The Judicial Authority between Islam and the Muhammadans

The Judicial Authority between Islam and the Muhammadans

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I: The Judicial Authority in the Religion of Islam

CHAPTER I: The Discrepancy between Muhammad's Yathreb City-State and Caliphate Theocracies

CHAPTER II: The Judicial Authority and the Political Authority within Quran-Based Rule  

CHAPTER III: The Legislations Used by Judges

CHAPTER IV: The Conscience of Muslim Judges

PART II: The Judicial Authority in the History of the Muhammadans 

CHAPTER I: How Politicized Judicial Authority during the Era of Caliphs Corrupted Justice

CHAPTER II: The Position of Judges and the Whims of Caliphs

CHAPTER III: The Position of Judges and the Whims of Religious Scholars

CHAPTER IV: A Corrupt Female Slave Appointed as the Supreme Judge

CHAPTER V: The Collapse of the Judicial Authority within the Muhammadans during the Second Abbasid Era

CHAPTER VI: Abou Hanifa Refused to Be Appointed as a Judge

CHAPTER VII: Shureik as a Model of a Fair Judge during the Abbasid Era

CHAPTER VIII: Fair Judges

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Firstly: a reminder:

1- Before we have published this book in serialized articles before we grouped them into a book form, we have authored hundreds of researches and articles that now form the accumulated basis on which we build new researches and books; hence, newcomers to our website may get surprised by what they read and tens of questions naturally pops inside their heads, and answers would be provided only if they would be kind enough to read all of the previously published writings of ours. We will write soon a special lengthy article on researching the true story of Muhammad between the Quran and the writings of Muslims (whom we prefer to call as the Muhammadans to differentiate between them and Quranists who are, in our view, the real Muslims), in order to make it the final article to answer chronic questions repeated with every piece of writing authored by us tackling the analysis and criticism of the history of the four pre-Umayyad caliphs.

2- As for this book, "The Judicial authority between Islam and the Muhammadans", we assert in it how the judicial  system in a given country or State reflects the ruling system, whether it has been democratic or tyrannical. We begin our book with shedding light on the roots, which are how real Islamic countries should adopt ruling systems based on direct democracy, as we infer from the Quran, and how this ruling system contradicts the tyrannical states established in history by the Muhammadans. We have preferred in this book to use the word democracy instead of its Quranic synonym Shura (i.e., consultation), because the Quranic term has been misused and manipulated during the era of caliphs who were mostly tyrannical despots and used fabricated narratives and traditions to reinforce their tyranny using quasi-religious notions. Indeed, the modern term ''direct democracy'' is the very same thing as the Islamic Shura principle mentioned in the Quran. we refer readers to our previous articles in English about theoretical basis of this Quranic Shura and its mechanisms. Of course, theory and practice of direct democracy have been witnessed in the Greek history and during the short-lived Yathreb city-state of Muhammad that lasted about 11 years and ended when Muhammad died. This period of 11 years was like a parentheses within the Middle-Ages dominant culture of tyranny. Besides, when the early believers along with Muhammad established their Yathreb city-state based on direct democracy, the deep-seated tyranny was exemplified by the two most powerful States in the ancient world in the 7^th century A.D., namely, the Persians and the Byzantines, whose power and tyranny were firmly established centuries before the advent of Islam or the revelation of the Quran.

3- We assert also in this book that the politicized judicial authority reflects the power and authority of the tyrants to restrict and punish their foes and any opposition figures, and this caused justice to be lost for all people during  the era of caliphs. The notion of the ''just tyrant'' is a myth dispelled and debunked so easily, because tyranny of despots has restricted and prevented justice in the first place. We tackle in our book this politicized judicial authority from the era of the four pre-Umayyad caliphs until the reign of the Abbasid caliph Al-Maamoun who was the most tolerant and cultured of all Abbasid caliphs.

4- The methodology of research adopted in this book does not include details and descriptions usually written by ordinary researchers of judicial  systems in the Muslim history of the Muhammadans. We ling our methodology of research only to our call for reform on all levels; i.e., we try to make sure if any judicial  systems achieved justice or not and to what extent tyrannical ruling systems of the Muhammadans aborted justice, away from the big labels made holy by the gullible masses like 'Islamic' caliphate, 'wise' caliphs, and 'Islamic' Sunnite scholars' sharia laws. Such untrue labels have nothing to do with Islam (which is only the Quran), but they were sanctified notions and regarded as infallible and cannot be discussed, refuted, or questioned for centuries, until this is done by Quranists, who use the Quran and reasoning critical minds as the criteria to judge and measure these notions and labels. Only smart readers know that we write books and researches NOT to narrate history for amusement, but to seek to reform the Muhammadans of today to make them free themselves from dictatorships and theocratic rule of the present and the future.     

5- Typically, in all our writings and topics, and this book is no exception, we open up horizons and pave the way for young writers and researchers to delve deeper and explore other related areas of research in order to infer new ideas from the Quran in all aspects especially regarding traditions and history of the Muhammadans. This is one of the mean features of our methodology of research adopted in all our books and lengthy articles.   

6- Of course, nothing in our writing is deemed to be perfect or infallible; anyone who might have different views from ours should try to write and attempt to contradict us or prove us wrong if they can. We prove our views using the Quran and we prove our points by quoting authoritative books of traditions and legislations of the Sunnite religion that contradict the Quran.

7- We personally take pride in the fact that our writings in the past thirty years have encouraged others to write their own critical writings that refute and debunk Salafism and Wahabism in order to clear the name of Islam, and remove the tarnished reputation of our faith, from the Salafist backwardness, obscurantism, fanaticism, extremism, and bigotry. We have managed through our writings to remove the fake holiness and sham hallowedness of Muslim traditions and man-made inherited notions and legislations forced on Islam in the past centuries and to ascertain the contradiction between traditions (filled with discrepancies and illogical notions) and the Quran, and we have authored all our writings in our modern era when the dominant Wahabi culture intimidates and terrorizes every thinker – except for us.

