Luzita Ball
In the auditorium of the beautiful and huge spaceship-like building that houses the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies in the Qatar Foundation in Doha, an intriguing lecture recently attracted me to attend. Lord Rowan Williams, the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury (highest clergy member of the Church of England), and now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge University, gave a lecture entitled ‘Secularity- good or bad?- A religious perspective’. I arrived just in time to sit down and hear the introduction to Lord Rowan. He is a well-known figure in Britain, famous for being well-read and educated, having completed a Doctorate in Theology from Wadham College, Oxford University (I have just realised, at the same college and at about the same time that my father, Dr Rasheed Ball, was doing his Doctorate in Classics!).He has written about many subjects, and seems to be quite diplomatic, intelligent, thoughtful and broad minded, while having a deep belief and sincerity, being positively viewed by Muslims in many ways.
He gave an engaging lecture and took many questions afterwards. He seemed to be of the opinion that religion and politics can lead to a lack of freedom of conscience, whereby people are forced to follow a particular religion by law. This I see can lead to a lack of sincerity in religion, and a degree of rebellion, and can open the door for hypocrisy, or outwardly appearing to be religiously practising but inwardly not believing, and people not benefitting from the religious teachings. Forcing anything on a person usually makes them go in the opposite direction, especially when not accompanied by spiritually deep education, and a good justice system. However, I think some minimum levels of decency are useful for a peaceful society, when accompanied by basic public education about the religion to promote understanding of the need for this.
Also the observation of Lord Rowan was that religious communities are often not given equal rights when a particular religion dominates the political system, and that rights of minority groups are frequently not recognised- such as the right to have civic equality (access to law and personal dignity for all) and personal liberty (within limits).He gave examples of Myanmar, a Buddhist dominated State where Muslims are currently suffering from genocide and expulsion; Malaysia, where he said Christians are disadvantaged, and ISIL controlled areas, in which anyone with a different version of Islam or different religion is in mortal danger, dissent not tolerated, and public morality enforced with severe punishments.
In a politically secular political system, Lord Rowan proposed, each religious community’s public role in national identity should be recognised, and each should be valued for its contribution to the joint interest of preventing the moral dissolution and corruption of society, and improving it. They could each be listened to as part of inclusive, non-coercive, public, constructive debates and discussions, in which interesting and difficult questions are asked of each other, and would then have a chance to influence the new laws of the country. I wanted to ask where the original and main body of law would come from. It would be rather time consuming and complicated if the main constitution and all laws of a country needed to be devised from scratch, and be similarly debated, leaving the country to run riot in the meantime!
He emphasised the need to work together to solve the major global issues faced today, such as disease, the environmental crisis, food and water supplies etc. I agree wholeheartedly and would add the issue of internationally ubiquitous terrorism, and war something on most people’s minds, a suggestion he diplomatically avoided! He was describing what happens to some extent in the UK, which I agree is one of the best examples, depending upon who is currently in power and in the civil service and intelligence services. Sometimes the consultation seems cosmetic- for appearances, and they are not actually listening, or limited to those most in agreement with those dominating the government such as secularists. Interestingly the UK claims not to have a codified national constitution!
The ideal system he suggested, and most in the audience would have agreed, is where there are enforceable limits to what the State can impose. A particular necessity is that ‘Rights of conscience and dissent’ should be preserved at least in certain morally disputable situations, for example the performing of abortions or euthanasia by doctors. People should not be forced to act against their conscience, definitely an important right for religious people.
One student I think in the audience made the comment that the vision that Lord Rowan had described sounded very similar to the true Islamic system. Perhaps by this he meant the Islamic system of ‘Shura’ or ‘mutual consultation’, which is the way that believing Muslims are told to conduct their affairs. Or possibly he meant the way that each religion is allowed freedom to worship and practise their religion within a true Islamic State, including having their own courts for family law. He may have been thinking about how each citizen in an Islamic State has rights that are protected equally. The life, honour, intellect, religion, property and family lineage of every citizen are protected within the Islamic State. Violation of these is a crime. Freedom has to have its limits.
