From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Islamic Law and Constitution
Date: 9 Apr 92 16:09:18 GMT
Organization: Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


Just completed a read of Maulana Maudoodi's `Islamic Law
and Constitution'.

My comments:

Maulana Maudoodi's version of an Islamic state would be
a democratic state -- with independent executive, legislature
and judiciary.

Only male adult Muslims would be allowed to vote or hold
key policy making positions. Women and non-Muslims would be
each in separate electorates. At best, they would sit in the
same legislature, but the male Muslim legislators would have
a veto power (i.e. - a majority of male Muslims could veto
proposals made by the other two groups.)

The power of executive and legislature would be restricted --
no laws contrary to the explicit provisions of the Qu'ran
and the Sunnah would be allowed. Moreover in all other areas
the spirit of the Shariah must be followed.

The fundamental rights as we understand them in America would
be present, with certain restrictions. The Shariah being an
all encompassing code - covering the legal, political, social
and family etc. aspects of life - there would be no area of
`private' rights. The state would be directed to get rid of
vice, pornography, lewd books etc., as well as co-education
etc.

The state would be a welfare state -- it must guarantee the
basic necessities of life to all its citizens.

The state is an ideological one -- in the sense that full
rights belong to males who believe in the state ideology -
Islam, but it is a territorial one, in which the state's
vbligation to obey international treaties and agreements
with other (even non-Muslim) countries outweighs any
responsibility or obligation to Muslims living outside
its borders. The state must however accept these, should
they choose to immigrate.

The non-Muslims have mostly the same civil rights as
Muslims. They would be ruled by their own personal law,
though in matters relating to Muslims and non-Muslims,
the Muslim law will hold. They have freedom of religion
except that they may build no more places of worship in
Muslim majority localities, though they may maintain the
ancient ones; and non-Muslims can freely change their
religions to other non-Muslim religions or Islam, but
no conversions away from Islam are allowed.

Non-Muslims may not join the army, may not occupy policy
making positions, must pay a jaziyah tax.

***
I'm sure there are many details I'm forgetting, I'll
make a second post if necessary.
***
The latter portion of the book has some of the actual
suggestions that Maulana Maudoodi and other ulema made
regarding the draft Constitution of 1956 and constitutional
recommendations made in 1952. These suggestions relate
mainly to checks and balances on the powers of the executive,
the legislature and the judiciary; especially the military
courts.  There is nothing that a democratically minded person
can fault in these suggestions.

So, the system of govt. espoused by the Maulana is a mixture
of some very liberal and some very illiberal (by most standards -
e.g. the political status of women) ideas.

I should mention that the Maulana says that for
150-200 years the natural evolution of Muslim
thought has been stunted. However, everything is
well documented,and today's Muslims can restart
from where the interruption took place. The Maulana
envisions an intense period of activity to catch up
with the modern world and make up for the two lost
centuries. In this sense, his is not a static ideology:
if I understand correctly, the Sharia would be recodified.

On the other hand, some of the things that he would keep
unchanged, I've mentioned, and are among the topics
of contentious debate on this netgroup.

-arun gupta
ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu