Islamic Revivalism

During the past few years there has developed a significant Islamic revivalist movement across the globe. It is not the result of any conspiracy, but the obvious reaction to world events of the near past. The Muslims of the world have observed the failure of Muslim politicians, scholars and statesmen to forge unity among the many Muslim nations with their own cultures and traditions. At the same time, the nonmuslim nations appear to have connived together to deny freedom to a number of sizeable Muslim nations such as Palestinians, Kashmiris and Chechens who have age old distinct national identities. To the more sensitive and less sectarian Muslims the only way to unite the Muslims and pool their resources so that they may stand at equal footing with other religious nationalities is to create an Islamic order based on the traditions of a time before the divisions among Muslims started. This means the institution of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad himself and the early Caliphs.

Unfortunately, the political model of the early Caliphates does not bode well with the democratic perceptions of modern times. In modern secular jargon the Caliphs were absolute autocrats. They had no ministers and no parliaments. There was no police and not even a regular army. The lack of public security in those days can be judged by the fact that the second, third and fourth Caliphs were all murdered in the public. The great conquests that created one of the world’s greatest Empires of all times were achieved by purely volunteer armies.

There was no economic policy in the Islamic State of Madinah, which most revivalists look up to as the model. Conquests were producing a constant flow of spoils of war that were distributed justly among the people of Madinah making their lives quite easy and comfortable. The only indigenous source of income for the state was charitable donations during the time of Prophet Muhammad and Zakat (2.5 % of accumulated surplus wealth and stock in trade) during the reign of the 4 earliest Caliphs. A certain amount of earning came from the blood money (mistakenly called ransom) paid by the relatives of prisoners of war taken in the battle field. Since there were no prisons in the Islamic state, prisoners of war who were unable to pay blood money were given as slaves in the custody of the relatives of the Muslim soldiers who were killed in the battles. Those conditions simply can not be recreated in the modern world.