  We do believe that Islam (Quranism) is a religion that includes a ruling system (which is direct democracy or Shura), and this is part of our basic religious beliefs (hoping to be deemed acceptable to God) that provokes the ire of two ideologically conflicting groups that seek to reach power in any given Arab country: secular people (who aim to remove religion altogether from aspects of rule) and extremist Wahabi/Salafist people (who aim for a theocracy). Thus, we as a pioneer of the Quranist school of thought contradict the views of secular thinkers who desire to totally separate the notion of the State (or rather the ruling system in it) and the religion of Islam.

  Those secular thinkers ignore the fact that real Islam (i.e., the Quran) was the basis of the Yathreb city-state led by Muhammad in the Middle Ages and that this city-state of Islam that applied the Quranic Shura principle (i.e., direct democracy) preceded all modern civil democracies of the West of our era; this Yathreb city-state was a democratic oasis amidst the typical obscurantism and tyranny dominant in the Middle Ages. This culture of tyranny dominated once more all over Arabia once Muhammad died, and the Arab Empire that was formed as a result of the crime of the Arab conquest (deemed a crime and a sin as far as Quranic teachings are concerned) has been more tyrannical than the empires of the Byzantine emperors and Persian rulers. Yet, the real features of a Quran-based rule of the Yathreb city-state model are preserved in the Quran till the end of days, and these features are the reason for our religious belief in a civil State rule including human rights and direct democracy advocated in the Quran, as we explain in this book.

  We thus contradict the Salafist Wahabi and Shiite trends in their views of theocracy. We, as a Quranist, never believe in notion of theocracy at all. This does not oppose our view that religion is not to be separate from the State; but what State and what religion? This is the pivotal question. Salafists (i.e., worshippers of the past religious and theocratic traditions) of both types (Sunnite Wahabis + Shiites) believe staunchly that 'Islam' contains advocating of theocratic rule of clergymen, with the ruler/imam as supreme powerful monarch, with 'divine' authority stemming from clergymen, who 'owns' the lands of a given country and all people on it as his 'subjects' or rather cattle, and such absolute ruler would control everything and everyone, aided by his entourage and retinue of ecclesiastics and theologians to lend sham religious credibility to his decrees and tyrannical rule, within their earthly religions of course. This has been the dominant religiosity patterns and world-view typical of the Middle Ages from the Umayyad Era till the pre-modern Ottoman Era. Of course, the religious trends in the Arab world seek to re-establish such caliphate or theocracy at any cost in our modern age, manipulating the name of Islam. Their notions of obscurantist theocratic rule have nothing to do whatsoever with Islam and contradict the Quran as applied by Muhammad in the Yathreb city-state, as we infer from the only true source of the story of Muhammad: the Quranic verses. This is a topic that deserves another lengthier book and goes beyond the scope of this book, but we attempt a brief comparison between how Muhammad ruled the Yathreb city-state and how theocracies of tyrannical caliphs (from the Umayyads to the Ottomans) were ruled, and this will be followed by showing how the judicial authority should be in a really Quran-based country or state and how the judicial authority has been within theocracies, in order to explain how the notion of the Quran-based State or rule is directly linked to the civil society and its the judicial  system.                 

  Let us compare between the Quran-based rule (that we believe in as a Quranist thinker, as per the model of the Yathreb city-state led by Muhammad) and the theocratic rule (that we reject as a Quranist thinker as well) in many comparative aspects that prove how both types of rule contradict each other.       

  (A) Theocratic rule: the State aims to forcibly 'guide' to Paradise by compulsion in religion and coerce them to follow decrees of theocrats by applying the death penalty for apostasy and by changing and removing 'vice' and enjoining 'good' by force of religious police.

 Comment: the above is quite impossible; it is beyond the capacity of any person/ruler or any state to spiritually guide anyone. In the Quran, we read that one's faith and guidance are a personal responsibility and an individual choice: "Whoever is guided-is guided for his own good. And whoever goes astray-goes astray to his detriment. No burdened soul carries the burdens of another..." (17:15); "Their guidance is not your responsibility..." (2:272); "You cannot guide whom you love..." (28:56); "There shall be no compulsion in religion..." (2:256); "...Will you compel people to become believers?" (10:99).

 (B) Quran-based rule: the aim is to apply justice as the supreme value among people: "We sent Our messengers with the clear proofs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance, that humanity may uphold justice..." (57:25); "...say, "I believe in whatever Book God has sent down, and I was commanded to judge between you equitably..." (42:15); "We have revealed to you the Scripture, with the truth, so that you judge between people in accordance with what God has shown you..." (4:105). We deduce from these verses that application of justice among people is the aim of all celestial messages from God conveyed by His prophets and messengers. Accordingly, within the Yathreb city-state, Muhammad as its civil leader undertook the mission to apply justice within his human capacity in applying and adhering to Quranic teachings. This was apart from his ministry or religious mission as a prophet of God to convey the Quranic message to people using wisdom and gentle advice.

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: the mission undertaken by the State.

 (A) Theocratic rule: a caliph or a theocrat would claim deriving divine authority from God as His representative or successor on earth (literally, the Arabic word 'caliph' means a successor or a deputy), in the manner typical of the so-called divine right of kings known in Europe in the Dark Ages. This is why history tells us that the Umayyad caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan announced, after his ascendency to the caliphate throne, that anyone who would admonish him to adhere to piety in the fear of God would be put to death. Likewise, the Abbasid caliph Abou Jaffer Al-Mansour once enthroned announced that he was the successor and representative of God on earth who had the right to control all people in the caliphate, and he meant to assert his being the 'infallible' shepherd of his subjects or sheep, held responsible only before God, and this meant that no mortal was to question his decrees. The false hadith of the right of rulers to massacre even up to the one-third of the population or subjects to reform the other two-thirds has sprung and spread ever since. Hence, such illogical notions made most caliphs nearer to the character of Moses' Pharaoh in the Quran, who is the symbol of tyranny and self-deification.

