Securing the future of Arab Monarchies

[Saleem]

the ebst way for them to surviive is to bring democracy to their land a la USA.....

 

[kalu_miah]

There are both positive and negatives. Don't forget that the monarchies in the GCC don't rely on a single figurehead. This is not Louis IXV rule. (Le Roi Soleil). There is a whole stab of unelected and elected figures that contribute to the decision making. It is not strictly a one-way traffic rule. Likewise in republics. But we have to realize one thing. There is no single Western styled democracy anywhere in the Muslim world. I am starting to suspect that it simply does not work in our region. We have no history of it. It is alien to us.

I don't see the rulers be they Sultans, Kings, Emirs, Presidents, Grand Ayatollah's, dictators you name it as the obstacle between Muslim relations internally. I mean among the ordinary Muslims. This forums gives a very bad picture of Muslim unity during heated debates but my experience being currently abroad due to studies and having lived in France and studied 1 year in the US, is that Muslim unity is tremendously big and transcends social class, country, ethnic group etc. I really don't believe there is a similar unity among any other group of believers. So continuously across the world.

I am not knowledgeable about whether Muslims in Bangladesh for example or Indonesia prefer Sharia over secularism etc. So I can't comment on that.

You are right. The problem is that we are not one body. Many obstacles.

I would be VERY interested 7abibi. Thank you for taking your time.

Best regards to you as well.

I am sorry that I could not elaborate more. I will be back later today with more thoughts.

Monarchies that are resource rich should remain as Monarchies, but implement a plan to switch to Constitutional Monarchy in phases, as mentioned in earlier posts.

All other Arab countries that do not have significant resources and are ruled by dictators, should change to democracy. Dictators:
- have no legitimacy as compared to Monarchs, reached power as military officer and illegitimately grabbed power using their position in Armed forces
- usually are cruel to the people compared to the Monarchs who are compassionate with their subjects, considering their family reputation and tradition

Sharia or no-Sharia or limited-Sharia should be decided by the people in a democracy in referendums and consensus. Every country has unique situations and hence their unique public opinion and preference, so result will be different for different countries.

 

[al-Hasani]

We are in complete agreement my friend. Did I ever tell you that you are a wise member and often spot on in your judgements?

I will return to you tomorrow to elaborate further as we talked about in the other thread.

Let's get other users onboard too. Fellow Arab users as well.

 

[kalu_miah]

We are in complete agreement my friend. Did I ever tell you that you are a wise member and often spot on in your judgements?

I will return to you tomorrow to elaborate further as we talked about in the other thread.

Let's get other users onboard too. Fellow Arab users as well.

Thanks for the kind words bro. I have some interesting ideas about how to tackle the MB situation. I will start the discussion again tomorrow. It involves a new creative use of this branch of OIC:
* International Islamic Fiqh Academy
as mentioned in OP

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo.
And my own words: an ideology/idea can only be defeated by another superior ideology/idea, whose time has come. For every effort, one must start with the root, which is the ideology/idea.
Food for thought:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/...2-you-cannot-kill-an-ideology-with-a-gun.html

@Yzd Khalifa @Arabian Legend @BLACKEAGLE calling your kind attention to this thread please.

 

[kalu_miah]

@al-Hasani

I have been studying the history of Salafism and Muslim Brotherhood (which is linked to both Salafism and Sufism according to some). It seems Salafism is more strict and has attracted many less educated people among populations of many Muslim countries, whereas Brotherhood or similar movements seem more flexible, modern, social service oriented and thus attracted a portion of the educated class in these same Muslim countries.

While it seems practically impossible to bridge the ideological gap between Shia and Sunni sects, since both have almost developed like two different and separate religious ideology, although both share the claim to call themselves Muslim, I think it is possible to gap the bridges between different divisions within Sunni Islam, or at least come to a working relationship between these different diverging groups and make them convergent instead. At the same time, the Brotherhood model of political organization and social service and Salafi model of masjid and madrasa based activism can both be useful for this new convergent ideology among Sunni Islam.

