State and Majority Will of the People (2)

In this part we would see how strong state and non-state institutions may be developed in a Muslim society generally and in Pakistan particularly. In part (1) we have seen that all state and non-state institutions in  Islam have to be in line with  implicit will of the majority Muslims.  No state or non-state institution has right to dictate/ rule the other state or non-state institutions in violation of  majority will of the Muslims, and majority will regarding any state or non-state institution would be determined through whether or not creation of such state or non-state institution was approved by the implicit will of the majority Muslims.  A government- which is only one state institution among many other state or non-state institutions- cannot rule/dictate other state or non-state institutions, in violation of majority implicit will of the Muslims; if government dictates/rules other state or non-state institutions in violation of majority implicit will, such rule would be called ‘Dictatorship’.  If a government acts in violation of majority implicit will of the Muslims, such government would cease to represent the Islamic state and the Islamic state would stand transferred from such government’s hands to hands of majority Muslims because an Islam state is the second name of majority will of the Muslims. In other words, if we want to establish an Islamic state, we would have to ensure that the government – which is itself a state institution- should not dictate/rule other state or non-state institutions in violation of majority implicit will of the Muslims; and if we want to keep the government away from such violation of majority will of the Muslims, we would have to establish strong state and non-state institutions.

We have seen in part (1) that majority will which approves creation of state or non-state institutions is actually implicit majority will of the Muslims/ people. Even if an institution is created by explicit will of the people, each and every individual of a nation does not participate in creation of whole institution. For instance, every single voter may vote for electing a single member of an assembly, but every voter cannot elect every member of the assembly. However all voters, if they approve election of all members of the assembly, may grant their implicit consent for creation of such assembly. In the same way, it is majority Muslims’/peoples’ implicit will which approves creation of all state and non-state institutions though every individual of the approving majority has not participated in the creation of those state or non-state institutions.  In other words, majority will of the people/ Muslims is actually majority implicit will of the Muslims/ people. It may also be appreciated implicit will of the people/ Muslims does not necessarily mean that implicit will is in line with true aspirations of the people/Muslims. I mean it is quite possible that people/Muslims are giving implicit approval for something but that something is not fully in conformity with aspirations of the approving people. For instance we vote for a candidate whom we do not like fully. Actually Implicit Will of the people is what is practically shown by the people impliedly: peoples desires which are not practically manifested are not peoples' implicit will. That is why peoples' implicit will may be formed through force as well.

There is no second opinion that state or non-state institutions survive on the peoples’ active support. In order to enable state or non-state institutions to avail active and fully peoples’ support, such institutions should be in conformity with the peoples’ aspiration so that people/Muslims may protect such institutions from dictatorship of the government, or if state, in case of the government’s violation of majority will of the people, is shifted into hands of the majority people/ Muslims, the people/ Muslims should be willing to restore the state in its original form (and such a process is more likely to be peaceful); otherwise, people may proceed to rebuild the state according to their aspirations, instead of  restoring it  in its original form, and such a process is more likely to be violent. In short, strong institutions in a state or society can be developed only if such institutions are in conformity with aspirations of the people.

In case of Muslim states, state institutions, though are based on implicit majority will of the people, are not according to religious aspirations of the people. In order to make state or non-state institutions strong ones in an Islamic state/society, such institutions have to be in conformity with religious aspirations of the Muslims.

In the following lines we would discuss how strong state and non-state institutions may be established in a Muslim society generally and in Pakistan particularly.

In economic field the greatest challenge faced by Muslim societies is how to get rid of interest and establish an interest free economy. Amazingly Allah has Himself given a solution of the problem. The following verse tells how interest free economy may be developed. Allah say:

 “Allah diminishes interest and gives increase to charities/ ‘sadaqat’. And Allah does not like every sinning disbeliever” (Al-baqra-276).

This verse tells us that Allah takes away His blessings from ‘interest’ and adds His blessings to ‘sadaqat’; it means interest system can be destroyed by adopting system of ‘sadaqat’ (this interpretation has been taken from Prof. Ahmad Rafique Akhtar and I agree with it).

Therefore the best way to get rid of interest based economy is to establish ‘sadaqat’/ charities based economic system. For the purpose, the government may establish a ‘sadaqat’ bank which should extend interest free loans to the needy people. The sources of funds of the ‘sadaqat’ bank should be peoples’ sadaqat deposited with the bank along-with the government’s contributions. But the problem is people do not trust governments; they would not deposit their sadaqat/ charities with such a bank which is a state institution. This problem may be solved by making the bank a public private partnership.

 Already in the article https://secondriseofislam.blogspot.com/2013/04/institutionalization-of-positive-social.html we have seen that the best performing state institution may be constructed by combining the state institution with a non-state institution. This process is what we call in modern terminology as public private partnership. In the same article we have also seen that state institutions are always vested with legal powers and non-state institutions are those which are not vested with legal powers. One way of making partnership between state and non-state institutions is to vest the non-state institution with duties to oversee the working of the state institution along with providing required input; but confining the legal powers of decision-making to the state institution only. Another form of partnership between state and non-state institution may be to vest the non-state institution with the functional decision making (relating to functions of the institution) whereas leaving the legal powers with the state institution. 

In order to mitigate peoples’ distrust in a state institution, the proposed ‘sadaqat bank’ may be made a public private partnership leaving all functional decision making with the private directors, and leaving legal powers with the official director only to the extent of maintaining accounts according to official parameters and making recovery with the consent of the private directors. The private directors of the bank may be drawn from top philanthropists having work experience in the relevant field. What is more important is the ‘sadaqat bank’ should work more like a social welfare organization and lesser as a state institution. Once established and start working successfully, such bank would have no dearth of funds.
People would like to deposit not only their ‘sadaqat’ but also their zakah funds with this bank and such zakah funds may be disbursed to the specified classes but  for the specified purposes i.e. income generating purposes. The main focus of ‘sadaqat bank’ should be elimination of interest from the economy; for the purpose, the main target of the bank should be to set up petty, small and medium businesses through lending interest free loans. It may be appreciated that, though beneficiaries of zakah are specified, the beneficiaries may be bound to consume the loan funds for income generating purposes/ businesses.

One of the categories for which zakah funds may be utilized is 'fee sabilillah'. For this category of zakah utilization, beneficiaries are not essentially specified; for instance if I fix a tube-well 'fee sabilillah' for people to drink water, the water may be used by the poor as well as the rich people. That means in this case beneficiaries are not specified. Under this 'fee sabilillah' category of utilization of zakah funds, we may disburse zakah funds for elimination of interest- elimination of interest is very much 'sabilillah'. In other words we may utilize zakah funds for elimination of interest by setting up petty, small and medium businesses through lending interest free loans to the poor as well as not poor people.  I think there is no harm in disbursing zakah funds through loans; because Quran and Hadith do not bind to transfer ownership of zakah money to the beneficiary ( particularly we cannot transfer ownership to the beneficiaries in many cases of utilization of zakah funds for 'sabilillah') though ownership may also be transferred in cases where we can do it; but transfer of ownership is not compulsory. However ownership of contributor would be ceased, after he has deposited his sadaqah/zakah with the proposed 'Sadaqah Bank'. The beneficiary of sadaqat other than zakah are not specified; such funds also may be loaned to set up small and medium businesses or to small and medium businesses  already established (continued).