By Sari Zeineddine | Staff Writer

In the history of Islam, the use of the charge of atheism has been widely spread as a way to demolish any intellectual or political opposition to power. Scholars in Islam are more than amazed to claim that the defining contradiction in Islam’s Intellectual History is between Reason and Religion. However, ironically the intellectual debate in Islamic thought had never been between a religious interpretation of life and God and an atheistic or non-religious one. It has forever been in the religious spectrum itself, the illuminationist Sufi and the dominant reason embedded in Islamic Jurisprudence (Al-fiqh). We will examine in this article Sufism as a revolution against despotism back then, even though it did not materially actualize itself as a social representation.

As we mentioned in the previous paragraph, the actual split was solely between the illuminationist Sufi, and Legal Islam and they both are just two different interpretations of Islam itself. The first is in which the spiritual prevails over the temporal while the second prioritizes the temporal completely over the spiritual. 

The Umma that never existed

Never in history, a unified umma had materially existed or expressed itself in the unified thought of a society (not a community). This umma exists in the lens of the fiqh only. In other words, Islam is an Umma only according to Legal Islam (the Jurisprudence), and only in its interpretations and never in social or political representations. And this class of thought describes history as what this school projects only, the Umma exists in this interpretation therefore it MUST exist in history, what the institution claims should be reflected in history. It is simply the ideology that never rethinks itself, or to use Plato’s terminology: It is a thought that never contemplates itself. Every other interpretation of the society (the so-called Umma to them) is considered a mere act of atheism and heretic behavior and therefore whoever stands for it should be condemned to the rule of the Jurisprudence. The true interpretation of Islam and society is the one that conforms with the dominant Law (sharia) which is directly affiliated with the ruling authority. 

Institutionalized Islam and Power

Even after getting Institutionalized Islam never could attain the statist form. An Islamic state had never existed as the society itself never consented to the Islam of the rulers and therefore Islam and the State could not attend the phase of being mutually inclusive. In reality, in other words in history, even at the beginning of the historical formation of the so-called Islamic State (with the first Caliphs) a smooth overlapping between the state and Islam couldn’t occur. For instance, the third Caliph that is considered a Rightly Guided Caliph, Uthman Bin Affan was killed in a popular revolution. That’s why it’s a mistake in the political literature of Activist movements to label these states (Mamluks, Ottomans, Umayyad, Abbasid…) as Islamic states as Islam itself in the public debate was divided. In all cases, religion should never be digested as a unique ideology or philosophy, as Gramsci argued, the same religion is manifested in extremely different forms according to one’s social position.

In short, the main point is that Islam is not reactionary or revolutionary in itself, it’s the political function of Islam in every historical context that gives it a reactionary or revolutionary character. The Qarmatians are a great example of how Islam in history played a revolutionary role against institutionalized Islam and its laws. 

Finally, it is necessary for activist movements yearning for a clear vision of history in all its aspects and representations to adopt a scientific narrative of Islamic History. The contradiction in Islamic history was never between Islam and Atheism as it was not based on religious debate, the conflict was a political conflict that the ruling classes in Islam tried to hide. 

It’s a call to politicize the debate and precise: which Islam we are referring to? what is the character of this Islam? What follows is to define the Islam we are referring to by its historic and political basis.