Alan Chong presented a paper at the 2007 6th SGIR-ECPR (Turin) conference that touches on some aspects of your discussion; he also used the Vatican as one of his case studies albeit defining it as a state within his framework.
Paper title is 'The Foreign Policy Potential of "Small State Soft Power" Information Strategies' - http://www.sgir.org/archive/turi...oft%
20Power.pdf
I think money should be poured into al-Azhar and that it should be raised to observer status.
In September of 2006 I wrote a post on the creation of an Islamic Vatican city. This stemmed from the discussion of such an entity by Ralph Peters, in his much discussed article, Blood Borders. In my post, I noted some of the challenges of creating a Vatican city like entity in Saudi Arabia, as well as the benefits of doing so. Among these, which Peters' mentions himself, is liberating Mecca and Medina from the grip of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, and opening the door to other more moderate schools of thought. The effect being, a re-initiation of ijtihad in the Muslim world. Though, rather than limit Mecca and Medina solely to Sunni Islam, it would expand to include Shiism and other smaller sects.
That said, we should remember that the Roman Catholic Church had a strangle hold on European affairs for a very long time, and its influence was reduced only after many bloody wars, ending with the Treaty of Westphalia which brought about the modern nation state.
Islam, would no doubt have to go through a similar process, and likely just as bloody. I've always seen this GWOT, as part of that struggle within Islam. After all, the battle between radical Islamists and the rest of the Muslim world, centers on a redefinition of the type of religion Islam will be, just as much as on the political and social issues at the core of the confrontation.
It is precisely such suggestions that land us in trouble. Mecca and Medina are not and have never been after the death of Prophet Mohamed seats of moral authority or religious thinking. Al Azhar in Cairo is, perhaps. Creating additional zones of religious fervor is not what is Islam or the world needs.
The Vatican City has a fairly long history as a state actor; that the Papal States shrank to their present size with the unification of Italy does not affect the issue of Vatican sovereignty.
Size is not a requirement and the Vatican is no more disqualified from statehood for being a theocracy than is Bhutan or Iran.
Dahlia,
It isn't about creating zones of religious fervor, but rather about denying the Wahabbis sole control of the two of the holiest places in Islam, which alone give them great authority derived from the Saudi crown being protectors of these two holy places. After all, so long as Saudi Arabia can claim to protect the two holy cities, the Wahabbis, using Saudi's oil revenue can exercise undue control over Islam in the Arab world and beyond, through the financing of madrassas, religious texts and socia l networks in places as far away as Pakistan, London, and Brooklyn, NY.
Ringsei and NYkrinDC,
Thanks for the links - I am grateful for the case study in Chong's piece, since there seems to be a paucity of IR theory work on the Vatican. And I found the analysis of Peters' argument very interesting. Certainly it's hard to see what the process would be, other than a lot of bloodshed, by which Saudi Arabia would cede territorial sovereignty and religious authority to a transnational Muslim "super-vatican." My question was more hypothetical: were this to happen, what would be the effect on Islamic influence over multilateral institutions? I like your idea that it could reignite a culture of ijtihad within Islam. Perhaps history will decide.
Dahlia's clearly skeptical. But I'm not clear on which grounds - the whole idea of such a transnational Islamic religious authority, or the idea of it being centered on Mecca? If the latter, I'd respond that first, Mecca was just an example, but second that such a body would represent a significant departure from the nature of Islamic political authority in previous history. So it's not clear to me that you would want to exclude any particular site on the basis of its previous symbolism. More important, perhaps, would be the political feasibility of any such arrangement that would lend legality (in terms of UN recognition) to the new entity. And perhaps you and Simple Mind are right - perhaps al-Azhar would be a likelier contender for precisely that reason.
Finally, Zenpundit writes that "the Vatican is no more disqualified from statehood for being a theocracy than is Bhutan or Iran." True, but I haven't disqualified it from statehood in general, only conceptually in terms of my research project. And the grounds for conceptualizing the Holy See as an NGO despite its legal status is that it behaves more like an NGO. The Holy See doesn't represent a nation, and it doesn't represent the territorial entity of Vatican City State. It represents the entire transnational community of Catholics. Vatican City State is a state, but the Holy See is not Vatican City State's representative to the UN, it is the Pope's representative. I think the Church is more analogous to other transnational communities of principle, like members of Amnesty International, tied together by a set of moral concerns translated into political position in UN bodies. In fact, it's precisely the fact that the Holy See doesn't have to deal with domestic politics, the way a government would, that enables it to stick so stridently to its moral positions in the UN. So in this sense, it's not at all a theocracy like Bhutan or Iran, whose spiritual authority is territorially limited. Bhutan and Iran vote according to politics, not merely doctrine, in the General Assembly.
Hi Dr. Charli
You wrote:
"So in this sense, it's not at all a theocracy like Bhutan or Iran, whose spiritual authority is territorially limited. Bhutan and Iran vote according to politics, not merely doctrine, in the General Assembly"
There ain't any politics in Catholic doctrine ? :O)
Unfortunately, Bhutan aside, I do not believe that you are factually correct in regards to Iran and the position of the Supreme Jurisprudent.
In the eyes of pious Shia, the Sharia's authority as interpreted by their object of emulation is universal, not limited to the borders of the Iranian state. Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, for example, was an ideological repudiation of territorial limitations of the jurisprudent's spiritual authority as well as of the sovereignty of other states.
Iran's foreign ministry may very well have their UN representative vote on straight realpolitik concerns but the trump card of clerical approval back home is always at the ready
Have you talked to any of the many Catholic NGO's that are interested in your idea.
Of course a number of them are "uncivil."
Hello, I really like the blog. I am a Muslim student of international relations theory and foreign policy and I had a few critiques of your post. Prior to studying international relations, I studied much Sunni theology in-depth in its original Arabic.
