran could have hardly been
incidental or accidental. It was placed there by design, with definite political
deliberation.

It is at the connection between what is compiled (or composed) and what is

(supposedly) revealed that the textual document, even if by implication, gives its own
illustration of the political consideration behind the transformation of Mohammad’s
revelations into the Koran. With Mohammad, revelations were in their ‘raw state’, as
it were – they were divine communications impressed upon Mohammad’s small world
in order to exercise his personal powers of intervention. But the revelations contained
in the Koran (professed to be those of Mohammad’s), even if they are assumed to be
the original ayahs, enter into new relations with each other by arrangement, ones
more expressive of the purposive intervention of an earthly authority – an authority
deeply engaged in the manoeuvres of the politics of faith. Thus, for example, compare
the following surah, which is said to contain the first of Mohammad’s revelations (the
five beginning ayahs), with the first surah of the Koran (the Opening). Here are the
five verses of Mohammad’s first revelations:

‘In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Recite, in the name of thy Lord Who created.
He created man from a clot.
Recite, for thy Lord is Most Generous.
Who taught by the Pen [Qalam refers to ‘pen’ only as an instrument to inscribe or
write in the symbolic sense of the passing of ‘divine knowledge’ – see e.g. LXVIII:1]
Taught man what he knew not …’(XCVI:1-5)

Now, in the above verses we have a simple articulation of a personal instruction.

Fundamentally, the purpose here is to name, or point out, the origin of revelations as a
representation of divine ‘creation’. The propositional form is to do with ‘nomination’
 24

and ‘indication’, but not of ‘judgement’. The instruction to ‘Recite’ does not arouse,
and is not intended to arouse, the sense of power; it is merely expressive of the
relation between the Lord of Creation and the person of Mohammad, who is being told
to recite that which the Lord teaches which man did not know.

It is evident, from a comparison of these first-revealed ayahs and the Opening surah
of the Koran, that the two sets of revelations have very distinct and different functions.
With the first-revealed ayahs we have the nominative function which remains within
the immediacy of the given personal role of Mohammad as the indicator and conveyor
of the divine knowledge in the form of revelations; with the Opening surah we have
the practical function which goes beyond the immediacy of the given to affirm that
which has been already conveyed as the Truth, or divine knowledge, of the
‘phenomenal’ existence of the Divine Order of things, of God’s power and authority
over man.

It is understandable, therefore, why the compilers of the Koran accorded such

theological and practical importance to the Opening surah by placing it at the head of
the whole composition – and not accorded this to the supposedly actual first-revealed
ayahs. The Opening surah is expressive of the absolute condition of faith in the
Divine Order revealed and set forth in the Koran. And by this very method, it is
effectively proclaiming the inextricable link between that Divine Order and the
revelatory content of the composition being ‘opened’ as equal in sovereignty, as
having the same force or authority – thus commanding absolute faith in the Koran as
the Word of God.

The point immediately before us, it should be stressed, is not to do with the ‘truth’ or
the ‘theological’ value or otherwise of the Opening surah or for that matter of any
other chapter or verse, rather it is to do with the reason and manner of its arrival as
part of the affirmation of faith. Faith, from a socio-historical perspective, comes about
as part of social consciousness which is determined by social being, the lived
experience of individuals in relations to each other and to their material life
conditions. Faith cannot reproduce itself independently of the lived experience of
individuals as social beings. Yet it is precisely the opposite understanding that the
Koran asserts as the foundation of faith. In the Koran, the Prophet’s revelations are set
forth in order to elaborate or rather substantiate the assertion of faith as independent of
the human world. It is as if the faith being substantiated comes out of the ‘raw
material’ of the Prophet’s recited revelations. Living aside the very substantial
problematic nature of Mohammad’s revelations, it is clear from the outset, as evident
from the Opening surah, that this ‘raw material’ was and had to be worked upon
before it could be made into a ‘product’ (the text) that could have any claim to
substantiating its own specific authority. This working on the revelations and the
subsequent making of their compilation into a textual composition took place within a
social and historical context that determined the purpose and hence the form and
structure of what was to become the Koran. In short, the Koran had to be made into
the Word of God from the ‘raw material’ of the Prophet’s revelation. And it had to be
made as such essentially for reasons of political expediency conditioned by the
process of consolidation of Islam’s mode of domination in which faith in the authority
of the emerging structure of power (and of those in command of it) was of
fundamental importance. The earthly exercise of power needed sanctioning;
substantiating faith as such by means of the Prophet’s revelations that affirmed God’s
power or the omnipotence of the Divine Order was considered as essential to
achieving this end. This was essentially a process of struggle; that is, fighting the
politics of faith.
 25

In this process, the crucial principle was to ‘reverse’ the order of Mohammad’s
message. Let us consider this matter a little more closely.

In the beginning was not the ‘Word’ but the ‘person of the Prophet’ who had set
himself the task of revealing the Divine Order. This ‘person’ as Mohammad was
‘chosen’ by God to deliver the divine message like other Prophets before him. Once
chosen, he was then told to recite that which God was to reveal to him, which was
subsequently to become the Word. In other words, Mohammad’s revealing of the
Divine Order was both conditioned by and a condition of his personal authority as the
Messenger of God. In political terms, he was making an attempt on power through the
sanctioning of his authority as the Messenger of God, through, as it were, the clothes
or shroud of prophethood. This is the idea implied in one of the earliest or, by some
reckoning, the second set of ayahs delivered or recited by Mohammad at the very
beginning of his mission at Mecca: ‘O thou clothed [shrouded] in thy mantle. Arise
and Warn! And thy Lord do magnify! And thy raiment do purify!’(LXXIV:1-4)

If in the first-revealed ayahs Mohammad is called on to recite that which God is

revealing to him, here he is being put forward as the chosen person summoned by God
to bring faith to his fellow Meccans as disbelievers by exalting God as his Lord. With
this, then, the ayahs he recited were not sanctioning the Koran as the Word of God,
but Mohammad’s role in God’s Order that was being revealed to him. During the
initial phase of his mission, in other words, the revelations were fundamentally
advocating faith in the One God as a way of confirming Mohammad’s divinely
granted authority. For example, even when Mohammad is instructed to recite the
Koran, the recitation commanded is not specifically concerned with faith in the
authority of the Koran itself or as such but with that of the authorisation by God of
Mohammad himself, as indicated in the following verses: ‘O thou wrapped up in thy
mantle! Rise thou in the night to pray but a little. Half of it or curtail of it a little. Or
add to it, and declaim the Qur’an in a distinct tone [as it ought to be recited]! Verily,
soon will We cast upon thee a weighty Word. … And remember the Name of thy Lord,
and devote thyself unto Him exclusively [with exclusive devotion]. The Lord of the
East and the West: there is no god but He, so take Him as your Protector!’(LXXIII:1-5
and 9; my italics) The ‘Word’ was yet to be revealed; that is, the Koran in its
completed form that came to be designated as the Word expressing God’s Will, or the
totality of what is regarded as the Divine Order, was still to be ‘sent down’ to
Mohammad. It should be noted that the reference made to the ‘Qur’an’ here is strictly
speaking only to Mohammad’s Recitation and not to the much later ‘textual’
compilation or composition of his revelations (if indeed these verses are the authentic
ones made up and voiced by Mohammad). For Mohammad, the true mode of
manifesting and expressing God’s Order, His Will, was only through the process of
recitation; it was by reciting his revelations that he not only disclosed God’s Will to
the world of humanity (or rather, the people of Mecca and other regions of the Hijaz),
but he himself engaged with the latter as a Prophet.

If we assume that these revelations (the early so-called Meccan verses) are genuine,
then what the term ‘Qur’an’ (from qara’a, ‘to recite’) denoted at the time was the
Prophet’s process of recitation of his revelations. The term signified the mode of
delivery of the divine message, rather than the form of the latter as the ‘Word’. The
‘Word’, moreover, has to be perceived on the basis of its representation of Divine
Order, as the virtual element of God’s Will, prescribing the order of things, of all
being. With the Word, the Koran no longer designates merely a process of recitation;
it refers also to the formal elements of God’s Will, His directives and commands,
grouped into a system establishing a way of life (Deen), which impose upon the world
an organisation of life that is (ideally) that of the representation of the Divine Order
itself. It is the Word in this latter sense that can then become the Guidance, the Truth,
 26

and hence the Holy Book. It is therefore not necessarily or always the case that the
term ‘Qur’an’ is synonymous with either the ‘Word’ or indeed the ‘Book’. This point
is actually implied, for example, in the following ayahs: ‘Verily, it is a noble Qur’an.
In a hidden Book. None shall touch it save the purified. A revelation [tanzil] by the
Lord of the Worlds [Rabb al-‘alameen]…’(LVI:77-80; my italics)

‘Kitabi maknun’ translated as ‘a hidden Book’ is a reference to the ‘heavenly’ or the

divinely recorded totality of God’s Will as commandments, etc., from which the
Qur’an is revealed in the generous and noble form of Mohammad’s recitation. What
we have in terms of the representation of the Divine Order, therefore, is merely the
recitation by Mohammad of what ‘the Lord of the Worlds’ is ‘sending down’ as a
revelation, which is distinct from God’s Word. It is on the basis of this clear and
manifest recitation, revealed from the ‘hidden’ but sovereign ‘Book’ of God, that the
Word ‘emerges’, signifying a sort of assemblage that is a unit, a whole, formed by the
union of the recited revelations now bound in upon themselves. Before this
‘assemblage’, power relations were predominantly characterised by the personal form
of intervention – i.e. Mohammad vying for power. We see this reflected in many
verses, of which this is one example: ‘Indeed, We sent Our Messenger with clear
[irrefutable] evidences, and We sent down [revealed] with them the Book and the
Scale [Balance] that men may constitute themselves with equity…’(LVII:25; my
italics) Mohammad reveals the ‘irrefutable evidences’ upon which ‘the Book and the
Scale’ is sent down; signs of the Divine Order are revealed by Mohammad to bring
and substantiate faith in that Order, which thereby sanctions Mohammad’s
interventionist role in the affairs and conduct of men. With this then comes the Book
and the Scale of divine justice and equity.

Reciting the revelations as ‘evidence’ of the Divine Order of all things was the
primary factor in terms of the politics of faith or the ‘Machiavellian’ manoeuvring for
power by Mohammad. It was to him personally that the signs, the evidences, were
given and this alone warrants all who heard his recitations to believe in his God Who
has revealed these signs to him: ‘And what is it with you that you believe not in God
seeing that the Messenger calls on you to believe in your Lord, and has indeed made a
bargain with you, if you are believers? He it is Who sent down [revealed] upon His
Servant [i.e. Mohammad] signs manifest, so that He may bring you forth from the
darkness into the light; and verily God unto you is Most Kind and Most
Merciful!’(LVII:8-9; my italics) In view of the Messenger calling on his folk, his
fellow tribesmen, to follow him in his vying for power, God has sent down manifest
signs of His Will so that everyone should, by ‘seeing’ these evidences (thus coming
out of the ‘darkness’ of ignorance into the ‘light’ of the knowledge of the Truth),
believe, have faith, in Mohammad himself. The ‘signs’ are, of course, revelations
being recited as distinct from their later formation as the Word.

It is upon this conceptual distinction between the ‘recitation’ and the ‘Word’ that the
order of Mohammad’s message presented in the Koran is reversed. Rather than
beginning with revelations that gave greater prominence to the licensing or
authorisation by God of the person of Mohammad to be His chosen Prophet, the
completed composition as the Koran actually begins with revelations that give greater
prominence to the Word of God. This ‘reversal’ was not the result of ‘divine
intervention’ (chance) or simply brought on by religious considerations; it was a
consequence of the changing political conditions in the process of the development of
the Islamic movement.
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The Koran as the Word of God

For Mohammad the politics of faith entailed a necessary struggle to establish his
Islamic movement as divinely ordained, and himself as the true and the last of God’s
prophets. But his theocracy, once established, had no formal jurisdiction; his ‘proto-
political’ organisation or community-state (the umma) had only an internal cohesive
authority based purely on the acceptance of Mohammad as the divine messenger; the
exercise of power and dealings with opponents depended solely upon the caprice of
the Prophet – though proclaimed to be the Will of God revealed through him. For his
successors, however, the politics of faith entailed a struggle to establish the external
and internal sovereignty of the Islamic state. This engendered a new conception of the
relation of the state to its subjects. The idea of the community of Muslims (the umma)
had to be displaced by the idea of the state as an undisputed authority of the Caliphate
government over all its subjects. But this had to be done in such a way as to maintain
the appearance of the communality of subjects and that of the divinity of the authority
of rulers. In short, the changes in the political realm had to be presented, justified and
made to appear as simply the divinely sanctioned continuation of the Prophet’s
established ways and form of leadership and governance.

Given the historical circumstances, in other words, a formally constituted jurisdiction

was necessary to establish the universal order of the state in order to combine the
territories being conquered with the original community of Muslims so as to form a
centralised social and political whole. The exercise of power, and thus the Caliphate’s
dealings with its opponents, needed formal sanctioning. In the absence of the personal
authority of the Prophet, Mohammad’s revelations were the only source that had such
unchallengeable authority. Their compilation and subsequent composition in the form
of the Koran, officially stamped as the exact and definitive text of the Prophet’s
recitation, thus provided the Caliphate that necessary and indispensable formal
jurisdiction.

With this point in mind, it can be said that the arrangement and composition of
Mohammad’s recitation of revelations were essentially an ideological response to the
political development of the Islamic movement – a response conditioned by the
politics of faith. This response would presuppose that faith must be seen as created by
the Koran’s own mode of ‘reality’. The composition of revelations had to be made to
appear not as something that merely establishes faith in Islam as a way of life, but as
something that is actually perceived to be its true reality; it had to be regarded in itself
as the ‘Ideal’, the ‘Perfection’ or the ‘Criterion’ (Furqan) of life’s conduct in which all
potentialities of Islamic faith are realised and in which faith-as-such reaches its
ultimate form. The goal of the Koranic arrangement and composition was, thus,
herewith set. It consisted in putting forth faith in the Koran as the absolute truth of
faith-as-such. The task of the compilers of the Koran (but more so of the later ulama
who greatly influenced its actual composition) was to bring about such an
understanding and perception and not merely to ‘assemble’ the Prophet’s revelations
for the sake of spiritual guidance. In order to achieve this task the composition had to
be arranged in its assemblage of verses and chapters (involving modifications of
chronological order of verses both within and between chapters, as well as perhaps
addition and omitting of verses) so as to present itself as the Word of God.

After the opening statement of God’s Mastery in the first surah, therefore, the Koran
immediately goes on in the second surah to establish itself as the Book which is the
principal source and well-spring of faith in God par excellence. Thus the first two
lines of this second chapter (called the Cow or Al-Baqarah) categorically asserts:
 28

‘Alif Lam Mim

That is the Book, wherein is no doubt [zalika al-Kitaba la rayuba]’

In other words, here God Himself (given the presupposition of divine revelation) is
giving notice to the world that the Koran is the Book of His commandments.

Zalika al-Kitaba la rayuba connotes: that (zalika) sum total of the divine qualities of
the revelations that are herein written and bound in a complete form (al-Kitab) in
which there can be no doubt (la rayuba). The word ‘kitab’ denotes ‘to collect things
together’ and ‘kitaba’ that of the act of ‘writing’, which has, of course, its various
conjugated forms (as kataba, katabat, etc) – they are all from the root k-t-b originally
denoting ‘to stitch’ pieces, perhaps of skins, together, which has from this come to
denote ‘making’ or ‘inscribing’ or ‘writing’; for what is ‘written’ is the making of
words and sentences by bringing (‘stitching’) together letters and words. In the Koran
the connotation of kitab, however, is more significant than its denotation. For kitab (as
also the words kataba or kutiba) connotes the specific quality of that which is written
as wajib or obligatory and this because the thing written is divinely predetermined as
directives, commands or prescriptions. We can see this, for example, in a whole
number of ayahs, such as II:180, prescribing the making of a bequest, or II:183,
prescribing fasting, as with many others, in all of which this idea of the thing ‘written’
is distinguished as a ‘divine decree’. The written has, in other words, a great
significance; it establishes what is preordained – thus ‘Allah-a kataba’ signifies that
which ‘God has written’ as the obligation which He has ordained (e.g. see VI:12 and
also 54, ‘kataba Rabbukum’ or ‘the Lord has ordained’)

For this very reason, as a concept, kitab has the representative value of all the
elements of revelations that together form God’s commandments as the Divine Word.
It is as such that the ‘Book’ of revelations assumes the eminence of a Guidance, a
Book of divinely ordained rules and regulations of life. And indeed the confirmation
of this is given in the ayah quoted above from the second chapter: ‘That is the Book,
wherein is no doubt, a Guidance to the pious.’(II:2; my italics)

The second surah thus actually begins with the promulgation of the fundamental
principle of Islam: the Koran is the Word of God!

The Word of God carries the absolute obligation of commandments as Divine Law,
which by definition has an independent and a continual existence. It is therefore as
such independent of the person of the Messenger who had been the medium of its
revelatory process, while grounded on his God-given recited revelations, as indeed on
what was revealed by prophets before him. As the Word of God, the compilation of
Mohammad’s recited revelations is thus claimed to be a Guidance to those ‘who
believe in that which has been sent down [i.e. as revelations] unto thee [i.e.
Mohammad] and that which has been sent down before thee [i.e. to other
prophets]…’(II:4) The composition of Mohammad’s revelations can now claim faith
on its own ground. And thus we have here the reproduction of an ayah purporting to
instruct Mohammad to inform specifically the Jews and Christians (having their own
versions of the Word of God) that the Koran is the true Guidance, i.e. the last or final
Word of God: ‘Say: Verily, the guidance from God is the Guidance.’(II:120; my
italics) For Mohammad’s revelations, in their ‘true recitation’ (see II:121) must now,
as the Koran, be regarded or believed in, as the Truth, that is, as the Word of God:
‘Verily, We have sent thee with the Truth…’(II:119)

Indeed, it is recognised by those who composed the Koran that for a ‘messenger’ or an
‘apostle’ to have a just claim to the status of a Prophet (Nabee), he must have been
given by God al-Kitab – that is, the Book of Divine Law or the Word of God. This is
 29

how it is put in the Koran with regards to Jesus: ‘He said: Verily, I am a servant of
God; He has given me the Book and made me a Prophet!’(XIX:30) And the same goes
for Moses: ‘And We gave Moses the Book and the Criterion that you might be
guided.’(II:53; see also 87) Thus, in tackling this issue, the third surah begins with the
following ayahs:

‘Alif Lam Mim

God, there is no god but He, the Ever-living, the Self-subsistent.
He has sent down unto thee the Book with the Truth [al-Kitaba b-al-Haq (or bil-
haqa)] confirming what was before it; and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel
aforetime, as guidance to mankind, and He sent down the Furqan [the Criterion – a
title given to the Qur’an in its designation as ‘setting the distinctive standard of life’s
conduct’].’(III:1-3)

The notice given here is clear and emphatic: it is that the composition herewith set
before the world is the Book of Divine Law (‘the Book with the Truth’ has this
definite connotation), which confirms the prior Books of Divine Law as the form of
divine guidance. Here, then simply by their association, the logical implication is that
this composition is, like the others mentioned, therefore the Word of God. In fact the
first ayah (of the third chapter) in declaring that ‘there is no god but God’ is meant
precisely to substantiate the second ayah’s assertion; i.e. given the notion of the
Oneness of God, it is self-evident that all the Books of Divine Law mentioned must
have one single divine source (the One God), and it thus follows that since the Torah
and the Gospel are regarded as the Word of God, then manifestly and unquestionably
this composition, too, is the Word of God. But, interestingly, the ayah goes even
further than this assertion: it states that this composition ‘sent down’ as ‘the Book with
the Truth’ confirms the Books that preceded it. The unmistakable implication here is
that the composition of Mohammad’s recited revelations (i.e. the Koran) supersedes
all other Books sent down by God for it ‘confirms’ them. In short, not only is the
Koran the Word of God, it is indeed the last and final Word of God! It replaces (or
displaces) all other Books of Divine Law. In this, the Koran demands absolute faith in
itself as the absolute Word of God on all matters of life. And if in connection with this
demand there were those who questioned the arrangement and form of the
composition and the manner of the communication of its revelatory message, and thus
on that basis challenged its divinity as the Word of God, then the astute compilers had
an ayah as God’s response for this bit of complication, too. Here is the relevant ayah:
‘And those who disbelieve say: Why was not the Qur’an sent down to him [i.e.
Mohammad] all at once?’ That is, since Mohammad received the revelations
piecemeal over some twenty-two years, and since the ‘Word of God’ signifies a
completed Book of Divine Law sent down by God in its totality and hence all at once,
then the composition as the Koran seems to be manmade. ‘It is thus,’ comes the
response of God to this challenge, ‘so that We may strengthen your heart thereby, and
We have arranged it well for distinctive recitation. They [i.e. disbelievers] bring not to
thee any argument, but We have brought to thee the Truth, and the best in
exposition.’(XXV:32-33; my italics) They had also responded to those who questioned
the compilation’s authenticity as the Word of God on the basis that nothing of it had
been written down at the time of its delivery to Mohammad: ‘And had we sent down
to you [i.e. Mohammad] a writing [kitaban] on parchment, and they had touched it
with their hands, surely those who disbelieve would have said: This is naught but
obvious sorcery.’ And for this treachery: ‘…the matter would certainly have been
decided [i.e. God would certainly punish them] and then they would be given no
respite.’(VI:7-8)

In reality, of course, what is being ‘confirmed’ is an emphatic declaration of faith in

the Koran’s divine origins by the powers that be, by those who had commissioned and
 30

those who had composed it. It is a declaration which is, indeed, asserted, as if to
emphasise the point or as a reminder, at various intervals throughout the Koran. The
assertiveness of these statements concerning the composition’s status leaves no room
for doubt. Yet, the very fact of giving and repeating such a firm notice of the
composition’s divinity as the Word of God is indicative of uncertainty in the
compilation’s status and implies the need for its certification. This is particularly the
case as regards the beginning ayah of the second surah; and therefore although here
the statement is categorical, it is not unproblematic; its positive component (‘That is
the Book’) is qualified by ‘wherein is no doubt’, suggesting that there was at the time
some measure of hesitancy in its acceptance as the book representing the Divine Word
and also some measure of doubt even among believers with regards to its (officially
sanctioned) form, its particular framework and arrangement. The wording here,
therefore, indicates that the collection of revelations being presented to the world had
an ideological fight on its hands, as it were, to establish itself as the foundation
(‘begetter’) of faith.

The authority of the Koran, even its divine status, during the early phases of the
formation and consolidation of the Islamic state, was thus not a foregone conclusion.
And the reason for this is twofold: on the one hand, Islam needed to establish itself as
the new religion in opposition to other well-established religions, specifically
Christianity and Judaism, which meant that it needed to put in place its own Book of
Divine Law; on the other hand, the compilation had to be acknowledged and accepted
within the Islamic movement itself as ‘authentic’ and true to the substance of the
Prophet’s message – that is to say, its authority had to be asserted, as if by its own
emphatic confirmation, as the Word which God Himself had revealed through
Mohammad and which no faction, party or grouping within the Islamic movement
could question and challenge. It was precisely this process of ideological struggle that
lay at the heart of the politics of faith. The process involved opposing ideas and views
on the form and character of the compilation of revelations being made into the Koran,
reflecting the interests of different factions and groups – it was, indeed, within this
process (involving violent and bloody social and political battles) that the ‘leaders’
and ‘decision makers’ made themselves into what can be categorised as a politically
distinctive social layer, a ‘class-like’ formation, and that eventually the ‘elite’ victors
became fully conscious of their specific values and interests (as for example with the
ulama) as a ruling ‘state-aristocracy’.

If politics at the time was about changing power relations within the mould of religion
and if faith (as an ‘act of the mind’) was in that age an essential conditioning factor of
‘consciousness’ to accept authority as divinely given, then the politics of faith was
engaged with an unrelenting ‘theological war’ fought out, in reality for state-power,
but nominally for God and in the name of Mohammad as His Last Messenger, over the
making and the establishment of the Koran as the last and final Word of God. For the
determination of faith went hand in hand with that of power and the control of the
state. This historical process involved the struggle for faith within the Islamic
movement as well as that between the latter and other non-Islamic claimants to faith’s
certainty of the Truth.

The basic aspects of this theological war over faith in the composition (as being the
Word of God) can be elucidated by looking at the way they are reflected in the Koran
itself, and more manifestly in its beginning lengthier chapters. The ‘war’, as was
mentioned, was over faith in what was written and composed; was it divine in source
or was it made by the hand of man or had it been tampered with? Thus we have the
following verses referring to the folk who had expressed doubt in the compilation as
the Koran: ‘Among them are the unlettered folk [ummiyun, from ummi connoting
‘common’ or ‘ordinary’ people in contrast to the ‘learned’ – thus it is often translated
 31

as ‘illiterate’ – Mohammad was himself one of the ummi] who know not the Book,
save from hearsay, and they do nothing but conjecture. So woe unto them who write
the Book with their own hands, then say: this is from God, that they may sell it [i.e.
‘sell’ as in ‘to promote’ and ‘to delude’] for a small price [i.e. worthless self-interest];
therefore woe unto them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for what
they earn thereby.’(II:78-79)

Two points of import can be discerned from these verses: the first is historical, in that
during the time of the compilation of Mohammad’s revelations into what is referred to
as the Uthman Codex, or the officially sanctioned compilation, there were a number of
other handwritten versions of Mohammad’s speeches, which were under the Caliph
Uthman’s initiative destroyed (or presumed to have been destroyed). The above verses
were therefore reproduced here in order to renounce and reject the ‘unofficial’
versions as ‘counterfeits’, and by this means thereby establishing, in God’s own
words, faith in the official version as the true Word of God. ‘And who is more a
transgressor,’ it is thus stated in relation to such ‘unofficially’ written-down versions,
as well as with regards to anyone claiming divine inspiration, ‘than he who forges a lie
against God, or says: I have received divine inspiration, when no such inspiration was
given to him, or he who says: I can get down [produce a writing] the same as God’s
revelations…’(VI:93; my italics) For only the official composition is the actual Book
that God has blessed: ‘This Book, We have sent it down blessed, confirming that
which has been before it…’(VI:92; my italics; and 155)

The second point is based on the classical method of denigrating one’s opponents. The
doubters are ‘unlettered’, have no knowledge, and deal in conjecture. For these
doubters, it is implied, had in hand a written version of the Prophet’s recited
revelations, and, it can be surmised, were challenging the official compilation as not
being the veritable composition. Thus God here (the verses being revelations) is
belittling their character and dismissing their version of the written revelations as false
and their promotion, or the ‘selling’ of them, as simply for self-interest and the
deluding of the people. In this way, God is confirming the official compilation (and
hence the composition as the Koran) as rightly and properly His Own Word. ‘Should I
seek a judge other than God,’ thus asks Mohammad, ‘when it is He Who has sent
down unto you the detailed Book [al-Kitaba mufassalan, connotes a comprehensively
clear book]?’ The response is unequivocal, ‘And those to whom We have given the
Book know that it has been sent down by thy Lord with truth, therefore be you not of
those who doubt.’(VI:114; my italics.) The seventh chapter, indeed, begins with yet
another couple of revelations advising against any doubt in and reaffirming the official
composition as the Word of God that everyone must follow: ‘A Book has been sent
down to thee, so let there be no doubt [as impediment] in thy breast concerning it, that
you may warn thereby, and as a reminder close to the believers. Follow what has been
sent down to you from your Lord and follow you no guardians other than He [i.e.
God]…’(VII:2-3)

Dissention on this obviously highly significant and sensitive issue, it seems, was rife.
The compilation had become a matter of major ideological and political in-fighting for
the life and soul of the movement. Those in control of its making had to act fast and
relentlessly if they were to have any chance of winning the battles engaged in the
politics of faith. The extent of in-fighting is apparent from this ayah: ‘And verily there
is a faction [firqah, can also mean ‘sect’, though it is sometimes translated as ‘party’]
amongst them who distort the Book with their twisting tongues that you may think it
to be of the [true] Book, and they say: It is from God, while it is not from God, and
they tell a lie against God while they know.’(III:78) And in this connection, God
‘curses’ those attempting to ‘conceal’ the truth about that which He has sent down:
‘Verily, those who conceal what We have sent down as the evident signs and the
 32

Guidance, after We made it manifest in the Book for mankind, these are whom God
shall curse…’(II:159; see also 174 on the same point) And God’s curse turns into a
‘painful chastisement’ for those who thus go on to continuously dispute the
composition’s divine authority, as being His Word: ‘This is because God has sent
down the Book with the Truth; verily, those who oppose [dispute] the Book are in a
great schism [opposition, dissention].’(II:176; my italics)

To affirm the compilation as the Word of God was to give it complete and absolute
jurisdiction in all matters: ‘Verily, We have sent down to you the Book with the Truth
so that you may judge between people by what God has shown you…’(IV:105; my
italics) It is what decisions must be based on (see IV:127); it is Law and a ‘Way’ or a
system of life’s conduct: ‘And We have sent down to you the Book with the Truth,
confirming what is before it of the Book [i.e. of the earlier Scriptures] and a guardian
over it, therefore judge between them by what God has sent down…For every one of
you We appointed a Law and a Way…’(V:48) And in its completeness there must be
no doubt: ‘…We have not neglected anything in the Book…’(VI:38) Thus to question
it, challenge and oppose it, is a treacherous act, equivalent precisely to an act of
treason, and punishable with equal severity. Even Mohammad is boldly told in a
whole number of ayahs not to ‘plead’ for those involved in it – e.g. ‘…and be not you
a pleader for the treacherous.’(IV:105); ‘And plead not on behalf of those who deceive
their own selves; verily, God loves not anyone who is treacherous.’(IV:107). Those
rejecting the composition, who were thus also rejecting what was revealed by
Mohammad, had to be dealt with extremely harshly: ‘See you not those who dispute
about the signs of God, how they are turned away? Those who reject [belie] the Book
and what We sent Our Messenger with, they shall soon know, when the fetters and the
chains shall be upon their necks, they shall be dragged into the boiling water, then in
the Fire [Hell] shall they be burned.’(XL:69-72)

The fundamental issue behind the problem of dissention and opposition with regards
to the official compilation of revelations was the control over power and its ‘rightful’
exercise. Mohammad’s recited revelations were used as weapons (alongside the
sword) in fighting this struggle for power. Included in its earlier surahs, for example,
are ayahs that draw attention to the problem of dissention as distinct from that of
disbelief. The recognition of this problem and the distinction between the two types of
opponents is implied in the following verses: ‘As for the unbelievers, alike it is to
them whether you have warned them or have not warned them, they do not
believe….And there are some people who say: We believe in God and the Last Day;
but they are not at all believers. They desire to deceive God and those who
believe…’(II:6, 8-9) The problem of dissent was less important at the time of
Mohammed and was actually more associated at his time with those who joined his
movement for opportunistic reasons, as ‘impostors’, ‘deceivers’. It had gained greater
political significance with the proper establishment of the Islamic state and its
expansion under the Caliphate regimes (among the long list of ‘dissenters’, the most
important and well-known were, for example, the Khawarij and the Shia). The verses
that dealt with the issue of dissent, even if often implicitly, were invaluable revelations
that could be used by Mohammad’s successors against internal opposition to their
rule. We have thus the following: ‘And when it is said to them, do not make mischief
[fitnah – sedition, rebellion, socio-political unrest] in the land, they say: we are but
peace-makers. Now surely they themselves are the mischief makers, but they do not
perceive [it].’(II:11-12)

Mischief-makers (rebels or dissenters) will, of course, be punished: ‘God shall pay

them back… and He shall lead them on blindly wandering [alone] in their
insolence.’(II:15) Opposition and mischief-making are transgressions – they are
ungodly deeds. The ayahs here clearly equate such transgressors as associated with
 33

Satan, as evildoers (see II:14). They are those, ‘Who break the covenant of God after
its confirmation [solemn binding] and cut asunder what God has ordered to be joined,
and make fitnah in the land; these it is that are the losers.’(II:27) Such transgressors
are determined and prepared to deny not only the ways of God, but also question His
viceroys on earth: ‘And when your Lord said to the angels, I am going to place in the
earth a khalifa [Caliph], they said: What! Wilt Thou place in it such as shall make
fitnah in it and shed blood, and we celebrate Thy praise and extol Thy holiness? He
said: Surely I know what you do not know.’(II:30) God commands the acceptance of
the Caliphs as rulers on earth and in His wisdom, being ‘All-wise’, here makes it be
known that the Caliphs ‘shall’ not ‘make mischief’ because He (God) knows what no-
one else knows, He is after all ‘All-knowing’!

An important point here implied is that antagonistic attitudes were of two kinds – that
of the unbelievers (among them pagans as well as Jews and Christians) and that of the
mischief-makers (the dissenters, among them the hypocrites and impostors). The
former are ‘outsiders’, the latter are those from within the Islamic movement. The
former refuse to accept the new Faith; the latter question and challenge the authority
of the new regime (they have submitted but supposedly ‘deceitfully’, ‘mockingly’).
The politics of faith concerned both these groups of opponents, and it involved the use
of revelations reproduced in the Koran. They were intended to be used to fight
(ideologically) against unbelievers and dissidents. The effectiveness of their
ideological role, however, depended on the substantiation of faith in their compilation
as the Word of God. For this purpose, changes and adjustments had to be made to give
the collection set before the world the authority of an unchallengeable divine book. In
other words, the Prophet’s own recitations in their composition as the Koran had to
become more important than the person of the Prophet, his conducts, accomplishments
and his deeds (which later were collected and became known as the Traditions). In
order to impose his will, Mohammad had proclaimed and asserted his own recitations
as those of God’s, as revelations; while for his successors, the imposition of their will
necessitated the promotion of the composition of these recitations in their entirety as
the Word of God. For, Mohammad’s revelations as they were actually communicated,
being essentially geared towards the building of a new movement and hence aired in
response to the specificity of the conditions of his own struggles and lacking a formal
structure, were inadequate to the task of disciplining the forces of Islam for its
consolidation and expansion under the Caliphs who succeeded him. The reformulation
of these was thus meant to overcome this inadequacy by establishing the formal
jurisdiction of the whole composition (the Koran) as the Word of God. Both parties –
the Leader and his successors – were fighting the politics of faith, which, however,
under their different social and political circumstances required a modification of the
ideological means of justifying their political struggles. The modification of
Mohammad’s recitations (speeches), involving their deliberate reformulation and
arrangement, became the Koran. In this modification, the concept of ‘kitab’ was
promoted as referring specifically to the collection itself as the Word of God, which
was thus to become a powerful weapon in the struggle against discontent from within
and the fight against external opposition to the growth of the Islamic movement.

What Mohammad wanted to achieve was respect for and conviction in his divine
message. Revelations were thus recited that were meant to convince by the force of
their ‘reasoning’ that (supposedly) demonstrated the case for the divinity of the source
of his message. As we know, in Mohammad’s life time (and for a good while after his
death) neither a fully written text nor therefore a compilation of chapters of an Islamic
holy book was in existence; thus, for Mohammad, the need to demonstrate or ‘prove’
the divinity of the text would not have even arisen: ‘And not before this [i.e. before his
recitations] did thou recite any Book, or inscribe it with thy right hand…’(XXIX:48)
What really concerned Mohammad was that his message was to be believed as
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divinely inspired. For the successors of Mohammad, however, what was of crucial
importance was the substantiation of faith in the officially compiled and arranged
composition as a whole. Verses (that is, Mohammad’s revelations) were thus
reproduced which were now affected to argue and demonstrate the divine origins of
the whole composition itself by stressing and giving prominence to the concept of
‘Kitab’ representing and expressing the ‘Koran’ (Qur’an) that originally could not
have been used by the Prophet himself either to have the same connotation or as a
direct and specific reference to the totality of his revelations (i.e. to the completed
written composition as such), since obviously no such composition existed at the time.

We can see how important this initiative of using the concept of kitab was in the fact
that most of the more substantial and lengthier chapters (30 surahs) in the Koran begin
directly by asserting the composition as undoubtedly and directly as God’s Kitab. And
the way it is used is to give the appearance that the concept has insinuated itself into
the framework of the composition as from Mohammad’s own recitations (speeches),
as in this verse: ‘All praise belongs to God, Who sent down the Kitab to His Servant
[i.e. Mohammad] and has not made in it any crookedness.’(XVIII:1) The ayahs
directly concerned with this matter are categorical proclamations and are put forth as a
‘factual’ statement, like, for example, the following: ‘Alif Lam Ra. This is a Book We
have sent down [revealed] to you that you may bring forth mankind, by the leave of
their Lord, from the shadows to the light, to the way of the All-mighty, the All-
laudable God.’(XIV:1) The intention behind their reproduction, their order and
arrangement and their repetition cannot be but to constantly emphasise and assert that
what is being presented is ‘inspired’ by God, it is His Word, His Kitab, given to
Mohammad, as in this verse: ‘And thus did We reveal to you an inspired Guidance by
Our Command; you did not know [have ‘knowledge’ of] what the Book was, nor the
faith, but We made it a light, guiding thereby whomsoever We will of Our servants;
and verily [it] guides you unto the Straight Way [Sirat al-mustaqim – which in the
Koran connotes the ‘Way’ according to the Divine Law].’(XLII:52)

Again and again we have verses, moreover, rebuking those who express doubt in the
divinity of the composition, like the following: ‘Do they not ponder [meditate,
deliberate on] the Qur’an? If it [the Koran] had been from other than God surely they
would have found in it much inconsistency [discrepancy].’(IV:82) Indeed, the entire
composition is of God’s making: ‘And this Qur’an is not such as could have been
devised by other than God, but it is a confirmation of that which went before it and the
exposition of the Book [further explanation of Scriptures before it, all from the
‘hidden’ divine book], there is no doubt in it, [it being] from the Lord of the
Worlds.’(X:37; my italics)

With the same intention, verses are reproduced at the beginning of many chapters as if
to show that the revelations compiled in the composition intrinsically belong to this
Book sent down by God, that they are the Prophet’s own revelations and thus part and
parcel of the Word of God sent to him. The following are some examples: ‘These are
ayat [revelations] of the Judicious Book [al-Kitab al-Hakim-e – also translated as the
Wise Book or the Book of Wisdom].’(X:1) And: ‘These are the ayat of the Book and
manifest Qur’an [Qur’an-e Mubin].’(XV:I; also XII:1 and XIII:1) Even their
arrangement is justified as God’s: ‘A Book whose ayat are firmly arranged and then
distinguished from the All-Wise, the All-Aware.’(XI:1) And so that there can be no
doubt whatsoever, there is this statement: ‘The revelation is from God, the All-
Mighty, the All-Wise.’(XXXIX:1; the same is repeated in XLV:2 and XLVI:2)

Undoubtedly, this was an initiative conditioned by political-ideological considerations

and was, firstly and primarily, essential to the strengthening of the authority of the
Caliphate regime in its ruthless and merciless silencing of its opponents in the name of
 35

the Prophet, for Islam and for God. It was also of course essential to win over support
within the Muslim community – to win, as it were, ‘the battle of ideas’ in the internal
‘theological war’ on the crucial issue of faith. The making of Mohammad’s recitations
into the Word of God was an aspect of the internal struggle that had fully surfaced
after the Prophet’s death; it was a means of justifying the mode of succession as part
of the continuity of the Prophet’s sunna. It was, however, also and crucially a
significant factor in the process of struggle for the propagation and promotion of
Islam. But for this latter purpose, as part of what may be called an external
‘theological war’, the substantiation of faith in the composition as the Word of God
required further exposition of the ‘proof’ of its universal divinity. Though proof is of
course too strong a concept here, nonetheless, an essential consideration, in religious
terms, was to establish a direct link between the Koran and other already accepted
holy books as such a proof but only in order to raise it above the others – only to
make it the Holy Book.

Let us see how this aspect of the struggle over faith is reflected in the Koran itself.

The Koran as The Holy Book

In order to be able to promote the composition of Mohammad’s recitations as the

universal true subject of faith it had to be shown (‘proved’), on the grounds of the
revelations, that not only is it the Word of God, but in fact the last and final Word
from God. This ‘proof’, in short, had to be arrived at as if it were revealed to
Mohammad by God Himself. Within this process, moreover, verses revealed by God
had to take on and contend with the most universally acclaimed and well-established
monotheistic Faiths, Judaism and Christianity (though more specifically Judaism,
acknowledged as the father of monotheism). For this the makers of the Koran picked
up on Mohammad’s revelations (again assuming their authenticity) which he had
recited in response to the opposition he had faced from among Jewish and Christian
tribes. The verses were recited at various times, as and when appropriate to the
specificity of the circumstances and conditions of Mohammad’s conflict with these
‘Peoples of the Book’. In religious terms, the revelations borrow heavily (though not
always accurately) from Judaism and pick up Biblical topics and episodes and stories,
which are, however, related as confrontational pieces in support of Mohammad’s
message as divinely inspired (and thus his mission as divinely authorised).

The discourses on this matter, needless to say, are from ‘the pulpit’, as it were, and
thus the chain of reasoning of course does not stand up to that of what is now
generally accepted as ‘scientific’ demonstration or ‘proof’. They are not only
concerned with faith but actually demand faith as an indispensable premise; they do
not need the support of empirically verifiable facts; they claim to be able to rest
entirely on faith in divine signs as factual representations of God’s Will and Order;
and thus they rest on themselves as the ground of their reasoning function to
demonstrate the Koran’s place in the succession of Holy Books.

This process of reasoning involves arguments based on accounts of narratives,

allegories, and other various bits of information appertaining to, perhaps actually
taken from, older scriptures, all of which are meant to confirm relations of
resemblance, and of association, between Mohammad’s Faith and the others (Judaism
in particular). Thus for example: ‘O Children of Israel! remember My favour which I
bestowed upon you and that I preferred you above all in the world [as the ‘Chosen
People’]…And when We delivered you from Pharaoh’s folk who afflicted you with
grievous torment, slaying your sons…And when We parted for you the sea and saved
you and drowned Pharaoh’s folk, while you were beholding. And when We appointed
 36

with Moses forty nights then you took the Calf [i.e. as a god] after him and you [thus]
transgressed. But We pardoned you that you might be thankful.’(II:47-52)

On the face of it, such verses as quoted above (and there are many like them) seem to
have the one aim of simply demonstrating that it is the God of the ‘Children of Israel’
who is now speaking through Mohammad, and thus revealing His Word and His
Command. To doubting Jews, God is saying forcefully: ‘believe in what I have
revealed, confirming that which is with you, and be not the first to deny it…’(II:41) In
other words, pointing out that Mohammad’s revelations adhere to, are grounded on
and confirm, the Jewish Faith, and thus to deny the divinity of his message and the
truth of his Faith is for Jews to deny their own God.

However, a closer look at the manner of relating such accounts suggests a rather more
subtle reasoning involved here. The manner of relating is clearly meant to give the
impression that God and only God could have such knowledge of that which is here
being accounted from ancient times, and, therefore, it is self-evident that God, the
same God, is the source of these verses in the Koran. But over and above this, the
fundamental aim behind the manner and the whole process of reasoning here is to
make the Koran, as God’s ‘most recent’ Holy Book, appear as succeeding the Jewish
scriptures. And the verse that immediately follows those quoted above suggests
precisely this aim: ‘And We gave Moses the Book and the Criterion [the standard of
conduct], that you may be guided.’(II:53; my italics) The series of revelations (simply
as an example of many within the Koran) moves from asserting the Oneness, unity,
and sameness of God for Jews as for Mohammad to the aforementioned statement on
the Jewish scriptures as a claim of both an immediate resemblance between the two
revelatory processes (God’s ‘sending down’ of the Book) and their continuity but as if
to thereby establish a divinely ordained progress to perfection. The series of events
described may be different, but the substance of its message holds upon the line of
succession in time that is intended to signify progress and the elevation of the Koran
to perfection as a Holy Book. In other words, God having ‘sent down’ the Koran after
the Jewish scriptures makes the former more elevated in elegance and refinement of
substance and form in God’s own view than the latter. And in answer to those who
questioned why God would do such a thing, the Koran (or its makers) has this to say:
‘And indeed We did send Messengers before thee [Mohammad]…and it is not for any
Messengers to bring a sign [revelation] but by God’s permission; for every age [term]
there is a Book prescribed [or a written record of conduct].’(XIII:38; my italics)
Thus, while the Torah and the Gospels were the divinely considered appropriate Holy
Books of their ‘age’, the Koran is the Holy Book of its ‘age’, ‘And thus We have sent
it down as an Arabic Judgment [Authority]…’(XIII:37)

The verses that simply appear to reveal accounts from other Holy Books are not,
therefore, merely concerned with proving the divine source of Mohammad’s
revelations; they are not merely arguing the case for the Koran being the Word of the
same God as the God of the Children of Israel or the People of the Book (i.e. also the
God of Christians). They are at the same time intended to demonstrate that the Koran
is the Holy Book revealed by God that now supersedes the other Holy Books. Indeed,
the accounts taken from past scriptures are actually stated to be directly related by God
in the Koran, attributing to the latter the form of a ‘Reminder’ from God of His other
(past) ordinances and guidance. Thus, in connection with this matter, we have, for
example, the following ayah: ‘Thus do We relate unto thee [i.e. Mohammad] of the
accounts of what has gone before; and indeed have We given unto thee from
Ourselves a Reminder.’(XX:99; ‘Reminder’ is considered as a title of the Koran)

Nonetheless, given the long tradition of the People of the Book, the Prophet and his
successors clearly had a fight on their hands to convince Jews and Christians of the
 37

divinity of the revelations and the finality of their own (Islam’s) Holy Book. We can
see aspects of this confrontation in the way the Koran, especially in the lengthier,
more intricate chapters, challenges and questions Jews and Christians. And the way
the verses appear to engage with them suggests that Mohammad was amazed and
dismayed by their continual disbelief in his divine message: ‘O People of the Book!
Why do you disbelieve in the signs of God while you witness them. O People of the
Book! Why do you confound the truth with falsehood and conceal the truth and that
wittingly?’(III:70-71) If there is one God for the People of the Book as for
Mohammad, then all must accept His signs, His message, being revealed through
Mohammad. ‘Surely,’ it is thus asserted, ‘the true guidance is the Guidance of God –
that one may be given by Him the like of what you were given…’(III:73) The true
guidance being revealed by Mohammad, it is here argued, has to be believed by Jews
and Christians because it is the same as (‘like’) what they were given by their own
prophets and because God communicates only with those whom He chooses: ‘It
belongs not to any mortal that God should give him the Book, the Judgment, the
Prophethood…’(III:79) If true guidance is that of God’s, if it is only God who sends
down signs, Wisdom and the Truth, and if it is God who is the source of these verses,
then surely the People of the Book must believe in this Koran as the last of the Holy
Books: ‘And when God made a covenant through the prophets: Certainly that I have
given you of Book and Wisdom – then there shall come to you a Messenger
confirming what is with you – you shall believe in him and you shall help him…’ And
thus: ‘Whosoever therefore turns his back after this [i.e. rejects this Koran], they are
the transgressors.’ (III:81; my italics)

From Abraham to Mohammad, the principle of faith, so the revelations are meant to
assert, has the ultimate authority of the One and Only God, and belief in this
immediate given fact is itself the ultimate verification of the truth of the divinity of the
composition as the Koran. To reiterate this point of the new Faith’s association and
close affinity with that of the People of the Book, there is given for example in the
second surah a series of ayahs, beginning with ayah 31 to 38 (referring to Adam and
the parable of his fall from grace, his ‘misguidance’ by Satan) going on through to
ayah 140, that touch on certain Jewish and Christian beliefs and parables. The verses
are argumentative, and refer to God’s signs, communications, commandments and
covenants that were sent down to the prophets that had come before Mohammad. The
basic theme running through these verses is that the God of Abraham, Moses and
Jesus is the God of Mohammad; the God who had made Adam, had blessed the
Children of Israel, appointed all the previous prophets, and bestowed them with laws,
is now calling on (commanding) all the Jews and Christians to accept Mohammad’s
message as contained in this Koran. The ayahs are at once confronting and
challenging these people and, by this very method, establishing Mohammad’s message
as the successor form of the Divine Word given to all those other prophets: ‘And most
certainly We gave Moses the Book and we sent apostles after him one after another;
and We gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear arguments and strengthened him with the
holy spirit, What! whenever then a messenger came to you with that which your souls
did not desire, you were insolent so you called some liars and some you slew.’(II:87)
The basic point of the argument is quite clear: it is ‘insolent’ to call Mohammad a liar
upon his claim of the divinity of his message, for the same God that gave Moses the
Book and Jesus the holy spirit has now, by appointing him as His last Messenger,
given him the Qur’an as His last Word, as the Holy Book!

The confrontational aspect of these verses has real history behind them: Mohammad’s
time in Medina, when he was instituting his new Faith and establishing his umma
(community-state), was quite preoccupied with hostilities among certain Jewish tribes
in Medina and beyond (as also some Christians in other parts of the Hijaz). The
presence of Jews in Medina (the tribes of Banu’n-Nadir and Banu Qurayza) who
 38

refused to accept Islam, and backed by a body of what are referred to as ‘dissemblers’,
‘hypocrites’, ‘impostors’ (Munafiqeen), constituted a major obstacle to Mohammad’s
governance of the city. With religious divide and tribal politics fused, the converting
of these tribes had proved impossible; and with signs of open hostility towards
Mohammad’s movement growing, eventually the decision was apparently taken to
expel these people from Medina (see LIX:11-12).

Mohammad’s arguments with Jews and Christians, put across through revelations, had
had, it seems therefore, not the desired effect. In the eyes of the People of the Book,
one of the most fundamental reasons for disputing his mission and his prophethood
was the fact that his Islamic Faith lacked the authority of a corpus of divine laws as a
book perceived and accepted as the Word of God. His faith could not be accepted, let
alone believed to be superior to or superseding those of Judaism or Christianity, if
God had not sent down to him a book of scriptures like those of these great religions.
His recitation of God’s signs and communications, being entirely dependent on his
personal intervention (mediation), lacked the apparent divinity (secured by a
semblance of ‘objectivity’) associated with a Holy Book. This point of contention is
apparent from the following verse: ‘But now when has come unto them the Truth [i.e.
Divine Law] from Us, they say: Why is he [i.e. Mohammad] not given the like of what
was given unto Moses?...’(XXVIII:48; my italics) Now, having no Holy Book as such,
Mohammad counters this disputation (in the words of God, of course) in the following
manner: ‘O People of the Book! Why do you dispute concerning Abraham? The Torah
was not sent down, neither the Gospel [revealed], but after him. What, have you no
reason [do you not then understand]?’ (III:65) In other words, Mohammad is like
Abraham, a divine Messenger without a Holy Book, yet a Prophet nonetheless – and
this is stated in God’s own words! In fact, the rebuttal goes further: ‘God knows and
you do not…’ that ‘Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian; but he was a
Muslim pure of faith [musalman haniyfan, he was upright in faith who had submitted
to the Will of the One God]; and certainly he was never of the idolaters.’(III:67)

So here, then, Mohammad’s speeches arguing the case of his divine calling were
reproduced as a series of verses, written down and compiled, only in order to move
from their immediate given fact of personal recitations to a form seemingly
independent of his direct personal role. The fundamental objective, in connection with
the presentation in the various chapters of the Koran of Mohammad’s arguments with
the People of the Book, seems to be one of justifying the composition of his
revelations as that which is actual, existing apart from and not ‘created’ by
Mohammad; it was, it seems, to make the personal basis of faith take on a universal
form in order to convince such people. The form itself was, lest we forget, borrowed
from Judaism (and Christianity): it was the form taken to make the Koran into the
Holy Book: ‘Again, We gave Moses the Book, complete for him who does good, and
explaining all things in details, and as a guidance and a mercy… And this [i.e. the
Qur’an] is a Book We have sent down, blessed, so follow it...Lest you should say: The
Book was sent down only upon two parties before us [i.e. Jews and
Christians]…’(VI:155-157; my italics)

The successors of Mohammad took great pains to stress the significance of these
revelations but now for the purpose of affirming the divine status of the formulation
and composition of the Prophet’s recitations in the form of Islam’s Holy Book, which
was to be universally proclaimed as the Holy Book, succeeding and superseding all
previous Holy Books. And to establish this fact the Koran gives the following divine
revelation: ‘Say thou [i.e. say you, Mohammad]: Bring you then some other Book
from God which is a better guidance than both these [i.e. the Qur’an and before it the
Torah], that I may [then] follow it…Now We have brought them the Word that they
may be mindful.’(XXVIII:49 and 51; my italics)
 39

Revelations that were meant to appeal to, or reason and argue with, Jews and
Christians and convince them of the continuation of the same monotheistic faith, now
were reproduced in an officially sanctioned and politically motivated arrangement to
substantiate faith in the Koran itself. The politics of faith after the death of
Mohammad and with the rise of the Caliphate necessitated asserting the composition
as not merely the Holy Book of Islam, but as the Holy Book that all peoples must
accept and follow. The universality of the Koran had to be asserted upon the ground of
divine revelations in order that it could become an effective ideological force within
the political reality of the entire world of humanity wherein Islamic faith must unfold
itself. By this means could Islamic faith appear through the Koran as an objective
force that rules over the actions of believers to ceaselessly expand its own dominion.
Though for this purpose Islam’s main target was its chief monotheistic rivals (Judaism
and Christianity), other dominant religious systems within the region also needed to be
confronted. Thus, the force of the Koran’s revelations was intended to challenge, for
example, the belief systems of Sabeans and Zoroastrians, too: ‘Verily, those who
believe and those who are Jews and the Sabeans and the Christians and the Magians
[Zoroastrians] and those who associate [others with God, ‘idolaters’], verily God shall
decide between them on the Day of Judgement…’(XXII:17)

A decisive ideological turn thus followed, after the death of Mohammad, upon a turn
in the political development of the Islamic movement. The Koran was made and
promoted to take on a central role in the movement’s growth and expansion. Through
the Koran, faith was made part of the very content of politics. Religion itself thus
made direct application to political thought and practice, not as to some external force
but as to its own legitimised power. The proclamation of the Koran as the last Word of
God and thus as the Holy Book was of crucial importance to this real historical
process of placing religious (Islamic) faith at the heart of politics. The verses (as God-
given revelations) of the Koran now provided the new rulers ideological-religious
legitimacy, and an essential justification for their actions; these reproduced ayahs
could be used against any opponent (external or internal) of the Caliphate regime.
Upon the authority of these revelations, the new rulers could justify their struggle
against dissenters and unbelievers alike as being a direct continuation of the Prophet’s
own struggle by the command of God. With this Mohammad’s successors were
instituting faith as a powerful force in the service of the state. The politics of faith at
the time of the Caliphate meant a struggle to preserve and expand the Islamic state as a
necessary condition of the rule and domination of Mohammad’s successors. The
latter’s consolidation of power, pursued through the state’s reign of terror, was
justified on the basis of the absolute authority of the Koran. Effectively, as a result of
this process, the Koran became over time the fundamental basis and the condition of
possibility of all aspects of the Islamic state’s mode of domination; it became (or was
made to become) Allah’s Constitution.

The Koran as Allah’s Constitution

The Holy Book, the Koran, is the Word of God – a miracle which no one shall ever be
able to reproduce or imitate (‘Walan Taf’alu’). The promulgation of this statement of
faith makes the Holy Book nothing less than a divinely ordained constitution: ‘The
Command of God has come…’(XVI:1)

The Koran, so it is asserted, was sent down to Mohammad to lead mankind (or the
people) into the light of the Divine Law: ‘A Book We have sent down to you [i.e.
Mohammad] that you may lead mankind out of darkness into the light [of God’s Law],
by their Lord’s permission – unto the Way of the All-mighty, the All-
laudable.’(XIV:1) Its function as a constitution, as the body of basic laws and
fundamental principles of conduct, was to establish the particular interest of the group
 40

of devotee believers within the Islamic movement as the universal interest: ‘Say you
[i.e. Mohammad]: The Holy Spirit has brought it down from your Lord with the Truth,
that it may establish those who believe and as a Guidance and good tidings to those
who submit.’(XVI:102; my italics) It provided the group’s politically dominant
position legitimacy; though this appears in such a way as to seem that its status was
conferred or established in accordance to God’s Will. The Koran, then, on this basis
functions as a Guidance of social conduct for all those who submit to God’s Will, i.e.
Muslims in general.