In order to achieve ideological unity, a much more attractive ideology with broader appeal has to be worked out from the existing divergent ideological systems. And then a grass roots movement with high degree of internal democracy has to be created that will be led by educated class (from current Brotherhood members) and followed by Salafi mass adherents. This movement will be helped and supported by the GCC states with the promise and guarantee that the movement itself will not interfere within GCC states, while the GCC Monarchies will make a promise to their own population for phased transformation from Absolute Monarchies into Constitution Monarchies.

As for Shia Islam, it will be worth while to create a new alternate fiqh center where Shia scholars opposed to the Hawza of Qom can be supported to compete with and counter the corrosive influence of the Qom fiqh center among Shia's in the Arab world and rest of the Muslim world. The Qom ideology has to be countered with an alternate ideology that resonates more with the Shia of the world, including Persian Shia's, who would like to free themselves from the current dictatorial and harmful theocratic regime in Iran.

The ideological work can start here:
* International Islamic Fiqh Academy

 

[kalu_miah]

The research on fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence is an important activity for all Muslim societies. Because most Muslim societies of the world follow Islamic law or Sharia as some part of their legal framework and the support for even more Sharia law is common for all Muslim societies:
The World

Overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (sharia) to be the official law of the land, according to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center. But many supporters of sharia say it should apply only to their country’s Muslim population.

Even a few hundred years ago, Sharia law was the law of the land in most Muslim societies, but colonialism in most cases have broken that continuity for most of these societies. In some countries today what remains are bits and pieces of it, such as family law and inheritance law.

Sharia law has a rich tradition and history to draw from:
List of Muslim empires and dynasties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If and when Muslim majority countries achieve democracy and popular self rule, it is then quite possible for more influence of Sharia law in these democratic Muslim majority countries, despite opposition for such laws by world and regional powers who sees Islam and Muslims as threats. The concern should be how to accommodate minority rights and privileges within these countries, even as they lean more towards Sharia by popular demand.

Global Fiqh Council as a logical next step to the OIC Islamic Fiqh academy mentioned in OP are great first steps. What is needed also is a Fiqh department within all major universities and their law departments in Muslim majority countries, which then are connected to the GFC or OIC-IFA.

In most Muslim countries today, the best students go for engineering, science, medical, law etc. as these are prestigious socially and also has the promise of financially rewarding careers. So most often, Islamic law Sharia or Fiqh are studied by left-over 2nd and 3rd grade students who are not able to get into these other lucrative and prestigious careers and go for Islamic studies in Madrasa based educational institutions.

We need to figure out a way how the best students and talents can be attracted to this field of fiqh and sharia research. Much of the problem today in the Muslim world is from the fact that any person of limited knowledge on Islamic fiqh and sharia claims expertise and start issuing fatwa to fit their personal or political agenda. This can only be resolved when we centralize and expand this field of study in Muslim societies, allocate more human and financial resources and make an effort to standardize so that layman cannot claim expertise and create trouble using their fake claims of expertise.

Ideology and religious belief systems are bedrock foundations of any civilization and Islamic civilization is no exception to this rule. If Islamic civilization is to thrive, empower its inhabitants and develop their societies, neglecting this civilizational foundation will lead to degeneracy and rotting of its core, the result showing up as religious extremism of different forms.

If people in the past centuries like Ibn Taymiyyah and more recently Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna et al can inspire and create great movements, what prevents us from finding such talents from among more than a billion Muslims today? If there is a social priority, allocation of resources to build institutional infrastructure and recruitment of young talented people in the field, then results I am sure will show up eventually.

And then coming to the part about social organizing that brotherhood is good at, this can be taken to a different level to organize the more educated part of Muslim societies who are able to use the internet. Open source social media software in encrypted private servers for secure communication can be used to create direct democratic social organizations which are then connected with other such orgs within the country and globally in different countries.

So there are two parallel tracks:

1. To create a more cohesive and progressive civilizational foundation for Muslims (separate efforts for Shia and Sunni) with expanded research of fiqh and sharia, attracting best available talents in the Muslim world
2. To use technology to create self governing direct democratic social organizations among the educated civil society of Muslim majority countries

I think the above two track effort can co-opt and absorb all previous Islamist movements, such as Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut-Tahrir etc. in a more comprehensive civilizational push by Muslim societies led by GCC states and prevent the fringe groups to destabilize Muslim majority countries and societies and create space for extremism and extremist violence.

