Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction

Gudrun Krämer

Pluralism and tolerance are considered constitutive elements of good governance, especially liberal democracy as it developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For this reason they are widely debated among modern Muslims, including Islamists of various persuasions. For the same reason, this chapter will focus largely on modern debates. Pluralism and tolerance are clearly related and both cover a broad semantic field. They concern relations within the Muslim community, as well as between Muslims and non-Muslims, and are closely tied to understandings of freedom, liberty, and citizenship. However, there is a difference of emphasis between the two: Pluralism is discussed mostly with regard to the Muslim community, or umma, especially concerning the plurality of political views and interests and their institutionalization within civil society and a multiparty system. Discussions of tolerance, on the other hand, tend to focus on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims—more specifically Christians and Jews as the prime representatives of the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb)—within a Muslim polity, or within an Islamic state.

On Method

The issue of (religious) authority has been of great relevance to Muslims from an early date, and it has always been controversial. As a result of mass education and new forms of mass communication spreading from the late 19th century onward, individuals, groups, and institutions who previously would not have been considered qualified to speak on Islam have asserted their right to do so. As a result, an unprecedented variety of speakers have made statements of uncertain status on Islam in general and pluralism and tolerance in particular. The ‘ulama’ (religious scholars) have by no means disappeared from the stage. But next to them, and often in competition with them, other voices employ different modes of expression, some of them decidedly modern. These include Islamic activists and intellectuals who share what has become known as the “Islamic discourse” (al-khiṭāb al-islāmī).

Islamists (islāmiyyūn, uṣūliyyūn) are defined here as a discursive community sharing a number of claims and assumptions: that Islam provides a comprehensive set of norms and values ordering human life in all its manifestations; that this set of norms and values derives solely from the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions (sunna) and that it is enshrined in the shari‘a; and that to follow other sources of normative guidance, such as modern political ideologies, amounts to shirk, or “associating” other powers with God. From this they conclude that for Islam to be fully realized within a given community or territory, the shari‘a must be “applied” exclusively and in its entirety, and that the application of the shari‘a makes Islam into a unique, self-contained, and all-embracing “order” or “system” (niẓām) competing with other ideological systems. Islamists pursue various strategies to realize their goals, nonviolent as well as violent, in contrast to the majority of Muslims, who reject violence except in cases of legitimate self-defense. Distinctions among Islamists, Muslim scholars advocating an “Islamic solution,” and other Muslims speaking on Islam are less clear when it comes to the precise shape of the “Islamic order” in general and definitions of pluralism and tolerance in particular.

Many of the positions reviewed here are not strikingly original. However, they illustrate a specifically modern legal-cum-political reasoning that aims to be true to the Islamic heritage (al-turāth) and at the same time fully attuned to present realities. Global power relations clearly affect the style of writing and the thrust of the argument, giving it a defensive ring. Even authors expressing themselves strictly in Islamic terms, condemning the adoption of un-Islamic concepts, do so against the backdrop of a challenge posed by the West and modernity as defined by the West. This includes understandings of pluralism and tolerance as core elements of modernity and good governance. At the beginning of the 21st century, debate has become overshadowed by the threat of militant Islamism and the fear of terrorism, calling forth attempts to define “true Islam,” which is not what its enemies claim it to be. Opposition to Islamist violence also informs reflections on the status of pluralism and tolerance among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Faced with Western demands on the one hand and Islamist militancy on the other, Muslim scholar-activists have attempted to define a “middle ground,” al-wasaṭiyya, a concept that came to the fore in the 1990s and is widely identified with the Egyptian-born scholar-activist Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b. 1926). The basis for this idea is Qur’an 2:143: “Thus, We have appointed you as a median nation (wa-kadhālika ja‘alnākum ummatan wasaṭan), to be witnesses for mankind, and the Prophet to be a witness for you.” Advocates of al-wasaṭiyya search for broader principles reflecting the essence of shari‘a and at the same time responding to changing realities, enabling Muslims to find the “right place” between the extremes of Western demands for modernization in its own image and faith-based rejection of any kind of adjustment. Advocates of al-wasaṭiyya can build on solid support for the juste milieu in classical Islamic scholarship and adapt key terms found in the turāth (the classical heritage), such as balance, moderation, and a pragmatic realism (tawāzun, i‘tidāl, iḥsān). Men as different as Qaradawi and the Sudanese scholar-activist Hasan al-Turabi (b. 1932) propagate a “new fiqh,” or jurisprudence, that takes into account conditions in the real world (al-wāqi‘iyya and al-maydāniyya), focusing on the need to balance different interests and aspirations (fiqh al-muwāzanāt) and to establish a list of priorities (fiqh al-awlawiyyāt) that privileges the essence of Islam and the shari‘a over what they see as trivialities. At the same time, like prominent authors of the Salafi reform movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they emphasize the “ease of Islam” (yusr al-islām) that aims to make life easy for Muslims as well as non-Muslims and not to impose hardship on them (yusr lā ‘usr)—a view neatly opposed to the rigor exercised by certain traditionalist scholars and radical Islamists.

