2025-06-30
Al-Radar: Professor/ Ghada Abdul Jabbar (Um Awab) writes.. The civil state has failed to establish justice in its own home, so how can it succeed in our home?!
The Sudanese Prime Minister, Kamel Idriss, announced in a press conference the formation of a new government bearing the name “Government of Hope”, consisting of 22 ministerial portfolios. In a speech called (historic), he revealed the features of the Government of Hope, which he called a civil government, and said that it is based on a clear vision and firm principles to save Sudan, put it on the path of progress and prosperity, achieve security and well-being, and a decent life for every Sudanese. He specified that the vision is to elevate Sudan to the ranks of developed countries. The values are honesty, trustworthiness, justice, transparency, tolerance, and the approach is scientific, practical, professional, collective, with clear plans and precise standards for success. The government will be technocratic with no party affiliations, representing the voice of the silent majority, combining asceticism in the manifestations of power and the well-being of the people, and embodying the highest virtues.
The Prime Minister spoke about the desired results of his civil government, mentioning honesty, trustworthiness, justice, and others, and supporting this with Quranic verses. This deliberate mixing of disparate concepts is to gain a supportive public opinion. As for the truth that a conscious ear must understand, it requires details and depth away from emotions and wishes. Politics must be built on facts, away from misinformation.
Anyone who looks at the Muslim countries, including Sudan, finds that the existing countries are the result of an agreement between the old colonial countries to divide influence in 1916 AD. They are functional states, made to perform a specific task, and did not exist except with this agreement. These countries remained subordinate to Western capitalism that created them, and throughout their existence, they competed to top the list of failures every year, and have proven their abject failure on all political, economic, and social levels, no matter how governments, ministers, and rulers changed. So where is the defect? And why is this country rich in its multiple, untapped resources, and its people live in abject poverty?!
One of the greatest things that Muslims have been tempted with in our time is ideas and concepts related to governance and economics, and perhaps it is the focus of the West in its attack on Islam and in its focus on its political, intellectual, and economic hegemony and control.
The roots of the idea of the civil state go back to ancient times, where Westerners link it to the principles of justice and the rule of law in Greek civilization, through the democratic system of government in Athens, which focused on people's participation in decision-making. These concepts then developed with the Romans, who laid advanced legal foundations for organizing the affairs of society, which contributed to shaping and crystallizing what is called the idea of the rule of law.
With the development of political thought in the Middle Ages of the infidel West, the civil state was affected by the conflict between the church and the state in Europe. This conflict led to the strengthening of the principle of separation between religion and politics, especially after the Renaissance and the French Revolution, where calls escalated to establish states based on respect for individual freedoms and equality before the law without the intervention of religion in political affairs. In the modern era, it was adopted by Western countries, led by the United States of America.
Here, a logical question arises, as Muslims with a different cultural heritage and a history that does not resemble this history, with its roots deep in history, where the Prophet ﷺ; the founder of the Islamic state in Medina, and after him the Rightly Guided Caliphs, then the Umayyad State, the Abbasid State, and then the Ottoman State, all of this is nothing but models of Islamic civilization and its ancientness, and for the rule of the Islamic State, which cannot be mistaken.
In order to delve deeper, we must know the principles of the civil state and what corresponds to it in the rule of Islam:
The civil state is based on a set of well-established principles that aim to achieve justice from the perspective of the capitalist West, with the idea of equality and protecting the rights of individuals. These principles represent the basic pillars of these countries. As for in Islam, sovereignty is for Sharia absolutely. God Almighty said: ﴿But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you, [O Muhammad], judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged and submit in [full, willing] submission.﴾ And He said: ﴿It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error.﴾ And He said: ﴿Then is it the judgment of [the time of] ignorance they desire? But who is better than Allah in judgment for a people who are certain [in faith].﴾.
These are texts from the Book of God, which are definitive in proof and indication, and there is no room for denying them. They all pour into one saying with all clarity, the meaning of which is that sovereignty belongs to Sharia and not to reason, to God Almighty and not to the people.
They believe in the civil state, according to the principle of the sovereignty of the people, that they have thereby guaranteed the achievement of justice and equality in society, and they prevent any abuses or exploitation of power, and thus the rule of law is what makes the government subject to legal rules and imposes mechanisms to hold officials accountable, which strengthens trust between the people and the state, although their reality today is contrary to that and is deeply rooted in the control of businessmen over government and politics, and the general public is merely a follower subject to them.
It appears that the rule of “sovereignty belongs to Sharia” has made the system of government in Islam unique in achieving the beautiful meaning of the rule of law. This meaning that the advocates of the civil state imagined that they had achieved, while in reality they made sovereignty theoretically for the majority over the minority (and practically for a small minority of influential capitalists). The majority is the one who makes the law and the one who changes it, so how can the law be its master?! As for Islam, by keeping legislation away from human desires, it has ensured that the strong does not enslave the weak, nor the rich the weak, but everyone is subject to the law of God Almighty.
This is evident in the system of government. The Lawgiver created commands and prohibitions in various areas of life, and God Almighty made the authority to implement them to the Ummah (cut off, flog,...), choosing from among them, by giving the pledge of allegiance out of consent and choice, those who implement the Sharia rulings on them.
Also, the civil state gives great importance to protecting human rights and guaranteeing individual freedoms, and these rights include freedom of belief, freedom of opinion, personal freedom, and freedom of ownership.
The truth is that these ideas, in their true sense, are not popular among Muslims, and the reason for their prominence as words in the Muslim arena is the lack of awareness of their truth and the realization of their reality as a point of view that contradicts Islam in whole and in part, away from misleading propaganda. These ideas emerged, and revolutions topped as slogans expressing the rejection of injustice and the restriction of freedoms that were practiced on the sons of Muslims by the rulers, agents of the infidel West and their helpers, but any Muslim knows that he is bound by the law of God, His commands and prohibitions.
Islam is a creed that requires its complete and general Sharia to regulate all aspects of life without exception. God Almighty said: ﴿This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion.﴾.
Muslims have a project of governance that God revealed and His Messenger ﷺ established in the state of Medina, the system of government by which Islam is applied, so that justice and fairness prevail. We return as we were Muslims to the Lord of the Worlds, carrying the torches of guidance instead of imitating the failed capitalists.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir
Ghada Abdel-Jabbar (Um Awab) - Sudan Province
Source: Al-Radar
