The Series "Caliphate and Imamate in Islamic Thought"
By the Writer and Thinker Thaer Salama - Abu Malik
Episode Seventy-Six: Secularism's Lack of Detailed Ideas About Governance and Administration!
The state arises with the emergence of new ideas on which it is based, and authority within it changes with the change of these ideas, because if ideas become concepts - that is, if their meaning is understood and they are believed in - they affect human behavior, and make his behavior proceed according to these concepts, so his view of life changes, and accordingly his view of interests changes. Authority is merely taking care of these interests and supervising their conduct.1 Therefore, the view of life is the foundation on which the state is based and the foundation on which authority exists. However, the view of life is only created by a specific idea about life, so this specific idea about life is the basis of the state and the basis of authority. Since the specific idea about life is represented in a set of concepts, standards, and convictions, this set of concepts, standards, and convictions is considered the basis, and the authority only takes care of people's affairs and supervises the conduct of their interests according to this set. Therefore, the basis is a set of ideas, not a single idea, and this set of ideas, as a whole, has created the view of life, and accordingly the view of interests has been created, and the authority has been conducting them according to this view. From here, the state is known as an executive entity for the set of concepts, standards, and convictions that a group of people has accepted.
This is in regards to the state as a state, that is, as an authority that takes care of interests and supervises their conduct. However, this set of ideas on which the state is based, that is, the set of concepts, standards, and convictions, is either based on a fundamental thought or is not based on a fundamental thought. If it is based on a fundamental thought, then it will be strongly built, with solid pillars, and a stable entity, because it is based on a foundation beyond which there is no foundation, because the fundamental thought is the thought beyond which there is no thought, which is the rational ideology, so the state will then be based on a rational ideology. But if the state is not based on a fundamental thought, then this makes it easier to eliminate it, and it will not be difficult to destroy its entity and seize its authority, because it was not built on a single ideology from which its existence emanates, so it will not be difficult to remove it. Therefore, it was necessary for the state, in order to be a stable entity, to be built on a rational ideology from which the ideas on which the state was founded emanate, that is, a rational ideology from which the concepts, standards, and convictions that represent the state's idea of life emanate, and thus this state's view of life, that view that results in its view of interests.
The Islamic state is based on the Islamic ideology, because the set of concepts, standards, and convictions that the nation has accepted emanates from a rational ideology, and the nation first accepted this ideology and embraced it as a definitive belief based on conclusive evidence, so this ideology was its overall idea of life, and according to it was its view of life, and its view of interests resulted from it, and from it the nation took the set of concepts, standards, and convictions. Therefore, the Islamic ideology is the basis of the Islamic state2, and therefore the sources of Islamic jurisprudence contained the foundations on which the state is based in detail, but the positive systems will surprise us that their constitutional jurisprudence does not achieve the strong connection or the correct emanation between the fundamental idea on which the state was founded, and the details of constitutional jurisprudence, that is, that the relationship between secularism as a fundamental idea on which those states were founded, and their constitutional jurisprudence is an ambiguous, flexible, and undisciplined relationship, and that is due to corruption in the secular ideology itself, as it, after resulting from the bitter conflict between the Church and science, and between the Church and society, the ideas of the secular ideology arose focused on preventing the interference of religion in politics, and then expanded so it prevented the interference of values arising from any source, whether religion, morals, or customs, in the laws, and stopped at this limit, and did not give legislative details showing the form of the state, the method of choosing the ruler, the method of dismissing him, the relationship of the state with the subjects, and the like of issues that we have detailed at the beginning of this chapter, but left all of this to the states themselves to formulate it according to what the constitutional jurists of that state see, therefore you find great differences between America and Canada, and Britain and France, and so on in the constitutional provisions and their relationship to secularism, as they agree on general frameworks, and differ in the details, and also you do not find a way for those provisions to emanate from secularism, because secularism simply did not detail in those provisions! That is, that theorists of secular thought did not look at the detailed issues related to the foundations on which the state is based, therefore we can say that secularism is flexible in its beliefs, as it does not have conditions or foundations to which it adheres, but it is subject to modification, development, addition, and adaptation in any environment in which it exists and in any society in which it appears and among any individuals as long as they adhere to the general framework regulating its philosophy and ideology, which is the separation of values resulting from religion, morals, and customs from life and authority.
1- See in detail our book: Did the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, specify a method for establishing the Islamic state, chapter: The method of establishing the state. We have elaborated on the discussion of this idea and provided sufficient evidence for it.
2- Introduction to the Constitution or the Reasons for it, Hizb ut-Tahrir, General Provisions.