The substantiality of the Koran as the constitution consists in the fact that the ‘absolute
truth’ of God’s Will is presented in it in the form of the universal Divine Law. As
constitution the Koran is the expression of God’s Will on earth, in fact the expression
of His Will in and through a given subject which is directly concerned with power, its
exercise and administration – hence Divine Law and the laws of the land become a
unity, become fused in the Koran. In this way, once the Koran is established as the
constitution, no-one except God in the Koran can say what is lawful or legally
forbidden. This idea of the constitutional fixity of laws is clearly implied by the
following ayah: ‘And utter you not what your tongues falsely describe [as saying
that]: This is lawful and this is unlawful [forbidden]; so that to forge a lie against
God…’(XVI:116)

As the Holy Book, the Koran is the universal form through which the knowledge of
the Truth appears as ‘objective truth’, as over and above or independent of the
principle of subjectivity, and on that basis it lays claim to unrestricted and
unconditional authority in its own right and on its own ground. God’s signs, His
directives and commands, needing to be revealed, are dependent on the direct and
immediate personal mediation of the Messenger; God’s Word as the Holy Book,
however, containing what has already been revealed, involves no such mediation. The
Holy Book now locates divine will and purpose, the Truth and its cognition, divine
knowledge and jurisdiction, concretely within itself without the necessity of appealing
to the person of the Prophet himself. Faith is transposed to the objectivity of the
written Word in and for itself; it is given to the Holy Book, and that which truly is
divine becomes the actuality that is present in the Book independently of the Prophet’s
personal intervention. But by this token, the Book also comes to be seen as
independent of human mediation as such. This semblance of independence transforms
faith in the Prophet’s revelations into faith in the Koran; it also emancipates it from
the rule of chronology. The principle of faith, that nature and the world of humanity
depend on God’s Will, is now instituted as the basis for the absolute authority of the
Book which is timeless, i.e. eternal. Thus appearing as timeless, the authority of its
Truth and jurisdiction as the Word of God becomes unalterable, it manifest itself as
the permanency of Divine Law: ‘And recite what has been revealed to you of the
Book of your Lord; no-one can change His Word…’(XVIII:27; my italics) And the
authority of God’s words as Law contained in the Koran is so complete and
comprehensive in its compass and reach as to be inexhaustible: ‘Say you [i.e.
Mohammad]: If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea will certainly be
exhausted [spent] before the Words of my Lord are exhausted…’(XVIII:109) Such
timelessness, permanence and completeness of authority makes the Koran Allah’s
Constitution.

Upon such a condition, though essentially based on faith, the Koran appears as the
foundation of and formal standard for ultimate decisions; it is the source to which, in
principle, everything within the mode of life (under Islam) reverts and from which
everything derives its sanctioning: ‘Verily We have sent down to you the Book with
the Truth that you may judge between people by what God has shown you…’(IV:105;
see also XVI:64) This absolute determination constitutes the distinctive principle of
 41

the formal sovereignty of God’s Will as expressed in the Koran. That is to say, the
sovereignty of God’s Will depends on the fact that the Koran functions as His
constitution because it is believed to be and promoted as ‘the Book with the Truth’, i.e.
containing Divine Law: ‘He it is who has sent down to you the Book wherein are
verses decisive [ayat muhkamatu] that are the Basis of the Book [Ummu al-Kitab –
Mother or Essence of the Book] and others allegorical [ambiguous]…’(III:7) These
decisive verses, as ‘clear statement for mankind’(III:138), referring to and dealing
with essential social issues (in contrast to those that are ‘allegorical’ – i.e. verses
concerned with stories and parables that are meant to establish Mohammad’s and
Islam’s religious lineage), set down the fundamental and unalterable prescriptions,
directives, and laws commanded by God. The ‘Mother of the Book’ is the
representation therefore of the universality of God’s Will determining itself in the
form of the Koran and so making the latter the absolute ground of all decisions and
acts concerned with power and authority. The sovereignty of God’s Will thus comes
into existence only with the Koran: ‘And We have sent down to you the Book with the
Truth, confirming what is before it of the Book and [as] a guardian over it, therefore
judge between them by what God has sent down, and follow…what has come to you of
the Truth; for every one of you We appointed a Law and a Way…’(V:48; my italics)
Accordingly, the Koran, as the Word of God Himself expressing His Will, is the
ultimate and absolute condition of all Islamic laws (including Sharia laws), upon
which alone depends the legitimacy and justification of all judgements in every sphere
of social life (under Islam): ‘…and whosoever judges not by what God has sent down,
those are they who are the infidels [kafareen].’(V:44)

In this way, with the making of the Koran not only the abstract sovereignty of God’s
Will comes to be expressed in and by the Koran, but the form of its representation
changes. Before the composition of his recitations into the Koran, Mohammad, as the
Messenger of God, was the personification of God’s Will on earth (or at least that is
how he presented himself). The ‘spirit’ that engaged him, so it was claimed, was a
favour bestowed upon him by God: ‘And they ask you about the Spirit, Say you: The
Spirit is from the command of my Lord…’(XVII:85) That is to say, his speeches
expressed the Will of God because they were inspired revelations from God, which
were meant for Mohammad to convey in person the Truth as God’s Warner and
Messenger: ‘And say you: The Truth has come and the falsehood has
vanished…’(XVII:81) With Mohammad’s death, the Truth takes on an established
form that is claimed to be in itself invested with the Spirit commanded by God, and
hence as something that no-one except God could have inspired in its totality: ‘Say: if
men and jinn [i.e. ghosts of the netherworld] united to bring forth the like of this
Qur’an, they could not bring the like of it…’(XVII:88)

Essentially, Mohammad’s recitation of revelations was the political manifesto for the
building of the Islamic movement on the basis of the unification of Arab tribes. The
advance of the Islamic movement, as much by the force of arms as by that of
conviction, was to, however, change its form and function. In other words, behind the
process of the making of Mohammad’s recited revelations into the Koran as Allah’s
Constitution, a fundamental social change can be discerned, namely an historical
process of the separation of the state from the ‘community of Muslims’. As the
Islamic movement based on Mohammad’s umma (community-state or proto-political
organisation) expanded and grew more and more powerful, the more it found itself
caught up in conflict with the spirit and ideals of Arab tribal unity, reflected in the
notion of the Ayyam al-Arab, which was a key component of Mohammad project or
mission. Time had passed when his recited revelations could function merely as a
manifesto. A process of political consolidation and governmental discipline had since
Mohammad’s death borne fruit – the expansion of Islamic rule, achieving a good
measure of the unification of Arab tribes, the conquest of territories well beyond
 42

Islam’s heart land, and so on. As a consequence, Islam’s political and military
organisation had become the decisive element of a new order and, what is more, now
necessitated its own authoritative backing or religious-ideological sanctioning. The
collection of Mohammad’s revelations, composed, modified in crucial aspects, and
published in its now officially sanctioned form as the Koran, universally proclaimed
as the Holy Book of all Holy Books, became (was made and promoted to be) the
essential source of that authority. From a manifesto these speeches as revelations in
their newly composed format (i.e. the Koran) now took on the function of a
constitution. The union of the principle of faith with the principle of power was thus
consummated. The principle of faith, that everything in this world depends on God’s
will, was now interpreted as the basis for the rule of the state.

It was from within this historical process that faith in Mohammad’s divine revelations,
which hitherto had authority merely as the Prophet’s proclamation, became
transformed into faith in the Koran, which had now authority and jurisdiction existing
for itself. Hence came about the process by means of which faith appeared to be raised
above the plane of subjectivity to that of the socially engaging universal in the course
of the Islamic state’s consolidation, through the medium of political power. This
change in the focus of faith should not, however, be viewed as the result of an
‘external process’, impinging on the Islamic community from the outside; nor yet was
it accomplished unconsciously. It had the determined socio-political interest and will
of an emerging ‘ruling-class’ behind it: ‘Verily, this Qur’an guides unto that which is
the most upright and announces glad tidings to the believers who do deeds of
righteousness that they shall have a great reward.’(XVII:9; my italics) It was, in
short, the outcome of a process of political struggles. Its consequences were profound;
it was eventually to overwhelm social consciousness for centuries and spread its
ideological hold wide and vast across continents.

By way of summing up, it can be said that faith is undoubtedly the fundamental
category of the Koranic revelatory mode, the only one by means of which it bounds
itself to human subjectivity. With it the Koran is supposed to reveal the ultimate and
absolute grounds of God’s Will. Under the notion of ‘God’s Will’ the Koran through
faith conceives the idea of an authentic authority in which, through which, and by
means of which all social (human) antagonisms are reconciled. In short, faith seems to
be the essence of the existence of the authority conceived in the name of God. In this
form what is given in the Koran in its justification of the divinely ordained authority is
not ‘rational’, even though there is appeal to the demonstration of ‘proof’, ‘evidence’,
in its revelatory mode. It needs to be clearly stated, and repeated, that in the Koran it is
faith, and only faith, that underpins the argumentative form of ‘reasoning’. The ‘truth’
proclaimed by the Koran is inextricably linked to faith; it is in fact conceptually a
form of existence of faith, and that, consequently, the justification of political power
and authority and the truth of it according to the Koran are not based on objective
social factors. Faith presupposes conditions that render the truth of the legitimacy of
power possible, namely, divine mastery of the world. The revealed divine knowledge
in the Koran (supposedly) verifies the truth of this conclusion. The illusion of religious
dogma here is as necessary to the justification of earthly authority as the truth of the
‘proof’ revealed in the Koran. The fundamental proposition in the Koran is that God is
Master, which does not mean that God simply ‘possess’ authority, but that authority
(mastery) is His essential nature. In the justification of earthly authority, the religious
leader (essentially the Islamic state) becomes the predicate of God’s mastery without
at the same time becoming identical with it. And the locus of the truth of all this is
faith. God’s mastery and earthly authority result from certain socio-political
relationships, which are expressed in the Koran through a process of mystification.
The process establishes faith not only in God as Master but in the ruler as God’s
appointee. Effectively therefore the justification and legitimisation of political power
 43

as such are made possible only with faith: faith gives the reason for ‘seeing’ and
‘knowing’ the objective political power and authority as the truth of God’s power.

Beneath the horizon of faith God’s power is thus not a ‘power-for-itself’, but is
essentially dependent upon the power of the earthly ruler: the greater his power
becomes, the greater is the illusion of God’s power. It is this illusion of God as the
absolute Master that is therefore a necessary principle of the politics of faith as
presented in the Koran. But this illusion can only befog the social reality of power if
the politics of faith is effective in instituting Islam as the spirit of the age. In short,
God’s Will must be made to appear as the general will. And the prerequisite condition
for this is the act of submission.

Chapter Two: The Act of Submission

‘Your God is One God! There is no god but He!’(II:163)

‘Shahada Allah – God bears witness
La ilaha illahu – there is no god but He’ (III:18)

The act of submission begins with the attestation: ‘There is no god but God!’ It is
recited in Arabic – ‘La ilaha illa Allah!’ – as a testimony of faith, a testament, a
solemn declaration of the surrender of one’s will, and is commonly referred to as
Shahada. For all Muslims the reciting of this statement is the most basic affirmation
of faith and the first manifest sign of adherence to the Faith. To submit is to serve:
‘And We did not send the Messenger before you without revealing to him that there is
no god but I; so serve Me.’(XXI:25)

But the attestation of faith in the One God and serving Him includes accepting His
Messenger; i.e. acknowledging the Prophethood of Mohammad: ‘Say: O people
[mankind], verily I am the Messenger of God unto you all, of Him to whom belongs
the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth. There is no god but He. He gives life,
and makes to die. Believe then in God, and in His Messenger, the Prophet, the ‘Ummi’
[of the common folk, of the unlettered people], who believes in God and His Words,
and follow him, so you may be guided aright.’(VII:158)

The shahada, thus, consists of a second part (accepted by the vast majority of
Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites, but rejected as being incorrect by a small minority)
which proclaims the affirmation of Mohammad as the Messenger of God. The
generally accepted shahada testament in full is therefore as follows: ‘I bear witness
that there is no god but God and I bear witness that Mohammad is the Messenger of
God!’ Or in Arabic shortened to: La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammad an Rasul-allah!

The testament is more than an oath of allegiance; more than a testimony of an

individual’s belief; it is, in its attestation of faith and adherence to the Faith, an
essential undertaking and a binding commitment. The testament involves the
obligation of obedience and worship in servitude, that is, ‘ibadah. Thus we have verse
upon verse in the Koran that emphatically state and reiterate this essential obligation:
‘Verily, I am God [Allah]; there is no god [ilah] but I; therefore serve [worship] Me
[give your ‘ibadah to Me], and establish prayer for My remembrance!’ (XX:14; see
also II:172; V:60; VI:102; IX:31; XVI:36;etc.) The word ‘ilah,’ generally translated
as ‘god,’ actually means ‘one to be served, worshiped and obeyed, one who has
power, one who is in control and should be served, one who protects and supports and
nourishes one’s needs.’ Hence it refers to any object of worship to which mankind
submits as a superior and sovereign being (‘Allah’ is a compound word, shortened,
with the definite article ‘Al’ and ‘Ilah’); and the word ‘ibadah (from root word ‘abd
meaning ‘servant/devotee’, with its various derivatives such as na’budu, ‘ubadiyah,
 44

‘ubidun, etc.) which is usually translated as either ‘to worship’ or ‘to serve’, actually
means ‘giving oneself in servitude, acknowledging the supremacy and lordship of
another, abdicating one’s freedom, surrendering one’s self and will totally to
another’s authority’ – but since in the context of Arab tribal relationship of
dependency, ‘servitude’ presupposed the promise of protection and support on the part
of the superior or chief, the word thus also carries the sense of ‘worship’.

The Estrangement of Power

The testimony ‘La ilaha illa Allah’ in its conceptual content comprises the dialectics
of servitude and lordship: no-one is worthy of worship and obedience, of being served
1.
– La ilaha; no-one and nothing has the power of Lordship and thus the attributes of
divinity except the One God – illa Allah. Therefore serve, worship and obey only God
alone. The denial of divine lordship with regards to all being except the One God
makes God alone into the absolute subject of life’s process of worship and obedience.
The negativity of the testimony is at once the demonstrated affirmation of the
absoluteness of God. In this form, the Shahada, formulated from different verses of the
Koran, confers (as it confirms) an independent existence to God by detaching Him
from the real social ties and relationships among all beings. In reciting the Shahada, in
the act of submission, an individual declares himself/herself dependent upon an
absolute subject that can have no other existence except as an abstraction. It is only as
an abstraction, i.e. as something detached, separated (or, more precisely, ‘abstracted’),
that God-the-Idea can become a comprehensive and comprehending absolute subject
of faith. This is the mode of being of God that the Koran refers to (proclaims and
promotes) as ‘Oneness’: ‘Verily, your God is One’ – ‘inna Ilaha kum la Wahid’
(XXXVII:4) It is a conception that relates the ideas of singularity and uniqueness to
the abstractedness of the absolute power of God who as such is not something behind
or beyond the objective world, but is its absolute truth (in Islam this idea of the all-
embracing Oneness and Unity of God is conveyed by the all-important religious-
philosophical concept of Tawhid – from the root w-h-d). This understanding of the
Oneness (unity) of God is accepted as the ‘Greatest Truth’ revealed in the Koran and
sent upon the tongue of His Messenger, Mohammad: ‘Say: God is the Creator of all
things, and He is the One, the Omnipotent.’(XIII:16) And: ‘God is He beside Whom
there is no god, the Ever-living, the Self-subsisting by Whom all subsist…’{II:255;
see III:2; VI:102, 106; etc. there are at least 30 ayahs in the Koran that in one form or
other assert this ‘truth’.)

The conception is so essential that upon it rests the entire edifice of the Islamic faith.
The very being of God appears as other than something finite; God exists as a being
which is the predicate of every thing, every being. In other words, every thing, every
being, in existence is, but God’s being is not a something. God is neither something in
nor something above the world, but rather the truth of all being; this truth of all being
is the Oneness, the unity of the subject which is not a determinate but a determining
being. All determination (‘creation’) is thus posited by God and consequently stands
under His determining power. There is no determining power other than or above
God; if human beings are to find their ‘true’ being, realise and attain their spiritual and
temporal well-being, they must find it in embracing the oneness (unity) of God by
submitting to His Will. The message of the Koran (of God’s Word as given through
His Messenger) is thus quite clear and categorical: it is through the act of submission
and through it alone, by stating the Shahada (with niyat or ‘good intention’ or
complete and absolute conviction), that human beings can find their true Self. For,
God is the causa sui.
 45

Affirming the Oneness of God, submitting to God’s Will, is the acceptance and
acknowledgment of not only a determined state of existence but of one as a ‘being-for-
other’. A Muslim is a being for God. But here the specific conception of ‘being’ has a
deeper signification than the notion of ‘being’ asserted by for example Christianity
(more particularly by Protestantism) as ‘God’s creation’; in this aspect, as with many
others, Islam and Judaism are rather closely related – though the latter, with its
identity of faith and ethnicity (i.e. ‘Jewishness’), is far more inclusive than the former.
At any rate, in submitting, i.e. becoming a Muslim, the individual is a being-for-other;
he/she exists not merely because of God; his/her very existence consists in his/her
being for God as his/her Master, so that his/her being a Muslim determines his/her
whole existence as fundamentally a servant, a slave of God: ‘The believers are only
those who believe in God and His Messenger [it is] then that they doubt not and fight
with their wealth [possessions] and their lives [selves] in the way of God; those – they
are the truthful ones.’(XLIX:15) A Muslim (strictly in its Koranic sense) is not simply
a human being who happens to have embraced a religion called Islam, but is
essentially a person who has surrendered his/her will to God as the ‘Other’ – his/her
faith is the essence of his/her being. It is precisely in this state of ‘being-for-other’ that
the concept of submission expresses something negative; in submitting, an individual
passes into a new mode of being by yielding his/her Self. It is the loss of his/her self or
of that which makes him/her a ‘being-for-self’; for in the act of submission faith so
entangles consciousness that it seems as if he/she has found his/her ‘true’ being,
his/her ‘true’ Self only as a being-for-another (for God). Submission (truly so, or with
niyat) is thus accepting a mode of existence (in accordance with the Koran) that
affirms the Will of God, of existence as a being-for-other, which is (or is meant to be,
according to the Koran) not a mode of existence of human beings for themselves. In
becoming a Muslim, individuals acknowledge that they do not have the power,
therefore, to fulfil their potentialities through their own free, conscious acts. For,
submission starts when the truth of God’s Oneness as the determining power is
accepted as ‘the given state of things’, when it is recognised that that state has the final
truth in itself. Submission so shackles the believer to the Faith that his/her
consciousness itself appears determined by God’s Will. The being of the Muslim thus
is a ‘being-for-another’.

Submission is in the first place, therefore, the immediate surrendering of the believer’s
potentiality of freedom to exercise power; but it is also, indeed, the renunciation of the
self and the abdication of inherently human powers; i.e. it is self-estrangement. The
act of submission, in other words, constitutes the estrangement of the believer in both
the personal and the social aspects at once. This does not, however, entail, at least
within the context of the Koran and its time, the surrendering of power and will (of the
‘self’) by the submitted as a ‘private’ individual, but as an individual who belongs to,
is tied to, a historically specific social entity. Estrangement through the act of
submission in fact initially meant (in strictly Koranic terms) the supersession of the
individual’s particular societal identity (whether this is in the form of tribal-
communal, ethnic, or national identity). For it is essential to recognise that the Koran
addresses not an individual as such, but individuals (often as ‘people’, ‘mankind’,
‘they’, ‘those’ who believe or disbelieve, etc.) as parts of communities (originally,
tribal/clan communities, in later times interpreted as ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’)
conditioned by ties of consanguinity: ‘O you mankind! Verily We have created you of
a male and a female, and made you in tribes and families [‘households’] that you may
know each other…’(XLIX:13)

At the time of Mohammad, it is important to restate here, the tribe or clan was the
principal social entity that defined and expressed an individual’s social identity.
Within each different tribe or clan there was a correspondence between the will of the
individual and that of the particular community – between subjective will and
 46

objective will; the clan-tribal community towers over the individual and subordinates
his/her will as if in the individual’s eyes it is a ‘natural’ force. Arab consciousness at
the time was tribal-clan consciousness – there was the tribe (e.g. the Quraysh – the
tribe of Mohammad) made up of clans (e.g. Banu-Taym, Banu-‘Adi – the clans of the
first two Caliphs, Abu-Bakr and ‘Umar, respectively) which were in turn made up of
households or ‘extended families’ (e.g. the Houses of Hashim – to which Mohammad
belonged – and Umayya – from which came the ‘Umayyad Caliphate). Submission to
the Will of the One God (Allah) was meant to generate a movement to establish a
political ‘association’ (the umma) that would transcend (sublate) the multiplicity as
well as the particularity of Arab tribal system, its divisive ‘tribalism,’ as it were.

However, the movement based on submission (Islam) did not ‘free’ the individual –
indeed, the conception of ‘free individuality’ or ‘freedom’ in the sense of subjective
freedom is completely alien to it; what the movement based on submission to the Will
of the One God (Allah), rather, initiated was the superseding of the specifically tribal
and clannish consciousness by one determined by belonging to a seemingly
universalistic divine order. With God (Allah) as the Universal and the Absolute,
Mohammad intended to transcend the particularity of Arab tribalism by calling upon
the individual members of all the various tribes to surrender themselves to this ‘higher
order’. For this, he freed one god (Allah) from among all others as objects of worship
by separating ‘Him’ from the particular communities and their gods. The abstracted
‘god’ was then proclaimed, in His Oneness and Unity, as Absolute. The individuals
belonging to particularistic communities were thus ‘called’ upon to submit to Him
alone; and in so doing, they freed themselves from their particular tribal-clan form of
dependency and obligation only to become subsumed under a more all-embracing,
universalistic form of dependency and obligation.

As a result of this universalising of societal identity, in the act of submission, the

determinate character of the believer’s will as subjective now seems to take on an
independent externality. The truth of this independent externality is the consciousness
not of ‘individual’ or ‘subjective’ freedom, but, rather, of universal servitude – every
individual, no matter from what tribe or clan (or nation, etc.) is first and foremost a
Muslim; i.e. the individual as a social being is a servant of God (Allah), and thus
dependent on an external and independent will, a power that appears to be independent
of all particular communities.

Thus, from the organic social-communal tie with its particularistic state of
subservience, the Koranic project demanded the establishment of a state of universal
bondage. This total and universal subservience is clearly expressed in the Koran,
which can be seen from the following verses, as examples: ‘And remember you the
bounties [favours] of God on you, and His covenant He has firmly bound you with,
when you said: we have heard [Your Command] and we obey; and fear you God;
surely God knows whatever is in the breasts.’(V:7) Also: ‘And He is [the All-
dominant] the Omnipotent over His servants, and He sends custodians [keepers] over
you till when death comes to any of you…Then they are returned to God, their Master
[Protector – Maula], the True One; now surely His is the Judgment…Say: He has the
Power to send forth upon you a chastisement [a calamity] from above you or from
under your feet… Behold how repeatedly We display the signs that they may
understand!’ (VI:61-62 and 65) Thus everything in life points to one direction, that of
the Lordship of God: ‘That then is God, your Lord; there is no god but He, the Creator
of all things, so serve Him, He holds sway over all things. (VI:102/103) And to submit
to His Will is therefore to acknowledge His Mastery: ‘…then know that God is your
Master [Protector]; the most excellent Master and the most excellent Helper.’
(VIII:40)
 47

Submission is thus fundamentally the estrangement of social power – in the

beginnings of the rise of Islam it was the loss of power that was based and rooted in
particular communities. The concept of ‘estrangement’ (‘alienation’) is, of course,
central to all religions, but which in its ‘crude’ realism is more prominently expressed
in the practical principle of Judaism to which Islam has a very close affinity. Judaism
reflects with greater immediacy (than for example Christianity) the practical questions
of life, and hence also of power and domination, particularly as regards ‘strangers’ or
‘outsiders’ (e.g. the power granted to Judah over ‘aliens’ – those who are not part of
the ‘chosen people’ – see Isaiah LXI:5); while Christianity places a far greater
emphasis on the ‘universal brotherhood of man’, at least formally. Islam incorporates
this Judaic ‘practical principle’ within the Christian conception of ‘universal
brotherhood’ (‘The believers are but brethren, so make peace among the brethren and
fear God that you may be blessed with mercy.’ XLIX:10) and takes it further in its
concrete earthly political institution; in the Koran, the principles concerning this-
worldly affairs, particularly as regards power and domination, are meant to have
universal application and have wide-ranging significance.

It is, at any rate, from within this incorporation of the Judaically influenced ‘practical
principle’ with Christian ‘universality’ that the understanding of the estrangement of
power can be comprehended as fundamental to the conception of the political in the
Koran. The point of central importance here is the problematic of domination and
dependency in the formulation and presentation of the conception of divine power in
the Koran – the manifestation of social, human, political power in the form of divine
power of the One God (Allah) through estrangement. This estrangement of power is
conditioned firstly upon the externalisation of power; that is, power is detached from
its social ground by transferring it to a divine entity; this necessitates the determinate
negation of all other sources of (potential) absolute power (gods), which is contingent
upon the abstraction of divine power in the form of the Oneness of God (borrowed
chiefly from Judaism): ‘And yet of people [mankind] there are some who take for
themselves objects of worship beside [as equals to] Allah, and love them as the love of
Allah…O if these transgressors [evildoers or the unjust] might see, when they see the
chastisement, that the Power belongs wholly to Allah, and that Allah is severe in
requiting (evil).’(II:165)

And it is in this form of the Oneness of God, with this abstraction – the singling out of
Allah from among other gods as the true Divine One – that power is posited as
something that seems to have an external existence. The One God thus appears as an
independent source of power – independent, that is, from its social human conditions
of its determination and actual creation; and He is, as affirmed in the Koran, as the
determining power, a power that as such presents itself to human consciousness as
Absolute: ‘He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden [ the Outward and
the Inward]…’(LVII:3) Thus: ‘Say: O God, Master of the Kingdom! Thou givest the
kingdom to whomsoever Thou wilt [pleasest], and seizest [takes away] the kingdom
from whomsoever Thou wilt, and Thou exaltest whom Thou wilt and abasest whom
Thou wilt; in Thy hand is the good; verily, Thou hast power over all things.’(III:26)

But for divine power to be a power, a force, it must express and present itself in real
life. Thus externalised divine power must be realised. The efficacious ‘this-
worldliness’ of divine power, in other words, presupposes a movement from the
‘beyond’ to the ‘here and now’. The externalisation of power, then, can only be
realised when as an abstraction it is passed into the condition of permanence in the
form of its objectification (the Koran). With this, the power of God (Allah) then
appears to become the power in the here and now (i.e. actually universal); and with its
embodiment in the Koran, God’s power becomes ‘the Authority’ (His Word); the
Koran is thus perceived to be the substantiation of divine power (of God’s Will, in His
 48

own Word). This realisation of externalised power thus appears as the ‘objectivity’ of
God’s power, His ‘objective’ sway, God as the Absolute Subject: ‘He is God; there is
no god but He, the King, the All-holy, the All-peaceable, the All-faithful [granter of
Faith], the Guardian, the Ever-Prevalent, the Supreme, the Great Absolute!...He is
God, the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper…the All-mighty, the All-wise.’ (LIX:23-24)

The estrangement of power is conditioned secondly, therefore, upon this

objectification of divine power. The power of God (His Will) as embodied in the
Koran is the most unequivocal expression of the estrangement of power; a power that
seems to confront human beings from a ‘heavenly’ abode (as alien power): ‘So high
exalted be God, the True King; there is no god but He, the Lord of noble Throne [of
‘al-Arsh’ – i.e. the throne of supreme divine authority over the whole universe; the
seat of absolute divine dominion].’(XXIII:116) And: ‘Exalter of ranks is He,
Possessor of the Throne of Power [of ‘al-Arsh’], casting the Spirit of His bidding upon
whomever He will of His servants, that he may warn of the Day of Encounter. To
whom belongs the Kingdom this day? To God, the One, the [Absolute, Omnipotent]
Subduer.’(XL:15-16)

Now, the Koran, as such, is only the expression of the estrangement of power, since it
is only the objectified form in which God’s Will has become realised. In other words,
with the Koran, only formally does the will of God stand for the expression of the
estrangement of power; what is missing is the social human context. The act of
submission (truly so, with niyat) starts with an imaginary subject; in the mind this then
appears as an independent being; with this, power is being perceived as an
independent authority, objectified. The reality of power (of social power, of political
power itself) is thus transferred from the social plane to the realm of the mind. Here
the power of God is held to be true insofar as it is affirmed in the Koran – that is, in its
abstracted form, objectified. This perception of the unreal as something real in the
here and now gives Koranic authority (God’s power, His Will, His Word) its
universality. The substance of this authority, however, can only be understood as
force. As a force, God’s power (Koranic authority) transcends the realm of perception
(since ‘force’ is not a quality or a something that can be perceived; what can be
perceived is only its effect). Understood and conceived as a force, divine power
manifests its essence, that which lies behind its curtain of appearance; in other words,
divine power manifesting itself not as ‘the possible’ but as ‘the given’; as something
that passes into existence, i.e. God’s power (His Will) materialised in the concrete
conditions and circumstances of Islamic society, where the essential potentialities of
His power realise themselves in the form of Koranic authority as the actuality of His
Will. The reality of this power then becomes actual because in the form of Koranic
authority it is posited as Law, the truth of its force. As Law, however, Koranic
authority necessitates the activity of mediation of actual living subjects – the
mediation of human agency.

Personal Dependence and its Sublation

Now we can come to the second part of the Shahada that is meant to complete the act
of submission: i.e. ‘I bear witness that Mohammad is the Messenger of God.’
Mohammad, in other words, is the first and primary actual living subject who stands in
direct relationship with the submitted (the Muslims). He is the real, actual Other to
whom the submitted surrender their will; the submission of the Muslim to God’s Will
and the acceptance of the authority of the Koran as divine law are only a consequence
of the believers’ relationship with Mohammad as the Other.

The Koran itself, in fact, clearly establishes this ‘actualising’ mediation: God’s power
takes on earthly form; it is given ‘flesh and blood’: ‘He it is Who raised among the
 49

unlettered [the ummi] a Messenger from among themselves, reciting unto them His
signs [ayat] and purifying them and teaching them the Book and the
Wisdom…’(LXII:2) Thus: ‘Mohammad is the Messenger of God, and those who are
with him are vehement [firm of heart] against the unbelievers
[infidels]…’(XLVIII:29) Mohammad is the divine Messenger and it is divinely
decreed that all must obey him as such a divinely ordained personage – or put another
way, to obey him is to obey God; in obeying God the submitted must obey
Mohammad: ‘Whoever obeys the Messenger, he indeed obeys God…’(IV:80) And:
‘Say: Obey God and the Messenger…’(III:32, 132) Thus: ‘…whoever obeys God and
His Messenger, He will cause him to enter gardens beneath which rivers flow [enter
Paradise]… (IV:13; also XLVIII:17) Further still, disobeying Mohammad therefore is
an act of transgression in the eyes of God, and thus punishable with severe
chastisement: ‘And whoever disobeys God and His Messenger…He will cause him to
enter the fire [of Hell]…’(IV:14; see also 59, 64, 69; VIII:1,20, and 46; the number of
verses decreeing such obedience are too many to list here.)

Submission is therefore the surrendering of power by the believers within and through
the mediation of a definite form of social relations, whose essence consists in personal
relations of dependence, even if the believers perceive this in its mystified form.
Submission to God’s Will, as given in the revelations recited by Mohammad (later set
forth in the Koran), is a ‘covenant’ establishing a direct relationship of subjection, a
socio-political relation in which the reality of personal dependence in its very
transparency (every Muslim was fully conscious of Mohammad’s earthly role and
status, of his unquestionable, and unquestioning, personal authority as the leader,
commander, the chief of the umma) appears to be conditioned by the fantastic,
mystified form of a relationship between both the Messenger and his God and the
believers (the submitted) and God through His Messenger: ‘The believers are only
those who believe in God and His Messenger…They think [imagine] that they put
[lay] you [i.e. put Mohammad] under an obligation by submitting [becoming a
Muslim]. Say: Put me not under obligation by your submission; rather God puts you
under an obligation by guiding you to the Faith, if it be that you are
truthful.’(XLIX:15 and 17) This form of socio-religious relationship, however, was in
no way ‘created’ (as if by trickery and skilful manipulation) by Mohammad; on the
contrary, it already had its basis in actual history, in the concrete mode of life of the
time (tribal and pagan modes on the one hand, and monotheism and empires on the
other). Thus also, the relationship of Mohammad with the community of believers had
its basis in the reality of tribal social relations; i.e. had its basis in the custom,
tradition, the cultural heritage of Arab tribal chieftainship. Since, however, in the
actual socio-historically formed Arab mode of life no individual (including, of course,
Mohammad himself) could or did make a distinction between the ‘externalised’ form
of power and its ‘estranged’ manifestation, Mohammad’s authority expressed itself
(and was presented and seen to be by Mohammad himself) as derived from his
prophethood, as granted by the Divine One, Allah: ‘The Messenger believes in what
has been revealed to him from his Lord…’(II:285; my italics) Socio-politically,
therefore, in the character of the Messenger, the personal and the divine became fused:
Mohammad’s personal authority cannot be divorced from his authority as the
Messenger of God. But, more than this, ‘cause and effect’ appear to be reversed: it
seems as if it is only as a Messenger of God that he has any personal authority at all –
the very human qualities that made him into a leader, at the particular historical time
of imperial domination (Byzantium and Sasanid), tribal divisions and confrontations,
and thus growing inter-communal social contradictions within the Arab tribal system,
seem to be a consequence of his ‘inspirational’ time spent at Mount Hira upon which
time he received his ‘mandate from Heaven’!
 50

Mohammad is thus presented in the Koran as the Prophet authorised by God and
endowed with the power to fulfil the destiny of mankind through the act of
submission; i.e. to bring about a oneness of spirit among the whole of humanity – this
in fact is the formula that expressed the actual fulfilment of Arab unification within
the historical form of a universalistic Faith. In the abstract role of the Prophet lies the
quality of a task expressing the historical need of the time. Mohammad, regarded as
the ‘seal of the Prophets’, was in fact the ‘soul’ of the Ayyam al-Arab, in whom the
universal task of the time was believed to be embodied. The task was the unification
of tribes (‘mankind’) to be achieved in the new form of a faith-based ‘commonwealth’
of Arabs (a community-state of the submitted) that stood for the ‘practical principle’
of the Kingdom of God on earth – this was for Mohammad a social order built on his
personal mediation, his personal proclamation of the authority of his God’s signs and
communications (the revelations) that were later to be composed and textually
codified in the form of the Koran. At the time of his mission, therefore, Mohammad
established his own power-base, and his sovereignty, upon the ‘externalised’ power of
God. He was the leader, the commander, the ruler and the Prophet. Within the umma,
first established by him in Medina, and even later with its expansion into the One
Community of Muslims unified (al-ummatun wahid), public power directly coincided
for the first time with the umma organising itself as a proto-political force under the
personal leadership of Mohammad, while previously it rested with the different tribal
assemblies and leadership.

Thus, submission to the One God and His Messenger, which signified the form of the
estrangement of power, was, within the context of the time, a religious-oriented means
(in Koranic terms, the ‘right’ godly ‘way of life’ or deen) to constitute public power in
the form of the community-state. But with the Prophet’s death differences and
rivalries among the unified clans and tribes, based on particularistic interests that
Mohammad’s intervention had only managed to resolve temporarily, resurfaced. This
conflict of interests manifested itself in feuds and bitter struggles over the issue of
succession, which threatened the undoing of the Prophet’s project and hence the
disintegration of the newly formed proto-political community structure. The historical
task after Mohammad’s death was, thus, to consolidate and preserve the power-base
he had established in the form of the community of Muslims or the umma as the
community-state by instituting the power of God as the truth of this new order’s
internal sovereignty, of its undisputed power of domination over its subjects. This
engendered, as mentioned previously, the transformation of the existing proto-political
relations – the relationship established between Mohammad himself and his ‘flock’.

The notion of personal authority, in other words, had to be raised to a higher level of
objectivity and hence universality. The authority of Mohammad as the Messenger of
God was superseded thus by that of the revelations he had recited that were made into
an objective whole (compiled and composed) as the Koran – in other words, while his
personal status (as rasul-allah) was preserved for and in the act of submission, in the
exercise of power, in the actuality of political relations after his death, it was the
Koran that, as the Word of God, was made and affirmed to be the highest and the
ultimate Universal Authority or Allah’s Constitution. The Uthman-authorised Koran
was thus imposed on the collectivity of believers as the Holy Book in the attempt to
resolve the resurfaced and growing conflict of particularistic interests exemplified
through the issue of politico-religious succession (which in actual history had resulted
in quite widespread upheavals and conflicts to the point of civil war – a period of
fitnah).

The change in the form of authority was meant to safeguard the political essence of
Mohammad’s mission within the new and developing power structure. Promoting the
absolute authority of the Koran (i.e. in textual, book form, rather than as the Prophet’s
 51

recitation of revelations) did not, however, straightaway amount to a new socio-

political order. Koranic authority was simply imposed on the prevailing system of
personal relations of dependency and domination. Thus we have the attestation of
Mohammad as the Messenger of God in the act of submission (which of course
became in the course of Islam’s imperial development and expansion a crucial but
merely nominal and formal aspect of the Shahada testament). The competing and
conflicting political interests after Mohammad’s death were not only incapable of
generating a stable governing system, but were a real threat to the continuance of the
Prophet’s political project, hence an incontrovertible authority had to be imposed that
would guarantee unquestioning obedience. No individual from among his companions
had or could have had such a commonly acknowledged and accepted authority
(though for the Shiites, the person of Ali, the fourth Caliph, the cousin and son-in-law
of the Prophet, comes somewhat close to having such an authority, but not, however,
by any means remotely equalling the authority of the person of the Prophet himself;
nonetheless, Ali has a specially high and reverential status among Shiites, and
particularly among certain Sufist sects, who, rather blasphemously, regard him as
almost a ‘god’). The Koran, as mentioned in the previous chapter, thus became that
authority, and as such it was held to sanction the exercise of power in (more or less) its
original substantial unity of the personal and the politico-religious form of domination.
In other words, all the needs of the newly developing Islamised social formation (the
‘House of Islam’) had to pass through the Will of God as articulated in the Koran in
order to secure general validity in the form of laws.

Submission now, therefore, consisted in the Word of God (the Koran) having
complete and independently supreme authority over the collectivity (community) of
believers. This was brought about by instilling into the Koran a modified end than that
which Mohammad’s recitations primarily had. Mohammad’s goal, to repeat, was to
unify the tribes under his personal leadership based upon his recitations that were
meant to justify his right to be the supreme head of all the tribal chiefs or as their
‘Vali’ (Guardian); the revelations sanctioned his conduct as the ‘commander-in-chief’;
they called upon all the members of the tribes and clans to join him in submission to
the One God to form a single community under one law and one faith; the revelations
were, if not in exact form, certainly in essence, the manifesto of his ‘Party of the
Divine One’ (his Hizeb-Allah): ‘Whoso takes as their Guardian [Vali] God and His
Messenger, and those who believe [thus are] verily the Party of God that shall be
triumphant.’(V:56) But when the ‘Party of God’ became the governing party of the
state, Mohammad’s revelations took on a different political signification. As and in the
form of the Holy Book, Koranic revelations became at once the legitimising source of
the power of the state and the force of law that had general validity in territorial rather
than in tribal (kinship-communal) terms. The Party of God as the ruling party, in
constituting its power in the form of the Caliphate State, had to make its will, which
was determined by the social conditions of the time, appear as the expression of God’s
Will. Or, what is the reified form of the same, God’s Will was, in the act of
submission, made to appear as the general will. Social power estranged from
‘mankind’ with submission becomes actual and real in the Islamic State based on the
Koran. God’s power preserves itself in the Koran, departs from itself as the authority
of the Koran, and returns to itself as Law.

Under the changed socio-political circumstances, to comprehend God’s power could

only mean to see it under the form of an actual force conditioned and mediated, on the
one hand, under the form of the authority of the Koran itself and, on the other, upon
the personal role of the Caliph as the Guardian (Vali) and hence the enforcer of that
authority as the law of God now sanctioned, protected and defended by the Islamic
state.
 52

The Law of God (His Will as the general will) is an abstraction which, however,
translates itself into reality in the Sharia, the law of Dar al-Islam (Land of Islam),
principally and fundamentally derived and based on the Koran. Koranic authority is
thus the living law that unifies the diversity of the given modes of life (the historically
conditioned diversity of the tribal-clan social mode, and beyond, i.e. unifies the
diversity of life under Islamic imperial expansion). Koranic law is an ideologically
determined means of social domination; and beginning with the Caliphate, it became
essential to the institutionalisation of the power of forcible coercion. The Sharia
belongs to the realm of the politics of administration of social control; that realm that
defines the maintenance of state power. It is part and parcel of the conditions of
subjection, which is based on the act of submission. It therefore depends on
ideological consensus over and above the state’s power of physical, forcible coercion.
The functioning and dominance of Koranic law depends on both the availability of
special agencies of coercion and on submission as ‘willing compliance’, or ‘passive
acquiescence’, or ‘ingrained dependence’.

Islam: the Deen of Submission

This ingrained dependence is, in every sense, the key to the understanding of the
ideological significance of the Koranic conception of submission: submission to God’s
Will means political subjection that involves the ideological engagement of the subject
in the acceptance of the force of Koranic authority as law, which necessitates obeying
and following God’s decreed ‘way of life’. Thus in the Koran, ‘submission’ (i.e.
Islam) is always referred to as a ‘deen’ meaning a comprehensive way of life, that
includes within its meaning the connotation of divine subjugation, of supremacy and
dominion of God’s order, and, as a result of this latter, the sense of obedience of and
allegiance to God’s law and His realm of power.

The concept of deen, which is translated as ‘religion’, is, in other words, inextricably
linked to that of submission; it signifies a subjugated way of life involving the
sacrifice of one’s will (self) to the authority of God in life and for life: ‘Verily, the
deen [the way of life] with God is Islam [total submission to God’s Will]…’(III:19)
And: ‘This day have I perfected for you your deen and completed My favour on you
and chosen for you Islam as a deen…’(V:3) Also: ‘Say: Verily, my prayer and my
sacrifice and my life and my death are (all) for God, the Lord of the worlds.’ (VI:162)

The concept is far richer in meaning than that of ‘religion’ or mazhab (the common
term used for religion). While mazhab (religion) denotes a system of spiritual
guidance and belief in and worship of God as distinct from a non-religious, secular
system of social conduct – thus implying the necessary existence of secular ‘ways of
life’ – the concept of deen is all-inclusive; it rules out such a distinction; it allows of
no such understanding of the existence of a secular ‘way of life’. In the specifically
Koranic understanding, submission or Islam is not a mazhab, it is a way of life that in
its very notion denies, refutes, forbids, any other ways of life (secular or other
religious ‘ways’) but its own. In the Koran ‘Islam’ is never referred to as a ‘mazhab’ –
though unfortunately, perhaps for want of a better term, the word ‘religion’ is used in
reference to ‘Islam’, which tends to blur the specifically socio-political nature of
Islam, particularly in terms of its essential function of domination. Thus, it is stated in
the Koran: ‘He it is Who has sent His Messenger with the Guidance and the True
Deen, that He may make it triumph over all the deens, though averse may be the
polytheists.’(LXI:9; here, as else where, deen is translated as ‘religion’) There is also,
with almost exactly the same wording, the following: ‘He it is Who has sent His
Messenger with the Guidance and the True Deen that He may make it prevail over all
the deens; and God is enough for a witness.’ (XLVIII:28; see also IX:33 and LXI:9 for
repeat of the same)
 53

Now, in socio-political terms, there is a fundamental difference between stating that ‘a

religion prevails or triumphs over all (other) religions’ and saying, ‘a way of life
(deen) prevails over all (other) ways of life.’ The latter stresses the ‘triumph’ of Islam
over the general conditions of life, that is, every aspect of the believers’ mode of
existence, from the personal, familial, and cultural, to the social, political, economic
and juridical, relations as well as the belief system and spiritual aspects. The former,
by contrast, stresses the ‘triumph’ of Islam’s belief system and spiritual aspects only.
In other words, the understanding of Islam as merely a religion implies that it could in
principle have a separate mode of existence from any particular socio-political
relations; its understanding as deen absolutely excludes even the possibility of such a
separation in principle. Understanding Islam in its Koranic, thus fundamental,
conception as deen (the concept appears in 79 verses) encapsulates the true essence of
the act and concept of submission: ‘This day have those who disbelieve despaired of
your deen, so fear them not but fear Me. ...’(V:3) And: ‘And whosoever seeks
[desires] any deen other than Islam, never shall it be accepted from him, and in the
hereafter he shall be among the losers.’(III:85)

Submitting to God’s Will (i.e. to the Koran’s authority) is a way of life that is (or is
meant to be) objectively and subjectively a mode of total subsumption; it is living in
total obedience of the authority of the Word of God, His Law, privately and publicly.
And what is more, this deen is not something optional; to submit is to live in the way
of life chosen or given by God Himself. As a way of life (or deen), Islam is, as it were,
the ‘natural aliment’ of a Muslim (if he/she has truly submitted, i.e. with niyat). Islam,
according to this fundamental (Koranic) understanding, is thus a way of life both in
accordance with the Oneness (unity) of God (referred to as ‘Deen al-Tawhid’) and in
accordance with human nature (‘Deen al-Fitrah’). Deen (as distinct from mazhab)
does not, in principle and as a concept, depend on individual and personal perception;
for the truly submitted, it is, as conditioned by the Koran, absolute, total, and
invariable; there is no room in it for variations of ways of life.

The comprehensive, all-embracing aspect of the Koranic concept of deen is thus

overwhelming. Moreover, the concept is important with regards to the understanding
of the notion of ‘compulsion’ in the Koran. The often quoted verse referring to this
matter is the following: ‘No compulsion is there in deen [translated as ‘religion’]; the
right way [rectitude] has become clear [manifestly distinct] from error; therefore
whosoever disbelieves in idols [taqoot or symbols of evil or Satan] and believes in
God, he indeed has laid hold of the most firm unbreakable handle; verily, God is All-
hearing, All-knowing.’ (II:256)

This is the verse produced by Islamic apologists as textual ‘evidence’ refuting the
charge that Mohammad (and his successors) used compulsion, indeed, physical and
armed force, to convert the ‘people’ to the Faith (we shall come to this point in the last
chapter of this essay). The ‘refutation’ argument, however, is quite untenable,
certainly on historical grounds, but also on the basis of Koranic textual evidence (as
we shall see later). Historically, Mohammad himself led many armed expeditions
(ghazwah) which were intended to subdue and thus convert those tribes and clans
(Meccans, Bedouins, Jews, etc.) who had refused to accept his apostolical claims. In
the Koran, besides numerous references to the fight (physical and armed struggle)
against non-believers, submission (i.e. actually becoming a Muslim) does not need to
be, always or necessarily, a voluntary or willing act: ‘Seek they another deen than
God’s [Allah’s] when to Him has submitted whoso is in the heavens and the earth,
willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they shall be returned.’(III:83; my italics)
 54

At any rate, aside from such concrete considerations, the verse referring to ‘no
compulsion’ in ‘religion’ is certainly not a very good ‘evidence’ of such a refutation.
Firstly, the verse is not imperative; it does not prohibit the use of force or compulsion;
it is rather like a factual statement – i.e. in Islam as a ‘way of life’ there is no
compulsion. Secondly, the verse is indicative, in that it is pointing to the given state of
affairs – ‘the right way has become clear from error’ – thus Islam as deen is the given
‘way of life’ based on an antecedent condition, that of submission. In other words,
what is stated in the verse is that once the people have submitted to the Will of God
(irrespective of it occurring willingly or unwillingly or with sincerity or
hypocritically) there is no compulsion in the ‘way of life’ brought about as a result of
this act of submission. The verse, therefore, does not point to the method of conversion
used – that is, whether the act of submission was wilful or otherwise as a result of
coercion or compulsion. But what is more important to the understanding of deen,
which is our main concern here, is that the act of submission, obviously and
axiomatically, is a condition precedent in fact; it is a question of ‘I submit’ therefore
‘my way of life, my deen, is Islam’. Islam as deen is a consequence of the act of
submission. The Koranic concept of deen points to the life (attributes and conduct) of
a submitted person; deen is distinguished from all other modes or ways of life by its
unique relation to its divine determination. For, Islam as deen designates the way of
life of a Muslim whose different aspects of being are integrated into a ‘perfect’ state of
complete subjection to the Will of the One God (Allah). It, thus, signifies the elevation
of the realm of divine power to the position of the sole domain of life conditioned by
subjugation, the absolute obedience of God’s law as set out in the Koran. This is not
the case with ‘religion’ or mazhab; for this latter merely signifies the belief and
spiritual aspects of the life of the believer.

The translation of ‘deen’ as ‘religion’ affects the signification of the idea of ‘Islam’ in
the interpretation of Koranic text; deen, undoubtedly, includes and involves mazhab
(religion), but it is something more: it is the totality of attributes and conduct
according to the ‘codex’ of God (the Koran). The essence of deen is the submission to
a divinely ordained code of rigid and inflexible rules that the believers as subjugated
beings must give their unquestioning obedience in ‘body and soul’, in ‘word and deed’
– or in terms of the Koranic language, in qawl (the saying, promise, of the ‘heart’ as
the attribute of being a Muslim) and ‘amal (actions based on the practice of Koranic
principles as the conduct of being a Muslim, in its strict meaning). But such conduct
and attribute are not left to the whim of the believers; they are not conditioned by the
believers’ personal perception of the criterion of behaviour – they are subject to a
divine test: ‘Do the people [mankind] think that they will be left to say, “We believe”,
and not be tried [without being put to the test]?’ (XXIX:2)

The test of conduct – conduct that is essential to Islam (total submission to God’s
Will) as a way of life (deen) – becomes for the believers actual through the realisation
in practice of God’s Will; that is, the process by virtue of which His Will as embodied
in the Koran becomes general will or ‘the truth of life’. Again, ‘the truth of life’ is not
based on personal perception, and it is not, as with mazhab, simply a ‘transcendental’
concern; it is, indeed, a very earthly matter, i.e. a social affair, and therefore
fundamentally political. Neither is it essentially concerned with the conduct of an
individual believer as such. The test of conduct is societal. That is to say, it concerns
how the believer (the submitted, the Muslim) has socially conducted himself/herself in
advancing the Will of God in the here and now – thus, for example, ‘going to
paradise’ is a reward for conduct that advances the cause of the Islamic way of life
(deen), as the realisation of God’s Will in this world; its aspect of personal ‘spiritual
salvation’ presupposes its societal test. And the opposite, i.e. the ‘fire of hell’, or
‘spiritual damnation’ in personal terms, befalls those who through their social conduct
go against the advancement of God’s Will and His deen: ‘And God’s is the Kingdom
 55

of the heavens and the earth; and on the day when the Hour [of Reckoning] shall
come, on that day shall perish the believers who say false things. And you shall see
every people [community or ‘nation’] kneeling down; every people shall be called
[summoned] unto its Book: Today you shall be rewarded for what you did. This is Our
Book, that speaks against you with justice; verily, We have been recording
[registering; writing] whatever you were doing.’ (XLV: 27-29) And this conduct,
which has been ‘recorded’, is defined pre-eminently and principally by the conduct of
the kind that promotes the advancement of deen: ‘O believers! if you help [in the way
of] God, He will help you and will set firm your feet.’(XLVII:7) And if such conduct
is in the service of Islam, that is, in the way of God, then: ‘He will guide them and
improve their condition.’ (XLVII:5) And if as a result of this conduct death occurs,
then: ‘He will admit them to enter the garden which He has made known to them
[Paradise].’ (XLVII:6)

The Koranic conception of deen makes no hard and fast distinction between, say,
private as against public virtue. The concept involves a consciousness that transposes
the transcendental into the terrestrial; the believers (the submitted) as God’s servants
are obliged (must be committed) to institute and establish His Will here on earth, and
in so doing (or at least attempting to do) will they achieve spiritual salvation.

The realisation of deen (the comprehensive way of life) is ideological (noting here the
obvious that there can be nothing ‘ideological’ without at the same time being social).
For it to become the truth of life, God’s way of life (deen) as embodied in the Koran
must not only be perceived to be but must be in actuality the conditioning principle of
social relations in their entirety. The attribute and conduct of the believer (the
submitted, or the Muslim), his/her qawl and ‘amal, are not at all a purely private or
personal consideration for his/her ‘salvation’ in the hereafter; they are meant to bring
about the universal subjection of humanity in this world in accordance with Koranic
directives (and are ‘tested’ on that basis). The individual as a believer is ‘asked’ to
examine and judge everything given, revealed, in the Koran, by such a criterion. Deen
thus becomes a decisive part of the social reality of political domination. The very
notion, act and fact of submission (i.e. of being a Muslim, of Islam as a deen) makes
for only one truth, the eternal authority of the Koran as the Word of God, His Will,
His Law, which thus makes the Koran Allah’s Constitution or the codex of Divine
Law upon which is based the Islamic way of life, and hence, the entire socio-political
conduct of the community of Muslims.

Chapter Three: Koranic Divine Law

The attempt to establish the Koran as the Truth of faith par excellence had within its
ideological compass the instituting of belief in its ayat (verses) as more than merely
divine signs but, rather, as directly revealed divine statements of principles for the
governing of the conduct of life; and thus, of the instituting of these statements of
principles as immutable commandments that constitute in their totality God’s
Revealed Law. The establishing of the Koran as the Truth of faith meant, therefore, its
acceptance as the Book of Divine Law. It is as such that the Koran can be designated
as Allah’s Constitution. By definition Divine Law, being God’s Revealed Law, rests
on the presupposition of power which is ‘divine’ or rests on the force of authority of
God’s Will. It is from God’s Will that Divine Law gets its certainty of authority.

In the Koran, therefore, the basic statement on Divine Law is put precisely within the
affirmation of the absolute authority of God. It is in the first surah, ‘The Opening’,
that the fundamental element of Koranic Divine Law is stated after asserting God’s
Mastery. The sixth verse of this ‘Ummu’ (Mother or Essence of) Al-Qur’an, sets forth
this element in the following formula, which is applied throughout the Koran as
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signifying Divine Law stipulation: ‘Ihdina al-sirat al-mustaqim’ or ‘Guide us in the

Straight Way’. (I:6; my italics) However, since ‘Ihdina’ also means ‘confirm upon us’,
the ayah can be translated as: ‘Confirm upon us the Straight Way’ – that is, establish
firmly for us the Straight Way. In any case, whether ‘Ihdina’ is translated as ‘guide us’
or ‘confirm upon us’, the essential significance of this ayah is simply in its reference
to and registering of the specifically Koranic expression of al-sirat al-mustaqim (‘the
Straight Way’; also translated as ‘the Right Path’). This is the expression that
designates the divinely established way or custom for the conduct of life. Al-sirat al-
mustaqim, sometimes shortened to al-sirat or the Way (or the Path), has the
fundamental signification of the way of ‘living’ in accordance with God’s Will as
expressed in the Koran.

The placing of this verse in the ‘Opening’ chapter of the Koran is of considerable
significance. The deliberation behind this decision (as with the entire surah) could not
have been anything but political. If God is the Master, as the surah asserts, then the
‘guiding’ of those who have submitted (or, indeed, of humanity as such) ‘on the
Straight Way’ is indicative of the power of the Master over the ‘way’ of life of the
submitted. The ayah, therefore, attaches ‘the Straight Way’ to the determining Will of
God in the conduct of life. But this determining Will can only express itself as a force
guiding the submitted in the form of Law – as Divine Law. Now, as argued in the first
chapter of this essay, the ‘Opening’ surah is concerned with the affirmation of the
power, the omnipotence, of the One God (Allah), Whose Will is the Authority
dominating life in the here and now – in short, it is concerned with the appearance of
the mode of domination. The setting down of the expression ‘the Straight Way’ in its
sixth ayah makes this sirat or ‘way’ a fundamental condition of the appearance of the
mode of domination affirmed in the surah. Indeed, Koranic Divine Law is ‘the
Straight Way’ that secures the continuous appearance of power relations as God’s
(Allah’s) mode of domination.

Koranic Divine Law is, strictly speaking, concerned with the ‘phenomenal form’ of
the mode of domination under Islam – it is the form that justifies and gives the divine
appearance to the real relations of power that determine the specifically Islamic mode
of domination. Interestingly, in the same ‘Opening’ surah we are given a hint of the
real relation that lies behind the ‘veil of appearance’ of God’s power of domination
based on the indication of what is meant by the expression ‘the Straight Way.’ Here
are the two relevant verses (one already quoted): ‘Guide us on the Straight Way. The
Way of [sirata] those upon whom Thou hast bestowed Thy favours, not [the Way] of
those inflicted with Thy wrath [al-maqzub], nor [of those] who are [gone] astray.’
(I:1-2; my italics) God, then, guides the submitted onto the established Way of
conduct of certain specifically favoured, ‘chosen’, group of individuals; ‘the Straight
Way’ is their ‘way’ or custom of social conduct; it is they who through their actions
and conduct of life set the definition of what ‘the Straight Way’ entails; and hence it is
these favoured individuals who possess the real authority in the Islamic mode of
domination.

We shall in a later chapter come to the Koran’s identification of the ‘favoured’ or

‘chosen’ group of individuals, suffice it to say here that the supreme example of such
individuals is, of course, Mohammad himself. But in the matter of Divine Law under
consideration, what is important about these quoted verses of the ‘Opening’ surah is
the determination of Divine Law, given in its basic formula, as the fundamental
ideological constituent of the Islamic mode of domination. What this signifies is that
Koranic Divine Law does not constitute the legal system under Islam. It is not a means
of social control, which is the most basic and essential function of a legal system; its
function is the justification and legitimisation of the form and structure of power and
the exercise of power, which define themselves on the basis of Koranic Divine Law as
 57

the specifically Islamic mode of domination. Thus it is that we have throughout the
Koran verses that refer to the ‘right’ or ‘the Straight’ Way, or to the Truth and to the
Guidance, given by God, which are all concerned with the conduct of life as the mode
of existence as such or of ‘living’ as the universality of conduct rather than the
particularity of behaviour and attitude. The latter is the concern of the Islamic legal
system known as the Sharia, which is based on God’s Revealed or Divine Law set
down in the Koran. This distinction between Divine Law and Sharia law is important
in terms of the understanding of the practice of social control and of the role and
function of the Koran in sustaining and securing the form of power relations that
determine Islam’s mode of domination.

Firstly, then, let us look at the relation between Divine Law and domination as
expressed in the Koran.

Divine Law and the Form of Domination

The Koran contains a catalogue of basic revelation on rules, decisions, judgement in

terms of guidance and truth, absolutely immunised against modification, amendment
or alteration, which has commanding force. But such revelations, in combination or
individually, have commanding force only insofar as they are taken as part of and
understood in conjunction with the ideology of divine authority. We have already seen
the categorical affirmation of divine authority in the Opening surah. And we have also
seen in various surahs thereafter verses that assert the Koran as the Word of God, as
the Book expressive of God’s Will (i.e. of divine authority). The Book and the
revelations serve the purpose of ‘guidance’: ‘The month of Ramadan is that in which
the Qur’an was sent down, a Guidance for mankind and a Clear Evidence of guidance
and the Criterion…’(II:185) But the prerequisite of this guiding role is the recognition
of divine authority, so that the function of the Koran’s guidance not only depends
entirely on God’s Will, but at the same time substantiates it. The Koran is, therefore,
that which through its revelations gives clear instructions that ‘you [i.e. the submitted]
should glorify the Greatness of God for His guiding you and that you [should] be
thankful.’(II:185; my italics)

Koran’s guidance, upon which believers are brought to the ‘light’ of God’s Way,
actually establishes divine authority over those who have submitted: ‘God is the
Guardian of those who believe; He takes them out of darkness into light…’(II:257;
my italics) This ‘light’ is the ‘knowing’ or ‘knowledge’ of Divine Law, which is set
forth in order to substantiate or establish the authority of God in the here and now:
‘Whosoever holds fast unto God is already guided to the Straight Way [sirat
mustaqim].’(III:101; my italics) The revelations that make clear and manifest the
affairs and conduct of believers (see e.g. XV:1) are the Divine Law protected by God:
‘Verily, We have sent down the Reminder [i.e. the Koran], and verily, We unto it will
certainly be the Guardian.’(XV:9) The Divine Law set forth in the Koran is the way
which establishes the form of authority or the form of domination as divine, as in
appearance that of God’s: ‘He [i.e. God] said: This is the Straight Way unto
Me.’(XV:41; my italics)

This divine form of domination, however, entails the commitment of the submitted to
follow ‘the Straight Way’ or their adherence to Koranic Divine Law. In the Koran this
is made into a formal agreement: ‘And when My servants question you concerning
Me, then [say] verily I am near; I answer the prayer of the suppliant when he calls
unto Me, so let them hearken unto Me and believe in Me that they may be led
aright.’(II:186) Koranic commandments are the Divine Law of the Deen of Islam, and
thus as such form a ‘holy covenant’; they are essentially affirmed and regarded as
divine bonds (‘Uqud’): ‘O you who believe! Fulfil your bonds.’(V:1) To submit is to
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enter into a binding agreement as firm as a treaty – a pledge of honour, which clearly
echoes that which was common within tribal societies (uqud has this definite
connotation of a ‘treaty’ and a ‘pledge’). The bond, as with any divine covenant,
entails commitments and the obligation of obeying God’s commandments as laws in
the here and now. These are directives that must not be violated: ‘O you who believe!
Do not violate the ayat appointed by God…and fear God; verily, God is terrible in
retribution.’(V:2)

The pledge, implied by the very act of submission, is intended to secure and ensure the
preservation and perpetuation of the divine form of domination. It is, moreover,
binding and has to be fulfilled: ‘And fulfil you the covenant of God when you have
made a covenant, and break you not the oaths after [they have been] confirmed, [for]
you have indeed made [appointed] God [as] surety; verily God knows what you
do.’(XVI:91) This fulfilment of ‘oaths’ is essential to the substantiation and
maintenance of the appearance of divine authority, of the functioning of Koranic
Divine Law as the apparent application of God’s Will.

God’s Will is at the core of the Divine Law that governs everything in life. All that
which He has willed is the Law that cannot be questioned or violated. His Will is
embedded in the Koran, and, as noted previously, it is upon the latter’s authority, as
the ‘direct and literal’ Word of God, that His Will is transposed into the here and now
as Divine Law, making it present, actual and determinate. In its strict understanding,
Koranic Divine Law cannot be conceived as being external to or apart from the
appearance of power as God’s power. On the basis of the Koran, Divine Law is the
determinate substance of political domination and social regulation. For a true, faithful
Muslim, in principle, God’s Will is the prime and general cause of all aspects of life in
Islam; but then the principle is (and must be) applied in practice as the actual law of
the ‘community of Muslims’, which directly controls (guides) the particular behaviour
and attitudes of both the individual and the community as a whole. In practical terms,
therefore, the Koranic notion of Divine Law means this: it is not only that God’s Will
prevails as the one and only ‘ideal’ governing power; but that, in addition, His Will
has as its essence that which is actually a real force as Divine Law. The consequence
that derives from this is crucial. The ‘Will’ by which mankind is governed is
represented by the Koran as if it is an objective statute, the administration of which is
carried out in the here and now in order to realise the ‘truth’ of God’s Will. God’s
Will, in short, is simply that which must become universally enforced by human
actions conditioned by the authority of the Koran and this as a consequence of its very
essence as a force of law. Divine Law is, thus, the affirmative constitution of God’s
Will, that which it truly is in the here and now; it is, then, not based on the ideality of
God’s Will which is outside the world of humanity, but it is His Will operating within
the latter, His Will as it is active in the mode of domination, upon which it thus also,
and necessarily so, becomes the basis of legislation of social regulation.

Divine Law in the Koran, then, has a definite legitimising function over and above its
fundamental legislative application: ‘Verily, this Qur’an guides unto that [Way or
conduct] which is the most upright and announces glad tidings unto the believers who
do good [i.e. do good in the Way of God] that they shall have a great
reward.’(XVII:9; my italics) It is, as such, directly linked to the mode of domination.
The essence of Koranic Divine Law is political-ideological; the aim is not simply the
laying down of ethical or legal precepts, but to justify power and its exercise as if
conditioned by God’s Will: ‘…But God, He is the Guardian…and He is, over all
things powerful. And in whatever things you differ, the judgement thereof is [with]
God; that is your God my Lord, on Him rely I, and unto [only] Him do I turn.’(XLII:9-
10) Koranic Divine Law is essentially meant to justify the judgement and decisions of
those holding power as if these are expressive of God’s Will; it gives their power of
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domination the appearance of divine authority: ‘He [God] has prescribed for you the
deen [the Way of life]; what He ordained unto Noah and that which We revealed
[Divine Law] unto Abraham and Moses and Jesus, that: Establish you the deen and be
you not divided therein…’(XLII:13; my italics) Divine Law serves the interest of
those in power. Moreover, what is allowed or forbidden by divine decree is intended
as enforceable in this world by those whom, according to Mohammad’s recitation of
his revelations, God has authorised. Mohammad himself is, of course, God’s number
one choice. But in the Koran we also have directives that ‘instruct’ or prompt the
formation of a body (or an authorised group) whose function is the calling of mankind
to follow God’s commandments and to exercise authority in their enforcement: ‘And
that there should be among you a body [a group or a party] who call unto virtue and to
impose [to enjoin or order] what is right and forbid wrong [nahya anil munkar]; and
these are they who shall be successful.’(III:104) And also: ‘Those who, if We
establish them [give them power] in the land [on earth], will keep up prayer and pay
the poor-rate [zakat] and impose [enjoin] good and forbid wrong…’(XXII:41)

The foundations of the mode of domination seem thus ordained by God and are
sanctioned by His commandments in the Koran, i.e. by Divine Law: ‘Verily, God
commands you to render back your trusts to their owners, and when you judge
between people [mankind], to judge with justice [bil-‘adl]…’(IV:58) In the Koran the
conception of ‘judgement’ implies the possession both of superior knowledge and
wisdom, and the power to determine ‘the Truth’ granted by and according to God’s
Will. Those who hold the power of judgment therefore dominate and control the
institutions of power, even though they appear to do so only by the grace of God; it is
commanded that they must be obeyed, according to, for example, this verse: ‘O you
who believe! Obey God and obey the Messenger and those vested with authority from
among you...’ Yet, as the rest of this same verse makes clear, their power appears
dependent on the authority of God and His Messenger: ‘…and then,’ the verse goes on
to state, ‘if you quarrel about anything refer it to God and the Messenger if you
believe in God and the Last Day; this is the best and the fairest way [taweelan
connoting ‘interpretation’ or ‘clarification’ – that is, the best way for the clarification
of the issue] in the end.’(IV:59)

In connection with the above statement, that in any dispute the matter concerned
should be referred ‘to God and the Messenger’; there are some crucial points that need
closer attention. For this statement raises the problematic of the method of ‘referring’
to God and the Messenger; that is, it raises the question of: How is a matter in dispute
referred ‘to God’ or ‘to the Messenger’? Judgement in cases of ‘quarrel’ or dispute
necessitates a practical method of decision-making, and a source and agency. Thus
referring a matter of dispute ‘to God’ requires some practical method, a procedure
which concretely delivers an appropriate result – prayer or supplication does not, and
cannot, concretely resolve a dispute. The procedure must therefore be, and can only
be, a method and process of deciding or judging according to God’s Word, the Koran,
and hence on the basis of Koranic Divine Law. There can be no other meaning or
interpretation of the above statement; for God’s Word (the Koran) expresses His Will,
His Authority, as the Divine Law upon which all judgement must be based.

Now, with regards to referring a matter in dispute ‘to the Messenger’, the question of
how judgement is arrived at is quite simple and obvious; for in concrete terms,
Mohammad as the Messenger of God would execute judgement, expressing in person
the Will of God as revealed to him. But this could take place only while Mohammad
was alive. In other words, while still alive, Mohammad in his personal capacity as the
Leader (as the Prophet) was the authority, he had the power to decide, he was the
‘arbiter’. However, since the Koran, as the Holy Book, was formed well after
Mohammad’s death, the answer to our question becomes more intricate, more
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involved. For, clearly, with the Koran fully formed as the Holy Book, referring a
matter in dispute to the Messenger could obviously not involve the person of
Mohammad. The statement made in the above ayah with regards to referring a matter
in dispute ‘to the Messenger’ must therefore have other signification. In the absence of
Mohammad, the statement ‘refer it to the Messenger’ can only mean, therefore, the
making of the appropriate decision on the basis of Mohammad’s sunna or his conduct
and personal sayings during his, as it were, term of office, as Leader of the Islamic
movement and the ‘ruler’ of the umma. In other words, referring a matter ‘to the
Messenger’ signifies taking account of the Traditions (in recorded form known as the
Hadith) in the decision making process. We have therefore here the bringing together
of the authority of Koranic Divine Law and that of the Traditions, reflecting, in fact, a
historic compromise in terms of power relations; a compromise of ‘power-sharing’ (of
Caliphs and the ulama) that took some three hundred years after Mohammad’s death
to shape the actual theocratic form of domination under Islam and which,
concomitantly, established the Islamic legal system known as the Sharia.

Koranic Commandments and the Sharia

Divine Law as constituted in the Koran necessarily signifies that God’s

commandments have a correlative connection with the political relations of
domination under Islam. The translation of these commandments into the
fundamentals of law is the consequence of the actual operation and practice of the
Islamic mode of domination. This translation is expressed in the metamorphosis of
Koranic commandments into the form of the Sharia law. In order to understand this
transformation, however, we need to first look at the basic connection between the two
forms of laws.

According to the Koran, to God alone belongs the sovereignty of judgment in any
dispute: ‘And in whatever thing you disagree, the Judgment thereof belongs to God.
That then is God, my Lord; on Him do I rely, and unto Him do I return.’(XLII:10)
Also: ‘You serve not beside Him but names which you have named, you and your
fathers, God has not sent down for them any authority; there is no judgment but
God’s; He has bidden that you serve only Him; this is the right deen…’(XII:40; see
also verse 67: ‘judgment is only God’s’) And: ‘There is none to be a guardian for them
besides Him, and He does not make any one His associate in His
Judgment.’(XVIII:26) God’s judgment is of course a juridical illusion. The reference
to God’s judgment, as was argued above, can be nothing more than juridically binding
decisions based on Koranic Divine Law. This body of laws is, as we have seen,
regarded and believed to be immutable; for it is believed and accepted to be directly
from God Himself and in His own words that as such cannot be changed: ‘And recite
thou what hast been revealed unto thee of the Book of thy Lord; none shall [can]
change His Word…’(XVIII:27) God’s words are His commands that no mortal can
interfere with or alter: ‘…none can alter the words of God [kalamat-e Allah].’ (VI:34)
Here kalamat-e Allah infers a deeper meaning than simply the ‘letters’, as it were, of
God’s ‘words’; it signifies God’s Will expressed in words as ‘Commands’.

Thus, consequently, that which God has commanded, His Law, is, in its conception
unchangeable. Commandments are divinely ordained, established, and eternally fixed;
but as such, they only maintain themselves as elements of Divine Law by the force of
faith alone, even though the belief in them has no power over them. In practice,
however, commandments are meant to have the proper function of governing social
conduct. What is clear from the text of Koran’s revelations concerned with directives
is that they are not meant as mere ‘recommendations’; there is no ambiguity in these
being intended as hard and fast rules for the regulation of the conduct of believers (the
submitted). Thus verses that reveal God’s commandments are in the imperative mode;
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as for example the following verses demonstrate with regards to the issue of the eating
of meat/animals: ‘Lawful are made for you quadrupeds [‘grass eating’ animals like
cattle]…’(V:1) And: ‘Forbidden unto you is the dead [flesh of that which dies of
itself], and blood, and flesh of swine…’(V:3) It is quite clear here that such
commandments are intended as inviolable laws that believers must follow to the letter
– within the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) they are categorised as ‘Obligatory’ (wajib).
As with all religious rules, they combine ‘moral’ and ‘legal’ constraints and
obligations; such is for example the case as regards infanticide: ‘And kill you not your
children for fear of want; We sustain them and yourselves. Verily, killing them is a
great sin.’ (XVII:31; see also VI:152) Similarly with adultery: ‘And approach you not
adultery. Verily, it is a shameful act, and an evil way.’ (XVII:32)

God’s commandments, therefore, must be taken literally and applied as actual

operative laws in the here and now. Thus surah An-Noor (The Light), revealed at
Medina, at the time of Mohammad’s establishment of his proto-state, the umma, a
section of which deals with adultery, begins with this unequivocal statement: ‘This
surah We have sent down and made obligatory [We have ordained] and We have
revealed therein clear ayat [revelations] that you must take heed.’ (XXIV:1) What is
prescribed, as in the case of the sexual ‘offence’ of adultery (zina), for example, has
the force of Divine Law; zina is not only a sin in terms of religious moral code of
conduct, which would thus be punishable in the ‘hereafter’ or the ‘next-world’, or on
the ‘Day of Judgment’; but it is an offence, a crime, punishable in this world: ‘The
adulteress and adulterer flog each of them a hundred lashes, and let not pity for them
keep you from enforcing the sentence of God, if you believe in God and the Last Day;
and let their chastisement be witnessed by a party of believers.’ (XXIV:2)

In terms of Islamic faith, God’s Will is revealed in these Koranic commandments,

which would then need to be realised by the incorporation of them into the legal
system. But this realisation can only take place if and when Koranic Divine Law as
such materialises itself as the legitimising force in the political realm, in the state – i.e.
only with the Koran as Allah’s Constitution. With this latter, commandments are
institutionalised; they find the real agency through which they are transformed into the
instruments of actual domination through their functioning as means of social control.
But what this also signifies is that in appearance the authority of the state is
ideologically subordinate to the authority of the Koran and to the jurisdiction of the
Divine Law set forth in it. Consequently, the state appears as the manifestation of
God’s Will, and, therefore, actual laws appear to operate as if they are God’s
commandments.

The process of implementation of Koranic commandments assumes, therefore, the

religious form of the Sharia, as do the institutions of the legal system (e.g. Sharia
Courts). In appearance the political relations of social control are, then, simply matters
of religious jurisprudence because the Koranic commandments (prescriptions and
directives) are regarded as, in form and substance, divinely ordained legislation, and
hence as such, they are imposed in order to establish God’s ‘Straight Way’ – though,
they are actually the real, active driving force of social control. The matter of the
reality of the politics of domination and that of the Sharia as a means of social control
is thereby mystified; it is clouded by the ‘holy ghost’ of the conception of the eternal
commandments of God. Moreover, the Sharia thus appears as a divine legal system,
the regulator of social affairs arising from and enforcing God’s Will; consequently it is
regarded as the specific foundation of the juridical relations of Islam as deen, as the
way of life in its entirety. In this form, all intermediate political aspects of social
control are abstracted, and the reified feature of the domination of God’s Will
becomes complete: ‘And you will not, except as God wills …’(LXXXVI:30; my
italics)
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The Sharia as Islam’s Legal System

Now, it is quite obvious that no form of domination can exist without some form of
legal and administrative rules and regulations. In Islam, the rules which facilitate the
regulation of public order and that of the state’s needs of administration (to ensure
continuous reproduction and the stability of its form of domination) could not have
been constructed, as an operating legal system, abstractly by simply taking on Koranic
commandments. To begin with, Koranic commandments are, for the most part,
‘nonce-rules’, that is, prescriptions intended by the Prophet to deal with certain
circumstance or incident at the time of his ‘mission. That these came to be made into
universal laws, and thus appear as the fundamental directives and edicts incorporated
into the Sharia, was the result of a fairly long process of political, ideological and
cultural adjustment (involving major contentions and in-fighting within the Muslim
community).

Moreover, many of the rules needed for the regulation of public order were actually
only constructed in the light of the historical development of specific administrative
domains within the Islamic empire and conditioned by the prevailing socio-political
context of wars of conquest and those over succession. Thus, historically within the
Muslim world, we have Kanuns and Farmans, or decrees as laws issued by particular
rulers (Caliphs or Sultans) that were, in their strictly technical legislative function of
social control, independent of both the Sharia and Koranic divine law (though never
contravening the latter), but which could only gain hegemony and achieve consensual
legitimacy by their fiqh-based formulation and Islamic jurists’ (or ulama’s)
endorsement. Such laws, though technically outside of the Sharia, and generally
categorised as mere ‘administrative’ rules (e.g. the Siyasa of the Mamluk Sultans of
Egypt or the Kanun-nameh of the Ottoman Sultans, etc.), would therefore become part
of the legal system as a result of the combination of coercive power (of the ruler and
the state) and ideological justification (by the ulama, the Mujtahidun, etc., or the
‘learned’ judges, jurists, and theologians).

The fact is that the Islamic juridical system was founded and developed on the well-
trodden ground of pre- and non-Islamic legal structures and procedures and practices,
incorporating and accommodating customary rules and conventions from a variety of
sources as a result of the expansion of the Islamic empire. Such incorporation and
accommodation necessarily involved a process of Islamisation of laws in conquered
lands; in other words, the politics of domination and social control had not only to take
account of local customs, but required the development of laws to meet the challenges
of changing conditions and circumstances. In practice, the Islamic juridical system,
therefore, contains laws that are not derived from the Koran – they are ‘rationally’
developed acts issued specifically for the purpose of social, public regulation in
response to state and local administrative problems or needs (e.g. issues of taxation,
concerns over particular local issues, regulation of certain social groups or classes of
people, etc.). Nonetheless, we need to again emphasise that, firstly, it would be wrong
to regard these laws as (nominally) ‘independent’ of the Sharia. Strictly speaking, no
law operative within the Dar al-Islam could be regarded as independent of the Sharia
in this sense that every single law must always appear to conform to the Sharia and
appear to be discharged and executed within the scope of the Sharia. And, secondly,
that whatever were the actual legal requirements of state administration and however
manipulative were the rulers and their theologically ‘learned’ partners, the ulama, the
ultimate, final and absolute ideological justification for all legally enforceable acts
was (and always remains) the Koran.

Therefore, the complex of legal codes of conduct known as the Sharia, despite its
many variant interpretations (given the practicalities of local administration of social
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control within the vast territories of the Muslim world), could become (at least in
principle) the legal canon of Islamic political systems – from the Caliphate of the
Umayyad period, when the office of qadi (Islamic judge) was first introduced in the
urban centres of conquered territories, and the subsequent formal institutionalisation
of the Sharia under the Abbasids, to the Sultanate states and well beyond to the present
day Islamic regimes and those of the ‘nominally’ Muslim countries – only because it
was perceived and claimed to be derived directly from God’s ‘Revealed Law’ as set
forth in the Koran: ‘…For each of you We have appointed a sharia and a right way [of
life]…’(V:48; see also 49)

The development of the Sharia was effectively the result of a most ingenious process
of theological ‘invention’. Koranic Divine Law, as noted above, is by definition
immutable. To govern a country let alone an empire is impossible on the basis of a
body of rules that are ‘eternally’ fixed. The development of the Sharia was necessary
precisely in order that such unchangeable body of rules could be made, in a modified
form, to operate as actual law. With the ‘invention’ of the Sharia, the active and
conscious practice of God’s commandments became part of the earthly process of
social control insofar as they were taken into the believer’s will and influenced his/her
acts. Divine Law could operate as actual law only if the believers (Muslims)
comprehend and act on it. The Sharia enabled this by the codification of rules and
regulations (Koranic and customary) developed on the basis of juridical and religious
practice, and in accordance with the principles established by Islamic jurists
(Mujtahidun). Its reality, it should be noted here, lies at all times in actions, tendencies
and institutions that embody the interests of the divinely sanctioned authority (the
‘class-state’). The Sharia cannot exist separate from such an authority, and acts
through the latter’s agents and agencies; while Divine Law, which such authority
represents, operates in the form of an irresistible force, as it were, behind the Sharia.
For, the Koranic conception of Divine Law emphasises that in nature, history and
society mankind is subject to God’s Will – humanity is not the self-conscious master
of its own existence. Thus, however it is interpreted, Koranic Divine Law is the
conceptual force behind the Sharia as the ideological force that governs the actions of
believers. And in its juridical authority it is an ineluctable force; for believers there is
no choice in the matter: ‘And it is not for a believer, man or woman, to have any
choice in their affair when God and His Messenger have decided a
matter…’(XXXIII:36)

The sovereignty of God’s Will, as the Koran portrays it through the very content of its
Divine Law, exhibits the dark traits of a political system of total domination of social
and personal life; while the Sharia is the device that keeps the believers in line and
keeps them acting and behaving in the service of the ruling authority’s superior power
and superior interest within that system. In the Koran, one could therefore say, the
dominative and the directive dimensions of ahkam (commandments) are closely bound
together; with the development of the Sharia as a legal system, Koranic Divine Law
became the ideological support and justification used to produce and mobilise assent
to the implementation of the Sharia, which in turn, in its effecting role of social
control, sustained the theocratic form of domination.

Faith in the Koran and the conviction of the ‘justice’ (‘adl, ‘idalat) of Allah’s
commandments (ahkam) are essentially, therefore, what the Islamic form of
domination requires to function; and what the Sharia attempts is to regulate the ‘way
of life’ of the faithful so that the practice of social control reinforces this theocratic
form of domination. Sharia, interestingly enough, actually means ‘the clear way to a
waterhole’; this meaning is highly pertinent to its Koranic juridical usage. To be
guided (directed) by a clear path to God’s ordained way of life (deen) is, or should be,
as natural, as it is as vital, as that of being guided to a waterhole, particularly in the
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Arabian landscape! In the Koran, therefore, ‘Sharia’ is stipulated as a path, a way, a

course, based on God’s commandments that is set for the Prophet to follow, and hence
for the rest of mankind to follow, too. The Koranic conception of the Sharia (from
which the Islamic legal notion of it is derived) is thus the clear way to (perform)
God’s Commandments: ‘Then have We set thee a sharia [a clear way to the
commandments], therefore follow it, and follow not the caprices of those who know
not.’(XLV:18)

The Sharia, therefore, is not identical to or interchangeable with Koranic Divine Law,
with God’s commandments; it is a path to the latter’s fulfilment which is ‘clear’ in the
sense that God has already ‘revealed’ (in the Koran) the direction or path of reaching
the Truth (al-haq) in accordance with ‘the Straight Way’ (al-sirat al-mustaqim: ‘He
may guide you onto the Straight Way.’ XLVIII:20) or with ‘the way that God
initiated’ (fitrata-Allah) or His ‘custom’ or ‘course’ (of setting the ‘precedent’)
(sunnata-Allah) – i.e. in accordance with His commandments, the Divine Law, set
forth in the Koran (‘Verily, We have revealed to you the Book with the Truth that you
may judge between people by what God shows [has taught] you…’ IV:105; see also
V:48, 49 and 50) One consequence of this conceptual distinction is the intervention of
human agency (Islamic jurists, judges, etc.) in the ‘expounding’ (rendering,
interpretation, or ijtihad, more specifically within the Sunni sect) of the Sharia on the
basis not only of the Koran, but other sources. It is otherwise, of course, as regards
God’s Revealed Law, which axiomatically rules out such human intervention. Thus
while with the Sharia certain legalistic and administrative changes might be possible
(and has been so historically), the same cannot be said of the Koranic Divine Law.
There can be no change in God’s ‘custom’ that has set the divine ‘precedent’ (i.e. His
Law): ‘The custom [tradition] of God [sunnata-Allah] that has passed into effect [that
has run] since times gone by; never shall you find a change in the custom of
God.’(XLVIII:23) And: ‘Then set thou thy face in the right direction for the deen, the
way that God initiated [fitrata-Allah], that deen which is innately a natural custom for
people to follow [fitra al-nasa]. No change can there be in what God has set forth.
That is the established deen; but most among mankind know not [al-nase la-
yaolamuna].’(XXX:30)

However, in spite of it being considered as a ‘divine law’, the Sharia is in actual fact a
kind of ‘mutation,’ in that it carries, or at least purports to carry, the ‘genes’ of God’s
commandments as set forth in the Koran, but, for historical and practical reasons,
these have been ‘transmuted’ by temporal inputs from sources other than the Koran.
Though the sources vary somewhat for Sunni and Shia sects, in general for both sects
they are as follows: the Hadith (i.e. the written Sunnah or Traditions as the
compilation of all that Mohammad said, did and approved of), Ijma (i.e. the
‘unanimity’ or ‘consensus’ – specifically among the ‘learned’, the ulama, etc.), Qiyas
(i.e. drawing analogy from the essence of divine principles in the Koran); and, in
addition to the latter, sources for Shiite jurisprudence includes: Aql (i.e. using
‘reasoning’ or ‘intellect’ – again by the so-called ‘learned’ jurists, ulama, etc.), and al-
Urf (i.e. local customs – though decisions on what is applicable or not depends on
‘authoritative’ justification/validation by the ‘learned’ jurists, ulama, etc.). But, not
withstanding the differences between the Sunni and Shiite legal traditions, it is crucial
to reiterate here that, in principle (i.e. according to the strict Muslim theological
dogma), the primary and fundamental source of the Sharia is always the Koran! And it
is only because the legal system of Sharia includes Koranic commandments and has to
be justified on the basis of the Koran that it is considered and referred to as ‘divine
law’ – though perhaps ‘sacred law’ would be a more accurate term to describe its
form.
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All the above mentioned sources, including the Hadith, are, then, subject to
theological justification on the basis of the Koran; and no issue, arrived at from any of
these sources, can be considered as law (as legislation proper) if it goes against or
contradicts Koranic principles (the Will of God). Thus, for example, the justification
(or validation) of a certain issue on the grounds of the Hadith, or the Prophet’s
attributes and conduct, is permissible only because, as His Messenger, God had
authorised his guiding (or rather ‘steering’) role: ‘And whatever the Messenger gives,
hold it fast. And from whatever he forbids you, keep you away; and fear God; verily,
God is severe in retribution.’(LIX:7) The same holds for the so-called ‘scholarly
consensus’ as a source of Sharia, which is justified by, for example, the following
ayah that has been interpreted (though there is disagreement on this) as allowing to
settle legal issues by consultation: ’And those who answer their Lord, and perform
[keep up] prayer, and their affairs are by counsel [‘consultation’ or ‘shura’] between
them [or among themselves]…’(XLII:38)

Hence whatever the practical requirements of legislation or those of the

implementation of laws throughout the Dar al-Islam, the Koran as the Word of God is
always the indisputable and final authority: ‘And We did not send any Messenger but
that he should be obeyed by God’s permission…’(IV:64, my italics) The Koran (i.e.
God) permits no-one, not even Mohammad, to ‘create/invent’ rules of conduct as
Divine Law; Mohammad is simply and only a Messenger, a ‘deliverer’ (a ‘warner’) of
God’s commandments: ‘Say: I am not the first of the Messengers, I know not what
will be done unto me, nor unto you; I follow only what has been revealed unto me,
and I am nothing but a plain warner.’ (XLVI:9);‘…say: If God had willed, we would
not have served anything besides Him, neither we nor our fathers, nor would we have
prohibited anything without [a command from] Him. Thus did those before them; is
then anything incumbent upon Messengers save the plain delivery [of the divine
message]?’(XVI:35); ‘…nothing is incumbent upon the Messenger but the plain
delivering [of the divine message].’(XXIX:18; see also V:99)

In principle, jurisprudence, in other words, has to not only appear to reflect but also be
seen to express Koranic Divine Law as the Will of God as if without any distortion
affected by human intervention. The Koran is after all (believed to be) the Constitution
of God’s Kingdom on earth; and because it is for all Muslims Allah’s Constitution it
cannot be amended in any shape or form.

But, of course, a ‘legal system’ is much more than a ‘constitution’. The Sharia as a
legal system depends on the Koran as the constitution, but the two do in reality
diverge. Indeed, from very early on during the development of the Islamic state, there
appeared a divergence between the theory and practice of Koranic directives. To begin
with, it should be noted, the Sharia, as a proper legal system, was completely absent
during Mohammad’s life time – his establishment of the umma in Medina did not as
yet involve what could strictly speaking be regarded as a legal system. The community
of Muslims at Medina, and for the whole period during Mohammad’s rule, relied on
his role as the ‘arbitrator’ of disputes and his decisions or judgments were for the most
part, if not exclusively, limited to and based upon the customary rules of ancient Arab
tribal communities – rules which were themselves (as with any formative legal
system) based upon the principle of ‘precedent’ or the tradition of ‘normative
regulations’ known, even then, as sunna. It should also be noted here, as a reminder,
that during this period (and well after), the Koran as such (in its compiled written book
form) was obviously not yet in existence. Mohammad’s proto-state had no
‘constitution’, divine or otherwise. Basically, the definition and implementation of all
of what could be called ‘legalistic’ matters were more or less wholly subject to the
personal authority of Mohammad, who had only just begun, as the Prophet-Ruler, to
combine the function of the ancient Arab tribal custom of the arbitrator with that of an
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emerging political-religious ‘lawmaker’ or rather, in religious terms, as God’s ‘law-

fixer’. With his recitation of divine revelations he was transposing customary rules, as
and when appropriate, to suit the umma’s changing conditions and to deal with
problems and disputes arising thereof. He was, therefore, at the same time
transforming the ancient arbitrator’s function and authority into a ‘proto-legal’ one
(though it was a long time after his death that the change of function and office of
‘arbitration’ into that of juridical administration became fully accomplished and
completed). It was, thus, on the basis of his recitation of divine revelations that
Mohammad, by transforming his personal authority from that of an ‘arbitrator’ to that
of a (nascent) ‘judge’, set down the fundamental principle for what later became the
defining axiom of the proper Islamic legal system (the Sharia). The verse that sets
down this fundamental principle is the following: ‘But no, by thy Lord! they will not
believe till they make thee the judge [yuhakimu] in all that is in dispute among them,
and then find in themselves no impediment against what thou decides [qadiuta
(pronounced, qaziuta)] and submit with [absolute] submission.’(IV:65) Here
Yuhakimu specifies Mohammad’s arbitrating role, which, however, in conjunction
with the verb qadiuta, strictly meaning ‘to decide authoritatively and juridically’
(qidavat – pronounced qizavat – meaning ‘legal judgement’ and the Islamic legal term
for ‘judge’, qadi is derived from this verb), signifies the inception of Mohammad’s
authoritative role and function as judge in all matters (temporal and spiritual, public
and private, personal and social) without restriction – the term used in the verse that
coveys this all-embracing juridical authority is, ‘fima shajara bainahum’ (‘in whatever
matter they may disagree among themselves’).

On the basis of such revelations was, after many years of theological wrangling over
the expounding of ‘fundamentals’ by various schools of Islamic thought, gradually
forged the Sharia legal system, which in time incorporated into itself administrative
rules and regulations which were originally founded in the conquered territories (e.g.
Sasanid administrative regulations, taxation rules, etc.; Roman and Byzantine law; the
canon law of the Eastern Churches; Talmudic and Rabbinic law; etc.). The Sharia was
certainly to a great extent the result of the need for the ‘elucidation’ (actually
involving major philosophical undertakings influenced by and derived from non-
Islamic sources, e.g. Greek/Hellenic tradition, and particularly Neoplatonism and
Aristotelianism) of Koranic fundamentals and the elaboration of God’s
commandments and directives. As ‘sacred law’ it grew out of this need that had given
expression to the emergence of a number of ‘schools of thought’ – the most influential
being, for the majority Sunnis: the Hanafi (abu Hanifa 700-767 AD), the Maliki
(Malik ibn Anas 710-795), the Shafi’i (Mohammad al-Shafi’I 767-820) and the
Hanbali (Ahmad ibn Hanbal 780-855); and for the Shiites: Imamiya, Zaydiya and
Ismailya Shia.

With the expansion of Islamic rule, then, there appears a divergence between the
Koranic Divine Law and the Sharia. This divergence signifies a conceptual distinction
between the role and function of the Sharia and that of Koranic Divine Law. The latter
can be said to function as the ideological legitimisation of the mode of domination; the
former, the legal function of social control. Stated simply, Divine Law is ‘eternal’; it
is not conditioned by social practice, by historical circumstances and particular
situations or by changing social relations. Objectively, it is the necessary foundation of
the Islamic legal system – but it is not in itself the Islamic legal system. Koranic
Divine Law draws all the juridically formed specificities of social control around a
single central core – its principle of submission, denoting the ‘spirit’ of universal
theocratic domination, is meant to and intended to operate upon economic structures,
social institutions and customs, the phenomena of mental attitudes, political behaviour
and practice, subjecting them all to a timeless, transhistorical, eternal, divine form. As
the necessary foundation of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Koranic Divine Law, in
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conditioning the discourse and practice of social control, makes theocracy the telos of
mankind, and links the whole legal system to the politics or practice of domination. It
is in the space of the interplay of the politics of domination and the practice of social
control that the relation of Islamic ideology to the norms of social conduct established.
The hold of Islamic ideology over juridical relations is articulated in that space, even
though the technical use of the Sharia rules in society is essentially practical. The
divergence between the Sharia and Koranic Divine Law is thus historically
conditioned; it is not, however, in principle, theologically constituted. In other words,
there is no separation in terms of their ‘metaphysical’ substantiation; the Sharia is not,
in other words, a legal system that could have a de facto privilege as independent of
Koranic Divine Law. And although it has, in its technical use, a ‘civil’ field of
operation and function, Sharia legislation bears the mark of its origins. Koranic Divine
Law is not, in short, an ideological site that disappears in the legal technicalities of the
Sharia as if it is superseded by earthly, temporal legislation; all ‘schools of thought’
acknowledge the Sharia’s basis (asl) as belonging to God (Allah) alone; and anyone
who even presumes that any other than God (i.e. the Koran) is the source of such
legislation is committing the sin of shirk.

The Sharia and Social Control

The principle of an established Divine Law (i.e. as set forth in the Koran) implies that
with the implementation of that law there must thus come into existence a ‘perfect and
complete divine order’. Such a divine order can realize itself only through the striving
of mankind in accordance with the spirit and letter of Koranic Divine Law – its
realisation is mankind’s destiny. The deen of Islam is meant to be the vehicle of this
process of realisation; and it achieves this result insofar as every particular life
condition is governed (directed, controlled) by the force of faith inherent in it, which is
translated into practice through the politics of domination. Individual believers
become conscious of this destiny through ‘Tasleem’ (meaning ‘to surrender’) – i.e.
surrendering themselves wholly to the Divine Law. But what is inherent in the concept
of tasleem is the interactive role of belief in and awareness of the supremacy of God’s
‘Unseen Power’ (Al-Ghayb – power that stands beyond human knowledge) and that of
surrendering to its force, the ways of its laws, in total servitude and worship (‘ibadah)
in daily life, and in the organising and conduct of the social affairs of the community
as a whole. Effectively, then, tasleem is essential to the striving of mankind for
establishing an earthly order in accordance with God’s established Revealed Law.
Koranic Divine Law, conceived as the positive exposition of the absolute Will of God,
is thus drawn into the process of the politics of domination as the ideological force of
the practice of tasleem. Surrendering to Koranic Divine Law (tasleem) is
acknowledging the this-worldly force of God’s power as expressed by and through the
divinely sanctioned authority of the Prophet and that of his successors. Consequently,
the only possible form of authority is the theocratic form. The establishment of the
divine order is thus predicated upon the discipline of ‘human will’ through tasleem
universally (socially) effectuated by this form of authority. It is here, in the
practicalities of the discipline of human will, that the Sharia has a decisive role and
function. With the Sharia, the subjectivity of human will becomes an object of social
control, and the discipline of it (of conscious subjectivity, and of individuality) the
condition for an undisturbed functioning of the force of Koranic Divine Law by the
given theocratic authority. We have, therefore, rules within the Sharia dealing with
‘acts of worshipful serving of Allah’ or dealing with Al-ibadat: the rituals of
purification, of prayers, of charitable acts, of fasting, and of pilgrimage to Mecca. And
also regulations dealing with ‘human intercourse and interactions’ or dealing with Al-
mu’amalat (concerned with individual and collective conduct, personal and social
behaviour): mercantile and financial matters, endowments, inheritance; as well as
sexual practice, marriage, divorce and child care; ritual of slaughtering (and hunting);
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laws regarding food and drinks; regulations concerned with warfare and peace,
treaties, oaths and pledges; judicial affairs, forms of evidence and witnesses; crime
and penal punishment. And there are various categories of obligation and compulsion
for the different rules and regulations; and even sub-categories of more technically
specific rules, as in the case of crime, which is itself divided into three major
categories – i.e. Hadd, dealing with serious crimes; Tazir, dealing with least serious
crimes; and Qisas, concerned with revenge crimes, retaliation and restitution.

The kind of social control envisaged by the implementation of the rules of the Sharia
is, at least in principle, all-embracing; the degree of the imposition of these rules is set
within five categories: obligatory, recommended, permissible, reprehensible and
forbidden. There are rewards and punishments; there are responsibilities, entitlements
and obligations laid down; there are boundaries and limits (huddud – pl. of hadd) to
cover social and personal conduct, and more specifically for crimes (hadd crimes are,
as noted, the most serious – such as murder, apostasy, war upon God, His Messenger,
and upon Islam, as well as theft, adultery, etc.) In all aspects, no matter in what way
the rules and regulations are technically divided and categorised, the essential purpose,
over and above the general requirements of the administration of human interaction, is
the instituting, functioning and operating of a legal system that enables the (near)total
control of human conduct possible. What distinguishes the Sharia from other legal
systems, however, is not this aim and the attempt at engineering and fulfilling the
highest measure of control (since essentially that is the fundamental objective of every
legal system in any class-divided society); its especial characteristics is
quintessentially the reinforcement of the specifically theocratic form of domination –
its principle function is to repress human conscious subjectivity by controlling acts
and attitudes, social affairs and conduct, in the service of Allah and in accordance with
His Will as set forth in the Koran, and represented on earth by His chosen appointees.

It goes without saying that the Sharia’s introduction into the social relations of the
actual Muslim world involved a more extensive problem than its theological
justification on the basis of the Koran and its simple implantation; a problem whose
solution and application required a historical process of political-ideological and
cultural transformation. Its application to relations of social control, the discipline of
‘human will’, and the more or less thorough moulding of hitherto existing customs and
laws by it, involved a process of development of specifically Islamic (or ‘Islamised’)
network of institutions established to render the conquered population obedient to the
authority of the Messenger of God and, subsequently, that of his successors.

Mohammad’s conquest of Mecca and its surrounding pagan tribal communities,

among them the ‘desert Arabs’, marked the first successful attempt to introduce the
principle of tasleem in accordance with God’s Revealed Law into changing social and
political relations: ‘Say the desert Arabs: “We believe.” Say thou [i.e. say you
Mohammad to them]: “You believed not, but say you, we submit, for faith has not yet
entered your hearts; and if you obey God and His Messenger, He will lessen not aught
of your deeds…’(XLIX:14, my italics) This successful conquest, and the subsequent
‘conversion’ or submission based on tasleem, placed God’s Revealed Law (later to
take the enduring written form of Koranic Divine Law) at the core of the politics of
domination and placed Mohammad’s exercise of power, his socio-political and
military actions and deeds, as the divinely sanctioned conduct to be emulated.
Mohammad set the stage for the transformation of ‘custom’ into law and that of
Revealed Law into actual law based on organised force and state power – thus the
importance of the Hadith in the ideological justification and validation of Islamic
jurisprudence. With the Hadith we have the interpretation of the Prophet’s conduct by
which Muslim authority glorified its politics of domination as the legitimisation of the
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reality of the legal practice of social control based upon theocratic rule as sanctioned
by the Koran.

Chapter Four: Divine Power and Mohammad’s Apostleship

The transition from the dogma of Divine Law to the domain of theocratic rule is an
intrinsic part of the Koran. From its very opening chapter the issues of authority, of
judgement, of law, and thus of obedience and servitude, are proclaimed and asserted
as the fundamentals of faith. And from its very beginning, the Koran is concerned with
the question of Divine Power and God’s bestowment of that power to whomsoever He
wills. Therefore, just as we have in the first surah (Al-Fateha or The Opening) the
divine stipulation of legislation and enactment, so, too, we have here in the same
surah, the divine stipulation of empowerment and delegation of authority in the form
of apostleship. And the two are, of course, inextricably connected. The sixth ayah, as
was pointed out above, sets forth the divine stipulation of any enactment by the
following statement: ‘Guide us in the Straight Way’ or ‘Confirm upon us the Straight
Way’ [‘Ihdina al-sirat al-mustaqim’]. Al-sirat al-mustaqim, as we saw in the previous
chapter, refers to the specific uniform and unbroken direction and manner of conduct
without ambiguity or deviation which is the most sincere and shortest course, in time
and space, to achieving the proper order of God’s Kingdom on earth – in other words,
what we have is a reference to the divine stipulation of rules of conduct in life or the
guidance and confirmation of Divine Law. And as it was also shown in the above
chapter, the seventh ayah then goes on to assert the concrete earthly agency whose
divinely approved conduct is the ‘Straight Way’ that all believers must emulate and
follow – i.e. that form and manner of conduct, which is: ‘The way of those upon whom
Thou has bestowed favours [bounties]…’(I:7, my italics)

Here, a-n’amat, translated as ‘favours’ or even ‘blessings’(sic), is actually closer in

meaning to ‘bounties’; its connotation is a ‘generous reward’ in acknowledgement of
services rendered; these are persons singled out as being favoured by God (and as such
rewarded). And here, in the above sentence, we thus have the divine stipulation of
empowerment of apostles – that is, those persons whom God has favoured, and whose
conduct in life is accordingly fully approved by Him, are the ones who set the standard
of conduct for all the submitted (indeed, for the rest of mankind); and therefore, as
such, are distinguished as ‘leaders’. The ayah is not a general statement regarding ‘all’
persons who are godfearing, who therefore are ‘rewarded’ for being morally upright; it
is in fact quite explicit in proclaiming a specific category of righteous persons, the
rewarded favoured ones. And in this it is setting forth the primary stipulation of
earthly ‘leadership’ – i.e. only those persons upon whom God has bestowed bounties
or favours are the custodians of Divine Law, of al-sirat al-mustaqim. Thus, ‘the
Straight Way’ (the Divine Law) is followed in accordance with the direction and
manner of life’s conduct decreed by God and observed by God’s favoured servants.

The ‘Ideal’ Form of Divine Power

The Opening surah (supposed to have been ‘communicated’ by the Angel Gabriel) is
addressing all of mankind. It is, as mentioned earlier in the essay, a firm statement on
sovereignty, promulgating the essential elements of Divine Power: firstly, God is the
Lord of the Worlds (rabb al-alameen); secondly, He is the Master of the Moment
(Day) of Judgment (malik-a yaumiddeen); thirdly, His is the confirmation (ihdina) of
Divine Law (al-sirat al-mustaqim); and fourthly, His is the choice of ‘leaders’ (His
favoured ones). The surah, therefore, gives in a very concise manner the fundamental
stipulation of power that is then subsequently confirmed in the rest of the Koran. It is
for this reason, as mentioned before, that the surah is regarded as the Mother or
Essence of the Koran (Ummu al-Qur’an). For it establishes not only the locus of
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power but also its political form. From the Opening surah it is thus abundantly clear
who is meant (supposed) to hold Absolute Sovereignty – God. He is the Rabb, that is,
the Lord in its widest and deepest meaning – the One who gives nourishment, sustains
and nurtures, protects and regulates life, and as such possesses everything; thus the
One who consequently has absolute authority over all beings, over the worlds of
heaven and earth. The point is reasserted at numerous places in the Koran, as, for
example, in the following verses: ‘Verily, your Lord [rabb] is God who created the
heavens and earth in six days, then established Himself upon the Arsh [i.e. the Throne
of Absolute Power, of Supreme Authority]…Be it known! His is the creation and the
Command; blessed [tabraka] is God, the Lord of the worlds.’(VII:54) And: ‘Then the
most exalted is God, the True Master [Ruler]; no God is there but He, the Lord of
graceful Arsh [al-arsh al-karim].’(XXIII:116) Thus: ‘This is God your Lord! His is
the Kingdom; and those whom you call upon besides Him, own [master] not a
straw.’(XXXV:13) For: ‘…Whose is the Kingdom this moment [yaum, day]? God’s,
the One, the Subduer!’(XL:16)

The title of Rabb belongs only to God. No-one, be he Mohammad, the Messenger of
God, or any of his successors, the Caliphs (or the Sultans, etc., or the Imams), is
entitled to be called or referred to as Rabb. Indeed, the Hadith forbids a servant (or a
slave) to call his/her master Rabb (as in: ‘my Lord’). But here, then, if we have the
locus of power (God as the Absolute Sovereign), we also have, as made abundantly
clear, the political form of power: Divine Power that is granted by God to a select few,
to those upon whom He has bestowed His bounties. For it is the path or the way of
these righteous ones, these favoured ones, that all the submitted must follow; they are,
therefore, the divinely chosen ones who represent, act and stand for, God’s power –
these are, of course, first and foremost, the apostles, the messengers, the prophets:
‘Our Lord! Raise up a Messenger from amongst them, who shall recite to them Thy
ayat [signs, revelations] and teach them the Book and the Wisdom…And who turns
away from the creed of Abraham, he debases his soul. For indeed We have chosen
him [Abraham, but by implication Mohammad, too] in this world; and verily, in the
hereafter he is of the righteous ones.’(II: 129-30, my italic)

The first condition of having the authority of a ‘leader’ is, therefore, to be ‘favoured’
by God. The instituting of Divine Power is thus directly connected to the authority of
the righteous ones, the favoured ones, which then defines the actual political form of
Divine Power. God’s (Allah’s) is the unifying power, which when transmitted to the
life of mankind assumes the delegated form of theocracy. Divine Power is transmitted
into a ‘subjective’ world, whose faith and self-certainty confronts an ‘objective’ world
of uncertainty and necessity. The unifying force that is meant to remedy or resolve this
contradiction is God’s ‘Straight Way’, al-sirat al-mustaqim, which is the way or path
of the righteous, favoured ones. The righteous ones are distinguished from all other
beings, including the believers in general (all the submitted, the Muslims), by their
unique relation to God and to the world of mankind as a whole. God determines who
is to be ‘inspired’ with authority, He chooses to instil the ‘spirit’ of Divine Power
upon whomsoever He wills, which, of course, happens to be the person claiming
prophethood, like Mohammad: ‘The Exalter of the ranks, the Lord of Arsh; He causes
forth [instils] the spirit at His own behest upon whomsoever He wills of His servants,
that he may warn of the moment [day] of meeting.’(XL:15)

These ‘inspired-ones’ differ from the rest of believers in this respect, that they are
chosen by God to communicate and express the unifying power which is God’s by
mastering the manifold of determinate conditions they find, and by bringing all that is
opposed to God’s ‘Straight Way’ (or to the Divine Law) into harmony with it:
‘…Verily, the most Honoured of you with God is the one of you who guards the most
[God’s Straight Way, the Divine Law]…’(XLIX:13) Since this is not an immediate
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and ‘natural’ process, but the result of a constant active striving (struggling, fighting,
or jihad) against ‘those inflicted with Thy [God’s] wrath’(I:7), the ‘harmony’ to be
achieved prevails only as the result of the mediation of the righteous ones. Leaving
aside all manner of theological apologia, the need for such a mediation can actually
only be explained by the fact of the reality of political expediency.

To rule in the name of God has been historically the most powerful and efficacious
mode of political domination (until the rise of capital). Mohammad declared himself
(or according to Koranic dogma, was proclaimed by God) as one of the righteous,
favoured and chosen ones; divine mediation was his assumed function, which at the
same time was perceived to have made him into an actual Leader. He followed in the
footsteps of Abraham and the other prophets (or rather justified his apostleship in such
manner), and used his function of divine mediation as a means for the exercise of
power. In the history of the world’s three major monotheistic religions, Mohammad’s
apostleship is the most unequivocally and unapologetically political; in and through it,
the reality of Divine Power is conceived and instituted as immediately and directly
political and is thus often perceived as the embodiment in actual practice of the
‘ideals’ of theocracy. It is, at any rate, proclaimed as the first model of the specifically
Islamic ‘ideal’ theocracy.

The Personification of Divine Power

In the Koran Divine Power has a basic function in the world of mankind, that of
giving an absolute centre of authority, of sovereignty. Mohammad established this
through and in the form of his own apostleship: ‘Whoever obeys the Messenger [i.e.
Mohammad], he indeed obeys God…’(IV:80; see also 59, 64, 69) And: ‘Say: Obey
God and obey the Messenger…if you obey him [i.e. Mohammad], you are guided
aright [you are on the right path]…’(XXIV:54) He had also set down his claim to
‘lead’ as a ‘proto-political ruler’ (by the authority of God) upon the precedence of past
apostles: ‘And certainly We did write in the Psalms [al-Zabur – David’s book of
Psalms] after the Reminder [here the ‘Reminder’ refers to Moses’ Torah] that the
Land [the earth], My righteous servants [ibadaya al-Salaheen] shall inherit
it.’(XXI:105) And he made the acknowledgement of or the belief in his apostleship a
defining condition of faith, of belief in God, of being a Muslim: ‘Only those are
believers who believe in God and His Messenger, and when they are with him [i.e.
with Mohammad] on a collective social act [amr-jami’a], they go not away until they
seek his permission; indeed, those who seek your permission are those who believe in
God and His Messenger, so when they seek your permission for some affairs of theirs,
give permission to whomsoever you please from among them, and seek pardon for
them from God…’(XXIV:62) Indeed, to disobey Mohammad was made a kufr and
severely punishable – the negative (and fear of divine retribution) in this case
establishing Mohammad’s unquestioning authority: ‘…those who disbelieve and
disobey the Prophet shall wish that the earth were levelled with them…’(IV:42)
Mohammad’s first reflections on the political problem of power, thus, strike the
pervasive note that the gaining of obedience is the general mark of authority. He had
found the world around him adverse to his unifying ideals; this was patent in the
numerous conflicts that he faced. How, then, was this world to be won over? His
answer was in confirming himself the person chosen and favoured by God to be the
exponent and executer of Divine Power: ‘…We have sent thee unto mankind as
Messenger; and God is sufficient as witness.’ (IV:79) Apostleship was the key to the
gaining of obedience, enduing the person of Mohammad with the ‘clothing’ of divine
power (something that ‘rightly’ only belongs to God): ‘O you who believe! Be you not
forward [insolent] in the presence of God and His Messenger…’(XLIX:1) In this
instituted form of authority, the ‘Messenger’ and the ‘person’ became fused as the
Prophet whose voice carried the full authority of his God and articulated the Truth of
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his God’s power: ‘O you who believe! Do not raise your voice above the voice of the
Prophet, and do not speak loud to him as you speak aloud to others…’(XLIX:2) The
verse is not merely commanding respect for the Prophet, but total obedience by way of
acknowledging Mohammad’s ‘voice of authority’; metaphorically it is asserting his
status: the statement that ‘no voice can be above that of Mohammad’s’ points to the
high command of his word, for he speaks for God!

