- In the aftermath of “the Iranian Revolution” (1979) Hamid Enayat
published a book entitled Modern Islamic Political Thought (Austin,
Texas, 1982). Enayat was a Professor of Political Science at Tehran
University and a Fellow of an Oxford college. Professor Enayat’s book
has a chapter entitled “The Concept of the Islamic State” which discusses
the activism of The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat e Islami in
Pakistan, in the wake of the dissolution of the Caliphate and the success
of the Iranian Revolution respectively. Abdulrahman Kurdi published a
book entitled The Islamic State: a Study based on the Islamic Holy
Constitution (London, 1984), published in a series called “Islamic
Studies” and edited by Ziauddin Sardar. Of the five chapters in Kurdi’s
book, one is entitled “The Concepts of Peace and War in Islam”, another
is entitled “The Economy of the Islamic State”. The book finishes with a
document attributed to Mohammed and which is generally known as “The
Constitution of Medina” (the town where Mohammed came to be
considered a “statesman” by slaughtering Jews who resisted Islam). Here
are the first words of Kurdi’s book:
Islam, usually viewed by most observers as a religion concerned only
with Divine Services and personal statutes, is rather a complete system of
life – a system concerned before its religious instructions with the social
and governmental aspects.
The very first paragraph of the Constitution of Medina says that it
applies to those who undertake Jihad (Kurdi, p.131). Mohammed the
statesman is inseparable from Mohammed the jihadi. ↵
dana p.
(Dana P.)
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