Another aspect of the Islamic State that comes to mind is that the laws of Shari’ah cannot be made the law of the land until and unless the majority of people of that land call for this to happen. It cannot be forced upon non-Muslims, or unwilling Muslims. If the population think another set of laws is better, then that is their choice. As far as I understand this is a principle of Shari’ah. Islam can only spread into people’s hearts through education and good examples. No heart can believe something by force. In the Qur’an it says ‘There is no compulsion in religion- the truth stands out clearly from error’ (Qur’an- Surah 2 (Baqarah), Ayat 256). Also in Surah Al-Kafiroon (109) it clearly says ‘To you be your way and to me be mine’. Anyone who thinks that any change in religion will be achieved by force is mistaken. Islam has never spread effectively in this manner.
An example of true Islam in politics is in Tunisia after their revolution ousting Ben Ali. An-Nahda, a very widely supported, balanced, and well-educated Islamic party for many years, has been very pragmatic and worked well with all minority political parties represented in the interim parliament, which drew up the new constitution. Islamic laws were only integrated into the law of the land where accepted by the majority of representatives, which included many socialists, secularists, and even Ben Ali sympathisers. The main laws of the land are, as a result, based on Islam with some small adjustment to accommodate those leaning in a more secular, or feminist direction. Both the interim parliament and new parliament contain many women, including quite a number with hijab, unlike many Gulf governments, but similar to the Sudanese and Malaysian governments. I recommend reading the new Tunisian constitution, written in 2014, which is available online. Compared to the dignity of Tunisian politics, Daesh look like a gang of amateur bandits!
‘Secularity’ or tolerance based on a constitution made by secularists might be a different matter. Lord Rowan pointed out that many governments who claim to be secular are actually showing signs of extremism such as extreme Hinduism in India’s government, and occasionally intolerant Christianity in the US Government. There are not really many examples I can think of where a country’s laws did not originally come from a religion, except after Communism. Under Communist rule, all religion was viewed negatively, and denigrated as ‘the opium of the people’- a delusion. This often made it impossible for anyone to practise religion. Communists mostly tried to eradicate it from public life, education and even sometimes family life (as with the Khmer Rouge), splitting families apart. Communism obviously did not lead to many rights for religious communities.
Currently in the UK, the predominant philosophy in many educational institutions is ‘Pluralism’, in which all religions are supposedly considered equally worthy of ‘respect’, due to there being no ‘Absolute Truth’ i e Right and Wrong. However the result is that it is actually not possibly to even write about the concept of absolute truth in some universities. Therefore the religions are then considered equally untrue, as even the concept of truth is not believed by some. This leads to a very wishy washy and changeable morality, full of moral relativism, influenced by current trends and availability of evidence about what is decent, beneficial or good, especially in the media. How can any immutable constitution really be made by people holding such a view of the world? Religious views are needed to arrive at common, constant values to incorporate into a constitution.
All citizens of a country should be as well-educated and informed as possible, in age appropriate stages, to the extent that by voting age, they would be able to choose by referendum perhaps, which philosophy or religion’s set of laws they would prefer to be the basis of their constitution, and educational system. Then the most learned from each community could discuss together the details of how the laws would be applied, and new issues that need to be legislated upon, hopefully arriving at agreed upon laws. The majority elected political leader would have to make decisions in the case of lack of agreement. This is how true democracy should work and continue to work, maintaining flexibility. After much discussion, I believe many people would gradually opt for the constitution and laws coming out of, and in agreement with the best understanding of Islam, possibly producing a better result than many of today’s modern governments. I wonder if Lord Rowan would be willing to contemplate this possible outcome of his ideal system!
The Peninsula
Luzita Ball is a writer and editor, an English Muslim, with a Masters in Urban Regeneration. She can be contacted at L.ball.articles@gmail.com
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