Khilafah Explained: September 2012

Because of the absence of any Islamic State that applies the Islamic system, the Muslims cannot comprehend what life under the Islamic system truly consists of. Thus, it is natural for Muslims to try and think of the Islamic system in terms of systems that they feel being applied upon them. Furthermore, the regimes in the Muslim world are among the most corrupted regimes in the world, including those that have proclaimed themselves as ''Islamic.'' When Muslims are exposed to life in the West and realize that quality of life, concern for the human being, and the accessibility of services and rights, are better than what exists in the Muslim world on a relative scale, many Muslims become attached to the Western way of life.

To complicate matters, the West, in its plan to spread its way of life and culture throughout the Muslim world, propagates the notion that the ideals of Democracy, Freedom, and Human Rights are universal values. The West purposefully spreads these concepts detached from the Western outlook so that Muslims would not view them as Western ideas but rather universal ideas and norms. The end result of all of these factors caused the Muslims to believe that the Islamic State is a state modelled after Western principles of Democracy, Freedom, and Human Rights. And if the Islamic State is not based upon these principles, then it would degenerate into a dictatorial state that would be marked by oppression and iron-fisted rule.

In actuality, these ideas are not universal ideas but Western ideas that emanate from the Western way of life. Not only do these ideas contradict Islam, but they also contradict reality and fail to correctly address the human being. Democracy, which is derived from the Greek term Demos Cratus (''people power''), is based upon the notion that sovereignty and authority belong to the people. In other words, Democracy appoints the human being as the source of laws and rules for other human beings, and is based on the notion that the people should be left to rule themselves and implement any system of their choosing upon themselves. This concept contradicts the very basic notion in Islam that sovereignty belongs to Allah in the sense that Allah is the only source of laws and rules, and the people have only the authority to understand these laws and implement them. Furthermore, in Democracy, the people choose the frame or structure by which they will implement these laws and rules, whereas in Islam the laws and rules can only be implemented using the Islamic political system that was defined by Allah and applied by the Messenger of Allah.

Aside from this conflict with Islam, Democracy as an idea cannot be applied in reality because every society has a ruling structure that is charged with implementing the rules. Even in the Democratic societies of the West, there exists a ruling body that implements the rules upon the rest of the people. Thus, the idea that everybody rules his or her own self has no basis in real life.

As for Freedom and Human Rights, they are related in the sense that freedom is the basis from which human rights emanates. The Western intellectuals espoused the notion that human beings have certain freedoms, the most important being freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of ownership, and personal freedom. This notion came from the idea that the human being is born naturally good, and only by restricting his freedoms does he commit evil. Thus, the securing of these freedoms and liberties is the basis of the call for human rights. According to the Western outlook, the source of evils in the society are the restrictions that are imposed upon the human being that limit his freedoms; thus, only by securing the freedom of the human being and enabling his inherently good nature to manifest itself will the problems of society be minimized.

Such terms were sold to the Muslims as very attractive slogans, which appealed to many given the oppressive conditions imposed upon the Muslims by the regimes. In reality, these terms not only contradict Islam, but like Democracy, failed to address the reality as well. First, the West was incorrect in its description of the human being as naturally good or evil because the human being is neither good nor evil by nature. Rather, the human being has certain instincts and needs, and a mind to choose which path to satisfy these needs. If he chooses to satisfy them according to Allah's rules, then he does good; and if he chooses to satisfy them according to any other way, then he will do evil. Therefore, the concept of good or evil is used to describe the actions of the human being to address his natural instincts and needs; good and evil cannot be used to describe the human being's natural state. And the idea of Freedom conflicts directly with the fundamental notion in Islam that all human beings are slaves to Allah. Furthermore, this idea of freedom conflicts directly with reality because in the real world, all societies, even the ''free'' societies, are governed by systems of laws and rules that restrict the actions and behaviour of human beings. When the U.S. Constitution says that all human beings have the right to free speech, religion, press, and assembly, it is the law of the land, and not ''freedom,'' which gives the citizens these freedoms, and the law can revoke, suspend, or modify these freedom when it sees fit to do so.

As for the four freedoms that collectively form the basis of human rights, they all contradict Islam because the Muslim does not have the freedom to renounce Islam. And while freedom of speech may allow someone to insult the prophets or ridicule Allah, Islam does not allow the uttering of such statements. Also, the Muslim does not have the right to own whatever he wants in any way he wants, nor does he have the right to exercise his sexual desires freely in the name of personal freedom. Islam regulates how the human being satisfies his sexual needs in addition to regulating what the human being can own and how he acquires this ownership in such a way that guarantees that his needs are satisfied and the high standard of society is maintained.

Furthermore, the West misunderstood the impact of allowing the human being to live freely like the animals in the jungle. The Western intellectuals mistakenly diagnosed the roots of the existing evils in the society as the restrictions imposed upon the human being, which limit his freedom. What they failed to realize is that all societies, by their nature, have restrictions, and the issue is not the presence or absence of restrictions but whether the restrictions are man-made or made by Allah. Thus, while the West believed that securing the freedom of human beings will result in good, in actuality the expression of these freedoms has caused so much evil in the society that even some Western thinkers and intellectuals themselves begun to doubt the validity of this idea. In the name of freedom of ownership, the wealthy nations have given themselves the freedom to exploit the world's resources and to keep the rest of the world in a state of poverty. And within each nation, the elite have consolidated virtually all the wealth of the society while the masses struggle among themselves for the few crumbs that the elite have left behind. And in the name of personal freedom, vices such as homosexuality, prostitution, and pornography, have reached epidemic proportions.

Therefore, the Muslims should be aware that the ideas of Democracy, Freedom, and Human Rights are specific ideas that emanate from a unique outlook and are not universal ideas. As a result of being man-made, such ideas are inferior to Islam and fail to address the reality, and the misery and suffering that they have resulted in attests to their inferiority. The question comes: If the Islamic State is not based on Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights, then what is the Islamic State based upon? The Islamic State is based upon the notion that sovereignty belongs only to Allah (swt). Such an idea is consistent with the reality because, if Allah is the Creator of human beings, then Allah (swt) is the only one fit to design a system of laws and rules for the human being to live by. In reality, the human being can never be free because, wherever he lives, he is subjected by the laws of the society. The human being will either be a slave to other human beings or a slave to Allah, depending upon whose laws he will submit to. The Islamic State provides the correct solution to this dilemma by subjecting the human beings to the justice of Allah's system. By correctly addressing the human being's relationship to Allah in this manner, Islam saves humanity from being slaves to other human beings and man-made system, as in the Democratic system. Therefore, the Islamic State is the state where all human beings are slaves to Allah and no human being is the slave of another human being.

Lastly, the Muslims should detach themselves from the concept of ''human rights.'' As illustrated, the notion of human rights is specific to the Western outlook, and is based upon an incorrect assessment of the nature of the human being. Furthermore, the concept of human rights is a subjective term, and as such, it is used as a political tool used by certain powers to consolidate their interests in the international scene. On the other hand, Islam correctly defines the rights of the human being, which are the Shariah rights given by the Creator of humanity. These Shariah rights and fixed and permanent, and they apply upon everyone at all times and places.

Khilafah Explained

Is Khilafah State based on the principles of "Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights " ?

What is Khilafah ?