"Towards a new Islamic constitutionality" .. A new book deals with the Koran and the revival of Sharia

Imran Abdullah

The Arab Network for Research and Publishing has recently published the book "The Quran and the Shari'a: Towards a New Islamic Constitution" written by Professor of History of Religions of Palestinian Origin, Wa'el Halaq, and translation by Ahmed Mahmoud and Mohammed Al-Marakabi.

The 192-page book explores central questions about the nature of governance in Islam and addresses topics such as the relationship between jurisprudence and law, the division of powers and author's views in constitutional and political theories.

The book consists of four articles written in different periods spanning two decades and deals with the subject of the Koran and the law, and are the first two articles in the book to criticize three basic orientalist treatises, first of the beginning of the Sharia and its origins in the first century AH.

In the preface to his book, Halaq believes that the Qur'an "established the constitutional foundations of Islam that were based on it in the next 12 centuries until the 19th century when colonialism destroyed the institutions of Islam and corrupted its life patterns, including the provisions of the Shari'a."

Orientalist Theses
In the first article, "The Foundations of Moral Law: A New Look at Ethics and the Making of Sharia," the author discusses the idea of ​​the German orientalist Joseph Shakht about the limited role of the Qur'an as an early and fundamental source of jurisprudence. Migration Almost a barber sees that the position of Shakht from the Koran can not be taken seriously because his evidence is unconvincing and his project is not studied and underestimated considering that the talk is the subject of his ideals.

Harald Motzky, who is one of the most prominent modern scholars in the West, has avoided errors and has come to conclusions that refute his theories, which he described as "obscene." "Muslims consciously sought the Koran as a source of legislation throughout the first century AH," he said.

The author believes that the orientalists misunderstood the centrality of the Qur'an because of their search for the legislative aspect outside the framework of revelation, considering that the Qur'an embodies a universal and moral vision in which the legal and legislative elements are quoted from a more universal system.

The second orientalist thesis is related to the real role played by the Qur'an in building the sharia. The majority of orientalists regarded it as "a legal system that did not know the path of evolution until after the early Muslims dominated the Byzantine and Roman systems and other legal systems." The image of the logical and historical aspects as a justification for the sharia appeared after its formation.

Lawsuit
Because this Orientalist claim considers that the Qur'an was not an authentic source of Shari'a, it views Islam from a European hypothesis as a false religion lacking an identity belonging to it, and denies that it has an authentic vision of reality, which is based on Western law and culture and Roman, Greek and Jewish influences.

But in the second chapter, entitled "The Constitutional Constitution and the Arbitration of Morals, New theories in the Founding Principles of the Society and the Islamic System of Governance", the book presents constitutional principles in Shari'a, namely, the establishment of a constitutional institution and the application of the rule of law, "Mechanisms of ijtihad, and" moral governance "of jurisprudence.

"The effects of the Koran were at the time of his arrival and he directed the practices that led to the formation of the shari'a structure, and defined what Islam is and the process of its legal and political structure," he said.

In the same chapter, the author stressed that the concept of Islamic justice is "constitutive, not formal or organizational. It is combined with the fabric that is supposed to have been shaped by universal and human systems."

He considered that the concept of separation of powers was an absolute Islam - if not sacred - to face any infringement on it, and the result was "a system of justice can not be attacked."

He argued that the Islamic Islamic model is more powerful than the Foucault and Gramsci theory, because it "resolutely adopts a concept of justice that transcends the hegemony of the state." The caliphs, kings or rulers are subject to the authority of God, which harmonizes with the universal concept of justice.

Shati and destinations
The author, after his previous two refutation, discusses a third construction thesis entitled "The Primacy of the Qur'an in the Fundamentalist Theory of the Shatby" which proves that "the Qur'an was not the source of the shari'a since the early beginnings of the Makkah period.

"The Qur'an stands independently as a reformist critique of postmodernism, not just an independent value system," he said, adding that the ideas of Imam Shatby implicitly reveal that liberalism, capitalism and other modern political and economic forms are not the standards of Islam or the standards of idealism in the present era. .

Modernity and revival of Sharia
Although the author points out that the recent article "Can Revival of Sharia?" The idea that the modern state can play a role in the revival of the law, he confirms that he retracted this idea later, and without his last opinion in his book "impossible state," which considers the concept of "Islamic state" impossible to verify and involves an internal contradiction, For what the modern state represents.

At the end of the book, Halaq concludes that modernity - despite its ability to criticize - is a reality that can not be neutralized. It is a psychological structure, an ethical system, a cognitive theory and a way of life. It has emerged for at least a long time to come. The solution is to change what can be changed. Fundamentalism rather than being swept away by modernity.

He criticized the barber at the same time what he called "Islamic thinkers useful" and "religious liberals," indicating that their dissertations were not sufficiently detailed to be a comprehensive theory of organization, and is still limited deployment does not attract the Muslims, and even if it has support will remain far from centers Power, as the deaf men on their ears, as he put it.

In an apparent departure from the theoretical atmosphere that prevailed in the book, the author sees in the conclusion that "the interest of the Islamic countries in their autocratic regimes is totally untenable by adopting a comprehensive program of Islamization." The promulgation of the Penal Code and the application of borders - as in Saudi Arabia and Iran - is not an authentic revival of Sharia.

"As long as the Muslim intellectuals are excluded from the state apparatus, and as long as the current regimes continue to tighten their grip on power, there is no hope of reviving a true Islamic," he said. "Only the state can set the stage for the revival of the sharia.

He believes that the sponsorship of Shari'a must be organized in a scientific hierarchical body that is very separate from political power. "The independence of the sharia from politics is an Islamic phenomenon to the extent that it is an American and European phenomenon."