The Reform of Muslim Society Prince Said Halim Pasha* A B S T R A C T Prince Said Halim Pasha, an Ottoman statesman and a prominent Islamist intellectual of 20th century, in the back drop of the intent of a great majority of representatives of the Muslim intellectual classes on endowing their countries with barely disguised copies of Western institutions thinking that they can only compass their revival by adopting the principles and concepts of the Indo-Aryan world, saw that Muslim intellectual elite no longer had the full conviction that Islam is the religion par excellence: religion in its highest and the most complete form that it is civilisation itself in the most perfect sense. Said Halim Pasha saw it to be a flagrant error to believe that institutions with which the Christian world provided itself, as suited to its needs, political or social, can ever suit Muslims, whatever modifications of detail be made in them. He viewed the two worlds in fact so essentially unlike that by no effort can they be brought to share the same concept of individual and collective life. He, in the present paper, ascribed the distortion of Muslim mentality, which looks for the regeneration of Muslim society as a result of its assimilation to Western society, to the unfortunate influence of the foreign domination endured by Muslims—a domination which played the part of an intellectual dissolvent among them. He proposed to dispel the errors with which that mentality is laden, and to prove that, from the moral and social point of view, the Islamic world has no reason to envy the West; on the contrary, it is Christendom which needs to learn from Islam in those respects. To enlighten minds on this question of supreme importance he opted to describe in plain terms the social work of Islam. Hoping this reminder will convince Muslim intelligentsia that the Reform of Muslim society should consist simply in Muslims learning to understand better, and apply better, the teachings of Islam. * Prince Said Halim Pasha [Sa‘┘d ╓al┘m P┐sh┐] (1281–1340/1865–1921) was a prominent Ottoman intellectual who served as Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917. Born to Prince Mehmed Abdul Halim Pasha on 18 January 1865, he was the grandson of the founder of INSIGHTS, ‘Da‘wah: Principles and Challenges’ Number, 03: 2–3 (Winter 2010–Spring 2011) pp. 211–244 The Reform of Muslim Society Introduction It is with infinite satisfaction that I see, in my own day, the Muslim peoples waking from their torpor and aspiring to throw off the foreign yoke. That means that they have understood, at last, that the duty of every Muslim, a duty sacred above all—is to have liberty and that without it there can be neither happiness nor real progress.I Egyptian royal family, Mehmed Ali Pasha. He received his early education by private tutors. Later, he was sent to Switzerland for advanced studies. He was proficient in Turkish, Persian, English, French and Arabic. He started his career in the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid when he was appointed a member of the council of state in 1888. However, in the following years he developed relationships with Young Turk movement which made him suspicious for the Sultan. This led to his exile firstly to Egypt and then to Europe, where he participated actively in Young Turk movement. With proclamation of Ottoman constitution in 1908, he returned back to Istanbul where he resumed his duties as member of Council of State and eventually became its president in 1912. He was also elected as secretary of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in 1912 and its leader in the congresses held in 1913 and 1916. Later, in 1913, he was appointed as Foreign Minister by the Grand Vizier Mahmud Seveket Pasha. Following the assassination of later in June 1913, Said Halim Pasha became the Grand Vizier of Ottoman Empire. He held the office until his resignation in 1917 indicating health issues. Prince Said spent his last days in Rome where he was assassinated by an Armenian nationalist, Arshavir Shirakian, on 6 December 1921. Along with his statesmanship, Said Halim Pasha also emerged as an influential Islamist thinker. He originally wrote in French and his essays were published between 1910 and 1921. Most of his earlier works bear the pen name “Mehmed” while his later works were published under his full name. Pasha’s last but most widely known work was published in Rome in 1921 under the title Les institutions politiques dans la société musulmane. For his life and ideas, see, Syed Tanvir Wasti, “Said Halim Pasha—Philosopher Prince,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 44, no. 1 (2008), pp. 85-104; Ahmet Seyhun, Said Halim Pasha: Ottoman Statesman and Islamist Thinker (Istanbul: Isis, 2003); Michelangelo Guida, “The Life and Political Ideas of Grand Vezir Said Halim Pasha,” Islâm Arastırmaları Dergisi, vol. 18 (2007), pp. 101-118.   This article was written in French for the Review “Orient et Occident” (Paris), edited by that staunch friend of Muslims, M. Gaston Gaillard, only a few weeks before Prince Said Halim Pasha was assassinated in Rome. It contains some of the ideas developed in his epoch-making work in Turkish, “Islamlashmaq” (Islamise). Our present translation is being published in book form by Maulvi Abdullah, Secretary, Jami’at-i-Dawat-o-Tabligh Islam, outside Akbari gate, Lahore—Editor, Islamic Culture. This English version of the article by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, then editor, Islamic Culture, first appeared in Islamic Culture: The Hyderabad Quarterly Review, 1: 1 (1927), 111–135; from there, we are reproducing it with our deep gratitude and due acknowledgement. Editor Insights. For the English translation published by Begum Aisha Bawani Wakf, see, Said Halim Pasha, The Reform of Muslim Society (Karachi: Begum Aisha Bawani Wakf, 1965?). It was also published by Anjuman Khudd┐m al-D┘n, in 1930’s and is available on accession number 17280 at the Punjab University library, Lahore. See, for the original French text, Said Halim Pasha, “Notes pour servir à la réforme de la société musulmane,” Orient et Occident, vol. 1 (1922), pp. 18-54. 212 Prince Said Halim Pasha must confess, however, that my satisfaction is not unmixed, since I observe that the great majority of representatives of the Muslim intellectual classes are intent only on endowing their countries with hardly disguised copies of Western institutions; and think that they can only compass their revival by adopting the principles and concepts of the Indo-Aryan world. This state of mind in the Muslim “intelligenzia” distresses me, because it shows that they no longer perceive that Islam, when teaching us to worship the One God, at the same time endowed us with a complete set of moral and social principles proceeding from belief in the Divine Unity; that those principles are imposed on us by that belief; and that all Muslim societies have been engendered by them and have lived by them. It would seem then that our intellectual elite are no longer able to assure themselves with full conviction, that Islam is the human religion par excellence: religion in its highest and completest form; that it is civilisation itself in the most perfect sense; and that, consequently, there can be no social salvation, as there can be no eternal salvation, outside it. They apparently forget that, if, for the Christian world, all roads lead to ROME, for the Muslim world all roads lead to MECCA. In other words, each of these two worlds is called to follow a different direction and destiny, to play a different part in the general evolution of humanity. The difference between the ideals, conceptions, aspirations, needs and means of the Christian world and those of the Muslim world is, without the slightest doubt, as great as that which exists between the beliefs, moral and social concepts, general mentality and origin of Christendom on the one hand and Islam on the other. How could it be otherwise when the former spring from the latter? It is therefore flagrant error to believe that institutions with which the Christian world has provided itself, as suited to its needs, political or social—in the last analysis the two merge into one—can ever suit us, whatever modifications of detail we may make in them. The two worlds are in fact so essentially unlike that by no effort can they be brought to share the same concept of individual and collective life. I can only ascribe the distortion of Muslim mentality above- mentioned, 213 The Reform of Muslim Society which looks for the regeneration of Muslim society as a result of its assimilation to Western society, to the unfortunate influence of the foreign domination endured by peoples who accept the Prophet’s Law—a domination which has played the part of an intellectual dissolvent among them. I propose to dispel the errors with which that mentality is laden, and to prove that, from the moral and social point of view, the Islamic world has no reason to envy the West; that, on the contrary, it is Christendom which must go to school to Islam in those respects. The best way to enlighten minds upon this question of supreme importance is to state in plain terms what has been the social work of Islam. This reminder will convince my compatriots and co-religionists that the Reform of Islam should consist simply in Muslims learning to understand better, and apply better, the teachings of their sublime religion. The Social Work of Islam The whole social work of Islam rests upon the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the Shari‘at [Shar┘‘ah]. Muslim society is that which is subject to that sovereignty. Now, the Shari‘at is the sum total of the natural ethical and social truths which the Prophet revealed to us in the name of the Creator, and on which human happiness