Thinking with Wael Hallaq: Is the impossible state ... really impossible?

At a time when the first wave of the Arab Spring and its constitutional amendments that followed in several Arab countries and the debates that took place about the location of Islam or Sharia came from these constitutional amendments and from the state in general and political and ideological conflicts between intellectual and political currents Arab and Islamic secular, still exist or - on Least-minded and present in the public debate, at this critical time in present-day Arab history, the Arabic translation of the book “The Impossible State: Islam, Politics and the Moral Dilemma of Modernity” was published in 2014, and perhaps this observation about timing is insignificant to the author of A book that he published in the context of his general academic work on the history of Sharia, a work that produced works that preceded and followed this book.

But his most important book: “Sharia: Theory, Practice, and Transformations”, which preceded the “impossible state” in English, and the latter constitutes a branch of it and a supplement to it, had not yet been published in Arabic when the book “The Impossible State” was issued, and thus the book lost the Arab debate about it originally Whatever. However, this context, which differs most closely from the context of the publication of the English origin, determined the nature of the Arab reception of the book significantly in the general framework of political and ideological conflicts that prevailed in the Arab world at this time. The book was attacked and criticized, praised or praised, or it was misled and authored based on The tribal position is dominated mainly by these conflicts, without often being exposed to the crucifixion of its theoretical thesis and its ruling frameworks, or its trial and criticism, so the money that was presented focused on some of the scales of the book and its results without being exposed to the crucifixion of its thesis as mentioned above.

Hallaq states in the beginning of the book his famous basic idea, which is the impossibility of the concept of the Islamic state and its logical contradiction, and then proceeds to express the faces of that impossibility and that contradiction in a solid thesis throughout the seven chapters of the book. Durability does not always mean health as much as quality of foundry and strength of arguments. Is the "Islamic State" really impossible, as did Halak? Or is the question itself wrong? This is what this article, which is divided into two parts, is not intended to fulfill its full answer, because answering questions of this type remains problematic as much as the problems of the questions themselves, but his understanding and examination of its validity or not, based on thinking with Helak and against him at the same time.

It goes without saying that this article does not pretend to be aware of the sources of the barrier of all theory and history, as well as the briefing of all of Barber's work, but the main focus will be on the book "The Impossible State" and to a lesser degree of Sharia, as the two successive links in his works that have direct contact with the subject of this article.

(1) Thinking with a barber?

Wael Halaq begins his study entitled: “What is Sharia?” (1) with a linguistic problem he calls the “linguistic representation” problem, a problem that arose from a dilemma that German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) had referred to, and it is the dilemma of “legalization of language” ( a). Nietzsche holds that language is the one that establishes the "first laws of truth". A concept is not a word that expresses a substance, but rather a word that expresses the common thing among a group of things, as opposed to obscuring the differences between them all. Nietzsche represents this idea with the concept of "paper", which refers to every genus of paper, and overlooks the myriad of differences between these papers such as size, color, smell and shape. And in Nietzsche, man resorts to making concepts, because he cannot meet all this diversity and change around him, the concept in which the reduction of things and then gives him a sense of knowledge and reassurance. The concept - then - is a formulation of "legalization" of language.

Halak formulates this idea to signify the ambiguous historical dimension of the three concepts that shaped the modern Muslim view of the relationship between Sharia and the state [of modern]: law - reform - religious. Halaq holds that the updated use of these three concepts always refers to the Western historical experience formulated mainly through modern English. The concept of “law” refers to the conceptual structure of the modern state law based on the principle of observation and punishment, and ignores the history of Islamic law that mixes moral and legal, and the concept “Reform” is laden with an ideological and political payoff for Sharia’s failure and its need for reform.

Finally, the concept of “religious” is presented as the antithesis of rationality and secularism, and ignores the social contexts in which the law has performed its function, and the meaning of “religious” among those responsible for it. The fact is that in Halak, our conceptual apparatus needs to be reviewed in order to surround our basic concepts and history with the genealogy of their speech and practice in history. Thus, Hallaq’s attempt here is to show the genealogy of the terms Sharia and the state, and to rid the concept of Sharia in our modern consciousness from the shadows of linguistic chastity in it by reducing it to the modern “law” on the one hand, and exploring the historical process through which “Sharia” was transformed into “law” On the other hand.

To do this, Halaq borrows in the first chapter of the "Impossible State" a historical theoretical framework previously presented by another German theorist, Karl Schmidt (1888-1985), called the theory of central domains (2). Schmidt argues that, during the last four centuries, the European mentality has moved between four main central domains, namely spiritual, then metaphysical, economic, and technical; through which we looked at reality, and through which problems and solutions were arranged in the minds of the European dominant elites. These central domains of Schmidt constitute a kind of tribal knowledge, that is, they served as a framework for looking at the knowledge produced by the European mindset over the past four centuries.

Schmidt also believes that once a domain becomes centralized, all problems are defined, their importance arises in its context, and is solved through it. Schmidt represents this idea sociologically by examining the concept of the priest, or what he calls "the representative of the soul in public space." This is a typical phenomenon whose specificity is determined in each of these four centuries from the angle of the dominant central domain. When the central domain was spiritual, the "representative of the soul in public space" was theological, and the problems of reality and their solutions were organized as theological or moral problems.

When the central domain became metaphysics, the coordinator of natural nature emerged as an expression of the central value in this new central domain, and the problems of reality and their solutions were organized as problems in understanding the natural pattern that this world and the human position consists of, and when the central domain became economic, the economic thinker appeared (represents To him in Marx in the nineteenth century), and so on.

However, here, he is not only borrowing this theoretical framework from Schmidt, but rather criticizing it and introducing a fundamental modification to it, depending on the theoretical framework presented by "the archeology of discourse" by the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Schmidt argues that the dominance of a central domain in a culture does not mean that there are no other domains within the culture itself describing it as secondary, but that it separates these two types of ranges completely, so that its existence cancels its existence, while Halak sees - depending on Foucault - that the relationship between the central and marginal domains A dialectical relationship, and therefore defining a range in a culture as its central domain does not necessarily mean eliminating the effectiveness of other (secondary) domains within the culture itself, because determining this range is based on a perception of what this culture defines a particular value or set of values ​​that seems more important in this The domain of it is in other domains.

But that value must necessarily permeate the secondary bands that produce and produce this value at the same time. Thus, the domination of a central domain, when it comes to Iraq, does not mean marginalizing or ignoring the problems of other central domains, but rather solving them within the framework of this central domain. If we assume the dominance of the economist as a central domain, as Immanuel Wallstein (3) assumes in his approach to the modern international context for example, the religious and spiritual problems do not disappear completely, but their position changes and their rank changes, and their solutions are seen within the framework of this central domain, with what is reproduced He confirms his dominance. The importance of the model lies in Halak's - permission - in its ability to reveal the "driving forces" in the systems, relationships and conceptual structures, that is, the perceptions of a particular human group at a specific historical moment for its reality, problems and solutions. Hallaq here incorporates Schmidt's concept of the central domain, Foucault's concept of "the system of things", as he believes that these forces and systems give "a [certain] system of things".

We see here a dual use by the barber Schmidt and Foucault together, in which a barber with one of them does not go to the end of the line extending his theoretical framework. It accepts Schmidt to say that there is a kind of tribal knowledge that constitutes a comprehensive civilized framework for a culture at a certain historical moment, but, in order to avoid the imperative of the path imposed by Schmidt's model and its focused charging of all active historical forces up to his famous concept of politician, he uses the archeology of Foucault's speech to clarify the relationship between knowledge Produced by the central domain and secondary domain knowledge.

