Friday, May 1, 2009

A DISCOURSE IN ISLAMIC STATE part 47

Assalamualaikum,

..............continued from part 46

The State

The notion of Islamic State has generated much discussions and deliberations. Some view it with applause (Mandili, 1959; Maududi, 1959; A. Hadi Awang, 1984); others with resentment (Bakry, 1984) and yet there are some who look at it with contempt (Jansen, 1979). It caught world attention with the advent of highly imposing events which unquestionably set the course of the world.

Events such as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, the independence of a number of colonized Muslim territories after the Second World War leading to the formation of Muslim nation-states, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the defeat of Russia in Afghanistan in 1989, the collapse of socialisme in Eastern Europe in late 1980s and early 1990s, the Gulf War 1991 and Baker's so called new world order (1991).

States and Nation-States
A government is a body which is in charge of the direction and self-direction of a large community of people. A state is the organized machinery for the making and carrying out political decisions and the enforcing of the laws and rules of the government (Deutsch, op. cit. pp. 109).

If a people tries to acquire enforcement capabilities in order to police the compliance habits of its members, it becomes politicized. Such politicized people is often called nationalities. If some members of these people control a sovereign state - that is a state that recognizes no higher decision-making power outside itself in the secular definition, we speak of nation or nation-state.

Many Muslim countries today are Muslim nation-states (Siddique, op.cit.). Iran is an Islamic nation-state to date.

..........to be continued