But the apostleship of Mohammad was not (even after the formation of the umma) as
yet a theocracy in the strict sense of the concept. Obedience was and had to be made to
him in his personal capacity as the Messenger of God; obedience belonged to him as a
man favoured by God. And it was as such that God would ‘protect’ him and his
apostleship: ‘And they say: Obedience. But when they go out from your
[Mohammad’s] presence, a party [group, sect] of them decides [plans] by night [i.e.
secretly] upon doing otherwise than what you say; and verily God writes down what
they decide by night [i.e. also secretly], therefore turn aside from them and trust in
God and sufficient is God as a Protector [as advocator or defender of that trust –
wakayulan].’(IV:81)

Both historically and from the analysis of the Koran, it is clear that Mohammad’s
apostleship only set the tone and, with the umma, the ‘ideal type’ for the political form
of Divine Power. The tone changed, however, within a short period after the Prophet’s
death, and reflections of this can be seen in the Koran. The ‘revealed truth’ of
Mohammad’s recitation could not fit in with the expanding social and political
realities of the Islamic movement, for it was concerned essentially with Mohammad’s
apostleship attached to the tribal social nexus; its essential aim was the instituting of
Divine Power as a unifying force under the personal leadership of Mohammad. And
although even during his lifetime divisions within and among the community of
believers had surfaced, the situation worsened considerably after Mohammad’s death.
There were certain socio-political positions of power emerging from the internal crises
of the early Islamic movement. The revealed truth of the Koran as Allah’s Constitution
(i.e. the official version of the Holy Book in contrast to Mohammad’s personal
intervention and recitation of revelations) then became the primary and the
fundamental source (the other principal one being the Hadith) of the justification and
legitimisation of such positions of power – taken up by the Prophet’s companions (and
those nominated by them, particularly from among the Quraysh) and later on by the
‘learned’, the ‘knowledgeable’, the scholars of the Koran and of the Divine Law, the
ulama (the theologians, jurists, the Imams of Faith and fiqh). It is as a result of this
emergence of social distinctions that theocratic rule became the political form of
Divine Power.

Towards Theocratic Rule

Historically, Mohammad’s personification of Divine Power that was behind the

setting up of the umma as an ‘ideal’ model of Islamic rule lasted for no more than
about ten years. And the model came to be ‘dissolved’, in any case, quite soon after
the Prophet’s death (certainly quite irrevocably by 661 AD). Expansion, successful
wars, increasing wealth, and a growing appreciation of power and the luxuries of life
produced a ‘state-aristocracy’ dependent on the extraction and appropriation of surplus
as tribute, and on gains from war, trade and commerce for the augmentation of power
and wealth. In other words, state power fell into the hands of certain ‘privileged’
individuals and groups. In pre-Islamic times ‘privilege’ was a notion that arose and
was defined from within tribal relations (it was, one could say, an organic aspect of
the tribal social relations); with Mohammad’s Islamic movement, there came about a
modification: the tribal aspect still continued to play an essential part in defining
‘privilege’ – to be a member of the Quraysh, or better still of Mohammad’s own clan
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or household, was and remained a crucial defining factor – but there came, in addition,
another vital aspect: that of loyalty, devotion, unswerving commitment and dedication
to the Prophet and his cause. Thus Mohammad’s companions or Sahaba – that is,
those who not merely submitted to the Will of the One God but were closest to him
and fought alongside him and distinguished themselves in practice – became a
privileged group of individuals: ‘And whoever obeys God and the Messenger, these
shall be with those God has bestowed bounties [favours] upon as from among the
Prophets [al-Nabiyun – al-Nabee, the Prophet], and the Truthful [al-Sadiqeen, the
‘Sincere’], and the Martyrs [al-Shuhada, the Witnesses, as, in connotation, those who
witness God’s ‘light’ and also ‘paradise’] and the Righteous ones [al-Salaheen]; and
excellent are these as comrades [rafiqa – this is generally wrongly translated as
‘companions’ which is Sahaba]!’ (IV:69, my italic)

Thus here, as it is clear from the above ayah, we have a ‘classification’ of persons who
are considered in the Koran as privileged individuals for their obedience to God and
Mohammad. But, as can be seen, the ayah clearly sets apart Mohammad (as the
Messenger) as the highest earthly authority even in considering the other prophets; it
seems also to distinguish the privileged persons from the prophets – for, as is stated,
‘these shall be with those’ whom God has favoured. They are, in other words, elevated
individuals for being ‘privileged’ in the eyes of God, but they are ‘with’ and not equal
to Mohammad. It is true that there is ambiguity in the language, but the notion of a
‘classification’ of ‘rank’ is certainly implicit in the overall gist of the verse.

While Mohammad was alive, privilege of rank depended entirely on his personal
‘judgement’ as the Leader of the umma and because he was the Messenger of God. It
was on the basis of this personal relation of dependence that individuals within the
Islamic movement could, at their Prophet’s leave, achieve high rank. With the
Prophet’s death the religiously modified tribal determination of privilege and rank was
thrown into disarray. In the absence of the supreme Leader, the social contradictions
inherent in the umma as the marriage of ‘communality of individuals’ (derived from
pre-Islamic tribal relations) with a uniformed ‘proto-political organisation’ (derived
from the ideologically structured monotheistic religious systems) surfaced. As a result,
the political process that was pushed into the open manifested itself as a crisis of
leadership or of succession.

The need for a theocratic state proper, thus, arose when the contradictions of social
and political life of the Islamic community could no longer be contained – when social
contradictions had lost their living mediator, when the Islamic movement had lost its
unifying authority with the death of Mohammad, its Prophet and Leader. With this
loss, the movement became overwhelmed by pervasive conflicts that could no longer
be controlled merely by the appeals and leadership of the Prophet’s companions
within the existing proto-political structure of the umma. The historical conditions, in
short, offered no adequate fulfilment of unification and communality; the ‘ideals’ of
the umma acting in the name of God’s ‘unifying power’ were not actualised. It was
under these conditions that Mohammad’s recitations became vital to establishing the
‘common interest’ of all Muslims, and were thus collected and compiled (and
composed, edited and modified) into the Holy Book as Allah’s Constitution.

Socio-political conditions demanded the transformation of the umma into a state

structure that could function as the executive power of God’s Will. If divine will is the
basic assumption behind the idea that the world is the ‘creature’ of God, divine power
is the conception that expresses the means of fulfilment and imposition of divine will
in the world. The theocratic state was the political form that best expressed and
imposed God’s Will in the here and now. This state needed ideological legitimacy.
The Koran was now charged with a historical mission – to give authority and
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legitimacy for theocratic rule as a means of possible unification. The conception of the
unifying power of God became intimately connected with the reality of a state form
that was independent of the community of Muslims. This was, in actual fact, the
elevation of the realm of state power to the position of the sole domain of Divine
Power conditioned by servitude and bondage. The Islamic state that evolved from and
replaced the umma was thus in actuality as parasitic as it was despotic as all of the
other past state structures throughout the Near East. But the myth of the early
Caliphate as the continuation of the umma and hence as the ‘ideal’ model of an
Islamic theocratic order prevails to this day. The basic ideas of authority and
sovereignty taken from the Koran fulfilled themselves in the specific historical form
that Divine Power assumed in this Islamic theocratic state, and the latter became
central to the advance of specific class interests.

Chapter Five: The Koranic Concept of ‘Faith’ and the Right to Rule

‘Say: O God, Master of the Kingdom! Thou givest the Kingdom to whomsoever Thou
wills and takes away the Kingdom from whomsoever Thou wills, and Thou exalts
whom Thou wills and Thou abases whom Thou wills; in Thine hand is the good; Thou
has Power over all things.’ (III:25)

According to the Koran, as we have seen, absolute power belongs to God alone. His is
the Kingdom: ‘And God’s is the Kingdom of the heavens and the earth…’ (III:189)
He is the Lord Sovereign of all beings: ‘Say: Who is the Lord of the heavens and
earth? Say: God…He is One, All-Dominant, All-Mighty.’ (XIII:16) As the Ruler of
the Lands (Malik-ul-Mulk, also translated as ‘Master of the Kingdom’) all beings are
His servants: ‘There is not a single being in the heavens and earth but will come to
God, the Beneficent, as a servant.’ (XIX:93) As the supreme Lord, it is God who
grants power to whomsoever he wishes of His servants. But on what criteria,
according to the Koran, is such divine authorisation of power based? And how does
such an authorisation establishes the ideological (religious) justification of the Islamic
theocratic political order and its agents? In other words, put simply, who among
Allah’s servants has, according to the Koran, the right to rule?

Before we look at this issue, it is important to note and stress the point here that what
we are examining is not the question of the social formation of the dominant class.
That issue is a historical problematic, requiring an empirical examination of the
development of social relations within the regions (Middle East and Near East, etc.) in
which the Islamic movement gained dominance. The problem considered here is to do
specifically with the Koranic justification of the right to rule, the religious
(ideological) grounds of the entitlement to earthly power. This is significant as more
than a mere illustration of the abstract idea of ‘divine right’. It has definite practical
significance in terms of the legitimacy of the theocratic political form of domination.
The role of Koranic ideological legitimization, moreover, does not diminish in the
actual historical development of the dominant class. The ideological functioning of the
Koran, however, does make the class form of domination appear ‘arbitrary’, since it
relates the order and form of domination to God’s Will.

The Concept of Iman

In the Koran, to reiterate, the Will of God is regarded as the basis of power. Power,
divinely inspired and granted, is regarded as actual only owing to the ruling will of
God and humanity’s task is to live in its actuality of total submission. The recognition
of the ruling will of God, His power, is the function of faith; the assignment of that
power in this world is the function of the practice of faith, of being and acting fully
and sincerely in obedience to God’s Will. Upon this understanding of faith, in Koranic
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terms, God’s is the power that exists as cognition and life. As cognition and life, the
‘truth’ of His power is iman. Iman (generally translated as ‘belief’) designates the
general form of total, unquestioning faith in God’s Will, and, at the same time, the true
being of subjection which adequately represents this divine will. It represents the
mode of existence that a subject, through the conscious negation of all other wills, has
made its own life of servitude to the will of God. In its Koranic sense, iman is
knowingly (i.e. with consciousness based on ‘understanding’ by means of ‘reasoning’)
surrendering one’s will to God’s, submitting fully and totally to His Commands, to
His Word (i.e. to the Koran) in obedience derived from the cognition of its truth; it is
the highest degree or level of faith, intense and earnest conviction in the realisation of
being a servant of God. Thus, in its Koranic sense, iman is ‘faith’ not only in the
existence of One God and the absolute supremacy of His Will; it is that of the relation
of the submitted person to the Will of God constituting a being which appears for God
– it is the apprehension of a univocal relation of servitude. Iman is the foundation of
all relation between God and the human world. On this basis, it can be said that iman
is the ‘ideal’ form of faith expected of all who have submitted (all Muslims).

This presupposition, however, entails two important consequences: Firstly, in the

general (traditional) reading of the Koran, the principle of this ‘ideal’ form of faith is
taken as the self-consciousness of submission to the One and Only God; it is the
‘ideal’ that in submitting all individuals must aspire to as a universal principle.
Secondly, it is a notion that in its very ideality presupposes a given element of
separation and distinction; for it involves a deeper mindset than that of ‘belief’ and
presupposes full assent of the mind and thus certitude as well as trust in the ‘truth’ of
God’s absolute supremacy. The ‘ideal’ notion is that iman is ‘faith’ that is derived
from knowing the truth of divine power – knowledge of this truth brings forth the
obedience of the individual as a faithful servant. This ideal form of faith (iman) is the
necessary condition of being a true Muslim as distinguished from among the
‘multitudes’ who, for example, had (historically) submitted as a result of the victory of
Islam: ‘When comes the help of God and the Victory. You see people entering the
deen of God in multitudes.’ (CX: 1-2) The submission of the multitude is, of course,
welcomed – ‘Celebrate then the praise of thy Lord and seek thou His protection…’
(CX:3) But the submitted in this case are not regarded as equal to the truly committed,
the ones with iman. (see XLIX:14)

Historically, of course, iman was a necessary condition demanded of those who first
joined Mohammad in his struggles to establish Islam; the formation of the Islamic
movement required a body of individuals with total commitment to Mohammad’s
cause, it required a political/religious ‘vanguard’ – it was to these early recruits that
the ideal form of faith as iman applied. With the expansion of Islam and the
conversion of a mass of people, the notion of iman became in ordinary usage watered
down, and thereby assumed to be applicable to all who have submitted. Thus all
individuals adopting the Only True Faith were and are thereby referred to as
‘believers’, mu’mineen – a generalisation that conveniently masks the inequalities of
rank, status, and eventually of class, which arose with the establishment and
consolidation of the Islamic state. For this reason iman is generally (and superficially)
taken as simply meaning ‘religious belief’ in its general conception – with this
superficial understanding of iman, the relation of mankind and God thus appears as
‘reciprocal’.

However, a closer scrutiny of the Koran reveals a more precise understanding of the
meaning and conception of iman as that ideal form of faith which, though all Muslims
must aim for, not all who have submitted actually possess. It is this ideal form of faith
(iman) which defines the relation of individuals to divine power in its political form,
and, through the reality of this political form, to its adequate mode of practice. From
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this reading the relationship is not only not reciprocal, but also something, obviously,
more than a univocal relation between God and the submitted population (the Muslim
community). Those who, according to the Koran, possess this ideal form of faith are
considered from among all of Allah’s servants as being more distinguished: ‘Is then he
who knows that what has been revealed [sent down] unto thee [i.e. unto Mohammad]
from thy Lord is the Truth like him who is blind? Only those possessed of
understanding will bear [this] in mind.’ (XIII:19)

If God’s Will is conceived as the actual creator of the world, it has to prove its power
by releasing itself into the social world, that is, into life. Actual power, of course, does
not reside beyond this world, but exists only in the social process that perpetuates it in
its mystified form. No ‘absolute power’ exists outside this process. But as the Koran
depicts it, divine power is absolute and contains the truth of all worldly powers. Power
in this absolute sense is God’s alone: ‘He [God] shares not in His Power [Sovereignty
of rule and judgment] anyone.’ (XVIII:26) The task of iman is to translate this idea of
divine power into the actual worldly power by being the fundamental condition and
necessary attribute of having authority to institute the power of God. The Koran gives
the prerequisite for worldly power in the very make-up of individuals, their
commitment and conviction to serving the One and Only God and His Messenger
based on the highest level of faith, on their iman: ‘Say thou: Everyone acts according
to his own disposition [character or bent of mind]; thus your Lord best knows who is
the best guided in the Right Way.’ (XVII:84, my italics)

Of its very nature, iman has no autonomous reality apart from the individual subject; it
has in itself no external objectivity. The individuals have iman only when they are
recognised by God (i.e. as stated in the Koran) as being true to their act of submission
and fulfilling the conditions vowed upon that act: ‘Verily, thy Lord, He best knows
who goes astray from His Way, and He best knows those who follow the Right Way.’
(VI:117) It is as such that only ‘those who follow the Right Way’ (i.e. ‘God’s Way’
according to the Koran) are regarded as having iman. But from this general sense of
‘belief’ the Koran actually specifies a distinguished category of individuals: ‘And of
those whom We have created are a community who guide with the Truth and do justly
adhere to it.’(VII:181; my italics) The individuals collectively categorised as ‘ummat
yahoudun’ – generally translated as ‘a people’ or ‘a nation’ who guide – is actually a
‘distinguished’ community or grouping within a larger entity, as is clear from a
reference to such a community identified from among Moses’ people: ‘And of Moses’
people [qum-e Musa] is a community who guide [ummat yahoudun] with the
Truth…’(VII:159; my italics) At any event, such a distinguishing feature of a
community who guide others is, of course, something divinely ordained – it is God’s
decision: ‘Whomsoever God guides, he is the one who follows the Right
Way…’(VII:178)

The distinction between the submitted (Muslims) in general and those who are guided
(by God) to guide others is certainly considered as highly significant in terms of status
and rank; Mohammad himself was thus guided to guide others: ‘Say: Verily my Lord
has guided me to the Right Way, the established Deen [i.e. the way of life based on the
‘Right Way’ or God’s Way], the faith of Abraham, the upright one
[hanifa]…’(VI:161) And this was important enough for Mohammad to take into
account in his relations with his close companions: ‘Indeed, a Messenger has come to
you from among yourselves; grievous to him is your falling into distress, solicitous
regarding your welfare; towards the believers [i.e. towards the mu’mineen Mohammad
is] compassionate, merciful.’ (IX:128; my italics) He was a leader divinely chosen
from among those who were fully committed to his cause, of whose faith (iman) there
could be no doubt, who were thus regarded as true believers, mu’mineen, for whom, as
his erstwhile companions-in-arms, he had special regard. For, such total commitment
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to Mohammad’s apostleship, being regarded, ipso facto, as unswerving commitment

and an oath of allegiance to God, would be looked at with favour by God as a mark of
distinction: ‘Verily, those who swear allegiance to thee [i.e. to Mohammad], indeed,
swear allegiance to God. The hand of God is over their hands…’(XLVIII:10; my
italics)

What the above verse (and others like it) is actually conveying is the divine
endorsement of these committed followers of Mohammad, these companions who as
such had formed themselves into a ‘company’, a community (or group) of believers,
mu’mineen, as a specially distinguished body of individuals: ‘Indeed, God was well
pleased with the believers [al-mu’mineen] when they swore allegiance [pledged their
loyalty] to you [i.e. to Mohammad] under the tree, as He did know what was in their
hearts, so He sent down tranquillity on them and rewarded them with near
victory.’(XLVIII:18) We have, therefore, the nomination of a distinguished group or
community of individuals who are, for their iman in the apostleship of Mohammad,
singled out as the believers, al-mu’mineen, within the entire Islamic movement from
among the whole of the submitted who are, by contrast, regarded as ‘a people who
believe’ or ‘a believing people’, qum yuminun (qum meaning ‘folk’ or ‘people’ –
sometimes misleadingly translated as ‘a nation’ – stressing a socio-cultural rather than
a national entity; and yuminun, from iman, ‘believing,’ as distinct from al-mu’mineen,
also from iman, meaning ‘the believers’). This difference in understanding, also
clearly a translation issue, could, of course be regarded as merely a matter of
‘interpretation’. But however it is looked at, there is no doubt in the fact that there is a
distinction made in the Koran between mu’mineen and all those who have submitted
(i.e. the Muslims in general).

The Mu’mineen as a ‘Distinguished’ Group

Mohammad’s apostleship and his recitation of divine revelations (and the Koran itself
as the written/composed collection of the recitations, of course) are certainly an
authority and a guidance for all the submitted; but it is only the mu’mineen as a cadre
or a contingent and corps made up of Mohammad’s companions who are guided to
guide others. And this is because of their iman in Mohammad and the cause of God
(thus they are the mu’mineen): ‘Mohammad is the Messenger of God, and those who
are with him are vehement [i.e. committed with heart and soul, their lives] against the
unbelievers [al-kufar-e, pl. of kafar, also al-kafareen – generally translated as either
‘unbelievers’ or ‘disbelievers’; kafar, from kufr, has the connotation of ‘concealing’ or
‘covering’ what is or should be regarded as the truth and thus resulting in showing a
lack of belief in Mohammad’s recited revelations and rejecting the guidance which is
so patently provided by the Divine One for one’s benefit; it is thus that it also denotes
being ‘ungrateful’ and so ‘sinful,’ too], compassionate among
themselves…’(XLVIII:29; my italic) The core meaning or signification of being
‘compassionate among themselves’ is in the existence of a bond based on having iman
in the cause: ‘…God has endeared the faith [al-iman] unto you, and made it attractive
in your hearts, and made abhorrent unto you unbelief [Kufr] and transgression [fusuq –
fasiq – denoting going beyond the limits of the Law]; these are they who are the Right
Guided.’(XLIX:7; my italics) We have here, therefore, a body of men (though there
were a few exceptional women among them) considered by God (in the Koran) as an
‘elite’ community or group within the Islamic movement. That the group is
distinguished from the rest of the Muslim community is quite clear from the following
verses:

Firstly, we have the Muslim community as a whole placed above the rest of mankind:
‘You are the best [leading, outstanding] community [umma] raised for [the benefit and
guidance of] mankind; you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong [amr bil
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ma’roof wa nahya anil munkar – this phrase is a Koranic legalist convenance,

meaning a fixed form of conduct; i.e. strictly in accordance with Divine Law] and
believe in God…’(III:110) And therefore as such: ‘Hold fast by the cord [covenant] of
God all together and be not disunited, [as] when you were enemies [i.e. as belonging
to different clans/tribes hostile to each other], and remember the bounty [favour] of
God bestowed upon you when He united your hearts and by His favour you became
brethren…’(III:103)

But then, secondly, following on, we have a group from among the entire Muslim
community singled out as the ‘elite’, the ‘vanguard’ and the ‘torchbearers’: ‘And from
among you [i.e. among all the Muslims] there should be a community [a group, a
party] who call [you] unto virtue and enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong;
and these are they who shall be successful.’(III:104; my italic)

Thus, the relation of the submitted to God – as His servants, as being for God – is
established only through a distinct body of individuals from among the submitted
themselves; in actual fact therefore the Muslim’s very existence as a Muslim consists
in his/her ‘being’ for another Muslim, that is, for the person of Mohammad, initially
and primarily (though later for the person nominated and selected to succeed him):
‘But no! By thy Lord! They will not be true [real] believers until they make thee [i.e.
Mohammad] Judge in all that is in dispute between them and thereafter find not in
their hearts any reservation concerning that which thou decides and submit in full
surrender [tasleem, surrender].’ (IV:65) The concept of iman plays a central role in
this: in its hold on consciousness, it transforms concrete political power into the living
embodiment of God’s Will, so that in obeying and serving God, the submitted is
actually obeying and serving Mohammad (at least initially), and later his successors:
‘And if they intend to act unfaithfully towards you [i.e. towards Mohammad], so
indeed they acted unfaithfully towards God before, but He gave you Mastery [Power]
over them; and verily, God is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.’(VIII:71) The mastery
of Mohammad and the bondage of the submitted (Muslims) result from a political
relationship rooted in a definite social mode of life which is expressed in the Koran,
with the aid of the concept of iman, in a ‘reified’ relationship as the Lordship of Allah
and the bondage of Muslims (including Mohammad and all his successors). The
Koran actually presupposes iman as the ‘experience’ (cognition and life) in which the
‘consciousness’ of God’s Will must prove itself in the servitude of the submitted that
determines his/her whole existence (‘being’), and that upon which alone actual power
is held (possessed).

The body of ‘devotees’, with Mohammad at its head, is not made up of individual
Muslims who merely happen to believe in God, in His Will, etc., but are essentially
the mu’mineen; their iman is their being: ‘Say: I am commanded that I should serve
God, being devoted [mukhlasa] to His deen [Way of life].’(XXXIX:11) And: ‘Verily,
believers are only those whose hearts become full of fear when God is mentioned, and
when unto them are recited His revelations their iman is heightened [intensified], and
in their Lord do they trust. Those who establish [i.e. as in to serve a definite purpose]
prayer and of what We have given them spend [in the Way or cause of God]. Those,
and they alone, are the believers in truth; for them are exalted rank [darajat – high
degree or grade of status or darajah] with their Lord, and forgiveness and bountiful
[karim, beneficent] sustenance.’(VIII:2-4)

There is no question that the Koran recognises that not every individual who submits
is necessarily (or automatically) one of the mu’mineen: ‘And [even] if We had
prescribed [decreed] for them: Lay down your lives or go forth from your homes, they
would not have [all] done it except a few of them; and if they had done what they were
exhorted [directed, instructed to do], it would have certainly been better for them and
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best in strengthening [them as a group]. And then We would certainly have given
them of Our own accord a great reward. And We would certainly have guided them
upon the Straight Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim, i.e. Divine Law].’(IV:66-68) The
condition laid down here is quite clear: to become one of the mu’mineen – and thus to
be rewarded by God and guided upon the Divine Law – a submitted individual would
need to be so committed as to lay down his/her life for the cause! Such commitment
comes only from iman; and in recognition of this, the individual who demonstrates
his/her iman, in showing the preparedness of acting on it, becomes in the eyes of God
(and according to His Will) one of the distinguished group of mu’mineen similarly
favoured as the Prophets: ‘And whoever obeys God and His Messenger [Mohammad],
these are with those upon whom God has bestowed favours; of the Prophets, and the
Truthful Ones [al-Sadiqun or al-Sadiqeen, from sadiq ‘to be truthful’] and the
Witnesses [al-Shohada – ‘Martyrs’] and the Righteous Ones [al-Salaheen]; and
excellent are these as comrades [rafiq].’(IV:69)

The historico-political distinction between Mohammad’s comrades (companions) and

the rest of the Muslims, which was later transformed into a Koranic justification of
proper social (class) distinction, is voiced in the Koran effectively to establish it as an
example to illustrate the general rule (though it could have possibly been placed there
as a result of a much later political deliberation, intentionally and designedly). Thus
we have the following verse: ‘Verily, those who believed and migrated and fought
with their possessions and their lives in the Way of God, and those who gave shelter
and helped – these are the guardians [vali] of one another; and those who believed and
they did not migrate – not yours is their guardianship until they migrate…’(VIII:72;
my italics) The historical act of ‘migration’ (emigration or hijrah, when Mohammad
had found it politically necessary to leave Mecca for Medina), being a sign of the iman
and devotion to Mohammad and his cause, is here a symbolic expression of political
distinction. Thus, among all the submitted, those who had iman in the Prophethood of
Mohammad and ‘…migrated and fought with you [i.e. with Mohammad], they are of
you; and the relationship [as like blood relations] are nearer to each other in the
Written [Book of] Ordinance of God; verily, God knows all things.’(VIII:75; my
italics] Now, these are regarded as the mu’mineen – the distinguished community or
group among all the Muslims whose members are as close as blood relations of
Mohammad (some indeed were, like his cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abu-Talib, the
fourth Caliph). It is, indeed, to this group that Mohammad relates himself, which God
then bestows His favour on and blesses them with His ‘Divine Tranquillity’: ‘Then did
send down God His Tranquillity upon His Messenger and upon the
mu’mineen…’(IX:26) And not only does Mohammad belong to this distinguished
community, but he was chosen by God from among its devotional members. This
alone, if nothing else, makes the mu’mineen a politically distinguished and socially
privileged group.

For, what could be more estimable, more honorific, than having the Prophet himself
chosen from among this group and thus considered as a Mu’min (mu’min, from iman,
pl. mu’mineen):‘Indeed, God has conferred His favour upon the mu’mineen when He
raised up among them a Messenger [i.e. Mohammad] from themselves, to recite unto
them His revelations [ayat] and to sanctify [purify] them, to teach them the Book and
the Wisdom, though before this they were in manifest error.’ (III:164; my italics) The
ideological significance of Mohammad as a mu’min and raised from among the
mu’mineen to the status of a Messenger of God is that it justifies (in religious terms)
the privileged political status of mu’mineen within the early Islamic movement and
hence at later stages also that of the politically dominant class.
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Iman: the Illusion of Certitude

The conscious practice of iman is part of the very content of God’s (i.e. the Koran’s)
‘Right Way’, so that the latter operates as authority based on God’s Will only insofar
as it is taken into the subject’s will and influences his/her acts. The roles of
Mohammad and the Koran are, of course, crucial in this; it is with Mohammad’s
recitation of God’s revelations and the making of the Koran as the Islamic state’s
codex that the submitted ‘see’ the errors of their past ‘way of life’ and among these
some actually become distinguished as the mu’mineen. For this there are, initially, two
interlinked conditions: the requisite of ‘affirmation’ and that of ‘comprehension’. With
affirmation, the submitted not only profess their obedience to the One God and His
Messenger verbally – known as iqrar bil-lisan – but need also to obey with heartfelt
conviction – known as tasdiq bil-qalb. There is then also the condition of
comprehension of the Right Way as set out in the Koran, which involves not merely
an ‘understanding’ of the basic message of the Koran as practical guidance – an
understanding based on what is known as tazakkur – but the comprehension of the
Truth and Wisdom of God’s Word and the proper cognition of the Right Way – based
on what is known as tadabbur. But these conditions do not yet make the submitted
into a mu’min. What is, finally, in addition, required is the acting upon the above
conditions. Iman becomes an ideologically substantive force, therefore, only if the
subject, being fully cognizant of the absolute supremacy of God’s Will, submits to His
Right Way as set forth in the Koran (as revealed by Mohammad) and acts on it with
consciousness of its Truth. A Mu’min, in its strict Koranic conception, is not, in other
words, a person who has simply submitted to the ‘right deen’, but one who affirms and
comprehends the truth of the divinity of the Koran and discharges God’s Law and
promotes and propagates His Right Way – he/she is an unwaveringly committed
person, with conviction in and knowledge of the Book and of God’s Wisdom who
institutes divine power and acts to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

The distinguishing feature of being a Mu’min (or Mu’mineen as a privileged group)

depends on the individual’s ability to, on the one hand, grasp the Truth of God’s Word
and thus grasp the particular interest of the ‘right deen’ (Islam) and, on the other, on
the will, conscious practice and vigour in making the particular interest of the Islamic
way of life the universal interest of mankind. True, that as a general principle, this is,
ideally, the duty of all Muslims. But the Koran recognises the influence of what are
called ‘low desires’ or following one’s caprice and self-interest – regarded as a
consequence of the negative forces of Shaitan, or Satan, inherent in life – so that not
all who have submitted fully grasp and act upon God’s Will and execute His Right
Way: ‘…And who is more erring [astray] than he who follows his own low desires
[caprices] without any guidance from God?’(XXVIII:50) As servants of God, the
submitted or Muslims are merely agents of His Will. As social individuals they,
naturally, have particular wants and interests that influence their actions. It is when
personal interest coincides or becomes identical with the interest of serving God (or
rather, with the universal interest of Islam), of being an agent of His Will, that
consciousness becomes conditioned by iman. Individuals who, as servants of God,
achieve such a level of conviction, and who demonstrate their commitment to the
cause of Islam in actions and deeds, are distinguished as Mu’mineen: ‘The mu’mineen
are only those who believe in God and His Messenger then not doubting their
[conviction] thereafter and [who] fight [struggle] with their possessions [i.e. putting to
use their wealth or possessions] and their lives [i.e. laying down their lives] in the
Way of God; they are the Truthful Ones.’ (XLIX:15) In fact, what is interesting is that
God, apparently, makes His signs (revelations) manifest only to those with such
irresistible certitude of the Truth of His power, grace and glory – i.e. to those whose
iman has brought on a mental state that involves the illusion of certainty in the Truth
of the Koran, that involves the illusion of knowledge and reasoning in the conviction
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of the Truth (or objectivity) of God’s Right Way. These are persons for whom the
divine signs are made clear: ‘And those who know not [have no cognition of the Truth
of divine power] say: Why does not God speak to us or why no signs [ayat,
revelations] come to us?...We have indeed made clear [manifest] the signs [ayat] to
persons [people] who are with certitude.’ (II:118) Such individuals among the
servants of God (among all Muslims) are ‘inspired’ to have authority and are regarded
above others: ‘And lose you not heart and grieve you not, for you shall gain the upper
hand, if you are mu’mineen.’ (III:139)

Iman and the Right to Rule

However, this ‘inspiration’ is not granted to all the submitted: ‘Had We willed,
certainly We would have given every soul its guidance…’ (XXXII:13) Rather, as we
are repeatedly told: ‘…but God guides whom He wills, and He knows best the
followers of the Right Way.’(XXVIII:56) And: ‘Indeed, We have sent down
[revealed] clear [explanatory] signs; and God guides whom He wills unto the Right
Way.’(XXIV:46) It is only those who have iman, those whom God recognises as the
true followers of His Word (the Koran) and His Messenger, that is, the mu’mineen,
who are thus inspired to lead: ‘And indeed, We made the Word come unto them so
that they may be mindful. And those whom We gave the Book before it, they are
believers in it. And when it is recited unto them, they say: We believe in it; verily, it is
the Truth from our Lord…’(XXVIII:51-53) Upon this basis comes worshipful active
obedience (servitude or ibadah), which thus results in the granting of success,
authority and leadership: ‘The response of the mu’mineen, when they are summoned
unto God and His Messenger that He may judge between them, needs only be to say:
We hear and we obey; and these it is that are the successful. And he who [thus] obeys
God and His Messenger, and fears God, and keeps his duty [to] Him; these it is that
are the achievers.’(XXIV:51-52) It is now that the promise of power is made: ‘God
has promised to those of you who believe [have iman] and do the right deeds [‘amalu-
al-salaha – often translated as ‘good deeds’ actually connotes actions or deeds that are
‘good’ or right for the cause] that He will certainly appoint them rulers [successors] in
the earth as He appointed rulers [successors] those before them, and that He will most
certainly establish for them their deen [their ‘way of life’ or Islam as a system of life]
which He has chosen for them, and that He will most certainly, after their fear, give
them security in exchange; they shall worshipfully serve Me, and not associating
anything with Me; and whoever is ungrateful [kufr, disbelieves] after this, these are
the transgressors.’(XXIV:55)

In terms of the Koran’s presupposition of the All-powerful sovereignty and supremacy

of God’s Will, the denial of divine guidance to ‘every soul’ seems quite mysterious.
Why, if God is so powerful in all things, does He not guide all mankind equally? Why,
with His supremacy of power in all fields and aspects of human affairs, does He allow
there to be ‘ungratefulness’, ‘disbelief’, and ‘sinfulness’, among His servants and does
not enforce His Will upon the ‘transgressors’ before their act of transgression? More
strange seems the fact that God, the Almighty, is unable to maintain His guidance to
check the already submitted from going ‘astray’, of becoming a kafar, as is evident
from the following verse: ‘How shall God guide a people who become ungrateful after
their having iman [kufrowoa ba’da imanahim] and after they had borne witness that
the Messenger [Mohammad] was true, and clear evidence [‘arguments’] had come to
them [i.e. having witnessed clear evidence of Mohammad’s apostleship]…?’(III:86)
Indeed, there are verses in the Koran that state, categorically and emphatically, the
‘unwillingness’ of God in aiding, guiding, or pardoning a once ‘believer’ who has
gone ‘astray’ due to his/her kufr: ‘Verily, those who believed then disbelieved, again
believe and again disbelieve, then intensified [their] disbelief, God will not pardon
them, nor will He guide them in the Way [i.e. in the Right Way].’(IV:137; my italics)
 82

Whatever the theological response to such questions, within the actual historical
context of Mohammad’s apostleship, and even more particularly that of the making of
the Koran after his death, what is undeniable is the political motive and agenda behind
this issue of the denial of divine guidance to every soul. In other words, there was
politics behind this issue which the verses reflect in mystified, religious form; the
matter is directly connected to a struggle within the Islamic movement itself, a
struggle against those whom Mohammad, but particularly after his death, the
dominant class, the controllers of the Islamic state, regarded as dissenters, non-
conformists, and apostates. Such verses as the above express the ideological aspect of
the ongoing political infighting that engulfed Islam from its birth to the present. In
fact, the struggle against dissenters – whom the Koran generally labels as the
‘hypocrites’, munafiqun or munafiqeen, and regards as the most damnable – was (and
is) an ardent duty considered as in someway more intense and hateful than fighting the
so-called ‘infidel’ non-believers (for example, as regards Jews and Christians) – the
dissenters, hypocrites, are on a par with idolaters and unbelievers or kafareen. Thus,
following the above quoted verse, we have this statement: ‘Announce to the
hypocrites [munafiqeen] that for them there shall be a painful torment [chastisement]:
Those who take the kafareen for guardians [vali] rather than the mu’mineen; do they
seek honour from them?...surely, then you would be like them! Verily, God will gather
the munafiqeen and the kafareen in Hell all together.’(IV:138-140)

At any event, these questions are raised here not as an ‘atheistic’ challenge, but simply
to make a point that has political relevance. The basic Koranic ‘answer’ to such
questions, notwithstanding the centuries of Islamic scholarly debates and discussions,
abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties, comes simply down to
and is based on the dogma of divine will – it is God’s decision and He wills as He
pleases! To question the dogma is in fact to lack iman in the Koran as the Word of
God – upon the latter, it is as clear as noon-day, that God, by His Will, creates life in
such a way as He pleases and gives guidance and the right to rule to whomsoever He
pleases. The enigmatic aspect of this issue, therefore, appears to have no solution
outside of the orbit of faith; the mystery proceeds from the nature of the determining
‘will’, that is, God’s Will – what the imagination seizes as Divine must be the Truth.
Yet, for all that, the Koranic concept of iman, understood and looked at politically,
does offer an answer. For, however varied the metaphysical and theological arguments
(or reasoning), in reality and in the actuality of the social and political life, it is, of
course, not God’s Will, but the will of those who have power (from Mohammad
himself to those of his companions and later successors) that assumes universality; to
be sure, its universality appears to be a function of iman, so that it is the will of the
mu’mineen that becomes the determining will. Substitute, therefore, for ‘God’s Will’
Mohammad’s and, after his death, his successors’ will and later that of the dominant
class’s will and interest, as expressed through the form of the state, and the issue
becomes far clearer.

Now, with regards to the force of this will as law: it is an objective fact, that the force
of this will as law is a function of a political order that legitimises its existence
essentially on the basis of iman in the Koran as the Word of God, which as such
appears as derived from the Will of God and seems something transcendent. In
political terms, therefore, one can see a kind of rationale behind God’s (i.e. the
Koran’s) exclusion of ‘every soul’ from receiving divine guidance. The denial of
divine guidance to all, besides reflecting an aspect of the political struggle within the
Islamic movement, at the same time, allows the justification of the existence of rank
within the movement, and after Mohammad’s death, the legitimisation of political
stratification of officialdom within the consolidating and expanding Islamic state; an
individual’s high rank and position is thus ‘perceived’ as a consequence of God’s
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willingness to give him/her His guidance! Divine guidance is thereby reserved only
for those individuals who have the form of faith as iman, which thus makes them
‘special’, a distinguished, privileged social layer: ‘Verily, of mankind the nearest [in
status] to Abraham, are surely those who followed him and this Prophet [i.e.
Mohammad] and those who believe [i.e. in Mohammad’s cause]; and verily, God is
the Guardian [vali] of the mu’mineen.’(III:68)

There is thus a political objective hidden in the mystery of God’s unwillingness to

grant guidance to ‘every soul’ – cunningly, it is the Koran’s way of sanctioning the
right to rule, as it is the religious construction that endorses rank, status and class
divisions. With the Koranic notion of faith or iman, those dominating the movement,
and at a later stage dominated the state, justified their position and status, and made
this ideological ploy appear as the work of the Divine One; the recognition in the
Koran of a distinction between those who submit and those among the submitted who
have iman conveys this message: ‘Say the desert Arabs [i.e. the Bedouins]: We
believe. Say thou [unto them]: You do not believe; so say you: We submit; for iman
has not yet entered your hearts…’ (XLIX:14) To submit – i.e. to become a Muslim –
is not yet to have iman. The latter qualifies a Muslim as a mu’min – i.e. a member of
the mu’mineen as a distinguished and privileged group: ‘The mu’mineen are those who
have iman in God and His Messenger and attain the status of having no doubt
whatsoever and fight with their possessions [wealth] and their lives in the Way of
God…’(XLIX:15) And thus: ‘These shall be granted their reward twice, because they
are steadfast and they counter evil [deeds, acts] with good [deeds]…’(XXVIII:54; my
italics) The mu’mineen, in short, are, as a socio-political group, the hypostatic subject
of the Islamic theocratic state; divine power is a metaphysical substitute for this real
organ of power. Ideologically, the Koran justifies the right of the mu’mineen to rule
and, in constitutional terms, it provides the authorisation of their political power. In
terms of the specifically Islamic religious ideology, with the exaltation of divine will
(Allah’s or God’s Will), the Koranic notion of iman provides the principle for
distinguishing individuals as agents of divine power from among all of God’s
servants.

It is true at the same time that the abstract religious equality of Muslims (all the
submitted) before the One God is a fundamental principle set forth in the Koran; it is a
principle based on the presupposition of the absolute supremacy of God’s Will, His
power – thus all individuals are His servants, including the Prophet himself. However,
this abstract equality of individuals before God as His servants does not eliminate the
inequalities of the level or degree of conviction and cognition (of knowledge,
understanding and comprehension) of God’s Way, His Law, of the Right Way, of the
Right Deen chosen by Him, as set out in the Koran, among the submitted, as well as
the inequalities of action, deeds, and practice consequent upon the latter. The
abstraction of the equality of all Muslims as servants of God, moreover, in no sense
removes the specific selection of certain individuals as ‘more equal’ before God in
status than other Muslims. The Koran proclaims the selection of such individuals as a
‘divine favour’ that their iman confirms; individuals who are favoured by God with
insight or knowledge or cognition of the Truth, in other words, corroborate their
selection by the ‘proof’ of their iman. Thus, according to the Koran, God grants
knowledge or cognition of the Truth contained in the Koran not to all Muslims, but
only to a selected few, so that upon such an understanding they would have iman in it:
‘And that those who have been given knowledge [‘ilm] may know that it is the Truth
from your Lord, so they may believe in it…and verily, God is the Guide of those who
believe in the Straight Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim, divine law].’(XXII:54; my italics)
What we have here, therefore, is a justification of rank, status, of those who occupy
positions of authority within the movement and subsequently within the established
Islamic state.
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Iman and ‘Ilm are, in Koranic terms, two sides of the same coin; they are together the
principal factors in the justification of ‘authority-status’, of the right to rule. They are
categories that appear in the Koran as both conditions of authority and the reason
given for inequalities of status and for socio-political differentiation within the ‘House
of Islam’. Those who ‘know’ are not, as far as the Koran is concerned, equal to those
who ‘do not know’: ‘…Are those who know and those who do not know
alike?’(XXXIX:9); and the same goes for a person who is considered a mu’min and
one who is a transgressor: ‘Is he then who has iman like him who is a
transgressor?’(XXXII:18; a ‘transgressor’, it should be noted, is not necessarily an
‘unbeliever’, but a submitted, a Muslim, who goes against the limits prescribed in the
Koran). The mu’mineen, and among them those who possess knowledge of God’s
Truth – or as they are referred to in the Koran, the ‘well-rooted in Knowledge’ (al-
rasikhuna fil ‘ilm; see III:7) – are guided by God to be the guardians of His Way of
life, and of all the submitted (of the entire community of Muslims), and as such are
regarded as a distinguished group, favoured by God to lead/rule and triumph on earth:
‘Verily, only God is your Guardian [Vali] and His Messenger and those who believe
[posses iman]…Whoever takes God and His Messenger and those who believe for a
guardian [a Vali], verily, [they are] the Party of God [Hizeb-al-Allah or ‘Hezbollah’];
they are those that shall be triumphant.’(V:55-56; my italics)

The Koran’s abstract universality of equality is an ideological construct. In

proclaiming its principle of fundamental equality of all the submitted, the Koran
creates the illusion of the communality of interests, and as the constitutional basis of
the Islamic order, it generates the perception of being the only source for the
rectification of social inequalities and injustices without upsetting the socio-political
order based on it that, by its very nature, demands the continuance of inequalities and
injustices as a constitutive element of its existence as a theocracy. In all this the
concept of iman is crucial. Mohammad’s companions, and his later successors, used
the concept of iman as a means to substantiate the Koran as the ultimate and final
Word of God so that upon which their right to rule could be justified as divinely
preordained. In the making of the Koran, they were placed as the ‘inheritors’ of it:
‘Then We made the inheritors of the Book those whom We chose from among Our
servants…’(XXXV:32) The beauty of the concept of iman is, indeed, in its
abstractedness; it allows a general application, so that within its subjective
understanding it promotes the illusion of universal equality with its promise of ‘divine
inspiration’ – in effect iman appears as a necessary condition of submission as such, of
becoming a Muslim. However, firmly based upon its original understanding, which
was a condition applied to Mohammad’s hardcore followers and differentiated these
from not only those who opposed him but also from the nominal converts to his cause
(Islam) and the ‘hypocrites’, it became an integral element in the justification of
command and control of the Islamic state and hence of the despotic form of
domination of Muslim society.

Chapter Six: The Divine Gift of ‘Knowledge’ as a Source of Power

‘…God will exalt in rank [darajah] those who believe and those who have been
granted knowledge. And God is aware of all you do.’(LVIII:11)

As we have seen, with iman the grounds for the right to rule appears firmly
theological: Koranic dogma justifying the political motive by exalting faith to a form
that involves conviction, active commitment and spirited certitude based on the
cognisance of the Truth of God’s Word. The socio-political mechanism of domination
seizes, as it were, onto iman and ‘nurtures’ it to assert itself as a divine force; with
this, the subjective aspect becomes distorted so that in consciousness God’s Will as
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revealed in the Koran appears as the fateful power ruling over mankind. Essential to
the preponderating influence of this reified form of consciousness is the divine gift of
knowledge or ‘ilm. Thus, in the general opinion of the so-called ‘favoured’ Muslims,
the righteous, the mu’mineen, from Mohammad himself to all his subsequent
successors, there was a clear recognition of the fundamental significance of the
cognition of the Truth of divine revelations through and by means of ‘ilm. Though
there are variations and differences in the presentation of the argument on this point,
the gist of the idea set down in the Koran, as I see it, is as follows: The Will of God
and His laws have to be ‘realised’ as the Truth; yet they cannot be realised as such
without the demonstration of the proof of their Truth; but the proof cannot be
demonstrated and known unless the demonstration first has the guidance of knowledge
or ‘ilm; which in turn depends on the Will of God Himself, upon whose guidance and
benefaction ‘ilm is gained, by means of which the cognition of the Truth is arrived at.
Thus, as if on a divine merry-go-round, in attempting to demonstrate the issue on the
basis of the Koran, we can go on in circles, ad infinitum. In considering the concept of
‘ilm, the logic of the Koran takes us nowhere except to God and His Will; its
‘rationality’ in expounding, through ‘argumentation’ and reasoning, evidences or
proof of the Truth realised through knowledge is of the kind that begins with the most
irrational phenomenon, God’s Will, in order to return to it as an instrument of its own
proof. The kind of knowledge exemplified as ‘ideal’ is given in the Koran as ‘Ilm al-
yaqeen or knowledge that is grounded on and engages certitude (see CII:5). In its
completeness, such kind of knowledge belongs, of course, only to God: ‘Verily, your
God is only Allah; there is no god but He; He comprehends all things in His
Knowledge!’(XX:98; my italics)

Notwithstanding the problematic logic of the Koran or the association of knowledge

with certitude, ‘ilm is, without a doubt, one of the key Koranic concepts that, very
much like iman and associated with it, has a decidedly important underlying political
impulse. It is this latter which, of course, concerns us here; to explain it, however, we
need here to, first, look at the concept of ‘ilm in connection with yet another highly
significant Koranic concept, ‘aql; for the two concepts as presented in the Koran are
indeed complementary.

The Concepts of ‘Ilm and ‘Aql

If divine signs are indications of God’s Will, the revelations contained in the Koran,
being regarded as God’s actual words, are expressive proclamations of His Will; it is
for this reason that they have absolute commanding authority and considered to
demonstrate and confirm, if truly understood, the Truth of God’s omnipotence. But
revelations of themselves demonstrate nothing beyond what is asserted; they only
proclaim conceptual propositions as divine communications. The Truth of these
requires the application of ‘intellect’ as a process of bringing together ideas to make
‘sense’ of them by the use of reasoning or ‘thinking’ powers, which is denoted in the
Koran by the concept of ‘aql, generally in the form of the verb ‘aqala and its
derivatives. To come to the Truth it is not enough for the submitted to profess that
they maintain a simply receptive attitude to what has been revealed in the Koran – the
passive reception of divine communications cannot bring the submitted to have iman
in the Truth of these signs of God. What is required is the exercise of thinking powers,
of reflection, of reasoning that leads to ‘understanding’. Thus only those who exercise
their thinking powers, rather than the submitted who are passively receptive, are
potentially able to arrive at the Truth. And these are the people whom God has
favoured with His guidance and endowed with knowledge: ‘Nay, it [i.e. Mohammad’s
recitation] is signs, clear signs in the breast of those who have been granted
knowledge [al-‘ilm]…’(XXIX:49) Indeed, it is for these people that divine signs
(revelations) are made manifestly distinct: ‘Thus We make distinct Our signs [ayat,
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revelations] for a people who understand [qum ya’aqalun, i.e. ‘a reasoning people’ –
ya’aqalun, from ‘aqala, is actually closer in meaning to ‘pondering’, thus denoting
‘understanding’ that comes from using one’s powers of ‘reflection’ and
‘reasoning’.].’(XXX:28)

What is significant here is the identification of ‘a people’ as a distinguished group on

the grounds of their intellect or reasoning capacity. For Mohammad (i.e. in the Koran)
everything in life, as in nature, is evidence (a proof) of God’s omnipotence: ‘And of
His signs [ayat] is that the heaven and earth stand firm [subsist] by His
Command…’(XXX:25) The fundamental Koranic tenet (as with all scriptures) is that
nothing in life (including of course all natural phenomena) exists independently of
God’s Will: ‘And His is whosoever is in the heavens and earth; all obey His
Will.’(XXX:26) Upon this the statement is made, by means of ‘similitude’, comparing
the objective existence of a phenomenon as a divine sign: ‘And He it is Who
originates creation…His is the most exalted similitude in the heaven and earth; He is
the All-mighty, the All-wise.’(XXX:27) And from this, then, the connection is made
between the divine determination of all things and the consciousness of the truth of
such determination through the powers of intellect, reasoning and understanding. Thus
God presents similitudes to all mankind, but which only the learned or the
knowledgeable can grasp: ‘And these similitudes, We do set forth unto mankind, but
none understand them save the learned.’(XXIX:43) He, therefore, makes ‘distinct’ His
signs only for a certain group or community of ‘understanding’ and ‘learned’ persons.

All phenomena is a sign of the operation of God’s Will, of the hand of the purposeful
Creator. But such signs are discernable as divine only by those who apply their
reasoning powers; there is a sign in all such phenomena ‘for a people who ponder
[understand]’ (XVI:67); these are signs ‘for a people who reflect [tafakurun].’
(XVI:69) And thus the Koran, in verse after verse, refers to the significance of such
signs to ‘a people’ who are, for their capability of reasoning, distinguishable from
others being addressed, as, for example, in the following: ‘And of His signs is that He
shows you the lightening causing awe and hope, and sends down from the heavens
water and gives life with it to the earth after its death; verily, in this are signs [ayat]
for a people who understand.’(XXX:24; my italics) Also: ‘And of His signs is the
creation of the heavens and the earth and the variety of your languages [tongues] and
your complexions [colours]; verily, in this are signs for the learned.’(XXX:22; my
italics; see also, XXIX:35, etc.)

The point that is interesting here is not the ‘demonstration’, with the use of such
evidences, of the omnipotence of the One God; it is, rather, the suggestion that (a) the
grasping of such evidences as manifestations of God’s Will requires ‘insight’,
understanding by the exercise of reasoning powers (‘aql) and that (b) such reasoning
powers are possessed only by a certain group of people – those who are divinely gifted
(like Mohammad himself). In other words, by pointing to these natural phenomena,
etc., as divine signs made distinct by God for the reasoning persons (‘uqala, sing.
‘aqil, a ‘reasoning’ individual), the Koran not merely raises the ‘rationality’ of its
message, its doctrine, its revelations (debatable though it may be), but, at the same
time, elevates the status of the reasoning persons.

Within the strict terms of the Koranic concept of ‘ilm, the gaining of knowledge by
means of the application of reasoning powers (‘aql) takes place entirely according to
the Will of God. Not only is the process of gaining knowledge – ‘aqala or to reason
and connect ideas together with intellectual argumentation – but the result and fruit of
that process, ‘ilm, is due to God’s Will: ‘They said: Glory be to Thee, we have no
knowledge save what Thou hast taught us; verily, Thou art the All-knowing, the All-
wise.’(II:32) Under its strict rules, the divine message of the Koran, the revelations,
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seem to determine the nature and end of human intellectual activity, of the gaining of
knowledge and of knowledge itself. In other words, the reasoning powers as a process
and knowledge as its product that should serve human life appear rather to serve the
Will of God that rules over life’s content and goal, and the consciousness of
individuals is completely made its victim. The Koranic proposition thus states, first, a
prophetic ‘fact’, exposing the divinely generated character of all phenomena in life,
which are taken as signs of an uncontrollable will that legislates over all human
relations. It is then stating, secondly, that such phenomena are signs for the reasoning
persons so that they may come to the knowledge of the divine order. It begins with a
‘fact’ – e.g. rain or wind or lightening, the sun and the moon, night and day, etc. –
recognised by all those being addressed, even by idolaters or polytheists, as
‘supernatural’ in origin. At the same time, the proposition takes a critical turn, stating
that the prevailing relation between the knowledge and the actuality of such ‘facts’ is a
false one that must be overcome in order that the truth can come to light. This requires
the kind of understanding of the ‘facts’ that, with powers of reasoning, leads to the
knowledge of the Oneness of the supernatural source of all such ‘facts’ as that which,
although already recognised by, for example, Jews and Christians, was in its ‘best’
form revealed only to Mohammad and set forth only in the Koran: ‘Recite thou [i.e.
Mohammad] that which has been revealed to thee of the Book…And dispute not with
the People of the Book [i.e. Jews and Christians] save of what is best [i.e. of such
unrivalled revelations Mohammad has received as compared with those already given
in the Scriptures]…and say: Believe we in that which has been sent down to us and
sent down to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we
submit.’(XXIX:45-46)

The Political basis of ‘Ilm

The critically essential point as regards both form and content of the Koranic mode of
argumentation is the substantiation of Mohammad’s recitation (his proclamation) as if
in origin divine, and thus, axiomatically, the Koran as the Word of God. All the
reasoning leading to ‘ilm, and the latter itself, is to, in the first place, establish this as
the Truth; for only then could there be the propagation and strengthening of faith as
iman in, firstly and initially, the person of Mohammad as the Messenger of God and,
consequently and subsequently, in the Koran as Allah’s Constitution. It is in this
objective that ‘ilm and ‘aql come together with iman. For what is at stake (or at least
what was at stake historically) is decidedly political – that is, the establishment and
determination of Mohammad’s and the Koran’s authority and its justification and
legitimisation as necessary to the formation and consolidation of the Islamic
movement. Mohammad’s formation of his movement and his leadership of it needed,
like all political movements, an ideological foundation, a programme and a tradition,
which were actually shaped in the process of clashes between the different tribal
communities and particularly the friction between the different layers within the
Quraysh and the Meccans. Mohammad’s revelations were necessary in order to form
and mobilise a ‘vanguard’; the distinguishing of this vanguard by its iman postulated
upon its members’ understanding and knowledge of the Truth of his message was to
provide the vanguard with the authority to rally and mobilise members of tribes and
clans to the cause of Islam.

At bottom, therefore, ‘ilm is arriving at the truth of Koranic revelations as God’s

command expressing His Will as to how power is in the here and now translated into
practice and who is guided to exercise that power as a force of law in the
determination of the Islamic ‘way of life’. It is thus that the understanding of the
Koranic revelations and the knowledge of the truth of these (i.e. with ‘ilm) is a divine
gift granted by God only to some and not to all the submitted: ‘And those to whom the
knowledge has been given see that what has been sent down to thee from thy Lord,
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that is the Truth, and it guides to the Way of the Mighty [sirat al-aziz]…’(XXXIV:6)
And: ‘Nay! These are clear signs [revelations] in the breast of those who have been
granted knowledge…’(XXIX:49) Mohammad’s vanguard, his companions, had to be
included among such a privileged group of individuals and seen to have revelatory
authorisation; they were thus proclaimed by the Messenger of God (Mohammad) –
and, later when the core of this group went on to succeed him, proclaimed in the Book
of God (the Koran) – to be ‘a people of understanding’ and ‘a people who know’
(XXVII:52); and acknowledged as among ‘the learned’(XXX:22) and as being of
‘those who have been granted knowledge’(XXVIII:80).