Nevertheless, he takes on Foucault his focus on power as a single producer of knowledge in both the central and secondary domains, and his absence of the active human self as a producer of knowledge, and at this point he returns to Schmidt, who strongly emphasizes the humanity of this knowledge, and the existence of the active human personality individually and socially. The "model" - most evident - is illustrated as a theoretical framework for Barber in his dependence on the work of the Italian radical philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1942 -...): (The Segnature of all things: on method) [in Arabic: "in the curriculum: the imprint of all things The search for the method in this book for Agamben involves an archaeological awakening: an ongoing form of thinking in order to expose, study, and clarify what is ambiguous and not analyzed.

Being a typical thinker with Agamben means that you return to the founding event, which is the revelation of the revelation in the Islamic case as a barber knows. Returning to the founding event of Agamben means extracting the original founding vision not only of the world, but of science, that is, the worldview. Therefore, it was not surprising that the first chapter barber was issued with a quotation from Agamben describing what it means to be a typical case.

While Schmidt's central scope, Foucault's archeology, and the Agamben model are the basic theoretical combination elements that Halak used to make a model that changes the preoccupation of "Sharia" in pre-modern times, he is not satisfied with them, because he knows with certainty that his attempt to restore the Muslim "Middle Ages" as A human historical legacy valid for revival in some aspects, and may even carry a useful remedy for the problems of intractable modernity, will be answered by instinctive refusal of the adherents of the doctrine of historical progress.

Here comes the role of the third element in the Halak synthesis; an element we call the "shield", which is a shield with a double face, internal and external; the inner face in which the hairdresser uses the legacy of the western left criticism of modernity, and some of what was produced by the postmodern school in the same context, and adds to it - when he speaks On the post-colonial Muslim countries - the legacy of Sa’id Foucault’s criticism represented in the post-colonial doctrine, pointing, for example, to Joseph Joseph Massad’s (4) in-depth analysis of the colonial modern Jordanian identity production, and its refusal to question and review the patterns of colonial rule and the basic concepts of colonial epistemology, Bass Its position aside it, which meant that it abandoned its effectiveness in favor of colonial law and discipline.

But Halaq also knows that this fuchsia nicho-facet in its methodological origins will not help him much in supporting the ethics thesis as a central scope of the law, just as the outer side of the shield must be stronger, safer and more durable for strikes, and here comes the role of the French metaphysical Rene Gino (Abdel Wahid Yahya after Islam) (1886-1951). In 1924 Gino published his famous book "East and West" (5), and the first chapter included a sharp criticism of the modern doctrine of Western progress, based on his rejection of its pure material path, and what he saw as its "apparent anomaly on the history page" relative to other human civilizations that we know of. But Hilaq was influenced by Jinu in general, deeper than his borrowing criticism of the doctrine of progress, and his use of that criticism as a shield for his theoretical synthesis between Schmidt and Foucault and the above-mentioned Agamben.

The truth is that the links between Schmidt and Jino are deeper than those between them and Foucault, and each of them used it in his synthesis The Barber of Theory. Edward Said and his liberal humanity. We will see, in the appropriate place, how Gino's proposition has two faces, one of which strengthens the barber's thesis, while his other face may weaken it, but the testimony here is that Halak - as we have already mentioned - almost transmits the Gino sentences that he wrote nearly a hundred years ago in criticizing that doctrine that marked the vision Western science for himself and the world, and uses it as a shield to defend its theoretical framework (B).

Perhaps we should pay close attention here to the few areas of Al-Hilaq affected by Gino, which are numerous, but we will focus here on a subject whose phenomenon is clearly related to our topic, which is the GINO critique of modern democracy. The criticism of modern democracy is embodied in several places from the book "The Impossible State", and it is a criticism shared by Carl Schmidt with them, even if the starting points and the approach differ. In 1923 Schmidt published his book "The Crisis of Parliaments" (6), and he included, as usual, a deep critique of modern liberal democracy represented in the Parliamentary Institution. But his influence in Halaq shows most in his criticism of some of the principles of the parliamentary system, including the division of powers (its budget).

