Jesus and Muhammad were both religious revolutionaries, who preached a total self-giving to God – a self-surrender so radical that it challenges every secular demand placed by the state. Both called us to new communities, a new brother- and sisterhood of solidarity, an umma, umm-a, a motherhood of people called to bonds of love. This belonging cuts across national borders, political constituencies, ethnic tribes, even familial ties to create a new, spiritual allegiance held together in love by a shared commitment to submit only to God and no other.
No matter how otherworldly, such absolute commitment to God relativises every claim to loyalty or obedience made by the secular state. Therefore ever since, these communities of faith have struggled to accommodate their spiritual vision of community to this-world requirements of societies and governance. Is the spiritual leader the ideal ruler for a society, or is the exercise of worldly power so insidious that the spiritual should shun it?
A gathering of Shia scholars in the US a few years ago adopted as a resolution: ‘When addressing affiliations, man’s foremost affiliation is to the creator. This is shared by all humanity based on the saying of the Commander of Believers {Imam Ali, Ali ibn Abi Talib} [who said, “Human beings are either your brother or religion in religion or a brother or sister in humanity.”] To deepen this affiliation would gravitate man’s affinity towards the truth, good and justice and protects man’s inclination to fall into racial, political and personal conflicts. For this relationship with the Creator is one that is neutral with respect to national identity, regardless of any nation.’
This claim that spiritual fidelity leads us to a kind of political neutrality is a highly optimistic one. In the Shi‘a tradition, the painful conflict over the nature of community leadership – is it political or spiritual? – began from the death of the Prophet, with the struggles of Ali ibn Abi Talib, and even once the caliphate of the community eventually came to him, he was not allowed to live long to exercise it; the problem thus could not be solved in his praxis. The problem was not solved either by his son Husayn, who having assumed the mantle of spiritual leadership, was slaughtered with all his followers when he took up political leadership to challenge oppression. For the Shi‘a – for the Islamic world as a whole, as contemporary Sunni Islamists struggle with the controversial desire for a political Caliphate – the problem remains unsolved.
Where a secular government aligns itself with the demands of social justice and a genuine desire for peace, no conflict need arise; and it is possible for people of faith to ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’. But where the acts or ordinances of a state cut across the absolute commitment to the call of God, what then?
From the point of view of secular political powers, this gives the religions of Christianity and Islam an almost mercurial character, an ambivalence when laid across the ambitions of the nation-state.
Both Islamic and Christian thought over the course of history acquired complex conceptualisations of the good society, of the polis; thus they inevitably became, in a certain sense, ‘political’. For the sake of the discussion, I’ll propose three ‘moments’ in how theology can go:
- ‘Political’ – engaged in reflection of a political nature – which you could do while never leaving your study, never so much as voting
- ‘Activist’ – in which you argue that faith requires you to take action of a political kind. But whatever the content, the aim, the motivation or the vision – the form that action takes is no different from the activities that might be performed by atheists, secularists, or other religions: demonstrations, letter-writing to your political representative, standing/running for office, projects, community organising, and so on
- ‘Operational’ – in which theology itself dictates the tactics, or is claimed to do so. Examples could be Gandhi – or Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri; theological claims about non-violence or the nature of jihad given a religious justification
Whether or not you consider the more unusual circumstances in which theology goes operational, the ‘activist’ moment, in which those claiming a religious justification in Islam or Christianity for their political and social action begin to engage rather than just write, has two distinctive forms.
‘Executive’ – in which you take a position of embodying, enacting, instantiating – perhaps holding political power
‘Challenge’ – in which you may exercise – in the Christian and Jewish sense only! – a ‘prophetic’ function; as critics, activists, agitators, even agents provocateurs. Here you may not seek political power but you certainly espouse political engagement.
Potentially there is a radical difference between the two; and historically the two different stances have been present from an early stage in both religions. Both of them have compelling arguments. We’ll take for granted that both are based on a profound commitment to the vision of social justice that derives from the faith.
One may want to avoid politics for many good reasons, the most obvious being that power corrupts. Imam Ali had a wonderful analysis, diplomatic yet trenchant, of a contemporary: ‘He was ruined by the sound of footsteps behind him’. Of himself, and his own dilemmas and torments over assuming leadership of the Muslim community, he once said, ‘I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.’
On the other hand, enjoying political power can hold in its thrall not just the power-mad; but precisely those who are most compassionate, most anxious to transform the injustices of society. It is the allure of having the mends to enact your vision of the good polis, the kingdom of God, Islamic social teaching. Especially if you’ve found that small-scale, piecemeal responses do too little to address the fundamental iniquity and even cruelty to which human societies are prone. Then the lure of wielding power to effect deep, broad, and lasting change is difficult to resist; and maybe it is not right to do so.
To me this is a tension that runs through both Christianity and Islam. I have a private label for it – two private labels, in fact, one Catholic and one Muslim. It is the ‘Political Theology of Johannes Metz’ vs ‘Liberation Theology’ – and ‘al-Afghani, Abduh, Hasan al-Banna’ question.
To achieve social transformation towards a state of justice, do you work with the grassroots bottom up, or work with the structures and the state, top down? This is the Afghani, Abduh, al Banna question.
The Catholic question is played out in the debates between ‘political theology’ and ‘liberation theology’. Is it the role of religious leaders to take a political position in order to ensure a just government? Or is it their role always to be in opposition – always in critique of whoever holds power, constantly challenging the political leadership’s failure to bring about social and economic justice for the people? To side always with the ruled and never be the ruler?
One view is that every group, even a good one, once in power needs to be kept in check by constant critique (eternal vigilance is the price of democracy), and spiritual values will never be identical to those of the world, those of political power; spiritual values are not best expressed through political power even if we like the idea that governance will be according to good values. The other view is that you can’t always be against something, you have to be for something in order to make change happen; and that was essentially the justification for example of the Cardenal brothers, Jesuits, holding political office in Nicaragua.
— From the Muslim point of view, the question is, should the ulema always stand shoulder to shoulder with the umma and defend them against the powers that be, as often was the case in Islamic history? (Because if so, this is very opposite of a Caliphate!)
Thus a tension runs through the heart of both traditions – as yet unresolved…