Rebellion and Civil Disobedience in Islam The Need for a Paradigm ...

The second point about this Hadith is that many believe the purport of this saying,i.e., obeying the ruler even if one dislikes his decision, means accepting injustice andcorruption. To investigate this point, we should resort to another Prophetic saying:“Obedience is required from the Muslim in what he likes or dislikes if he is not orderedto disobey Allah (swt). If the Muslim is ordered to do evil and disobey Allah (swt), noobedience is due.” The first part of this saying is consistent with the purport of the firstsaying. The second part resolves the ambiguity (see below) about how one should obeythe ruler even if he dislikes his command. In a third Prophetic tradition, a man was put incharge of a military expedition and the Prophet (saw) ordered the other men to obey him.The man was facetious and at a certain point, he ordered a fire to be lit. He reminded hissoldiers that they have an obligation to obey him and ordered them to jump into the fire.The soldiers refused to comply with this order and when the Prophet (saw) was informedof the incident, he said: “If someone orders you to commit a sin, you should not obey.Obedience is due only in what is just and good.” No obedience is owed to a created if itentails disobeying the Creator (swt).Now combining the three aHadith, it is clear that what one dislikes is something verydifferent from accepting injustice which blatantly contravenes the basic principles ofIslam as mentioned in the Quran and the Sunnah. It is well known that many issues inIslamic jurisprudence have different solutions predicated on different plausibleinterpretations 18 . The reason for this is that the Islamic textual sources can be ofspeculative or definitive authenticity and can have speculative or definitive meanings.Texts that have definitive authenticity and meaning comprise the immutable tenets andprinciples of Islam. Apart from these constants, scholars disagree over other issuesdepending on many factors. It is these disputable issues that the Prophet (saw) meantwhen he talked about obeying the ruler, the leader, or the government even if the Muslimdislikes the ruling.This issue is complicated. It is related to the question of how an Islamic state shoulddeal with the different plausible interpretations. Does the Islamic state have theprerogative to impose a certain interpretation of Islamic Shari‘ah while excluding otherinterpretations? If the answer is sought within the confines of Islamic Shari‘ah, thenseveral principles must be taken into account. For example, (a) the aforementionedprinciple of individual responsibility which implies that following a jurist, a council ofjurists, or a specific school of jurisprudence does not absolve the Muslim of hisindividual accountability before Allah (swt). (b) The need for unity, order, and stability.(c) The balance between the interests of the individual and the interests of the society.The answer should be based on striking a balance between these competing principles.Also it seems that the answer should be context dependent. For example, contrast theissue of identity cards with photographs with the issue of organ donation. Assume that an18 The question of the plausibility of a certain interpretation is very important to answer. In general, twonecessary conditions for a plausible interpretation are (a) being consistent with the rules of Arabiclanguage, and (b) being consistent with the definitives of the Quran and the Sunnah---the principles andrules mentioned in the Quran and the authentic Sunnah in a self-evident language upon which no twopersons of sound intellect and proper understanding on the Arabic language could disagree.9