depends. The sovereignty of the Shari‘at, therefore, is only that of moral and social laws which have their source in nature itself, and which are thus immutable and independent of human will just as are the physical laws. It is obvious that, before those laws, all men are equal, the liberty they enjoy being limited only by the respect and submission which they owe to the Divine Will, of which those laws are a manifestation. By instituting the Shari‘at—or rather its sovereignty—Islam established the principle of true equality, truest liberty, and therewith the principle of true human solidarity, thus creating the highest and truest social ideal. The principle of the sovereignty of the Shari‘at is the recognition of the fundamental truth that all existence, of whatever nature it may be, is subject to the natural laws peculiar to it; and, consequently, 214 Prince Said Halim Pasha that the social existence of men is subject to natural social laws just as their physical existence is subject to natural physical laws. Thus Islam succeeded in establishing the principle that man is no way bound to submit to his neighbour’s law, even though it be the expression of the will of the most numerous group, because such law must needs be arbitrary to some extent, and he owes obedience only to the will of his Creator manifested in the natural laws. Thus Islam subjugated empiricism and rationalism, both the one and the other being a mass of errors and prejudices, which had guided men till then in the formation and development of their social organism. It enunciated principles which allowed men to emancipate themselves from those imaginary sovereignties which they had set up for themselves, to satisfy their natural need of some authority capable of securing order and discipline as well from the social and moral point of view as from the political. It is Islam, incontestably, that has created the truest concept of authority and given it its real significance, by teaching man that indisputable authority proceeds from God alone, and that it is found in practical form in the Shari‘at, which is the standard of ethical and social truth, and consequently the guarantee of ethical and social justice in the government of States. Islam put an end to the belief that authority is to be derived from frail human reason, the ethical and social laws of which have created only a tyrannical, usurping power based on violence—a conventional and usurping sovereignty used to satisfy selfish aims which change with those who seize the reins of power. From all that has been said it follows that the Shari‘at is really of Divine essence, but that it has no supernatural character as people so often represent it as having—a fact that explains the absence of a priesthood in the organization of Islam. In fact, the Shari‘at is a Divine Code, composed of perfectly natural laws. If the Shari‘at deserves absolute respect and submission, it is because it contains Divine Truth as applied to the organization of society— truth precious above all because it alone is able to give social happiness, and because, to be known, it required a Prophet to reveal it. 215 The Reform of Muslim Society Islam at once opened to the human mind ways wider than those of rationalism, which, by its pretentious dogmatism, paralysed the human mind and prevented its normal development. It produced a radical revolution in the domain of human thought, as salutary and conclusive as that which it produced, wherever it was established, in the domain of practical life. Thanks to the new orientation given to the human mind by Islam, man was able to develop his intellectual faculties, his capacity for observation and ratiocination, in full freedom; which led him to invent the experimental method, and so created modern science. The first scientists, in the true sense of the word, were the Muslim scientists. They were initiators and precursors, whose works will rank among the eternal glories of humanity. The erroneous belief that the Shari‘at is a code of supernatural laws, and that those who submit to it unreservedly are mere fanatics, is due to the fact that the truths contained in this collection did not become known by the same processes as those which served for the acquisition of other natural knowledge. These truths are not the products of observation and thought, but were revealed by a Prophet. Man’s faculties and experience came in only to confirm and justify these truths. But I repeat, their origin apart, the laws of the Shari‘at contain nothing but what is natural. Why did the revelation of the Shari‘at take place? That is a question which must now be answered. Why are those faculties of observation and reasoning, which suffice for man’s discovery of the scientific laws, inadequate for the discovery of the ethical and social laws. The answer is quite simple. It is obvious that there is an essential difference between the two categories. The former, in so far as they concern man, offer ground for study only from the point of view of his physical being. They are, therefore, of a purely objective order. The second are related to the human being as a moral, conscious and social creature. Therefore, they are of a sentimental, psychological order, that is to say, they are preeminently subjective, and afford no ground for positive regulation. Man does possess the mental independence and impartiality 216 Prince Said Halim Pasha necessary for deducing just conclusions from facts and phenomena which are produced mechanically outside his will, and on which his personal peculiarities have no hold. He can deduce from them rules and laws corresponding to the truth. But no sooner is it a question of studying the existence of man as a moral and social being, that is, as a factor thinking and acting on its own account, and of formulating the laws governing his conduct—then observation and reasoning, however disciplined their use, become uncertain and generally defective guides, because they are always marred by the infirmities of him who employs them. The natural incapacity of man to discover the truth in this domain is manifested in a striking manner by the ignorance of the moral and social laws which correspond to natural principles, in which the peoples of the West, though ultra civilised, are still plunged, and by the sufferings which are the result of that ignorance, at a time when their work has procured them so high a degree of knowledge of the other natural laws. It is thus a fact that man would never have known the natural, moral and social laws, on which human happiness mainly depends, if the Prophet had not revealed them. The Prophet’s insistence on the importance of scientific instruction and on the obtaining of such instruction, which he makes a special duty for the Muslim when he tells him to go “even unto China” to obtain it, is one of the most remarkable and distinctive features of Islam. The Prophet makes science one of the essential factors of human happiness. In short, the social doctrine of Islam consists in teaching us that natural human society—that which conforms to the natural ethical and social laws—is that society which is built upon the principle of the absolute sovereignty of the Shari‘at. The cardinal point of this teaching is that authority, the basis of order and stability in society, can only proceed from an incontestable and uncontested source, of the nature of the moral supremacy of God Himself, since science is important to furnish such a source. Islam teaches us, besides, that the happiest society is that which best knows and best applies, not only the moral and social laws, but also the physical laws—in other words, the society which can best obey 217 The Reform of Muslim Society the totality of the Creator’s will. Islam, indeed, insists upon the fact that happiness assured by the ethical and social laws alone, however real and lasting, is nevertheless incomplete because the material side is lacking to it; whereas that which comes entirely from the knowledge of scientific laws doubtless procures material comfort and enjoyment, but does not ensure social peace, which is the real basis of moral enjoyments. National Sovereignty Despite the manifest superiority of Muslim doctrine as regards the organization of society, Muslim mentality is so falsified in our day as to prefer the principle of the national will, omnipotent and irresponsible, to the principle of the sovereignty of the Shari‘at on which such organization depends; although the former is a growth of yesterday and, considered as infallible, has nowhere achieved its end. Dazzled by the material prosperity and power of Western society, a growing number of Muslim “intellectuals” take pleasure in regarding this position of the West, the object of their boundless admiration, as a miraculous result of the principle of a national sovereignty. Having got that principle adopted in some Muslim countries—for form’s sake only, for its operation has remained entirely artificial— they would wish the Shari‘at to cease to be the source of inspiration and the criterion of Muslim rulers. Now, that concept of omnipotent national sovereignty is as false as all the other concepts of sovereignty which preceded it in the West. It rests on an imaginary right which the nation adjudges to itself on its own authority and initiative, imitating thus its former masters, the Church and Royalty, which, each in turn, proclaimed, on their own authority, their own almighty, irresponsible and infallible sovereignty. At the base of these sovereignties we find always the same principle: force. The result is a constant struggle for power, in which social hatreds become poisonous and national strength is frittered away. Such sovereignties are, therefore, mere prerogatives imposed by brute force; they are not principles which of themselves command respect