THE NECESSITY OF KHILAFAH FOR ISLAMIC ECONOMY

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

يا داود إنا جعلناك خليفة في الأرض فاحكم بين الناس بالحق ولا تتبع الهوى... (38:26)

(O David! Lo! We have placed you as a viceroy in the earth; therefore judge aright between mankind)

THE NECESSITY OF KHILAFAH FOR ISLAMIC ECONOMY
West Asia/Middle East-Malay World Relations : Islamic Political Perspectives
Prof. Dr. Hassan Ko Nakata (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies for Monotheistic Religions,Doshisha University, Japan)

Introduction – Realizing the Utopian Dream

Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama writes in his article "A New Path for Japan"; "All great historical ideas started as a utopian dream and ended with reality. Whether a particular idea remains as a utopian dream or becomes a reality depends on the number of people who believe in the ideal and their ability to act upon it."

Actually, he was quoting the words of Count Richard Nikolaus Eijiro von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894 - 1972), who is regarded as the spiritual father of the EU (European Union).

1. Necessity of Unity for Ummah

After European nations had fought and killed each other in World War II, a conflict that resulted in more than 60 million casualties, European unity was considered a mere utopian dream. And yet today we can see a borderless Europe with a unified currency, the Euro, in which people, money and commodities are moving free from obstruction by borders, imposed taxes or tariffs. The utopian dream of a United Europe has been realized as the EU, thanks to the firm, indomitable determination and noble devotion to the ideal of men of conviction like Count Coudenhove-Kalergi.


This time it is we, the Muslims who are aware of the obligation to integrate our Ummah in Dar al-Islam, the Abode of Islam, under the banner of Khilafah, the Vicegerency of the Apostle of Allah, who should be issuing these words, "All great historical ideas started as a utopian dream and ended with reality", which the Muslim defeatists who have been brainwashed by the West believe to be merely a utopian dream, impossible to realize.

Speaking at the first EPU (European Parliamentary Union) conference in 1947, Coudenhove-Kalergi argued that a constitution for a wide market and a stable currency was the ideal vehicle for Europe to revive its potential and take the place it deserved within the concert of nations. This indicates that we Muslims should also start by making a wide free market and a stable currency. And here I point out that Coudenhove-Kalergi also criticized the concept of the "Modern/Western territorial nation state" as the worst kind of idolatry, saying; "we are experiencing the most dangerous revolution in the history of the world: the revolution of the State against the man. We are experiencing the worst idolatry of all the time: the deification of the state."

In reality, making a free market and a stable common currency is intermingled with the liberation from the false deity of the nation state, because the nation state imposes its fiat money on its subjects and encloses the global market by its border. We will return to these topics later.

More than half a century ago, Umesao Tadao, a famous Japanese ecologist, in his book An Ecological View of History: Civilization in the World Context (originally published in Japanese in 1957), argued that before the hegemony of European colonialism there were 3 great civilizational empires in the world, i.e, the Qing Empire (Dynasty) in China, the Mughal Empire in India and the Ottoman Empire in Middle East, and that the Chinese Civilization and the Indian Civilization were beginning to revive but the Middle Eastern or Islamic Civilization had been left behind. It is a great pity that while the Mughal Empire was an Islamic dynasty, the newly revived India, having separated itself from Islamic Pakistan, is identified as a Hindu-Civilization. Meanwhile Pakistan has failed even to maintain its own unity, having lost its Eastern part as the result of a bloody civil war for the independence of Bangladesh paid for with 3 million casualties, and having fallen behind India not only in economic development and technology but also in internal security.

On the last Saturday, 10th Oct. 2009, at a trilateral meeting of Japan, China and South Korea, the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Hatoyama, stressed that these three countries, i.e., Japan, China and South Korea will form the core of his East Asian community concept. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9B80AJ80&show_article=1)

It means that the idea of East Asian community which was advocated first by Dr. Mahathir, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, in 1990

was high jacked so that it was transformed into the ideology of the regional hegemony of Chinese Confucius-oriented Civilization subordinating Malay-World.

The revival of China and India is becoming more and more obvious day by day. How about the Middle East, the heartland of Islamic Civilization?

Unfortunately, the Middle East is still divided into tens of territorial national states separated politically by borders set up by their former suzerains even though half a century has passed since their independence, and their commercial relations with the West have a far greater priority than their relations with each other.

