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So what makes a government "legitimate" (شرعي) ?
This is an interesting question to explore, because it leads back to the sources of law.
Among modern states, a government is considered legitimate if it is recognized by other sovereign nations.
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This is an interesting question to explore, because it leads back to the sources of law.
Among modern states, a government is considered legitimate if it is recognized by other sovereign nations.
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So this means the "power" to recognize or "create" a sovereign state comes from previously existing sovereign states.
So where did the first sovereign states come from? And who granted them the power to be "kingmakers," or to impart legitimacy to other states?
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So where did the first sovereign states come from? And who granted them the power to be "kingmakers," or to impart legitimacy to other states?
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This is usually traced back to the Peace of Westphalia, where Catholic powers of southern Europe recognized the right of northern Protestant powers to exist.
Protestantism was considered by the Catholic church as a heresy, and in the past, all heresy had been forcibly...
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Protestantism was considered by the Catholic church as a heresy, and in the past, all heresy had been forcibly...
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...eradicated. For example, the Albigensian Crusade was conducted against a sect of Christians (Cathars) in southern France. The Pope offered the land of the heretics to any noblemen who would help them eliminate the Cathars. They then proceeded to do this, including by...
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...killing the populations of entire cities, including women and children.
This worked out well for the nobles who got the land of the massacred people, so when Protestantism arose in Europe the Catholics thought to apply the same idea.
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This worked out well for the nobles who got the land of the massacred people, so when Protestantism arose in Europe the Catholics thought to apply the same idea.
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But the Protestants turned out to be stronger than the Cathars, and after more than a hundred years of war which killed an estimated 8 million Europeans (close to 10% of the population at the time), the Catholics finally gave up and admitted that they were not going...
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...to beat the Protestants. Christians at this time, similar to Muslims, believed that victory is from Allah, so many saw the inability of the Catholics to eliminate the Protestants as a sign that God was not with them.
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Interesting to note here is that the Catholic order rested on the idea that the Pope was able to grant title to land. He was also able to effectively use this power to get nobles to mobilize armies.
Another important factor here is that part of the reason the Catholics...
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Another important factor here is that part of the reason the Catholics...
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...were unable to defeat the Protestants (the Dutch in particular) was because of the migration of Jews to Holland, and their financing of colonial expeditions. The Jews were kicked out of al Andalus at the same time as the Muslims, and many fled to Holland, where...
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...interest was legal.
Around this time, social contract theory was developed, partly in response to this political upheaval. This period of "Enlightenment" was characterized by a heavy revival of the study of Greek and Latin texts, at the expense of the Bible.
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Around this time, social contract theory was developed, partly in response to this political upheaval. This period of "Enlightenment" was characterized by a heavy revival of the study of Greek and Latin texts, at the expense of the Bible.
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Studying these Greek texts naturally led to a revival of the study of democracy, or "the rule of the people." The social contract theory stated that the legitimacy of a government came from the people consenting to be governed, in exchange for benefits.
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This was different than the theory derived from the Bible, which stated that the ruler's authority comes from God. So Westphalia was a major ideological victory for the Protestants, because the Catholics effectively admitted that their right to rule came from the people.
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This theory was mainly developed by scholars from states that had been aligned against the papacy, like England and France. Theologically, God was much closer to the human in the Protestant conception; for the Catholics, the relationship to God was mediated by...
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...priests, but for the Protestants, each person could have a direct relationship with God.
This flowed nicely with the Greek ideas of the rule by the people; since each person had a direct connection to God, the will of the people could be conceived as the will of God.
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This flowed nicely with the Greek ideas of the rule by the people; since each person had a direct connection to God, the will of the people could be conceived as the will of God.
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So if the Catholics chose to mediate their relationship with God through the priests and church, it was *still* the will of the people- a clear ideological victory for norther Europe. From Westphalia on, northern Europe emerged as leaders while southern Europe fell behind.
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With dominance of the British empire, this legal standard (developed largely by Britons, like Hobbes to address problems of British politics) became the basis for the international system. So in terms of religion, the modern system is rooted in Greek paganism.
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The idea of the rule by the people is then extended to states, granting sovereignty (or mulk in Arabic | الملك) to nations.
This system is ultimately doomed, because it is based on human desires. The nation is worshiped due to its ability to fulfill desires, which is...
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This system is ultimately doomed, because it is based on human desires. The nation is worshiped due to its ability to fulfill desires, which is...
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...nations that don't provide many services to their citizens are usually worshiped much less.
But because the nation must provide services to its citizens in order for them to be diverted from the worship of Allah towards the worship of the nation, the nation must...
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But because the nation must provide services to its citizens in order for them to be diverted from the worship of Allah towards the worship of the nation, the nation must...
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...continuously amass more resources. Desire is like a fire; it grows bigger the more you feed it, and since the people can throw a government in the garbage as soon as it stops fulfilling their desires, the nation is compelled to grow like cancer, or else perish.
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And this is exactly what happened to the Greco-Roman civilization that inspired the modern social contract.
Modern historians have speculated that the exhaustion of topsoil was one of the major causes of the decline of Rome, at a time when lavish feasts became common...
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Modern historians have speculated that the exhaustion of topsoil was one of the major causes of the decline of Rome, at a time when lavish feasts became common...
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...to such an extent that wealth Romans built "vomitoriums" into their house, which were special rooms where guests could go to vomit, in order to continue eating.
Likewise, UN officials today estimate the world has 60 years of topsoil remaining, if degradation...
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Likewise, UN officials today estimate the world has 60 years of topsoil remaining, if degradation...
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...continues at the present rate. Meanwhile, thousands of tons of food are thrown in the trash in those countries that most completely embody the political philosophy of the "rule of the people."
The Islamic concept of legitimacy and sovereignty is more akin to...
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The Islamic concept of legitimacy and sovereignty is more akin to...
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...the original Christian concept, which was drawn from revelation. This is the concept that sovereignty, or mulk, is granted by Allah.
Sovereignty in Islam, however, recognizes a chain of authority that is derived from following the sunnah as a successor, or...
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Sovereignty in Islam, however, recognizes a chain of authority that is derived from following the sunnah as a successor, or...
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..."khalifa" of the Prophet, alaihi asalat wa salam. The shia believe that it rests in the bloodline of the Prophet, sal Allahu alaihi wa salam, but this concept is clearly false for many reasons, among them that superiority in Islam is by taqwa, not lineage.
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