by the prestige of their intrinsic moral value. They represent usurpations—that is to say, injustice. The truth is, real 218 Prince Said Halim Pasha sovereignty springs solely from the fulfillment of a duty. It is the guerdon of a duty fulfilled. Otherwise, it is nought but usurpation and injustice. People generally think that they give proof of liberalism when they claim that the human being comes into the world provided with a set of natural rights, among others that of being free. Nothing is more false and, I may add, more anti-liberal. Man has no natural right. He possesses by nature only the faculty of adapting himself to his environment; that is to say, of observing the natural laws to which his ethical and physical existence is subject, and of conforming to them—in other words, of performing duties. It is by fulfilling his duty that he acquires the right to be upheld; it is by practicing virtue that he acquires the right to be respected; and it is by conforming to his moral and social duties that he earns the right to a certain measure of liberty, the worth of which is very exactly determined, by the intrinsic moral and social value of the duties he fulfils and the manner in which he discharges them. That is why Islam taught man by the Shari‘at only his essential duties, those the complete fulfillment of which will secure to him, as a consequence, the right to enjoy complete and everlasting happiness. National sovereignty, being born of the evolution of a false principle, is doomed to vanish like its predecessors by the continuance of such evolution. Moreover that which people call the national will is really but the will of the majority of the nation—it may conceivably be that of half the nation plus one vote, that is to say, the will of a very weak majority in opposition to a very strong minority, a minority almost equal to the majority. The principle of national sovereignty is, therefore, merely the recognition of the right of the majority to impose its will on the minority, a will which is law in all things, whose decisions are without appeal; consequently, an absolute will, prevailing only by numerical strength—supposing that it be not artificial, as it often is. Such a will is, of all, the most unlikely to be inspired by truth and wisdom. When we remember that, in past centuries, the same right belonged to a minority, aristocratic or clerical (which failed not to abuse it at 219 The Reform of Muslim Society its will and pleasure) we must agree that the sovereignty of the national will is merely a revenge of the majority on the minority, a revenge which, in its turn, will lead on to some new revenge as well deserved. It would be ridiculous to ignore or seek to minimize the value of the national will accurately expressed, or to deny that it represents a sum of individual wills which form a very precious manifestation of the consciousness of a society, the exercise of a right and the performance of a duty. It ought therefore to receive a measure of consideration and respect. But, however great our deference for that expression of opinion, it must never be forgotten that whatever exists in the world, social phenomena as well as physical phenomena, is subject to the laws of nature; that every human will, in whatever domain, should be guided by the laws which govern everyone; and that, consequently, wisdom consists in conforming human will to the exigencies of such laws. If the national will is not sovereign and omnipotent in the physical domain; if it is obliged to respect the laws which govern that domain, it cannot lay claim to sovereignty and omnipotence in the social and ethical domains. It ought, in these, as in the other, to respect the natural laws. As, however, the determination of these laws is not possible by means of observation and reasoning, belief in the sovereignty of the Shari‘at becomes a necessity, national sovereignty taking a secondary place which owes submission and respect to that of the Shari‘at. Consequences of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the Shari‘at These consequences are of capital importance, for they are the birth of a whole new edifice of society built on new foundations which distinguish it very clearly from other societies. The social work of Islam may be summarised as the establishment of a social order based on equality and liberty in the most natural sense of the words, a social order from which class struggle disappeared and in which no claim for equality was raised—a social order which realized the truest, most sincere human solidarity. It spread from 220 Prince Said Halim Pasha people to people, forming that Islamic brotherhood, a phenomenon unparalleled in human history, which unites in one great family a whole world of about 400,000,000 human beings belonging to widely different races and living in widely different climates. Islam was able, also, to endow the peoples which embraced it with one constant ideal which never ceased to preside over their evolution. Thanks to this, for more than thirteen centuries, in their splendour and their decadence, the Muslim nations have sought only to conform their conduct to the precepts of the Shari‘at; have sought only to obey those precepts to the best of their ability at all times, looking for salvation only from that law. Another consequence of the establishment of the Islamic social order was to secure to authority a prestige and influence unknown elsewhere or at any other epoch, making it, at one and the same time, feared, respected and beloved. It made itself beloved because it was born of the Shari‘at, to serve the Shari‘at and make it reign; it was thus of irreproachable legitimacy, free from any hint of robbery or usurpation. It made itself feared by the omnipotence which it derived from its impeccable origin and its position as the standard of ethical and social truth. The very errors committed in its name could never impair the prestige which clothed it from the first, nor yet the confidence which it inspired. In every age the Muslim people have preserved the conviction that the injustices and arbitrary conduct which afflicted them were not in the authority of the Shari‘at, nor in the laws and institutions there from derived, but only in the vices of the men who seized the power and acted in the name of the law. The Muslim peoples have never even thought of contesting the legitimacy of the authority established by the Shari‘at, nor of belittling it in any way. The remedy for abuses and wrongs they sought by such a change of rulers as appeared to promise better representation of the Shari‘at and better application of the Law. The absolute justice of the principle of the sovereignty of the Shari‘at is thus established by the constant, never-varying respect which that sovereignty has secured throughout the centuries. Its efficacity has  This number shows the estimate of Muslim population in 1340/1921, when the article was written. Ed. 221 The Reform of Muslim Society been demonstrated in the most striking manner by the creation of a social order which fulfilled all the conditions necessary to guarantee to humanity, individual and collective, real and complete happiness. As if by magic, it suppresses the thousand obstacles which until then had hindered man’s development towards perfection, and in a day gave birth to an admirable civilization which for centuries gave light to the world, teaching it science, justice and wisdom; but, above all, securing to the society immediately subject to its Law an unparallel moral welfare and material prosperity. The Period of Decadence For about two centuries Muslim civilization has been in utter decadence, although the Muslim world has remained unshaken in its belief; still recognises the sovereignty of the Shari‘at and still does its best to obey the sublime instructions and commandments of Islam. If the same causes do not produce the same effects, if the action of Islam itself does not give the same results as in the past, it is certainly because the Muslim peoples have become incapable of understanding and performing their Islamic duty with the same exactness. People have sought to attribute the Islamic decadence to all sorts of causes more or less false and fanciful. Detractors of Islam have gone so far as to pretend, against all logic and historic truth, that the cause of that decadence is to be found in the Prophet’s Law itself; and that Islamic peoples must remain in their present state of inferiority so long as they retain their faith in it. Nothing would be easier than to confute the inveterate enemies of Islam. But, considering it futile to enter into a discussion with men so given up to prejudice and preconception, I shall content myself with defining the inability accurately to decipher their Islamic duties which has fallen on the Muslim world. That inability is the only cause of Muslim decadence. Thus we can determine the nature of the fall and at the same time point out the way to retrieve it. In what does Muslim decadence consists? What are the Islamic duties which the Muslim peoples now do not fulfill so perfectly as of old? Those are the two questions we have to answer. Can we reasonably claim that liberty, equality and solidarity have 222 Prince Said Halim Pasha disappeared from Muslim society when, on the contrary, we know that class and caste hatred, and racial antagonism are no more manifest in that society than at any other time; when Islamic brotherhood is more strongly evident and more active than ever; when the Shari‘at retains its prestige and enjoys the full respect and confidence of the Faithful? It is obvious that, in this respect, despite their decadence, the Muslim peoples are more fortunate than the Western peoples among whom authority is flouted with a growing violence because it inspires neither respect nor