In the debate on pluralism and tolerance, proponents of different positions, “radical” as well as “moderate,” basically adopt the same reasoning: selective reference to the Qur’an and sunna, supplemented by even more selective use of Islamic history on the one hand and the Islamic scholarly tradition on the other and expressed in the language of Islamic jurisprudence. In contemporary Islamic discourse, the theological dimension is generally weak, whereas political considerations loom large. Shifts of register from theology to history or from theology to law are frequent and are often made with little regard for either text or context. They are especially marked in the debate on the legitimacy of a multiparty system and concepts of citizenship that reinterpret traditional notions of religious tolerance (or toleration) to extend equal civic and political rights to all residents of the “Islamic homeland,” irrespective of religious affiliation. This requires considerable investment in reinterpreting the sources as well as the scholarly tradition.

Muslims confront the basic challenge to all believers in a personal God who has revealed himself in scripture: the fact that according to their own normative tradition, revelation is precisely located in time and place and yet universally valid for all times and places, unbounded by the confines of origin. For virtually all Muslim authors engaged in the debate on pluralism and tolerance, revelation (waḥy) is enshrined in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s example, or al-kitāb wa-l-sunna. They pursue a textual approach to certain knowledge—but textual does not necessarily mean literal.

Most Muslim authors regard the sunna as part of revelation and look to the Prophet as well as members of the early Muslim community, the salaf ṣāliḥ, as role models for Muslims. In spite of much critical scholarship on the sunna, especially among Western authors, the life of the Prophet and the Prophetic traditions continue to be among the most popular sources of inspiration to Muslims. The sunna documents (or purports to document) the social norms and practices of Arab tribal society in seventh-century northwestern Arabia—practices that were informed by the Qur’anic message but that cannot easily be transferred across time and space to be implemented in highly diverse sociocultural settings. Tribal factions in seventh-century Arabia are not the same as modern political parties, the treatment of Jews in the oasis of Khaybar cannot be taken as a timeless model of tolerance, and the so-called Constitution of Medina is no blueprint for organizing the state of law in the modern period. Many Muslims are aware of these facts. Yet only a minority hold that the exemplary practice of the Prophet is not just embedded in a particular “space” but also tied to it and thus not timelessly valid and binding. The issue is relevant to all conceptualizations of the Islamic state or order, including understandings of pluralism and tolerance.

Even more sensitive is the status of the Qur’an as the primary source of normative guidance for Muslims of all times and places. With regard to Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr), modern authors can build on the classical tradition, but openly or tacitly many also go beyond it. Classical exegetes did recognize that the Qur’anic text is occasionally ambiguous and too complex to be ever fully exhausted by human minds; the Qur’an itself says so in more than one place. Certain features of the Qur’anic narrative and the hermeneutical strategies of Qur’anic exegesis, such as the use of metaphor, figurative speech, self-referentiality, and allegorical interpretation, are relevant to present discussions. However, these discussions are largely limited to academic circles. In a broader context, which tends to be more openly political, other methods of Qur’anic exegesis stand out more prominently, one based on contextualization and the other on abstraction. Both seek to define a hierarchy of commands and rules, one by placing them on a chronological scale, the other by assessing their validity within the overall context of revelation.

Contextualization includes, first, the exegetical subdiscipline of the “circumstances of revelation” (asbāb al-nuzūl), which aims to establish the context, or “seat in life,” of all textual references, and second, abrogation (naskh, al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh), which seeks to ascertain their chronological sequence, with later revelations superseding earlier ones. Contextualization is a recognized element of both Qur’anic exegesis, tafsīr, and legal reasoning, fiqh, and indeed is indispensable to these disciplines. In contrast to most classical scholars, however, modern authors like the Egyptian lawyer Muhammad Sa‘id al-‘Ashmawi (b. 1932), an outspoken critic of the “application” of the shari‘a, use contextualization as a tool not only to correctly locate specific rulings but also to restrict their binding force to this context. In doing so, they attempt to expand the scope of rational inquiry without abandoning the textual framework of the Qur’an (and sunna). There are obvious problems with this approach. One concerns history or rather historiography: the Qur’an does not represent a linear narrative and therefore does not establish an undisputed chronological sequence of divine commands and rulings. At best, this may be done with the aid of other materials, including the sunna and the Life of the Prophet (sīra), both of which, however, were not written down at the same time as the Qur’an. Very few Muslim scholars have ventured to deconstruct the historiography concerning the age of the Prophet and the early community. Seen from the perspective of modern historical source criticism, contextualization rests on shaky ground. Seen from the perspective of tradition-bound scholars, it threatens to undermine the foundations of Muslim belief.

