Law and Order According to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 405
siyāsa sharʿiyya with the perfect Salafi state. An example of his under-
standing of siyāsa sharʿiyya emerges from the chapter he devotes to
Muslim external relations, in which he states that “the fruit of jihad is
the application of Islamic law”.^17 In the Koran and Sunna, al-Tamīmī
sees references to the principles of foreign policy of an Islamic state.
Unsurprisingly, he cites the theological credo of association (walāʾ)
with believers and dissociation (barāʾ) from non-believers as an essen-
tial feature if not the most important of Muslim policy.^18 Islamic gov-
ernment, he asserts, “cannot claim to be Muslim without following this
creed, and by virtue of it, it constitutes alliances and friendships with
Muslims, assists them and at the same time refrains from polytheism
and polytheists and shows them enmity”.^19 All the same, the Muslim
state should seek reconciliation with unbeliever states if legal interests
require it.^20 Furthermore, al-Tamīmī allows the Muslim state even to
conclude trade agreements with these countries and be beneficial to
unbelievers who do not fight the Muslims. Similarly, the Muslim state
should discuss with unbelievers and interact with them respectfully,
calling them to Islam.^21 Obviously, siyāsa sharʿiyya becomes the focus
of all political desires. Nevertheless, in this radical literature of siyāsa
sharʿiyya, the reader could identify a certain tension between imagina-
tion and Islamic law. To put it differently, the legacy of siyāsa sharʿiyya,
being developed mainly among jurists, acquired a legal authority that
limits the political imagination of modern Islamic interpretations. Due
to this tension between siyāsa sharʿiyya as a text and as an imaginary,
al-Tamīmī is bewildered in the circles of faith, law and interest; on the
one hand, faith requires him to call to Islamize the whole world and,
on the other, law allows the fighting only of aggressors and this with
restrictions, and finally, the interest of political and economic stability
further restricts the authority of faith.
Western scholarship has primarily interpreted siyāsa sharʿiyya of Ibn
Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim as a normative Muslim political gover-
nance. As such, this concept represents somewhat a competing juristic
model of the philosophical perfect state, al-madīna al-fāḍila. In this
regard, Frank Vogel argues that siyāsa sharʿiyya is “a harmonization
between procedures of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and the practi-
17 Al-Tamīmī, Abū ʿUmar: al-Siyāsa al-sharʿiyya, Beirut 2007, p. 4.
18 Ibid., p. 426.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., pp. 428–429.
21 Ibid.
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