confidence. But unfortunately it is not the same with the economic condition of the Muslim peoples. It is here that we touch the wound. From that point of view, the comparison is all in favour of the peoples of the West. In proportion as their material prosperity and economic power have increased, those of Muslim societies have declined. In this respect the Islamic polity is greatly to be pitied; it has every cause to envy Western peoples, and has much to learn from them. The decline in the material condition of the Muslim world has had for consequence its political downfall. Reduced to impotency by its poverty and the defects of its equipment, it has been unable to defend itself against the ambitious enterprises of the West. It has thus known all the ills and the humiliations of enslavement. But— and this gives the measure of the dominating power of Islam—the calamities which befell it never for a moment made it lose its ardent faith in its religion; nor—and this shows the strength of the Muslim organization—nor were those calamities able to annihilate it socially, despite its economic and political ruin. Material power and prosperity being the perquisite of those who know how to profit from the benefits of nature by finding out the natural laws which govern them, Muslim decadence, in the last analysis, can be ascribed to that same ignorance against which the Prophet took especial care to put the Faithful on their guard. However deplorable the condition of the Muslim peoples owing to such ignorance, it is not hopeless. It is indeed a case of mere material decadence; therefore, easy to repair. From the ethical and social points of view, the Muslim structure has survived. That is the essential point, on which we may congratulate ourselves. 223 The Reform of Muslim Society The history of the Muslim world provides categorical confirmation of my diagnosis of the cause of decadence. It teaches us in fact that the decline of that world coincided with the appearance in it of a certain scholasticism. The Muslim religion is absolutely opposed to excessive subtleness and quibblings in religious thought—which explain the absence of a priesthood in Islam. The said scholasticism propagated the belief that the very urgent recommendations of the Prophet in favour of research and science related exclusively to the truths contained in the Shari‘at, and that meditation of those truths ought to engross the human mind. It was an utterly arbitrary reading of the Prophet’s intentions; for, after having taught us ethical and social truths in the Shari‘at, he never ceases to insist on the necessity of acquiring by our own efforts more and more knowledge and of instructing ourselves without a respite. He tells us that by science we shall appreciate our religion better, and shall practise it all the better if we are learned. Thereby he meant to secure to us, by means of a constant striving which would deliver to us the secrets of nature, a material happiness worthy of the ethical and social happiness which he offered to us freely in the Shari‘at. Nevertheless, the mysticism to which the Muslim world became a victim, and which is the work of a pseudo-clergy self established wrongly in it midst, became so general as at last to dominate the Muslim mentality. As a result of that scholasticism, the Muslim world lost interest more and more in the study of nature and almost altogether abandoned natural science. Thus the Muslim peoples became more and more evidently incapable of securing the material welfare and power of which they stood in need in order to live in freedom and defend their independence against attacks from without. They are thus themselves responsible for their economic and political downfall. Meanwhile, the constant ill-success of their efforts to rise up, their increasingly close contact with the West and, above all, the teachings which the West provided for them, at length created a conviction in the Muslim world that the laws of the Shari‘at were contrary to the exigencies of material progress. Misled by that disastrous notion, some thought that they should sacrifice their material welfare to their ethical and social welfare—in other words, should sacrifice the 224 Prince Said Halim Pasha laws of progress to those of the Shari‘at—while others on the other hand, considered that they would act more wisely in sacrificing the exigencies of the Shari‘at to those of their material revival; when all the time the two are not only compatible but complete one another. By so doing, the former hoped to resuscitate a glorious but already distant past, ignoring the fact that material progress is the necessary complement of ethical and social welfare; while the latter imagined that they could create a complete new social order, prosperous and powerful, by dethroning the Shari‘at from its sovereignty. That is how the desire for “Westernisation” first arose in Muslim minds. It is true that the partisans of that tendency were never anything more than an infinitesimal minority; but that minority represented the majority in the intellectual and enlightened classes. It, therefore, in the long run, exercised considerable influence on the fate of Muslim society, thanks chiefly to the support which the representatives of western domination accorded to it. The Muslim “intelligenzia” rallied to the idea of “Westernisation” the more easily because that class had, in large numbers, gone to Western centres for their education, or to the schools which foreign powers, in rivalry with one another, were eager to create in Muslim lands, being anxious to establish by propaganda their ethical and social domination of the Muslim world in order to consolidate their economic and political dominion. Formed under such conditions, the Muslim “intellectuals” came to the point where they could no longer judge of their religion save through a mentality more or less westernised—that is to say, they no longer understood the ethical and social truths it teaches. It happened even that they lost faith in its ethical and social principles, treating them either with scornful indifference or strong animosity. Thus by “westernising” themselves these so-called leaders of thought blinded themselves completely to the ill they wished to cure; and just as they were ignorant of its nature, so they ceased to discern the springs of society in which that ill resided. In short, they only complicated the already precarious condition of the Muslim world, and disturbed the public conscience by distorting it to their own likeness. As for partisans of Shari‘at, misled and subjugated by scholasticism, 225 The Reform of Muslim Society they were no happier in their efforts to cure Muslim decadence by the method of renunciation. But, to do them justice, it is thanks to them that there arose in the Muslim world a multitude of men who continued to study, meditate and comment on the Shari‘at, to feed on it and concentrate their whole brain, heart and intelligence upon it. In the course of time a whole science based upon the cult of the Shari‘at was thus created, in which man observes, compares and draws conclusions solely by its merits—a science whose aim is to teach man to conform to the Shari‘at in all the manifestations of his moral being, and to apply it in all his acts. That science, peculiar to Islam and known as “Fiqh” is certainly the most notable production of the human mind in the realm of ethical and social knowledge. It provides a discipline in that sphere, which corresponds to the experimental method in the sphere of positive science. Thanks to it, the Muslim world has been able to preserve its concepts, traditions and principles intact, along with its Islamic spirit and ideal, through the centuries and through a thousand vicissitudes of foreign domination. It is thanks to “Fiqh” that the Muslim world has escaped the ethical and social decadence which would have been irreparable. Now that we know the nature of the illness by which the Muslim world is being sapped, and the causes which produced it, the remedy is clearly indicated. It seems, indeed, evident that it consists in acquiring the positive knowledge which is lacking. As that knowledge is possessed by the people of the West, it is among them we must go to seek it. It is from them we must re-learn the experimental method which we have forgotten, and the modern technique which we have neglected. But it is important that we should be certain that that is all we have to ask of the peoples of the West. Indeed, if it is indubitable that the only way to put a stop to Muslim decadence is to borrow from the West its positive science and technical progress, that does not mean at all that we should adopt the applications of its scientific knowledge which the West has made, notably in the matter of the organization of Capital and Labour. Far be from us the relations which the West has established between those two factors of production. 