Introduction

Stiglitz (1998) argues that cultural values should be preserved due to their essential function as a cohesive force for development at a time when many other values are weakening. Rationally, culture and values that enhance both human and social capital will generate public order through the production of good citizens who live in mutual cooperation and mutual assistance, transcending

conflicts that mount up to establish social stability (James Coleman, 1990; Kenneth Newton, 1997). Casson (1993) points out that culture as ‘collective subjectivity’ will enhance efficiency through good behaviour, integrity, honesty, trust and cooperation that will have a great impact on economic performance. In the same way, Throsby (2001) suggests that culture will provide objectives for group development through certain worldviews, values and beliefs, and it will also affect economic efficiency by affecting behaviour, innovation, group dynamics and decision-making processes. It is according to this reason that UNESCO (1997) suggested in its 29th General Conference Report that culture (if it is being strengthened and supported) could be an enormous potential key element, as a social capital, in the struggle against poverty. The same concern was voiced by the then President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, (Kliksberg, 2000: 12) who emphasised the essentiality of the independency of growth and social development and further suggests that: “Without parallel social development there will be no satisfactory economic development”. While on another occasion, the President of the World Bank also stressed the significance of social development through social justice and equality to complement the institutional and structural reform for political economic growth and human prosperity. Social capital and culture, thus, are key components of these interactions (Kliksberg, 2000: 12). It should be noted that these differences also highlight the distinction between ‘economic growth and development’. Recent global religious uprisings in many areas have demanded a restructuring of faiths and values in the fields from which they were once banished (Casanova, 1994; Berger, 1999; Falk, 2001). As a result, exploration of the possibility of incorporating culture or religion specifically into the public sphere is no longer taboo. However, this new uprising, or what is termed by Micklethwait and Wooldridge (2010) as the return of God or ‘God is back’, emerges in a different form from that it took during the pre-Enlightenment periods. This global phenomenon is represented by the re-appearance of religions in the form of ethics, values and many other functioning forms rather than the previous institutional structure. This new form of religion usurps the realm of politics, economy, education, international affairs and governance without diminishing the existing structures. Religions from this new perspective are no longer mere beliefs in miraculous rescue from above (deus ex machina) but rather a vehicle for human betterment (Falk, 2001: 32). Similarly, various researchers have dedicated their studies to the new role that religions can play in development (Haynes, 2007; Khan and Bashar, 2008). Many empirical studies have been undertaken on these topics and most of them indicate that religions, through faith-based or faith-inspired organisations and movements, have not contributed significantly to development. Amongst their outstanding contributions, those often quoted by many researchers have mainly tackled poverty, improved education, provided welfare services to the community, enhanced humanitarian works, and encouraged political participation in the struggle against corruption and misadministration (Gutiérrez, 1988; Akhtar,

1991; Casanova, 1994; Rowland, 1999; Phongphit, 1988; Gillingham, 2005; Marshall, 2005: 8-12; Bayat, 2007; Harrigan and El-Said, 2009; Deneulin, 2009). Therefore, the appreciation of values derived from other civilizations, faiths or cultures must be accompanied by an investigation of their meaning and origin. Furthermore, such endeavour necessitates a deep scrutiny of the worldview that determines how governance should be interpreted and conducted. Likewise, the present evolving good governance paradigm Eurocentricity despite it sharing outcomes which can be seen to be ‘universalistic’, can be seen through the deconstruction of the agenda from its anti-religious/anti-cultural ethos that underpins its discourse by neglecting any indigenous factors for development. Furthermore, the current discourse of development as proposed by the good governance project is solely measured by materialistic achievement through growth and the perceived ‘universalistic’ values per se, without allowing any room for others’ interpretations to fairly define the development. The role of religious ethos, as will be discussed in this research will prove that cultural matters do matter in development, and thus the need for an independent discourse, particularly for Muslims. For such reasons, this research will be developed along the lines of replying to the need for a separate and unique paradigm for good governance for Muslim societies. This aim will be the central working hypothesis of this research. It is according to this rationale that the quest for Islamic governance, as another attempt to explore ‘cultural-based’ governance through the endogenizing framework, is justified. Islam, as a belief system and a way of life as perceived by Muslims, in some relative manner is unable to fit within the rather narrow framework of the post-Enlightenment concept of religion.2 The elements of ideology might accommodate some characteristics of Islamic teaching but this still does not fully incorporate the comprehensive meaning of Islam as perceived and acknowledged by Muslims. As Iqbal ([1974] 2008) suggested, the essence of Islam comprises the matter of faith, feeling, and intellectual, doctrinal, philosophical and other spheres of human life. Furthermore, the studies of Islamic orientation in various fields, such as Islamic banking and finance, Islamic economics, Islamic education, Islamic management, Islamic administrative development, Islamic political theories, etc. are not new. In spite of this, the Islamic contribution to the field of good governance (macro governance) has yet to be explored. The common perception of Islamic governance is a dark image of a nondemocratic and autocratic system, or a dictatorship with iron claws, or the governance of the cleric elite with the infringement of people’s freedom under the banner of religion. All of these elements (which unfortunately resemble the reality in some contemporary Muslim countries) are known and accepted as major impediments to development. Moreover, current representations of Muslim reality by most of the regimes simply add more fuel to the stereotyping by Western sceptics of the presence of religion in the political sphere. The amalgam of religion and governance according to this paradigm indicates taking a step backward to the Dark Ages when injustice dominated human life under the umbrella of the Church and God’s word. Such a conception was not only

