Introduction to Chapter 8

In author's view, "the five words, most exploited by the forces working to undermine every possibility" of giving Muslims a chance to live and form a government of their liking are, "Sovereignty belongs only to Allah."

He mostly hold the neo-mods of Islam for initiating this confusion. The author has introduced the term "neo-mods of Islam" for those Muslims who have crossed many limits into the world of secularism, from open-minded, to liberal, moderate, enlightened moderate, etc.

In this critical chapter the author addresses concerns of the general public, which are raised due to one sided views expressed on this subject by different forces, in a section reserved under the title "Concerns." A combination of argument from both Muslims and non-Muslim scholars and references to the well known facts makes the subject understandable.

...We must be proud of our intellect and human experience. However, that is not sufficient to overcome frailties of human nature. Divine sovereignty is not an obstacle to democracy or a barrier to the effective utilization of human experience. To give just one recent example, it is the same human experience and intellect that we are so proud of which has led a democratic state with centuries of democratic experience and collective intellect to attack a weaker state without any justification, kill thousands of innocents and occupy it indefinitely. Liberation from Allah’s sovereignty and set standards of human conduct has led a democracy to use its label as a license to barbarism.

A State that claims to obey God can also commit such crimes by claiming it is doing God’s will. However, it does not boil down to human understanding alone. It boils down to the need that clinging to basic Islamic principles for living individual and collective lives in a society is as important as the establishment of an Islamic State.

As Bertrand de Jouvenel has sagely pointed out, through the centuries, men have formed concepts designed to check and limit the exercise of State rule; and, one after another, the State, using its intellectual allies, has been able to transform these concepts into intellectual rubber stamps of legitimacy and virtue to attach to its decrees and actions. Originally, in Western Europe, the concept of Divine sovereignty held that the kings may rule only according to Divine law; the kings turned the concept into a rubber stamp of Divine approval for any of the kings actions. The concept of parliamentary democracy began as a popular check upon absolute monarchical rule; it ended with Parliament being the essential part of the State and its every act totally sovereign. De Jouvenel concludes:

Many writers on theories of sovereignty have worked out one ... of these restrictive devices. But in the end every single such theory has, sooner or later, lost its original purpose, and come to act merely as a springboard to Power, by providing it with the powerful aid of an invisible sovereign with whom it could in time successfully identify itself.21

Many political theorists recognize the glaring loophole in the US Constitution, for example, whereby it puts limits on government and places the ultimate interpreting power of those limits in the hands of the Supreme Court. This mechanism in no way ensures effectiveness of sovereignty — irrespective of where it belongs to — and the limits placed on government. In his Disquisition, Calhoun demonstrated the inherent tendency of the State to break through the limits of such a constitution and misplaced sovereignty.

A written constitution certainly has many and considerable advantages, but it is a great mistake to suppose that the mere insertion of provisions to restrict and limit the power of the government, without investing those for whose protection they are inserted with the means of enforcing their observance will be sufficient to prevent the major and dominant party from abusing its powers. Being the party in possession of the government, they will, from the same constitution of man which makes government necessary to protect society, be in favor of the powers granted by the constitution and opposed to the restrictions intended to limit them.... The minor or weaker party, on the contrary, would take the opposite direction and regard them [the restrictions] as essential to their protection against the dominant party. . . . But where there are no means by which they could compel the major party to observe the restrictions, the only resort left them would be a strict construction of the constitution . . . .To this the major party would oppose a liberal construction . . . .It would be construction against construction-the one to contract and the other to enlarge the powers of the government to the utmost. But of what possible avail could the strict construction of the minor party be, against the liberal construction of the major, when the one would have all the power of the government to carry its construction into effect and the other be deprived of all means of enforcing its construction? In a contest so unequal, the result would not be doubtful. The party in favor of the restrictions would be overpowered. . . . The end of the contest would be the subversion of the constitution . . . the restrictions would ultimately be annulled and the government be converted into one of unlimited powers.22

And this is what we observe in the US and other places in the world today. To the contrary, confusion regarding the concept of sovereignty in Islam is promoted all the while....