The Relationship Between the Ruler and the Ruled

The Relationship Between the Ruler and the Ruled:
A Mutually Obligating Agreement

The term "Social Contract" refers to a state of existence in which men are assumed to have surrendered living as free and independent individuals in nature, and chosen a communally agreed form of social organization. This notion can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greeks, yet it only became an important argument in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was one of the most important thinkers who expounded the theory of social contract. What is significant for us is that to Rousseau, social contract was only an assumption and ideal; whereas, Islam - eleven centuries before Rousseau - introduced the same concept and translated it into a living workable reality. "Al-Bay'ah" is the Arabic term for social contract.

"Al-Bay'ah" literally means a commercial transaction. Hence, it brings to mind, by free association, the meaning of the act of a free-will transaction between two or more parties where each becomes reciprocally obligated to the other. It follows from that if one party does not fulfil its obligation, the whole transaction is then rendered void and unbinding to the other party or parties. According to the Islamic canon law, a would-be ruler has to be voted for according to the bay'ah. This means that he should be chosen by a process of free consultation among the people or their representatives; and according to the conditions set by the majority of them. The first and foremost of such conditions is the adherence to the constitution - the Quran. Only then does he become entitled to the people's obedience and support.

At the conclusion of the bay'ah, the ruler shakes hands with the people's representatives; which symbolizes his acceptance of the responsibilities entrusted to him. The same procedure of the bay'ah is to be followed all over the nation's provinces between the inhabitants of such provinces and the administrators whom the elected ruler delegates to govern the provinces on his behalf. It is important to indicate that if the ruler rules unjustly or abuses his powers, he would be then breaching the bay'ah; and the people then have the right to rise up against him and even to impeach him. In fact, the tradition of the Zaydi school of "Fiqh" and thought makes it imperative to rise up to overthrow a deviant and unjust ruler. Zaydism - committed to justice on earth, among other things - has had a long history of fighting against injustice. It started after the end of the rightly-guided Caliphate and the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, when Al-Hussein and the committed Muslims took to revolt against Mu'awiya; which resulted in the tragic and bloody murder of Al-Hussein. Thus thirty years after the Prophet's (PBUH) death, rulership no longer adhered to the Quranic principles of shura (communal consultation) and bay'ah (voting); rather, it retrogressed to pre-Islamic forms of kingship. Muslims, since the Umayyads down to the present time, have been suffering under rulerships that are absolutist, tyrannical, and anti-Islamic. Islam is innocent of such unjust systems which falsely claim to be Islamic. For the Quran commands every Muslim to work for the realization of the call of all prophets - justice.

"We sent aforetime our messengers with Clear Signs, and sent down with them the Book of the Balance [of Right and Wrong], that men may stand forth in justice." [Quran 57:25]

Communal Consultation is the Method of Decision-Making

And the purpose is "to bend he who is the first entrusted with responsibility to conformity with justice."

After the bay'ah is completed, the elected ruler should set forth to perform his duties. Yet, he shall do so according to a process of mutual consultation with those in authority from among the people. In fact, this procedure is a basic Quranic principle which ought to characterize not only the relationship between the ruler and ruled, but also all aspects of conduct of the believers in the Muslim community. A special verse on that matter was revealed in the Quran; and was entitled Ash-Shura: "Those who respond to their Lord, and establish regular prayer; who [conduct] their affairs by mutual consultation." [Quran 42:38]

The implementation of the principle of communal consultation during the rightly-guided Caliphate took the form of public discussion in the mosque. Whenever an important issue came to be, the Mu'addin (announcer of prayer) would call upon the Muslims to gather for a group prayer. (The consultation procedure had its own characteristic call which was: "group prayer; group prayer"). Then all men and women would hasten to the mosque. The Caliph would present the issue or issues and take the people's opinion. It is important to indicate here that the democracy of the mosque in Al-Madina included women and slaves, unlike the Athenian democracy which excluded them.

The Islamic democracy of the mosque proved itself in principle and practice. Al-Imam Ali's (PBUH), dictum: "I have no authority without your support," indicates the respect of the political rights of the people. On the practical plane, the following two incidents illustrate such respect.

It was reported that after Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, was elected, he set out to the market to earn a living to support his family. He was then seen by one of the Companions; and the following dialogue ensued between the two:

Companion: To where are you heading?
Abu Bakr: To the market to earn a living.
Companion: You are already working for the Muslims!
Abu Bakr: How then can I feed my children?
Companion: Call upon the Muslims to get together and present the matter to them.

That Companion was one of those who were schooled by the Prophet (PBUH). He learned that people, and not individuals, are the legitimate source of power. Thus he announced the Shura call for prayer. When the people gathered in the mosque, Abu Bakr addressed them: "I used to work to support my children, now I work for you. So, appropriate for me from the treasury whatever you agree upon for my needs." The Muslims consulted among themselves and decided to give him wages enough to secure his needs.

