Political Thought in Early Islam

There were three main classes of political thinker in the Islamic world before modern times who have left records: advisors to rulers (whether formally appointed or not), philosophers and jurisprudents. Some of the men (for there weren’t any women to speak of) belonged to more than one (especially to the first two) or even all three of these classes at the same time and in so doing transcended the ideological boundaries of any one of them in their thinking. Advisors to rulers and Islamic jurisprudents nevertheless ostensibly advised in terms of Islam but the ideas of philosophers tended to be based more on Greek philosophical methods and less on either practical or even Islamic advice.

Jurists provide the most Islamic examples of political thought although many of the most pious ones early on decided that they, themselves, should not participate in the ‘dirty’ world of practical politics by clearly formulating political ideas. They nevertheless often did have a role in government (as a class - as judges) from the earliest times. In the 9^th Century there was some discussion of political theory but it really began in earnest in the 11^th Century. They naturally drew on the two major sources of Islamic law, the Qur’an and Hadith, which did not contain much on government (although the Hadith contained more than the Qur’an). Both of the sources tended to provide general ethical principles from which rules of government nevertheless might perhaps be deduced. When jurists later made those deductions (and wrote specialist works on government) they became, in effect, "pious" advisors to rulers.

The pioneer among the philosophers was al-Farabi (who became noted even in the West) in the 10^th Century. Al-Kindi had earlier hinted about this subject. Much of the philosophy was in the form of works not of political theory but rather out of which we can today discern political ideas. The philosophers tended to be least in favour with the rulers (even less than the Greek philosophers had been with their own ruling class) in part due to their tendency to abstraction. One of al-Farabi’s works, for example, concerned the ideal city (rather than the ideal ruler or Caliphate). Today we can understand al-Farabi’s ideal city as a microcosm of the ideal Caliphate much as we may also understand St Augustine’s City of God to have potentially had wider political application in Christendom.

The works from advisors that we have today tend to be in the form of rules or guidelines for being a good ruler and could take the direct approach (similar to that taken by Machiavelli in his “The Prince”) or be in fable or allegory form. Kalila wa Dimna (discussed earlier) is a good example with Kalila (as the name, meaning “crown”, implies) representing wise advice and Dimna (again as the name, meaning rubbish, implies) “rubbish” advice. The writer interestingly makes the king a noble lion and the two eponymous advisors (viziers) jackals (perhaps obliquely also commenting on the nature of political advising itself). In this genre, which began to be prominent in the late Umayyad period, Persian historical examples and Indian or Persian fables are used as much as Arab or Islamic ones.

In my next posts I want to concentrate on some of the specific ideas that are still discussed in the same terms within Islam today. In the next post I will consider the idea of the ummah (community) and that of imama (leadership). In discussing terms and concepts like these I hope I can persuade people that they are not necessarily the threatening concepts they are sometimes made to seem when they are discussed by especially Islamist thinkers today (and inevitably distorted in the naturally uninformed Western dialogue).