THE THEORY OF STATE AND BLENDING OF

THE CALIPHATE AND THE SULTANATE

S. Rizwan All Rizvi

Nizām al-Mulk’s[1] theroy of the State is based on the Qur’ān, Sunnah, Fiqh and history. He draws great inspiration from the Islamic State and from the conventions of the Khilāfat-i Rāshidah. The “Medina Charter” was drawn up laying down the details of the compact between the Prophet and various communities resident in Medina at the time of his settling down there. Nicholson observes about this document that “Ostensibly a cautious and tactful reform, it was in reality a revolution. Muhammad durst not strike openly at the independence of the tribes, but he destroyed it, in effect, by shifting the centre of power from the tribe to the community; and although the community included Jews and pagans as well as Moslems, he fully recognised, what his opponents failed to foresee, that the Moslems were the active, and must soon be the predominant, partners in the newly founded State.”[2]

Thus Nizām al-Mulk had a good model before him. It is a well-known fact that the affairs of the nascent State were ordered from the beginning in accordance with the Qur’an and the Prophetic guidance.

Nizām al-Mulk, throughout his treatise Sib āsat Nāmah, uses the term Dīn for Islam. Therefore, “Islam as a Dīn involves the whole being.”[3] It should be remembered that Malik Shah had commissioned Nizām al-Mulk to produce a book for “the dīnī and dunyāwī”[4] guidance of the State. Being thus commissioned, Nizām al-Mulk, as a devout[5] Muslim, naturally based his theory of the State on the Qur’ān as well as the Sunnah which furnishes guidance regarding the precedents set up by the Prophet in ordering the affairs of the Muslim State.[6] In other words, Nizām al-Mulk’s theory of the State was grounded in the Sharī’ah.[7] It was not only the life of the individual that was to be transformed through a sequence of divinely-ordained actions, but the Muslim community also as a whole was to be transformed into a State. Therefore, the State is conceived, by Nizām al-Mulk, as a moral institution for the good of the Mīllar. In this connection the political theory of Nizām al-Mulk bestows authority on the State out of the individual.

The Siyāsat Nāmah fully recogn ises the Islamic principle of the supremacy of the Shari ah.[8] Nizām al-Mulk held that prayers[9] form the basis of the training for complete obedience to the Sharī’ah. Therefore, he laid great emphasis on a proper organisation of the mosques by the State.[10] The exercise of authority under the Sharī’ah was delegated to the Prophet Muhammad who was to be followed by no other prophet. The Divine communication in the form of wahī”[11] being cut off,[12] the affairs of the Muslims had to be ordered by successors to the Prophet for worldly affairs to be elected by the Ummah. Nizām al-Mulk considered the Caliphate as the best form of State both for religious and historical reasons, because it was founded in the Sharī’ah. He believed that there should be no recial or tribal discrimination in the State. His view was based upon the following tradition of the Prophet: “The Arab has no superiority over the non-Arab nor the white man over the black. The most pious among you is the best.”[13]

Nizām al-Mulk agrees that the Sultanate[14] had also become a necessary institution. As such it could continue as circumstances had changed. Therefore, he expounded a separate theory of the Sultanate under the Sharī’ah.[15] He is of opinion that the most powerful means of preserving the Sultanate is the Sharī’ah.[16] The establishment of a Sultanate could be fruitful only if it continued to uphold the supremacy of the Shārī’ah.[17] The authority under the sovereignty of law was bestowed upon man as vicegerent of God on earth, but it was limited by the Shari oh. Under it the monarch is responsible for the well-being of the people as well as the peace and security of the land.[18] He should also be God-fearing.[19] The form known to the Sharī ’ah of a legitimate State is the Khilāfat. But then there had arisen. the Sultanate as well and, so far as the people were concerned, the more palpable reality was Sultanate.[20] How was the Sultanate to be reconciled with the Khilāfat? Thus a curious position came to hold the field. The universal nature of the Sharī’ah was maintained by its content, not by its extent of jurisdiction. It was the same Sharī’ah within each Sultanate, but the Sharī’ah was not sovereign in the aggregate of the political units. True Caliphate remained a venerable institution; it could or could not issue letters patent in favour of the Sultān, but it had no effective authority. Nizām al-Mulk as a practical statesman knew that any theoretical solution that he developed would remain unapplied and he possessed no means to enforce any theory, however sound, beyond the Saljūq territories. He, therefore, devised the method of demonstrating within his jurisdiction how the local sovereignty of the Sharī’ah could be integrated into the univer­sal supremacy. The sovereignty of the Sharī’ah was recognised because it embodied the injunctions of the Qur’ān, the Sunnah of the Prophet and their interpretation. But interpretation inovlves an agency which forms part of the Muslim Mīllat. And the sovereignty of the Shari-ah would be meaningless without its application to the affairs of men. This means enforcement which, in its turn, demands power and authority. These are provided by the State ; that is the reason why the State has been held to be a canonical necessity. The Sharī’ah recognises that this canonical necessity cannot be met without the involvement of the Millat. This involvement naturally would lead to diversi­fication in accordance with the time and its peculiar needs having arisen out of human actions over a period of time. Hence it must allow the Millat to establish any form of State or government suiting its needs according to the time and circum­stances, but in doing so it must not transgress the dictates of the Shari’ ah.