Schmidt argues that, under the modern parliamentary system, belief in public opinion is accompanied by a second vision of an organizational nature, which is the division or budget of state activities and institutions. Schmidt scoffs at that vision in his own way. He says this highlights the idea of ​​competition, "competition that will bring the truth out of its womb." In this book, Schmidt attacks parliamentarians on the level of their enlightenment-liberal intuition embodied in their basic structural features, such as faith in rational debate and the necessary standard of openness (public space) and the separation of powers, in terms of conditions that open mind and truth, and which differ from metaphysical truth as what is obtained Just about the discussion.

He points out that "because of the critical importance of openness, especially the strength of public opinion in liberal thought; liberalism and democracy appear to be identical," the matter is entirely different from the theory of the division of powers from which liberalism rejects the principle of sovereignty and the concentration of decision-making power in a particular reference even if it is This is the result of a popular demand (7). Gino agrees with Schmidt - without prior knowledge or contact - in criticizing liberal sufficiency once openness and debate is a tool to reach "the truth", but he is not satisfied with just criticism and does not leave his reader puzzled about the source of "truth" as Schmidt does, then he is surprised - that is, Schmidt - A reader by placing that source in the hands of the sovereign (the ruler / state) exclusively.

The truth is that Gino has a non-monetary endowment. In his book “The Crisis of the Modern World” (8) which he published in 1927 - to complement his work in the book "East and West" - he states that "the truth" is not a fruit of the human mind, but rather it is independent of it. And he only has to know her only, and if she is injured, otherwise, there is no right after anything but delusion. The truth is that Gino is a gift, not a profit, because it is issued by a center outside the entire human social system, and in the book "East and West", Gino had previously made a sharp criticism of this extreme beating of skepticism which was called "tolerance" with all ideas in the modern era. Because this "tolerance" clearly means the absence of the principle, which was demonstrated by the indifference to distinguishing right from falsehood.

Geno does not seem to have much interest in exploring the effects of this dangerous idea on the political sphere in the modern era, as it focuses on monitoring the effects of its absence in the western world in view, practice and criticism of this within the framework of what he calls "social chaos". As for the presentation of the barber on this issue, it appears more intelligent and structural than the proposals of Schmidt and Geno together, although he certainly benefited from them. Halaq believes that the theory of separation of powers in the modern nation-state may be a promising platform from which Muslims can start thinking about establishing an Islamic state based on this basis, and it is also sufficiently compatible with pre-modern Islamic rule practices. On the other hand, he does not lose sight of the correctness and accuracy of Schmidt's sovereign criticism or Gino's epistemological criticism.

Hallaq here uses scathing criticism of the Austrian legal jurist Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) to the theory of power-sharing based on its failure to verify the minimum level of realism at the level of application in the state of the twentieth century in the West in general and in the United States in particular. Halaq here returns to what he decided in the second chapter on the metaphysics of sovereignty in the modern state as an imagined penetration of the social system from top to bottom and pulling the different and conflicting parts of the state to each other. The metaphysics of sovereignty in the modern state is based mainly on the imagination of representing the will of the nation, and therefore the idea of ​​representation, which is the essence of metaphysics of modern sovereignty, arises on the idea that the nation that embodies the state is alone in its will and destiny. Accordingly, one of the inherent powers of this state, as it represents the nation’s will, is to legislate, implement and interpret laws.

And if democracy means, among what it means, that the power of legislation remains in the possession of the "nation" embodied in the state, even with the election of the executive branch, then this means that the principle of power-sharing that liberalism insists as a basis for democracy is not democratic in itself; because democracy means That the legislative apparatus dominates the rest of the state’s executive and judicial organs, not that it shares power with it as is the case in the twentieth century in the West and the United States. It can be said that this is the summary of what Schmidt and Kelsen do together on the principle of power-sharing. And this point is precisely from what a barber starts to talk about the meaning of sovereignty in the long experience of Islamic rule, with the introduction of a simple, significant and significant addition that is a GNU perception of the source of the transcendent truth of the entire human social system.