Abstraction offers ample opportunities to rethink the Qur’anic message, especially when combined with contextualization, and it is widely employed in present debates on pluralism and tolerance. Here, too, modern authors can build on the Islamic scholarly tradition. A majority hold that the shari‘a is divine law in the sense that it was laid down by God (or his messenger, Muhammad, which is generally less clearly stated), with respect to its fundamentals and certain specific rulings. The challenge is to identify these fundamentals, or universal principles, in order to do justice to the “spirit” of Islam and the shari‘a rather than merely following its letter. These fundamentals or universal principles have been largely identified with the “objectives” of the shari‘a (maqāṣid al-sharī‘a), or its “finality.” They have also been linked to the concepts of the common good or public interest (in modern terminology, maṣlaḥa ‘āmma) and of certain underlying goods or benefits (maṣāliḥ) to be protected by the shari‘a: religion (i.e., Islam), life, offspring, property, and intellect; often honor has been included in the list as well. In ways that are not always clear, the distinction between fundamentals and nonfundamentals has also been related to the distinction between general and specific rules (‘āmm and khāṣṣ). While the fundamentals or universal principles constitute the unchanging essence of Islam and the shari‘a, their realization is contingent on time, place, and circumstance. As a result, the shari‘a is considered fixed and unchangeable in its essence but flexible in its detailed rules and regulations.

The distinction between the fixed and the flexible (al-thābit wa-l-mutaghayyir), between the basics and secondary matters, and between universals and specifics is crucial to modern conceptions of an Islamic order and more particularly to discussions of tolerance, equality, and citizenship. According to some, universal principles carry greater weight than specific injunctions of the Qur’an and sunna, and in case of conflict, can even supersede or suspend explicit textual injunctions (naṣṣ) if this serves the common good. Reference to siyāsa shar‘iyya, or governance in accordance with the shari‘a, and to respected theoreticians of maṣlaḥa, from Ghazali (d. 1111) to Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi (d. 1388), cannot obscure the fact that modern interpretations are set in a context quite different from the one inhabited by Ghazali or Shatibi. The rationalist, if not openly utilitarian, logic employed by writers such as ‘Ashmawi to root modern understandings of liberty, pluralism, and tolerance in the normative tradition renders them vulnerable to critique from Islamists and Islamic scholars alike, who defend what they see as unchanging “divine law” against human whims and interests, especially because those whims and interests seem to be inspired by foreign models.

The Unity of the Community

The crucial importance of unity (waḥda) to Islamic thought past and present is undisputed. There are numerous references to unity in the Qur’an, and they are liberally quoted by modern authors. At the core is Qur’an 3:103–5:

O believers, fear God as He should be truly feared, and die not except as Muslims. And hold fast, all of you, to the rope of God and do not fall into dissension (lā tafarraqū). Remember God’s bounties upon you, when you were enemies to one another, and how He brought harmony to your hearts so that, by His blessing, you became brothers … Let there be among you a group who call to virtue, who command the good and forbid vice. These shall indeed prosper. Do not be like those who scattered (tafarraqū) and fell into dissension (ikhtalafū) after manifest signs had come to them. These shall meet with terrible torment.

Qur’an 23:52 states simply, “This, your nation, is a single nation and I am your Lord. So fear Me.” Qur’an 30:31–32 warns people not to be “among those who associate other gods with Him, those who have sundered their religion and turned into sects, each sect happy with what they have.” Some modern authors refer to the doctrine of tawḥīd, denoting the unity of God, in order to explain the overriding need for the unity of the community, or al-jamā‘a. Critics have spoken of “political tawḥīd.” In legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) the emphasis on unity corresponds to the principle of ijmā‘, the consensus of the Muslim community as expressed by its religious scholars or the first generations of Muslims. (For Twelver Shi‘is, or Imamis, consensus has to be endorsed by the imams.) Many modern authors leap from religious doctrine and legal principle to historical practice: virtually all believe that at the beginning there was unity—a community firmly united around the Prophet as its sole spiritual and political leader—and that only later did unity yield to differentiation, giving rise to theological, legal, and political schools (madhāhib), sects (milal), or parties (aḥzāb).

The unitary vision can entail the rejection of all divergence of opinion, critique, or opposition to the dominant doctrines and practices as a menace to and sin against not just the given sociopolitical system but the divinely ordained order at large. Many writers do indeed view differentiation as fragmentation, entailing a weakening of the community of Muslims, as exemplified by the first and second civil wars, or fitnas, of the first century after the hijra (the migration of the Prophet and his Companions from Mecca to Medina). If broad moral-cum-religious categories such as true and false (ḥaqq and bāṭil), right and wrong (ma‘rūf and munkar), or permissible and forbidden (ḥalāl and ḥarām) are employed to evaluate political opinions and decisions; if there is only one truth and only one correct “position of Islam” on any given issue; and if this truth can be clearly identified by the community of Muslims or a given group of Muslims, then critique and diversity cannot be admitted as legitimate, nor can it be institutionalized. Legitimate plurality remains confined to what the powers-that-be define as consistent with the public order. Many would not rule out plurality and diversity altogether but still perceive them as destructive and divisive. There is a widely shared feeling that Muslims should overcome internal divisions and restore the pristine unity of the age of the Prophet. Attempts to bring about a rapprochement between Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims (taqrīb) and to create a unified fiqh beyond the established schools of law and theology testify to this quest for unity.