 (B) Quran-based rule: we deduce from the Quranic text that the nations/societies/people are the source of all authorities; God has said the following to Muhammad as a ruler of the Yathreb city-state: "It is by of grace from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh, hardhearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the conduct of affairs..." (3:159). This means that because of the grace of God, Muhammad was gentle with people around him, because if he was otherwise, he would have lost authority and power stemmed from people to allow him to rule and lead the Yathreb city-state. This indicate clearly that people were the source of power and authority of Muhammad, and this allowed him to form this city-state and to avoid the persecution he suffered in Mecca. Hence, God has commanded Muhammad in 3:159 to pardon the people (i.e., source of real authority) if they harmed him in anyway, to ask God's forgiveness to them, and to consult them in the conduct of affairs because they were the concerned ones of all affairs of rule and were the source of real power.      

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: the source of authority.

 (A) Theocratic rule: its citizens were subdivided into classes and strata; on top of all was the caliph and his household and then dynasty and larger family, followed by leaders and power centers, high-rank officials and employees, and the rest of the masses who share the same faith as the caliph. The second-class citizens were those ''People of the Book'' (i.e., Jews + Christians) and those who had other religions, and at the lowest level were those who were enemies of the caliphate as they oppose the caliph in religious or theological doctrine and political stance, and the theocrat would deal with them with Hisbah (inquisition) that resulted in their persecution or being put to death within the Sunnite penalty of 'apostates' or 'heretics'.

 (B) Quran-based rule: Muslim citizens are literally all peaceful non-violent persons and believers are those who adhere to behavior of peace, safety, and security, regardless of their faiths (or lack of any), because God is the Only and One Judge on the Day of Resurrection as far as one's belief and faith are concerned. Religion is God's concern to judge, whereas the homeland is for all citizens living in it. such was the case within the short-lived Yathreb city-state.

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: in citizenship rights.

 (A) Theocratic rule: a caliph was regarded as the sole owner of the lands and all those living on it as his private property, and he owned and controlled fully the Treasury of the caliphate, to give and receive money and to put to death or to spare anyone's life. To exemplify this, the Abbasid caliph Abou Jaffer Al-Mansour had announced once he was enthroned that as a representative of God and His successor/caliph, he was entitled to control the Treasury to give and receive. Another Abbasid caliph, Harun Al-Rasheed, had purportedly said that he addressed a huge cloud above him laden with rainwater, saying that wherever it would move within his empire and drop its rain, taxes of such harvested crops watered by its rain will reach his Treasury anyway.

 (B) Quran-based rule: each citizen has absolute right in two aspects: 1) justice, and 2) absolute freedom of expression, thought, and religion. Each citizen has relative right in three aspects: 1) wealth, 2) political participation in rule, and 3) safety and security. Of course, those three aspects are absolute rights to a given society, as it owns wealth and must be defended by all citizens and at the same time, society is the source of real authority, but each citizen gets shares of such three aspects as per qualification, efforts, and competence within the equal opportunity principle maintained for everyone.

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: rights of individuals and rights of society.

 (A) Theocratic rule: the main faulty principle applied was to impose the religious creed or doctrine by force on everyone within the caliphate, as per the fabricated Sunnite hadith urging to fight all human beings till they testify to the dual Sunnite testimony of God and Muhammad as his 'Holy' Prophet. This is why after caliphs would invade and conquer any given country or city, they would impose tributes on its indigenous people whether they convert or not, as we read in history of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and the Ottomans. The general basic look regarding states that had other religions or doctrines, and unconquered yet by caliphs, was that they were the camp of war and disbelief, even within times of peace, as peaceful times were regarded merely as truces until the Muhammadans would grow stronger in terms of military preparations and attempt to invade nations unconquered yet.    

 (B) Quran-based rule: the general, basic look and the main principle applied is to adhere to peace and to never commit any sort of aggression. Wars and fighting are allowed only and exclusively in cases of self-defense and defending one's homeland when being attacked first. This is inferred from the Quran of course: "And fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression; God does not love the aggressors." (2:190); "...Whoever commits aggression against you, retaliate against him in the same measure as he has committed against you. And be conscious of God, and know that God is with the righteous." (2:194). When the Quran-based rule defeats the aggressive country within this self-defense war, the Muslims have the right to impose military fine on the aggressive defeated party as a form of compensation for losses: "Fight those who do not believe in God, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid what God and His messenger have forbidden, nor abide by the religion of Truth-from among those who received the Scripture-until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly." (9:29).           

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: relations with neighboring countries.

 (A) Theocratic rule: during the era of the Abbasid caliphate, most quasi-religious, theological, and fiqh jurisprudence traditions were written down for the very first time to act as references for issuing religious legislations and fatwas (edicts) for caliphs. Of course, there has been a huge gap, or rather abyss, between such man-made writings/legislations and the Quranic legislation. Corrupt, subservient, obsequious clergymen issued and invented legislations and authored hadiths (that had nothing to do with the Quran: the only real Islam) in order to cater for all tastes and whims of caliphs, and likewise, they annulled and/or suspended the application of the Quranic legislations and sharia laws under the pretext or claim that the so-called hadiths replace and supplant Quranic verses, within the concept or notion of Naskh, but we have proven in earlier writings of ours that the term Naskh means assertion and writings and not deletion or replacement.        

 (B) Quran-based rule: the Quran fits all eras and locations, and ijtihad (innovative, creative thinking) is surely required as to who to understand and apply the Quranic sharia legislations included within the Quranic text, as per its unique Quranic terminology. There is absolutely nothing in Islam called 'hadiths' (i.e., narratives and sayings ascribed falsely to Muhammad), 'Sirah' (i.e., biographies of Muhammad authored 200 years after his death and contain falsehoods) or 'fiqh' (jurisprudence legislations authored by clergymen and theologians of every era).   

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: the intellectual and legislative references.