Historically, the understanding and knowledge of the truth of Mohammad’s recitations

as God’s message could be fulfilled with the negation of the consciousness condition
of ‘ignorance’ or the negation of what the Koran refers to as Jahiliyah. Pagans are
regarded as a people without (Revealed) knowledge – they are qum la (‘without’)
y’almuna.(seeIX:6); they are jahileen, the ‘ignorant’ (see for example XI:46 and
VII:138) Thus, for example, here in the following verses, Mohammad is reminded (by
God) to mention: ‘…the brother of ‘Ad when he warned his people of the Sandhills
[qum al-Ahqaf]…’ to serve Allah and to turn away from the worship of many gods.
For they, as with Mohammad’s own people (the Quraysh and the Meccans), were
considered to be in a state of ignorance: ‘He said: The knowledge is only with God,
and I proclaim to you the message which I am sent with, but I see that you are a
people in ignorance.’(XLVI:21-23)

Jahiliyah or the state of ‘ignorance’ springs from the nature of the prevailing mode of
consciousness which was rooted in the very essence of Arab tribal social conditions at
the time of Mohammad. In religious terms, the Koran expresses this idolatry
principally as the non-recognition of the single source of creation. The process of its
negation may not be treated, however, simply as accepting the singularity of the divine
source of ‘phenomena’ as ‘fact’. Mohammad was, obviously, fully aware that Jews
and Christians, being monotheistic, clearly understood and accepted this notion, as it
is clear, for example, from the following: ‘…While a party of them [the Jews of
Medina] used to hear the Word of God and then [knowingly] altered it after they had
understood it…’(II:75; my italics) The process can only be treated, therefore, as
making up a form of consciousness that is complete with certitude with regards to
Mohammad’s claim on divine revelations stated in the Koran. It was the recognition
and acceptance of Mohammad’s claim and role that were crucial socio-politically and
therefore ideologically (religiously).

Freed from the state of ‘ignorance’ after Mohammad’s revelations, the form of
consciousness now demanded is far from being one based on mere ‘conjectural’ or
‘theoretical’ understanding. The ‘new’ consciousness will evaluate all ‘facts’, natural
and social reality, with a view to what the Divine One, Allah, has made of these as
signs (ayat) as revealed to Mohammad: ‘Exalted above all is God, the King, the Truth;
and hasten not with the Qur’an ere its revelation is completed unto thee, and say thou:
O my Lord, increase me in knowledge.’(XX:114) Knowledge is gained within the
framework of this consummated consciousness; it is fundamentally concerned with
Mohammad’s Revealed Truth in the Koran and is based on the Koranic principle that
the whole of life (reality) is determined by the Will of the Divine One (Allah) as
proclaimed by His last Messenger. The critical idea, in other words, is not to simply
substantiate, by means of ‘aql and the gaining of ‘ilm, the omnipotence of the Will of
the One God – Judaism and Christianity had already presented such an idea – it is,
rather, to confirm, secure and install the message and hence the authority of
Mohammad and the Koran as ‘superior’ to all other forms of authority known and in
existence. The process of making up this ‘new’ form of consciousness mentioned
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above, in which the Koranic concept of ‘ilm plays a critical role, is thus essentially and
deeply a political struggle, involving intense ideological battles.

‘Ilm as ‘Revealed’ Knowledge

Thus, ‘ilm, in its strict Koranic conception, is Revealed knowledge; that is, knowledge
revealed by God to His Messenger, Mohammad. It should not, therefore, be confused
with the later developed and far broader conception of ‘knowledge’ often referred to
as ‘the Islamic concept of knowledge’. The latter was developed during the
expansionist and imperialist periods of Islam and embraced philosophy, mathematics,
physical and natural sciences, and other disciplines of empirical nature, required and
called for by the socio-economic and political needs of the time. Conquest brought
with it the need for practical knowledge for administration and the material
construction of an empire; it also brought with it the challenge of different cultures,
advanced, sophisticated and more often than not belligerent, that demanded swift and
intelligent response on the part of the particular Muslim imperial state; and in its
encompassing different peoples with diverse faiths and beliefs, it also brought with it
problems of conversion, requiring ideological and theological adjustments and
modifications. All such issues, not to mention many other more specifically related to
production and technological needs, necessitated the development of knowledge. But
given the nature of Islam as a ‘way of life’, in which the Koran’s content has absolute
and irrevocable commanding authority, this broader concept needed at all times to be
presented as if in the service of and subject to God’s Will. Knowledge, whether
philosophical, empirical, scientific or technical, had to always be under the shadow of
‘ilm.

Therefore, if in the world of the empire Muslim intellectuals (most of whom were
converts and not Arab proper) borrowed and developed new disciplines such as logic,
mathematical geography, medicine and biology, physics, chemistry and astronomy,
and so on, they were forced to do so always with an eye on the Koran. In short,
Mohammad’s Arab cosmos continued to overshadow the advance of knowledge under
all the Muslim empires – and ‘ilm, narrow and strict in its meaning, reactionary and
irrational in its instructive force, yet brilliantly synthesising in its ideological role
within the restive but unequal debate between iman (faith) and ‘aql (reason), was and
is a key concept in that order. In the Koran, ‘ilm is the heavenly divine source from
which the light of earthly power blazes forth.

Moreover, the reading of the Koranic concept of ‘ilm as knowledge in the non-
religious sense results in the misapprehension of its significance in the actual historical
context of a political-ideological struggle within the Islamic movement itself (it also
causes confusion of ‘ilm with science proper). Furthermore, its reading as simply
‘religious knowledge,’ also, translates itself into the misunderstanding that the concept
is purely ‘spiritual’ and devoid of social and political substance. True, that it is
undeniably conceptualised in terms of understanding the Koran, seeing the Truth of its
message, knowing the right path it is confirming: ‘And follow not that of which you
have no knowledge [‘ilm]; verily, the hearing and the sight and the heart, all of these
shall be questioned of.’ (XVII:36) But ‘ilm, as used in the Koran, is not esoteric
spiritual knowledge (gnosis or mystical knowledge); it is essentially constitutional
knowledge; knowledge concerning the complex of social and political, legal and
jurisdictional, conditions which, as a body of fundamental principles, collectively
determine the state and powers of Islam as a system or ‘way of life.’ It is,
fundamentally and primarily, knowledge that is conditioned by understanding what is
revealed in the Koran as making up Allah’s Constitution. This is what Revealed
knowledge means – i.e. knowledge of the commandments, the Divine Law, the Way
of God, as revealed to Mohammad and set down in the Koran! This is, for example,
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how this notion of ‘ilm is put (stated in relation to Abraham): ‘O my father! Truly has
come unto me knowledge which came not to you, so follow me, I will guide you on
the Right Path.’(XIX:43; my italics)

In the Koran, the realm of the ‘spiritual’ is but a part of the realm of God’s Will which
controls, directs, sustains, with its guidance, all human affairs. ‘Ilm does not, in short,
deal with the so-called spiritual enlightenment of the ‘self’ as separate or divorced
from the system of life determined by God’s Will, which embodies the ultimate truth.
The abstract and metaphysical aspect of ‘ilm are conditioned by and subject to the
unfolding of God’s ‘way of life’ as commanded in the Koran. The thinking subject is
not a free being; knowledge is not an attribute of his/her will. It is the Will of God that
determines his/her being and knowledge. As far as the Koran is concerned, the
thinking subject is a servile being – he/she is (or should be as a submitted, a Muslim) a
being for God, a servant of God irrespective of how much knowledge he/she has (e.g.
as with the Prophet of God himself who considered himself to be a servant of God).
And even those who have been granted knowledge before Mohammad’s recitation
show this state of servility when the Koran is recited to them: ‘Say: Believe in it or
believe not; verily those who are given the knowledge from before it [i.e. before
Mohammad’s recitation and hence the Koran], when it is recited unto them fall down
on their faces prostrating in obeisance.’(XVII:107; my italics)

‘Ilm is a unity of two different aspects or moments: first, the ability to use reason
(intellect, thinking powers, etc.) to understand every phenomena as divine in origin
and, by this means, to come to the absolute certainty (certitude) of the dominance of
God’s Will; secondly, the action of translating such a certainty into reality,
consciously and actively affirming the supremacy of God’s Will as universal. ‘Ilm is
directed, in other words, to satisfying the Will of God. This satisfaction means that the
person possessing ‘ilm has made his/her own will the object of God’s Will; this person
has not only submitted to God’s Will, but has done so fully with cognition of the truth
of it and of the conduct of life based on that truth – i.e. with iman.

The ‘Will to Power’ and the Divine Gift of ‘Knowledge’

The process of cognition here appears as a relation of ‘subject’ and ‘object’ which is
fixed for all time. The moments of knowledge (as ‘ilm) thus do not change as social
conditions change historically. The knowing consciousness is a form of ‘inspiration’
which only as such is grasped as social consciousness. It is therefore viewed in
isolation from social human history. Both the sensuous and the rational functions of
human consciousness appear as aspects of the divinely ordained spirit, as divine
inspiration, which is then unfolded in the course of life and of which ordinary mortals
have little knowledge: ‘They ask thee [i.e. Mohammad] about the Spirit [al-Rooh].
Say: the Spirit is by the command of my Lord, and you are not given of the knowledge
but a little.’(XVII:85) The given spirit is not from a social mode of ‘knowing
consciousness’, but rather the reverse; and ‘ilm as the ‘knowing’ part of it exist only
formally. Knowledge as ‘ilm, not being subject to change, then, implies that
consciousness itself is something springing from God. Thus, according to the Koran,
for example, Mohammad’s own consciousness of the social conditions of his time, of
his role and function, etc. and of the truth of what was revealed to him was not in
accordance with experience and effort on his own part but due to being ‘inspired’:
‘And thus did We reveal to thee a Spirit of Our Command [i.e. inspired him with the
Koranic revelations]; thou did not know [had no ‘knowing consciousness’ of] what the
Book [i.e. the Koran] was, nor the faith [al-iman]; but We made it a light [noor]
wherewith We guide whomsoever We will of Our servants. And verily, thou guides
the way to the Straight Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim – i.e. to the Divine Law].’(XLII:52;
my italics)
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For Mohammad (and for the Koran), the problem of ‘religious’ consciousness and,
therefore, of overcoming the prevailing consciousness of Jahiliyah, coincides in
essence with the development and the reformulation of Judaic (and to a far, far lesser
extent, Christian) canon, specifically as of divine authority. Judaism is for him the
very essence of monotheistic faith – thus he claims to be a descendant of Abraham;
because to be a descendant of Abraham was for him the essential link to the very
foundations of monotheistic apostleship: ‘Say: Verily my Lord has guided me unto the
Straight Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim or the Divine Law]; the established deen [‘Way of
life’], the faith of Abraham, the upright one…’(VI:161) For he saw in this faith the
negation of all that was particular as this or that source of authority: ‘And when
Abraham said to his father, Azar: Takest though idols for gods? Verily, I see thee and
thy people in manifest error. And thus did We show Abraham the Kingdom of the
heavens and earth, that he may be of those who are sure [al-muqanyeen denotes
persons who have attained total certitude of the authority of the One God].’(VI:74-75)
Mohammad was clearly aware of the substance of the Judaic God as being one
authority.

The chief attraction for Mohammad was precisely in this that God is conceived as the
Substance of authority and not merely as Spirit (the Spirit is by the command of God!).
God is not, as in Christianity, ‘the Three in One’. God as the one absolute substance of
authority, by contrast to God as Spirit of ‘Three in One’, was for Mohammad the truth.
However, in order to be this truth, insofar as Mohammad was concerned, the one
absolute substance of authority (God) must also be affirmed as in itself active in life,
and by that very means it must determine itself as ‘knowing consciousness’. Thus,
God, being affirmed as the substance of the entire process of life, presents itself as the
substance of ‘inspiration’ (wahy) of which ‘ilm and iman are themselves merely
forms. The ‘knowing consciousness’ has no meaning without these forms of which it
is composed. And it is this ‘inspirational’ presupposition of ‘consciousness’ that
brings about the transformation of God into the Subject. Absolute authority is then
complete, at least ideally. Its actual realisation is based on the presupposition in reality
of the coming together of ‘ilm and iman on the political ground of the ‘will to power’.

Historically, insofar as the reality of the situation was concerned, God as the Subject
was to be established on the basis of an actual subject – Mohammad himself – and to
be established also (after Mohammad’s death) on the basis of its objectification in the
form of the Koran. The ‘will to power’ is, indeed, the essential and elementary
underlying condition of ‘ilm as the intellectual activity gifted by God. Those thus
gifted with ‘ilm are in a position to exercise their ‘will to power’ for they are able to
know the truth of God’s absolute Authority in the light of understanding His Word
(the Koran), which results in reinforcing iman in the deen or the ‘way of life’
commanded and revealed as Law in the Koran. Such gifted chosen servants of God
‘know’ the Divine Law in the Koran is their Lord’s right path: ‘And this the Straight
Way of your Lord; indeed have We made manifest the signs for the people who take
heed.’(VI:126)

Those, then, who have been divinely gifted with ‘ilm are God’s chosen servants; they
have been ‘given’ the right to rule. This has been so with regards to all the past
Apostles, Prophets, and their authorised successors, and hence, by the same token,
also of Mohammad and his successors. Thus it is said in the Koran as to the chiefs of
the Children of Israel: ‘And their Prophet said to them: Verily, God has raised up for
you Saul [Talut] as Master [King] over you. They said: How can he be Master over us
when we have greater right than he to exercise authority, and he is not [even] gifted
with wealth in abundance? He said: Verily, God has chosen him above you, and has
gifted him abundantly with knowledge… God grants His Kingdom to whom He
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pleases…’(II:247; my italics) And it was the same, as the Koran puts it, with David
and Solomon and Lot: ‘And Lot, We gave him Judgment and Knowledge…’(XXI:74)
And: ‘To Solomon We inspired the understanding of the matter; and unto each [i.e.
David and Solomon] We gave Judgement and Knowledge…’(XXI:79)

The issue of ‘inspiration’, the matter of the divine gift of ‘ilm, is first and foremost a
question of power – not of the ‘spiritual’ form but of the political form and content of
government, the exercise and control of power as authority. Those whom God has
favoured by granting them with knowledge have been chosen to have authority – they
are given Judgement – for they are the ones who fully comprehend the truth of
Mohammad’s recited revelations (the Koran) as the constitution that determines the
way of life: ‘…No-one knows its [i.e. the Koran’s] true meaning [interpretation]
except God and those who are firmly grounded [rooted] in ‘ilm…’(III:7; my italics)
And having iman in its divine authority – ‘say they [i.e. those firmly grounded with
‘ilm]: We believe in it [the Koran], all is from our Lord…’(III:7) – these ‘alimyeen or
ulama are thus chosen to institute that constitution as fundamental for the
establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Subjective Synthesis of ‘Ilm and Iman and the Justification of Authority

The concept of ‘ilm, in other words, cannot be separated from that of iman. Indeed, in
real life, one could say that it is really the ‘believing’ that comes before the ‘knowing’,
as it were. In other words, though iman is supposed to be conditioned by ‘ilm, in
actuality it is the logic of iman that comes before the logic of ‘ilm. The truth of the
Koranic concept of knowledge is based on iman taking shape in the ‘life-process’ of
serving God. The social and political practice of serving God unifies ‘ilm and iman; it
is what mediates the connection of the two and brings about their subjective synthesis.
Knowledge is achieved in the form prescribed by the Koran; in their practice,
individuals act at once as servants of God and as subjective beings (‘creatures’ of
God). They act as servants because they have iman; they act as subjective beings
because they subject ‘ilm to their purpose which is meant to be that of achieving and
instituting the Divine Truth in the here and now. Iman not only reflects their condition
of servitude; it also reflects their subjecting of ‘ilm to their purpose.

A cursory consideration of these concepts seems, however, to make ‘Ilm appear as a

condition of iman; the latter as a result and not a starting-point, even though it is iman
which is the real starting-point.

This transposal affects perception and imagination that brings about the illusion that
the Truth is the result of ‘ilm, that is, the result of ‘knowing’ the Koran and its
revelations. This is an illusion that the theologians, the ulama, had been found of
propagating in their struggle for political ascendancy during the early periods of the
expansion and consolidation of the Islamic imperial state. Upon this illusion,
knowledge of the Divine Truth is then said to bring about iman; and yet, according to
the Koran itself, it is only those who possess iman who are able to have or are granted
such knowledge: ‘…We have indeed made clear the signs [ayat] to people with
certitude [al-qum yuqanuna – people who are firm, certain in faith].’(II:118) It is
through iman that God’s favour, mercy, knowledge and guidance comes: ‘Then as for
those who believe in God and hold fast unto Him [i.e. have iman in its strict sense], He
will admit them to His Mercy and Grace and Guide them to Himself by the Straight
Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim].’(IV:175) Knowledge of Divine Law is by God’s grace,
granted to those who have iman in Him. The conception of knowledge as ‘ilm is, in
other words, based only on the assumption of having iman in God’s gracefulness
which includes divine inspiration (wahy) – iman is the unshakable foundation of all
aspects of the Deen of God.
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In the Koran iman and ‘ilm are two modes of wahy; and there seems to be a reciprocal
relationship between them. Yet in spite of this appearance, their relation to one
another is actually in such a way that the existence of ‘ilm presupposes the foundation
of iman. ‘Ilm is Revealed knowledge only through iman. And iman, as having faith in
what is revealed as in itself divine, makes the Revealed knowledge appear in itself as
the truth. The power of the conditions of ‘ilm over life – that is, the commandments of
God as His Constitution – is dependent on the role of iman in the transformation of
social consciousness, with its presupposition of domination and servitude as modes of
existence by divine design. The concept of ‘ilm has meaning only when related and
joined to iman, which as such is then oriented to the interest of Islamic ideology.
Neither a ‘spiritual’ nor a ‘rational’ but rather a political concept, it considers a
doctrine in relation not to the social conditions of its determination but rather from an
‘absolute truth’ to the interest of the exercise of power. Notwithstanding the
circularity of their Koranic understanding and usage, both ‘ilm and iman, if critically
examined, are, in other words, notions expressing with actual validity the legitimising
condition of holding and exercising power.

If ‘ilm means knowledge of the truth of the Koran as the authority shaping life
according to God’s Will on the basis of iman in the Koran, and the demand for the
practice of iman means the establishment of a political organisation, a state, by means
of which the life of individuals is regulated in accordance with the Constitution of God
(the Koran), then it is the task of the ‘learned’ (‘alimyeen or the ulama) to demonstrate
this possibility and lay the theological foundations for the consolidation of such a
state. By so doing, they thus, and inevitably, provide the theological justification of
the power and authority of the stratum which, by virtue of its historical situation, is in
control of the state. With this, the interest of Islam as a ‘way of life’ merges with the
interest of the political organisation of Allah’s chosen servants as a theocratic state;
religion (or rather deen) and the political (siyasat) become thus fused. There is no
earthly authority alongside and outside this power base. The ‘ideals’ of the divine
world and the truth of God’s Will are incorporated into the practical exercise of
power, in and through which they take on a socio-political form.

In sum, therefore, the essence of the Koranic conception of knowledge consists in the
fact that divine inspiration is anchored in conditions of power-relations. The concept
of ‘ilm expresses the Koran’s truth as the Constitution of God’s Kingdom on earth.
With this iman incorporates into itself practical and metaphysical knowledge as ‘ilm.
This then becomes superstructurally dominant, transforming the practice of ‘ilm as a
means of the verification of the Koran’s truth into a discursive justification of
authority, of the exercise of power, in the here and now, and hence of the right of the
chosen servants of God to rule.

Chapter Seven: Allah’s Chosen Servants: Successors as Rulers

‘And indeed We did write in the Psalms [Zabur], after the Reminder, that the Land
[al-ard or al-arz, often translated as ‘the earth’] shall be inherited by My righteous
servants [‘ibadahya al-Salaheen]. Verily, in this is a Message conveyed to a servient
people [qum ‘abdayeen].’(XXI:105-106)

The Koranic notions of iman and ‘ilm not only reflect the political condition of power,
but they also define and sanction it. It is in the coming together of these notions that
the Koran recognises the fulfilment of the potentialities of God’s chosen servants. It is
with such fulfilment that the truth of divine power can be realised. This truth is not
only attached to divine propositions and judgments – i.e. it is not only an attribute of
divine revelations – but of the reality of the Koran as a constitution. Divine power is
true, in other words, if it is what it can be in the here and now, fulfilling all its ‘this-
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worldly’ (objective) possibilities. The truth of divine power can thus be realised only
in the establishment and implementation of the Deen or the way of life (of Islam) in
accordance with the Koran as its Constitution. And this, necessarily and axiomatically,
requires human mediation, or more specifically, mediation in the form of God’s
chosen servants. The realisation of the truth of divine power is therefore not a fact but
a task – in short, it requires actual political practice by the ‘righteous’ or God’s chosen
servants to fulfil it. This predetermined political role of the righteous is the substance
of the divine message conveyed to all God’s servants, all the submitted, with regards
to the idea of the ‘divine right’ of inheritance of the Land or the earth.

The Conception of the ‘Inheritance of the Land’

It is to be noted, before we proceed, that what is being considered here is not the
Koranic principles of inheritance in the sense of bequeath (wasiyat) of personal goods
and realty, as, for example, in the following verse: ‘Prescribed for you, when death
approaches one of you, if he leaves behind any goods, that he makes a bequest
[wasiyat, will, testament] for parents and kinsmen, according to usage [bilm’aruf, or
long-standing custom]…’(II:180; see also II:240, IV:11-12 for more detailed
directives on this issue) The Koran prescribes such principles of bequeath (as with
other directives on specifically personal conduct, upon which the far more complex
historically developed laws of the Sharia on personal conduct is based) as a separate
category to its message and commandment on the conditions of the transference of
authority which lies at the core of the idea of ‘inheritance of the Land or the earth’. It
is with this latter, in connection to political power and authority, that we are here
concerned.

The Koranic idea of the inheritance of the Land or the earth expresses the dual aspects
of divine power as juridical and political. The ‘Land’ (al-ard) here is God’s
‘Kingdom’; that is, both as His domain and as His realm, with the former as a
condition of life and the latter as a sphere of the exercise of power over the condition
of life (the translation of al-ard as ‘the earth’ adds a more abstractedly universal and
transcendental amplitude to this conception of the Land as God’s Kingdom). God is
the ‘Master of the Kingdom’, Malik-ul-Mulk (III:26). Inherent in the concept of
‘Kingdom’ is the notion of ‘power’: to have power over the Land (the earth) as the
condition of life constitutes possession of it. Upon this possession, the Land is God’s
property, it is His domain; for the possession is secured upon the authority of His
Will. The Land (or the earth) as divine property being a condition of life subject to
God’s Will is thus a sphere of His authority, i.e. a sphere of the exercise of divine
power – it is as such thereby the embodiment of God’s Will. In this sense, the
inheritance of the Land (the earth) by God’s chosen servants means the passing to
them of it as the embodiment of God’s Will – that is, the passing to them not of the
‘Land’ (the earth) as such, but of the jurisdiction and control over His Kingdom:
‘…But indeed We have given to Abraham’s children the Book and the Wisdom [al-
hakmata, Judgement, Authority], and We gave them a Great Kingdom.’(IV:54)

It is not the Land or the earth as ‘landed property’ which is as such inherited, but the
juridical-political authority over it. The Land or the earth remains divine property and
subject to divine power the exercise of which as authority over the Land is passed on,
given, granted to whom God wills: ‘Say: O God, Master of the Kingdom, Thou givest
the Kingdom [al-Mulk] to whom Thou wilt and takest away the Kingdom from whom
Thou wilt, Thou exaltest whom Thou wilt, and Thou abasest whom Thou wilt; in Thy
hand is the good [al-khyr – that which is right, advantageous, in the way or cause of
God]; verily, Thou hast power over all things.’(III:26) In this ayah God exalts whom
He wills by giving the chosen person the Kingdom; the person is honoured by the
grant of authority and thus exalted in rank; it is a question of power and authority,
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with ‘property’ (domain) as a condition of power – as the ayah goes on, God has
‘power over all things.’

Indeed, the conception of inheritance of the Land (the earth) in the Koran is never the
passing or the inheritance of the Land as landed property in the personal or private
sense. The earth is the condition of life and therefore as such belongs to God (the
justification of the notion of ‘state property’ within Islam is in fact based on this
Koranic understanding; though the actuality of this form of property has a very long
history in the Near East well before the rise of Islam). What the chosen servants
inherit is the authority over the Land or the right to exercise power over it (the notion
of usufruct of land is connected to and justified by such a right; likewise the notion of
qat’ia during the Umayyad period and other historically developed forms of
distribution and ‘leasing’ of productive, tribute and rent paying, agrarian land;
technically, juridically, what was granted or ‘leased’ was the right of surplus
appropriation, denoted by the Arabic term ‘iqta, and not the right of alienation of the
land itself; it was this right of exploitation that could then be passed on). Thus, for
example, when it is said ‘God’ made the Children of Israel the ‘inheritors’ of the
‘eastern and western’ Land, it is in reference to their heritage of the right as a people
to exercise power over such land – thus establishing authority over it: ‘And We made
the people that were abased inheritors [a-warathuna – waratha ‘inherit’] of the eastern
and the western land We had blessed; and [thus] was fulfilled the good word of your
Lord upon the Children of Israel for what they endured patiently; and We destroyed
utterly what Pharaoh and his people had wrought and what they had built.’(VII:137)

In the above verse what is stated as regards the Children of Israel is that the authority
over such land was the magnitude of their heritage; for the Land (or the earth) belongs
– that is, strictly as property – to God alone: ‘Moses said to his people: Seek you help
from God and be patient; verily, the Land [al-ard, the earth] is God’s, He wills
whomsoever of His servants to inherit it [yu-warathuha]…’(VII:128) It would clearly
be incorrect to interpret this verse as implying that the Land or the earth, though
God’s, is passed on or granted by Him to His chosen servants as landed property, that
is, as if these chosen servants were to inherit it in their personal capacity as ‘private
owners’. The ayah is categorical: ‘the Land is God’s’! And the verse following it
demonstrates this point quite clearly: ‘Said they [i.e. Moses’ people]: We have been
persecuted before you came to us and after you came to us [i.e. as Prophet]. Said he
[i.e. Moses]: Perchance your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you a successor
in the Land [wa-yastakhalifakum fee al-ard] so that He may see how you
act.’(VII:129; my italics) Moses’ people, in other words, succeed, take the place of,
their ‘enemy’ in order to ‘now’ have authority upon God’s Land. The ‘ownership’ of
the Land, in short, has not changed – ‘the Land is God’s’; the right to exercise power
over it, the control or usufruct of it, has been granted by God to Moses’ people in
place of their enemy.

In reference to the inheritance of the Land (the earth), therefore, the Koran establishes
the right of succession in the exercise of power over it – what is thus the object of
‘inheritance’ is not the Land or the earth, but authority. God’s chosen servants are the
inheritors of authority over the Land; they are authorised (licensed) to rule. This
authority, rather than the Land itself as ‘landed property’, is their heritage. From this
then comes the notion of the chosen servants as successors or Caliphs by becoming,
under divine license, heirs not to God’s power (which in its absoluteness solely
belongs to God Himself), but heirs only to the exercise of that power – i.e. they are
granted, as by Koranic commandment or Allah’s Constitution, the constitutional
entitlement of Authority over the Land or the earth. Thus the question of inheritance
as also of succession in the Koran is to do not with taking the place of God either as
the ‘proprietor’ of the Land (the earth) or as the absolute holder of power (which
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would be a theologically absurd proposition); it has to do with the succession of the

right to rule and the inheritance of authority on earth or in the Land as God’s
Kingdom. It is this juridical and political conception which lies at the heart of the
Koranic notion of the Khalifa.

The Concept of Khalifa

The word khalifa (used in the above quoted verse as in yastakhalifatum) expresses
precisely what is meant by the Koranic notion of the ‘inheritance’ of the Land (the
earth). Khalifa (pl. khulafa), its derivatives and conjugated forms, is from the root kh-
l-f, meaning ‘take the place of’ (as verb, meaning to ‘succeed’, ‘become heir to’). It
has been variously translated as ‘inheritor’, ‘successor’, ‘heir’, ‘ruler’, ‘viceroy’,
‘vice-regent or regent’, and ‘vicegerent’; its literal meaning is ‘one who replaces
someone else who has left or died’, implying an order by which someone comes after
another or takes the place of another; its nearest literal equivalent is thus perhaps best
rendered by the word ‘successor’. However, as distinguished from ‘inheritor’ as in the
use of waratha or ‘inherit/inheritance’ in relation to God’s Kingdom, khalifa, in its
usage, beginning with the Koran, certainly has a more expressive political
connotation; the former inclines more towards the juridical than the latter.

The notion of succession in the Koran, denoted by the word khalifa (stressing more
the political than the juridical aspect of the transference of authority), refers back to
the essential relation between iman and ‘ilm set forth as the condition of the right to
rule. The root of that relation is now laid bare in the political structure and exercise of
power, and with it the connection is revealed between God’s Will and the principle of
inheritance of the Land (the earth), denoted by the word waratha (stressing more the
juridical than the political aspect of having the right to rule). The Will of God is, at
any event, the substantive and primary basis of authority in the Land (the earth). Of its
very nature (i.e. being divine), God’s Will can only realise itself by appropriating all
conditions of life as ‘Its’ property, thus, in essence, making the latter part of its own
being (embodiment). This is a prerequisite for ‘perfect’ (divine) dominion. But
objectively the conditions of life offer a definite limit to such abstract, divine,
appropriation. Essentially, they are, of course, independent of God’s Will, and their
divine appropriation is hence necessarily illusory. Nothing objective is appropriated;
nothing objective can become divine property in actuality. The illusion that such an
appropriation ‘takes place’ is only based on the full assent of the mind, on faith, which
has, however, a definite and specific socio-political foundation; what is essential to
this is the socio-political character of the dominant class as God’s chosen servants. But
the illusion is necessary to the notion of succession. To be a chosen servant of God is
at bottom only to manifest the majesty of His Will towards all conditions of life
(social and personal) through the attribute and conduct (derived from and grounded
upon iman and ‘ilm) of being a chosen servant (e.g. as with Mohammad himself).
When that individual is thus chosen (favoured), in other words, notwithstanding its
illusory nature, God’s Will comes into existence through the will of this favoured or
chosen servant. This is the necessary illusion that conditions the idea of succession
and the inheritance of the right to rule. The political manifestation of this illusion is
captured by the Koranic conception of the Khalifa; that is, when the chosen servant
asserts his will (I say, his rather than ‘his/her’, because women are prohibited from
gaining such a position of supreme authority) as the expression, by divine
appointment, of God’s Will on earth. This is the initiation of God’s Kingdom based
upon a political structure defined by the role and function of the Khalifa, in his
capacity as God’s vicegerent, to establish the Koran as Allah’s Constitution governing
all conditions of life in the Land or on earth (in the mythology of Islamic militancy,
particularly among Sunnis, this first phase of instituting God’s Kingdom, following
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and modelling itself upon the Prophet’s umma, is customarily referred to as the
Khilafat or by its anglicised form of the Caliphate).

To be so acknowledged as the Khalifa, therefore, involves the issue of legitimation –

that is, the ground for obedience based on the Koran (the Traditions, the Hadith, were
to become a crucially important source ‘in addition’ to the Koran in defining the
legitimacy of this system of domination as a consequence of a historical process of
struggle within the dominant class, and were increasingly used as such with the
imperial expansion of Islam by the growing ranks of the ulama in their own factional
political interests). We find this in the Koran initially beginning with Adam: ‘And
when We said to the angels: Prostrate [sajdah] yourself to Adam; they all prostrated,
save Iblis…’(II:34) Here the ‘angels’ are meant to be representing the ‘highest
creatures’ of God who are commanded to obey Adam as God’s first created human
appointee on earth. The message, then, is quite clear: Adam manifests God’s authority,
and it is for this reason that all the angels must obey him by showing their mark of
respect in their act of sajdah as a gesture of their deference. Moreover, as God’s ‘first
mortal creation,’ it is only when Adam is made complete, infused with divine spirit,
that the angels are commanded to bow to his authority: ‘So when I complete him [i.e.
the first mortal or Adam] and breath into him My spirit [rooh], fall you [i.e. the
angels] down before him in obeisance [prostrating].’ (XV:29)

The symbolic significant of this act of prostrating should not be taken lightly: sajdah
is preformed in the act of prayer as a sign of submission, symbolic of one’s yielding to
God’s Will. The fact that here the Koran (i.e. God) commands such an act in respect
of Adam, clearly signifies the supreme authority of the latter and is thus reflecting the
legitimising ground of Adam’s authority. And this legitimacy is not merely symbolic:
‘And when thy Lord said to the angels: I am placing in the Land a vicegerent [inni
ja’alu fee al-ard khalifat]. They said: What! wilt thou place therein one who will
cause corruption and shed blood, while we celebrate [proclaim] Thy praise and extol
Thy holiness? He said: Verily, I know what you know not.’(II:30) The sajdah, then, is
in lieu of the fact that Adam is God’s appointed Khalifa in the Land (on earth).
Personality (fictional though it is) has here risen out of the Will of God and gained
juridical-political substance, in that it is given an institutional role in the form of
God’s vicegerent. This is the ground for obedience set down in the Koran; it is the
legitimation condition of the independence of God’s chosen servant’s authority upon
which it can then assume actual concrete validity.

What in the notion of God’s chosen servants was implicit merely in an abstract way is
now an explicit concrete law. The right of the chosen servants of God to rule conforms
strictly to God’s Constitution, and its substantiality is confirmed by reference to past
apostleship: ‘O David! Verily We have appointed thee vicegerent in the Land [khalifat
fee al-ard], so judge between humans with justice and follow not caprice, lest it should
lead thee astray from the Way of God …’(XXXVIII:26) And it is clear from the
verses that come before this, that such an appointment is not merely confined to
‘spiritual authority’ (religious guidance, and such like); it has to do with actual
juridical-political authority – i.e. the right to rule over a kingdom: ‘Bear patiently what
they say [i.e. those who dispute the apostleship of Mohammad], and remember Our
servant David, the possessor of power…We strengthened his kingdom, and gave him
judgement [wisdom] and speech decisive [fasla al-khitab – ‘khitab’ meaning ‘speech’
– denotes here the ‘pronouncement’ of decisive judgment of a ruler, a King].’
(XXXVIII: 17 and 20; my italics)

Thus far, it seems that the institution of the Khalifa is founded in the chosen servant’s
function. God’s Word has been invoked to ordain and justify it – no socio-political
need is cited as responsible for bringing about such an institution. The Khalifa exists
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solely by virtue of the Will of God. His authority is derived from divine power. The
rationale of the Khalifa, however, does not consist in its satisfaction of specific social
or political needs but rather in the fact that the institution overcomes the mere
subjectivity of domination, of the person in authority, and, at the same time, fulfils the
determination of that authority’s objectivity. In other words, the question of authority
had to be made to appear as a ‘right’ in which ‘personality’ and ‘subjectivity’ appear
as ‘objectively’ determined preconditions. The notion of ‘right to rule’ in the Koran is
concerned with such determined preconditions, and it had to be established as a
principle.

The Right of Succession

The principle of the right to rule was, of course, initiated by Mohammad: through his
recitation of revelations, through the claim of revealing divine signs and the force of
his argumentation or reasoning, he had to justify his prophethood and thereby
establish his authority. Thus, for example: ‘And when Our [i.e. God’s] clear signs
[ayat, revelations] are recited unto them, those who hope not for Our meeting say:
Bring a Qur’an [Recitation] other than this or change it. Say: It is not for me [i.e.
Mohammad] to change it of my own accord. I follow nothing but what is revealed to
me. Verily, I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the chastisement of a dreadful day.’(X:15)
Upon the basis of such revelations, Mohammad thus claimed to have the right to
authority – but this only by God’s Command [amr] and because he was chosen by
God and infused with divine spirit: ‘He [i.e. God] sends down the angels with the
spirit by His own command on whomsoever He wills of His servants saying: Warn
you that there is no god but I, therefore obey Me.’ (XVI:2)

The right granted to Mohammad is thus based on the divine inspiration which, as the
necessary subjective and personal qualities of apostleship and prophethood, gives him
the highest degree of iman and ‘ilm among all humans (as among all believers past
and present). Mohammad, accordingly, has that most excellent personal quality of
conduct which God could confer upon any of His servants; he is, in this, the best
example of all God’s favoured servants: ‘Indeed, you have in the Messenger of God
an excellent exemplar for whomsoever hopes for God and the Last Day, and
remembers God oft.’(XXXIII:21) Thus, in God’s word: ‘Whoso obeys the Messenger,
he indeed obeys God…’(IV:80) And hence the authority granted to him is decisive:
‘And it is not for a believing man and a believing woman to have any choice in their
affairs when God and His Messenger have decided a matter; and whoever disobeys
God and His Messenger, indeed he has strayed off a manifest straying.’ (XXXIII:36)
And having been thus chosen, the Koran (God) confirms his conviction and devotion:
‘Say: Verily my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are for God, the
Lord of the worlds. No associate has He; and this I am commanded, I am the first of
the submitted [ana awalu al-muslimeen – the first of the Muslims].’(VI:162-163)

But it needs to be emphasised here that the granting to Mohammad of such decisive
authority is not considered in the Koran as ‘succeeding’ or ‘taking the place’ of God
as the Lord or ‘replacing’ the power of God: ‘Say: Shall I seek a Lord [rabb] other
than God? And [while] He is the Lord of all things…’ (VI:164) God’s is the Power;
He is the Lord! The principle that Mohammad initiated was, thus, not to give himself
the right of Lordship (which belongs only to God – Allah alone is rabb), but the right
of Khilafat, of succession, in the sense of the transmission of authority: ‘And He [i.e.
God] it is Who has made you Khalifa in the Land…’(VI:165)

But after Mohammad, this principle had to be firmly and objectively established as if
independently of the specifically personal preconditions of Mohammad’s
prophethood. The most crucial factor in this was, of course, to tie the principle to the
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Koran and to bind the chosen servants to it, in constitutional terms, as inheritors of the
Book: ‘And that which We have revealed to you [i.e. Mohammad] of the Book, it is
the Truth, verifying [confirming] that which has come before it…Then We gave the
inheritance of the Book [awarathuna al-kitaba] to those whom We chose from among
our servants…’ (XXXV:31-32) The inheritance of the Koran here announced is not
meant merely as an honorific gesture; it is, in fact, a commanding confirmation of the
principle of the chosen servants’ right to rule as inheritors themselves of law,
judgement and jurisdiction laid down in God’s Book of Commandments. In its
establishment as such, then, the principle metamorphosed into not only a
constitutional matter concerning the institution of authority, but as something that was
applicable to those who could have no claim to prophethood. This can be seen with
reference to, for example, Moses and the Children of Israel, by way of setting
precedence: ‘And indeed We gave Moses the Book…and We made it a Guidance for
the Children of Israel. And from among them [i.e. the Children of Israel] We made
Leaders [Imams] to guide in accordance to Our Command…’ (XXXII:23-24) The
right, thus, became the right to inherit authority without having the personal
preconditions of prophethood; or as it was subsequently declared and established, the
right to inherit Mohammad’s mantle of God-given authority; the right to be the
successor to Mohammad in his capacity as the Head of the umma.

The notion of succession becomes, then, expressed in the generalised historical sense
of the understanding of the term khalifa – as in, for example, the following: ‘Then We
made you successors in the Land [khalifa fee al-ard] after them, that We might see
how you act.’(X:14; see also XXXV:39) And: ‘God has promised unto those of you
who believe [who have acquired iman]and do good deeds [righteous deeds in the
cause of God] that He will certainly appoint them successors in the Land
[layastakhlifanahum fee al-ard ] as He appointed successors [istakhlafa] those before
them…’(XXIV:55) Here the conception of succession takes on a broader application
than merely referring to the appointment by God of an apostle or a prophet as a
successor (like David or Mohammad, and so on).

The reference in such verses to the concept of the khalifa (as in the use of its
conjugated or compound forms), in other words, seems to be to that of succession of
the chosen servant (or servants) as a political entity (as a ‘class’ category – i.e. he who
succeeds is selected from among those who have command and control over the
means and conditions of domination). Certainly, in the overall theological discourse
during the early periods of Islam’s expansion, there appears a modification of the
conceptual understanding of succession (matching the change in the actual historical
conditions of state-power) in which the notions of the khalifa and prophethood became
divorced one from the other – i.e. the servant chosen (upon Koranic justification,
supported by the Hadith) to become the Khalifa need not have (indeed, could not
have) the divinely ordained qualities of prophethood. This generalised understanding
is often put through an elaborate argumentation which establishes the authority of the
chosen servant but naturally still within the limits of the fundamental Koranic dogma
of the Unity of God and His absolute sovereignty. The discourse, argumentation,
nonetheless, is essentially reflecting the problematic of the institution of the khalifa
within an order assumed (affirmed) to be fully under God’s Will. And a hint (actually,
more than a hint) of this can be seen in the Koran itself. Thus, for example, we have
the following: ‘Believe you in God and His Messenger! And spend [disburse, expend]
of what He has made you the successors thereof [mustakhlafeen]…’(LVII:7)

There are two noteworthy points implied in the above verse: firstly, the use of
mustakhlafeen (from khalifa) clearly denotes that reference here to the successors as
‘heirs’ or ‘trustees’ is in the sense of these being politically in charge of what God has
granted them; secondly, the ayah refers to the successors in the plural and as distinct
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from Mohammad – in calling on the successors to believe in God’s Messenger, the

ayah is thereby distinguishing the latter from those who are the subject of succession.
The implication here is that such a divine appointment is not (or is no longer) solely
the prerogative of the person of the Prophet. That the trusteeship is meant in the
political sense, and that the successors are a political entity, can be discerned from the
following verse: ‘And what reason have you that you spend not in the Way of God
[Sabila-Allah – also ‘cause’ of God]? And God’s is the heritage [meerath] of the
heavens and the earth; alike [equal] are not among you those who spent and fought
before the victory [i.e. before the victory of God’s way of life (in the abstract sense) or
before the victory of Mohammad’s Muslims forces at Mecca (in the concrete historical
sense)]; they are more exalted [mightier] in rank than those who spent and fought
afterwards; and on to each God has promised righteousness; and verily, God is aware
of whatever you do.’ (LVII:10; my italics) It is this committed group of individuals,
who fought with Mohammad to capture Mecca (and abstractly, fought for the victory
of God’s way of life), that are referred to as the successors in the ayah (LVII:7) quoted
above; and as reward for their commitment and deeds, they are thus exalted in rank.
The basic idea here is of the succession of the chosen servants as a political entity.
This can also be inferred from the following: ‘Say: All praise belongs to God and
peace be on His servants whom He has chosen…’(XXVII:59; my italics) And: ‘Is not
He Who answers the distressed one, when he calls unto him and removes the distress
[the evil causing the distress] and makes you the successor in the Land [khilafa al-
ard]…’(XXVII:62; my italics)

What appears here as regards the conception of succession is, in short, a shift from the
divine order of prophethood to the ‘class’ order of the state. The latter, however, does
not displace the former, but simply keeps it alive and moving, as it were, guarding its
‘interests’ as its own interests. For without the necessary illusion of the sovereignty of
that divine order of prophethood, the ‘class’ order of the state loses its legitimacy.
Thus, for example, we have the following statements on prophethood and the authority
of past Apostles: ‘…and We did choose them, and We guided them unto the Straight
Way [al-sirat al-mustaqim – i.e. the Divine Law] This is God’s Guidance, He guides
with it whom He wills of His servants…These are they to whom We gave the Book
and the Judgement [Wisdom] and the Prophethood…These are they whom God
guided, therefore follow their guidance…’(VI:87-90) The essential aspect of
prophethood, as God’s guidance upon which to guide others, is then transferred, in
connection with the shift mentioned, from the person of Mohammad to the Koran.
And it is essentially and fundamentally only the Koran, in hypostatising the divine
order as a domain in itself, situated above any chosen servant’s right of succession and
authority, that by sanctioning the role and function and position of the khalifa, and
thus confirming the institution of the Khilafat as divinely ordained, legitimises such a
form of authority as a delegated (by the Word of God) right to rule.

In other words, succession becomes a firmly constitutional matter (at least nominally
and theoretically or ‘theologically’); no chosen servant of God, whether favoured with
revelations (i.e. a prophet), or merely with iman and ‘ilm (i.e. as mu’mineen and
ulama), can rise in authority above the Word of God (i.e. the Koran). Consequently,
no successor (Caliph, Sultan, Imam, etc.) can demand the kind of servile and slavish
obedience due to only God as alone the Lord: ‘It is not [fit, suitable] for a mortal that
God should give him the Book and the Judgement [al-hukma, Wisdom, Authority] and
the Prophethood, then he should say to mankind: Be you servants to me besides
God’s. Rather: Be you exemplary in obedience to the Book, and in studying and in
that which you teach [instruct of it]. And never would he order [enjoin] you that you
should take the angels and the Prophets as Lords…’(III:79-80)
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But then, as a constitutional matter, succession or khilafat becomes a notion attached

to the reality of a class-state. Political structure then conforms to this pattern and
model of succession and state action thereby conforms to the interests of Allah’s
chosen servants; their interests play an essential role in the socio-political imposition
of God’s Will that guides social and personal conduct. The chosen servants put
themselves in the place of the Prophet (historically it is the mu’mineen as
Mohammad’s companions that initially – as during the period of the so-called ‘Right
Guided Caliphs’ – take on such a role; but they do so within a form still bearing the
stamp of the old tribal relations whereby the council (shura) of elders and of the ‘wise
men’, on the basis of consensus (ijma) elect one from among themselves as ‘chief’
based upon that individual’s outstanding personal qualities); they are compelled to
represent their collective interest as the universal interest of all the submitted
(Muslims) in servile obedience to God’s Will as expressed through the Prophet’s
recited revelations which they as successors inherit and mould into the Koran as the
Constitution and as the fundamental ideological means not only of the legitimacy of
their right to rule but also to sustain the whole social structure based on the Deen of
Islam as a way of life.

In thus imposing God’s Will on earth (in the Land), the chosen servants as a
collectivity, therefore, act as the controllers of the Land as ‘divine property’; as such,
they are collectively, in short, the controllers of the material and mental conditions of
life – they are, and act, therefore, in every sense, as a ruling class in the making.

The Making of a ‘Ruling Class’

Authority which is strictly and exclusively based on the notion of God’s chosen
servants is, however, not in practice functionally sufficient to maintain the status quo
in an ever expanding system of social subjection; a system characterised by such form
of total domination will not last for long unless the ‘class-rule’ of the chosen servants
widens to incorporate individuals and groups who are in strict terms outside the
limited inner circle of the collectivity of the mu’mineen as the original companions
(Sahaba) of the Prophet. The actual exercise of power, the practice of domination,
sooner than later, necessitates a reformulation of the juridical-political definition of
authority itself. The reformulation, inevitably, carries with it the dead weight of
‘tradition’; and crucially rests ultimately, and as inevitably, for its justification on the
Koran. In fact, we know that in the course of the three centuries after Mohammad’s
death, a host of officials and, crucially, constitutional experts or in theological terms,
Koran scholars – Mujtahidun, canonist or faqih, Koran debaters/interpreters of the
various schools of Kalam or al-‘ilm al-ilahyee (Muslim Scholastic Theology), the ahl-
al-hadith (‘fellows of the Traditions’), and so on, collectively referred to as the Ulama
– gained social and political ascendancy and became engaged in the actual regulation
of authority. By the 10th century AD, these Koran scholars were integrated into the
political structure, and were effectively one of the most influential (and at times the
most influential) faction within the dominant class. An indication of the ulama’s
ascendancy is, indeed, reflected theologically by what is customarily known as the
closing of ‘the gate of ijtihad’ (bab al-ijtihad) – a reference to an informal consensus
reached among scholars of all schools that, upon the range of solutions and
explanations provided by them, basically all fundamental Koranic/theological issues
have been thoroughly debated and finally settled; there was thus no longer any room
for ‘independent reasoning’ in Koranic/theological dogma, and all that remained from
this point on was to explain/interpret the application of the doctrine already
established. In plain, political language: the determination of what is constitutional
and lawful within the Land was henceforth to become properly the function of the
ulama; and with this, the latter had made itself a part (an essential part) of the very
fabric of the system of domination.
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Perhaps the most ingenious aspect of the socio-political rise of the ulama is the
cunning way they had grafted themselves on to the body of the original agents of
divine power (the chosen servants of God) by making ‘ilm appear as the most decisive
condition of iman (rather than, in fact, the reverse, as discussed before) – the truest of
all the submitted was he who had ‘ilm, which thus made the possessor not only a
proper bona fide mu’min but one, indeed, higher in rank before God than any others
among the mu’mineen. Thus: ‘He [God] it is Who has revealed the Book to thee
[Mohammad]; some of its verses are decisive [ayat muhkamat – i.e. verses concerning
the cardinal doctrines of the faith], these are the Essence of the Book [Ummu-al-Kitab
or Mother of the Book], and others are allegorical [mutashabihat, figurative,
ambiguous]…none knows its interpretation except God and those firmly grounded in
Knowledge…’(III:7; my italics) The possessors of ‘ilm (knowledge), that is, the
ulama, transpose themselves on to the political field as in fact an indispensable force;
Koranic verses are related as confirmation of their key position and their indisputable
function: ‘God bears witness that there is no god but He, as do the angels and those
possessed of knowledge…’(III:18; my italics) There can be no higher privilege for
‘mortals’ than bearing ‘witness’ (along with God himself and the angels) to the
Oneness and Unity of God, as here in this verse affirmed as a duty and function of
‘those possessed of knowledge’ – i.e. the ulama.

On the basis of the Koran (and the collection and promotion of the ‘sunna of the
Prophet’ – i.e. the Hadith) the ulama as a loose group of knowledgeable individuals
eventually made themselves a force to be reckoned with. By manoeuvring themselves
into the essential mediatory role of the interpreters of the Word of God, of the Divine
Law, of Allah’s Constitution, they placed themselves at the core of the social system
of Islam. They transported and raised themselves to become the ‘true’ mediators,
taking the mantel of the guardianship of the Truth of divine revelations and the way of
life based upon that truth: ‘And those to whom knowledge has been granted see that
that which has been sent down [tanzil, divinely revealed or revelation] to you
[Mohammad] from your Lord is the Truth, and that it guides to the Way of the Exalted,
the Praised [sirat al-aziz al-hameed ].’ (XXXIV:6; my italics) And: ‘…those of His
servants only who are possessed of knowledge [‘ibadah al-ulama] fear God…’
(XXXV:28; my italics) From subordinates of successors as rulers or of the Caliphs,
conjoined with the mu’mineen, the ulama, as those claiming to possess the gift of
knowledge, promoted themselves in rank – and the justification for this was, of course,
based upon the Koran: ‘O you who believe! When it is said unto you: Make you room
in the Assembly [al-Majles]! Then make room…And when it is said unto you: Rise
up! Then rise up. God will exalt in rank [darajah] those of you who believe [those
with iman, or are mu’mineen], and those who have been granted knowledge
…’(LVIII:11; my italics)

For the most part these were men of a different stamp from the ‘old vanguard’ and
their ascendancy involved conflicts between them. Historically, it was during the early
Abbasid Caliphate that the ulama’s struggle for ascendancy peaked. As always, this
political struggle was reflected in theological terms, and superficially revolved upon
the question of whether the Koran was ‘created’ (a Mu’tazilite doctrine, championed
by Caliph al-Ma’mun, 831-33 AD) or ‘uncreated’ (a so-called ‘Traditionalists’
doctrine, supported by various schools, including that of the celebrated Ibn Hanbal and
Abu Hanifa).

The theological issue was not, of course, the questioning of the Koran as the Word of
God (an unpardonable blasphemy); it was rather simply a debate over whether the
Koran was the created Word of God, or the uncreated Word of God. What lay behind
this quite absurd and hypothetical issue was essentially a political struggle over the
power of decision-making, of who has jurisdiction in all matters concerning the
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interpretation and hence the application and implementation of the Koran’s

commandments and directives. The essence of the argument, very briefly, is as
follows: if the Koran is the ‘created’ Word of God, then the interpretation of its
directives becomes almost forbiddingly restrictive and subject only to God’s chosen
servant who is divinely-inspired, and thus entitled to make policy decisions in the
implementation of the directives – the chosen servant in this case being the Caliph.
However, if the Koran was the ‘uncreated’ Word of God, then its directives are subject
to interpretation by those in possession of the knowledge not only of the Koran itself
(i.e. ‘ilm), but of the sunna of the Prophet (the Hadith), who are thus entitled to make
decisions regarding their application and implementation – in this case, the ulama
would have the authority to make policy decisions that were binding and enforceable.

But this was a factional conflict and not one of a struggle between two different or
separate ‘classes’. The character of the conflict and the conduct of the conflict were
determined by the issue of the control of the state power under the guise of the
guardianship of the faith. The outcome of the conflict was a historic compromise
based on a symbiotic relationship involving a reformulation of the juridical-political
definition of authority: the successors as rulers were transformed into ‘Heads of State’
(a kind of ‘Higher Unity’) whose fundamental function was to enforce the Divine Law
and the ulama-developed doctrine of the sharia (i.e. enforce the guardianship of the
faith) in accordance with the authorised rulings of the ulama. In other words, the
compromise situation (which was hardly ever firmly and completely stable) was that
while the latter won the right of jurisdiction, the determination of Koranic (including
sharia) orthodoxy and legal interpretation and application, the former (the Caliphs,
Sultans, etc.) kept the right of defending and expanding the faith. The symbolic
reflection of this reformulation is expressed in the formalistic change of the title of the
successors as rulers from Khalifat-Allah to Khalifat-Rasul-Allah – that is, from being
called ‘God’s vicegerent’ to being called ‘the vicegerent of the Messenger of God’.
The latter title was not, however, ever merely symbolic: the Rulers (the Caliphs,
Sultans, etc.) were in actual fact (historically) despotically powerful political agents;
they were not merely regarded, formally and nominally, as ‘figureheads’, but judged
and deemed as sovereigns with real power – that is, in short, as the ‘higher unity’ at
the summit of the state-class pyramid. This high (or highest) position and rank is,
indeed, sanctioned by the Koran: ‘…We raise in rank [darajah] whomsoever We will;
and above all [kulla, whole, everyone] endued with knowledge is the One with
Universal Knowledge [‘ilm-a alameen].’ (XII:76; my italics) The reference here, in
this ayah, to ‘the One with Universal Knowledge’ is, of course, to God; but the
connotation is that above all those possessed of knowledge (i.e. the ulama), there is
‘one’ in this world whom God has raised in rank higher, who then ultimately depends
himself upon the One whose very essence is ‘ilm-a alameen, that is, ‘knowing all there
is in the universe’ – i.e. God.

The Caliph’s right to rule and the ulama’s right to endorse his rule were, thus, the
outcome of a compromise condition of ‘political reciprocity’ imposed upon the
dominant class by the dynamics of the historical circumstances, which, in pursuance
of mutual advantage and class interests, had to be ideologically (theologically)
justified and sanctioned.

In all this, the ‘spirit’ of the Prophet’s conduct and the composed collection of his
recitations were called on to serve the purpose of the glorification of class rule thus
reformulated. The message on both counts is quite categorical: the successors or the
inheritors are not all the submitted (all Muslims), but only Allah’s chosen servants
who are inspired with iman and ‘ilm – with the khalifa standing as the ‘higher unity’ at
the summit of a ‘state aristocracy’ and the ulama providing an essential collaborating
role at its core. This is a constitutional right to rule as a class by divine commandment;
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it is binding on all the rest of the submitted (Muslims) as an obligation to support; it is

the ‘Way’ or mode of class-rule that the latter must follow, for it is sanctioned by the
Word of God and the Way of the Prophet himself: ‘Say: This is my Way: I call to
God, clear-sightedly [i.e. being fully cognizant]; I and those who follow me…’
(XII:108)

Finally, a few concluding remarks.