The Logic of the Nation-State

Idealization of the early umma as an undivided community has been reinforced by the colonial experience and the opposition to Zionism, Israel, and the West as the perceived enemies of Islam. It has been further enhanced by the imprint of the modern nation-state. Modern authors are heirs to a legacy of conceptionalizing the community, homeland, and nation that was created by Salafi authors and activists, from Afghani (1838–97) to Hasan al-Banna (1906–49), largely in opposition to colonial domination. Even in the present era of globalization and mass migration, or perhaps precisely because of these phenomena, many (and not only Muslims) continue to think of Islam and the Muslim community in territorial terms, evoking the boundary between the “territory of Islam” (dār al-islām), in which the shari‘a is enforced by the prince or state, and the “territory of war” (dār al-ḥarb), in which this is not the case, either because the rulers are not Muslim or because they, though nominally Muslim, fail to apply the shari‘a. Even those who, in recognition of present realities, acknowledge a third category, the “territory of truce” (dār al-ṣulḥ) or the “territory of treaty” (dār al-‘ahd), in which the state of war between Islamic and non-Islamic territories has been suspended, adhere to a territorial logic.

Building on the binary notions of dār al-islām versus dār al-ḥarb, Salafi authors have proposed a territorial concept of Islam as the homeland (waṭan) of all Muslims as well as of the non-Muslims living in their midst. Thus in 1934, Banna, the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, wrote in a newspaper editorial that “every piece of land where the banner of Islam has been hoisted is the fatherland of the Muslims” (Krämer, 2010, p. 105). From earlier authors, he borrowed the neologism al-jinsiyya al-islāmiyya (“Islamic nationality”) to describe the bond uniting all residents of the Islamic homeland. By the same token, earlier Salafi reformers had declared patriotism to be “part of faith” (ḥubb al-waṭan min al-īmān). Because of the close link between the Arabs and Islam in the formative period, relations between Arabism and Islam retained a special character throughout the 20th century. As a result, the vocabulary employed—especially in the context of tolerance and citizenship, with its characteristic combination of terms taken from the Islamic tradition (umma, jamā‘a) on the one hand and modern political vocabulary (waṭan, jinsiyya) on the other—suggests a certain level of conceptual confusion.

From Plurality to Pluralism

In spite of the high value attached to unity (of both the Muslim umma and the modern nation-state), most contemporary Muslim thinkers acknowledge plurality and diversity as facts of life willed by God and sanctioned by the Qur’an. The recognition of plurality and diversity, however, does not necessarily entail a recognition of pluralism, which makes diversity into a founding principle of social and political organization and allows for its institutionalization through voluntary associations (“civil society”), political parties, and bodies of parliamentary representation. The important distinction between plurality and pluralism is not always made, though the key terms—difference or divergence of opinion (ikhtilāf), plurality (tanawwu‘), and pluralism (ta‘addudiyya)—permit such a differentiation. On the theoretical as well as the practical level, there exist a range of positions, even among Islamists, that can be roughly divided into two opposing camps: one deeply suspicious of, or indeed opposed to, plurality and pluralism as menacing to Muslim integrity, power, and unity, and the other supporting plurality and pluralism as contributing to Muslim strength and creativity, rendering Islam, as the well-known formula has it, valid for all times and places. Even among the latter, finer distinctions emerge as soon as the legitimacy of a plurality of interests rather than mere opinions is addressed.

Opposition to plurality and pluralism is characteristic of militant Islamic groups and their spokespersons, while support of plurality and pluralism is common among Muslim thinkers and activists advocating a moderate, pragmatic course. The most widely shared view would seem to be that plurality and diversity are legitimate as long as they involve nonantagonistic groups operating “within the framework of Islam.” Put simply, Muslim society and the Islamic state are conceived of as plural but not pluralistic. Differing opinions and interests should be balanced and harmonized to reflect the ideals of the equilibrium and the juste milieu. This limits both plurality and pluralism, though the actual imposition of restrictions may be subject to pragmatic considerations, including political reason weighing the options in light of the public interest, or what is identified as such.

Advocates of pluralism point to the elements of diversity in the religious, legal, and historical heritage of the Muslim community as one of the very sources of its strength and resilience. They quote the Qur’an and sunna, and, like their opponents, they do not hesitate to translate ethicoreligious concepts into sociopolitical ones. The most popular reference is Qur’an 49:13: “O mankind, We created you male and female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may come to know one another. The noblest among you in God’s sight are the most pious.” Potentially more powerful, though less often cited, is Qur’an 5:48:

For every community We decreed a law and a way of life. Had God willed, He could have made you a single community—but in order to test you in what He revealed to you. So vie with one another in virtue. To God is your homecoming, all of you, and He will then acquaint you with that over which you differed.

In addition, there is a famous Prophetic saying (hadith) according to which the “diversity of opinion among [the learned of] my community is a blessing (ikhtilāf [‘ulamā’] ummatī raḥma).” Though the hadith is considered weak, which restricts its legal force, it is often quoted in the literature on Islamic political thought, and pluralism and tolerance more specifically. The tradition of scholarly controversy, together with its specific body of literature (kutub al-ikhtilāf), is still known in erudite circles and serves to legitimize a plurality of views, even if antagonistic—provided they do not transgress the bounds of religion and morality.