226 Prince Said Halim Pasha The merest wisdom bids us hold fast to the prescriptions of the Shari‘at on that point—rules which have proved their worth by saving Muslim society from the dissensions and the strife of classes which have troubled the existence of the Western nations incessantly. It is to “Fiqh,” which is founded on the Shari‘at and has developed the spirit and sense thereof, that we must go in order to create and regulate our economic organization. We shall find therein the safeguard of positive laws functioning in a social framework free from the disturbance vitiating Western systems. These lines will, no doubt, displease our “Westernisers.” But, with whatever energy they may think fit to protest, they cannot alter the fact that their judgments, expressive of unreserved admiration for the West, do not rest on sufficiently deep study, nor on comparisons established in a sufficiently philosophic spirit; and that therefore there are serious chances that they may be wrong. The liking they profess, especially for the social order of the Western peoples has been inspired in them merely by the sight of the material prosperity of those peoples; just as the disdain which they display with so much ostentation for the Muslim social order, and for the whole truly admirable social work, in general, of Islam, proceeds from the sight of the inferiority of material conditions in Muslim society. Now, the material prosperity of a society is the product of its activity in the domain of technical knowledge. It does not constitute sufficient proof of the superiority of its social order. One might even say that in the West prosperity prevails in spite of social conditions manifestly far from perfect. In short, what leads our “Westernisers” to protest their unlimited admiration for Europe and disdain for Islam, a double error which must classify them among amateur sociologists, is the immoderate desire for pleasures which they have derived from the former. Western Society If we follow out the evolution of Western societies from their first formation to the present day, we see that first the spiritual power held sway, which afterwards gave place to Royalty, that is to say, the temporal power. We notice how the latter led eventually to the 227 The Reform of Muslim Society reign of democracy, wrongly so named, which is marked at present by the omnipotence of the trading classes. Owing to that omnipotence of an industrious, little idealistic and, therefore, selfish class, economic questions have acquired exceptional importance in the latest evolutionary phase of Western peoples; to the detriment of questions of a moral and social kind whose rôle is much more important from the point of view of real human happiness. This processus has given a very peculiar character to this latest stage of Western evolution. Its result has been to develop in the individual the thirst for a life of luxury and pleasure, and urge him to the conquest of the wealth which can ensure such a life. The thought of gain exasperates the egoism of the individual, and is the cause of ferocious exploitation of the feeble by the strong. In the pursuit of pleasure—i.e., wealth—the individual comes to believe that all is permissible. The prodigious development of industrialism which we witness at the present day—a development unparalleled in history— is the result of that evolution. Industrialism is the foundation on which the whole Western social structure rests. But if it was the capitalist middle class which created that state of things, it is the proletariate which supports it and keeps it going by its labour. From that fact Labour has acquired in Western society an importance at least equal to that of the capitalists; and we see the proletariate making every effort to impose its will, not only on the bourgeois, but on the whole society, whose institutions it would fain destroy in order to replace them by a new organization, in accordance with its own ideas, which organization it proposes to control exclusively. So, you see, Western society has not ceased to experience the need to change, and change again, the relative values of its collective existence. From that point of view, its evolution has been nothing but a series of gropings, of researches, of experiments, always of an empirical nature, in which it has let itself be guided by prejudices, momentary needs and passing circumstances. If that has been the case, the reason obviously is that Western society has never managed to provide itself with a constant social ideal. Its Ideal has changed incessantly at the call of changing sentiments, material needs and 228 Prince Said Halim Pasha technical knowledge. Its ideal, or rather its ideals, do not guide its general evolution; they but follow it. But if a social ideal is not fixed, if it changes every minute under the influence of events, if it depends upon social evolution instead of inspiring it: that means that the ideal is empty and does not rest on natural social and ethical truths, such as are independent of man’s will and impose themselves on his respect by their intrinsic worth, but only on the arbitrary and capricious decisions of such and such a group of rulers. It is evident, then, that Western society has not yet learnt true ethical and social principles—I mean, such principles as have their foundation in unchangeable nature and are alone capable of ensuring, to mankind collectively, stable conditions of existence; stability signifying equilibrium, without which social happiness must always be ephemeral and incomplete. Instability of a social order is a clear proof that it satisfies only one part of the society while making the other discontented; that it favours one to the detriment of the other. It follows that the more unstable is a social system, the more it is oppressive and furiously opposed. It maintains itself only by violence and repression, and eventually is ruined by the very fact of the injustice and abuse of power which it commits in order to maintain itself. That is how it happens that, in Western society, authority, the one thing indispensable to the existence of collective human life, is combated without truce or respite. What a difference, in this respect, from Muslim society, in which authority is unassailed because it inspires unshakeable respect and confidence. It matters little whether it be Royalty or the Church which governs, whether it be the laity or the clergy who predominate, whether democracy has supplanted aristocracy or socialism be substituted for capitalism: the evil is only reproduced in other terms and under other aspects. There are only fresh abuses, fresh injustices, in place of the old, that in their turn give birth to others from which future generations will have to suffer. Therefore, whatever may be the prosperity, power and material well-being enjoyed by such a society at a given moment, its happiness will be ephemeral and incomplete, since it knows no stability and is deficient in true moral welfare.. 229 The Reform of Muslim Society What is there really enviable in such a condition? Among the most cherished illusions of our “intellectuals” concerning the West, there is one which ought especially to be dispelled, as false and dangerous. It is that which consists in imagining that in Western society man enjoys a measure of liberty hitherto unknown. Now, the measure of liberty and equality, in no matter what society, is in proportion to the stability of the social equilibrium of that society— in other words, to the weight of justice which exists therein. If, then, in Western society, class rivalries and antagonisms exist to such an extent as to impel the classes to fight one another with the violence which we behold; if solidarity is only secured among members of the same class to the detriment of society as a whole; if, in short, the social equilibrium is continually being broken or menaced: that is a convincing proof that liberty and equality in that society are far from being so complete as our “intellectuals” believe. Moreover, it is very difficult to instate real liberty and equality in a society founded on the negation of those principles, as is that of the West. For—be not deceived!—favour and privilege, both as touching the individual and as touching certain sections of the collective group, are at the base of the western social organization. In such a society, it is all very well to promulgate so-called “Liberal” laws: the mentality, being radically anti-liberal and anti-equalitarian, by reason of old prejudices anchored in the course of centuries, will still maintain injustices in practice. To mend this state of affairs, the mentality itself must be reformed by means of an appropriate system of education patiently and intelligently applied for generations. Distinctions of class, rank and race will really disappear from Western society only when the spirit of impartiality and tolerance has passed into the public consciousness, and when men, whatever their origin and position, see their fellowmen as equals, differing from them only in their individual capacity to fulfil their duties and exercise their rights. It is in those terms only that man can form for himself a true conception of liberty and equality, and can enjoy liberty and equality in full measure according to his needs. Indeed, what he has to do 230 Prince Said Halim Pasha first is to understand that the worth of the existing liberty and equality in a given society depends upon the ethical and social value of the individuals composing it; and that the ethical and social value of the individual, in turn, depends upon the ethical and social principles on which the said society is built, and not upon the occasional laws, more or less accidentally just, which it promulgates in order to correct social injustices which persist in it because of the spirit of intolerance and partiality. Only such a remoulding of Western mentality can put an end to the class-struggles which persist in spite of all the changes made in order to get rid of them. All those aspirations towards liberty and equality, all those social claims pressed daily with more or less of violence, yet never satisfied, will be fulfilled on that condition of a changed mentality. Then only will the West attain the social justice she has sought so long in vain. From the various observations and comparisons which I have made, it follows—let me say it once again—that Muslim society has no reason to prefer the ethical and social principles of the West to those of the Shari‘at. The latter are incomparably superior. It is not by departure from them but, on the contrary, by endeavouring to understand them better and practise them better that we can hope to put an end to the present