@al-Hasani bro, the above is the outline of the idea I have mentioned in a previous post. Still waiting for your own ideas and responses to the ideas I have presented so far.

I have been a little sick lately, so sorry for any muddled thoughts.

 

[al-Hasani]

The research on fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence is an important activity for all Muslim societies. Because most Muslim societies of the world follow Islamic law or Sharia as some part of their legal framework and the support for even more Sharia law is common for all Muslim societies:
The World


Even a few hundred years ago, Sharia law was the law of the land in most Muslim societies, but colonialism in most cases have broken that continuity for most of these societies. In some countries today what remains are bits and pieces of it, such as family law and inheritance law.

Sharia law has a rich tradition and history to draw from:
List of Muslim empires and dynasties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If and when Muslim majority countries achieve democracy and popular self rule, it is then quite possible for more influence of Sharia law in these democratic Muslim majority countries, despite opposition for such laws by world and regional powers who sees Islam and Muslims as threats. The concern should be how to accommodate minority rights and privileges within these countries, even as they lean more towards Sharia by popular demand.

Global Fiqh Council as a logical next step to the OIC Islamic Fiqh academy mentioned in OP are great first steps. What is needed also is a Fiqh department within all major universities and their law departments in Muslim majority countries, which then are connected to the GFC or OIC-IFA.

In most Muslim countries today, the best students go for engineering, science, medical, law etc. as these are prestigious socially and also has the promise of financially rewarding careers. So most often, Islamic law Sharia or Fiqh are studied by left-over 2nd and 3rd grade students who are not able to get into these other lucrative and prestigious careers and go for Islamic studies in Madrasa based educational institutions.

We need to figure out a way how the best students and talents can be attracted to this field of fiqh and sharia research. Much of the problem today in the Muslim world is from the fact that any person of limited knowledge on Islamic fiqh and sharia claims expertise and start issuing fatwa to fit their personal or political agenda. This can only be resolved when we centralize and expand this field of study in Muslim societies, allocate more human and financial resources and make an effort to standardize so that layman cannot claim expertise and create trouble using their fake claims of expertise.

Ideology and religious belief systems are bedrock foundations of any civilization and Islamic civilization is no exception to this rule. If Islamic civilization is to thrive, empower its inhabitants and develop their societies, neglecting this civilizational foundation will lead to degeneracy and rotting of its core, the result showing up as religious extremism of different forms.

If people in the past centuries like Ibn Taymiyyah and more recently Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna et al can inspire and create great movements, what prevents us from finding such talents from among more than a billion Muslims today? If there is a social priority, allocation of resources to build institutional infrastructure and recruitment of young talented people in the field, then results I am sure will show up eventually.

And then coming to the part about social organizing that brotherhood is good at, this can be taken to a different level to organize the more educated part of Muslim societies who are able to use the internet. Open source social media software in encrypted private servers for secure communication can be used to create direct democratic social organizations which are then connected with other such orgs within the country and globally in different countries.

So there are two parallel tracks:

1. To create a more cohesive and progressive civilizational foundation for Muslims (separate efforts for Shia and Sunni) with expanded research of fiqh and sharia, attracting best available talents in the Muslim world
2. To use technology to create self governing direct democratic social organizations among the educated civil society of Muslim majority countries

I think the above two track effort can co-opt and absorb all previous Islamist movements, such as Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut-Tahrir etc. in a more comprehensive civilizational push by Muslim societies led by GCC states and prevent the fringe groups to destabilize Muslim majority countries and societies and create space for extremism and extremist violence.

@al-Hasani bro, the above is the outline of the idea I have mentioned in a previous post. Still waiting for your own ideas and responses to the ideas I have presented so far.

I have been a little sick lately, so sorry for any muddled thoughts.

I have some work to do and I am quite tired after a long day. I will definitely reply to you and provide some of my own thoughts besides what I already wrote in this thread quickly. Overall I can already say beforehand that we share many common goals in our outlook.

 

[kalu_miah]

I have some work to do and I am quite tired after a long day. I will definitely reply to you and provide some of my own thoughts besides what I already wrote in this thread quickly. Overall I can already say beforehand that we share many common goals in our outlook.

Take your time bro, no rush.