Khurūj in Contemporary Islamic Thought: the Case of the “Arab Spring”

Year 2016, , 27 - 52, 01.10.2016

Muhammad Al-atawneh

https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2016.71.139

Abstract

The “Arab Spring” has challenged contemporary Muslim religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) to address the popular issues of opposition to the ruler (al-khurūj ʿalá l-ḥākim). It seems that these ʿulamāʾ, from various schools of Islamic thought, are unable to reach a consensus on these matters. Their positions range from wide recognition of the right to nonviolent civil protest, e.g., protest rallies, strikes, civil unrest, etc., to the strict prohibition of all expressions of popular protest, as being foreign to Islam. This picture is even more complex when one discerns the ambivalent approaches of various religious institutions and figures, both official and private that have supported protests in certain countries, but objected to protest in others. This article investigates these religio-legal positions regarding popular protest against the ruler: What are the boundaries of the permissible and the forbidden in regard to popular protest against the ruler from the vantage point of contemporary Sunnī scholars? My central claim here is that a significant gap exists between the different current Islamic legal positions on the issue of popular protest against the ruler and its restriction. These positions are mostly derived from the general understanding of the different schools of Islamic legal thought today regarding the theory of the Muslim state, especially of the relationship between the ruler and his subjects.

Keywords

Khurūj, Arab spring, protest, Islamic law, Islamic government

References

• Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority, and Women. Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2001.
• Abū Farḥah, Jamāl al-Ḥusaynī. al-Khurūj ʿalá l-ḥākim fī l-fikr al-siyāsī al-Islāmī. Cairo: Markaz al-Haḍārah al-ʿArabiyyah, 2004.
• al-Ahram Weekly. August 14, 2013. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/3720/17/Wavering-Salafis.aspx
• Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reason of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1993.
• al-Atawneh, Muhammad. Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Mo-dernity: Dār al-Iftā in the Modern Saudi State. Leiden: Brill, 2010. http://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004184695.i-210
• al-Atawneh, Muhammad. “Reconciling Tribalism and Islam in the Writings of Contemporary Wahhābī ʿUlamāʾ.” In Facing Modernity: Rethinking ʿUlamāʾ in the Arab Middle East, edited by Meir Hatina, 211-227. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009.
• al-Bukhārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2001.
• Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge, UK & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• CSS (Council of Senior Scholars [Majlis hayʾat kibār al-ʿulamāʾ]) (Saudi Arabia). “Bayān fī ḥukm al-muẓāharāt.” http://www.alriyadh.com/2011/03/07article611507.html
• CSS (Council of Senior Scholars [Majlis hayʾat kibār al-ʿulamāʾ]) (Saudi Arabia). “A fatwá from the Council of Senior Scholars in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia warning against mass demonstrations.” http://islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fatwa-council-senior-scholars-kingdom-saudi-arabia-warning-against-mass-demonstrations
• Davis, Eric. “Theorizing Statecraft and Social Change in Arab Oil Producing Countries.” In Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory, and Popular Culture. Edited by Eric Davis and Nicolas Gavrielides, 1-35. Miami: Florida International University Press, 1991.
• al-Dhāyidī, Mishārī. “Fatāwá l-muẓāharāt.” al-Sharq al-awsaṭ. March 12, 2011. http://www.aawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&article=612175&issueno=11792
• al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn. 4 vols. Cairo: al-Maktabah al-Tijāriyyah al-Kubrá, n.d.
• “al-Ḥarakah al-Salafiyyah: Jawāz al-masīrāt wa-l-muẓāharāt ḥaythu annahā min al-maṣāliḥ al-mursalah.” al-Anbāʾ. March 10, 2011.