decadence of the Muslim world. The Political System of the West Like all political systems, those of the West are born of its various social systems, to serve them and contribute to their evolution. The Western political system must, therefore, necessarily undergo the transformations which changes in the course of evolution in the social system impose; and this must render it as unstable and variable as the social system from which it springs. I shall not now concern myself with the different phases which the Western political system has traversed in the past. What interests me, at this moment, is its present phase. As we behold it to-day, it also rests entirely on the principle of national sovereignty. That must be so, since Western society has failed to visualise social truth and justice otherwise than in the national will expressed quite freely and without restriction. Till further notice it will not be otherwise. One 231 The Reform of Muslim Society of the first consequences of the adoption of that principle was the birth of national representation. The institution of national representation has been the chief political work of modern Western society. Now, since Western nations are divided into social classes having different and often even opposite ideals and aspirations, resulting from their different political and social needs, it happened that from the outset national representation became an enclosure for the struggle of such hostile classes. It is thus that political parties come into existence, parties of which the leaders, though devoting themselves almost exclusively to the interests of their respective classes, more or less claim to strive in the name of the nation. So Western parliaments became the arena for social contests, procuring now for one political party, now another, the opportunity of seizing power and exercising it for their own ends while occasion lasted. Such is the part played by national representation nowadays in the social evolution of the Western nations. It will last as long as class antagonism continues. The era of political peace and good-will will dawn for Western nations only when they achieve social peace and good-will. At the same time, it is only fair to admit that, good or bad, the political regime with which Western society has provided itself corresponds perfectly to its social regime, and satisfies it completely. As for the rights and prerogatives of such national representation— omnipotent, infallible and irresponsible, like the national sovereignty from which it springs—they are, of course, exceedingly extensive; one might even say, boundless. It has the monopoly of legislation, which means, the exclusive right of making known the national will and imposing it in the form of laws. It exercises a control over the executive power which, in some countries, amounts to dominion. The chief task of national representation is to ‘democratise’ society—that is to say, subject the minority to the will of the majority; while the right of control conferred upon it secures advantages for its members rather than wise and honest administration for the country. In such a system, the executive is but 232 Prince Said Halim Pasha a docile instrument of Parliament. As every power which loses independence loses at the same time its essential character and becomes unable to perform its natural function, so the executive is eventually reduced to serving the private interests of the parties and personages who support it in Parliament. It tries to recruit partisans for them by creating and distributing fat posts, and strives to secure the majority for them at elections by all possible means. It lends itself to every sort of compromise and concession, corrupting the administration while making it evermore burdensome. In short, in such a political regime, the executive deals in bad politics rather than wise and honest administration. Moreover, a political system in which the right to legislate is the monopoly of a political body is always of an undesirable kind; because it is too evidently partial, because it is indifferent to justice, and because Law, in it, is no more than a legal instrument of more or less evident oppression. Laws will be enacted with the primary aim of satisfying private interests, as well as party interests, without sufficient regard for public interest in the general and higher sense. Such laws will necessarily be marked with injustice and partiality. When you consider that the political body which legislates is that in which passions and rivalries are most acute—in which, consequently, wisdom and moderation are most lacking, you can easily imagine the discredit into which the laws enacted under such a system must inevitably fall. Yet the nations living under that form of political organization have made every effort to remove from evil influences those whom they appoint to interpret and apply the Law, with the object of preventing errors and injustice. Unless those nations think that more impartiality and wisdom, as well as greater learning, is required to administer and apply the laws than to elaborate them, one must see in this an avowal of the flagrant insufficiency of the political regime. It would be a waste of time were I to go on enumerating the defects and anomalies of the regime in question. The list is much too long. The fact just mentioned is enough to damn it. It is the most important, the most serious, and also the most direct result of the principle of national sovereignty. But, however great the errors of that system from the point of view of social justice, let me repeat that it has nevertheless 233 The Reform of Muslim Society the merit of agreeing with the social order of which it is the political counterpart, of being its logical production and sincere manifestation. If it is defective, that is because it is designed to meet the exigencies of a social order in itself defective. That is the only merit which we can concede to it, though we do not despise it. But it is evident that in a society of which the needs were different from those of Western society it would be disastrous, moreover it would have no raison d’etre. It seems that those of us who proclaim themselves partisans of the Western political regime are influenced, unawares, by the perfect suitability of that regime to the social order which engendered it. Really, their admiration comes from nothing else. To recapitulate: The disease from which the Muslim world is suffering comes of ignorance of the natural physical laws, preventing it from taking advantage, of the benefits of nature, condemning it to material poverty, and at the same time compromising its political independence. On the other hand, the disease by which Western society is attacked proceeds from ignorance of the natural ethical and social laws, which keeps it in perpetual social fever. The first is deprived of material well-being: the second of social well-being. To escape from its disease, Muslim society must dispel the ignorance which is the source of that disease. It must therefore turn to Western society, which, more fortunate in this respect, possesses science. On the other hand, Western society, if it is anxious to be healed of its particular illness, could not do better than turn to Muslim society and borrow from it the ethical and social laws which the Shari‘at contains. Thus the help and collaboration which Muslim society has to ask of Western society are limited and of a very definite kind. Such help and collaboration can in no case be of a social or political kind. Indeed, the “Westernising” of Muslim society, in whatever form and to whatever degree, would be the greatest mistake imaginable. 234 Prince Said Halim Pasha The Muslim Political Regime The best political order is that which best responds to the exigencies of the social order to which it belongs, best interprets its main principles and most faithfully expresses them. Starting from this axiom, I shall endeavour to find out what should be the best Muslim political order. As I have already explained, Muslim society is that which is subject to the sovereignty of the Shari‘at; in other words, it is the society in which everyone has individually to perform the duties which the ethical and social laws of the Shari‘at enjoin, and also to see that they are respected and practised by others, i.e., the community as a whole. It is, therefore, a religious duty for every Muslim personally to take care that his government maintains the supremacy of the Shari‘at. That Islamic duty has its counterpart in an incontestable Islamic right, that of controlling the government. Thus, the Islamic regime is essentially representative. In Muslim society, where there are no class rivalries where the ideals and social aspirations are the same for all, national representation must of necessity assume a form quite different from that which it has assumed in Western society, different in spirit and objective, in its composition, its rights and its prerogatives. National representation in Muslim society should be secured by an assembly of persons elected by the nation—an assembly of which the composition must be such as to ensure that political peace and concord, founded on that fraternity between classes which is one of the distinctive features of Muslim society, shall reign within that assembly. It must establish and maintain in the political sphere the solidarity which is found in the social sphere. In the Muslim Parliament, therefore, there will be no communists, no socialists, no republicans and no monarchists. There will be only men of good-will, all cherishing the same ideal and aim: to apply to the best of their ability the wise commandments of the Shari‘at. They will be men differing among themselves only as to the choice of means wherewith to serve the common ideal. Consequently