 (A) Theocratic rule: the caliphate rule system reflected faithfully and truly the Middle-Ages mentality of tyranny, fanaticism, extremism, backwardness, and obscurantism, whether in Europe or in the East. Of course, the Europeans passed through the renaissance period and left the Dark Ages after managing to remove all forms of theocratic rule and control of clergymen and ecclesiastics, thus establishing the laïc/secular rule in modern times by the separation of religion from the State. The Ottoman caliphate ended in 1924, and Turkey imitated the secular model (or laïcité) of Europe after shedding the caliphate rule that has been deemed 'Islamic' thought it had nothing to do with Islam at all. Turkey has passed through secular extremism in all aspects that led to the emergence, as a reaction, of quasi-religious Salafist trends, groups, and movements, especially the MB terrorist organization that has branches worldwide. Such Salafist trends, groups, and movements relentlessly seek to re-establish theocratic rule that would imitate the Ottoman, Abbasid, and Umayyad caliphates.          

 (B) Quran-based rule: Prophet Muhammad had established his Yathreb city-state, whose features were partially preserved and maintained by the three caliphs Abou Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and with the assassination of the latter, all features were lost as Arab civil war went on during the caliphate of Ali until the tyrannical absolutist caliphates emerged, such as the Umayyad, Fatimid, and Ottoman theocracies.  

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: historical circumstances and conditions of the establishment and collapse of a given State.

 (A) Theocratic rule: security apparatuses might quell and restrict religious extremists, but the culture of religious extremism and fanaticism would still be dominant as they would be sponsored and propagated by other apparatuses and governmental bodies that at the same time stifle, restrict, persecute, and abort any enlightened religious reformist thought of Muslim thinkers. Maintaining this status quo leads eventually to the fact that extremism would win eventually, though theocracy does not fit our present era or the future era. This means that if a theocracy is established now, it would make a given society moves backwards and sink into obscurantism and ignorance to fit into the theocratic State model!   

 (B) Quran-based rule: the Yathreb city-state remains to be the best model in the modern era of human rights, adherence to peace, and all sorts freedoms, but propagating this model entails patience, suffering, ijtihad, comprehensive religious reform, reform on all the other levels, and raising real awareness of Quranic facts of Islam; otherwise, extremists and fanatics would manage to forcibly establish their backward theocracy. 

 (C) Comparative aspect of contradiction: probabilities of success and failure in our modern era.

  After tackling above the contradiction between the Quran-based rule within civil democracy and the theocratic rule applied in the Middle-Ages by the Europeans and the Muhammadans, we focus on the judicial authority and system of the Quran-based rule; what if any group within this rule would refuse to submit to the judicial authority and system? Such a group is surely part of the whole society, and thus it has the right of political participation and of having a judicial body to represent it, as long as this group lives in peace and adopt non-violence, never committing acts of aggression or raise arms against society. This was the case of hypocrites within the Yathreb city-state in the 7^th century; the Quranic sharia legislations allowed them the freedom of expression within their opposition (by deeds and words). This reached the extent of their harming Muhammad himself and mocking and ridiculing Islam/the Quran as well as harming and conspiring against the early believers. We know all about this from the Quranic verses themselves that mention their deeds and sins; God has commanded Muhammad and the early believers with him to avoid the hypocrites and to withdraw and stay away from them  (never to harm them, because they were peaceful), as their punishment in the Hereafter after the Day of Resurrection is enough for them. Some hypocrites at the time hated the Yathreb city-state in which they lived and conspired against it while allying themselves to its enemies from outside it and deceived and spied on the early believers for the sake of the aggressive enemies, those had to be fought in self-defense endeavors only in case they commit aggressions against peaceful believers; see 4:88-91. Let us return to the earlier case we desire to tackle; i.e., the hypocrites who live within the Yathreb city-state and enjoy full freedom of opposing it by deeds and words. The query raised now is the following: did their freedom of opposition include their refusal to submit to the judicial authority and system of the Yathreb city-state? Did this State had the right to impose its judicial authority and system on them or not?

  It is known that the most democratic and liberal regimes of today would absolutely refuse to grant citizens the right to resort to other laws and judicial systems away from the established ones. In contrast, the Quran has granted hypocrites who were citizens within the Yathreb city-state the right to resort to another judicial body/authority that was regarded as opposing this Yathreb-city state. The Quranic verses contain objection and condemnation of deeds and words of hypocrites and mention these deeds and words as proof of their lack of faith and belief; yet, the Quranic verses have commanded Muhammad never to harm them at all, and this is the highest level of freedom and human rights within this Quran-based rule. Let us give below some brief example to explain this point further. 

1- Some Israelite tribes used to live around the Yathreb city-state near the early believers there, and they were not part of the Yathreb city-state; some Israelites asked Muhammad to be their judge, and they had bad intentions and ulterior motives regarding this request. Typically, Muhammad waited for the divine revelation to know if he was to agree to their request or not: "Listeners to falsehoods, eaters of illicit earnings. If they come to you, judge between them, or turn away from them. If you turn away from them, they will not harm you in the least. But if you judge, judge between them equitably. God loves the equitable. But why do they come to you for judgment, when they have the Torah, in which is God's Law? Yet they turn away after that. These are not believers. We have revealed the Torah, wherein is guidance and light. The submissive prophets ruled the Jews according to it, so did the rabbis and the scholars, as they were required to protect God's Book, and were witnesses to it..." (5:42-44). This means that Muhammad has been told by God in the Quran that he was free to choose either to judge over their affairs fairly and justly or to keep away and withdraw from them. We sense from the previous Quranic verses the astonishment because of the Israelites having the real Torah and rejecting to use it as the criterion for judgment in their own affairs, used by previous prophets and rabbis. Likewise, the other group among the People of the Book has been commanded in the Quran to use the true Gospel to as the criterion for judgment in their own affairs: "In their footsteps, We sent Jesus son of Mary, fulfilling the Torah that preceded him; and We gave him the Gospel, wherein is guidance and light, and confirming the Torah that preceded him, and guidance and counsel for the righteous. So let the people of the Gospel rule according to what God revealed in it. Those who do not rule according to what God revealed are the sinners." (5:46:47).    

