Democracy or the Caliphate

On the July 4, 1776, when the American colonists declared themselves independent of Great Britain, they published The Declaration of Independence. Written by Thomas Jefferson, the document justified the American’s right of revolution against a tyrannical government.

Abraham Lincoln was to say that The Declaration of Independence was intended to apply to all people at all times, a continual reminder of the nature of just government.

Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism.

The Declaration states that it contains self evident truths: all men are created equal and all men are endowed by nature and nature’s God with certain unalienable rights; and because all men are created equal, just government requires the consent of the governed. This equality, therefore, is the great principle behind democratic (i.e., republican) government.

Yet, the Declaration goes further. By consenting to be governed in a certain way, we do not give a government unlimited power to do as it wishes, even if the Australian High Court likes to speak of the grant of “plenary powers” in the Australian Constitution.

We consent to a government in order that the government might better secure our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We can hardly be said to consent to a government so that the government, by the use of its “plenary power”, might then deprive us of what The Declaration refers to as our natural rights. We do not and can not surrender our natural rights to any one. These are unalienable, fixed, as it were, according to our nature.

One of the great innovations of a republican government which recognises the principles of the Declaration is the natural right to freedom of conscience or religion. As Jefferson states:

The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extends to such acts only as are injurious to others.

A government, even one consented to by the majority, which denied a minority’s freedom of religion, would be acting tyrannically.

When the ABC’s Virginia Trioli interviewed Wasim Doureihi, a spokesman for the Islamic group, Hizb ut Tahrir (Lateline July 6, 2007), Mr Doureihi conceded that the object of his organisation was the “establishment of an Islamic Caliphate”. When Ms Trioli asked (numerous times) how Jews would be treated in the Caliphate, Mr Doureihi eventually replied that Jews would be treated well. He did not explain what he meant by “well”.

The Koran, for example, considers the Jewish religion as inferior to Islam and imposed restrictions on Jews within its boundaries. And, Doureihi may not have noticed, that Middle Eastern calls for the restoration of a Caliphate are made by the same people who threaten to drive the Jews into the sea.

A Caliphate would, therefore, appear unreasonable to people used to living in democracy even if the Caliphate does hold out the promise of eternal salvation. As every reasonable person knows that salvation can not be guaranteed only hoped for, that fact alone would be reason enough to always ask the governed for their consent.

And that goes to the heart of the difference between a government based on the principles of The Declaration of Independence and one based on Doureihi’s Islam. The Declaration identifies the principles of good government based upon a reasonable understanding of the nature of man and what is right according to that nature. Doureihi proposes a type of government about which there can be no argument, no discussion, no criticism and against which there is no recourse.

If the equality of all men, understood in the way that Jefferson explained, makes the consent of the governed the sine qua non of just government, the sine qua non of the Caliphate can be nothing other than acquiescence and silence. We should, therefore, try to understand the qualification for a Caliph before we adopt it as the political solution par excellence as advocated by Wasim Doureihi.

We get some inkling of the meaning of this Arabic the word "Caliph" from the English translation. The caliph is the “successor”.

Theoretically, a caliph is appointed by Allah. His will is known through the Prophet or through a declaration by the preceding Caliph. However, since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, a committee comprising representatives of the separate Sunni nations has been unable to agree who should be Caliph.

The Shia, on the other hand, still wait for the true descendant of the Prophet. The last known descendant disappeared in the 9th century and until he reappears there can not be a Caliph. In the meantime a committee of scholars appoints Imams (such as Ayatollah Khomeini) who rule absolutely.

It is obvious, that neither Shia nor Sunni believes that the consent of the governed is a prerequisite for appointment as Caliph. In both cases, the power to appoint rests with a theological aristocracy, a committee of Islamic experts, but once a Caliph has been appointed, he holds the position for life.

There may indeed be argument about the true lineage of the Caliph, but in essence the Caliph will be indistinguishable from an hereditary monarch albeit one descended from the Prophet.

When addressing himself to the question of hereditary monarchy, Jefferson will say some 50 years after the publication of The Declaration of Independence:

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs nor a favoured few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately.

One might ask about a Caliph, as some men once did about the divine right of kings, what mark does God make on a man that identifies him as Caliph? Those who would restore a Caliph would say nothing. Reason tells us that answer is not sufficient.

The truths of The Declaration are described as self evident and, therefore, truths that can be known by human reason. As The Declaration assigns the authorship of our natural rights to God, the implicit premise of The Declaration is that God is both reasonable and omnipotent and gave man reason so that he might understand what he has been given and how to order his life reasonably. This view of God is confirmed by the Gospel of St John, which begins by stating that God is reason (logos).

In contrast, some Moslem scholars deny the reasonableness of Allah. In the 7th and 8th centuries, Aristotelian Islamic scholars known as Mu'tazilites argued that Allah was reasonable and having given man reason, would not expect man to accept anything not in accord with reason.

In the 9th century, however, holding a Mu'tazilite opinion was punishable by death; and in the 11th century, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in the Incoherence of Philosophers argued that Allah was not bound by reason, that there was no natural relationship between cause and effect in the world and that things do not act in accordance with their natures - such as would allow human reason to grasp the causes and effects - but only as a result of Allah’s will.

The Mu'tazilite’s unsuccessful attempt to understand Allah’s law, shariah, in light of Aristotle’s teachings had a parallel in the successful synthesis of Aristotle’s commonsense and biblical revelation by St Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition.

A-Ghazali’s view, however, has found a new outlet in the voice of radical Islam. As Osama bin Laden said after 9-11: "Terrorism is an obligation in Allah's religion". In other words, it is an expression of Allah’s will. Given terrorism’s constant resort to violence, it is most likely this voice that will rule any Caliphate unless it is silenced now. It is perhaps ironic in a sad way that the West should finally defeat the last of the two monstrous examples of the will to power, Communism and Nazism only to find it raising its head from the sands of the Middle East proclaiming itself to be the voice of God.

Still, one may marvel at the inconsistency in al-Ghazali’s argument, that he relies on a rationality in his logic the existence of which he denies to God.

There are many Moslems who, as a result of their contact with Western democracies, would adopt the moderate and reasonable mantle of the Mu'tazilite were it possible. They should be encouraged; perhaps by allowing Moslem students access to the teachings of the great medieval Islamic scholars such as Al-farabi, his student Avicenna and Averroes. Perhaps this is what Pope Benedict meant in his Regensburg speech when he intimated that the differences between Islam and Christianity should be solved in the University.

It would be a great pity for all if the irrational voice of the will to power were to triumph.

Despite Wasim Doureihi’s enthusiastic support for the Caliphate, the choice for the West is very clear: government according to the principles of The Declaration of Independence or the divine right of the Caliph.

Some might think the correct choice a self evident truth.