Juristic Intervention into Politics and Endorsement of the State
Inspired by a recent comment exchange by friend of the blog, Yale's Andrew March.
I've written recently about Najaf interventions into politics, and how odd sometimes they can be in terms of their considerable distance from shari'a principles. There is one aspect of this that deserves some consideration, which is that intervention in politics, any intervention precisely by inserting the religious figure into a heated debate, seems to case some level of legitimacy on the state's activities where there is no interference.
That is to say, if we take the rather extreme case of Ayatollah Khu'i in Saddamist Iraq not saying a thing about legal obligation or the state, and confining himself purely to matters of religious doctrine, it might fairly be concluded that Khu'i has no opinion on whether or not you should obey state law, or work for the government, or serve in its army, or anything else. "No intervention in politics" in that case does not legitimate the state so much as ignore it. It's not a criticism of the Grand Ayatollah, not like there was another option in Saddamist Iraq other than confrontation, which only got one killed in the end. But the point is, one cannot assume that Khu'i's quietism endorses or opposes the state.
But the problem is, once one enters the affairs of the state, some type of legitimacy is conferred necessarily. Let's take a very limited intervention--that of Ayatollah Bahr ul-Ulum into the personal status disputes in the late 1950's, objecting vociferously to the notion of a unified family law that Iraq ultimately enacted. So the real issue is that something is implied when one says that this law is bad and should not be enacted. It seems to suggest that, at a minimum, the previous law was okay, After all, Bahr ul-ulum could have simply told the believers to ignore everything coming out of Baghdad and just follow the shari'a as the scholars lay it out. The fact that he does not object to the first law and objects to the second seems to suggest some sort of acceptance of the first law.
Now that acceptance is admittedly limited, in that one could argue that Bahr ul-Ulum could be simply acknowledging the fact that the state can coerce some level of obedience and so while all man-made law is per se illegitimate, he may as well get in there and fix the really egregious shari'a violations and make this ugly but effective coercive institution less offensive. HIs acknowledgment of state authority might thus be grudging and instrumental, not normative. Still, it is recognition, which Khu'i never conferred. Objecting to any single law is equivalent to saying the state passes some laws that are okay, or not really bad.
The limited endorsement is more normative in nature with a greater intervention. That is, when Sistani declares it an Islamic law obligation that the constitutional assembly in Iraq be elected, he is necessarily I think endorsing the product that comes out that assembly. Or at least he is obligating himself to object to the end product, the constitution or be understood to endorse it, as a normative good, and obedience to whose institutions is a moral obligation. Otherwise, the Islamic law obligation makes no sense. How can it be an obligation to vote for people who are going to create X and then object to X when they create it? You might have a veto, or an argument can be made about the veto, but the point is, if the election of the constitutional body is to mean anything, it must necessarily confer a semi-autonomous right of the elected body to create a government through a constitution, and an obligation on the part of the polity, and its government, to obey that constitution. Law is, in other words, a matter that must be obeyed. We've come a long way from Khu'i. Though it does have to be said, this endorsement has its limitations too. It does not necessarily confer approval of every law passed, or every regulation issued. the endorsement is of the structure as a general matter, the possibilities of corruption or flaws in the lawmaking process in particular still remain at some distance from the juristic endorsement made.
And of course one could take one more step, end up where Ayatollah Khomeini was, and declare it an Islamic obligation for jurists to rule the state, at which point obedience to law is a primary religious duty, and all law and regulation created by the Republic part and parcel of a central moral code.that the believer must adhere to.
The point is, there is something of a sliding scale at work, in that the greater the jurist seeks to involve himself in matters of the state, the more he is implicitly endorsing state autonomy and legitimacy. It's fair to say that Najaf jurists are certainly eager to see the state correct some of its more obvious deficiencies, yet certainly do not want to be responsible for the failures of the state which at this stage in Iraq are all too plentiful. So there must be intervention, to fix, but not too much, which would force an assumed responsibility. I do not pretend this is the only reason that Najaf jurists intervene when and where they do, I only mean to point out that this is certainly one factor to be kept in mind.