What is the most deplorable is the case of Arab countries. Needless to say, historically speaking the Arab nation is the nation of the Prophet Muhammad (ss), the nation of Qur’an and the nation of Islam. Arabs share the same history, the same culture, and the same language so that they are reading the same books, the same newspapers and the same magazines, and watching the same TV programs and movies. In 1945 they organized themselves into the League of Arab States which currently has 22 members, and their constitutions advocate that each of them is a part of the Arab nation (Ummah Arabiyyah), not Nation of Islam (Ummah Islamiyyah). Yet despite having all these common factors, they have not been able to achieve integration and still remain divided into pieces politically and economically, even on the level of Arab nationalism, to say nothing of Islamic Unity.

Why can we Muslims not unify ourselves into one polity, Khilafah? Why can we not make one territory within which there are no borders preventing the free movement of people, money and commodities? Why can we not establish Dar al-Islam, although we share one God, Allah, one Prophet, Muhammad(ss), one Holy Scripture, the Qur’an, and one law system, the Shari‘ah, while China, with a population of more than one billion can integrate 56 ethnic groups into one polity, and India with a population of more than one billion can also integrate 21 language groups into one polity ? If we cannot, how we can claim that we are Ahl al-Tawhid, the nation of absolute Unity, the worshipers of Rabb al-Ard, neither the Lord of Saudi Arabia, nor of the Lord of Malaysia, but the Lord of all the Earth. ?

Under false "globalization", which is in reality nothing other than spreading the brutal rule of the law of the jungle all over the world, not only have nation states been forced to transform themselves into regional blocks to survive, the most successful being the EU, but commercial companies have also been compelled to make alliances or mergers to survive as we see in major oil companies, automakers, banks, chain stores and so on, and those whose alliances have failed have become bankrupt one after another.

If Muslim countries fail to unify themselves, they will be defeated more and more politically and economically and be left behind not only by the West but also by China, India and other developing nations.

What is the main purpose of the integration of Muslim countries into Dar al-Islam or Khilafah? It is to abolish the borders within it in order to guarantee the complete freedom of movement of people, money and commodities. And what is crucial is the 100% freedom of migration, about which advocates of the false "globalization movement" are keeping quiet intentionally.

The economic effects of migration are "profound," says Dilip Ratha, an economist at the World Bank. "Even a small increase in migration can produce significant welfare gains, and those welfare gains can be much larger than complete trade liberalization." The Islamic world has 74% of the oil reserves of the earth, 57% of the gas reserves, 1 trillion dollars in foreign exchange and gold reserves and 4,700,000 military personnel, exceeding the United States and China combined. Thus, the optimal distribution of the earth’s natural resources, money or capital, and labor force or man power can be realized only if the unification of Muslim countries and freedom of migration can be achieved.

Thanks to ‘globalization’ and the global financial depression as its result, it has become clear and self-evident that we Muslims need politico-economic unity so that we can survive and not be defeated in the economic war and left behind by the advancement of the rest of the world. This politico-economic unity is called Khilafah and the territory whose ruling system is Khilafah is named Dar al-Islam.

2.Obligation of Establishing Khilafah and Dar al-Islam

Now, we outline here what the required Islamic unity is. First we turn to the definition of Khilafah and some of its rules according to Fiqh, classical Islamic jurisprudence, citing the most detailed encyclopedia of Fiqh, officially endorsed by the Ministry of Awqaf an Islamic Affairs of Kuwait.

Khilafah is synonymous to Imamah Kubra and defined as "the general leadership for the religion and this world as the vicegerency of the Prophet"; it has become obligatory, Fardh, by academic consensus, Ijma‘; its necessity is also inferred from the Prophetic Hadith; When three persons go on journey, let them choose one of them as their leader"(Abu Dawud), and it is not lawful that there are two Khalifah at the same time, only one Imam is legitimate.

Fiqh prescribes the uniqueness of Khalifah and strictly forbids its plurality, because the Islamic order includes security of the freedom of immigration. An angel says in Qur’an; "But was not God's earth spacious that you might have emigrated therein?', and Ibn ‘Abbas explains this verse; "…My earth is spacious…" as "the land of al-Madinah is safe, so immigrate to it." Namely, al-Madinah, Dar al-Islam should be the place to which all the Muslims can immigrate. The oneness of the Khalifah symbolizes the oneness of the Islamic order, and the Islamic order secures the free movement of human beings and commodities within its territory, Dar al-Islam.

The earth belongs to nobody, but solely to Allah. No one is allowed to cut it into parts and restrict immigration in it. Contrary to the ideology of the "territorial nation state" of modern Western Europe, Islam does not allow human beings to be divided into separate nations.