the representatives of the Muslim nation will not have 235 The Reform of Muslim Society to struggle with one another for victory and dominion. They will only have to help one another to secure the submission of all to the common ideal. Being free from the spirit of rivalry, their control will be exercised without passion, jealously or hatred: that is to say, it will be exercised under conditions in which human activity can become most fruitful and beneficent. As for the rights and prerogatives of that Parliament, they will be extensive enough to allow of its exercising the widest, most complete and most effective control over the government. But the faculty of Legislation will not be among them. The recognition of such a right in national representation would be contrary to the spirit of the Shari‘at, whose perfect wisdom and justice never could admit that a group of political men, however high their character, should be charged with the making of the laws. Besides, the special reasons, for which that right is ascribed to Parliament in Western society, do not exist in Muslim society. In fact, the Muslim Parliament would not have to spend its time in facilitating transformations, which the fluctuating state of the Western community demands, by passing laws appropriate to such changes. National representation in Muslim society would thus be a controlling, not a legislative power: for its aim would be to secure a wise and honest administration for the society, to promote the reign of the greatest justice between individuals, and thus to aid the nation in its task of constant progress. The Right to Legislate Since, in Muslim society, the function of legislation is essentially a social function of the first importance, a function in which the political character is not predominant as it is in Western society, the right to legislate must belong to him who knows how to make laws—i.e., to the legist; for it is not question of majority and minority, but simply one of competence. If it is competence alone which gives the physician the incontestable right to care for the physical health of the individual; all the more should competence, and nothing else, confer upon a citizen the very much more important right to care for the social and moral health of a whole 236 Prince Said Halim Pasha nation. And then dispute and objection concerning the exercise of such a right become impossible. In proportion to the importance of the legislative functions, the competence which shall permit a man to exercise them ought to be particularly high, in all respects superior. Obviously the legislator must possess deep knowledge of the Shari‘at, which will be the source of his technical competence. But he should also possess high moral qualities, moderation, prudence, impartiality, in short, he should have wisdom. He must be a psychologist; he must know the soul, the mind and temperament of the people intimately. Only on these conditions will the legislator make live laws, laws which will be at once loved, feared and respected. Otherwise such laws will only have the value of police regulations in the nation’s eyes. So it is to the legists that the right to legislate must belong; that is to say, to that class of specialists who are engaged in study of the Shari‘at. But their learning must be backed by virtue in order that the legislature may enjoy the popular respect and confidence, and that its laws may be acceptable to the nation. It is therefore for the nation to elect its Legislative Assembly, which will be as free and independent as its Parliament, the controlling power; and which, like the Parliament, will have for supreme aim the consolidation of the omnipotent reign of the Shari‘at. In this way, Muslim legislation will continue to rest on a foundation thirteen centuries old, the spirit of wisdom and justice of which has stood the ordeals of time with most conspicuous success. In this way, Muslim society will continue to be stable, orderly and progressive. In this way, Islam, secured from violent changes by the maintenance of its traditions, will develop on its own lines, on a meditated and coherent, logical and harmonious plan. The Chief of the State Since authority, in Muslim society, emanates from the Shari‘at, of which it is merely the consequence and the guardian, it must be as powerful and efficacious as possible in order that it may ensure all the benefits which are to be derived from the Shari‘at. Without power, authority, however well intentioned and inspired, is sterile. 237 The Reform of Muslim Society Authority, in Muslim society, must dispose of all the moral, social and material means necessary for its efficient and durable functioning. In striking contrast to what is happening in the West, it is a duty for authority in Muslim countries to protect religion, and the whole civilization which proceeds there from, against attacks from within and aggressions from without. In Muslim States, more than anywhere, authority should be strong. I need not explain that one of the conditions of strength and effectiveness in authority is that it must reside in one person. And it is just as necessary that the person holding authority should be chosen by the nation. That is one of the nation’s most incontestable rights, arising from the nation’s duty to take care that the administration functions properly, which can only happen if the supreme power is entrusted to the man most worthy to wield it. But the possession of a right and the exercise of a right are two very different matters, in affairs of government. Possession of the supreme power admits of neither competition nor participation. It is not the less true, on the other hand, that its exercise can only be effected by delegation—i.e., by the participation of some elements of the nation in enjoyment of some of the rights of the Chief of the State—with his consent, of course. Thus in a Muslim country, the chief of the State should be the Elected of the nation. He should possess all the rights and prerogatives required to make his power effective. But, by delegation, he gets rid of his functions as supreme head of the executive, granting to his representatives sufficient rights to enable them to replace his action by their own, effectively. The chief task of the Head of the Executive is to act as regulator of the political system of the country; to see that it functions regularly; to maintain harmony between the various powers therein, and settle differences which arise between them. Representing, by the national will, the authority which emanates from the Shari‘at, the Chief of the State is personally responsible both to the representatives and guardians of the Shari‘at—whatever be the body charged with those functions—and to the nation (this is a distinctive feature of the 238 Prince Said Halim Pasha Muslim organization); while his delegates are responsible to the representatives of the nation and those of the Shari‘at. Thus in the Muslim political regime, the responsibility of the Executive Power to Parliament and to the Legislative Assembly is established. In the special case where it should happen not to be Parliament which complains of the representatives of the Executive, and where the delinquent should happen to be the Chief for the State himself, whether through incapacity or undue conduct; the nation itself bringing the charge against him; in that case, the Shari‘at gives ear to the nation, and decrees his downfall. By a mechanism and procedure of extreme simplicity, the Muslim nation can get rid of its sovereign, when his faults, his vices or shortcomings have rendered him insupportable. In a day it can depose him from the very summit of grandeur to the condition of an ordinary mortal. The Executive Power Every competence confers a right, and every right implies a competence. Joined together, these two conditions create independence of action. If national representation has the right to control the government, that is because the nation alone is competent to judge whether its Executive is behaving well or ill towards it. In the same way, it is because the Legislature is composed of persons competent to make the laws that it has the right to legislate. The function of ruler and administrator necessitates a competence which the Executive acquires, if it does not already possess it, by experience; which gives it the right to govern and administer. If then, right and competence secure to Parliament and to the Legislature complete independence, those conditions will suffice to secure the same independence to the Executive. Therefore, the Executive Power must be as free in its domain, which is that of action, as Parliament and the Legislature are in their domains. The right of Parliament to control the Executive is no infringement of the liberty or independence of the latter; which must be able to 239 The Reform of Muslim Society act according to its own inspirations and its own consciousness. Only thus can it work effectively and be responsible. Parliament has only a right to criticise. It warns; it urges; it does not command. In the event of disagreement between Parliament and the Executive assuming a serious form, it is for the Head of the State to intervene with a view to settling the difference in a manner favourable to the nation’s protest. But the need to satisfy the nation, also, is no restriction on the liberty of the Executive; since the very reason for its existence is to give the nation satisfaction by providing for its needs; and the need for Parliament to control the government always in the direction of the nation’s needs is no restriction on the liberty of Parliament. To maintain the contrary would be tantamount to saying that by obliging an institution to conform to the purpose for which it was created we assail the liberty and independence of that