2- Some hypocrites living within the Yathreb city-state were from the People of the Book who refused to submit to its judicial authority which was based on the Quranic sharia, and God has rebuked them in the Quran without any orders addressed to Muhammad and the early believers to take any measures against them, as we infer from the following verse: "Have you not considered those who were given a share of the Scripture, as they were called to the Scripture of God to arbitrate between them; then some of them turned back, and declined?" (3:23).    

3- Some hypocrites living within the Yathreb city-state chose to reject the Quran and resorted to Satanist falsehoods as criteria for judgment instead. When advice and rebuke were addressed to them, they felt more animosity and repugnance toward the idea of resorting to Muhammad to judge over them, though they did just that in times of hardships and fear while apologizing for him, as we deduce from these verses: "Have you not observed those who claim that they believe in what was revealed to you, and in what was revealed before you, yet they seek Satanic sources for legislation, in spite of being commanded to reject them? Satan means to mislead them far away. And when it is said to them, "Come to what God has revealed, and to the messenger," you see the hypocrites shunning you completely. How about when a disaster strikes them because what their hands have put forward, and then they come to you swearing by God: "We only intended goodwill and reconciliation"?" (4:60-62). God the Omniscient knew what lied in their hearts and He is the Only One to judge them in the Hereafter on the Last Day, and He has commanded Muhammad to avoid them and to stay away from them after advising them: "They are those whom God knows what is in their hearts. So ignore them, and admonish them, and say to them concerning themselves penetrating words." (4:63). God has advised and preached them to repent and accept the true faith: "We did not send any messenger except to be obeyed by God's leave. Had they, when they wronged themselves, come to you, and prayed for God's forgiveness, and the messenger had prayed for their forgiveness, they would have found God Relenting and Merciful. But no, by your Lord, they will not believe until they call you to arbitrate in their disputes, and then find within themselves no resentment regarding your decisions, and submit themselves completely." (4:64-65).        

4- Some hypocrites living within the Yathreb city-state refused to make Muhammad as their judge except when they were quite sure they were in the right and Muhammad thus will be fair to them and restore justice to them, while those among them who were in the wrong would refuse stubbornly to make Muhammad as their judge, as we infer from this verse: "And they say, "We have believed in God and the messenger, and we obey," but some of them turn away afterwards. These are not believers. And when they are called to God and His messenger, in order to judge between them, some of them refuse. But if justice is on their side, they accept it willingly." (24:47-49). Again, in such situation, we see no commands for their punishment or any accusations of sedition or rebelling against the Yathreb city-state; rather, we read advice mixed with reproach addressed to them: "Is there sickness in their hearts? Or are they suspicious? Or do they fear that God may do them injustice? Or His messenger? In fact, they themselves are the unjust. The response of the believers, when they are called to God and His messenger in order to judge between them, is to say, "We hear and we obey." These are the successful." (24:50-51).

Firstly: introduction:

1- In CHAPTER I, we have demonstrated the contradiction between a Quran-based rule in a given country (i.e., a country based on civil, secular, direct democracy and human rights) and the theocracies established by the Muhammadans as per the dominant Middle-Ages culture of tyranny and oppression when rulers, sultans, and caliphs were despots who confiscated to themselves all wealth, authority, and power and actually 'owned' people living within this or that caliphate or empire. A Quran-based rule is indeed the civil rule of a country which is based on justice, equity, and fairness, balancing rights of society and those of the citizen. This Islamic (i.e., Quranist or Quranic) society is the one of citizens owning security, power, authority, and wealth as they enjoy equality and all rights within social solidarity system. This topic entails a whole separate book about the social, political, and economic features of a Quran-based rule in a given country and its civil society; let us briefly below point out the main feature of the civil state which is based on Islam (i.e., Quranism): the judicial authority.    

2- There are a main difference within the foundation of the tyrannical state/country and the democratic state/country. Within the tyrannical one, armed forces of the military are loyal only to a theocrat or a military general/ruler and used by this ruler or tyrant to establish, rule, and 'own' the country and people living in it. the classical example of such a case is Moses' Pharaoh. Within the democratic one, the power and authority are centered in the nation itself with all its citizens, and a country is founded upon a social contract among free citizens regardless of their age-groups, gender, races, colors, etc. who choose their ruler who would be a civil servant (in public service) to all of them. This is real loyalty, allegiance, or fealty mentioned in the following Quranic verse regarding the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad: "O prophet! If believing women come to you, pledging allegiance to you, on condition that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit adultery, nor kill their children, nor commit perjury as to parenthood, nor disobey you in anything righteous, accept their allegiance and ask God's forgiveness for them. God is Forgiving and Merciful." (60:12). Within a tyrannical theocratic and/or military rule, a tyrant cannot rule by himself alone; he has to form groups of people around him with some authorized powers, such as military leaders of armed forces that intimidate civilians and administrators within governmental sectors and ministries to control all affairs of the citizens, or rather ''subjects'', as they are regarded as tools owned by the tyrant in service of his state. Among these groups are those who brainwash the subjects within controlled media, clergymen, religious institutions, and corrupt arts so that people would be submissive to tyrants and to allow the culture of slavery to be inculcated into them. Of course, a chief group within such tools of control and hegemony are judges in courts of the judicial system within a tyrannical state or a theocracy. Of course, such groups are 'soldiers' or henchmen of the tyrannical rulers, or their ''retinue'' as per Quranic terminology within the story of Moses' Pharaoh. Indeed, we repeat here that Moses' Pharaoh is the classical example of tyranny, mentioned in the Quran as a warning to all people, and within his Quranic story, he is linked with the terms ''soldiers'' and ''retinue'' many times within the Quranic text.       