Perhaps this explains why Halaq began talking about Islamic rule at this point specifically in the book "The Impossible State". Islamic rule did not know the issue of power-sharing for a simple reason, which is that the ummah is not a source of sovereignty, but sovereignty belongs to God alone. Thus, the absolute legislative domination is to the Sharia. The metaphysics of sovereignty does not penetrate the social system here from top to bottom as is the case in the modern state. The state is not legislated, because the legislation is for God since sovereignty is for him. Metaphysics typically builds sovereignty in historical Islamic rule from below through the production of Sharia and its social reproduction as a creative interpretative interaction between the texts of divine revelation and changing social realities.

Of course, this interpretation does not happen by himself, but rather through interpretive tools that all believers, whether rulers and ruled, are equal in terms of the principle that they can be understood and deliberated. If the rulers and the ruled together are at the same distance from the source of the truth, and the tools for accessing that truth are exerted for everyone to know it, then the Sharia as the repository of truth dominates democratically and morally, and here emerges the moral dimension as its central domain, and its knowledge escapes - exemplary - from the production of knowledge and law politically /مصلحيّا كما تفترض ميتافيزيقا السيادة. In this context, Sharia does not need liberal liberalism, public openness and power-sharing, because it comes from an absolute truth above interest and above debate.

On investigation, Schmidt's secularism weakened his argument, forcing him to direct his sound criticism of liberalism to transfer the source of the truth to the sovereign (state / ruler) (c). On the other hand, Geno's belief in the existence of the truth outside the entire human societal system did little to understand the effects of conveying this correct idea to the framework of metaphysics of modern sovereignty, which could produce a fascist state. While the presentation of the barber seems smarter and more constructive, because he used all of this money not only in critiquing the modern situation, but in establishing historically to understand the meaning of sovereignty, and the logic of legislation exemplary in the historical experience of Islamic rule.

We conclude from the above to several results:

First: Halak’s interest focuses mainly on knowledge production systems, prior to her political and social predications. Therefore, the book “The Impossible State” is not concerned with criticizing the concept of the Islamic state in the imagination of contemporary Islamists except from the side of his participation in the basics of the general perception of the modern state, which Hilak denotes is not merely Its origins contrast with the principles of Sharia, but on its involvement with Sharia in some sovereign areas in which it is not permissible to partnership between two sources of legitimacy. (Chapters II to IV).

Second: If we accept Halak’s conclusion regarding the death of the epistemic and institutional model of Sharia in the modern era, then it remains before us to know what the Sharia meant in the pre-modern era except “the model” as a theoretical framework revealing its central scope. Defining this model does not necessarily mean that it is fully realized in the reality of historical practice. Rather, it means defining the scope of what the model recognized as right and what it recognized as wrong, i.e. what the practice refers to to assess the extent of its legitimacy or not.

Third: The impossibility of the concept of the “Islamic state” and its logical contradiction, then - when Halak - is a result, not a cause. It results from his identification of the two central areas of Western and Sharia modernity, and his examination of the possibility of their convergence or opposition.

Fourth: If we concede what Halak goes to building the modern knowledge system on the fact that knowledge is a basis for control and governance, then it is politicized knowledge in its essence based on a minor perception of the meaning of interest, then our need in the modern era to find another kind of moral and non-politicized knowledge becomes a diamond And this is what a barber found in the science of the principles of jurisprudence

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Margins:

(A) Thanks go to the translator Dr. Tariq Othman for his translation of this text and placing it in the margins of translation. What is Sharia?

(B) These places are so numerous that we have not found in their transmission what benefits the reader as much as a reference to it and a reference to it in the first two chapters of the two books mentioned: East and West and the Impossible State.

(C) In this, Geno says with great brilliance: "Those who now rush to hostility to these situations, without relying on this to any principle due to a higher system, are unable to address this chaos in reality, but they may increase their fire legally when they feed the march away in The same direction. " See: Rene Gino (Abdel Wahed Yahya), The Crisis of the Modern World (Cairo: Madarat Research and Publishing, 2019), p. 163.