According to the news, 80,000 followers of an Indonesian Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, have filled a stadium in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, calling for the creation of an Islamic God’s state based on Sharia.Followers from all over the world arrived in Jakarta yesterday, Aug.12, to manifest their ardent desire to replace all non-Islamist states of the Islamic world with Islamic Caliphate.
The idea of Islamic Caliphate is as old as the first four Caliphs of Rashidun in early Arabian.
The first four Caliphs who ruled after the death of Prophet Muhammad were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali—Ali, son-in-law and cousin of Prophet Muhammad is the the only “righteous” Caliph for his followers.
They believe that his caliphate was bestowed by Prophet and should have been followed by the Imams, Ali’s descendants.
The split resulted into early wars and conspiracies, and finally today’s Shiite sect.
The plague of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a God’s state based on Shiite-Islam.
According to Islamists, politics cannot be separated from Islam “al-Islam w’l al dawla”.
For them, Islam is not only a religion, but indeed is a social order, a collection of ethics, rules, and duties to guide Muslims.
For non-Muslim or secular Muslims, the concept of “al-Islam w’al dwala” does not come across to be compared with a conventional religion or ideology.
In fact, Muhammad was a prophet to guiding and to rule the Islamic community “Ummah”, whereas Jesus guided his followers– perhaps because of short term of his prophecy, he had no time to claim a ruling status. His “here-after kingdom” was not for this world.
Moses had the responsibility to guide his people to the “Promised Land”, he abandoned his pharaoh for this task.
So, the Islamic Ruling System, convinced by the divine right of ruling status, needed “Sharia”, (Islamic law) to establish and extend its Islamic territory “dar-al Islam”. Within Sharia, the following Islamic rulers imposed Islamic institutions, judiciary, school system, Madresseh, on the Society.
This is the difference with the European institutions in the middle age. These received power from Roman law with influence of Christianity, but did not rule.
Although, the Roman Catholic Church was a parallel institution with enormous power, but had never gained the status of a ruling position.
So, even in the period of brutal Inquisition, Christianity was not a political religion, but functioned as parallel institutions in the society.
It was thought when the Prophet Muhammad passed on that the “Dar-al-Islam” had ended.
However, it was soon clear that Islam had ambitions to extend its territory further.
The Islamic invaders under Rashidun Caliphate turned on Romania and Iran, who were both exhausted from the longest and harshest war they had ever fought against each other.
The Roman position in Syria and Egypt was also compromised by the Monophysite heresy of the locals, and its suppression by Imperial authorities.
It began a new era of ruling in the world; the Caliphate. The last caliphate, Outman Empire, was abdicated in 1924 in Turkey.
Today, not only Hizb ut-Tharrir in Indonesia, but any Islamist movement across the Islamic world calls for the return to the caliphate, or Islamic God’s state.
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