The Khawarij raised the slogan of “There is no rule except by Allah” against ‘Ali bin Abi Talib because they objected to his acceptance of arbitration with Mu’awiyyah. They told ‘Ali “You went and made a judgment in the religion of Allah while there is no rule except for Allah”; in other words, in their extreme ignorance, they wished to remove any human element from the interpretation and application of the Law. Of course, Emir-ul-Mu’mineen irrefutably defeated them in argument.
This same issue persists until today, however. And more than this, the same mistakes which led the Khawarij to their doom also persist. Ignorance of the sources of the Law and ignorance of the methodology for deriving rulings from those sources is something quite prevalent today. Google is not the only tool you need for understanding what Islam does or does not mandate on any given issue. Cutting and pasting ayaat of the Qur’an or Hadiths of the Prophet ﷺ (the meanings of which you interpret exclusively in accordance with your own preexisting arguments) is not equivalent to genuine scholarship.
We hate the Khawarij, and perhaps this is why so few of us actually study them, understand their thought processes, their ideas and their misinterpretations. And this is why we are in danger of repeating their mistakes. The whole argument against democracy because it “gives sovereignty to the people instead of to Allah” is remarkably reminiscent of the thinking of the Khawarij, for example. In reality, the supremacy of the Shari’ah and the participation of the people in the government are not in the least bit contradictory. To posit that they are reveals a dismal lack of understanding both about democratic theory and about Islamic Law itself, to say nothing of being largely oblivious about what governments actually do.
#عن_الديمقراطية
#on_democracy