This is because Allah created human beings as various ethnic groups so that they could know each other, as Allah says; "We have indeed created you from a male and a female, and made you nations and tribes that you may come to know one another."(49:13), and the freedom of the immigration is the precondition for mutual-understanding. And Allah orders us to travel in the earth to learn the history of nature and the history of human beings by saying,; "... Travel in the land and observe how He originated creation."(29:20) The liberation of the earth by the abolition of the borders and the unity of the Islamic order are essential conditions for the Islamic mission.

The earth differs in climate regionally, and there are also differences in its underground resources. Additionally, life in a particular area may be made temporarily difficult by a natural or manmade disaster. So, freedom of migration on the Earth is the first step to enabling the justice and equality of life among mankind. So, the abolition of borders which bar the migration of people is an indispensable part of the Islamic order. And for realizing this, the existence of the single Khalifah is necessary to prevent the discriminatory "territorial nation-state" system, which is nothing but the cartel of the rulers of each country in the world, who mutually agree to divide the world for the purpose of protecting their own vested interests.

Khilafah promotes true economic freedom not only by the abolition of borders within Dar al-Islam but also by the removal of all the tariffs, for Islam does not approve of any tax except Zakah for Muslims, Jizyah for Non-Muslims, and Kharaj for the utility of the lands conquered. That is why imposing any tariff or tax is not allowed in Dar al-Islam. A great Hanbalite jurist Ibn Taimiyyah(d.1328) says; ‘Levying taxes are what is not permitted by the agreement of legal schools’. Another great jurist of the Hanafi legal school, al-Jassas (d.981) is so strict that he says that every Muslim should fight against those who levy taxes, and he should even kill them if they are armed.

Another important role of Khalifah is the fair distribution of energy resources for the sake of the Ummah, the whole Muslim community within Dar al-Islam, because energy resources are neither private property nor governmental property but public property, according to the Prophetic Hadith; A Muslim is a co-owner of three things, (1) water, (2) grass, and (3) fire (Ibn Majah), thus they should be utilized for public interest.

The oil resources underground in the Islam world form 74% of the deposits of the entire world, however, Muslim countries, such as the Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan, are troubled with starvation and absolute poverty, while the oil producing Gulf countries make desperate efforts to construct the No.1 skyscraper in the world by the wealth stemming from their oil revenues.

The Prophet (ss) says; Those who sleep on a full stomach knowing that their next door neighbor is hungry will never have the faith in me. (Hadith: al-Hakim). But the present condition of the Ummah is that the wealth of the rich countries does not spread around the poor countries, and the Muslims from poor countries are not even allowed to emigrate to the rich countries although they are the Muslim brothers of the citizens of such rich countries, being obstructed by the cage of the border of the country. Therefore, the true Islamic order cannot be realized unless the unification of Dar al-Islam under the single Khalifah is achieved.

As the historians admit, "the Islamic Golden Age" was created by the Muslims’ vigorous monetary economy with "the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the Dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent." So, the success of the Khilafah depends not only on the integration of Muslim countries into a borderless Dar al-Islam but on its stable high-value currency (gold Dinar).

As the global financial depression (2008-2009) has exposed, the prosperity of U.S. is the result of "a casino economy" or "bubble economy", not a real, tangible economy, the secret of which is the fact that U.S. has the seigniorage of the dollar, namely the world’s key currency, thus she has been able to print paper money at her will without any basis of real value since President Nixon discarded the gold standard by making the dollar inconvertible to gold in 1971.

The Islamic specie is only gold and silver as clause 130 of Al-Majallah, a civil code of the Ottoman Caliphate, prescribes that the Nuqud (species) are gold and silver, and its commentator Ali Haidar explains that the banknote, or paper money, is just a commodity (not money). So, we, Muslim nations should mint gold Dinar and silver Dirhar as our legitimate species and return to the Gold standard in order to take the initiative of creating a fair and stable global monetary system based on gold, which will terminate the U.S.’s hegemony for the ferocious false ‘globalization’ of the fraudulent bubble economy.

The territory of Islamic order governed by the Khalifah or the law-governed space of Islam is called Dar al-Islam. Dar al-Islam is a space where peace is maintained by the Muslims’ power and Islamic law is enforced. The law-governed space where the Khalifah, the leader of Ummah, rules by Islamic law and many religious communities enjoy religious self-government and live together is Dar al-Islam, and the mission of Islam is transforming this earth of Allah, i.e., the whole world into Dar al-Islam.

Although Islam does not force belief in Islam, still the Islamic order, Islamic law-governed space, and Dar al-Islam must be spread to all the earth, even by resorting to military power. Why?