As in other contexts, the shift from theology to law to politics is readily made. Thus the existence of the different Sunni and Shi‘i schools of law (madhhab, pl. madhāhib) and of local legal practices (‘urf, ‘āda) is often assimilated to political parties. The same is not true of the theological schools, which, at least among modern authors, are widely seen as divisive. Thus Qaradawi insists on the need to transcend the boundaries of the established schools of theology and law in order to create an inclusive vision of Islam that is meaningful to all Muslims. In various contexts, he asserts that what he practices is ijtihād, or independent reasoning on the basis of the Qur’an and sunna, freed from the ties to any particular madhhab with its specific rules and assumptions. Qaradawi acknowledges the historical embeddedness of fiqh and the controversies of its practitioners. In contrast to many others, he welcomes the existing plurality of legal opinions found in the legal tradition, but he also considers them a matter of the past that is no longer a concern for present-day Muslims, who should harness their energies to make Islam relevant to their own lives and those of others.

In the domain of politics, even conservative authors who take care not to be seen as borrowing from outside the Islamic tradition advocate consultation, or shūrā, as a key principle of political organization, enjoined by the Qur’an and incumbent on Muslim rulers past and present. Shūrā is premised on a plurality of opinions, at least within the community and within what is generally referred to as the “framework of Islam.” Shūrā is a flexible device that allows for a variety of interpretations, all relevant to the issues of pluralism and tolerance. Some see it as mere advice to the ruler, similar to “good counsel,” or naṣīḥa; others view it as the foundation of multiparty parliamentary democracy. Definitions of shūrā can be purely pragmatic, but they can also be based on philosophical reflection, for even though there may be only one truth, there is no guarantee that humans will be able to attain it with certainty. The Tunisian Islamist thinker and activist Rachid al-Gannouchi (b. 1941) is a prominent champion of this line of thinking. It has also been put forth in the context of Islamist self-critique. The Qur’anic text permits more than one reading. Accordingly, no individual or group of Muslims can have a monopoly on truth, or exert a tutelage (wiṣāya) over their fellow Muslims. This argument, which for lack of a better term might be called egalitarian, is directed against all kinds of religious authorities, from the Sunni ‘ulama’ of Azhar University in Cairo to the Shi‘i leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is also directed against Islamist movements, first and foremost the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, whose claim to leadership over the “Islamic awakening” (ṣaḥwa) has been squarely repudiated by Islamist leaders such as Gannouchi and Turabi. Both insisted that Islamist activists, like all Muslims, have to interact with local realities if they wish to make their vision of Islam relevant to their own societies. Interaction with local conditions necessarily results in a plurality of interpretations.

Debate is therefore legitimate and indeed necessary. Under the conditions of modern mass society, debate may have to be institutionalized in voluntary associations and political parties to become effective. However, there is little agreement even among Islamists concerning institutionalization. Views range from a grudging recognition of political associations and parties as the lesser evil (compared to clandestine activities of undesirable political forces) to full acceptance of political pluralism as healthy and legitimate. Some recognize voluntary associations or even trade unions but not political parties. Others express more liberal views. The names adopted by Islamist organizations reflect this diversity of opinions. Many call themselves jamā‘a, jam‘iyya, or tajammu‘, all derivatives of a verbal root stressing unison, to highlight their faith in unity; the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam‘iyyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) is a prime example. Some call themselves “front” (jabha), using a more openly modern label to transport a similar message; examples include the Algerian Front Islamique du Salut and the Sudanese National Islamic Front or the Islamic Action Front in Jordan. Yet others call themselves parties, such as the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami), founded in the early 1950s by the Jordanian Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani; the Malaysian Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), also established in the early 1950s; or the Tunisian Nahda Party (Hizb al-Nahda), founded in 1989 by Gannouchi.

However, the choice of the term “party” does not in itself signal an acceptance of political pluralism, as shown by the Hizb al-Tahrir or the Lebanese Hizbullah; at least in its early years, the latter was firmly opposed to a multiparty system. According to the binary vision adopted by both organizations, there are only two “parties” (or rather groups or communities): the party of God (ḥizb allāh) and the party of the devil (ḥizb al-shayṭān), or, with a significant change of register, the party of the downtrodden (al-mustaḍ‘afūn) and the party of the arrogant (al-mustakbirūn). The former refers to Qur’an 5:56 (“Whoso takes God and His Messenger and the believers for allies, the party of God shall be victorious”) and Qur’an 58:19, 22 (“They are the party of Satan and the party of Satan are assuredly the losers…. They are the party of God, and the party of God shall surely win through”). The latter uses categories popularized by the leaders of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Here as elsewhere the argument rests on a transfer of ethicomoral notions to the sociopolitical field. Thus the Qur’anic condemnation of whims and desires (hawā, pl. ahwā’) is used to denounce political parties and associations premised on a particular interest (maṣlaḥa) at the expense of the common good or public weal, resulting in a collective weakening of the Muslim community or the nation. Gannouchi is one of the few distinguished Islamist authors to defend interests as a legitimate component of political action and organization.