First of all, a "Caliphate," of your proposed model would not fit what a traditional "Caliphate," was at all. We must first note that "Caliphate," went through many name changes throughout the century including Sultan, Emir, Imam, and Malik - and in essence only refers to the King of a Muslim state. See Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah for an English discussion on this. Imam Taftazani also has a discussion of this which is published in English as "The Creed of Islam by Abu Najm ad-Din al-Nasafi," from the 1950s. One can also find a discussion of this in the English translated "The Politics of al-Baqillani," also translated long ago and Ibn Taymiyah's work. Medieval Islamic political thought, obviously, defended religious monarchies and mostly preemptive holy war notions of jihad.
The only difference is the classical age-old Muslim dispute on whether or not there can be two kings (or "Caliphs,") for the same Islamic state. Historically, many differed upon this point and there were many positions. However, it is undeniable that there were many "Caliphs," in the post-Abbasid Muslim world - so dispute of this point is almost a millennium dead.
Thus, to many of the classical Muslim theologians, King Abdullah would already be considered as a type of "Caliph," already. Indeed, this interpretation is upheld by a number of Muslim theologians who concentrate in political thought. In addition other Muslim theologians and jurists have recently affirmed that Presidents of states would also undergo this definition.
Your assertion that such a Caliph in Mecca would hold spiritual supremacy over adherents of Sunni Islam is an incorrect analogy. Historically in the Muslim world each subregion, province, and city was appointed at least 4 "Muftis," or "Faqihs," which were jurists authorized in giving religious verdicts. While it is true that the judiciary was ultimately controlled by the King - there always existed a variety of jurisprudential opinions and notions amongst Sunni scholars in the Islamic world - as is seen by the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence which still survive today - the Hanafite, Malikite, Shafiite, and Hanbalite schools. This is not to mention various other schools which died out. There is no centralization of religious authority in Islam. Today's religious councils and decentralized Islamic scholars preform in a way not radically different from the historical Muslim world.
One also finds Islamic scholars throughout the ages attempting some type of political reform through the ages. Islamic history never truly established any constitutional like or defined notions on government with the exception of various tracts written by Imam al-Ghazali and Imam al-Mawardi defining and defending the composition of the Abbasid regime in the 900s A.D.
It was not until the mid-1800s that the Sunni jurist and historian Ahmad ibn Abi Diyaf proposed the opinion that a "constitutionally bound Islamic government," was in fact Islamically valid and a progressive improvement. His work "And Consult them in the Matter," is available in English on Amazon.com
We find that in the early Islamic world notions such as "elections," undergone by religious elders did occur. We also find revolutions - such as that of al-Husayn against Yazid b. Mu'awiyah; and secession such as Ibn al-Zubayr against Yazid b. Mu'awiyah.
Even amongst international relations thought we find much disagreement. For example, the relied upon and popular worldview in the early Islamic world defined jihad as a preemptive war to increase the state's relative power and maintain hegemony. It was a worldview of "offensive realism," not unlike John Mearsheimer's "Tragedy of Great Power Politics," work. The Ummayad state is an example of such a worldview and Dr. Khalid Blankinship's work "The Fall of the Jihad State," is a good introduction.
Yet we find even amongst the early Islamic world, theological opinions which rejected this definition of jihad and saw jihad as a primarily defensive war which only needed to be undergone when the borders were not safe. Ibn Rushd al-Saghir in his Muqaddimah, a jurisprudential magnum opus for the Malikite school of Islamic law, affirmed this definition and so did Sahnun, and many early Muslims. This definition has been resurrected in the modern age and is upheld by virtually every Islamic organization of theologians and jurists.
I do believe your analysis of such a paradigm however is worth praise. Many modern Islamic jurists and theologians have accepted the notion of "Democratic government," as long as it conformed to Islamic law. Islamic economics - if you truly look at its history and the Islamic religious jurisprudence behind it - are also are almost identical to modern free-market (or "mixed,") economies with the exception of prohibiting interest.
There is a precedent for allowing minority religious groups exception from Islamic law's injunctions - as the Ottomans did in the 20 century.
There is also the fact that permanent peace treaties undergone by Muslim states are valid and binding in Islamic jurisprudence. This could also serve a purpose in bringing in a hypothetical "Islamic free-market democracy," into the international community.
However, the problem remains of balancing Islamic law with the modern world. I would reply that there are many more lenient interpretations of Islamic law which may be applied to a state. Secondly, issues such as the wearing of headscarves may be unlawful in Islamic jurisprudence but there is no legal penalty for them according to most Islamic scholars.
A constitutionally limited democratic and free market Islamic state - perhaps not unlike the current Iraqi constitution - could go a long way. It would retain its religious and Islamic injunctions which in a Burkean kind of way would keep Islamic society from breaking apart, yet it would evolve in peace, prosperity, and freedom with the rest of the world.
As a final point, many moderate Islamic scholars and religious leaders are trying to aim at this type of model. This is in both more "traditionalist," and "modern," theologians and jurists with the exception of Wahhabite puritanism.
Thanks,
AbuHatem.
And by the way, such "compromise," resolutions to the problem - as you are attempting to find in your blog post - are without doubt the way forward. As Carr stated there is no use for political science if it is not used practically for the purpose of benefit.
It is essential that a new model is created which does not offend as heresy, yet gives the Muslim world what they are longing for - free markets and democratic change.
Such a model would go a long way in establishing a Western-Islamic world peace without reinventing the wheel. Remember that Israel is a "Jewish state," based in democracy; and Indonesia is a Muslim state based in it as well.
Perhaps constitutional law scholars, political scientists, et. al. should have some sort of meeting with modern Islamic theologians and jurists and attempt the formation of such a paradigm.
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