The other incident is very well known in Islamic history. It was when Omar ibn Al-Khattab, the second Caliph, proposed that a limit be set regarding women's dowries. A woman then stood up to him and brought to his attention that his proposal goes against a Quranic text. Omar did not hesitate to admit that he was in error and that she was correct.

All that indicates that the supreme ideal which the Islamic political system aims to pursue and, indeed, realized during the rightly-guided Caliphate is justice. This follows naturally since Islamic rulership rests its legitimacy on the Quranic law where justice is the decisive criterion. The Quran abounds with verses that command justice and forbid injustice. It is significant that there is no mention whatsoever in the Quran that a ruler should rule "over" people; rather it addresses those who rule, or judge, or arbitrate, and that they should do so not "over" people but "between" them. A ruler, like a judge, should aim at justice - which was the aim of all the Prophet's missions.

This indicates the judicial nature of the Islamic rulership. It is also the reason why all are equal before the Islamic law - no impunities for certain social classes or exemptions for certain professions. Even a ruler in Islam is as subject to the law as the ruled.

It is clear from the above presentation that Islam made significant contributions to the progress of mankind on all planes: ethical, spiritual, and practical… Yet the image of Islam is still misunderstood and distorted in the Western world. The lack of objectivity in presenting Islam in the West is a legacy of the Crusades. Added to this are the inaccuracies of the historical scholarship of the orientalists. It is also unfortunate that the decadence of the state of affairs in the Muslim world has contributed to the West's negative perception of Islam. However, as much as Christianity as a religion should not be judged by how the Christian world is today, the same is true for Islam. Islam should be viewed in the light of its moral and spiritual precepts and how they have contributed to the dignity and the welfare of the mass of mankind. In the Outline of History, H.G. Wells points out that:

Islam prevailed because it was the best social and political order the time could offer. It prevailed because everywhere it found politically apathetic peoples robbed, oppressed… and it found selfish and unsound governments out of touch with any people at all. It was the broadest, freshest, and cleanest political idea that has yet come into actual activity in the world, and it offered better terms than any other to the mass of mankind. (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1961, Vol. II, p. 493).

"O Muhammad, We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large." [Quran 34:28].

Mr. Alwazir was the former Secretary General of the Union of Supportive Shurists. This article is part of his publication "Two Testimonies: A Charter for the Good Life".

LETTERS & WORDS

BIOGRAPHY

Early Life

Ibrahim Ali Alwazir (hereinafter “Ibrahim Alwazir”) was born in 1931 in Taiz, Yemen into a family renowned for producing influential political leaders, scholars, philosophers and poets. Following in those footsteps, Ibrahim Alwazir pursued this knowledge and remained very close to his father, Ali Abdullah Alwazir, who was an erudite individual and a highly influential political figure who successfully fought against the colonial plans for the region and ultimately for Yemen’s freedom. After establishing the independence of Yemen from the Ottoman Empire, Ali Abdullah Alwazir became the governer of Taiz and continued to fight for the liberation of what was then South Yemen from British colonization. After successfully keeping the British at bay, Ali Abdullah Alwazir directed the opposition towards the oppressive policies of Imam Yahya Hamideddin which included a dictatorial way of ruling the land, stagnant economic policies, and his attempt to create a monarchy out of the imamate by announcing that his son, Ahmad, would be the crown prince. In 1948, Ibrahim Alwazir’s relative, Abdullah Ahmad Alwazir along with other revolutionaries took part in the assassination and overthrow of Imam Yahya Hamideddin in order to set up a constitutionally based form of representative government. It was the revolution’s aim that a constitutionally based representative government would secure the inalienable rights of man to freedom, justice and liberty. The success of the revolution was short-lived, however, as Imam Abdullah Ahmad Alwazir’s government was overthrown less than a month later by Ahmad Hamideddin, the son of the deposed ruler. Subsequently, all the leaders of the revolution were executed including Ibrahim Alwazir’s father and relative, Ali Abdullah Alwazir and Abdullah Ahmad Alwazir, respectively, as well as two uncles from his mother’s side, Mohammad Hassan Abu Ras and Abdullah Hassan Abu Ras. Shortly thereafter, Ibrahim Alwazir, at the age of 19, was jailed along with his four brothers.

Mid-Life

There were several noted scholars imprisoned with Ibrahim Alwazir, and he used the opportunity to further his education by receiving daily instruction from the scholars. He remained in jail for 3 years up until 1953, when supporters of his family arranged Ibrahim Alwazir’s escape to Aden, now also part of reunited Yemen. The British allowed him to board a ship leaving the port to Sudan and from there he went to Egypt.