At one end of the spectrum, the prominent Egyptian lawyer and Islamist intellectual Muhammad Salim al-‘Awwa (b. 1942) openly declared himself in favor of pluralism. In an article on “political pluralism” published in 1993, he wrote that pluralism means the recognition of diversity and that this diversity is an “expression of the marvelous divine achievement.” With regard to political organization he argued that if one “recognises the pluralistic nature of humans, and recognises their rights to disagree and differ, one must inevitably, and without much effort, recognise pluralism in the political sphere.” To reject political pluralism and to adopt monism, or a unitary vision, he continued, usually leads to an unjust despotic rule or tyrannical government. The reference to the Qur’anic verses sanctioning plurality cited earlier comes out clearly, as does the seemingly effortless change of register from theology to politics.

In spite of some verbal stridency, pragmatism features prominently in modern Islamic discourse. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, for example, under changing conditions gradually moved from a principled rejection of multipartyism to an acceptance of a multiparty system—provided that it stays within the framework of Islam. In the face of British colonialism, the Muslim Brotherhood propagated national unity combined with the denunciation of party politics or factionalism (ḥizbiyya). Faith, Banna declared, is unity; fragmentation and disunity equal unbelief (kufr). Considering that in Egypt the interwar period has often been called the age of party politics, this was not a minor point. Yet the Muslim Brotherhood was not alone in criticizing “partyism” and partisanship. Sa‘d Zaghlul, the leader of the Wafd Party founded in 1918, did the same, claiming for the Wafd the role of representative of the nation at large; by the 1930s, the critique had become common-place. For Banna, politics (but not party politics) was an integral part of Islam. In 1938, he sent an open letter to the king and leading politicians, which was later published under the title Nahwa al-Nur (To the light), urging them to dissolve all parties and to create a united front. Still, there is no compelling link between this dualistic vision pitting right against wrong and the endorsement of a one-party system as it was espoused especially during the 1950s and 1960s by Islamists in particular communities and countries. Changed sociopolitical circumstances resulted in modified political thinking. By the mid-1990s, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had largely revised its earlier positions on multipartyism, exchanging earlier rejection for cautious endorsement.

At the same time, most authors would rule out the possibility that political parties explicitly representing non-Muslims (such as Christian parties) be recognized in the framework of an Islamic order. Lebanon, with its system of institutionalized confessionalism, or sectarianism (ṭā’ifiyya), is a special case; set quotas for non-Muslims and other minorities in countries such as Iran or Jordan do not allow for political parties to form on a confessional basis. The same applies to political parties based on what are labeled un-Islamic principles, such as Marxism, communism, or fascism. But this does not exclude the possibility of cooperation under certain circumstances, notably under conditions of duress, in which the established legal principle of necessity, or ḍarūra, can be invoked. Here the crucial distinction between the fundamentals of religion (aṣl) and its derivatives (furū‘) comes into play. It allows for recognizing the existing plurality and diversity of opinion and interest without abandoning the ideal of unity. In a similar context, the noted Islamic scholar H.A.R. Gibb has spoken of “tolerance for the sake of unity” (Gibb, 1962, p. 15).

From Toleration to Tolerance

Tolerance covers a broad spectrum of positions, from toleration of the Other to respect for his or her beliefs and practices to the full recognition of these beliefs and practices as equally viable and legitimate. The Arabic tasāmuḥ does not distinguish between toleration on the one hand and tolerance on the other. Toleration can be based on pragmatic considerations and made contingent on certain conditions; it is thus revocable. It can be granted by autocratic rulers and authoritarian states irrespective of their own beliefs and ideologies. Toleration can also reflect philosophical insight into the impossibility of ascertaining truth, similar to the argument made by Gannouchi and others in the context of pluralism. Both pragmatic toleration and philosophical reflection can come together but need not do so. In modern debates, it is often conditional toleration that authors, especially Islamist authors, have in mind when they invoke tolerance as the distinguishing feature of Islam and any polity based on it. Respect for the Other as a different expression of toleration and tolerance presupposes a certain degree of familiarity among the different parties, especially concerning their religious beliefs and practices. However, respect need not translate into specific legal and political arrangements granting equal religious, civic, and political rights to the latter.

By contrast, tolerance in the sense of full recognition of the Other is inconceivable without such legal and political arrangements translating religious recognition into rights of citizenship. In the modern period, tolerance thus defined has been associated with human rights, freedom, and liberty. Tolerance entails recognition of individual self-determination in diverse fields of life, including the free choice of lifestyle and religion, the right to practice this lifestyle or religion, and the right to either change or relinquish them altogether. Tolerance thus bears on individual and collective rights and liberties in both the private and the public spheres and is premised on a differentiation between religion, morals, law, and the constitution. The distinction many authors make between the public and the private domain, with the private sphere protected against outside intrusion and intervention, is remarkable in light of contemporary debates on whether the distinction between public and private in Western contexts is relevant to Muslim contexts. Discussions of sexual freedom and apostasy suggest that it is indeed highly relevant to the latter.