echoed by people like Weber (2003 [1958]), but also became a major trend in explaining the incompatibility between Islam and the modern liberal world (Toynbee, 1935; Hitti, 1958; Hodgson, 1977; Baeck, 1994 and Lewis, 1995). In responding to the sceptics, Maxime Rodinson’s (1973) characterization of Islam as an ideologie mobilisatrice, that is, an ideology that facilitates social and political mobilization, might be a good answer. As Rodinson articulated in his widely-known piece, Islam is not only compatible with capitalism, but it has its own inner aim to drive Muslims toward development. A similar assertion on the compatibility between Islamic doctrine of economy and capitalism, which will eventually lead to social change and economic development, can also be found in Turner (1984). In the same vein, Chapra (2008a: 846) also challenges the claims of the cynics by applying Ibn Khaldun’s theory of the rise and fall of civilization. According to this theory, Islam has activated all the developmental factors in a positive discretion through a multidisciplinary approach to development. The approach encompasses all-important socio-economic and political variables, including the sovereign or political authority, beliefs and rules of behaviour (Shari’ah), people, wealth or stock of resources, development, and justice, in a circular and interdependent manner. Ibn Khaldun (Rosenthal, 1967: 19) concludes that the rise and fall of civilizations is closely dependent on the well-being or misery of the people. Therefore the fall of any civilization (as well as the current underdevelopment climate in Muslim countries) is not only dependent on economic variables but is also derived from the combined roles of moral, institutional, psychological, political, social and demographic factors (Chapra, 2008a: 840). As a remedy, Ibn Khaldun proposes the activation of Islamic creed, spirituality and horizontal-vertical moral values to contribute to the moral and material uplifting of individuals, which is the central factor behind the rise or fall of civilizations and countries. However, totally denying the theory of the sceptics as might be argued by some apologists will never shed any new light on the subject, nor will totally accepting it. To maintain an objectivity of research, we have to admit that Islamic texts could be manipulated (or are being manipulated) by some who might wish to legitimize undemocratic governance. Hence, a fresh way of exploring and at the same time revealing the new dimension of governance from Islamic epistemology, by taking into account human experience and justice and fairness factors, is essential. Thus, a new ijtihad (reasoning) in dealing with the subject is absolutely mandatory. Humanistic governance based on the preservation of the dignity of human beings, which has been the focal point in Islamic tenets, the inviolability of life, and responsible freedom should be explored and promoted as another alternative voice of current modernity hegemony. In sum, if economic and policy-oriented issues are all but value-laden, it is therefore rational that an Islamic conception of ‘governance’ should be developed to fit into its own vision. This, as explained above, could increase the efficiency of development efforts in the Muslim world by directly appealing to people’s values. This suggestion assumes that the developmentalist failures in the Muslim world are perhaps partially due to the imposed developmentalist

