The Real State is the Ideological State
(Translated)

News:

On 3 January 2024 France offered the new Syrian administration assistance in drafting a new constitution. “We have offered the new Syrian administration technical and legal assistance in drafting the new constitution,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told reporters in Damascus. “We will work with the Syrians and help them chart their new future.”

Comment:

In his offer to the new Syria to help draft a new constitution, the French Foreign Minister was keen to use the term “technical” to distract from the fact that the constitution primarily expresses the identity of the state and consequently the identity of the society on which this state is based. This is in terms of it being the executive entity of its culture, its viewpoint on life, and its way of life. He is implicitly repeating the open lie promoted by Western circles, and with them groups of Westernized intellectuals in our Muslim countries, which claims that a successful state is a non-ideological state. What they mean by this is that the state should not belong to a specific ideology, that is, it should not adopt a specific viewpoint on life. Instead, they mean that the state should be a purely administrative institution based on governance, the application of laws, and the care of people’s affairs, without paying attention to any particular ideological thought. They claim that the modern state that emerged in the West is of this type, as it does not belong to any particular thought.

The least that can be said about this discussion is that it is a complete lie and fabrication. There is no real state that does not have a point of view on life and a culture that it expresses. What is meant by a real state is the state that was established by a society that has its own particular way of life. It is a society that was formed with a specific culture, on which people gathered and shaped their lives, so they became a society with a specific identity. Then they established the state that looks after their affairs, with the laws that emerged from this culture. The state is the executive entity for the culture of the society and its way of life. The Western states that they call the modern state do not deviate from this rule at all. Instead, these states are a clear confirmation of it. They are an executive entity for the culture that formed Western society about two and a half centuries ago, and which was expressed by the philosophers of the Enlightenment who rebelled against the civilization of the Middle Ages. This culture is based on the doctrine of separating religion from life, society and state, which is the doctrine of secularism. Secularism views life as material benefit. Secularism views happiness as obtaining the greatest share of physical pleasures. Based on this conception of life, the Western civilization summarized the function of the state as the guardian of public freedoms. It adopted the philosophy of democracy as a system for the state, based on its separation of religion and the church, from society and state. After that, no one remained with the right to legislate and choose the laws of the state except the people, so the people were the sovereign, according to this philosophy.

The Islamic state is a completely different matter. It is the state of the Islamic way of life. It is the state of the Islamic community (jamaa’ah) that has accepted Islam as a viewpoint in life and a way of living, based on its belief in Allah (swt) as the Creator and Organizer, that is, based on the shahadah (testimony) that there is no god but Allah (swt) and that Muhammad (saw) is the Messenger of Allah (saw). This belief of the Muslims has imposed on them a way of life that is determined by Islamic concepts about worldly life and what comes before and after it. So, in order for this way of living to be complete, it is obligatory for a state to be established upon it, that looks after the affairs of the people in this community, with laws emanating from the same belief on which the community was founded. This state would be the executive entity of Islam in terms of its ideology, system, civilization, and way of living. This means that the state is based on the Islamic belief (Aqeedah), in terms of it being a pillar of the community that itself was based on the Islamic belief.

This is the meaning that is drawn from the Saying of Allah (swt),

[فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ حَتَّى يُحَكِّمُوكَ فِيمَا شَجَرَ بَيْنَهُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَجِدُوا فِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَرَجاً مِّمَّا قَضَيْتَ وَيُسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيماً]

“But no! By your Lord, they will never be true believers until they accept you ˹O Prophet˺ as the judge in their disputes, and find no resistance within themselves against your decision and submit wholeheartedly.” [TMQ Surah An-Nisaa 4:65].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Ahmed Al-Qasas
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir