The Quran as Constitution

Sha

Salam,

I would rather not create a constitution for an Islamic State?there is a distinct possibility of the constitution being revered (some time in the distant future) as the document that initiated and propelled the renaissance of the Muslim Ummah. If so, it would acquire a sacred place in the minds of most ignorant men (the majority) and become a rigid and defining (irreplaceable) part of the system.

But there are other reasons?which are irrelevant since the first question is Do we need a man-made constitution? Or do we already have one? What if we consider the Quran as constitution, and its application in our lives as ?the laws? we make, which are subject to perpetual change. As long as our decisions (by judges, consultative bodies, individuals) are in accordance with the Book of God, I feel comfortable in them being not exactly the same from time to time and from place to place. After all, the problems and circumstances we face are also not exactly the same every where and every time.

Let us consider that the Quran is the constitution. And it contains all we need to know about running ?organized society?. Then the state (or organized society) exists to provide justice not by its own laws, but by the laws contained in the Book of God. It exists not as a necessity to Islam?but as something we humans need as a society to organize ourselves as a collective. The states reason for existence therefore is not to enforce, but to facilitate. The state is not an end in itself. it is a means to an end. The end goal, obviously, is to ?Submit to the will of the Lord of the Worlds?.

To put in points, the Islamic State exists

To facilitate the acceptance and practice of ?submission/surrender?.
To ensure that justice is done according to the laws given in the Book of God.
To protect from physical threat posed by external and internal forces to the freedom of belief and expression.
To act as the ?collective conscious? towards the needs of the deserving.
The co-ordinate the ?collective imagination? for humanity?s discovery of the universe and the laws that govern it. (i.e to co-ordinate the progress of technology and rationality.)

If we accept the role of the state as facilitator then it must be curtailed to a minimum to stop it from becoming an interruption to us serving God alone. We submit to God and not to the state, or its laws. The state must not replace God in any way. It must not become an entity apart and away from the citizens that make it. It should be subservient to the laws given in the Book of God, and the needs of the men who co-ordinate it. Just like any collective body.

Notes

The man-made constitution would become sacred just like hadith books. We?ll repeat the same mistake, but we?ll do it differently (constitution vs. hadith). Just like we didn?t call Muhammad the Son of God (a Christian mistake), but we made him ?too loved?? more then God at times, and equal to God most of the times. A similar mistake, repeated with a semantic difference.
The application of the Quran (rules/decisions) might seem to be different from time to time and place to place. That?s not a shortcoming of the Quran but the beauty of it. Only the God-given Book of Law can transform itself and reflect even the minor differences in circumstance and time. Replacing it by ?uniform man-made laws? stagnates society even though seemingly serving the need for ?standardization? and ?justice?. This is the same mistake Imam Shafi made ? believing that he could save the Muslim Ummah by ?freezing laws?. (Kasim Ahmed in ?Hadith ? A Re-evaluation?). The flexibility the Quran provides and the perfection of its guidelines negate the need for any other law-book.

Sha