Domination as Social Subjection and the Role of Allah’s Chosen Servants

Mohammad’s recitations were an attempt to convey a divine message, which was

supposed to realise itself in and through iman, under the notion of ‘ilm. The submitted
appear as tied to the realisation of this message in their drives, thoughts, and interests,
as a precondition of their subservience to the Will of God. This subservience is meant
to overcome not only the previous state of ignorance but to surpass all other forms of
subordination. Operating among disunited groups of people with divergent belief
systems and following their particular interests, the message conveying the laws of
God is intended to succeed in bringing about a single all-embracing community. The
universal validity of this community and certain general maxims of conduct, however,
can be securely established only by means of the subjection of concrete particularity
(and individuality) through the institutionalisation of divine authority. Insofar as
individuals or groups (tribes, clans, etc.) submit to God’s Will as revealed in
Mohammad’s message, this implies the sacrifice of their particular interest. Indeed,
the submitted must sacrifice themselves for the sake of God. Divine authority thus
acting as the universal follows its course in disregard of individual or particular
interests. Total dependence on such an omnipotent authority becomes the basis of a
theocratic political order. Obedient, worshipful submission thus becomes the cement
of an all-embracing form of social subjection of which the submitted are not conscious
because that which they believe to be God’s Will is realised in the effective
organisation of their social and individual life – i.e. because their subjection is
believed to be based upon Allah’s Constitution and because the political order is made
up of and headed by those who administer to the Word of God and act in the capacity
of God’s chosen servants (at least this fiction is the alleged and professed principle).

This form of domination as social subjection presupposes a definite socio-political

relation of God’s chosen servants to the submitted; an actual relation which is
presupposed to be conditioned by an imaginary one – that is, the chosen servants’
relationship with God. The presupposition is essential. The relationship between God
and His chosen servants establishes the form of domination; divine authority, an
abstraction, translates itself into reality in the chosen servants’ authority. This is an
inevitable quid pro quo which rules the objective mechanism of domination under
Islam. Power, of course, is the very essence of the relationship; to be God’s chosen
servant is the form taken by this essence in its realisation as authority in the here and
now. The power represented in the domination of the submitted brings about a
universal social subjection only in that it is perceived to be divine since it is
objectified in God’s revelations, in His Word, in the Koran. The Koran sets forth the
form of the socio-political relations of domination as divine, but as if this were the
essence of social subjection as such. What then emerges is the mystification that the
mode of domination of society seems to have nothing to do with its political reality:
no group or individual has power but by the grace of God!

The Koranic notion of God’s chosen servants characterises the expression of this total
reversal and inversion, which functions objectively as if it does, indeed, represent
something real. Thus it is that the organic unity of the political and the social lies in
the ideological-religious conception of God’s chosen servants. This notion, then, has a
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double significance: firstly as an objective social condition of power; and secondly as

the political agency in control of a specific form of state. The notion, though
ideological and religious, is, however, by no means simply reducible to a ‘religious’
definition or determination. Rather, it denotes the power relation between subjects
who are objective social entities, despite being ‘subjects’ of God’s Will. In other
words, the relationship between God’s chosen servants and the other servants of God
is, as set forth and fixed in the Koran, a constitutionally determined juridico-political
relationship, which clearly signifies the dominance of the former over the latter under
the illusory religious umbrella of the ‘equality’ of all before God (‘egalitarian
servitude’). This Koranic idea expresses social historical conditions: the proto-political
dominance of Mohammad and his companions followed on by the rule of the ‘Right-
Guided’ Caliphs and the despots that succeeded them at the head of a ‘state-
aristocracy,’ formed of the mu’mineen and later reinforced by the ‘ulama.

The notion of God’s chosen servants is thus the Koranic expression for a ‘class’ or a
class-like formation that is the binding force of political power. Political power is the
actual presupposition of the ideological-religious sanction. But it achieves an
independent existence in the form of the specifically Islamic State, so that God’s
chosen servants find their role and function predestined, their position and their status
and rank assigned to them as if by God, i.e. by Koranic sanction. Here also the chosen
servants come into connection with one another only in determined ways. The
religious determination becomes a ‘class’ determination, however, since the
qualification of being God’s chosen servants is defined as an aspect of the universal
property of the Islamic State. The appearance of the subsumption of ‘class’ under
‘religion’ is the same phenomenon as the subjection of political power to the Will of
God. For, as already mentioned, the Koran rests its fundamental principles on the
assumption that God’s Will determines the totality of human existence. God’s Will is
the form in which the ‘class interest’ of the chosen servants, as the constituent
property of the Islamic State, asserts itself as the ‘common interest’.

This ‘class interest’, though it manifests itself in religious form, originates in the
process of political-power relations and assumes the force of a divine law. Only as
such, and even from the point of view of individual members of God’s chosen
servants (rulers and agents of the state), does ‘class interest’ exert its influence as
divine law in the here and now. God’s chosen servants as a social ‘class’ entity then
seem to be themselves ruled by the abstraction which is God’s Will. This manifests
itself in the individual acts of the chosen servants which actualises their function on
the basis of their ‘class interest’; the real objectification of their action individually
lies in the common objectification of their interest as serving God’s Will. The
possibility of divine knowledge, of ‘ilm, and of understanding the divine content of the
Koran, and therewith also the competence to judge and administer Koranic rules of
conduct is given here only by the Will of God. The chosen servant (Mohammad as the
Messenger, or any other mu’min as ‘alim, the knowledgeable), though essentially a
political creature, is a creature whose being is determined by his participation in a
divine project. The divine element in all this is an illusion, but it is a necessary illusion
– it gives its form to the ‘class’ of God’s chosen servants so that the unity of the ‘class’
overrides (though not eliminating) the differences within it. It was under this
necessary illusion that Mohammad attempted to forge his followers and companions
into a ‘community’ of mu’mineen – a group of God’s chosen servants whose unity was
to be the basis of the communality of all the submitted. In its ‘ideal’ form, such was
Mohammad’s conception and establishment of the umma. But, the failure of the umma
(its failure as the communality of the submitted, the Muslims) brought about the
condition that demanded the need for the institutionalisation of the authority of God’s
Will as the Higher Unity.
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Moreover, with the crises and infighting among the mu’mineen – among the
‘vanguard’ of the movement – and the fitnah (‘sedition’ and eventually ‘civil war’)
that followed Mohammad’s death, the authority of the Higher Unity became essential
as the guarantor of the unity of the dominant class. The unity of God’s chosen servants
thus came to be based on the necessary illusion of this Higher Unity. The realisation of
the unity of God’s chosen servants as a ‘class’ could only, therefore, have come about
in the institutionalisation of God’s Will as the Higher Unity, which materialised itself
not as the umma but as the Caliphate State; with this the ‘class’ of God’s chosen
servants became the subject – i.e. a ‘class’ welded to the state (for want of a better
term, a ‘state aristocracy’). As an institution the Higher Unity appears as the lord and
master, and not the ‘class’ of the chosen servants, whose individual members define
themselves by their fundamental relation with the Higher Unity, as servants and not as
‘rulers’. Since, however, the unity of God’s chosen servants as a ‘class’ is only based
on the necessary illusion of God’s Will as the Higher Unity, a personification of the
Higher Unity becomes necessary as the focal point of class unity. Thus, the Caliph
becomes the Higher Unity incarnate – i.e. the class-state incarnate; he becomes the
‘vicegerent’ of God and, with the rise of the ulama, he becomes the ‘vicegerent’ of the
Messenger of God.

The sovereignty of the Higher Unity is understood, in other words, not only as God’s
Will personified, but as the abstract unity that unifies the divinely chosen servants – a
unity which is socio-politically and ideologically (religiously) the precondition for the
fulfilment and completion of each layer or faction of the group as a ‘class’. The
theological notion of this is given in the Koranic concept of Tawhid or the Oneness,
Unity of God, which was originally instituted and used by Mohammad to bring about,
in fact, a quite definite unification within the Arab tribal world. And though not an
entirely new or original idea, it was, nonetheless, an idea that incorporated a ‘new’
system of dependency and socio-political domination (‘new’ at least insofar as the
Arabs proper were concerned). As the most fundamental Koranic concept, Tawhid
catered just as well for the class-political transformation that had come about after
Mohammad’s death. In Islamic theology, however, the notion is ‘idealised’: the
oneness/unity that Islamic theology presents is not the unity of ‘one class’ that unifies
by its political domination; but rather the proclamation and affirmation of the Oneness
of God as a Unity that unifies all mankind. Ideologically, it enabled the sanctioning of
the Caliphate State (as also the later and alternative Shiite political model of Imamate)
as the establishment of a real community of Muslims, after the model of the Prophet’s
own umma, which elevates itself above the interests and conflicts of particular status
groups and classes within the framework of a (growing and conquering) Islamic
empire. The universalism of the Higher Unity (sanctioned by the concept of Tawhid)
cannot, of course, eliminate these conflicts, for it does not and cannot eliminate their
fundamental social source and condition. But what it does is to clear the path, so to
speak, for a continuous justification of the form of political domination of God’s
chosen servants by presenting the structure of their power as divinely willed and thus
as above and beyond the reach of any human power or influence – as outside the
domain of human history, unaffected by historical and social processes.

The idea of God’s chosen servants as the inheritors of authority on earth has two
sources: the Koran as its fundamental source and Mohammad’s umma as its mythical
one. The umma myth apotheosises the political – the concrete historical thus becomes
‘eternal’. The Koran legitimises the political – the class-state as Caliphate thus
becomes a divinely ordained institution. Thus we have an engaging mystification
whereby the chosen servants seem subject only to Allah’s Constitution, their authority
seems derived from God’s, upon which authority they appear to furnish the earth with
the indestructible force and permanence of God’s Law, and for this purpose they are
united by the characteristics of divine servitude within a structure of power that has or
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rather claims to have tradition (the sunna of the Prophet) behind it and, as its support,
the original form of Mohammad’s umma as the ideal of Muslim Community, the
preservation of whose mythical ‘purity’ is taken as the condition of Islam’s health and
in whose mythical glorification rests the appeal orthodoxy.

In themselves, however, the two sources mentioned are no more divinely or

apostolically inspired than are they the real means of power and authority. They want
transforming into universal ideals in order to appear as such. But this transformation
can only take place under certain circumstances that centre in the expansion of the
Islamic way of life – i.e. the expansion of the Deen of submission to the Will of Allah.
Hence, the historical movement of jihad initiated by Mohammad which changed the
ideals of Arab unification into that of a World Empire.

Chapter Eight: Jihad: A Divine Obligation

In the Koran, there are fundamental concepts whose metaphysical character makes
them seem quite independent of their socio-historical roots. With these, it appears that
their content remains the same in the most diverse historical circumstances. The
concept of jihad belongs to these fundamental concepts. Indeed, jihad is central to the
political understanding of the essential notion of the Oneness of God or Tawhid; it is
that which completes the sovereignty of this idea, that which brings everything
together to make ‘God the One’ appear as an objective force that rules over the actions
of humans. It is with jihad that the idea of the Oneness of God is worked out and made
into the ‘subject’ of Islam’s history. Jihad is the key to the triumph in real life of the
idea of God in Oneness and Unity. It is the vehicle of the process of bringing this
fundamental idea into the social world of humanity and thus essential to making the
establishment and expansion of divine power the pivot of the Islamic movement’s
activities. By way of defining and understanding the Koranic concept of jihad, we
need therefore firstly consider briefly the relation between jihad and the notion of the
Oneness of God.

Jihad and Tawhid

In Mohammad’s recited revelations, where, it has to be assumed, the specifically

Koranic concept of jihad was first set out, it was an outcome of the quest for
unification under the banner of the universality of the Oneness or Unity of God, or
Tawhid (‘tawhid’ – from the root a-h-d – literally ‘to make one’, in Arabic usage it
does actually mean ‘unification’, bringing about unity, or unifying). The divided tribal
world of Mohammad’s Arabia was to be subsumed under a political movement
initiated and developed on the basis of this idea of Tawhid (see the four-verse ‘Ikhlas’
surah, CXII, presumed to have been revealed at Mecca) which expressed, in religious
terms, the subsumption of the multiplicity of deities and the negation of what is
referred to by the concept of shirk (literally meaning ‘division’, though in the Koran
standing for idolatry or the association of anything or anyone with God), by the
superimposition of the One God (the Divine One, or Allah) as the Higher Unity.

Conceptually, the notion of the universality of the One God is free of limitations of
space or time, though this is merely in ‘belief’ or ‘faith’ and ‘assertion’. Politically,
this universality needs to be realised in permanence as socially and historically
universal. This necessitates, in the social reality of life, of the world of humanity,
submission and obedience to the Divine One, or Allah. Mohammad saw this as his
divinely ordained mission. For him to achieve this mission, and thus secure and insure
the universality and permanence of the Divine One, or Allah, required a way or a
means of the advancement of the idea of the Oneness of God. The means taken up was
jihad, which in social terms had its roots in the pre-Islamic Arab tribal life, in the
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effort and striving to sustain the traditions concerned with such matters as, for
example, water and territorial rights, bonds and commitments of honour, and so on;
and in its militant combative sense, jihad had its roots in the traditions of tribal/clan
feuds and raids.

With Mohammad basically the same tribal traditions continued to define the practice
of jihad, but with one essential difference: the practice was co-ordinated by his Islamic
movement to set itself up as the unifying force. From this beginning, but more
specifically with the formation of the umma, the practice and understanding of jihad
was modified and adapted in accordance with the circumstances and exigencies of the
propagation of Mohammad’s divine message of tawhid by means of the expansion of
the umma. The strictly Koranic concept of jihad (as distinct from the later formulated
Islamic doctrine of jihad) reflects this historical adaptation, signifying that the totality
of every sphere of social life, as well as the historical world, was to be considered as a
realm of jihad. Indeed, as a concept, jihad lies at the core of Mohammad’s or the
Koran’s divine message itself. It was for this very reason that it became a force within
the mode of life governed (or guided) by the divine message and thus became the
means of diffusion and propagation of the fundamental idea of the Oneness of God.

Essentially, however, jihad was a concerted and systematic struggle to preserve and
spread the socio-political movement initiated by Mohammad under the idea of the
revealed truth of the Oneness of God. It was action that was, moreover, vital to the
realisation of Mohammad’s preliminary goal of Arab unification as the first social
expression of his divinely inspired mission.

The realisation of this mission leading from the conception of jihad (as the means) to
action is historical; in other words, the activity essential to the functioning of jihad is
determined in the context of particular historical situations – that is to say, what jihad
entails in a given historical situation is determinable with regard to certain internal and
external socio-political factors. In operational terms, with jihad the orientation towards
the absolute certainty of the universality of the Oneness of God (Tawhid) is
transformed into the orientation towards the practice of instituting and validating that
certainty, which thus means that the concept of Tawhid ceases to be one of ‘pure’
theology. Jihad makes the concept of Tawhid decidedly political. This does not mean
that this fundamental Koranic concept gives up its claim to being the absolute truth or
to the universality of its truth, but that, rather, only its verification occurs by means of
and within the activity of jihad. To the concept of Tawhid thus belongs the concept of
jihad – i.e. in functional terms, one is meaningless without the other. In the realm of
jihad, the concept and politics of the universality of One God come together and
become fused; that is, the idea of the Oneness of God is asserted politically as being
bound to Mohammad as the last Prophet divinely authorised, by the last Word of God,
to bring it to the whole of humanity.

This idea of Tawhid (i.e. the truth of the Oneness of God affirmed by the Koran as the
last Word of God) must be realised in order for Islam (as a socio-political and
ideological-religious system) to exist as a way of life (as a Deen) – or rather, to put it
more strictly, Tawhid must realise itself, since it is the essence of the divine message
revealed to Mohammad. It can only realise itself, however, through Mohammad’s
action as the Messenger of God, or through the process of him acting upon the
revelations – this is what God has commanded: ‘And follow you [i.e. Mohammad]
what is revealed unto you from your Lord; verily, God is aware of what you
do.’(XXXIII:2) It is upon his activity as the Messenger that the abstract idea of the
Oneness of God finds its form in Islam as the self-totalising unity – he is charged to
raise the torch of knowledge of the One God: ‘O Prophet! Verily, We have sent you as
a Witness, and as a Bearer of good tidings and as a Warner. And as the Summoner
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unto God by His command, and as an illuminating torch.’(XXXIII:45-46) Tawhid the

abstract idea becomes a power that shapes Mohammad’s Islam and its future only
through Mohammad’s motive idea of practice as jihad: ‘But the Messenger and those
who believe with him struggle [jahadu] hard with their possessions and their lives
[selves]; and these, for them are the good things; and these, they are the successful
ones.’(IX:88) Here the essential difference of the historical function of jihad from that
of its ‘mystical’ conception (i.e. jihad as the spiritual ‘inner’ struggle of the ‘self’ or
the division of the concept into the so-called ‘lesser’ jihad or ‘Jihad Asqar’ and
‘greater’ jihad or ‘Jihad Akbar’) actually confirms the Koranic concept – in terms of
the Koran, there is no such notion of the ‘lesser and the greater’ jihad! Just as it was
with Mohammad, so it was with all his successors: the concept of jihad was oriented
towards social (societal) practice, which axiomatically includes ideological and
political activity within a particular historical situation. Its significance and what it
entails are, in other words, determined by historical and practical presuppositions.
Jihad is not a notion referring to contemplative ‘inner’ struggle, nor is it a striving of
the ‘self’ in achieving some form or measure of ‘transcendence’. Rather, it is
determined within the framework set by the historical goal with which Mohammad’s
movement and the Koran are linked. Not only do the interests resulting from this goal
play a crucial role in establishing what is essential to the activity of jihad, they enter
into the substance of the concept of jihad. With jihad ‘particular’ or rather ‘class’
interests are to be fulfilled in a process of realising the universality of Tawhid as the
general interest. It is this that defines the ‘personal’ requirements of a struggle or
striving for ‘good’ and against ‘evil’ as an aspect of the perpetual struggle in the ‘Way
of God’.

Jihad in the Way of God

In contrast to all subsequent reformulations of the notion of jihad, Mohammad’s and

the Koranic concept, precisely by virtue of its political guiding interest, is defined as
the struggle or striving in the ‘Way of God’ to advance the historical goal of
establishing (of making real) the universality of Tawhid as the general interest, which
is a manifestation of Islam’s form of domination as social subjection, in order to bring
about the Kingdom of God on earth. It is on condition of this struggle that God will
provide His guidance: ‘And those who struggle [jahadu] for Us, certainly will We
guide them in Our ways; and verily, God is with the Upright [al-muhsineen; the
righteous or the ‘good-doers’].’(XXIX:69) It is only from this standpoint that jihad
becomes a fundamental element of the social process of life under Islam; it is as such
an element that it has to be understood as an established and irrevocable part of the
divine message. The concept is comprehensible only through the Koranic definition of
the ‘Way of God’ as the determinant of the social process of life, presupposing
Mohammad’s and the Koran’s postulation of domination and servitude as modes of
‘being a Muslim’ and of the role of submission to the Will of the One God (Allah) in
the totality of the areas of life. And the Way of God is that which was revealed to
Mohammad as the Guidance to the Divine Law: ‘Thus did We reveal to you [i.e.
Mohammad] an inspired Guidance by Our command; you did not know what the
Book was nor faith [iman], but We made it a light, guiding thereby whomsoever We
will of Our servants; and verily guiding you to the Straight Way [al-Sirat al-Mustaqim
– i.e. the Divine Law]; the Way of God , Whose is whatsoever is in the heavens and
whatsoever is in the earth; Be it known! Unto God shall be referred all
affairs.’(XLII:52-53)

Now, the original idea of jihad is a conceptualisation derived from the form of human
‘effort’, of power and ability, used in contending with the immediate problems of
existence within the particular historical situation at the time of Mohammad. The
connection of the concept with that of the ‘struggle’ for existence is as old as Arab
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tribal life itself; it received its first explicit political interpretation in Mohammad’s
notion of Tawhid, the postulate of the Oneness of God. From this, the ‘effort’, the
exercise of power and ability, used in the struggle for existence in the specifically
tribal mode of life became identified with the notions of force, striving, and fighting or
the struggle in the Way or cause of the One God (Jihad fee Sabila Allah). The concept
derives its definition from the antagonistic character of the social life process facing
Mohammad; it becomes defined as the struggle to and the force used in overcoming
this antagonism by means of the identity of the processes of propagation of
Mohammad’s idea of the Oneness of God and the realisation of this through
submission to God’s Will and Mohammad himself as God’s Messenger: ‘You shall
believe in God and His Messenger, and struggle in the Way of God [tujahaduna fee
Sabila Allah] with your possessions and your lives…’(LXI:11) Thus, the resolution of
‘any’ form of discord, antagonism (fitna) in life is, in accordance with the Word of
God, possible only in and through the activity of jihad. From this basis, the concept of
jihad became a divine obligation, fully integrated into the eternal message of the
Koran and thus into the general politico-ideological principles of the Islamic state – it
became one of the fundamental principles of Allah’s Constitution.

The essence of jihad is a social and political struggle, whose appearance is historically
conditioned as a religious struggle – its religious appearance is, of course, neither false
or fictitious, nor fabricated; it is real and crucial to its understanding. As a divine
obligation, the idea of jihad permeates all areas of the Islamic way of life; and as the
practice of this obligation, it is an alienating form of activity, which actually begins
with the very act of submission. It is as a divinely ordained practical idea that jihad
thus becomes an essential element of Muslim social consciousness, and as such it
becomes integral to the mode of preservation and expansion of Islam as a way or
system of life (its transplantation to the inner sanctum of the ‘self’ or the ‘soul’ –
introduced by ‘Irfan or Sufism – is, indeed, an historically reformulated and
conditioned aspect of this mode).

The word jihad (from the root j-h-d) is the infinitive noun of jahada meaning ‘to
struggle’, ‘to strive,’ and is derived from juhd meaning effort, power or exertion. In its
general sense, the term signifies the effort, power or exertion used in striving (or in the
struggle) to surmount obstacles generated by the power of resisting forces (i.e. those
one faces in life, in the whole complex of social processes of living) in order to
achieve an end. It therefore implies the consciousness of striving and struggling and
suggests persistent exertion in the use or exercise of power or ability. The Koranic
concept of jihad is the historical application of this general understanding, which, as
already mentioned, originated in the struggle of Mohammad to overcome the obstacles
he faced in the particular conditions of his time for the establishment (realisation
through submission) of the sovereignty of the Will of God – this being the locus of
Tawhid; that is, being the path traced out by Mohammad in accordance with the divine
message revealed to him which was to be the source of the process by which the very
objectivity of social life was to become subject only to God’s Will as Divine Law.

Jihad, in its specifically Koranic sense, then, is a conscious and persistent struggle
(striving) in the Way of God traced out by Mohammad in his recited revelations to
subject social life to God’s Will through which there appears a cementing of
‘collective will’ among the believers: ‘O you who believe! Bow you down and
prostrate yourselves, and serve your Lord, and do good; haply so you shall succeed.
And struggle for God [wa-jahadu fee Allah], a true behoving struggle as is His due.
He has chosen you and has laid on you no impediment for your Deen [fee al-deen], the
faith of your father Abraham; He [i.e. God] named you Muslims aforetime and in this,
that the Messenger may be a witness over you, and you may be a witness over the
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people. So establish you prayer and pay you the alms, and hold fast by God; He is
your Master: How excellent the Master and how excellent the Helper!’(XXII:77-78)

The above verses command the believers to serve God and struggle for Him; here
jahada fee Allah, or the struggle for God, is conjoined with ibadah, or serving God as
Lord and Master. In other words, the two acts – one of ‘serving’, the other of
‘struggling’ – though conceptually distinct, are not separate or independent of each
other: to serve God is to struggle for God. The kind of struggle commanded,
moreover, is that which has to be true and sincere as is due to God; that is, it is a
struggle necessary to the realisation of the Will of the One God, the Divine One, or
Allah through the implementation of divine directives revealed to Mohammad. It is, in
short, not an optional matter based on ‘free will’ or ‘individual choice’ – to serve God,
the believer has to struggle for God. The above revelation, which is a directive to
which the Messenger (Mohammad) is a witness, is a general commandment which is,
however, addressed to the ‘believers’ as distinct from the ‘people’ as a whole: the
command ‘to struggle for God’ is incumbent upon those who have, in their devotion to
Mohammad as the Messenger of God, not simply acknowledged the Lordship of God,
not merely accepted God as their Master, but who have as a result of their activity in
following and supporting Mohammad, gained the certainty that comes only with iman,
who are then directed to become witnesses over the ‘people’. The ‘believers’ here are
the mu’mineen – it is they, as a distinct group of devotees, and not the people as a
whole (or mankind), who are chosen and are named Muslims in this (as in the past).
This sets the revelation in its historical context – that is, Mohammad (accepting the
related history of his life and mission) here was addressing his devoted followers, the
companions. But what is also significant is that it implies that to become part of this
group, to become one of the chosen or a mu’min, it is necessary to struggle for God!
Thus, those are blessed with God’s favour and mercy who struggle for God or in the
Way of God: ‘Verily, those who believe, and those who migrate [i.e. those who
followed Mohammad from Mecca to Medina as his companions to establish the
umma] and struggle in the Way of God [wa jahadu fee Sabila Allah] – those have
hope of God’s Mercy…’(II:218)

The conception of jihad, thus, had initially (and fundamentally) the signification of a
struggle in the building of a movement; it asserted action that would cement the germs
of a ‘collective will’ being generated by the act of submission, upon which ‘will’
social life could then be changed and subjected to the Islamic way. It is in struggle that
‘individual wills’ are forged and cemented into a ‘collective will’ and thereby
obedience and subjection to that ‘will’ become so strengthened as to seem automatic.
The action of jihad discloses the agent, realises the agency that puts into effect
Mohammad’s revelatory ideals. It is true that without the idea of the Oneness of God,
Mohammad’s movement would not exist, but it is also true that his movement would
not exist only upon this notion. This principal cohesive element was rendered effective
and powerful – it was, indeed, substantiated and actualised – through jihad. This
conscious, incessant and persistent effort, or the action of jihad, formed the movement
into a disciplined organised force (a ‘party’, if you like), and was also instrumental in
establishing the believers (essentially Mohammad’s companions) as its leaders: ‘The
believers are those who believe in God and His Messenger, they have not doubted
thereafter, and struggle with their possession and their lives in the Way of God; they
are the truthful ones.’(XLIX:15)

In the various verses quoted above, the command to struggle does not specify the form
and type of striving or struggling deemed necessary by God, as due to Him. All that is
clear here is that jahada fee Allah, or jahadu fee Sabila Allah, and hence the notion of
jihad as such, is an action ordained by God: what is implied is simply that jihad is a
divine obligation. Conceived as a divine obligation, jihad therefore becomes a
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condition of being a Muslim. Owing to its intrinsic relation to Mohammad’s

propagation of his message and the making of his movement under the banner of
Tawhid (the Oneness or Unity of God), its conception as a divine obligation was
therefore necessarily, and inevitably, political. This is intimated by the following
verse: ‘O you who believe! Take you not My foe and your foe for guardians [vali,
often translated as ‘friend’, is more accurately a ‘guardian’ or someone who is ‘a
guide and a protector’], offering them love, though they have denied [disbelieved in]
the Truth that has come to you, driving out the Messenger and yourselves [i.e. from
Mecca] for believing in God, your Lord. If you go forth to struggle in My Way and
seek My pleasure [while] secretly loving them, I know very well what you conceal
and what you declare; and whosoever of you does that, has gone astray from the Right
Way [the Straight Way – i.e. gone against the Divine Law].’(LX:1) The struggle in the
way of God mentioned here is not a ‘spiritual striving’; jihad here is a fight against
God’s enemies in the political arena, including the battlefield. The same political
intent is also indicated in this verse, which concerns the Prophet himself: ‘O Prophet!
Struggle thou against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be thou harsh with them;
for their abode is hell [jahanam]…’(LXVI:9)

Jihad : A Test of Faith and a Determiner of Status

For Mohammad, who knew of no realm of ‘truth’ independent of the religious, to

struggle in the Way of God was the true essence of being for God; that is, it is in this
act that those who have submitted truly affirm their total subjection to the Will of God
actually and concretely. God’s Will, however, is but a mystified expression of
Mohammad’s will (and, after his death, of the ‘collective will’ of leaders and rulers
who succeeded him) that became itself the basis of a ‘statute law’, posited in the
Koran; thus struggling for God, jihad, is actually a political struggle to impose the will
of Mohammad reified as the directives of the Koran. The concept of jihad as set forth
in the Koran is, in other words, the endeavour to fashion the reality of existence in
accordance with the ideal of being a Muslim as defined by Mohammad. It was at the
time, indeed, a fundamental test of faith or iman in and demonstration of commitment
to his project and apostleship: ‘And those who believe, and have emigrated and
struggled in the Way of God, and those who gave refuge and help [i.e. the Ansar, the
residents of Medina who helped Mohammad and his followers], these are the true
believers rightfully [al-mu’mineen haqqan] … And those who believed afterwards
[later] and emigrated, and struggled along with you, they are of you; and kindred by
blood are nearer to one another in the Book of God …’(VIII:74-75) Jihad is one
aspect, certainly the most crucial one, of God’s general test of faith which is
consistently declared in various ayahs in the Koran, as, for example, in the following:
‘What! Do the people reckon [imagine] that they will be left [merely] to say: “We
believe!” and will not be tried? And certainly We did try those before them; God
assuredly knows those who are truthful and He assuredly knows the liars.’ (XXIX:2-3)
And thus more specifically concerning jihad as a test: ‘And We shall certainly try you
until We know those of you who struggle [al-Mujahideen] and are steadfast, and make
your [i.e. Mohammad’s] tidings known.’(XLVII:31)

In the act of jihad, moreover, the Koran distinguishes those not only true to the faith,
but those to be distinguished in rank: ‘Not equal are such believers who sit [hold back
from the struggle] – other than those hurt [having an injury] – with those who struggle
in the Way of God with their possessions and their lives [selves or persons]; God has
raised in rank those who struggle [the strugglers or fighters, al- Mujahideen] with their
possessions and their lives above those who sit [hold back]; unto each God has
promised good [their just reward]; but those who struggle [al-Mujahideen] God
distinguishes above those who sit [hold back] as higher with greater reward
[recompense or bounty].’(IV:95)
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Here then we have an understanding of jihad as a means of establishing the Islamic

movement as a disciplined organised force, whose core membership (the mu’mineen)
would display commitment of a devotional type to Mohammad as the Messenger of
God, and who are consequently recognised as higher in social and political status than
the submitted in general. But since the submitted as a whole – that is, all able-bodied
Muslims – need also to be enticed to struggle for God (i.e. for Islam), as jihad clearly
requires their participation, the divine obligation is set forth in a general format, as a
universally applicable decree, carrying the vague reward or favour of the attainment of
‘success’. Thus: ‘O you who believe! Do your duty to God, and seek the means
[waseela] unto Him, and struggle in His Way, that you may be successful.’(V:35)
Advancing the same general applicability and encouragement, the obligation also
carries the promise for the participant of receiving God’s guidance: ‘And those who
struggle for Us [in Our cause], certainly We shall guide them in Our
Ways…’(XXIX:69) And indeed it is made to appear for every participant an
individually fulfilling activity: ‘And whosoever struggles [jahada], struggles only for
his own self; verily, God is All-sufficient of all the worlds.’(XXIX:6) Jihad is thus
perceived to be an activity that is carried on for God or in the Way of God, but this
only in order to improve the life-situation of each individual participant in accordance
with God’s Guidance and Will. For, theologically, it is self-evident that God is ‘All-
sufficient’ – i.e. not in need of ‘salvation’ or of ‘material’ or ‘spiritual’ fulfilment. In
struggling for God, Muslims are, in other words, struggling for themselves to achieve
the success in life which is meant to (believed to) come as a result of the establishment
and spread of Islam as a way of life ordained by God and revealed to Mohammad (as
in the Koran). This is precisely what jihad signifies as an essential aspect of the
Islamic hegemonic ideology; that is, the ideological motivation to struggle for God or
in His cause (for Islam) needs to be so internalised as to appear as if self-willed and
thus self-fulfilling. From this, the idea of jihad is made to become an essential element
of the general Islamic ideology that affects (or at least tends to affect) Muslim ‘mass
consciousness’. As such, it helps to bring about the display of generic loyalty to those
at the core of the movement (the leaders or the rulers); and it helps to justify every
type of political action, sacrifice of possessions and of life, in the religious guise of
serving God.

In the Koran, then, the notion of jihad is not abstract and transcendental; in rewarding
those who struggle with high rank and great recompense, this divine obligation is
affirmed as an active principle in the actual practice of the Islamic way of life (as the
active principle of the Deen of Islam) in a socio-political setting. Jihad appears in the
process of Islamic life as a result of the necessity or need imposed by objective socio-
political conditions; it already presupposes the socio-political conditions of the rise of
the Islamic movement of which it is only an aspect, or determination – e.g. in
Mohammad’s time, we have the conditions of Jahiliyah; with his successors, we have
the conditions of internal strife and external opposition and obstructions. The notion of
the ‘struggle’ referred to in the above quoted verses, has nothing whatsoever to do
with ‘inner’ or ‘spiritual’ questions; it is immediately and concretely a matter of the
political requirements of the advancement and promotion of the Islamic movement. It
is through the movement of Islam that the notion of jihad is drawn out as a concrete
activity, which is then represented in the Koran as a divine obligation in instituting a
universal socio-political form of servitude. The serving of God and Mohammad as His
Messenger, which is fundamental to Islamic ideology, should thus be considered not
as something ‘spiritually’ superimposed, but as something historically developed
through incessant struggle or jihad.

The Koran, thus, attributes to jihad a permanent relation to serving God and His
Messenger. If submission to the Will of God carries the ineluctable act of ibadah, of
servitude, then jihad is the ultimate proof of the latter. To struggle for God, or in the
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Way of God, is the action that is intended to confirm and realise the Will of God.
Jihad, then, is precisely the inner dynamic of the process of realisation of God’s Will,
comprehended in its political meaning. And since this process of realisation concerns,
by the very definition of the universality of the Oneness of God, all of mankind and is
one that has, by the same definition of Tawhid, no limitation of time or space, jihad is
a continual and permanent struggle of an all-embracing and worldwide dimension; it
is, in short, a permanent expansionist struggle: ‘He it is Who has sent His Messenger
with the Guidance and the True Deen [Deen al-Haq – the true way of life, i.e. Islam;
standard translations give this as ‘the religion of truth’], that he may make it triumph
over every deen [every way of life]…O you who believe! Shall I direct you to a
commerce [tejarat – generally meaning ‘trade’ or the interchange of goods – has here
the connotation of ‘commerce’ in its sense of ‘intercourse’ as an activity that involves
the ‘trafficking’ of ideas and influences] that shall deliver you from a painful
chastisement? You shall believe in God and His Messenger, and struggle in the Way
of God with your possession and your lives; that is better for you, did you but
know.’(LXI:9-11) Jihad here is a social and personal struggle that God directs the
believers to engage in for the spreading of His Word revealed to Mohammad; it is a
struggle for the propagation and promotion of a way of life as an ‘intercourse’ (a
‘commerce’) that is divinely ‘liberating’. The ‘deliverance’ associated with it is
conditioned by the triumph of God’s sanctioned way of life (the True Deen) over all
other ways of life. It is, as such, a struggle that is universalistic in scope and
permanent in character – its purpose is the triumph of Islam as a way of life; its mode
is expansionist; its objective is the whole of human life; its target is the entire
humanity.

Jihad: A Sure Way to Paradise

In jihad, as in all aspects of serving God (ibadah), the obeying of Mohammad as

God’s Messenger, whose divine message is the Guidance that is ordained to be the
condition of the true way of life, is the prime requisite for all participants. The initial
lure of participation in the jihad for God depended, to a large extent, no doubt, on
Mohammad’s personality, his qualities of political, ideological and military leadership
(claimed and perceived to be due to divine favour). Soon this lure was bolstered by
what was proclaimed to be divine recompense and favour: God’s promise of pardon
and paradise. Participation in jihad, it was thus revealed by Mohammad, brings about
not only the forgiveness of sins but admittance into paradise: ‘He will forgive you
your sins and admit you into gardens beneath which rivers flow, and abodes in the
Gardens of Eden [wa maskana tayebat fee janata ‘iduna]; that is a supreme
achievement.’(LXI:12)

The idea of paradise plays an important part as recompense. But the paradise of
Mohammad and the Koran is far from being merely limited to some abstract image of
a ‘heavenly’ place with angels and the rest; it is, on the contrary, an image of a very
‘earthly’ place, heavily influenced by a ‘desert-dwelling’ mentality. It is, moreover, an
idea that has objective resonance – the Koran’s paradise involves and includes affairs
and things that are feasible in the here and now, in this world. Paradise, as Mohammad
(supposedly) envisaged it in his recited revelations, concerns material and relational
joys and the rupture that comes as a result of the materiality rather than the pure
spirituality of a ‘good life’. His paradise is a picture of a state of being similar to the
best of the concrete life imaginable by him; it is in this sense that the Koran refers to it
as a ‘similitude’ promised to those who struggle to the death for God: ‘He shall guide
them and improve their state. And admit them to the garden which He has made
known to them…This is the similitude [mathalu – similar or like; mathal ‘example’]
of Paradise promised to the pious: therein are rivers of water unpolluted, and rivers of
milk unchanging in taste, and rivers of wine – delicious to the drinkers, and rivers of
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honey pure and clear; and therein for them are every fruit and forgiveness from their
Lord…’(XLVII:5-6 and 15) The reward for participating in jihad, then, is this material
enjoyment of a ‘good life’ which is always the opposite of hellish, painful
chastisement.(see XIII:34 and 45) Thus, we have the following description: ‘Verily,
you shall taste the painful chastisement. And you shall not be recompensed, but for
what you were doing. Except for the devotee servants of God. For them is a known
provision; fruits, and they shall be highly honoured: In the Gardens bountiful
[delightful]; upon couches, face to face; a cup from a spring passing round among
them, white, delicious, a delight to those who drink. Nothing there to oppress, nor
exhaust the senses. And with them shall be wide-eyed maidens, with modest glances,
with beautiful eyes, as if they were hidden pearls [eggs].’ (XXXVII:38-49)

The conception of the paradise promised in the Koran for the mujahideen is, thus,
more akin to that of ‘Utopia’ than to some ‘supernatural’ proposition. Yes, it is an
imaginary place; but one that is in aspiration realisable; it is an ‘ideal’ that has the
potentiality of existence, which as such makes it worth fighting for. It is, in fact, the
very earthliness of this Koranic idea of paradise that makes it more convincing,
persuasive, and thus a potent ideological inducement. The proposition, moreover, has
a practical aspect: the actual achievement of paradise through the struggle in the Way
of God; the achievement of the Kingdom of God on earth: ‘Verily, for the pious ones
is a realisation [achievement]. Gardens secure and vineyards. And maidens beautiful
[with swelling breasts], equal of age. And a cup full…’(LXXVIII:31-34; see also
LXXXIII:22-28) This is the paradise that the believers involved in jihad can actually
believe to achieve with the triumph of Islam; and should they sacrifice their lives in
the process, as martyrs (Shohada, pl. of shaheed, martyr), they are promised the same
in the ‘hereafter’. It is, moreover, the ‘promised land’ for ‘the foremost in deeds’ of
God’s ‘chosen’ servants, (see XXXV:32), that is, the ‘elite’ strugglers for God, who
are promised untold wealth (symbolically expressed as ‘gold bracelets’, ‘pearls’ and
‘silk’): ‘Garden of Eden [jantu ‘idunin] they shall enter; therein they shall wear
bracelets of gold and with pearls, and their apparel therein shall be silk.’(XXXV:33)

The promise of paradise in the ‘hereafter’ is, indeed, matched by the promise of help
and victory in the ‘here and now’ to achieve the triumph of Islam as the real paradise:
‘And another [blessing, boon or favour] you love: help from God and a victory at
hand. Give thou [i.e. Mohammad] good tidings to the believers [al-mu’mineen]!’
(LXI:13) In other words, jihad is an activity that has the promise of socio-political
victory of the Islamic movement on earth and the promise of a ‘good life’ and a state
of bliss for the believers in the here and now. The ‘good tidings’ that Mohammad is to
convey is precisely that God’s promise is not some ‘abstract’, merely ‘spiritual’ or
even some ‘supernatural’ prospect, but a favour which is, in fact, quite tangible,
objective and actual. To emphasise the divinity of this promise and to demonstrate its
plausibility, Mohammad (i.e. the Koran) thus refers to the victory of Jesus in
spreading Christianity and the triumph of his disciples: ‘O you who believe! Be you
God’s helpers, as Jesus, son of Mary, said to the disciples: Who will be my helpers
unto God? The disciples said: We will be helpers of God! So a party of the Children of
Israel believed, and a party disbelieved. Then We aided those who believed against
their enemy, and they became triumphant.’(LXI:14)

Paradise, as mentioned, is a reward, a favour, for those engaged in a common struggle

in the cause or way of God. Jihad includes this favour as part of a divine covenant:
‘…a promise binding on Him [God] in the Torah and the Bible and the Qur’an. And
who is more faithful to his covenant than God? Therefore rejoice you [i.e. those
struggling in the Way of God – the Mujahideen] in the bargain that you have
transacted; and that, it is the great achievement.’ (IX:111) Jihad involves a ‘contract’,
an agreement: struggle for God in return for His favour – a favour which is both a
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‘this-worldly’ and a ‘heavenly’ reward: ‘And God gave them the reward in this world
and an excellent reward of the hereafter…’(III:148)

Mohammad and his successors had every interest in encouraging jihad and
maintaining its impetus, its uninterrupted propagating and expansionist drive, and
therefore the rewarding of participation in such a struggle needed to have intrinsic
dignity by being incorporated into the universalistic divine message of the Koran as
God’s favour, as His promise of paradise. Historically, of course, they tended to
reward those who struggled for God with concrete material remuneration, with actual
privileges and honours, like the distribution of ‘booty,’ of tribute, and status
recognition, high rank and positions of authority. The Koranic promise of paradise for
jihad sanctioned and glorified such historical remuneration; it was part of the strategy
for mobilisation in all the phases of the development and expansion of Islam.

Jihad and Islam’s Hegemony

The Koran glorifies jihad; it promotes and praises the struggle of believers to fashion
reality in accordance with its body of revelations. This is a Muslim’s highest privilege
and the sole way set forth in the Koran to materialise the Divine Truth. Ever since
Mohammad’s death, it was claimed that ‘ilm (knowledge of divine revelations) could
set the standard of the truth and that iman (absolute certainty of faith) could set the
standard of human conduct, and that these could through jihad alone become
universally diffused as the standard of human life. The spread of the Faith and that of
the message of the revelations were from the very beginnings of the Islamic
movement central to the notion of jihad. It is further evident from the Koran that
Islam, as a way of life striving towards universality, would have to bring about the
permeation throughout all spheres of social life the Koran’s entire system of guidance,
of values, directives, teachings, etc. Jihad constituted the means to bring about this
form and extent of social control and domination; it was the means to bring about the
adequate socio-political conditions for the establishment, or rather, the realisation of
the universalised hegemony of Islam. The concrete aim of jihad as understood within
the context of the Koran, then, is its role in raising the Islamic way of life to world
dominance; to bring to dominance over the Land or the earth, as the Koran puts it, the
True Deen based on the Divine Law given to Mohammad, and inherited by his
successors – that is, to bring to world dominance Allah’s Constitution.

For the accomplishment of this aim, the Koran’s conception of jihad asserts the role of
‘consciousness’ over compulsion (‘consciousness’, that is, of being a struggling
activist for God – i.e. an alienated form of consciousness), and that of the passionate
element over detachment, and the obedient element over the self-willed. The
conception of jihad embodies the action of believers (mu’mineen) whose function is to
create an Islamic leadership made up of an organising ‘elite’ providing guidance and
inspiration to forge a sense of communality as the hegemonic condition of domination
as social subjection. Jihad embraces vigorous actions, efforts and struggles on all
fronts to secure, in the name of God, Islam’s way of life (the Deen of Islam) based on
the highest degree of permanent consent possible (through conversion and submission)
for this leadership as the governing ‘men of God,’ universally, and hence a
comprehensive struggle for the founding and consolidation of an inherently,
constitutionally, imperious and expansionist Islamic state as a means of achieving the
Kingdom of God on earth – the paradise or Utopia promised in the Koran.

At bottom, considering its actual historical role and function, jihad, thus, signified the
epochal struggle for the socio-political and ideological supremacy of a ‘class’ which
claimed to have the divine right to stand for and upon the Word of God, a ‘class’ that
gave the theocratic form of the Caliphate to the reality of its state power. This ‘class’
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function of jihad is, however, masked by the apparent divinity of its goal – the
struggle being perceived and presented as a struggle for God. This, indeed, is precisely
the fundamental attribute of jihad that conditions all its multi-faceted dimensions and
moulds these into the understanding of it, mentioned above, as an all-embracing
struggle in life for the cause of God and Islam.

In other words, insofar as the Koran is concerned, absolutely no sphere of life is out of
reach of or excluded from the focus of jihad. To the extent, therefore, that the ‘class’
function of jihad is to promote and expand Islamic theocratic domination over all
aspects of human life, it follows that its modus operandi is inevitably
multidimensional and total in scope. And to the extent that jihad is conceptually held
to have the universal goal of instituting, perpetuating and expanding God’s cause
under Islam, it follows that its ‘class’ function must appear to be sanctioned by God,
i.e. justified by the revelations contained in the Koran. Jihad should thus be
considered as the totalising struggle for the hegemony of the dominant ‘theocratic
class’ as a divine obligation. It is therefore not difficult to recognise in it all manner of
manoeuvring that involves a wide range of activities, institutional practices and state
actions expressive of the particular interest of that ‘class’ justified by the Koranic
conception of ‘the struggle in the Way of God’ or ‘Jihad fee Sabila Allah’. Jihad
should not therefore be considered as simply ‘religious war’ or ‘holy war’.

Jihad and the Notion of ‘Holy War’

From the above discussion, the characterisation of jihad as ‘holy war’ – a

characterisation widely prevalent today, and particularly in the West – gives far too
narrow a picture of the role and function of jihad, thus tending to limit and
circumscribe its signification; in strict linguistic terms, the term ‘holy war’ is, at any
rate, an inaccurate rendering of the meaning of jihad. Such a characterisation is,
presumably, intended to stress (negatively) the role of force in the historical spread of
Islam (though its use by some Islamic militants is to justify the positive role of force
and violence). Yet this depiction of jihad, by its narrow, limited focus on the notion of
‘war,’ which signifies armed state conflict or military/armed conflict of the ‘crusade’
type, tends actually to underrate the scope and depth of the role of force in the history
of Islam. Force is basic to and deeply embedded in the Koranic concept of jihad – let
us not forget, however, that force can take many forms over and above the military or
the use of arms, involving different degrees of intensity and including different
methods. Owing to the Koran’s proposed, or rather its divinely ordained, stipulation of
the necessity of the subordination of everyday life to Islam as a system of life, jihad as
the means of achieving such a subordination could not but involve the use of force in
order both to subdue and to secure and insure conformity. The use of force
necessarily, however, always includes the concrete interplay of various direct and
indirect measures, techniques and methods, ranging from armed actions and physical
coercion to institutional and ideological procedures.

At any rate, the term Holy War or Al-Harb al-Muqaddas is in fact not a Koranic term.
It is, rather, as with the term ‘Jihad bil-sayf’ or ‘Jihad by the Sword,’ and some other
designations concerning or related to jihad, an expression derived from the descriptive
accounts of the practice of jihad offered by certain authors of the ‘Traditions,’ the
Hadith (the most notable among them being perhaps al-Bukhari, who died in 870 AD,
with his The Book of Jihad, vol.4 of his authoritative collection of a-hadith entitled
Sahih al-Bukhari). Harb, with its connotation of ‘aggression,’ is the word commonly
used for ‘war’ – that is, it is closest in translation to the concept of war; harb is also a
designation for the state or condition of life outside and at variance with the rule of the
Koran’s Divine Law, as in the expression ‘Dar-al-Harb’ in contrast to ‘Dar-al-Islam’,
both of which are, again, not Koranic terms. The bracketing together of these terms
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with the notion of jihad was the consequence of the historical process of the territorial
expansion of the early Islamic state, known as the Futuhat (from the word ‘fateha’
meaning the ‘opening’ – thus signifying the ‘opening’ of lands to the Faith; futuhat, pl.
of fat’h, denoting ‘conquests’), beginning with the ‘Right Guarded Caliphs’ and
continued under the ‘Umayyads and subsequent Caliphate regimes.

It was during the Futuhat wars that, indeed, the specifically Islamic doctrine of jihad
and the legal concepts and principles on war were developed in line with the practical
considerations for state policy. The doctrine was developed on the basis of the
reinterpretation of the Koranic conception of jihad, heavily influenced by the so-called
‘sunna of the Prophet’ (the Traditions), to meet the requirements of the Caliphate
regimes. Consequently, the doctrine as a reinterpretation is effectively but an
‘adaptation’ (much more detailed and intricate) of the Koranic conception of jihad.
Thus we have the introduction of terms that are not strictly Koranic; also the inclusion
of such problematic issues as the so-called ‘defensive’ or ‘offensive’ characterisation
of jihad (see section below) and matters such as the later ideas regarding the ‘lesser or
greater’ jihad, and so on.

The legitimacy of this adaptation, though primarily based on the cultivation and use of
the Traditions, was actually to a large extent due to the ulama’s ingenuity and
resourcefulness in conceiving (devising) certain scholastic or exegetical tools to
facilitate reasoned justification for the ‘modifications’ that came to be introduced –
perhaps the most important of these tools being the development of the idea of
‘abrogation’ or ‘naskh’. Naskh (from root n-s-kh, meaning repeal, revoke or withdraw)
is the rule that enables the revoking of certain verses of the Koran or modifying their
universal validity. The basic idea is that the command or ruling (hukm) of one divine
revelation (ayah) is cancelled by another later revelation on the same topic. The
abrogated verses, known as mansukh, may then either be disregarded or considered
only in terms of specific application. It is maintained that the commandment revealed
at a later date means that God Himself has ‘clearly’ revoked the previous one. The
question of abrogation becomes more complicated, however, in consideration of the
collective content of the ayahs dealing with the same subject matter – and even more
so as regards another ulama devised rule concerning the so-called ‘conditional’ or
‘unconditional’ integrity of revelations. There are cases, for example, that, due to
compatibility of their content, abrogation cannot be justified. In truth, however,
whether assuming the divinity of Koranic revelations or taking them as composed
rules as ‘statute law’, given the deep-seated problematic of the chronological
uncertainty regarding the revelations (not to mention, the controversy over the actual
mode of the composition of the Koran itself), the issue of abrogation is vacuous and
the notion clearly no more than a convenient device: it allowed the ulama to repeal a
particular Koranic directive for political expediency or to take up, justify and
implement one ayah in favour of another for partisan factional reasons. As with all
aspects of Islamic dogma, this is a blend of the political and the exegetical – though
the political is commonly understated.

However, it needs to be emphasised again and again that, whatever the exegetical
rules and tools invented by the ulama over the decades of their ‘class’ ascendancy and
the centuries of their ‘class’ hegemony, ultimately the Koran remains, as in all matters,
the fundamental irrefutable source of all Caliphate/ulama rulings, duties and
obligations. Indeed, even insofar as ‘abrogation’ is concerned, the justification of such
a rule is based on this Koranic revelation: ‘Whatever sign [revelation] We abrogate
[ma naskh meno ayah] or We cause to be forgotten [or bypass], We bring one better
than it or like it. Do you not know that God has power over all things?’ (II:106) In this
case, as in many others, it is not unreasonable, given the lack of hard historical
evidence regarding the making of the Koran, to suggest the possibility that this verse,
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as perhaps with others, might have been the subject of ‘modification’ or

‘manipulation’ at the hand of the ulama. For, it should be noted that the principle of
‘abrogation’ is crucial to the ulama’s practical role in the elucidation for the purpose
of application of all commanded matters and issues, with jihad being simply one such
topic.

Notwithstanding the problems raised above, on the basis of the Koran, it can be said
that jihad, as I have tried to show, is a much more complete and involved undertaking
than the concept of harb or ‘war’ implies. Harb is an essential element of jihad; it
does not, even qualified as ‘holy war’, define the concept of jihad, at least not in terms
of the Koran. The understanding of the word harb in the Koran is specific to an act of
aggression; it signifies direct hostility of the openly violent kind. We can see this, for
example, in the following verses: ‘O you who believe! Have piety towards God
[‘taqwa’ is broadly ‘piety’, specifically denoting strict adherence to divine obligations
and faithful observation of duties in God’s Way] and give up what remains from usury
[here the reference is to the practice of riba generally translated as ‘usury’; strictly it
means ‘increase’, and thus applicable to the increase in amount, in kind or money,
gained by one party and owed by another as a debtor in a transaction of a generally,
though not exclusively, private nature], if you are believers. But if you do not, then
take notice that God and His Messenger shall war with you…’(II:278-9; my italics)

Here the notice of ‘war’ is a warning to those benefiting from ‘usury’ clearly because
this is a sin so abhorrent as to have apparently required on the part of Mohammad
specifically targeted aggressive and openly violent response as a tactical measure
within his overall struggle or jihad in the way of God. Harb, then, as action of a direct
and violent kind or war, is here intended to heighten the seriousness of the sin in
question that should be confronted by jihad; it is a state of open hostility, an
aggressive act specifically focused as part of jihad. This understanding of harb
becomes more clearly spelled out in a verse that refers to the response demanded in
the case of war against God and Mohammad: ‘The recompense of those who war
[yuharbuna] against God and His Messenger, and attempt to do corruption in the Land
[wa yas’iuna fee al-ard fasada] is only that they should be slain, or crucified, or their
hands and feet shall be cut off alternatively, or they should be ostracised from the
Land…’(V:33) Here the proposition on the scope and intensity of aggressive (violent)
response to any party waging war against God and Mohammad suggests the converse
of such aggressiveness in the war waged by Muslims in the way of God.

The term harb, it could be said, is used in the Koran to denote the type of combative
action which, as an element of jihad, is necessitated when there is a need for a
concerted action against disobedience of a divine directive (as with usury, for
example) and/or when the hegemonic objectives of the mu’mineen (the believers)
prove to be unsuccessful, for example, as in the case of antagonistic rejection of the
call to submit on the part of a ‘whole people’ or their rulers, or an instigation against
the propagating activities of the believers, or contentious obstruction to the spreading
of the divine message, or the protection and defence of Islam and the umma, and so
on. In its signification, then, harb is no more than a sharp, harsh concentrated,
condensed and focused use of force in the overall struggle for the cause of God –
harb, in short, could be characterised as the epitome of jihad.

Jihad as a Means of Social Control

The conceptual scheme of jihad in the Koran exhibits a dynamic process of struggle
grounded on force or the exercise of power, whether in the form of war (harb) or that
of other less violent measures, in order to impose, in life and on humanity, God’s Will
as revealed in (or rather, as defined by) the Koran, and to defend and protect God’s
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(the umma’s) sovereignty. As a strategy, jihad derives its defining function from the
antagonistic character of the social life process. This means that jihad has in its focus
and as its aim both the securing of social control, in its reified form, and the dynamics
of power and domination in the spreading, the maintaining and the defending of the
Koran’s divine message. The securing of social control, including attaining conformity
and consent as well as the direct policing of the Divine Law, is considered as part of
jihad in order to promote and endorse the principle of God-fearing righteousness in
the social sphere of life (‘civil society’). The general Koranic principle that
encapsulates the force of this struggle conceptually is Amr bil-Ma’roof wa Nahya
‘anil-Munkar, which is variously translated as ‘Command to Right and Forbid the
Wrong’ or ‘Enjoin the Good and Forbid the Wrong’. It is a formula that necessitates
the authority of judgement in practice and the action of the God-fearing in
enforcement.