Islam means total submission to Allah, i.e., obedience to only Allah’s command. In other words, Islam means denying the rule of all the creatures that command the people beside Allah, whether inanimate idols or human rulers. As for what is related only with the intellect, like a religion in the Western sense, we can only liberate ourselves from idolatry or subordination to these creatures through our own thinking and judgment and liberation from outside by force is impossible. However, when an external rule enforced by violence, i.e., political domination, exists, it is necessary to liberate the ruled nations from the rulers by confrontational violence. So, the Sahabah, the companions of the Prophet(ss) and the following generations of Muslims performed the mission of establishing Islamic order all over the world with the sword, Jihad, to liberate nations from the local rulers who enclosed the people in their domains to oppress them under the name of tax collection and all other means of exploitation.

Conclusion - Proposal for Integration

In conclusion, we would like to propose here the way to realize the utopian dream of integrating the Ummah in Dar al-Islam under the banner of Khilafah.

We can take as our model the EU; firstly, because the substantial essence of Khilafah or Dar al-Islam is the integration of the territory of Muslim countries by abolishing borders and tariffs which prevent the free movement of people, money and commodities within it, and secondly, because it requires a stable economical and political system which is achievable through a common high-quality currency, i.e., the gold Dinar and the most stable, lasting and sustainable law in world history, the Shari‘ah. The existence of a single Khalifah is certainly a symbol of this integrity.

As I pointed out earlier, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought that the integration of Europe should be started by making a wide free market with a stable currency, and the correctness of his thought has been proved in the history of the formation of the EU, which has realized complete freedom of trade and immigration within its territory by the Euro, one of world’s key currencies. So, following the EU model, we had better start by establishing a free market and a stable currency. Concerning a stable currency, we should reactivate the idea of the Islamic Gold Dinar which the former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir proposed in 2001, but which has still not been implemented yet.

As for the integration of Muslim countries, it seems quite realistic that we start by allowing perfect freedom of immigration within the whole territory of Muslim countries for all the Muslims regardless of their nationality, race, ethnicity, language, and so on, before the total abolition of the borders within it. Discrimination based on religion is to be acceptable even in the international community, because we have a precedent in the "Law of Return" of Israel, enacted in 1950, which provides that any Jew regardless of affiliation may migrate to Israel and claim citizenship. Why cannot we make our religious affiliation of Islam the base of nationality or citizenship, when the Jews have already done it?

Indeed, it is understandable that natives of rich countries hesitate to open their borders to the poor, but the European nations have overcome their selfishness by sacrificing the particular interests of their respective countries for the cause of the unity of Europe and Israel’s people have chosen to accept all Jewish immigrants wholeheartedly even though they are penniless and come from the poorest countries like Ethiopia. So, if we were so selfish that we could not surmount our selfishness and could not open our borders to all our brothers and sisters in Islam, we could not claim that we are the best nation among mankind, Khaira Ummatin Ukhrijat li-Annas(Qur’an,3:110).

Regarding political integration, we would like to suggest transforming OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) into a platform for reestablishing Khilafah. Despite the fact that its charter refers to "the noble Islamic values of unity and fraternity, and affirming the essentiality of promoting and consolidating unity and solidarity among the Member States", in reality, it functions as nothing but an organ hindering the real integration of the territory of Muslim countries and political unity by perpetuating the status quo of our divided Ummah, in other words, it has been reduced to a cartel of rulers who agree not to invade each other’s turf. Therefore it should be reformed into a tool for realizing the true unity of the Ummah, namely, Khilafah and Dar al-Islam.

Here, I strongly believe that the Malay World can play a vital role in this, because there is freedom of speech and political activity in the Malay World to a great extent, and the awakening of Islam seems quite remarkable when compared to the Middle East, where most of the regimes are desperately despotic as well as corrupted, and thus all the Islamic political movements are almost suffocated and there is little hope for any reform of the regime. As already cited, the legitimacy of Khilafah is based on the Prophetic Hadith, "When three persons go on journey, let them choose one of them as their leader". It means that the Khilafah is to be established cumulatively by the process of selection in various strata of the Ummah, thus it needs a "democratic" environment which allows people to freely choose the most suitable candidate for the Khilafah.

Thus, I hope that the Malay World will take the initiative in transforming the OIC into a platform for reestablishing Khilafah, so that the integration of the territory of Muslim countries and unity of Ummah may be achieved in peace and without bloodshed as was the case with the formation of EU.

May Allah guide us to the right path, strengthen our resolution, and protect us from the conspiracies of enemies within and without.

Wallahuwaliyyuttawfeeq