agendas, which are not rooted in the aspirational worldview of the people whose lives are expected to be affected for the better. This book, thus, aims to explore and analyse the Islamic axioms, foundation principles and values underpinning the field of governance in an attempt to construct the architectonics of a new systemic and dynamic theory and formulate the articulation of ‘Islamic governance’, in the hope of discovering a remedy for the cases of ‘bad governance’ and underdevelopment in Muslim countries. Rationally, religion that predominantly became the centre of Muslim life could probably play an efficient role in overcoming such problems. In fact, the long history of Muslim politics has proven that Islamic values managed to bring about efficiency of governance and administration in certain periods of time. Despite the universal and common meanings of those values, Muslims value them more according to their own terms and meanings. The persona-religiousus (Ibrahim, 1996) tendency within the heart of most Muslim individuals would provide grounds for the implementation of those ideals. However, to present an ‘out-of-the-box’ proposal which differs from the mainstream analysis, advocacy and action for major social change is indeed a kind of paradigm shift. Paradigm shift stipulates a critical deconstructive method of representing the proposal of an exploration of new dimensions and activities that crosscut subjects and contexts. These dimensions and activities, however, should emerge primarily with a certain worldview to give a strong foundation on which they will interact with the reality. The foundation should be able to produce certain specific principles for the new paradigm rooted strongly in its epistemology. It is from those principles that a new approach will be developed as an articulation of their ideals. The formulation of the foundation should be based firmly on Islamic tenet, which al-Faruqi (1992) termed tawhid. Tawhid is considered as a priori, and believed to explain the ‘truth’. It is from this a priori ‘truth’ that the reality of life and the world are explained. This worldview illuminates the ideal of Islam and conceptualizes an epistemological paradigm from which Muslims derive their knowledge. Accordingly, the attempt to explore Islamic ideals to fit as an alternative means to the conventional governance set-up must embark from this starting point. Therefore, a new method is to be formulated to crystallize Islamic principles of governance by constructing a new alternative within the magnitude of value-laden, ontology-determined epistemology. It is expected that this new approach must transcend the current (nature-matter) materialistic monism of governance by replacing the ends of its process with transcendental values, and by making humans a starting point of the subject and not as mere commodities. Furthermore, it must fit into the framework of comprehensive contemporary usage of ‘good’ governance from the ontological-determined Islamic epistemology through a deductive method. As far as the term epistemology is concerned, the exploration also involves Islamic traditions and previous contributions to the subject, but without literal transcriptions. They will only represent the ongoing, creative attempt to comprehend the paradigm implicit in different Islamic texts and phenomena. On the

other hand, due to the new nature of the recent description of ‘governance’, a new distinctive approach that advocates modern political economic issues should apply modern socio-economic analysis with new presupposition established from Islamic epistemology (Choudhury, 1992, 1995, 1999, etc.). This kind of approach suggests that theoretical foundation of Islamic Political Economy should emanate from the complete substitution of the neo-classical idea of replacement and its later variations by the Principle of Universal Complementarity (Choudhury 1994). This approach is essential to this research, which looks at the Islamic ontological-determined epistemological role of ethico-economic and political systems, with governance as its grand subsystem, as a new emerging theory. Finally, this book aims to explore the principles of governance within Islamic discourse through the epistemological sources of Islam, namely the Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions (Sunnah), the pious Caliphs’ experiences and the maqasid al-Shari’ah. It adopts the framework of modern good governance theories and applications to explore the ideal concepts and principles of governance within the Islamic epistemology. The concepts of Islamic governance should be understood from the political and economic ethos that could emerge from the aforementioned sources. This aim confirms al-Badawi’s assertion (2002: 21) that an ideal civilization requires divine guidance to give it a firm foundation, an incentive and a framework, which gives progress a sense of direction and an ethical orientation. Accordingly, the exploration of values from Islamic sources and history will be applied in the field of governance. Instead of dealing with the forms and structures, this book will derive the core principles of governance from Islamic epistemological sources. This book may become a useful reference for those who are trying to understand how Islam can contribute to the current discourse of governance from a moral and value point of view. Exploring new territories with new methods by leaving chez soi is similar to what Jacques Derrida in Contre-allée terms ‘departing towards the unknown’, risking all the risks, pleasures and dangers that the ‘unknown’ has in store. Moreover, this unknown is about exploring a territory that is unpopular and considered an imagined ‘picture’. For many, imagining a future that is beneficial for humanity is equal to dreaming. But hopefully the journey that this research has taken is not as bad as the tone of some lines from Orhan Pamuk’s novel The Black Book (Kara Kitap): “We live but for a short time, we see but very little, and we know almost nothing; so, at least, let’s do some dreaming” (Pamuk, 1994: 183).