3- Moses' Pharaoh as a self-deified tyrant imposed his dominance and hegemony over people by intimidating and terrorizing them by his torture, especially by torturing and punishing people in public to impose fear and awe of him inside hearts and minds of the subjects. In the Quran, we read how Moses' Pharaoh used torture in public to impose his political authority by threatening, and executing his threat soon enough, to torture and put to a violent death the magicians who believed in the message of Moses; see 7:124 and 20:71. As for the very first example in the history of the Muhammadans, we read how the third caliph, Othman Ibn Affan, who was among the four pre-Umayyad caliphs deified later by Sunnites, was the very first caliph to punish and torture people in public as he dealt with opposition figures; he ordered public beatings and flogging of some of them, banished many of them out of his capital, Yathreb, and some others among his foes were forced to roam within the Levant and Iraq while heavy guarded to keep them from gathering supporters in any city by settling in it for too long. This very last punishment imposed by Othman was suffered by known figures among the so-called "companions of the prophet", such as Ibn Massood, Ammar Ibn Yasser, and Abou Al-Dardaa. Moreover, in our opinion as a historian, psychological torment suffered by such opposition figures exceeded the physical torment or torture, because they had earlier witnessed the democracy of the Quran-based rule of the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad. Let us be reminded that God has said the following to Muhammad as a ruler/leader of the Yathreb city-state: "It is by of grace from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh, hardhearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the conduct of affairs..." (3:159). This means that Muhammad himself was keen on being gentle with citizens of this Yathreb city-state (as per God's command to him in 3:159) and had to appeal to them and satisfy them because they were the only and real source of authority; if they would have dispersed from around him, he would have lost his authority as a leader and the Yathreb city-state would have been lost, because it is based on its dwellers as the only source of power – in the political sense. Hence, since the figures tortured and punished by caliph Othman had witnessed such era of the democratic Quran-based rule of the Yathreb city-state, they must have been much grieved when they saw how the balances of power changed to the worse as the Umayyads controlled Othman and they managed to urge him to use torture and other punishments to oppress and intimidate all people into submission, a policy that was later on adopted brutally and heartlessly on higher levels by the Umayyad caliphs and others after them. Maybe Ammar Ibn Yasser was the one man mostly influenced negatively by such bad change, because history tells us that he was tortured on two separate occasions: at one time as a young man in Mecca when he converted to the new faith and the polytheistic Umayyads at the time persecuted and tortured him to revert to their religion, and the second time as an old man during the caliphate of Othman who was incited by the Umayyads who controlled him to torture Ammar for his political opposition against policies of Othman, while they convinced Othman that he had the 'divine' right as a ruler to do anything he wanted. Thus, we assert here that the policy of torture is another more prominent difference between the Quran-based rule and the tyrannical theocracies or tyrannical 'civil' states; rulers and ministers, etc. in the Quran-based rule within a given country are civil public servants who indeed serve citizens and fear the people in awe, and they work diligently so as to avoid driving citizens to disperse from around them. In contrast, within tyrannical countries, the tyrants are harsh and hardhearted to terrorize and intimidate people. The presence of torture is an indicator that a given country is ruled by tyranny, regardless of the civil façade and democratic décor apparent outwardly. Of course, it is historically known that the Umayyad caliphs in their theocratic empire had widened the scope of the use of severe torture to terrorize and intimidate its foes, even when these foes were peaceful. So many governors and viziers appointed by Umayyads were known for their torturing severely all foes of the Umayyad dynasty, especially the vizier/governor famous for his brutality Al-Hajaj Ibn Youssef. In a lengthy article of ours, we have tackled how the grand religious scholar Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab was tortured by tightened a rope around his neck to be pulled with it in all streets of Yathreb because he refused to swear fealty to the new Umayyad caliph (and former friend of his) Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan.                               

4- Typically, the tyrannical state would turn itself into a terrorizing deity with its military armed forced generals and soldiers and its clergy as infallible daunting gods, with their supreme deity the ruling tyrant on top of them all, and all such persons would bludgeon and persecute people. The more tyrannical ways are adopted and higher levels of despotism are reached, the more the retinue members of rulers would deify themselves. The prominent example of course is Moses' Pharaoh, the megalomaniac who, before his people and soldiers and retinue members, declared self-deification and proclaimed his owing lands and rivers of Egypt, while he was surprised to know that God exists and arrogantly, as a self-deified tyrant, demanded to see Him; see 28:38, 40:36-37, and 79:23-24. Within the eras of tyranny within the history of the Muhammadans, past and present, the tyrants were deified explicitly and overtly as was the case during the Fatimid caliphate or implicitly and indirectly as was the case within the Abbasid and the Ottoman caliphates. Sadly, the Muhammadan tyrannical rulers in our modern age have inherited this Middle-Ages dominant culture of theocratic tyranny that deifies rulers implicitly; who among the 'Saudi subjects' would dare to utter any criticism against the Saudi royal family members? Who among the 'Iraqi subjects' would have dared to utter any criticism against the Saddam Hussein regime when it was in power? Saddam Hussein used to deify himself implicitly by inventing 'holy' epithets and names to himself and to force Iraqis to use them! The same tyranny of self-deified 'infallible' rulers who would punish any critics of them applies to Libya, Morocco, Jordan, and the rest of the countries of the Muhammadans. Even in Egypt, we find laws that punish anyone who would dare to criticize Mubarak, who owns, rules, and controls everything and cannot be questioned or impeached as per the Egyptian constitution; this gives ample room to deify Mubarak as an 'infallible' god whose actions and decrees must not be put to question, despite his despotism and authoritarianism. In sum, we infer clearly here that the huge difference between the Quran-based rule and the tyrannical theocratic rule is as follows: in the latter, we find the tyrant dominating and controlling everything, whereas in the former, we see the prominent role of citizens/the people in the ruling system and its affairs. Therefore, direct democracy is an essential component of the Quranic sharia and the Islamic faith tenets, whereas tyranny is a type of polytheism and disbelief, because of deifying mortals. Since Muhammad has been commanded in the Quranic verse 3:159 to adopt consultation (or "Shura" in Arabic and Quranic tongues), we deduce that those rulers who never adopt Shura/consultation out of disdain and haughtiness are raising themselves above the status of prophets, and this is deemed the implicit and explicit sin of self-deification. Ministers and their likes are responsible before the nations and can be questioned, and rulers who refuse out of arrogance to be questioned and checked by citizens are explicitly deifying themselves, because God is the Only One never to be questions, unlike mortals who are questioned, as per the Quran: "He will not be questioned about what He does, but they will be questioned." (21:23). Hence, the country of a tyrant is the one of disbelief, injustices, persecution, and aggression, even if the 'subjects' (as they are not ''citizens'', of course, in that case) are weak Muslims or Muhammadans. Indeed, we cannot help but notice that in the Quran text, injustice and disbelief are linked closely together as synonyms in many verses.                          