The classical Caliphate constituted the golden period of the Islamic State which provided only one centre of power and was unitary in form and essence. It was impossible to restore that element to the Caliphate during Nizām al-Mulk’s time. Nizām al-Mulk realised that the Saljūq power was a reality and could not be obliterated because of its strength. The best method, there-fore, to strengthen the Caliphate was by bringing about an alli­ance between it and the Saljūq Sultanate. In this alliance Nizām al-Mulk took care to get the legal supremacy of the Caliphate not only recognised but also to make it the dominant factor, He was able to do this because it was not only the Caliphate that gained strength in this alliance but also the Sultanate because of its status as an agent of the Caliphate. To demonstrate the loyalty of the Sultanate he did utilise its resources against the heretics, who challenged the legal supremacy of the Caliphate.[21] The Ismā’īlīs were bent on siezing power to dominate the Muslim world.[22] But since the idea of the unity of religion and politics was implicitly accepted, a practical solution was worked out by Muslim administrators and maintained and strengthened by Nizām al-Mulk.[23]

Though the Islamic concept is radically different, yet some of the basic concepts of the modern theory of State are not necessarily contradicted. For instance, the Western political concept defines the State having four elements: population, terri­tory, government and sovereignty. The composition of these four elements brings the State into being. If sovereignty is inter­preted as effective authority without further examination, all the elements put forward are so basic that Nizām al-Mulk practically admits the above-mentioned material State structure since it conforms to some basic phenomena which are not opposed by Islam. But Nizām al-Mulk, in contrast to the Western theory, develops the idea of a State structure within the framework of Islam which is wider in its horizon and deeper in its humanitarian approach. He evolves the theory that the State is a political institution with strong moral, social and humanitarian attributes.[24] The moral attributes of the State arise inevitably from the idea of the sovereignty of Allah. An institution that was to serve the interests of the Millat as an agency of God’s commands in the Sharī’ah had to reflect His moral attributes of justice and uni­versal benevolence. A strong outcome of this benevolence is the guidance vouchsafed to all creation in some form, but parti­cularly to human beings in the shape of the discrimination between right and wrong, good and bad. This discrimination was strengthened through prayer and education. Hence Nizām al-Mulk put so much emphasis on the organisation of the mosques[25] and education.[26] Nizām al-Mulk, therefore, insists on the provision of equal opportunities to all the people in the State.[27] As a corollary, Nizām al-Mulk is of opinion that social equality is meaningless unless equality of economic opportunity[28] is provided to all the inhabitants of the State. According to Islam, property is a trust to be administered by the owner for the good of the entire community. An outcome of this concept is the institution of Zakāt to the benefit of the needy classes in the community[29] without distinction of caste or creed. The Prophet himself says:

“It shall be taken from the rich and distributed among the poor and the needy.”[30] He gives the following principle which has also been followed by Nizām al-Mulk in his theory of State: “The ‘Government is the guardian (helper) of everyone who has no guardian.”[31] This economic precept was implemented by Nizām al-Mulk through vast-scale distribution of alms[32] and gifts. The benevolent activity of the State included the building of inns and poor houses and the provision of employment to the people according to their capacity and worth [33]in the State.

NOTES