HAH
I've written recently about Najaf interventions into politics, and how odd sometimes they can be in terms of their considerable distance from shari'a principles. There is one aspect of this that deserves some consideration, which is that intervention in politics, any intervention precisely by inserting the religious figure into a heated debate, seems to case some level of legitimacy on the state's activities where there is no interference.
That is to say, if we take the rather extreme case of Ayatollah Khu'i in Saddamist Iraq not saying a thing about legal obligation or the state, and confining himself purely to matters of religious doctrine, it might fairly be concluded that Khu'i has no opinion on whether or not you should obey state law, or work for the government, or serve in its army, or anything else. "No intervention in politics" in that case does not legitimate the state so much as ignore it. It's not a criticism of the Grand Ayatollah, not like there was another option in Saddamist Iraq other than confrontation, which only got one killed in the end. But the point is, one cannot assume that Khu'i's quietism endorses or opposes the state.
But the problem is, once one enters the affairs of the state, some type of legitimacy is conferred necessarily. Let's take a very limited intervention--that of Ayatollah Bahr ul-Ulum into the personal status disputes in the late 1950's, objecting vociferously to the notion of a unified family law that Iraq ultimately enacted. So the real issue is that something is implied when one says that this law is bad and should not be enacted. It seems to suggest that, at a minimum, the previous law was okay, After all, Bahr ul-ulum could have simply told the believers to ignore everything coming out of Baghdad and just follow the shari'a as the scholars lay it out. The fact that he does not object to the first law and objects to the second seems to suggest some sort of acceptance of the first law.
Now that acceptance is admittedly limited, in that one could argue that Bahr ul-Ulum could be simply acknowledging the fact that the state can coerce some level of obedience and so while all man-made law is per se illegitimate, he may as well get in there and fix the really egregious shari'a violations and make this ugly but effective coercive institution less offensive. HIs acknowledgment of state authority might thus be grudging and instrumental, not normative. Still, it is recognition, which Khu'i never conferred. Objecting to any single law is equivalent to saying the state passes some laws that are okay, or not really bad.
The limited endorsement is more normative in nature with a greater intervention. That is, when Sistani declares it an Islamic law obligation that the constitutional assembly in Iraq be elected, he is necessarily I think endorsing the product that comes out that assembly. Or at least he is obligating himself to object to the end product, the constitution or be understood to endorse it, as a normative good, and obedience to whose institutions is a moral obligation. Otherwise, the Islamic law obligation makes no sense. How can it be an obligation to vote for people who are going to create X and then object to X when they create it? You might have a veto, or an argument can be made about the veto, but the point is, if the election of the constitutional body is to mean anything, it must necessarily confer a semi-autonomous right of the elected body to create a government through a constitution, and an obligation on the part of the polity, and its government, to obey that constitution. Law is, in other words, a matter that must be obeyed. We've come a long way from Khu'i. Though it does have to be said, this endorsement has its limitations too. It does not necessarily confer approval of every law passed, or every regulation issued. the endorsement is of the structure as a general matter, the possibilities of corruption or flaws in the lawmaking process in particular still remain at some distance from the juristic endorsement made.
And of course one could take one more step, end up where Ayatollah Khomeini was, and declare it an Islamic obligation for jurists to rule the state, at which point obedience to law is a primary religious duty, and all law and regulation created by the Republic part and parcel of a central moral code.that the believer must adhere to.
The point is, there is something of a sliding scale at work, in that the greater the jurist seeks to involve himself in matters of the state, the more he is implicitly endorsing state autonomy and legitimacy. It's fair to say that Najaf jurists are certainly eager to see the state correct some of its more obvious deficiencies, yet certainly do not want to be responsible for the failures of the state which at this stage in Iraq are all too plentiful. So there must be intervention, to fix, but not too much, which would force an assumed responsibility. I do not pretend this is the only reason that Najaf jurists intervene when and where they do, I only mean to point out that this is certainly one factor to be kept in mind.
HAH
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