5- Within tyrannical countries, there are no responsible rulers questioned, checked, and held accountable elected willingly and freely to serve citizens for a certain period in return for a certain salary, but there are ever-present domineering and controlling gods/deities described as inspired leaders, and those gods own the lands and resources, full power and absolute authority, as well as people who are voiceless and worthless. The evidence to support this view is the fact that people inside and outside Egypt talk all the time about presidents Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, and no one talks about any achievements of the Egyptian people because they are inactive agent in terms of rule, power, and authority – despite the fact that the Egyptians are the oldest nation on earth with seven-millennia-old civilization. Likewise, people worldwide talk about Kaddafi, and not Libyan people, and about Saddam Hussein and not the Iraqi people (until 2001 and beyond), and so on and so forth. In the same vein, most of the history of the Muhammadans revolve around despots and their cronies and henchmen, without focusing on the nations or rather ''subjects''. This is like dealing with a farm-owner while giving no attention at all to tools, workers, peasants, and cattle inside the farm! We never get bored by repeating the fact that Quran-based rule has a model nearer to it in West models of rule. In relation to the point above, we find it hard to remember to know the names of the queen of The Netherlands and presidents of Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries. The reason: the main talk is about the active nations and citizens who have a say in the rule and in the conduct of all affairs, while people within the administrations (presidents and others) are in the background like small actors (or Comparse)  as civil public servants who serve citizens within a democracy. In contrast, in the Middle-Eastern tyrannical countries, tyrants alone are in the foreground and get the main focus and spotlight; everyone knows Mubarak, Saddam, Kaddafi, the Saudi king, etc. When one would undertake a survey or a poll to know about the public opinion, one is accused of spying and damaging the societal peace. There is no public opinion in such countries because there are not real citizens with rights. The only one in the picture is the tyrant and his decrees and commands, and he represents the country, its religion, its aspects, etc.                       

Secondly: the influence of the establishment of Quran-based rule on the cultural formation of the Muslim society:

1- It is not easy: It is not easy that a nation would liberate itself from the culture of slavery and that citizens would rise to stand up for their rights and gain access to power and authority to establish a ruling system based on direct democracy, where rulers and those under them would be real civil public servants who serve all citizens equally and can be checked, impeached, removed from office, questioned, held accountable, etc. It is not easy that citizens in a given country would restore and retrieve its wealth confiscated and stolen by the affluent classes of bloodsucking thieves and to install a just regime and ruling systems to distribute wealth of the nation while balancing equal opportunities and social solidarity and social justice and at the same time stopping all forms of monopoly and interference of the financial capital of the filthily rich ones in politic affairs. This just regime would apply the Quran-based rule and would apply this verse: "Do not give the immature your money which God has assigned to you for support. But provide for them from it, and clothe them, and speak to them with kind words." (4:5). As per this verse, we know that the wealth of a given nation or people is owned by all citizens equally, and one has the right to get one's inheritance as long as one can manage it, as for immature irresponsible ones who cannot do so, the society, as the original owner of wealth, must control and manage the inheritance for the benefit of society while respecting the immature one's right to live with dignity and enjoying this inheritance. The Muhammadans in Egypt, the Levant, Iraq, Arabia, and North Africa have given their public wealth (e.g., oil revenues) in their respective countries to the immature and irresponsible as well as the tyrannical corrupt ones, and the West nations ridicule them.           

2- It is easy only when applying the Quranist culture: This means to establish and apply democracy by raising the awareness of people and spreading the culture of democracy first to pave the way for it, and the best way to spread the culture of democracy is to spread the Quranic/Quranist culture; this is a very long story, but we briefly mention its main features below. During Muhammad's lifetime, early believers or Muslims learned in Mecca the culture of direct democracy by focusing on two main aspects as follows.

A) The first aspect is purifying faith tenets from submission to mortals, as real monotheistic believers submit only to God and never sanctify or deify mortals. This is the very first basis of direct democracy; real believers never fear any mortals as they fear only God, and they know that the four elements of Fate are predetermined only by God (as per Quranism, these four elements are birth, death, earnings, and calamities). Consequently, real believers never fear mortals, as they fear only the Creator of human beings based on truly sincere and practical faith and the belief in the Last Day, Resurrection, the Final Judgment, and Hell and Paradise. Real monotheistic believers fear God' Hell and desire to enter His Paradise, and they know that the real winning is in the Afterlife, based on sincere faith and good deeds deemed acceptable by Almighty God. Hence, real believers, who seek Paradise in the Afterlife, seek no superiority on earth and never accept corruption: " That Home of the Hereafter-We assign it for those who seek no superiority on earth, nor corruption. And the outcome is for the pious ones." (28:83).   