• “Hayʾat kibār al-ʿulamāʾ fī l-Saʿūdiyyah tuḥarrim al-muẓāharāt fī l-bilād wa-tuḥadhdhir min al-irtibāṭāt al-fikriyyah wa-l-ḥizbiyyah al-munḥarifah.” al-Sharq al-awsaṭ. March 7, 2011.
• Helms, Christine. The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
• http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/7305137.html
• http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/06/28/155197.html
• http://www.assafir.com/MulhakArticle.aspx?EditionId=2157&MulhakArticleId=408959&MulhakId=353
• http://www.parisvisionnews.com/muslim-world-news/91-political-news/8082-the-declaration-of-the-saudi-ulama-regarding-the-coup-in-egypt.html
• http://www.aksalser.com/?page=view_news&id=fa632fd97d8183acdf626ede54a53ea8
• http://www.islamtoday.net/albasheer/artshow-12-163896.htm
• https://twitter.com/Khalid_BinTalal/status/371339070439309312/photo/1
• http://www.assakina.com/fatwa/25889.html
• http://iumsonline.org/ar/aboutar/newsar/d2538
• http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=28697
• http://www.islamtimes.org/ar/doc/news/216049
• Ibn Bāz, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Majmūʿ fatāwá wa-maqālāt mutanawwiʿah. 13 vols. Edited by Muḥammad ibn Saʿd al-Shuwayʿir. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 1997.
• Ibn Kathīr, Abū l-Fidāʾ ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm. 7 vols. Edited by Sāmī ibn Muḥammad al-Salāmah. 2nd ed. Riyadh: Dār Ṭībah li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 1999.
• Ibn Khaldūn, Abū Zayd Walī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldūn. Alexandria: Dār Ibn Khaldūn, 1982.
• Ibn Manẓūr, Abū l-Faḍl Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Mukarram al-Anṣārī al-Miṣrī. Lisān al-ʿArab. 15 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1956.
• al-Juwaynī, Imām al-Ḥaramayn Abū l-Maʿālī Rukn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbd Allāh. Kitāb al-irshād ilá qawāṭiʿ al-adillah fī uṣūl al-iʿtiqād. Edited by Asʿad Tamīm. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyyah, 1985.
• “Khalid bin Ṭalāl: ʿalá ʿulamāʾ al-Mamlakah al-khurūj ʿan ṣamtihim wa-tibyān al-ḥaqq fī aḥdāth Miṣr.” al-Akhbār 24. August 20, 2013. http://staginga24pp.argaam.com/article/detail/145551
• Kostiner, Joseph. “Transforming Dualities: Tribe and State Formation in Saudi Arabia.” In Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East. Edited by Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, 226-248. Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press, 1990.
• al-Nawawī, Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyá ibn Sharaf ibn Mūrī. Sharḥ matn al-Arbaʿīn al-Nawawiyyah fī l-aḥādīth al-ṣaḥīḥah al-Nabawiyyah. 4th ed. Damascus: Maktabat Dār al-Fatḥ, 1984.
• Peterson, James. “Tribes and Politics in Eastern Arabia.” Middle East Journal 31 (1977): 297-312.
• Pickthall, Muhammad M. The Meaning of the Glorious Qurʾan. Revised and edited by ʿArafāt Kāmil ʿAshshī. Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 2006.
• al-Qaradāghī, ʿAlī Muḥyī al-Dīn. “al-Taʾṣīl al-sharʿī li-l-muẓāharāt al-silmiyyah aw al-thawrāt al-shaʿbiyyah: mā yajūzu minhā wa-mā lā yajūzu maʿa munāqashat al-adillah.” http://www.qaradaghi.com/chapters.aspx?ID=154
• al-Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf. “Mawqif al-Islām min al-dīmūqrāṭiyyah.” at al-Qaraḍāwī’s official website: http://qaradawi.net/new/all-fatawa/7234-2014-04-20-10-43-27
• Rabbāʿ, Kāmil ʿAlī Ibrāhīm. Naẓariyyat al-khurūj fī l-fiqh al-siyāsī al-Islāmī. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2004.
• al-Rasheed, Madawi. Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation. Cambridge, UK & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• al-ʿŪdah, Sheikh Salmān. Asʾilat al-thawrah [Questions on Revo-lution]. Beirut: Majmaʿ Namāʾ li-l-Buhūth wa-l-Dirāsāt, 2012.
• Vogel, Frank E. “Siyāsa: In the sense of siyāsa sharʿiyya.” In The Encyclo-paedia of Islam Second Edition, IX, 694-696.
• Warren, David. “The ʿUlamāʾ and the Arab Uprisings 2011-13: Considering Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the ‘Global Mufti,’ between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Legal Tradition, and Qatari Foreign Policy.” New Middle Eastern Studies 4 (2014): 2-32.