Tolerance among Muslims

Even for innovative authors such as ‘Awwa, there are limits to tolerance and diversity. These limits, defined by God’s law and revelation, inform (or ought to inform) Muslim understandings of freedom, liberty, and tolerance. Freedom in its various dimensions—freedom of conscience, religion, thought, and expression; freedom of association; academic and artistic freedom—is widely discussed among contemporary Muslims. Personal freedom, entailing free individual choice, bears on concepts of tolerance and pluralism. With regard to personal freedom, ‘Awwa, who supports political pluralism and tolerance toward non-Muslims that treats them as citizens, not as protected subjects, shows himself as much more conservative. In a monograph on Islamic penal law he argued that

the Islamic concept of personal freedom is entirely opposed to that of the post-war generation in the West. Personal freedom, according to the Islamic concept, is permissible only in respect to matters not regulated by the injunctions and prohibitions laid down in the Qur’an and the Sunna, which are expressions of the Divine Will. (El Awa, 1982, p. 18)

This does not address the question of how the community or the state should deal with transgression and whether under certain circumstances it might be tolerated, but it does underscore the necessity to distinguish among different fields to which individual groups and authors may apply different standards of rigor or leniency or toleration and tolerance.

The distinction between public and private is equally relevant to another key issue affecting tolerance among Muslims: the change of religion, which continues to be labeled as apostasy (ridda), suggesting the illegitimate nature of the act. Many would argue that within the Muslim community, public debate must fall short of any radical critique of religion or its dominant interpretations, which is readily denounced as blasphemy, heresy, or apostasy, raising the issue of takfīr, or the exclusion from the community of Muslims. Modern Muslim authors are concerned not so much with the theological dimension (the definition of apostasy and how it can be distinguished from sin, unbelief, heresy, or blasphemy) but with its impact on the body politic. Discussions of apostasy provide a striking illustration of territorial logic and the modern nation-state’s impact on much of contemporary Islamic discourse. Thus in a tract devoted to the issue of apostasy, Qaradawi claimed that the Muslim who openly declares his apostasy transfers his allegiance from his own community and homeland to another and thereby threatens the foundation of collective identity.

According to him, the apostate does not simply abandon the community; he joins the enemy, an act not to be tolerated. Lacking compelling evidence from the Qur’an and sunna to support the identification of religious conversion and high treason, Qaradawi follows standard practice by invoking memories of the historical ridda, the secession of Arab tribes after Muhammad’s death, which he describes as treason on both religious and political grounds. Like many others, Qaradawi looks at apostasy from the perspective of the community, not the individual making a personal choice, and he identifies Islam with individual and collective identity. This has obvious consequences for conceptions of religious tolerance and the status of non-Muslims in a Muslim polity or Islamic state.

The Status of Non-Muslims

The Qur’an describes other religions in its own terms, and these terms have been adapted by Muslim scholars of the formative and classical periods; modern Muslims still use basically the same vocabulary. Monotheism and a book of revelation are the crucial criteria by which the Qur’an distinguishes between several categories of believers (mu’minūn and muslimūn) and unbelievers (kuffār): the People of the Book, which include the Christians, the Jews, the Zoroastrians, and the mysterious Sabians; the polytheists or pagans (mushrikūn); and the hypocrites (munāfiqūn), who pretend to be Muslims while actually conspiring against the Muslim community. Qur’anic rulings on the theological and legal status of non-Muslims as well as on how Muslims should interact with non-Muslims are not entirely consistent. Interpretation rests on the methods of contextualization and abstraction outlined earlier. Some Qur’anic verses describe the commonalities of all believers; others draw a clear line between Muslims, the People of the Book, and pagans. Thus Qur’an 109:6 states, “O unbelievers! I do not worship what you worship, nor do you worship what I worship; nor will I ever worship what you worship, nor will you ever worship what I worship. You have your religion, and I have mine.” Qur’an 5:48 makes a similar statement. Both could be taken as the basis of respect and religious tolerance, although they are by no means unequivocal. As for the modes of interaction among the adherents of different faiths, Qur’an 2:256 famously decrees that “there is no compulsion in religion,” whereas Qur’an 9:29 calls on Muslims to “fight those who do not believe in God or the Last Day, who do not hold illicit what God and His Messenger hold illicit, and who do not follow the religion of truth from among those given the Book, until they offer up the tribute, by hand, in humble mien.” Several verses warn Muslims not to take non-Muslims as their friends and allies, while others instruct them to act justly toward them and to respect their treaties with them.

