Al-Banna

This article was previously published in Indonesian at 9/8/2004

Many people object if Islam is assumed not to regulate politics. They argue that Islam is not merely “divine teaching” which does not touch real life of human. Islam as a religion is comprehensive regulating all human’s matters, from waking up until going to bed again. Since Islam regulates everything –according to this totalistic approach upon Islam—hence, politic is included. Therefore, a slogan developed –especially among the Muslim revivalists—that “Islam is religion and state” (al-islâm din wa daulah).

In the history of modern Islamic politics, the slogan is a denial of Muslim revival of the strong political secularization within the Muslim world, especially after the fall of the Caliphate system (in fact the Ottoman Turk Empire) in 1924. The slogan of “Islam is religion and state” was raised by various Muslim revivalist movement, especially Al-Ikhwanul Muslimun and Hizbut Tahrir. Slowly, the slogan became he dominant paradigm of thinking among Muslims, especially those in the political wing.

They conveyed various arguments supporting the validity of this paradigm. For instance, in Islamic history, since the age of Prophet up to the present globalization era, Islam has never stopped being in politics. Muslim groups have become political entities that are always considered whenever they are powerful, and scare authoritative regimes. Their argument strengthened Arkoun’s thesis who said that in fact, in the history of Islamic politic there is a “softer theocracy” than the Europe’s practice in the Medieval Age. Oddly, by cursing the interaction between religion and politics in the Medieval Age of Europe, several Islamic group expected that religion run the state political authority. This paradigm rules the Islamic political reasoning up to now, the moderate as well as the radical one.

Fortunately, Gamal al-Banna lately appears –the youngest brother of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of Al-Ikhwanul Muslimun (Muslim Brethren)—who tried to criticize and against that paradigm, by introducing new paradigm about the relation between religion and politics. Through his book, Al-Islâm: Dîn wa Ummah wa Laitsa Dîn wa Daulah (2003), al-Banna writes firmly against the paradigm of Islam as religion and state. To him, Islam is not religion and state, but religion and ummah (Muslim society). Both are different, since the first is more political and power oriented, while the second is cultural and ummah (social) oriented.

Al-Banna’s study on the basic nature of political authority –including Islamic political authority—concluded that political and state authority has distorted religion. To al-Banna, political power carries more damage than religious benefit. When it comes to real politics, religion will function to legitimate the authority and will be destructive. Therefore, al-Banna proposed the urgency of emphasizing religious cultural orientation rather than politics and authority. The right slogan according to al-Banna, is not “Islam as religion and state” (dîn wa daulah), but “Islam as religion and ummah” (dîn wa ummah). [Novriantoni]