The principle is a universal directive, it has universal validity and commanding force;
it is, thus, more than the self-imposing of the ‘ideal’ of moral conduct, more than a
mandate pertaining to self-governing righteous conduct; it is a command that requires
an agency of enforcement and policing over and above the individual’s ‘inner’
struggle or self-striving to fulfil the principle’s abstract and universal ‘ethos’. The role
of this agency of enforcement is signified in the following verse: ‘Those, if We
establish them in the Land, will establish prayer and pay the alms and enjoin the good
and forbid the wrong…’(XXII:41; my italics; see also XXXI:17) The Koran, as can be
seen, makes clear that individual ‘self-striving’ is not enough, that the general
population of the submitted need controlling in their social and personal conduct as
part of a wide-ranging and, indeed, forcefully intrusive struggle carried out by a
community or group (‘class’) of mu’mineen as an officiated body or agency. Thus:
‘And from among you there should be a community [ummat – an outstanding,
distinguished, leading group or body] calling to good, and enjoining [commanding]
what is right [good] and forbidding the wrong, and these are the successful ones.’
(III:104)

The reference to ‘ummat’ is to a select body of believers united in their ‘hearts’ as

‘brethren’ by God’s ‘favour’ (see III:102); in other words, an officiated collective (a
‘class’ or class-like formation) to enforce the principle of ‘what is right’ and police
‘the wrong’ that is forbidden; that is, to man and manage the jihad to secure and
ensure conformity to the moral regime, the right or good conduct, set out in the Koran
as Divine Law. And just to reemphasis the significant role of this special inclusive
collective entity (community) in the overall struggle to ensure social control, we have
the following verse: ‘You are the best community [khaira ummat ] that has been
brought forth [raised] for mankind; you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong, and
believe in God…’ (III:110)

The struggle to implement this principle implies, in practice, the annulment of the
rights of the individual as an individual; under this principle, the person who has
submitted may have rights as a Muslim, but not as a private or particular individual.
The attainment of ‘what is good’ requires that the individual subjects his/her strictly
personal interest to the umma’s interest. The ‘wrong’ forbidden is ‘civil’ wrong
strictly defined in terms of the Koran’s Divine Law (and the Sharia) policed by the
endeavour and the struggle (jihad) of an ‘outstanding’ group of believers which has
been charged to order ‘what is right’ and ‘forbid the wrong’. Individual personal ‘will’
is thus overshadowed by the authority vested in the ‘ummat’ of the divinely favoured
believers. The general aim of this social-control aspect of jihad is to submerge the
concrete individual in the religious abstraction of ‘being a good Muslim’. This aspect
of jihad is mainly and essentially an ideological endeavour, a struggle to exhort the
individual to act and behave in social and personal relations in an ideal (Islamic) way.
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The Expansion of the Umma: Compulsion v. Conversion

The policing of social control, it should be stressed, is a necessary component of the

practice of jihad to expand the dominion of Islam as a way of life; the integrating
factor here is the universality of the Truth of the Koran’s divine message. Conformity
and the right conduct of ‘being a good Muslim’, as a requirement – indeed, as an
‘honour’ and a ‘privilege’ – of belonging to the Islamic community, is simply a
necessary step in the process of struggle or jihad to spread God’s Word as the
universal Truth, which as such has no geographical limits. But this universality is the
abstract (theological) expression of Mohammad’s umma as a proto-political
community of believers, or the proto-state of the mu’mineen, in which all particular
interests appear unified into the whole as a social community of Muslims. The
spreading of the sway of the universal Truth is, therefore, dependent on the expansion
of this emergent state formation under the guise of the Islamic community. The
expansion of the Islamic community – expanding the territorial compass of Islam in a
propensity to make proselytes and the overthrowing of the systems of idolatry and of
disbelievers (of kafareen) – appears (is presented and believed to be), thus, the prime
requisite of ‘being a good Muslim’; for it is with that concrete expansion that the
‘good’ Muslims are spreading the sway of the universal Truth of the Koran. The idea
of spreading this Truth (or the faith and certainty in it) is indispensable, of course, to
establishing in life (on earth) that which God has willed; it is necessitated, as already
mentioned, by the very essence of the Koran’s divine message (the principle of
Tawhid). The putting into practice of this idea is central to the Koranic concept of
jihad. In other words, the crucial factor is that the directives and principles of the
Koran guide the activities of the submitted, so that the essential element of ‘being a
good Muslim’ is to struggle for God or in the way of God to expand by whatever
means possible the system of life based on the Koran as Allah’s Constitution.

The decisive historical and conceptual role and function of jihad were, then, the
extension of the jurisdiction of the Koran by the expansion of the compass of the
umma (as also that of its later transformed replacement, the theocratic state structure
under the Caliphate regimes). Jihad, however, was not essentially action and activity
of a ‘missionary’ kind, in the sense of the activities, the effort and endeavour, to
convert through the preaching of the Faith; it was the struggle postulated upon the
exercise of power to establish the umma as a world-historic system of life. Historically,
of course, jihad did involve the widespread process of conversion. But the process of
conversion is the demonstrative consequence of jihad, it does not define it. In any
case, to talk of conversion means to talk of an extended umma, of an extended socio-
political structure obliging as well as nurturing the appearance of the identity of the
particular and the universal – since, insofar as the Koran is concerned, to convert
means accepting the Deen of Islam as a way of life in its totality, ‘life’ as defined by,
conditioned by, the notion of submission, of being a Muslim, which, in principle,
overrides all other social, ethnic, tribal, cultural, etc. identity and cancels all
allegiances and loyalties except the allegiance of belonging to the Islamic community.
Conversion therefore was simply joining and affiliating with the Muslim community
by the turning of an individual, a group, or a people from a life of ‘disbelief’ to one
guided by the Word of God, the Koran; it was, in short, the enlargement of the
community covered by the Koran’s authority or, what is the same, the extension of the
jurisdiction of the socio-political structure (the umma) based on the Koran as Allah’s
Constitution. Hence, the policy of conversion can be said to have been part of the
basic strategic decision to extend the power structure of the Islamic authority – jihad
denotes the process of struggle necessary to initiate and fulfil that strategy.

Initially, as the process of struggle against the social condition of Jahiliyah or

‘ignorance’ began, the spatial setting of jihad was rather small, and the level of the
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struggle limited to the summoning of fellow Meccans to accept the One God (Allah)
and Mohammad as His Messenger. What was crucial even at this stage, contrary to the
myth of the absence of compulsion in Islam, was the intrusion of force into the
revelations summoning the Meccans to submit. In as much as Mohammad tempted the
Meccan disbelievers with the divine promise of Paradise, he attempted equally to
intimidate them by introducing the element of fear, by putting the fear of God’s
chastisement into their hearts and minds. The examples of such intimidating ayahs
(revealed at Mecca) are too many to give here in full; thus a few samples would have
to suffice: Upon the disbelievers God ‘shall invoke destruction’ and they ‘shall be
committed to the flaming fire’; and for not prostrating in obeisance upon
Mohammad’s recitation of the revelations, the Messenger is told to ‘announce…unto
them the news of a painful chastisement!’(LXXXIV:11-12 and 21-24) The
disbelievers are warned of: ‘Entering into the fire blazing. Made to drink from a spring
of boiling water. For them there shall not be food but the bitter-thorny fruit “Zaree”
[cactus]…whosoever turns back and disbelieves. Then God will chastise him with the
severest chastisement.’(LXXXVIII:4-6 and 23-24); and: ‘Those who disbelieve in Our
signs [ayat, revelations]…On them shall be the fire closed over.’(XC:19-20) And as
directly addressing one who openly rejected Mohammad’s claim of apostleship (a
relative, we are told, by the name of Abdul-Uzza, referred here to as ‘Abu-Lahab’,
who became the Prophet’s enemy), we have the following: ‘May perish the hands of
Abu-Lahab, and may perish he! Shall avail him not his wealth, neither what he earns.
Soon shall he burn in the blazing fire. And his wife, [shall be] the carrier of the
firewood. Upon her neck shall be a noose of rope [of twisted palm-fibre].’(CXI:1-5;
this is, by-the-by, the entire surah!) Could there be any more intimidation than the
threat of hanging a member of someone’s family? The significance of this surah is, in
fact, in it being a warning to all those who reject or even contemplate rejecting or
opposing Mohammad.

The myth of the absence of compulsion in Islam (‘compulsion’ in the sense of the
application of either physical force or of moral pressure as part of the exercise of
power and the action of jihad in order to make individuals or peoples submit to God’s
Will, to become Muslims), grew on the back of (and still is justified by) the now well-
known and widely quoted sentence of an ayah given in the second surah of the Koran,
which is translated as: ‘There is no compulsion in religion…’ or as: ‘No compulsion is
there in religion…’ (II:256) The Arabic original is: ‘La ikrah fee al-Deen…’ The more
or less accepted and standard English translation of this sentence is, however, rather
problematic. To begin with, there is a problem as regards the rendering of ‘ikrah’ as
‘compulsion’; ‘ikrah’ (from root k-r-h, or karh, to dislike, averse/hate, vb. Kariha) is
actually more precisely denoted by the words ‘aversion’ and ‘reluctance’, with the
connotation of ‘compulsion’ only suggested or implied indirectly. The far more
appropriate word to convey the idea of ‘force’ or ‘compulsion’ is ‘ijbar’ from ‘jabr’
(from root j-b-r). In theology, ‘jabr’ denotes the force of fate, that which determines
or causes determination in life and universe; thus ‘fatalism’ or ‘predestination’ (the
mathematical term ‘algebra’, ‘al-jabra’, is derived from this word).

Moreover, there is also a problem in the rendering of the concept of Deen as ‘religion’
in its commonly held connotation of a particular system of belief and worship of God
(we have already touched on this matter in an earlier chapter). Deen in the Koran
signifies a ‘way of life’ in accordance with the Truth, the rightness of principle and
practice, the rectitude, as determined by the Koran. A further point that should be
noted is that here ‘deen’ (whether translated as ‘religion’ or ‘way of life’) is solely a
reference to Islam and not to ‘deen’ (‘religion’) in general.
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Both these terms are essential to the meaning of the sentence; the use of the concept of
Deen rather than ‘religion’ and that of the word ‘reluctance’ or ‘aversion’ rather
‘compulsion’ completely changes its common acceptation.

Now, by applying these suggested amendments, we can give an alternative rendering

of the famous sentence as follows: ‘No reluctance [aversion] in the way of life [of
Islam]…’ In other words, not that ‘there is no compulsion’, but that there is no
unwillingness (or disinclination) to entertain Islam as the way of life. In fact, this latter
understanding, rather than that ‘compulsion’ or ‘force’ has no role or place in
‘religion’, is germane to the subject of the full verse. Put in context, it is quite evident
that the word ikrah rather than ijbar is apposite and applicable – and that is precisely
why the compilers of the Koran (or, if you like, ‘God speaking through Mohammad’)
had not used ijbar, as in ‘La ijbar fee al-deen’. What is also noteworthy is that the
ayah is in the indicative rather than imperative, in subject and in tone. If ‘compulsion’
or the use of force, in ‘religion’ or in al-deen, was considered as a forbidden practice
by Mohammad or by the compilers of the Koran, then the sentence and the full verse
would (or should) have been in the imperative, commanding the prohibition of
‘compulsion’. In any case, in order to demonstrate this point, let us here give the full
verse, with the alternative translation: ‘No reluctance [aversion] in the way of life;
verily, rectitude [the right way or the Truth] has become clearly distinct from error;
therefore, whosoever disbelieves in idols [taqoot – false deities; also Satan or those
associated with Satan; and also tyranny or oppressive authority] and believes in God,
has indeed laid hold of the most firm handle, which is unbreakable; and verily, God is
All-Hearing, All-Knowing.’(II:256) Hence, what the verse points out is that
manifesting neither the will nor the desire to have anything to do with Islam is simply
unreasonable given that ‘rectitude’ or the rightness of conduct (according to God’s
way) is now shown to be (presumably by Mohammad) clearly distinct from the ‘error’
of believing in and following false deities (taqoot). In other words, how could any
reasonable person be unwilling to submit when God (or Mohammad) has clarified the
right way from the wrong conduct? There is nothing implied in this verse regarding
‘compulsion’ or that ‘force’ either is not used or should not be used. Indeed, insofar as
the sense, purpose and substance of this verse is concerned, the notion of force is quite
irrelevant; the misinterpretation and mistranslation merely perpetuates the myth of the
absence of force in the spread and expansion of Islam (helpful, perhaps, to those
among Muslim scholars and leaders, particularly in modern times, who wish to spread
the idea of ‘peaceful’ Islam for their own particular political agenda).

But there are yet other verses that are frequently produced to support this myth; these
are claimed to confirm the notion of ‘choice’, of ‘freely’ converting to Islam by
choice, and hence by implication asserting the rejection of ‘compulsion’ – as if to be
in denial of the essential role of jihad in the expansion of the umma and hence of
Islam! Here we shall give the two most pertinent of these verses. The first of these,
generally quoted only in part, goes as follows: ‘And say: The Truth is from your Lord;
so let whosoever will [pleases] believe, and let whosoever will [pleases] disbelieve…’
(XVIII:29) And the second is as follows: ‘Verily, We have guided [hadaynuh] him
[man] upon the right way [al-Sabila] be he thankful [shakiran] or ungrateful
[kufuran].’ (LXXVI:3) It is suggested that these verses (including the following
dealing with the same theme: LXXIII:19; LXXIV:37; LXXVI:29) allows mankind
‘freedom of choice’ in accepting Islam or rejecting it – and therefore being ‘free’ to
choose means the absence of compulsion in Islam.

The assumption of the right or privilege to choose freely, in the first quote given here,
is based on simple disingenuousness by citing only the supposedly apposite sentences
and leaving out those that follow which actually spell out the meaning of the full
verse. The full verse is as follows: ‘And say: The Truth is from your Lord, and let
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whosoever will [pleases] believe, and let whosoever will [pleases] disbelieve; verily
We have prepared for the unrighteous [i.e. disbelievers] a fire, encompassing them in
its enclosure; and if they cry for water, they shall be given water like molten brass
which will scald their faces – how evil will be the drink, and how evil will be the
resting-place!’ (my italics) As it can be seen, the verse in full makes it clear that
should any individual or people ‘choose’ to disbelieve, then God will burn them in hell
– the message, in short, is: ‘believe or die a hellish death,’ that is your choice! Indeed,
it is no more than stating the obvious that the idea of ‘free choice’ simply does not sit
well with the emphatic message of the Koran, which absolutely condemns, damns,
disbelievers or whosoever rejects the Will of the One God, the Divine One or Allah.

The second verse cited above bases the assumption of ‘free choice’ on the inference of
‘thankfulness’ or ‘ungratefulness’ as ‘acceptance’ or ‘rejection’ respectively. Yet even
if one were to accept this inference, this does not mean that the Koran (or Mohammad)
acknowledges the right or privilege for mankind to reject God’s way (i.e. to be
‘ungrateful’), since that means ‘disbelief’ or kufr (kufr has actually the connotation of
‘ungratefulness’ as also of ‘rejection’), which is punishable in the here and now by
severe penalties, including death by beheading, as well as in the ‘hereafter’ by the fire
of hell. Thus, if to be ‘ungrateful’ (i.e. to reject God’s guidance) is fundamentally
unacceptable (which it is), then where is the choice, the right to choose freely? Indeed,
the very next verse in this surah gives the deathblow to this fiction of ‘choice’ in
Islam, and thus also to the myth of the absence of compulsion. Here is the next verse:
‘Verily, We have prepared for the disbelievers chains and shackles and a blazing
fire.’(LXXVI:4) Basically, then, mankind has the nonsensical ‘choice’ of either being
‘thankful’, i.e. submitting and being a believer, or of being ‘ungrateful’, i.e. rejecting
Islam and being a disbeliever, and thus burning in hell. This is (should one be
superstitious and religious) one hell of a terrifying choice!

The two verses given above are, in fact, good examples of coercion by intimidation, of
compulsion in the form of ‘mental’ pressure as aspects of the practice of jihad. They
are representative of the intrusion of force into the revelations summoning mankind to
submit. Given the predominance, in Mohammad’s Arabia, of the belief in supernatural
phenomena, of the powers of deities, and the superstitious belief in the extraordinary
and awesome effect of such powers, such revelations were particularly useful means
in the early phase of Mohammad’s jihad in the process of founding his movement –
they were meant to put, literally, the fear of God into his fellow Meccans!

In fact, given the nascent nature of Mohammad’s movement, during the Mecca period
his struggle or jihad was constraint by, among other factors, structural and
organisation deficiencies. Jihad under such conditions involved measures and
manoeuvres (schemes) other than open and direct combative action. The pagan forces
were far stronger than Mohammad’s and since Mohammad would not consider a
compromise with these unbelievers of Mecca, yet recognising the weaknesses of his
movement, in his jihad against them tactical considerations would have dictated a
face-saving stand-off positioning. This precisely is the meaning of the following
verses: ‘Verily, they are devising a scheme [guile]. And I am devising a scheme. So
respite the disbelievers; let them alone for a while.’(LXXXVI:15-17) What is implied
by these verses is that tactically Mohammad would have had to allow the disbelievers
to continue in their idolatry ways on a temporary basis (‘for a while’). This approach
on the part of Mohammad applies to the following surah, which is also often produced
in support of the ‘no compulsion’ myth: ‘Say: O you disbelievers! I serve not what
you serve. And nor do you serve Whom I serve. Nor shall I serve what you serve.
Neither shall you serve what I serve. Unto you be your deen, and unto me my
deen.’(CIX:1-6) In other words, granting the disbelievers ‘respite,’ or allowing them
to ‘serve’ and worship their idols, or to maintain their deen, was not a general
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endorsement or approval of their ways, nor the granting to them of the ‘freedom of
choice’ in their beliefs and deen. Mohammad, in short, was at that particular time
simply forced to a take a provisional stance. The element of force during this period
was, thus, most notably indirect because it had to be; it was part of the ploy, a
‘scheme’ devised by Mohammad, to play on the superstition of his fellow tribesmen
and clansmen by producing revelations picturing a vision of the wrathful and hellish
punishment that would be meted out by God.

Thus, if during the very beginning of Mohammad’s building of his movement in

Mecca (around 610-622 AD), jihad involved more the threat of violence (by God)
than the use of violent means, this was, merely, a manoeuvre dictated by the
disconcerting and difficult circumstances which Mohammad and his small band of
followers faced, rather than being a restriction placed upon the practice of jihad by
any divine directive.

Indeed, it is worth stressing this fact that there is not a single ayah in the Koran that
forbids outright the use of force in pursuit of the cause or way of God, of establishing
the supremacy of His Will according to His Word. And, furthermore, it is also
important to note here (though we have touched on this earlier) that once an individual
or a people has submitted, the matter of ‘freedom of choice’, as the following ayah
affirms, is completely put to rest once and for all: ‘And it is not for a male believer
[mu’min] or a female believer [mu’minat], when God and His Messenger have decreed
a matter, to have any choice in the affair; and whosoever disobeys God and His
Messenger, he verily has strayed off, a manifest straying.’(XXXIII:36; my italics)

At any rate, the (presumed) absence of actual physical force or violence during the
Mecca period of Mohammad’s jihad does not lessen the intrusive power of creating an
atmosphere of fear, which can, indeed, be quite an effective policy – coercion by
threat or intimidation can be rather efficacious! Perhaps an additional consideration
regarding this issue, to be noted here, is the role of tribal traditions, of kinship and
blood ties, that, in all likelihood, may have acted as constraints on the use of violence
– i.e. the constraints imposed on all affiliates, including Mohammad, by the customary
rules of conduct in conflict situations, or those governing authority and jurisdiction, as
well as those on honouring agreements and promises, and so on.

All of these constraints, of course, ran counter to the universalistic mission of

Mohammad. And what is clear from the Koran (and from the historical evidence
available, even the biased historical accounts) is that after the pilgrimage or hajj
(hijrah, ‘emigration’, or basically the forcing out of Mohammad from Mecca) and the
formation of the umma in Medina, armed struggle as the principle feature of jihad
became the prominent instrument of Mohammad’s policy to expand the umma,
increase its social base, and extend its sphere of influence and power. The reflection of
this can be seen in Koranic revelations proclaiming armed struggle, physical fighting,
and the killing of disbelievers, as well as hypocrites or munafiqeen (as enemies of
God), as integral to the divine obligation of jihad. This armed-struggle aspect of jihad
is denoted by the term qital.

The Concept of Qital

Qital (from root q-t-l) and the verb qatala refer to ‘killing’, ‘slaying’, ‘murder’,
‘slaughter’; the word qital (and its derivatives) also has the clear connotation of
‘combat’, ‘fighting’, in the physical, violent sense of these terms. And although it has
some other connotations as, for example, ‘to know and master something’, or ‘to be
worldly wise and have life-long experience’, the general translation of it as ‘fighting’
or ‘slaying’, depending on the context, denotes its most common usage in the Koran.
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The term qital refers to combative action inseparable from jihad. Thus, as a concept, it
signifies armed struggle in the way of God.

Armed struggle was, no doubt, a move expressing the historical need of the time. It is,
however, evident from the Koran that as a measure adopted by Mohammad against the
enemies of his God, it transfigured into a move that in practice shaped the dominant
strategy of jihad. Qital, it seems, had become within the last ten years or so of the life
of the Prophet ‘the driving spirit’ of jihad, and remained so for a long, long time after
his death. In the concept of jihad was embodied the universal task of the building of
the new Islamic order as the dominant way of life for humanity. That task was to be
achieved, consolidated and preserved by means of armed struggle or qital.
Accordingly, the essential potentialities of jihad were to realise themselves in the
same comprehensive process that was driven forward by the force of armed struggle.
Historically, indeed, the broader, more all-embracing struggle or jihad became so
overshadowed by its armed-struggle moment that the concepts of jihad and qital came
to be seen as almost synonymous. In the Koran, therefore, the formulated obligation of
jihad unfolds through the directive or command to fight and to kill in the cause of
God. In other words, the divine obligation of jihad is meaningless without the fact of
fighting or armed struggle as an essential condition for the constellation of actions and
activities involved in the process of spreading Islam.

Here, for example, is the ayah that commands qital, fighting or armed struggle, which
is then followed by an ayah that upholds jihad as being of the same obligation:
‘Fighting is prescribed for you [kutaba ‘alayukumu aluqitalu], but though you be
averse to it; and you may dislike a thing while it is good [khayr] for you; [just as] it
may be that you love a thing while it is bad for you; and verily God knows and you
know not.’(II:216) And: ‘Verily, those who believed and those who emigrated and
struggled in the way of God [wa jihadu fee Sabila Allah] – these have hope of God’s
mercy…’(II:218) The duty of all Muslims is to struggle (jihad) for God. But, in the
above verse, it is further stated that this struggle is ordained to be one of armed
struggle or fighting (qital). What is more, fighting is prescribed even if there is
aversion towards the use of violence or killing. The reference in this verse to the
requirement or order to fight even ‘though you be averse to it’ makes the ayah
unconditionally imperative. The obligation to fight is therefore extremely forceful and
demanding; the verse is not a ‘guidance’ that a Muslim can appeal against, avoid or
ignore (at least strictly speaking and in principle). In this, as in jihad of course, the
will of the individual Muslim, or that of Muslims generally, is effectively overruled
and subdued – for ‘God knows’ what is best for Muslims, as they ‘know not’!

The mention of ‘aversion’ and its dismissal, when looked at from the historical
perspective, can perhaps be said to be related to the disinclination on the part of some
of Mohammad’s followers to fight their (tribal) kinfolk. But the decree is also
concerned with the attempt to divest the fear of fighting among the ordinary rank and
file: ‘Hast thou not seen those whom it was said: Withhold your hands, and establish
prayer and pay the alms? But when fighting is prescribed for them, a party of them
fear men [i.e. those opposing them] as they would fear God, or with greater fear, and
they say: Our Lord! Why hast thou ordained fighting for us? Why not grant us respite
to a near end? Say [i.e. Mohammad]: The provisions of this world is but scant; and the
world [al-donya] to come is better for him who fears God; you shall not be wronged a
single date-stone.’(IV:77) Within the umma, among the larger community of Muslims,
fighting and perhaps even mobilisation for armed action must have been a problematic
political issue and, as evident from the Koran, this was recognised by Mohammad and
his successors: ‘And verily, among you there are those that hang back!...’(IV:72) For
practical and operational purposes, therefore, this reluctance to fight, whether out of
fear or dislike of killing fellow tribesmen, had to be reversed. The prescription on
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qital, it can thus be said, reflects the existence of this problem and was intended to
counter and eliminate it by making qital as one with the divine obligation of jihad.

Moreover, like much Koranic directives, the commandment to fight was propped up
by a series of, as it were, ‘sweetener’ revelations. Thus, in order to encourage
participation and strengthen the resolve of those already committed, the command to
fight was backed up by revelations that carried the divine promise of reward: ‘Let
those fight in the way of God [falyuqatil fee Sabila Allah] who barter this-worldly life
for the hereafter; and whosoever fights in the way of God, be he slain or victorious,
We shall bestow on him a great reward.’(IV:74) In terms of the policy of mobilisation,
the call to arms needed the assurance of recompense as also of compensation for those
respondents and participants who had either fallen or been injured in action; and thus
we have the following ayah: ‘Those who answered the call of God and the Messenger
[even] after injury had befallen them – those among them [i.e. among the respondents]
who do good [done the right deed] and feared God is a great reward.’(III:172) And the
assurance went so far as to assert that those killed in fighting for God should not be
reckoned as dead: ‘And reckon not those who are slain in the way of God, to be dead;
nay, alive they are and with their Lord, by Him sustained.’(III:169; see also II:154) In
this can be seen the bracing of the idea of dying for the cause of God; and indeed
rejoicing such fatality as due to God’s beneficence, as the next verse declares in
respect of those slain in the way of God: ‘Rejoicing in what God of His grace has
granted them [i.e. the ones killed in action], and joyful in those who remain behind
and have yet to join them, that no fear shall come on them nor shall they grieve. They
rejoice in the grace and bounty from God and that God leaves not to be lost the reward
of the believers [mu’mineen].’(III:170-71) In fact, the promise of reward goes further
and, once again, includes the ultimate promise of Paradise: ‘…They, therefore, who
emigrated and were turned out of their homes and suffered in My way and who fought
and were slain, I will most certainly forgive their sins and I will certainly admit them
into gardens beneath which flow rivers; a reward from God, and with Him is the
excellent reward.’(III:195)

Fighting against Fitnah

What is evident from all such revelatory promises is that the commitment to
Mohammad and his cause was less than wholehearted at least among the general
inhabitants of Medina. Indeed, there is no doubt that the Prophet (but even more so,
his successors) was faced with the problem of dissention over and above the outright
hostility of disbelievers outside the jurisdiction of the umma. The ideological struggle,
it seems, was proving less effective than one would suppose Mohammad and his
companions had hoped for or anticipated. From the number of revelations in the Koran
concerned with the ‘hypocrites’ or munafiqeen – that is, with the problematic of
feigned piety and affectation of religiosity – there is good ground to infer that there
was even at the time of Mohammad’s umma growing discontent and opposition within
Muslim ranks, among converts, and also among some of the Ansar as well as certain
Bedouin tribes. Upon the same ground, moreover, it is certain that these so-called
hypocrites were increasingly becoming more than a source of mere irritation, but a
politically important cause for concern, inciting sedition, threatening rebellious
conduct or actually causing strife – what is in the Koran referred to as fitnah – which
could not be left unchallenged. Thus, the Koran’s proclamations of jihad against the
hypocrites, which is reflected in numerous verses that were produced (revealed) to
deal with this problem (fitnah was to become far more serious and widespread after
Mohammad’s death and even a graver, more dangerous situation during the rule of his
immediate successors and the Caliphate regimes of the Umayyads and the Abbasids).
The issue of fitnah, as distinct from the general problem of ‘disbelief’, was
fundamentally, therefore, a political problem that had actually surfaced only with the
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establishment of the umma, with the formation of Mohammad’s proto-state, in

Medina. It was as a result of the increasing concentration of power in the hands of the
Prophet and his immediate companions (the mu’mineen) that discontent, opposition
and dissention had begun to grow. This is reflected in the following verse: ‘And of
those Arabs [Bedouins] who are [dwell] around you, there are hypocrites; and the
inhabitants of Medina are grown bold [stubborn] in hypocrisy…’(IX:101; my italics)

In practice, the problem was never fully resolved either by Mohammad or by any of
his successors. The struggle or jihad to establish the ideological hegemony of Islam
was of course deeply concerned with the attempt to eradicate fitnah; although, in the
long term, the process merely resulted in, at best, containing it. For Mohammad, at
any rate, the increasingly difficult political situation of fitnah was rather as equally
important to deal with as the challenge of spreading his message by crushing the tribes
and forces hostile to his apostleship (particularly the Quraysh). In both cases, he had to
resort to the use of physical force, basically qital. But the qital against dissenters was
justified on the basis of ‘deception’ and ‘imposture’, and so the dissenters were
declared to be munafiqeen or hypocrites (see II:8-16). As the ‘corrupters of the earth’
or ‘mischief-makers’(see II:205) they were declared to be under the ‘judgement of
Taqoot’ or Satan (see IV:60) and hence as ‘evil’ as the kafareen or the disbelievers, if
not more so. The hypocrites were, in short, regarded as an enemy: ‘…They are the
enemy, so beware thou [i.e. Mohammad] of them! May God annihilate them, whence
do they deviate!’(LXIII:4) And therefore the killing of them encouraged as basic to
the divine obligation of jihad. Thus in the following verse the ‘guiding’ of hypocrites
is questioned and decreed to be refused: ‘What is the matter with you, that you are two
parties about the hypocrites [munafiqeen], and [yet] God has cast them off [return
them to unbelief] for what they have earned? Do you intend to guide those whom God
has forsaken to go astray? But those whom God has forsaken to go astray, you shall
never find for them a way.’(IV:88) And upon this pronouncement of divine protest
and refusal, there follows the directive to fight and kill the hypocrites, should they not
return to God’s way: ‘They long that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, so that
you would be alike; therefore take not from among them guardians [vali] until they
emigrate in the way of God; but if they turn back [i.e. turn their backs to God’s way],
then seize them and slay them wherever you find them, and take none of them as
guardian or as helper.’(IV:89)

In political terms, the fact of disobeying and opposing the authority of Mohammad
and that of the mu’mineen (his elite group of companions – effectively, his successors)
was the essential motive for jihad against the hypocrites: ‘And whosoever acts
hostilely [opposes or breaches with] the Messenger after the Guidance has become
manifest to him and follows a way other than the mu’mineen’s, We will turn him to
that which he has turned and will cast him into Hell [jahanam]; and it is an evil
destination!’(IV:115)

Fitnah, however, is something of a blanket term, covering situations of ‘unrest’, of

‘mischief’, of ‘corruption’, of ‘oppression’ as well as of ‘sedition’ that affected the
authority of Mohammad’s umma, its cause and its goal of extending its jurisdiction.
But, even though it covers situations involving disbelievers, it is not fundamentally a
political situation of sedition brought on by those who stood up for a different creed
that challenged the basic idea of submission to the will of the One God or Allah. The
strife, the seditious conduct, that the Koran is principally concerned with was one
brought on for the most part by those from among the Muslims themselves or by those
who had pledged allegiance to Mohammad and the umma; fitnah was chiefly an
internal political problem of the umma – thus the term munafiqeen or hypocrites,
dissemblers. For the Islamic movement, these Muslim hypocrites (considered as
‘turncoats’; these were the people who had ‘turned’ after they had embraced Islam, see
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IX:74) were politically extremely dangerous – thus, it is said of them: ‘Verily, the
hypocrites are in the lowest level of the fire [of hell]…’(IV:145). They were
considered as highly dangerous since they could confront the authorities (the
controllers of the umma, as also the later rulers of the Islamic state) from within the
same tradition, challenging their orthodoxy and their power-base upon more or less
the same ideological, theological, and political basis, which would or could have,
potentially, great resonance among the submitted in general. In other words, it was
precisely because they were intimately connected with the same belief system that
they could cause the kind of ‘mischief’ that could lead to sedition and civil strife: ‘Had
they [the hypocrites] gone forth with you [i.e. in jihad] they would not have added to
you aught save sedition [fitnah] and they would certainly have hurried about among
you to sow dissension among you; and amidst you there are those who listen to
them…’(IX:47) And Mohammad was directed not to allow them to join him in
fighting his enemies: ‘…say thou: You shall never go forth with me and you shall
never fight [tuqatalwa] an enemy with me…’(IX:83)

The struggle or jihad against them on all fronts, therefore, was a matter of immense
importance and urgency: ‘O Prophet! Struggle [jahada] against the disbelievers and
the hypocrites, and be harsh with them; their abode is Hell [jahanam]…’(IX:73) This
struggle included, of course, the kind of armed, violent action or qital against them
that was also ordained to be used against all disbelievers. For, insofar as the powers
that be were concerned, self-evidently, the problem of sedition or fitnah, encouraged
and championed by the so-called hypocrites (effectively seen as being in collusion
with the external enemy of disbelievers), was of greater import and exigency than the
principle or the honour-code or tribal tradition prohibiting killing or slaughtering (qatl,
murder) of those from among the same community, as in the case of those belonging
to the umma. Thus we have the following ayah that establishes the universally
applicable ordinance on the issue of fitnah: ‘And slay them [i.e. anyone causing
fitnah] wherever you find them….for fitnah is more grievous than slaughter [al-
qatula]…’(II:191; my italics) And the matter of fitnah was considered so grave as to
require the fighting of those thought to be instigating it, as disbelievers, even if
necessary at the Sacred Mosque or the Ka’ba. And thus the above quoted ayah
continues: ‘…but fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you
therein, then, if they fight you, slay them; such is the recompense of disbelievers.’
(ibid.; my italics)

From the political perspective, the authority of the umma, as with its structural
integrity and wider jurisdiction based on ‘treaties’ and ‘allegiances’, had to be
protected against fitnah, since the very mission of Mohammad and the spreading of his
message proclaiming the sovereignty of the Will of the One God depended on it. He
had thus asserted to have been given absolute authority by God to despatch anyone
causing fitnah: ‘…whenever they return to fitnah, they plunge into it headlong;
therefore, if they withdraw not from you and not submit nor restrain their hands, then
seize them and slay them wherever you find them; and against these We have given
you perspicuous absolute authority [sultana mubina].’(IV:91)

Fitnah, which was particularly whipped up and inflamed by the Prophet’s powerful
tribal enemies of Mecca, was not only a threat to the structural integrity of his umma,
but a sign of the weakness of his God, endangering his whole project. Thus we have
the following verse, which reiterates the urgency of fighting to holt fitnah in order to
ensure and secure God’s ordained way of life: ‘And fight them until there is no fitnah
and there is only God’s deen [way of life], but if they desist [from mischief or causing
fitnah], then there should be no hostility, save against the oppressors.’(II:193) The
same point is stressed in VIII:39; and in this next verse the problem of fitnah is, again,
declared not only to be more of a serious matter than the slaughter that is necessary to
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quell it, but pronounced to be even more grievous than having to breach the
prohibition on fighting during the holy month: ‘They question you concerning the
sacred month, and fighting in it. Say: Fighting in it is grievous, but to bar from God’s
way, and to reject Him [kufuru-bih], and [hinder access] to the Sacred Mosque, and to
oust its [locals] inhabitants [wa ikhraju ahulah – ahl is a common term for ‘belonging
to’ a locality or a community/tribe; perhaps the nearest English equivalent is as being
‘a local’] are still graver with God, and fitnah is more heinous than the slaughter [i.e.
the killing necessary to fight these atrocious acts]; and they [i.e. those responsible for
the mentioned mischievous acts] will not cease fighting you till they turn you from
your deen, if they can; and whosoever of you turns from his deen, and dies as a
disbeliever, these are they whose acts [a‘amal pl. of ‘amal – also denotes works,
deeds, actions] have come to nothing in this world and the hereafter; and they are the
inmates of the fire [hell], therein shall they abide.’(II:217; my italics)

‘Fee Sabila Allah’: the Koranic Justification of Violence

Considered politically, then, the movement of Islam was grounded principally on the
jihad to advance and spread the socio-political system first established in Medina. It is
for this reason that fitnah was seen as a ‘grave’ matter, for it posed a threat to the
success of this new project. The success of this project depended on the exercise of
power by an organised and disciplined force. The umma, founded at Medina, became
the basic institution that co-ordinated and sanctioned such a force and, as the political
(proto-political) precursor of the theocratic state (the Caliphate), it became, through
the person of Mohammad as its Head, the prime mover of the historical process of
jihad and qital. This historical process of struggle (armed actions as well as
ideological struggles), as it has been argued, was thus political in essence. In the
historical period of the umma (and its successor states), however, the political
manifested itself in and through the religious; hence the struggle waged by
Mohammad and his umma (and those waged by the later Caliphate regimes) was
always executed in the Way of God. Throughout the Koran, therefore, all fundamental
references to the practice of jihad and qital are qualified by the expression ‘fee Sabila
Allah’ or ‘in the Way of God’ (sometimes shortened to ‘fee Allah’ or ‘for God’), as,
for example: ‘And fight in the way of God and know you that God is the All-hearer
and the All-knower.’(II:244) The expression justifies and legitimises the exercise of
power; it makes the use of force constitutionally permissible and lawful. It is in this
the antithesis of fighting ‘in the way of Taqoot’ – that is, fighting for ‘Satan’ or, in
this-worldly terms, in the way of the enemies or oppressors of Muslims: ‘Those who
believe fight in the way of God and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Taqoot;
fight therefore against the guardians of Taqoot; surely, the strategy of Taqoot is
weak.’(IV:76)

Fee Sabila Allah is the Koranic expression that encapsulated the political ‘inspiration’
of the umma’s struggle to consolidate itself as a dominant and expanding power. It is
the expression that, thus, ‘metaphysically’ determines and defines the obligation of
jihad and qital as divine, and, at the same time, sanctifies this divine obligation in
terms of active obedience in servitude or ibadah, which makes jihad and qital appear
as irreproachably just and moral. The moral element of fighting ‘in the Way of God’,
in the personal sense, is, for example, implied in the following verse: ‘Fight then in the
Way of God [faqtilu fee Sabila Allah]; you are tasked [tukalafu – from taklyf meaning
task, duty] but for thyself; and urge on [harza] the mu’mineen, perhaps [then] God will
restrain the might of disbelievers. Verily, God is stronger in might and the severest in
punishing.’(IV:84; my italics) Thus, an aspect of the strength of the obligation of
fighting for God is in the moral sense of it being a duty which is personally felt and
imposed as a responsibility – being charged to fight for God, in short, is or should be a
personally exacting moral conduct, and as such amenable to God.
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The moral element, as also the lawful element, of jihad and qital lies in the truth-claim
of the action or practice involved as being ‘in the Way of God’. The criterion for
evaluating this is, in strictly fundamental terms, exclusively revelatory; it is based on
the revelations in the Koran. Thus, specific acts or deeds discharged by Muslims
fighting in the way of God could only be regarded as ‘moral’ and ‘lawful’ if they are
in accordance with what is set down in the Koran. Strictly speaking, a Muslim cannot
fight or kill simply on his or her personal claim of such an act being ‘in the way of
God’. Belief or iman also comes into play here; but again fighting in the way of God
based on a claim of personal belief is not necessarily either moral or lawful. The
actions covered by the concept of qital (or jihad) must be judged to be in accordance
with the revelations given in the Koran in order for them to be ethical or legal. This
judgement, needless to say, presupposes a judge; that is, it calls for an agency
recognised and acknowledged as being qualified to pronounce the judgment. It is for
this reason that the principle of fighting or killing ‘in the Way of God’ is deeply
engaged with the political process.

Historically, in the very beginning of Islam, Mohammad was the sole judge and his
was the sole judgement. After his death the issue of morality and lawfulness was dealt
with by his immediate successors (the right guarded Caliphs) as leaders/rulers of the
umma and as the principal interpreters of the Prophet’s revelations. But eventually,
with the rise of the ulama, it was this latter who, within a political compromise
situation, established themselves, and were recognised, to make the necessary
judgement as the qualified interpreters of the revelations – the rulers or Caliphs (also
Sultans, etc.) came to act as the chief executers of the judgement.

However, fundamentally, in terms of the spirit and the letter of the Koran, any
‘knowledgeable’ and ‘respected’ Muslim can make a judgment on the morality or
lawfulness of an act of fighting ‘in the Way of God’ and thus issue an instruction for
its execution as long as he is acknowledged by and within a Muslim constituency (and
this does not have to be by ‘election’ or by the recognition of a majority or the whole
of Muslim community) as a distinguished upright devotee of the deen of Islam and as
long as he is able to show that his judgement is derived from the Koran. The history of
Islam is littered with such figures (indeed, to this day!) – Muslims who declared jihad
and qital independently of (and often against and in opposition to) the officiated body
of the ulama and of the rulers of a particular Islamic state.

At bottom, at any event, all conditions and caveats concerning the morality and
lawfulness of jihad and qital come to rest on the question of ‘belief’, ‘faith’, or iman;
iman is, undoubtedly, central to the understanding and implementation of jihad and
qital ‘in the Way of God’. So that the morality and lawfulness of fighting or killing ‘in
the way of God’ are related to having iman in ‘what has been revealed to Mohammad’
(XLVII:2) – i.e. the Koran. This is what after all defines a person as a Muslim –
believing in Mohammad’s message as divine (and not simply in monotheism; for
otherwise Jews and Christians would also need to be regarded as ‘Muslims’!). Belief,
in this specific sense of Mohammad being the Last Prophet and the Koran being the
Last Word of God, is thus set in opposition and conflict to ‘disbelief’ – and jihad and
qital are fundamentally aimed at defeating disbelief in the world of humanity. It is
incumbent on all Muslims to struggle (jihad) against disbelief and to fight (qital)
disbelievers ‘in the Way of God’. In fighting disbelievers (or hypocrites), for example,
it is considered moral and lawful, in the Koran, not only to fight and kill them, but
even to ‘crucify’ them or ‘cut off’ their hands and feet, etc.(see V:33)

Therefore, extreme violence used against disbelievers is ethical and legal – obviously
when carried out ‘in the Way of God’ – basically on the grounds of their disbelief in
the divine message of Mohammad, which is expressed by the Koranic notion of kufr;
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that is, because disbelievers ‘turn their back upon [saduwua] the Way of
God’(seeXLVII:1), and do not follow, as believers do, the truth revealed to
Mohammad alone; they follow something of no force, of no validity, something which
is null, non-existent: ‘…those who disbelieve follow nullity [al-batila – often
translated as ‘falsehood’], and those who believe follow the truth from their
Lord…’(XLVII:3) Thus, on the basis of this (Mohammad/Muslim) projected factitious
notion of disbelief or kufr, anyone who turned his/her back on or opposed
Mohammad’s Islamic movement was liable to receive the most brutal treatment at the
hands of the mu’mineen under the pretext of fighting in the way of God: ‘So when you
encounter those who disbelieve, smite their necks until you have annihilated
[decimated] them, then either fetter the captives in bondage or set them free as by a
binding obligation or by ransom, till the burden of the instruments [awzar – i.e. arms,
weapons] of the war [al-harb] are laid down. So it is commanded; and if God had
willed, He would have exacted retribution from them; but that He may try some of you
by means of others. And those who are slain in the Way of God, never will He allow
their deeds to go in vain.’(XLVII:4) And it is made abundantly clear that the brutality
commanded in the above verse is justified because the disbelievers ‘have been averse
to what God has sent down…’ and that they had turned ‘their back upon the Way of
God and opposed the Messenger after the Guidance has been made manifest unto
them…’(XLVII:9 and 32; see also 34)

Jihad against Kufr

Indeed, kufr was and was deliberately built up to be such a fundamentally important
reason for unremitting hostility that the socio-political cause of the propagation of
Islam was almost completely hidden by the religious motive of countering kufr
wherever and in whatever form the idea presented itself. This essentially ideological
struggle between Islam and kufr was the manifestation of the underlying political
struggle for an ever-expanding social domination. The historical movement of Islam’s
growth and expansion as seen on the surface appears dominated by the great enmity
towards kufr and consequently by the jihad against those whose consciousness was
claimed and declared to be distorted and corrupted by it – the kafareen.

The conception of kufr has the great convenience of blanket applicability; it covers
any system of belief, values and views that is considered to be contrary to that
contained in the Koran. It covers shirk (the association of anything or anyone with
God – thus idolatry), nifaq (hypocrisy), as well as the Judaic and Christian belief
systems (though these latter were to some degree ‘tolerated’ under certain stringent
conditions – see XXII:17, where this is hinted at in connection with the overall
attitude towards the struggle against disbelief). Jihad is thus commanded against all
those who follow these ‘contrary’ systems as ways of life – it was just, moral and
lawful, thus, to fight and kill mushrikeen (idolaters) and munafiqeen (hypocrites)
unless they repented. But insofar as those who follow shirk, the mushrikeen, once God
has condemned them to damnation, there shall be no retrieve, even for close relatives:
‘It is not for the Prophet and those who believe to seek forgiveness for the idolaters
[al-mushrikeen], even if they should be near of kin, after it has been proclaimed unto
them that they are the inmates of Hell.’(IX:113)

As for Jews and Christians, as already noted, historically they were, as People of the
Book, for the most part tolerated as long as they did not interfere with the advance and
spreading of Islam and paid the appropriate tribute (jizyah) to the state, in which case
they, as dhimmis, came under the protection of the Islamic state: ‘Fight you those who
believe not in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what God and His Messenger
have forbidden, and follow not the True Deen [deen al-haq – i.e. Islam as the right
way of life based on the truth revealed in the Koran], being of those who have been
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given the Book, until they pay the tribute [jizyah] by their hand [i.e. as a sign of
subservience] and they remain in subjection.’(IX:29; my italics) Nonetheless, any
interference in the affairs of the Islamic state, particularly if this was considered to be
of an ‘aggressive intent,’ would justify jihad and qital against them. For, in spite of the
fact that the People of the Book were regarded as to be, by monotheistic inclination,
part of a ‘single community [umma]’ of faith as Mohammad’s (see XXI:92), they
were, nonetheless, in strict Koranic terms, fundamentally considered as ‘disbelievers’
on the basis of shirk – that is, for associating their Prophets with God, which goes
against the fundamental principle of the Oneness of God or Tawhid: ‘And say the
Jews: Ezra is the Son of God; and say the Christians: The Messiah is the Son of God;
that is the utterance of their mouths, conforming with the saying of the disbelievers
before them; God fights them…’ And, moreover, their shirk goes even further than
this, for they: ‘Take their rabbis and their monks as lords besides God, and Messiah
son of Mary, while they were commanded to serve the One God only; there is no god
but He; glory be to Him above that [which] they associate [with the One
God].’(IX:30-31)

This application of shirk to Jews and Christians is indicative of the rivalry between
Mohammad’s Islam and these already well-established monotheistic movements – a
kind of duel of beliefs initiated by Mohammad through the improvisation of the initial
application of the notion of shirk. In its initial application, shirk was a notion
exclusively related to the pagan belief system dominant among Meccans and the Arab
tribes of Hijaz, and Mohammad was specifically tasked to warn them of this kufr: ‘Say
[i.e. Mohammad]: What! Bid you me to serve others than God? O you ignorant ones!
And indeed has it been revealed unto you and unto those before you: Verily, if you
associate [anyone or anything with God], certainly your deeds would come to naught
and certainly you would be of the losers.’(XXXIX:64-65) Shirk was directly related,
in its concrete and conceptual development, to the so-called world of Jahiliyah and
Mohammad’s jihad against idolaters – as, for example, indicated by this verse: ‘We
will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve because they have associated
with God that for which He has sent down no authority…’(III:151; my italics) And it
was because of this never-authorised association, because of shirk, that fighting and
destroying them was divinely permitted and as a result Mohammad had obtained what
God had promised him: ‘And certainly God made good to you His promise when you
exterminated them by His permission…’(III:152)

With the change of circumstances of jihad (the intensification and the necessity of the
widening of the umma’s struggle) had come, naturally, a change of politics, and Jews
and Christians, as ideological rivals of Islam, came to be included within the orbit of
shirk, and thus became the subjects of political hostility within both the broad practice
of jihad and even that of qital when political expediency demanded. Moreover, in the
way the Koran raises this matter, Jews and Christians (regarded as untrustworthy for,
apparently, secretly acting against Mohammad’s rule), were not to be taken as
‘guardians’ or ‘valis’: ‘O you who believe! Take you not the Jews and the Christians
for guardians; they are guardians of each other; and whosoever of you takes them as
guardians, verily he is one of them; verily God guides not an unjust folk.’ (V:51) In
principle, nevertheless, repentance was the simplest way out of this situation, with
Jewish and Christian communities and tribes becoming subjects of the umma (or the
Islamic state) by ‘treaty’.

However, as pointed out, repentance generally, but particularly in the case of the
idolaters, had some severe conditions attached to it (e.g. payment of a special tax,
bondage of one kind or other, provisions of slaves, particularly for military use, etc.).
It was only under these circumstances that, upon the establishment of a covenant,
immunity was granted in the name of God. The formal declaration of such immunity
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is given in the following ayah: ‘Immunity from God and His Messenger unto the
idolaters with whom you made covenant.’(IX:1) But the immunity granted not only
went with some strings attached, it also contained a warning that firstly, Mohammad
and his forces are free of any obligation towards idolaters, and that secondly, the latter
are not thereby given freedom to go back to their old ways – in most cases historically,
the immunity granted was thus a temporary measure, a respite. This is how the matter
is stated: ‘And a proclamation from God and His Messenger unto the people on the
day of the great pilgrimage [hajj-e akbar – refers to the annual visit to the Ka’ba in
Mecca]: God is quit [baraya or bara’at – free of, or finished with], and His
Messenger, of the idolaters; it is better for you therefore to repent; but if you turn your
backs, know you that you cannot weaken God; and announce to those who disbelieve,
a painful chastisement; excepting those of the idolaters with whom you made
covenant, who failed you not and supported not anyone against you, with them fulfil
your covenant till the end of their term…’(IX:3-4; my italics) The ‘term’ referred to
here is a ‘respite’ during, for example, the ‘sacred months’. After this term is up,
however, should they have not repented, then the command is to kill them: ‘So when
the sacred months are passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them,
and seize them and besiege them and lie in wait for them at all ambush sites. Then if
they repent and establish prayer and give alms [zakat – the specifically Islamic
‘charitable’ tax], then let them go on their way.’(IX:5; my italics) For, it should be
stressed that ‘repentance’ is fully accepted, according to the Koran, not merely as a
show of sorrow or regret, but essentially as a change of heart, as of submitting. The
equating of repentance with submission is clearly suggested in the following ayah:
‘But if they repent and establish prayer and pay the alms [zakat], then they are your
brethren in the deen…’(IX:11; my italics) Short of complete submission, then,
disbelievers (including the People of the Book) will be considered and treated as
kafareen or ‘infidels’.

The sanction of jihad against kufr or disbelief and of qital against disbelievers or
kafareen is so deeply embedded in the message of the Koran that Chapter IX (called
‘Repentance’), as perhaps the most salient of the Surahs chiefly concerned with the
question of confronting disbelief and disbelievers, was actually composed to begin
without the standard and obligatory ‘Bessmellah’ attestation (i.e. ‘In the Name of God,
the Merciful, the Compassionate’) as a clear uncompromising sign or declaration of
bellicose approach and attitude towards kufr. It was meant, in short, as an
unambiguous warning message to all the mu’mineen (and all the submitted) and an
emphatic notice to the world of disbelief or kufr that God and His Messenger will have
no mercy or compassion in dealing with it! For, the mu’mineen are repeatedly
reminded that disbelievers cannot really be trusted to keep their pledge, ‘observing
neither bond nor treaty’ and that they are ‘transgressors’, and, in fact, are constantly
attempting to ‘turn others away from His [God’s] way’.(IX:9-10) This distrust ran
deep and was a problem that concerned the untrustworthy character and role of the
Chiefs or Leaders of the disbelieving communities or tribes Mohammad faced (such as
Abu-Sufyan, the Chief of the House of Umayya, and effectively the military Head of
the Qurayshite confederacy opposing Mohammad’s umma), as indicated by this verse:
‘And if they violate their pledge after their covenant and revile your deen, then fight
the Chiefs [ummata, Leaders] of disbelief, verily their oaths [mean] nothing…’(IX:12;
my italics)

The struggle against kufr was so intense that the Koran instructs the submitted to
oppose and fight it even within their household and family: ‘O you who believe! Take
you not your fathers and brothers as guardians if they love disbelief [kufr] above belief
[iman]; and whosoever of you takes them as guardians, those they are the unjust
[zalim – oppressor, also one who acts against what is right or the truth].’(IX:23) But
one of the main concerns behind this ordinance was to re-endorse the exalted practice
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of jihad in the way of God. Historically, though Muslim forces had had a number of
successes in skirmishes and battles against their Meccan enemies, particularly at the
battle of Badr, after their defeat in the battle of Uhud, Mohammad was under great
pressure to not only protect his umma, but also as part of a continuous effort, as
remarked before, to reconfirm and demonstrate the power of his God by the strength
of his own leadership in the struggle against disbelievers. Political expediency thus
demanded the reiteration of the divine calling to jihad as the most eminent
manifestation of serving God and as therefore a vastly superior undertaking than even
trade (which was considered a pious, even an almost ‘scared,’ practice) and as a more
precious concern than family or property. This is how God tells Mohammad to put this
crucial matter across to his followers: ‘Say: If your fathers, your sons, your brothers,
your wives, your clan, and your possessions that you have gained, and the slow-down
in trade that you fear, and the dwellings that you love, are dearer to you than God and
His Messenger and jihad in His way, then wait till God brings His
command…’(IX:24; my italics)

Jihad and the Acquisition of Wealth

Jihad against kufr was thus commanded to be carried out at all social levels. The
consolidation of Mohammad’s umma and its growth and expansion naturally
depended on such all-out, exhaustive and unremitting struggle. But crucially also,
there was of course ‘wealth’ to be gained by fighting the kafareen. Thus it was that in
their struggle against kafareen, there would be ‘great many acquisitions [spoils] which
they [i.e. the mu’mineen] will take…’ as ‘God did promise great many acquisitions
[spoils] which you will take and speed this unto you…’(XLVIII:19-20) Under its
essentially political-ideological impulse, jihad had definite and pronounced economic,
commercial and fiscal objectives. The control of the caravan trade could only be
achieved by the military defeat of the disbelieving tribes/clans (particularly the
Quraysh of Mecca) conducting and dominating this lucrative undertaking. The capture
of oases in the hands of disbelievers was absolutely crucial for gaining access to water
and food provisions and hence vital to the survival and the process of the umma’s
expansion. Qital brought in booty, and more importantly tribute – both unquestionably
essential to the political and military functioning of the umma. Qital expeditions were
quite integral to the advancing of the prosperity of the umma, and certainly
particularly significant to the augmentation of umma/state treasury as well as the
mu’mineen’s possessions and wealth. The Jewish and Christian tribes and
communities were a target of qital, for example, not only because of their embracing
of shirk, but also because they were a source of tribute and moreover of booty, as we
see this hinted at in this verse: ‘O you who believe! Verily, many of the rabbis and
monks eat away possessions of the people invalidly and bar from the way of God.
Those who hoard gold and silver and expend it not in the way of God, announce unto
them a painful chastisement.’(IX:34) In other words, the wealth hoarded is decreed
here to be unethically/unlawfully obtained (from ordinary people) and not used in the
way of God, consequently a perfectly legitimate asset to be seized. Similarly, the
fighting of the idolaters had as part of its underlying purpose the gaining of suchlike
divine bounties. And, more specifically, as regards those idolaters who controlled
Mecca, there was, besides the all-important trade issue, the relatively smaller, yet
rewardingly revenue-making, matter of the control of the Ka’ba (referred to as the
Sacred Mosque) – the revenue was obtained mainly from the pilgrimage to it by Arab
idolaters as a longstanding shrine. The matter of the acquisition of the revenue
associated with the Ka’ba, as a consequence of fighting for the prohibition of the
‘unclean’ idolaters from approaching or controlling the holy site, is implied in this
verse: ‘O you who believe! Verily, the idolaters are unclean, so let them not approach
the Sacred Mosque after this their year; and if you fear poverty, then God will enrich
you of His bounty, if He wills…’(IX:28; my italics)
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Economical gain from fighting was undoubtedly an extremely significant factor in the
early periods of jihad, as it was, and more so, in the later expansionist wars.
Mohammad, by background, experience and inclination, was certainly quite
commercially minded – his divine message regarding jihad was as much concerned
with the gaining of political power over all Arab tribes as with that of acquisition of
wealth and of the control of Arab commercial life. However, both the pursuit of power
as well as that of wealth was seen through the camera obscura of religious
consciousness. Under the social conditions of Mohammad’s umma, and also of the
states that succeeded it, wealth came with the control of power, and power (hence also
wealth) appeared in the perception of those in control of the state, as well as their
subjects, as a favour or a gift from God. But this aspect of the historical age does not
make the acquisition of goods, possessions, of wealth and property, an inferior pursuit
to the gaining of, and augmentation of, political power insofar as those involved in
jihad were, for example, concerned.