In Egypt, Ibrahim Alwazir mobilized other exiled Yemenis into a reform movement called Cooperative Democrats that advocated political change, economic development, and social justice in Yemen. Ibrahim Alwazir outlined the by-laws by which the movement would be governed by and formalized this movement in 1961 with the name Ittihad Alguwa Alsha’abia, the name it is known by to this day. After the military coup, in 1962, Ibrahim Alwazir returned to his homeland. In the continuing fighting between republican revolutionaries, eventually supported by Egypt, and the royalists supported by Saudi Arabia, Ibrahim Alwazir continued to advocate for a constitutional based form of democracy that would ensure social justice. Within two years, he and his comrades, and most of his brothers, left Yemen calling for a national conference to end the war.

A Life Threatened

His life experience and his beliefs make him an opponent of despotism wherever it may be found. His escape from imprisonment by the regime that executed his father was only the first of a series of brushes with martyrdom. There were 7 known attempts at his life.

In 1978, he narrowly escaped assassination in his home while in exile, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. More recently, on Nov. 24, 1988, he was lightly wounded and one of his students crippled for life in a foiled assassination plot in Dearborn, Michigan, which has a sizeable Yemeni-American community. Whoever the perpetrators may have been, whether it be the Yemeni government or Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Intelligence Services, their attempt to silence this determined advocate of democracy (shura) between ruler and ruled in the Islamic world has only drawn more public attention to this learned, valiant and witty spokesman for human rights. It also has made Ibrahim Alwazir more certain than ever before that Muslims in the Middle East and American advocates of closer ties with the Islamic world are ready to listen to his ideas.

Overview of Writings & Speeches

Ibrahim Alwazir's many books on the application of Islam to contemporary political issues have made him well-known throughout the Muslim world.

While first in exile in Sudan, he wrote about the guest workers from North Yemen and elsewhere in his books Face to Face With Misery and A Talk to Yemenis in Exile. In Cairo, his differences with the then mainstream of Arab nationalist thought were expressed in his book Lest We Go On in the Dark.

During his brief return to Yemen, he was dismayed by the new police state and also by the fact that followers of the Zaidi School of Islamic Jurisprudence seemed unaware of this school’s advocacy of freedom and justice and opposition to oppression. As a result, he wrote Out of Error's Way and Zaid Bin Ali: A Chronicle of Constant, True Jihad.

In the period of Arab introspection that followed the Six-Day War of 1967, he wrote The Bitter Experience. Then, during the era when Colonel Al-Hamidi ruled Yemen as an absolute despot, ignoring warnings to introduce the democratic reforms in whose name the absolute monarchy had been overthrown, Ibrahim Alwazir wrote The Moral. He warned that rulers who achieve power without introducing measures to achieve popular consent lose their lives when they lose office. Similar points were made in his book An Epistle to the Nation, written after Colonel Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's incumbent president, assumed power.

Ibrahim Alwazir's most recent book, keyed to the beginning of a new century of the Islamic calendar, is On the Eve of the 15th Century After Hijira. It calls upon Muslims to study the lessons of their history, and apply them to realize truth, justice and freedom in the century to come. He feels he speaks for a silent majority in the Islamic world that seeks constitutional government based upon Islamic principles to make rulers accountable and bureaucracies responsible to the governed.

In 1981, at the third Islamic Summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference, he asked rulers of Muslim countries to demonstrate their respect for human rights, the will of the people, and the principles of shura. As a follower of the Zaidi tradition of Islamic jurisprudence, he warns against sectarian obstacles to the unity of the Ummah, or Islamic world.

In 1991, at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Ibrahim Alwazir delivered a lecture in which he addressed the question about the destiny of the Middle East. In his lecture titled Whither the Middle East: Arabism or Islam?, Ibrahim Alwazir argues on the basis of his profound knowledge of the ideology of Islam, to demonstrate its superiority over all other intellectual and social propositions, and most of all over the concept of nationalism. Proceeding from a brilliant analysis of the Arabic language and its most exalted manifestation in the Holy Quran and its spiritual message, he makes it clear that Islam offers a way—the only possible way—to the freeing of man’s mind from superstition and from a soul-destroying quest after false goals and, thus, a way towards mankind’s social salvation.

Ibrahim Alwazir is a leader of Yemen's Democratic Consultative Party, which supports establishment of a parliament-like consultative council (shura) in his country. In his letter to former President George Bush, Sr., he challenges the US president:

“Democracy, by definition, should be for everyone, and it is a contradiction in terms if a state is built on a coexistence of democracy and discrimination, based on racial or ideological differences, or based on the accumulation of power by one group to the deprivation of others.”

Ibrahim Alwazir is an inspiration to Yemenis aligned with his political thoughts. For people who meet him, he serves as a reminder that there are Muslim Arabs who believe just as ardently in rule by the consent of the governed as did Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or others who came before him.