Law and Order According to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 409
2. A Corrupted Society (fasād)
Fasād is a highly negative concept in the Koran. Often, it indicates
the spiritual decay of a community that chose to move from a state of
belief to disbelief. The Koran also links religious fasād with earthly
destruction, disorder and chaos, which lead to the absence of secu-
rity for people and property, in a direct cause/effect relationship.^38 In
its manifestation, fasād refers to corruption, ruination, the taking of
someone’s property or violent action.^39 All these calamities come as a
consequence of man’s disobedience to his creator. Since man destroys
the divine order by seeking wealth and power, these two desires are
associated with fasād.^40 According to Muslim legal terminology, fasād
means nullity. That is, all religous, commercial or social legal acts that
are not fully legal are null and void, or corrupt. The usage of fasād in
Islamic law goes beyond this specific meaning. Thus, the jurists use the
expression of fasād al-zamān to deplore the deterioration of the times^41
or any corruption of the body politic such as dissidence or rebellion.^42
Any divergence from the social, religious or political behaviour pre-
scribed by Islamic law is an act of fasād. Though the concept has been
extended to encompass political and economic corruption, it has kept
its religious and moral connotations.^43 In the religious rhetoric of ahl
al-ḥadīth,^44 the partisans of traditions and the main reference point of
Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim, fasād is associated with all aspects
of innovation (bidʿa). At a certain point, ahl al-ḥadīth tend to consider
any reform as a kind of corruption and disorder. Thus, they incarnate
the most conservative current of ideas within Muslim movements and
sects.
Likewise, Ibn Taymiyya perceives fasād as a consequence of dis-
abling Sharia. For him, there is no doubt that Sharia preserves the
38 Fāliḥ, Āmir ʿAbd-Allāh: Muʿjam alfāẓ al-ʿaqīda, Riyadh 1997, p. 853, e. g.: Koran
(6:33).
39 Penrice, John: A Dictionary and a Glossary of the Qur’an, Delhi 2002, p. 110.
40 Rahman, Fazlur: Major Themes of the Qur’an, Chicago 2009, p. 56.
41 Gerber, Haim: Islamic Law and Culture. 1600–1840, Leiden 1999, p. 124.
42 Bennison, Amira K.: Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco.
State-Society Relations During the French Conquest of Algeria, London 2002,
p. 167.
43 On this aspect, see al-Ghazālī, Muḥammad: al-Fasād al-siyāsī fī al-mujtamaʿāt
al-ʿarabiyya wal-islāmiyya, Cairo 2005, p. 7.
44 On this traditionalist school of thought in Islam, see Schacht, Joseph: Ahl
al-Ḥadīth, in: EI^2 , vol. 1 (1960), pp. 258–259.
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