In view of such diversity, modern authors rely on classical theological and legal scholarship to put forth the position of Islam on the status and treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic or Muslim society. Modern authors still discuss dhimma, the protection granted to non-Muslims living permanently under Muslim rule; jizya, the poll tax to be paid by all able-bodied adult non-Muslim males in exchange for protection; the rules of interaction, including intermarriage, the possibility of sharing a table and of consuming foodstuffs produced or meat slaughtered by the non-Muslim Other, and the risks of ritual pollution; the freedom of religious practice, including the construction and restoration of sites of worship; and (partial) autonomy within the Islamic polity, best known from the late Ottoman Empire as the millet system. Most of these issues are dealt with in the so-called Treaty of ‘Umar, attributed to the second caliph, ‘Umar b. al-Khattab (r. 634–44), and possibly composed in the eighth century. Modern writings are often apologetic in nature; religious polemic informed by theological issues has become rare. According to prevalent perceptions, tolerance was practiced from the time of the Prophet and the pious ancestors (al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ) up to at least Ottoman times. While early Muslim history is frequently invoked, the actual experience of coexistence, if not conviviality—not only in Andalus or in Fatimid Egypt but in various other times and places, too—is rarely explored. The conceptual framework is shaped by the territorial state, and the non-Muslims concerned are by and large local Christians. Muslim minority groups within Muslim-majority societies, such as Alevis in Turkey, Shi‘is in Saudi Arabia or Morocco, or Sunnis in Iran, are hardly ever covered under the heading of tolerance. The status of Hindus and Buddhists is rarely discussed outside of South Asia and Southeast Asia, and contributions of South Asian or Southeast Asian Muslim intellectuals tend to be ignored by their Middle Eastern homologues. Reception is slightly better among Muslim intellectuals and activists residing in the West. New religious communities such as the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses are largely excluded from discussion and denied recognition and legal protection.

Discussions of tolerance accorded to non-Muslims under Islam, therefore, tend to be limited to the People of the Book in general and to Christians and Jews in particular. Within this narrow field, however, the range of positions is wide: At one end of the spectrum are those scholar-activists who are prepared to tolerate Christians and Jews as dhimmīs, subjects of the Muslim state or ruler protected on the condition that they acknowledge the superiority of Islam and the Muslim community and, as a token of this recognition, pay the jiyza “with humble mien” (Q. 9:29). They exclude non-Muslims from political participation and representation as well as all positions involving power and authority over Muslims (wilāya), including the judiciary, the military, and high state offices, which are classified as religious because in one way or another, they are charged with applying the shari‘a. The distinction between “religious” and “nonreligious” spheres and offices at work here is intriguing given the Islamist conviction that Islam does not separate religion from politics—the bedrock of antisecular argument. It appears that within the framework of Islamic rule, as exemplified by the application of the shari‘a, distinct fields or domains operate according to a different logic, provided that this logic does not contradict the “fundamentals” of Islam and the shari‘a. Still, this is a minority view, mostly to be found among militant Islamist groups and theoreticians. At the other end of the spectrum are those scholars, intellectuals, and political activists who recognize Christians and Jews as citizens of the (Muslim or Islamic) nation-state with equal rights and duties, grant them autonomy in personal-status matters, and bar them only from the office of president, to which only male Muslims can be appointed. This position is much more common than the former, though also more diversified. Statements on the status of Jews must be seen in light of political conflict with Zionism and Israel rather than the principle of religious tolerance only. The same applies to anti-Semitism, which in certain milieus has arisen mainly as an element of the critique of Zionism and Israel or Israeli state policies.

In certain contexts, non-Muslims residing in Islamic territory are described as dhimmīs of the Muslim community, enjoying protection (dhimma) against the payment of dues and taxes including the jizya; in other contexts, they are described as muwāṭinūn, variously to be translated as compatriots or citizens. According to classical fiqh, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims are based on a contract involving reciprocal rights and duties, which were unequal, reflecting the religious and political superiority of Muslims. Except for certain militant Islamist activists, modern authors commonly assert that non-Muslims enjoy essentially the same civic and political rights and duties as Muslims, referring to the formula “same rights, same duties” (lahum mā lanā wa-‘alayhim mā ‘alaynā), which is also known in classical fiqh, especially the Hanafi tradition. Accordingly, Islam guarantees non-Muslims protection of their lives, bodies, property, and honor as well as respect for their religious freedom, covering the fundamental goods or benefits (maṣāliḥ) protected under the shari‘a. In the framework of the modern nation-state, it also offers them social benefits such as old-age pensions. It is only in the religious field that they cannot be considered equal.

With regard to politics, some authors argue that the protection accorded non-Muslims under Islam is the same as what is today described as nationality or citizenship (jinsiyya). They interpret the jizya as an equivalent of zakat or a substitute for military service. Accordingly, non-Muslims could not be expected to fight for Islam and the Muslim community, a fight identified as jihad, in the premodern era; however, the nature of jihad was transformed in the process of anticolonial struggle and modern nation building. Non-Muslims who joined their Muslim fellow countrymen in the fight against colonialism and for the nation earned the rights of citizenship, making special payment of jizya obsolete. Not all authors claim that the muwāṭinūn min ghayr al-muslimīn (non-Muslim countrymen and women) enjoy full equality with their Muslim compatriots in all spheres of life. Instead, they elaborate on justice, equity, and religious freedom properly understood, which does not force non-Muslims to convert but allows them to retain their cultural authenticity just as it protects the cultural authenticity of Muslims. In return, non-Muslims have to respect the religious sensibilities of the Muslims. Proselytizing missions among Muslims cannot be tolerated, highlighting once again the shifting meanings of toleration and tolerance.