LITMIR.BIZ

PREFACE

      In the past eras spanning a few centuries ʿulamā’ have been projecting Islam as a ruling faith. Islamic fiqh underlines only the aspects of Islamic state. It is generally held that Islamic teachings can be implemented and bear fruits only when Islam is the state religion. As a result, the establishment of an Islamic State and gaining power have somehow become the basic goals. Granted that Islam urges its followers to achieve dominance and directs them to somehow not put up with subjugation. However, the notion that Islam must always be dominant and in all circumstances has caused much trouble. Apart from ʿulamā’, fiqh scholars and thinkers, even the general public seem wedded strongly to the above notion. Little wonder then that rulership has become part of the Muslim psyche.

      By the quirks of developments in history, Islam came to be known as a state religion, dictating man’s way of life. The Prophet’s Islamic state had developed beyond the Arabian Peninsula and during the Muslim Caliphate it had grown into a world-wide Islamic state. Most of the communities, cultures and civilizations and their religions in the Middle Ages pledged their subservience to Islam. It was during this heyday of the rule and domination of Islam that many branches of learning attained progress and were codified. Naturally all the discussion related to these disciplines is in the context of Islam being the state religion.

      It must be however, stated that in the same period Muslims led their lives as a minority in many countries. They were under the domination of the adherents of other faiths. After only one and a half centuries of the Abbasid rule, decline and disintegration had set in the Muslim polity. The regions far away from the seat of the Caliphate were constantly exposed to incursion and even defeat. At the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Andalusia in the fifth/eleventh century Muslims had lost their dominant position at large. They stood divided and sub-divided and as a subjugated people. By the middle of the thirteenth century CE most of the Muslim lands in the West, particularly Andalusia and Sicily were under non-Muslim rules reducing Muslims to a helpless minority. In some countries and regions Muslim empires, no doubt, flourished. Yet Islam as a faith was no longer ascendant, notwithstanding the political power and rulership enjoyed by Muslims.

      Even during this period of trial, loss and subjugation both the ʿulamā’ and the generality of Muslims did not give up their claim to power and rule. Notwithstanding their enviable mental faculties and original thinking, the ʿulamā’ and writers persisted in projecting Islam as a dominant, ruling force. This naturally intoxicated the Muslim masses with illusions about their supremacy. Their thoughts and deeds were dictated by their nostalgic memories about their rule and their glorious accomplishments in the past. Their writings fed the public only on the stories of their political power and domination. It greatly pleased

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