institution. As for the rights and appanages of the Executive, they will be those which appertain to every Executive; the functions being nearly the same everywhere. Political Parties In politics, as in every other sphere of action and of thought, differences of ideal, conception and appreciation arise to divide men. But such divergences are always of a very variable nature because of the environment in which they are produced, the changes which produce them, and their very nature. If those which exist in the domain of politics are everywhere represented by political parties: that means only that the generating causes and the nature of the differences are the same. Whereas, in the Western political system, political rivalries are born of the rivalry and antagonism of the social classes—some wishing to overthrow the existing social order in order to replace it by the one which pleases them; others seeking to modify it only in a way the better to secure their own ambitions; yet others wishing to preserve it as it is: in the Muslim political system divergences exist only as regards the choice of means for the attainment of the common object, which is to consolidate and to perfect the existing social order Whereas, in the Western system, 240 Prince Said Halim Pasha the rôle played by the parties is incessantly to change and alter the existing social order: in the Muslim system, on the contrary, it is to preserve the institutions which Islam created. That is why, in the West, political parties, have such monstrous importance, dominating national life and disfiguring the forms of its activity to suit themselves. That is why political parties and their actions play a much more modest part in Muslim countries, where they will never succeed in dominating the national life. That is another proof of the superiority of the Muslim social order over that of the West. Furthermore, if political activity has acquired such exceptional importance in Western countries, that is because they experience the need to remedy the defects of their social order in that way. It is a fact that Muslim society is better constituted than Western society. The Senate (Upper House) The Senate is an essentially aristocratic institution, born of the need to defend the rights and principles of a certain class and certain individuals. Its mission is to moderate and check the “democratisation” of society, and prevent excesses. It has, therefore, no raison d’etre in Muslim society, where no legal inequality exists either between classes or individuals; where, consequently, there are none of the dangers which may threaten Western society in its evolution. The wisdom and moderation of which Muslim society may stand in need, in its own evolution, will be always amply supplied by its single Chamber aided by the Legislative Power, and both guided by the Shari‘at. Therefore, with institutions such as I have just described—the Controlling Power, the Legislative Power and the Executive Power each made independent by its competence and special functions— and with full power and efficiency secured to authority: the Muslim regime will respond perfectly to the spirit of the Shari‘at, and will closely unite all those powers in the common task of safeguarding the integral and perpetual supremacy of the Shari‘at. Thus will peace and concord be established in the political life of Islam—the peace 241 The Reform of Muslim Society and concord which exist in Muslim social life. Thus we shall achieve the perfect harmony which should exist between social and political institutions if the nations are to win real prosperity. Such indispensable harmony is the goal which every constitution, every political reformation must attain; for, without it, the best social order will be paralysed and rendered impotent, while even the most defective social order which has the advantage of being in harmony with its political regime, will always be able to make progress. In this essay, as you see, I have only sought to explain what would be the spirit and nature of the political regime best suited to the Muslim social order and in perfect accord with it. I have not considered a political constitution properly so-called. Such an undertaking would have been out of place in a work of such a general nature. To frame the constitution of a people is a task for specialists who must take into account the political needs of that particular people and must adapt it to the ethical and intellectual level, mentality and peculiar characteristics of that people. Besides, as it is unimaginable that one form of political constitution could suit all Muslim peoples, despite the multitude of points they have in common, the reader will hardly be surprised at finding no such vain attempt at theorising on my part. My object has been simply to warn my fellow-countrymen and fellow-Muslims of the irreparable error that the Muslim peoples would commit by adopting imitations of the political constitutions of the West and, along with them, the social and political principles of that portion of humanity—the adoption of the former implying necessarily the adoption of the latter. What would actually happen if the advocates of Western methods had their way, in any Muslim nation? They would very soon discover that they had replaced the social solidarity, which is the most distinctive feature of Islam, by the class rivalry and hatred of the West; that they had wrecked individual liberty and equality in that nation, and had plunged it in the Western chaos—i.e., had reduced it to a state in which it would be always in pursuit of the very liberty and equality which it had renounced, yet would never attain them. They would very soon discover that the hatred which exists between the peoples of the West—a hatred without truce or mercy—had 242 Prince Said Halim Pasha replaced the beautiful fraternity of Islam; and that the common ideal which unites them now had disappeared, making room for all kinds of fleeting, false, imaginary ideals born of the egotism, faults of character and temporary needs of men; dividing individuals and classes, condemning them to hate each other and so fight incessantly. No doubt they then would be the first to recognise, although too late, that it is not by disorganising a nation ethically and socially, not by plunging it in social anarchy, that the economic prosperity and political power of that nation can be revived, or that one can guard it against foreign domination. The dangerous illusions with regard to the effect of “Westernisation” on the Muslim world which are cherished in some Muslim countries, can only proceed from a defective imagination and imperfect knowledge of the questions, which are vital to the Muslim world, and yet are treated with an incredible frivolity unworthy even of the mentality underlying the movement. Such deplorable illusions prevent their entertainers from perceiving that the harm which “Westernisation” must inevitably do the Muslim world will always be in strict proportion to the measure of its Westernisation; and so the more complete the transformation, the more harm it will do the Muslim world, bringing it in the end to utter ruin. Such deplorable illusions do not let their victims realise the truth, which is: that safety for the Muslim world lies in building up its social, political and economic life solely on the unchangeable, eternal foundation of Islamic truth. Conclusion In conclusion I must add that Muslim “intellectuals,” when they think themselves obliged to imitate the West and seek inspiration in its principles, show that most of them at any rate have formed a false ideal and one most ill-adapted to the task before them. They fail altogether to see that their sole aim—I might even say, the sole justification for their existence—is to represent Islamic principles in all their truth and in their full perfection, and to serve them to the utmost of their power. They fail to see that they should, therefore, draw their inspiration only from the purest, the most lofty spirit and 243 The Reform of Muslim Society the best traditions of Islam, so that they may guide themselves and not have to be guided by others, may set an example instead of following the example of others. Only on that condition can Muslim men of intellect participate in the general task of human progress, and play worthily the leading part which belongs of right to Islam. Any other line of conduct on their part must condemn the Muslim world to live under the tutelage of foreign powers indefinitely, therefore in a perpetual state of subjection and inferiority, which would essentially corrupt it and make it subject to the domination of the peoples of the West for ever. If the task of modern Muslim thinkers is so far from easy, it is glorious. It calls, indeed, for much of perseverance, self-denial, courage and, above all, faith—a faith that never wavers—in the cause of Al-Islam; a faith, ardent and absolute, which shall arm our men of intellect, become our champions, with all the confidence in themselves which they must have in order to perform their heavy task. It calls for high moral qualities; without which Muslim thinkers can claim no right to exist at all. x x x  We have adapted the Abstract from within the text of this essay; added a short biographical note on Prince Said Halim Pasha’s life and the sources for more info on his biography as well as reference to the original French of this essay, I am greatly indebted to Mr Usman Shaikh for this part; we have also added two sub-headings, i.e. Introduction and Conclusion. The English translation of this essay, as it had been done almost 90 years ago, at places, seems needs updating. Editor. 244 Copyright of Insights (20724586) is the property of Da'wah Academy, International Islamic University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.