It is true that there are revelatory rulings in the Koran against the amassing of wealth
(see, for example, CII:1 and CIV:2-3). But Mohammad’s rulings opposing the
amassing of wealth were based on two interlinked factors: on the one hand, the
political factor of opposing the amassing of wealth in the hands of the tribal and clan
chiefs of the Quraysh who were his diehard enemies; and on the other hand, such
rulings concerned the hoarding of wealth, associated with greed and avarice – the
gaining of wealth or the rewarding of ‘good’ deeds with the granting of wealth is not
in any way against either the spirit or the letter of the Koran. Wealth was, and could be
within the juridical framework of the Koran, amassed through mercantile activities,
through state appointments over tribute and tax collections, through state grants of
landholdings, and quite legally and on a large scale through ‘spoils’ of war. For all
such wealth received and amassed, God was thanked as its ‘true’ source. The bounties
of God from fighting (e.g. booty or spoils) were, thus, fully and persistently embraced
and defended by the ‘soldiers of God’ or the mujahideen – this and other ways of
gaining wealth by means of jihad (‘other acquisitions [spoils] you were not able to
take, God has verily encompassed them’ XLVIII:21) was part of their mindset and
recognised as a crucial incentive by Mohammad (i.e. in the Koran): ‘Eat then of what
you have taken as booty [qanymat], which is lawful and good; and fear you God;
verily God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.’(VIII:69)

The gaining of wealth as part of fighting was, indeed, an ancient tribal custom, which
remained in force, at least in an Islamised modified form, under Mohammad’s umma
and the later Islamic states. The continuation of this custom, besides its inherent
appeal among Mohammad’s own followers, was crucial to enlisting the militarily
invaluable fighting forces of many of the Bedouin tribes: ‘Say unto those of the
Bedouin Arabs who stayed behind [i.e. had not joined Mohammad’s jihad]: You shall
be called against a folk of mighty prowess; you shall fight against them until they
submit, if you obey [i.e. obey this command], God will grant you a goodly
recompense…’(XLVIII:16; my italics) This promise of a share in the spoils of fighting
in the way of God needed to be clarified, moreover, because under Mohammad’s
leadership the accepted custom regarding the sharing of booty or spoils had become
modified in favour of his own fighters and the mu’mineen – acquisitions as a result of
qital were made more a prerogative of the mu’mineen, Mohammad’s companions and
his mujahideen. This is evident from the none-too happy attitude of the Bedouins
regarding this change in the ancient custom, as this verse, which precedes and should
be read along with that quoted above, indicates: ‘Those [Bedouins] who stayed behind
will say when you [i.e. Mohammad] set forth for the gaining of acquisitions [spoils]:
Let us follow you; desiring they to change the word of God [i.e. the conditions set
upon those fighting for God, including the sharing of spoils]…’(XLVIII:15)
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But Mohammad the politician had to promise something to these Bedouins while
ensuring that his own cadres’ gains from fighting would not in any way be ever
jeopardised. Therefore delicate handling of the matter was required, and thus we have
in the same Surah referring to acquisitions from qital, this rather artful play on words:
‘The custom [sunnata – also wont, habit; this is sometimes translated as ‘the course’]
of God that has been effective in the past before, never shall you find in the custom of
God a change.’(XLVIII:23) Appearing as a general rule, the verse states that God, in
other words, never changes His custom or way or course. But here, in this specific
case considered above, the idea that God never changes Hid sunna appears to apply,
by its ambivalent wording, to both the old custom (‘effective in the past’) of sharing
acquisitions as well as to that established for the mu’mineen, that is, to the newly
modified rule, which because it was then established shall not be changed. For the
newly modified rule was based on this command: ‘…God has raised the mujahideen
with their possessions and their lives in rank above those who sit back…’(IV:95; my
italics)

Mohammad’s God, as is evident from the Koran, is generally quite acquisitively

minded; He is certainly as much a ‘mercantilist’ God as He is a political as well as a
fighting God. The securing of His Will’s dominance over the world of humanity was
as much to be achieved by signs of obedience and servitude through prayer, the Friday
assembly, fasting, pilgrimages, and so on, as through this-worldly concrete practices
of fighting in His way and commercial intercourse and the acquisition of wealth by
His favoured servants to advance His cause. The Word of God does not in anyway shy
away from mixing the language of power with that of commerce; it does not repudiate
or denigrate the gaining of power and of possessions (wealth) in the ‘here and now’.
The Koran considers rewards and God’s bounties both as the payment of material
benefits, earned for this-worldly purposes, and as a promissory note for paradisiacal
‘goods’ in the next world: ‘And there are some among [mankind] who say: Our Lord!
Give us good [hasanah – denotes material benevolence; it also denotes charity] in this
world and good in the hereafter, and save us from the torment of the Fire [Hell]. These
shall have a portion of what they have earned, and God is quick in reckoning.’ (II:201-
202)

Mohammad’s God is, also, a particularly demanding God in this-worldly terms: He is

fiscally demanding, expecting and exacting taxes and tribute by ‘treaty’ under the
force of arms; He is demanding of personal sacrifices, requisitioning personal and
communal possessions, property and wealth in the service of jihad and qital in His
way; He is, moreover, demanding of the sacrifice of life itself, commanding the
submitted to, if necessary, die in fighting for His cause. In all these matters His Word
is expressive of an obligatory conduct as if emanating from and conditioned by a kind
of barter or rather a ‘reciprocal’ exchange relationship. Thus, even in the case of
sacrifice of life in fighting for God, the divine obligation of jihad and qital appears as
a ‘bargain’ providing for exchange of ‘equivalence’, as evident from this verse:
‘Verily, God has purchased from the mu’mineen their lives and their possessions for
theirs to be the Garden [i.e. in lieu of granting them the gift of Paradise]; they fight in
the way of God; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding on Him in the
Torah, and the Gospel and the Qur’an; and who is more faithful to his covenant than
God? Rejoice therefore in the bargain you have made; and that, it is the mighty
triumph.’(IX:111)

Jihad and Martyrdom

The sacrifice of life, considered as the ‘sublime’ element of jihad/qital, is part of the
‘bargain’ that the mu’mineen need to ‘rejoice’ about; it is ‘the mighty triumph’ of the
test of their devotion to the truth of God’s commandment, a ‘triumph’ of their
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commitment to fighting for Him, and a ‘triumph’ of the certainty of the justice of their
action in the way of God – the certainty that fighting, killing and being killed are,
objectively and subjectively, unquestionably for God. The offer of paradise in the
bargain is taken as the promise of the gaining of transcendental bliss, riches, and
success, well beyond the actual experience of the mu’mineen yet imaginable in terms
of this-worldly ideals. It is a promise that provides a vision of God’s affection towards
anyone among His servants who ‘sells his self to seek the pleasure of God’(II:207).
The bargain of not merely dying for God, but of killing oneself for Him – effectively
committing suicide in the struggle and fighting in the way of God – is an unequivocal
aspect of the divine obligation of jihad: ‘And We have prescribed [katabuna – from
kataba, what is ‘written’ as an obligation or that which is obligatory and
indispensable] for them: Kill yourselves [aqutuluwa anufusakum – derived from qatl
nafsah, ‘self-killing’ thus suicide, also denoted by antahara]…’(IV:66) Thus, the
Koran not only does not forbid ‘self-killing’ or ‘suicide’, but it actually prescribes it as
long as it is committed in fighting for the cause of God.

There are, however, verses in the Koran that have been interpreted as being
antithetical to any kind of killing; among these there are three, considered as basic,
that are more often than any others produced to in fact demonstrate that not only
suicide, but also the killing of any ‘soul’, is rejected and forbidden by the Koran. One
of the verses often quoted, refers, in its relevant section, to the prohibition on the
killing of one another, which is, however, interpreted and rendered into English in
some Koran translations as ‘kill not your selves’. The relevant phrase in Arabic is: ‘wa
la taqutuluwa anufusakum’, which in translation actually means, ‘and kill not one
another’.(see IV:29) The Arabic for ‘and kill not your selves’ is: ‘wa la aqutuluwa
anufusakum’ and NOT ‘wa la taqutuluwa anufusakum.’ In other words, there is not
only a ‘misinterpretation’ involved here, but, incredibly, a mistranslation! At any rate,
in the context of the verse, which is specifically addressing and concerned with those
‘who believe’ (i.e. Muslims), the prohibition on killing referred to is actually
pertaining only to Muslims killing Muslims – and even in this case, as we have
already pointed out, so long as the Muslim in question is not considered to be a
‘hypocrite’ or an ‘apostate’!

Yet another often quoted verse produced with regards to this issue is verse 32 from the
Fifth Surah, Al-Maidah. In this case, what is generally quoted is only the supposedly
relevant sentence, which is as follows: ‘For this reason We prescribed to the Children
of Israel that whoso slays a soul… it is as though he had slain mankind
altogether…’(V:32; my italics) The interpretation supporting the prohibition of
suicide, or with regards to the killing of any ‘soul’, comes down to the understanding
of the term ‘soul’ in this verse, denoted by the Arabic nafs – which actually denotes
both ‘soul’ and ‘self’. Soul is, of course, understood in its religious sense as that which
gives life to a person. What is then simply declared is that, according to this verse, the
killing of ‘a soul’ is considered as so heinous as to being like the murder/slaughter of
the whole of humanity. Therefore, for this reason, the slaying of ‘a soul’, whether that
be of another’s soul or one’s own (thus suicide) is forbidden by the Koran. The
problem with this, however, is that in attempting to demonstrate this anti-suicide/anti-
killing stance of the Koran, often the verse in question is produced by ignoring the
qualification stated in it which is essential to its intended meaning. This is how the
relevant section of the verse actually is given in the Koran: ‘For this reason We
prescribed to the Children of Israel that whoso slays a soul, unless it be for killing of a
soul in retribution or for corruption done in the Land, it is as though he had slain
mankind altogether.’(ibid.; my italics) Now, taking into account the qualifying
sentence, what is prohibited is not ‘killing’ or ‘self-killing’, the ‘slaying of a soul’, in
general or as a general rule. The qualifying sentence, indeed, actually specifies that
the killing of ‘a soul’ is authorised if it is in retribution or that it is killing of ‘a soul’
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that has caused corruption in the land (on earth)! And, finally, there is the following
statement: ‘and kill you not the soul God has forbidden [i.e. forbidden the killing
of]’.(see VI:151) Here, then, we again have the same problem as that raised above in
relation to the other often quoted verses: that is to say, firstly, that the sentence is
taken out of context; and, secondly, it is interpreted simply in order to (fallaciously)
establish a ‘Koranic general rule or edict’. The actual relevant part of the verse in
question, in full, is as follows: ‘…and kill you not the soul God has forbidden except
by Right [ilaa bil-haqa – haq denotes ‘right’ in the sense of ‘in accordance with the
standard of truth and duty’; it also means ‘truth’]…’(ibid.; my italics) Thus, the Koran,
contrary to such claims that it contains a general or blanket prohibition on killing, in
fact permits the killing of ‘a soul’ if this is considered to be bil-haqa or is by rights
based on and required by divine obligation, as for example in jihad.

It is undeniable, of course, that the Koran forbids ‘murder’ (homicide); it is also

incontestable that it sets out quite specific limits in relation to the act of killing, the
depriving of life. But it is equally incontrovertible that God or the Koran does make
definite and clear-cut exceptions appertaining to the act of killing under certain
conditions and circumstances. Jihad and qital, in the way of God, are without a doubt
the most significant of such conditions; and, as pointed out, under such conditions
killing and self-killing are not only permitted, but actually commanded, when and if
necessary.

Interestingly, moreover, in the case of ‘suicide’, although it is conceded that not many
among the submitted or even among the devotees, fighters or mu’mineen would kill
themselves for the cause of Islam, the directive to ‘kill yourselves’ would not only
stand, but its fulfilment is declared to be ‘good’ for the self-sacrificing victims. Thus,
the verse prescribing ‘self-killing’, quoted above, goes on, ‘they would not have done
it [i.e. kill themselves] but a few of them; yet if they had done as they were
admonished it would certainly have been better for them and stronger in confirmation
[of their iman].’(IV:66; my italics) This ayah then follows, indeed, with two verses
substantiating the act of ‘self-killing’, of suicide, for God: ‘And then We would
certainly have given them from Our own a mighty reward [ajra ‘azyma – mighty
wage]. And certainly would We have guided them onto the Straight Way.’ (IV:67-68)

The Koran, then, sanctions the highest sacrifice of all; but as with the act of killing,
suicide or self-killing, as part of the divine obligation of jihad, is prescribed only with
qital or fighting in the way of God: ‘Let those, then, fight in the Way of God who sell
this-worldly life for the hereafter; and whosoever fights in the Way of God, be he slain
or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.’(IV:74; my italics) Intrinsic
to the obligation of jihad is that the Muslim fighter must be willing to die in the way of
God. But the above directive goes further: it states the absolute self-alienating of life,
the selling of it as the depriving of one’s life (as well as the material factors of life). In
other words, the Muslim fighter’s life is, like any good, entered into a barter; selling it
is not merely a show of ‘willingness’ to die, but much more than that, it is a
transference, an exchange, of life. What God gains, the fighter loses. Though, as
pointed out, in the language of commerce, the exchange appears mutually
advantageous; and ideologically, the exchange appears for the well-being of the
Muslim community, and in the common interest of the universal Deen of Islam. And
on closer reading, the ayah just quoted is actually imparting a general order: only
those who sell the life of this world, only those who have entered into the bargain with
God to give up their lives (over and above giving up their possessions), only these
should fight in the way of God – thus it is stated: ‘Let those fight in the Way of God
who sell this-worldly life’. In line with the principle of the ‘bargain’, and of ‘exchange
relations’, Muslim fighting forces must be made up of those whose life God has
purchased. For this reason, there should be no fear of death when God commands you
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to fight for Him: ‘Did you not consider those who went forth from their settlements
[dayarah – ‘home town’ or habitation], and they were in their thousands, for fear of
death; then God said to them: Die you! Then He gave them life. Verily God is
gracious to the people, but most of the people are not thankful. And fight you in the
way of God, and know you that God is All-hearing, All-knowing.’(II:243-44)

The divine obligation of jihad and qital includes, obviously, the command ‘to kill’.
But also, as shown above, it unreservedly includes the directive ‘to be prepared to die’
as well as the prescription ‘to kill yourself’ if the cause of God demands it. In other
words, martyrdom is inherent in the obligation of jihad/qital. Martyrdom is, however,
generally associated with ‘meeting death’, dying, in the struggle for the cause of God
(i.e. for Islam) which may or may not come about as a result of ‘self-killing’. Thus: ‘If
a wound has afflicted you, a like wound has also afflicted the people [who disbelieve];
and such days [i.e. of misfortunes] We deal out in turn among mankind, but that God
may know those who believe, and that He may take martyrs [shuhada pl. of shaheed –
from shaahid denoting ‘witness’; shuhada can therefore also mean ‘witnesses’, but
given the context, it is here clearly denoting ‘martyrs’] from among you…’(III:140;
my italics) In this case, martyrdom is the result of being killed (presumably from
wounds) in fighting for God. That the ayah is indisputably referring to martyrs (and
not as some translations have rendered as God taking ‘witnesses’) is quite
unambiguously evident from the following succeeding verses: ‘And that God may
purify [recover, revive] those who believe and obliterate the disbelievers. Did you
imagine that you should enter the Garden [i.e. Paradise] while God does not yet know
who from among you have struggled [jahadu] and who are the steadfast? And you
indeed desired [longed] for death before you met it; so indeed you have now seen it,
while you were beholding.’(III:141-143; my italics) As it can be seen, here the issue is
unquestionably the attainment and the honorific conferring of martyrdom. Moreover,
there are certain fundamental points made here in relation to this honour which are
important to highlight: Firstly, looked at from the standpoint of the Koran’s
determination, martyrdom is only conferred by God – or to put it in a much stronger
tone, as the above verse states it, God takes a martyr. Secondly, when conferred, it is
only bestowed on the steadfast fighters for God; and with it comes the prize specified
as the privilege of entering Paradise. Now, considering this honour of martyrdom from
the viewpoint of the victim (obviously before he/she becomes a martyr!), the first and
primary condition specified in the above ayah is the desire for death, the willingness
to die. But this ‘desire’ for death for God as a state of mind is based on the illusion of
‘life in the next world’ derived from iman; in other words, what is engaging this
mindset is the imagination of beholding death, in fighting for God, as attaining life in
Paradise. This ‘beholding’ of death as ‘life in Paradise’ is based on the absolute
certainty of the truth of God’s promise and His Word as stated for example in the
following ayah (already quoted previously): ‘And do not speak of those who are slain
in the way of God as dead; nay, they are alive…’(II:154; my italics)

In the Koran, there is, in fact, a distinction made between martyrdom and, for want of
a better term, the ‘routine’ meeting of death in fighting for God. Both kinds of death
are acclaimed and commended by the forgiveness of sins and the mercy of God in the
hereafter, as announced in these verses: ‘And if you be slain in the Way of God or die,
then forgiveness [pardon] from God and mercy is better than what they amass. For if
indeed you die or be slain, verily unto God shall you be gathered.’ (III:157-58) But a
Muslim fighter is distinguished as a martyr only on the basis of the dynamic nature of
his/her deeds and action that attest, confirm and demonstrate his/her devotion,
commitment and the certainty, or iman, as regards fighting in the way of God. And
this is determined by the desire or the willingness to die. In its strictly Koranic
conception, therefore, martyrdom is inextricably linked to the honour of being killed
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which is intrinsically affected by a diehard state of mind conditioned by the

willingness to die.

Appropriately, conditioned by iman, the specifically Koranic understanding of a

shaheed (a martyr) is that he/she is always alive and present – thus he/she is in this
sense a ‘witness’ of the truth of God’s Will, power, favour and promise. In the
mythology of Islam, it is believed that one Muslim above all stands as the most
glorious of all shaheeds – not Mohammad, in fact, but a mujahid known simply as
Hamzeh; one of the mu’mineen companions of the Prophet – he was, it is said, the
youngest son of Abd al-Muttalib, a great Qurayshite hunter and warrior. Hamzeh was
killed in action during the battle of Uhud (627), and was, apparently, declared by
Mohammad himself as the Sayyid al-Shuhada, the Master of Martyrs. In this role,
according to all true erudite Muslims, Hamzeh has no equal – not even the figure of
Hussein, the third Imam of Shiites, regarded by the latter as a remarkably outstanding
symbol of martyrdom, comes close to him. For Muslims, the martyrdom of Hamzeh is
something to be emulated in their continuation of jihad. For, in belief and in practice,
jihad, considered as the ‘glory’ of Islam, is the perpetual arena of martyrdom, and
qital is the fateful epilogue of this dramatic self-sacrifice.

It is ironic that the self-sacrifice of martyrdom is, by the command of God,

underpinned by fear and the threat of chastisement. Thus, the submitted, and
particularly the mu’mineen, are questioned if showing any reservation in going forth to
fight in the way of God: ‘O you who believe! What is amiss with you that when it is
said to you: Go forth in the Way of God, you sink down to earth. What! Are you
contend with this-worldly life, rather than the world to come? But the provisions
[enjoyed] in this world compared to the next world, is but little.’(IX:38) And then,
subsequently warned with the threat of punishment: ‘Unless you go forth, He will
chastise you with a painful chastisement and He will substitute in your place another
folk…’(IX:39) In other words, Mohammad (God in the Koran) was not fully
convinced of the psychological effectiveness and vigour of the consciousness and
sensibility of ‘self-sacrifice’ in martyrdom.

Nonetheless, martyrdom is, in Islamic mythology and in Muslim imagination, a state

of ‘being’ that brings with it the ‘light’ of witnessing the absolute Truth of the
Oneness of God. The shuhada belong necessarily and essentially to the universal plan
of divine being; they serve as examples of ‘ideal’ Muslims, ensuring, in belief, the
continuity of the Koranic universal project throughout the diversity of successive
struggles. Martyrdom is meant to create the illusion that this continuity is the visible
vigil – that is, the shaheed is a witness on the vigil of jihad in the way of God to guard
the fundamental living principle of the Oneness of God. The shaheed negates his/her
very materiality and worldly being for this absolute Truth, which is then supposed to
guarantee, through the stubborn force of memory, the infinite maintenance in
existence of the ideal fighter for God. The mythology of martyrdom is meant to
achieve the political reintegration of the martyr – the transforming of death in fighting
for God into an object of ideological and political consciousness. The goal inherent in
it is thus political. Martyrdom is central to the understanding of the link between the
illusory universality of the Oneness of God and the practical process of jihad in its
explicitly violent form as qital, because it is the symbolic expression of the ultimate
act of political self-sacrifice appearing as a manifestation of absolute submission or
being a true Mu’min. Qital is the basic domain of martyrdom in which is expressed the
divine obligation of jihad to subject the conditions of life to the Will of God as set
forth and formulated in the Koran as Allah’s Constitution.

Qital, the continuation of jihad by violent means, is, however, not merely the domain
of martyrdom, but also, thereby, the process in which the conception of the Oneness of
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God is transformed into a practical instrument of political structuring of social life. It

demonstrates, in a way that is emphatic and authoritative, that the socio-political
relations based on the act of submission cannot be understood without considering the
role of force. When qital is taken into account, one can see clearly that jihad was the
struggle to create a political structure in which the universal expansion of the Islamic
way of life would be determined by, on the one hand, the subjugation of communities,
tribes and peoples by means of the routing of their independent authority and their
particular belief systems; and, on the other hand, by the territorial expansion of the
Islamic state (initially, the umma) through conquest. The status of the umma (as also
of that of the later Islamic state) as the universal socio-political entity is derived from
its practice of qital as the continuation of jihad. The radical chains of the mu’mineen
as a self-conscious select group (class-like ‘brotherhood’) are forged by jihad and the
group’s transmutation into a ‘state-class’ or a ‘state-aristocracy’ was initially driven
forward by the practice of qital and subsequently boosted by the broadening of qital
into the Futuhat wars.

With qital, we can see that Mohammad imposed his will (as the Will of God) not
merely by means of political acumen, but also by the force of armed action. The
banner of Islam that waved over lands from India to Spain was a distinctive mark of
his legacy of armed struggle or qital (no ‘nation’, let alone empire, ever willingly and
freely gave up its independent system of beliefs and authority at the calling or
‘invitation’ of Mohammad or his successors). All sorts of metaphysical ‘certainties’
are conjured up to raise the banner of the peaceful spirit of Islam, but they have no
resonance over the ‘metaphysics’ of the Koran’s pronouncements (directives) on qital,
which brandishes the sword of domination and subjection. The Golden Age of Islamic
culture, of the advance of education and knowledge, owes more to the political
necessity of jihad and its armed struggle manoeuvres than to the spirit of the
‘revelatory knowledge’ or ‘ilm al-ilahyee offered by and gained from the Koran. It
was by reason of its conquests that Islam incorporated into its world the developed
cultures of Byzantine, Sassanian and Indian. And with these conquests, it was by
reason of its ideological hegemony forged through jihad that Islam was able to
appropriate the vast accumulated wealth of knowledge both abstract and practical and
present this knowledge as its own.

Jihad: the Making of Arabic as the Language of Power

Essential to the Islamic ideological hegemony in the conquered territories was the
diffusion of the Arabic language. The ideas of Mohammad’s successors as rulers,
plainly, needed the Arabic language to make these ideas become the ruling ideas. And
one of the most crucial features of jihad was the imposition of the Arabic language
across all lands annexed by means of its exaltation among all the vanquished peoples.
Jihad as the struggle for shaping socio-political reality necessarily involved the
making of Arabic as the administrative as well as the cultural lingua franca. To
achieve this, the Arabic of Mohammad (or at least to begin with that of his tribe, the
Quraysh) was proclaimed (justified by the Koran’s own divine revelations) as the
language of God’s Word, the language in which God revealed His Will to the Prophet.
Thus: ‘These are signs [ayat] of the Book manifest [al-kitab al-mubin – an explicit
scripture of Truth, devoid of error] Verily, We have sent it down as an Arabic
recitation [qur’anan arabyan – this is often translated as ‘Arabic Qur’an’] that you
will understand [ta’qiluna, from the verb ‘aqala, denotes reasoning; thus
understanding the truth of the recitation through reasoning and reflection].’(XII:1-2;
see also XLIII:3)

Arabic, being the sacred language of the Koran, then, was made by the early
successors of Mohammad, the Arab rulers of the Islamic theocratic order, the
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dominant, ruling language of all non-Arabs: ‘And verily, it has come down from the
Lord of the worlds. The Spirit of Faith has come down with it. Upon your
[Mohammad’s] heart that you may be one of the warners [i.e. Prophets]. In explicit
[mubin, clear or manifest] Arabic tongue [speech]…And if We had sent it down unto
any of the non-Arabs [‘ajameen, pl. of ‘ajam, denoting all ethnically non-Arab
peoples; ‘ajam has a similar connotation to ‘Gentile’ for Jews]. Then he [Mohammad]
had recited it to them they would not have become believers.’(XXVI:192-195 and
198-199)

The Arabic language was thus considered, according to these verses, essential to
bringing off belief in the divine message of the Koran. This point is also brought out
in the following verse, which, in this case, conveys the critical importance of Arabic
to the launching of Mohammad’s movement: ‘And had We made it in a non-Arabic
recitation [qur’anan ‘ajamyan] they would have said: Why are not its verses [ayat]
been made clear? What, non-Arabic [tongue] and an Arabian [i.e. an Arab
Messenger]? Say: To the believers it is a guidance and a healing; but those who
believe not, in their ears is a heaviness, and to them it is a blindness…’(XLI:44) Upon
the force of these verses, no higher justification was, therefore, required for Arabic to
become the educational, scientific, philosophical, cultural lingua franca of all the
conquered (and converted) peoples.

Indeed, an important political function of the Arabic language was in the

transformation of direct domination into social subjection by its fundamental
mediating role in enabling the process of jihad to establish the ideological hegemony
of the successors of Mohammad as conquerors and rulers. The power believed to be
invested in the Koran’s revelations (verses) is for Muslims irrevocably tied to the
Arabic language of the mode of its presumed original communication by God. The
language, then, is itself seen as a source of power; or, in reality, as a key element of
Islamic hegemony: ‘And indeed We have set forth for the people in this Qur’an [al-
Qur’an] examples of every sort that haply they may mind. An Arabic recitation
[qur’anan arabyan] without any crookedness that haply they will be
godfearing.’(XXXIX:27-8) Islam, as a way of life striving towards universality,
inevitably needed Arabic to be consciously developed and promoted as more than
solely the exclusive language of the Arab rulers, more than simply being
superimposed on the vanquished; it had to become the language of Muslims. For
Arabic to assert itself successfully in the conquered territories, therefore, it had to be
the language of the Islamic state and of the Islamic institutions of socialisation. And
therefore, after its initial imposition, Arabic was to become the critical medium for
creating the appearance of integration; the medium for the substantiation of belief and
thus of making the subjects of the Islamic state’s dominion feel as if they all truly
belonged to the mythical umma or the Muslim community.

No doubt, however, that Arabic was primarily the language of authority, and hence,
for this reason, a crucial weapon in the process of the practice of jihad. The Arabic
tongue of Mohammad’s recitation was considered important enough to his jihad as to
be stressed in the warning to be conveyed to Mohammad’s Meccan enemies, as this
following verse declares: ‘And thus have We revealed to you [i.e. Mohammad] a
recitation in Arabic, that you may warn the mother of towns [i.e. Mecca] and those
around it, and that you may warn them of the day of coming together [yuma al-ja’am
– moment of assembling or meeting] wherein there is no doubt…’(XLII:7) Thus, it
was because Arabic was regarded as the language of authority that it could have a
dynamic part in jihad and hence in aiding the process of domination.

In fact, in terms of the eminently revelatory idiom of the Koran, with its threats and
warnings of divine retribution, Arabic came to fulfil a role arguably as important as
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that of the ‘sword’ and the ‘steeds of war’ in the jihad and battles of the Futuhat. Here
is, for example, one of those warning ayahs in which the Arabic of the communication
is insisted on being crucial to the authority of the message: ‘And thus We have sent it
down, an Arabic recitation, and have therein distinctly shown some of the threats, that
haply they may have piety [yataqwana, from taqwa, i.e. strict adherence to
obligations] or that it may be for them a reminder.’(XX:113)

At any rate, no matter how it evolved (or was developed) as a means of

communication within the expanse of the Muslim community, as the language of the
Caliphate, Arabic was always to function, through jihad, as the language of power, of
the Arab rulers, which made possible for them to take a conscious political position in
relation to the ruled to assert their particular will. This function could easily be
justified according to the following verse in which God Himself made His commands
and rulings only in Arabic: ‘And thus We have sent down the true ruling [hukman,
from hukm, i.e. command, judgment, authority] in Arabic…’(XIII:37) Moreover, since
Arabic was (and is), of course, not only the language in which the Koran must be read
and recited (qara’a), but also the language of theology (a Greek discipline adopted by
Muslim scholars, Arab and ‘ajam or non-Arab alike) – i.e. being the essential
language of ‘textual’, exegetical, commentary and interpretation (of Sharh or Tafsir) –
it was to become the language of the ‘class’ of ulama. This bond between ‘class’ and
language was quite consciously developed and then ‘miraculously’ promoted and
boldly justified in accordance with the Word of God.

The ulama’s aim and their interests resided in a power that the Koran attributed to its
language: that of providing divine signs for all the submitted, whoever they may be,
and of establishing its authority among them. Insofar as Arabic was claimed to
represent all divine representations, it was affirmed to be the element of the universal
deen of Islam; it was promoted to have within it at least the possibility of
understanding God’s Will that by its mediation had gathered itself into the Koran,
within its words, as the absolute guidance for the only way of life for the totality of the
world. And since the Arabic Koran (allegedly) possessed the necessary directives with
which to guide all the possible social and personal relationships between human
beings, it had to be the language also, by that very fact, of their political order. Thus,
for the ulama – that is, those very interpreters of God’s Word – the ayahs of the Koran
were communicated exclusively in Arabic for them as the learned or knowledgeable
folk, and this at least according to the following verse: ‘A Book whose verses are
made plain in Arabic recitation for a learned folk.’(XLI:3; my italics) It was on the
back of their increasing control over the language of the Koran that the ulama made
themselves, from a flourishing elite stratum, into a powerful ‘class’ that positioned
itself, from within the political structure, between the Arab Caliphate and its subjects.
It was their hold on language also that gave them the weapon of knowledge and the
tools of its manipulation to serve, secure and advance their ‘class’ interest, enabling
them to present class-power in its mystified form as divine (God-given), and its
exercise in the practice of jihad as a divine obligation. And thus, as the language of
‘class’ and divine power, Arabic apparelled in hallowed, mystical light the levers of
appropriation throughout the conquered territories, forming and embracing all the
subsequent legal, juridical developments of forms of property that corresponded to the
dominant interest of a ‘state-aristocracy’ formed on the basis of the historic
compromise of the Caliphate regimes and the ulama.

The Arabic language of the Koran, accordingly, was an indispensable co-ordinating

factor in the effectiveness of jihad as a medium that bound together the collective will
of rulers and the function of domination in a process of struggle for the expansion of
Islam. The obedience, the performance of duty, the sacrifice, and the devotion that
jihad demanded of Muslims were predicated on the knowledge of Koranic revelations
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and the articulation and transmission of these. ‘Ilm (knowledge) and the Arabic of the
Koran are rigorously interwoven; they share, obviously, the same origin and the same
ideological function; they support and complement one another. Arabic language,
however, was not merely the means of communication of these revelations as divine
directives, but a powerful instrument in the managing of these to sustain and enhance
political control over the scope and direction of jihad. Arabic as the tongue of the
Prophet and the language of the Word of God was therefore not incidental to jihad in
its historic function of shaping reality to conform with the Koran’s message; rather, as
an ‘accident’ of history it was made a force essential to the historical process of jihad.
If jihad was a struggle in the service of a socio-political order that perpetuated the
subjugation of diverse peoples, subjecting them to the will and power of a theocratic
class-state, Arabic language was a means facilitating the mystification of this struggle
as one in the service of God and for God. This proper being of the Koran’s Arabic
language is what the Muslim world was to call the Word of God.

On the side of the influences or impact of jihad, then, we need to place the privileges
accorded to the Arabic language: the powers attributed to it since Mohammad and the
technical improvements introduced in it over at least three centuries after the Prophets
death by successive generations of Koran ‘reciters’, ‘interpreters’ and scholars who
came eventually to form the ulama. According to this order, every chapter and verse
of the Koran has the stamp of the ulama’s influence upon it; all the language deposited
upon revelations by development in time is the effect, either direct or indirect, of the
transference of a ‘rationality’ formed not in Heaven but on the solid ground of
powerful interests. It was with the domination of the Arabic language through and by
means of jihad that the Koran was made into Allah’s Constitution; the constitution of a
world-aspiring power.

Jihad: Defensive or Offensive?

Thus arranged and understood upon the earthly ground of powerful interests, the
Koran has as a condition of its constitutionality the expansion of the original umma.
Islam is effectively nothing more than the achievement of this expansion on a world
scale. Hence its apparent communality of interest; that air of righteousness it projects
as if it were so obviously divinely ordained. But the Koran did not become the Word
of God par eminence without the use of force, without jihad and qital. One might say,
therefore, that Mohammad and his successors used their ingenuity to promote this
image of one all-embracing community as that of their ‘true deen’, which was thus
broadcast and disseminated as the ultimate divinely revealed order of life to be spread
far and wide to rescue humanity from the world of ‘ignorance’, ‘corruption’ and
‘oppression’. And it was with this aspiration that the submitted were urged on to
undertake through jihad and qital the creation of a history, not strictly speaking of
their own, that was then claimed to be ‘truly’ in the way of God.

But the history that was made was far from peacefully achieved; it was a history as
irruptively violent as any known or written about, with jihad as its fundamental
driving force. Yet it was, and became more so in time, a history guided by traditions,
custom, regulations and undeniably an established legal framework – even as regards
the force of violence, the jihad and qital, Islam had developed a framework of rules
and regulations on the fundamental basis of the Koran’s directives. The general
formalisation of Koranic directives and commands into the Sharia was a consequence
of the process of jihad in creating and consolidating Islamic hegemony throughout the
conquered lands. And it was precisely at this point, where it seemed that this
formalisation of Koran’s Guidance into the Sharia had signified an attempt at
adaptation of it to the needs of political rule and social control that the process of
‘reformulation’ and ‘adaptation’ terminated. It is in fact here, as regards Islamic
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hegemony, that the question of Koranic Divine Law arises with such heavy over-
determination, counteracting any attempt at a process of ‘reformation’.

The Futuhat wars of the early successors of Mohammad, as part of the obligation of
jihad and conducted in the way of God, were, let us not forget, justified as the march
for the establishment of the Word of God into the lands of kafareen with longstanding
laws of their own that were considered overruled by the superior authority of the
Koran as God’s Last Word. That the fruits of this march were confiscated by
successive states and rulers, and that there was actually a process of practical
incorporation by means of Islamisation of the laws of these conquered lands, does not
alter the fact that the Koran was and remained the fundamental premise for all rules
and regulations Islamised or that the Divine Law it set down is by definition final and
absolute and eternal. The fighting and the wars of conquest, that came to be called the
‘holy wars’, were thus proclaimed to institute God’s law as revealed to Mohammad as
God’s Last Prophet and set down in the Koran as God’s constitution. And in their
conduct, as guided by the Koran, these holy wars were in their violence and brutality
as ‘barbarous’ as any other of the then or since wars conducted to this day by every
power that was or has been inherently imperialistic.

Nonetheless, like every power known to history, Islam, through its apologists, has
attempted, particularly in modern times, to portray itself and its exercise of power as
‘beneficent’, the form of its past worldly domination as divinely ordained ‘benign
imperialism’, and its wars of conquest as simply and solely in defence of the Truth and
as bil-haqa, by divine right. It is thus that jihad is declared to be ‘only’ a defensive act,
and to support this insupportable fiction, verses from the Koran are produced to
‘confirm’ such a fallacious declaration. Thus we have the following: ‘And fight in the
Way of God those fighting you [yuqatilunakum] but do not transgress [ta’ataduwua –
also translated as ‘to aggress’ or ‘to be aggressive’ – a’ataday actually denotes
‘aggression’]; for verily God loves not transgressors. And slay them wherever you
find them, and drive them out [expel them] from where they drove you out [i.e.
Mecca], and fitnah is more grievous than slaying [slaughter], and fight them not by the
Sacred Mosque [the Ka’ba] until they fight with you there, then if they do fight you,
slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers. But if they give over [desist],
then verily God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. And fight with them till there is
no fitnah and the deen is God’s only, but if they give over, then there should be no
hostility except against the oppressors [al-zalimeen]. The sacred month for the sacred
month; sacred things demand retaliation: whoso commits aggression [a’ataday]
against you, you [too] commit like aggression against him; and fear you God, and
know that God is with the pious ones.’(II:190-94; my italics)

These four ayahs are said to form the basis of the guiding principles on fighting
(including on the conduct of war): Muslims are, of course, permitted to fight those
fighting them, but are prohibited to exceed the limits of aggression committed against
them. Hostile action must be like for like (‘an eye for an eye’), and therefore governed
by the custom of ‘retaliation’ (carried over from pre-Islamic tribal custom – ‘blood for
blood’ or, with consent, a form of ‘recompense’), and it must thus be halted if and
when an adversary ceases fighting. The verses, however, have been interpreted to
mean that fighting (here the specific reference is to qital and not jihad) is ‘only’
permissible ‘in self-defence’. The stipulations just mentioned, however, do not in any
way seem to be concerned with fighting only in order to defend; rather, all they seem
to demand is merely the meeting of ‘aggression’ with equal ‘aggression’, of a return of
like for like in a situation of fighting (or war). Now, the only verse among these that
actually comes close to an interpretation of ‘defensive’ fighting is ayah 191 – ‘fight
them not by the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you there’. Yet, even strictly
within the ayah’s own context and terms of reference, there is a fundamental factor
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that goes a long way to dispute this ‘defensive’ or ‘self-defensive’ proposition: the
stipulation set forth, it must be strongly noted here, is specifically concerned with
fighting within the locality of the Ka’ba; that is, fighting in or around the holiest of all
shrines (the ‘House of God’) – considered as such a sacred site not only at the time of
Mohammad, but even during pre-Islamic times (Ka’ba was the shrine to the Divine
One, or Allah). The principal factor here, therefore, was not acting in ‘self-defence’
but needing exceptional leave to fight by, around or within such a sacred site! Because
of its supreme sacredness, Muslim forces had to obtain permission from Mohammad
to fight in the vicinity of the Ka’ba (similarly, as we have seen in other ayahs, they
needed permission to fight during the ‘sacred months’ – see II:217); and the ayah was
revealed to grant such exceptional leave in the particular circumstance of the Meccan
enemies standing firm and fighting the Muslim forces rather than giving over, for the
Ka’ba was declared to be the Sacred Mosque for all people: ‘Verily, those who
disbelieve and obstruct people from the way of God and from the Sacred Mosque
which We have made equally for all people…’(XXII:25; my italics) In other words,
the stipulation set forth in this verse is specific; it is not establishing a general rule. In
fact, what is established as a general rule, in these verses, is the absolute obligation of
fighting against fitnah and oppression (zulim) wherever and under all circumstances!
Muslims must fight disbelievers (hypocrites, and the rest) until there is ‘no fitnah’,
until Islam (al-Deen Allah) is the only way of life: ‘And fight you with them until
there is no fitnah and the deen should be God’s entirely…’(VIII:39)

On a similar note, it is claimed that the Koran prohibits ‘invasion’, which obviously
goes against the very fact of Islam’s history. One of the main verses often given in
support of this idea is the following: ‘And if you fear treachery from a folk, then throw
back unto them on equal terms; verily God loves not the treacherous.’(VIII:58) From
the preceding verses and the context, we learn that the ‘treachery’ in question is a
reference to the breaking of agreements made and treaties established. What the verse
therefore implies is that should there be treachery on the part of the disbelieving
enemy with whom Muslims have an agreement (a covenant), then the Islamic
authority should rescind the agreement (‘throw back unto them’) in the same way as
their enemy had breached or broken it (‘on equal terms’), and, as a result, fighting
them can justifiably (morally and legally) be resumed. But the supposedly accepted
interpretation goes much further than this: it maintains that the verse directs firstly that
prior to taking any military action, the enemy must be given proper notice of such
action, that there must be made a formal declaration of war; and secondly that, as a
consequence, invasion of another’s territory, in the military sense of incursion, is
prohibited – unless, of course, a declaration has been made or war has already started.

According to this ‘interpretation’ the fighting that ensues is not an act of aggression or
one of conquest by invasion. The contentious point in all this revolves around the
understanding of what signifies a ‘declaration of war’. In the verse quoted, the matter
seems quit straightforward: an enemy has been ‘treacherous’ and breached an
agreement, and thus war against them is declared on that basis. But as a general rule,
as it has been repeatedly pointed out previously, what the Koran considers as a
justifiable condition for a declaration of jihad and qital, over and above such specific
cases (on these latter see also, for example, IX:12-13), is the rejection by anyone of
the call or summoning to embrace Islam or the apparent placing by them of any
obstacle in the way of the propagation of the Prophet’s divine message. Refusal to
submit could (and was) thus regarded as a legitimate reason for a declaration of
hostilities on the grand-old principle of: ‘if you are not with us, then you are against
us’! In this twisted, warped, logic, the conquest of Sasanid and Byzantine territories
was not really an ‘invasion’ at all, since the rulers of these Empires had rejected the
invitation to embrace Islam, and therefore the Islamic authority had ‘justifiably’ made
a proper declaration of war against them!
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The Koran, of course, does not forbid Muslim authorities to be benevolent towards or
establish treaties with non-believers who do not fight the practice of their faith and
hence the propagation of Islam, their deen: ‘God forbids you not, regarding those who
have not fought you in your deen’s cause…that you show them kindness and deal with
them justly…’(LX:8) But it does forbid any association with those who fight against
the instituting of Islam: ‘God only forbids you, regarding those who have fought you
in your deen’s cause…that you make friends of them; and whosoever makes friends of
them, these are the unjust.’(LX:9) What is certain, in any case, is that according to the
Koran: ‘God loves those who fight in His Way in ranks as if they were a firm,
unbreakable wall.’(LXI:4; my italics)

In military terms, however, the explanation (justification) of jihad, qital or harb (war)
as only a ‘defensive’ action is as equally absurd as that of it being only an ‘offensive’
struggle. In any military action there are both offensive and defensive tactics. More
over, it is simply not possible to spread the Faith by defensive action – i.e. by action
that is solely carried out to protect what already exists! To define or explain jihad as a
form of defensive struggle not only goes against historical evidence, but also against
the revelations set forth in the Koran. If jihad as the highest of all divine obligations
was commanded to be only ‘defensive’ in essence, then Islam would have remained
confined to, at best, Western Arabia or the Hijaz, or perhaps even limited to Medina,
where the umma was first formed. This is not to deny that in any form of struggle
(civil or class or all-out war), as mentioned, there are offensive and defensive tactical
considerations; obviously, there were times, when the Muslim community needed to
defend itself against aggression and attacks by its enemies. Nor can it be denied that
according to the Koran the believers’ response has always to be like for like. So that in
dealing with disbelievers, or responding to the breaking of a treaty, or treachery, or
finally as in war, the Koranic directive is for a ‘balanced’ response. Thus we have the
following verses (segments of which have already been quoted above) that illustrate
this point: ‘Verily, the vilest of beasts in God’s sight are the disbelievers… Those of
them with whom you have made a covenant, then they break their covenant every
time…So, when you come upon them anywhere in war, dissipate [scatter or decimate]
them, for those who come after them [khalufahum, those succeeding them] shall be
mindful [be warned]. And if you fear treachery from any people, then throw back to
them [rescind the covenant] on equal terms; verily, God loves not the treacherous.
And let not those who disbelieve think that they have prevailed over Me; they cannot
weaken My resolve. And prepare against them whatever force and steeds of war you
can, to terrify thereby the enemy of God and your enemy, and others besides them that
you know not [not yet known to you; i.e. clandestine and/or future enemies] – God
knows them. And whatever you expend in the way of God shall be repaid you in full;
you will not be wronged.’ (VIII:55-60)

In Conclusion

One thing in any case is certain: if jihad is indeed, in the Koran, the nexus of political
power and the idea of the Oneness of God, if it is the struggle through which the Will
of God necessarily releases, as if of itself, the conditions that make its supremacy
possible, then jihad cannot posit itself except in a relentless and perpetual expansionist
tendency or movement; nor, on the other hand, can it incorporate the inertia of ‘self-
defence’ as its sole or exclusive defining mode. Jihad is a mode of struggle which
accommodates dimensions which extend from political-ideological to armed-military
actions, to the acts of ‘thought-control’ (called ‘spiritual’ inner struggle) and those of
social-control. It is a struggle that clothes itself in the ideology of ‘divine right’, bil-
haqa; it appeals to the past as the space of the future; it invokes tradition as the basis
of the rebirth of the myth of the old. The key to its unchanging defining purpose in
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fact lies in the basic strategy of the seizure of power. And because it is the nexus of
political power and the idea of the Oneness of God, jihad is action, and a conception
of struggle, that is essential to the realisation of God’s Will in the here and now; it is
essential to the establishment of the Koran as Allah’s Constitution. This is why mere
transcendental reflections, more so in their modern formulations, do not find their
fundamental foothold in the interpretation of the Koran, and are opposed by perpetual
conflicts within Muslim thought.

Actual jihad is, in Muslim belief, both the space in which the divine message of the
Koran is given to practice and the original form that makes this message possible in
this world and designates its primary roots; it is indeed believed to provide a means of
linking God’s Will with social needs. We are led, therefore, to believe that in
Mohammad’s time (and followed on during the rule of his successors), jihad was
intended (revealed) by God as the obligation to eradicate the chaos of kufr (disbelief)
so as to replace this fitnah by the order of an uninterrupted progress towards the
Kingdom of God, that Mohammad and his companions, the mu’mineen, in attempting
to create this divine order, encountered, in the process of their victory, the historical
necessity of establishing the political institution of divine authority, that the violence
of jihad in its continuation as qital was forced on them by their opponents’ rejection
and refusal of the Prophet’s divine message.

A political reading of the Koran, however, shows jihad as fundamentally a struggle,

extremely violent and brutal as and when necessary, to expand Islam as a way of life
based on a theocratic mode of total domination; that it was, indeed, the actual
establishment of the political institution of divine authority in the form of the umma at
Medina that made jihad, in its continuation as qital, the essential instrument of
spreading the divine message by force of arms. It is precisely for this reason, which
was decidedly political in essence, that jihad was made the highest of all divine
obligations. Further still, it was in order to encourage jihad, to steel Muslims’ hearts
and to possess them not with fear of death, that the Koran inspired the promise of
Paradise in life as in death, and identified the true devotees of Islam as the mu’mineen
and ‘ranked’ them above all other Muslims, and hence authorised them to be the
‘class-like’ elite within the emergent Islamic system.

Jihad is, on this basis, the final test set down by the Koran. In its practice, it
exemplifies the abolition of individuality in favour of the glorification of divine
authority, of unquestioning obedience and servitude, of bondage, concretely and in
consciousness. There can be no meeting ground between self-emancipation and the
practice of jihad. Jihad is based on a conceptual framework for action resting on the
practice of the commandments contained in the Koran as Divine Law, a practice in its
entirety in accordance with the interest of servility not freedom. It is furthermore an
adequate orientation for the establishment of a social order of subjugation manifesting
itself as social subjection. Jihad is the form of practice intended to bring about total
submission; it is an integral part of the Koran’s comprehensive system of control. The
Koran’s appeal to jihad is the attack, violent, brutal and relentless, on any critical and
independent thought or action – independent, that is, of its own jurisdiction and
authority. With jihad as its highest obligation, the Koran demands the kind of struggle
that would ensure its absolute authority, the institution of its ‘way of life’ as the
complete abolition of all other ‘ways of life’, and the incorporation within its dictated
orbit of life all peoples by means, if need be, of fear and terror (all in the name of
God). Finally, the Koran’s deification of jihad makes the struggle in the way of God
not only relentless but endless. Through its practice, the fact of brute power becomes
the means of the realisation of the domination of Allah’s Constitution.
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Glossary

‘Abd Servant, devotee (slave).

‘Adl Justice – ‘idalat
‘Ajam Ethnically non-Arab people; pl. ‘ajameen
‘Alim A ‘knowledgeable’ person – knowledgeable of the Koran
‘Amal Action based on the practice of Koranic principles as the
conduct of a true Muslim.
Ahkam Commandments
Al-‘arabiyya Arabic tongue (pre-Islamic).
Al-Ghayb God’s ‘unseen power’ – power that stands beyond human
knowledge
Amr An Order or Command – ameer, commander of the faithful
Amr bil-Ma’ruf wa Nahya Koranic principle of godfearing righteousness in the social
‘amil-Munkar sphere of life – a legalistic convenance of social/personal
conduct strictly in accordance with Divine Law. Trans. ‘Enjoin
the Good and Forbid the Wrong’
Aql Reasoning powers, ‘intellect’
Ard (arz) ‘Land’ – al-ard, the Land or the earth
Arsh The Supreme Throne of Divine Power
Asl Basis – principal basis of law
Ayah Sign, as in ‘divine revelation’; a verse of the Koran (pl. ayat).
Ayyam al-Arab The historical age of the beginnings of the rise of Arab identity.
Bait Allah House of God.
Darajah Rank or degree (of status)
Deen The Way of Life; trans. ‘religion’.
Fiqh Islamic jurisprudence.
Firqah Faction, sect; also trans. ‘party’.
Fitnah Sedition, disorder, rebellion
Fitrata-Allah The Way that God initiated
Futuhat Wars of Conquest
Hadith The recorded, written Traditions of Mohammad’s sayings and
deeds
Haq Truth, also right in the sense of ‘in accordance with the standard
of truth and duty’ – bil-haqa, ‘by right’ or ‘with truth’, i.e. by
‘divine right’
Harb War – al-Harb al-Muqaddas, ‘Holy Way’
Hashim Mohammad’s clan/household.
Hijrah Emigration of Mohammad from Mecca to Medina
‘Ibadah Serve, worship; obedience of God’s Will in servitude, bondage,
and subjection.
‘Ibadat Islamic religious rituals – prayer, purification, charitable acts,
fasting and pilgrimage
Ilah ‘One’ to be served, worshiped and obeyed; ‘one’ who has
power – ‘god’.
‘Ilm ‘Knowledge’ – divinely inspired knowledge, Revealed
Knowledge, knowledge of the truth of the Koran
Jahanam Hell
Jihad A socio-political and ideological struggle having the religious
appearance of a conscious, persistent and perpetual struggle in
the Way of God
Jizyah Tribute/tax on those ‘outside’ the ‘Muslim Community’
Kafar Unbeliever – ‘infidels’; also the ‘ungrateful ones’ (pl. kafareen).
Kalamat ‘Words’ – kalamat-e Allah, God’s ‘words’ as Commands
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Khalifa Successor – ruler or Caliph.

Khilafat Caliphate
Khitab ‘Speech’ – pronouncement of decisive judgements
Kitab Book – al-Kitab, the Holy Book, the Koran.
Kitaba The act of writing – derivatives used in the Koran for
expressing divine commands.
Kufr ‘Disbelief’ – concealing/covering or rejecting the Truth of
God’s Will as set forth in the Koran as His last Word; also
‘ungratefulness’
Majlis Assembly
Mala’ Assembly of tribal/clan chiefs and notables.
Maula Protector.
Mazhab Religion – also a ‘school of thought’.
Meerath Heritage
Mu’mineen ‘Believers’ – the select group of Muslim devotees of
Mohammad; mu’min, singl., a believer
Munafiqeen Hypocrites – dissemblers; nifaq, ‘hypocrisy’ or affectation of
religiosity
Mushrikeen Idolaters – those who associate anyone or anything with God;
shirk, the ‘sin’ of associating anything with God (the opposite
of Tawhid) – literally meaning ‘division’
N’amat Bounties, favours, as rewards from God
Nabee Prophet
Nafs Self or Soul
Naskh Abrogation of a Koranic verse – mansukh, an abrogated verse
Niyat Good intention, connoting complete conviction – in ‘good
faith’.
Noor (Nur) ‘Light’ – ‘Light of the Divine Truth’
Qadi (qazi) Islamic judge
Qanymat Booty, spoils of war (as ‘divine bounties’)
Qawl The ‘saying’ or promise of the heart as an attribute of being a
Muslim.
Qidavat (qizavat) Legal judgement
Qital Armed struggle; fighting, slaying, killing – qatl,
murder/homicide
Qiyas The use of Analogy in legal matters based on the Koran
Qum Folk, people
Qur’an Koran; recitation – qara’a, ‘to recite’.
Quraysh Mohammad’s tribe, assumed to be descended from Ishmael.
The most powerful of the tribes in Western Arabia, controlling
Mecca.
Rabb Lord – title only of God.
Rafiq Comrade.
Rasul Messenger – Rasul-allah, God’s Messenger.
Riba Usury – strictly meaning ‘increase’
Rooh Spirit
Sabila-Allah The Way of God – also the ‘cause’ of God
Sadiq Truthful to the Word of God
Sadiqeen The Truthful ones – Koranic expression for ‘rank’ and ‘status’
Sahaba Companions of Mohammad – closest of all of the Prophet’s
followers, much more so than, for example, the Ansar or the
residents of Medina who helped Mohammad; the Ansar is often
trans. as the ‘Helpers’
Sajdah Prostration
Salaheen The Righteous – Koranic expression for ‘rank’ and ‘status’
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Shaahid Witness; shaheed (pl. shuhada) a person ‘witnessing’ death as

the light of the Truth of God or a martyr
Shaitan Satan
Sharia Islamic Legal System – as distinct from Koranic Divine Law.
Shirk Association – the sin of associating anyone or anything with
God
Shura Council – applied to legal matters, a process of ‘consultation’
Sirat al-Mustaqim The Straight Way – Divine Law.
Sunnah The Traditions of Mohammad sayings and deeds
Sunnata-Allah God’s custom or course of setting the ‘precedent’
Surah Chapter of the Koran.
Tabraka Blessed
Tanzil Revelation.
Taqoot (Taqut) False deities, symbols of Evil or Satan; also symbols of
oppression, tyranny.
Tasleem Surrender
Tawhid Oneness and Unity of God.
Umayya The most powerful clan of the tribe of Quraysh and the
militaristic defenders of Ka’ba and Mecca; the clan/household
of the Umayyad rulers.
Umma Community; Mohammad’s proto-political organisation
established at Medina (community-state).
Ummat An outstanding leading group or body of believers
Ummat Yahoudun Distinguished group (community) as a body of leaders
Ummi Common folk – ‘illiterate’ or ‘unlettered’ people; it also has the
sense of the inhabitants of Mecca (pl. ummiyun).
Ummu Mother or Essence or Basis.
Uqud Divine bonds, pledges, oaths of allegiance.
Urf Local customs (taken into account in legal decisions)
Vali Guardian – trans. ‘friend’; also ‘ruler’ or ‘governor.
Wajib Obligatory
Waratha Inherit/inheritance
Wasiyat Bequeath (personal will or testament)
Zakat Islamic ‘charitable’ tax; ‘poor-rate’, ‘alms’
Zalim Oppressor; an unjust person
Zamzam Pre-Islamic spring-well as source of water at Mecca, Connected
to the shrine of Ka’ba as the holiest of all Islamic sites –
originally a pre-Islamic ‘pagan’ shrine (of Allah, the Divine
One) – Ka’ba means ‘cube’.
Zina Adultery