B) The second aspect is to inculcate in people higher moralistic and ethical values, which include the will to apply change and reform as per God's commands in the Quran. We discern form the Quran that God makes the human will of change (within reform as well as spiritual guidance) precede God's will; i.e., if they are willing to change to the better, God will help them to do so: "...God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves..." (13:11). We infer from this verse that people must change their status of submissiveness and laziness and other features of the culture of slavery to replace it with the culture of free citizens as per Quranic higher values that comprise justice, charity, peace, religious freedom, freedom of thought and expression, rights of people (i.e., human rights as we know it today), and in that case, God will help them and grant them success. Otherwise, if a certain nation or people would choose to remain submissive to and subjugated by tyrants, God will accept and maintain what they have willingly chosen and accepted. It is within this context that we understand the Moses was sent to address Pharaoh, and not to address ordinary Egyptians of his time, because most Egyptians at the time accepted Pharaoh as their master and supreme god. Thus, early Muslims in Mecca during the lifetime of Muhammad learned these values and tenets and practiced Shura consultation (direct democracy, in the modern term), and let us be reminded that the Quranic Chapter 42 titled "Shura" was revealed in Mecca not in Yathreb, and this allowed them to practice and apply direct democracy within the 11-year-old Yathreb city-state, when Quranic verses related to sharia legislations were revealed in Yathreb, and some of these verses are linked to direct democracy or Shura as well.         

3- A Muslim society is an active and interactive one of charity and goodness: The share of a given society of involvement, interaction, and active participation determines its share of liberation and strength. Even within tyrannical countries, sometimes one would notice raised levels of liberation in terms of verbal and written self-expression in Egypt where its president is being criticized in the recent years, while other Arab tyrants never allow anyone to even voice the slightest form of criticism. Sadly, the Egyptian president Mubarak, as a tyrant, allows a margin of verbal criticism only within certain limits to make people vent their fury and to give the appearance of allowing certain freedoms. Yet, we notice in recent years in Egypt that there have been a rise in peaceful actions like demonstrations and organizing strikes. Of course, the military armed forces use its security forces and anti-riot police to quell such change from verbal criticism to opposition movement and actions by intimidating the unarmed demonstrators with raised arms and imprisonment terms. The free nationalistic trends in Egypt will succeed one day if they are ready to face and bear patiently with such oppression, intimidation, and suppression. Admittedly, in comparison with the rest of the Arab countries, Egypt has more political movements, trends, and interaction that raise people's awareness and involve many youths who love their homeland indeed and are ready to sacrifice anything to achieve its welfare. Other Arab countries suffer brutal quelling of even the slightest voice of protest by Arab people who are unwilling yet to sacrifice anything for their countries and fear for their own personal safety; besides, their political experience is not as ripe, mature, and ready as the case of Egyptians. Within a real Quran-based rule of a real Muslim society, there is no room for silent masses because the practice of Shura consultation (direct democracy) is a religious duty, an act of worship, and a way of obedience of God's Quranic commands; this means that all Muslims within Quran-based rule in a given society must attend all meetings and councils of Shura and not to be absent from them. Even the Quran tells us about the divine warning against those who did not attend all meetings of Shura within the Yathreb city-state, as per the last verses of the Quranic Chapter 24, which were among the very first verses revealed to Muhammad in Yathreb. Muslims in such a Quran-based rule in a given country are not only Quran-believing citizens; we mean by the word ''Muslims'' here the literal sense of the term: all peaceful ones/citizens. This means that all peaceful citizens must participate in building their society and country by attending and participating actively in all Shura councils and meetings, regardless of their races, colors, religious affiliation, gender, age-group, etc. More details on that topic in our article on the concept of citizenry in the Quran-based rule in a given country, and we have asserted in it that the ''Muslim citizen'' is the peaceful one regardless of faiths and religious beliefs (or even lack of them), because no mortal is to judge people's faiths and religious beliefs; this is God's business on the Last Day. In brief, this is the essence of the motto spread in Egypt: "religion pertains to God, while homeland pertains to all citizens". Let us be reminded that the Quran talks about hypocrites within the Yathreb city-state and how they had full rights of peaceful opposition within a level of freedom never repeated again even within the modern democracies of today's world, as we have explained in our article on the concept of citizenry. Active participation in the Muslims society is guaranteed to both genders and include everyone, because the Quran addresses both genders of believers/Muslims (i.e., all peaceful ones in terms of their demeanor). We have shown how the Quran talks about allowing even all conspiring opposition figures in Yathreb at the time as long as they are peaceful (in the sense that they never committed aggression or raise arms against peaceful people) and their freedom was not confined to expressing their opposing the politics of Muhammad as the leader of this city-state; indeed, the freedom of the hypocrites included at the time to be vociferous in rejection of higher values of the Yathreb society by urging evil ways and repelling against righteous ways and goodness. In fact, the opposition figures, named in the Quranic text as hypocrites, enjoyed their freedom because they are part of the Yathreb city-state as they live in it, and this means that they were part of the participators in rule and its related affairs of the Yathreb city-state. This is real direct democracy. We affirm our views here by quoting these Quranic verses about the society of the Yathreb city-state that included both genders of believers and hypocrites/opposition figures: "The hypocrite men and hypocrite women are of one another. They advocate evil, and prohibit righteousness, and withhold their hands. They forgot God, so He forgot them. The hypocrites are the sinners. God has promised the hypocrite men and hypocrite women, and the disbelievers, the Fire of Hell, abiding therein forever. It is their due. And God has cursed them. They will have a lasting punishment." (9:67-68). This indicates that hypocrites of both genders moved freely in all streets and markets of Yathreb to advocate evil ways and repel against piety and good deeds, and no one stopped them at all (compare such freedom to the unjust, brutal, oppressive religious police of the KSA). God is the One to punish hypocrites if they die without repentance, and they were NOT punished by any mortals at all, as the eternal Afterlife punishment is enough loss and torment for them. In contrast to hypocrites of both genders in Yathreb, God says the following about other dwellers/citizens of the Yathreb city-state among the believers of both genders at the time: "The believing men and believing women are friends of one another. They advocate virtue, forbid evil, perform the prayers, practice charity, and obey God and His messenger. These-God will have mercy on them. God is Noble and Wise. God promises the believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever, and fine homes in the Gardens of Eden. But approval of God toward them is even greater. That is the supreme achievement." (9:71-72). We infer from these verses that as opposed to hypocrites of both genders in Yathreb at the time, there were believers of both genders who moved freely within streets and markets to urge righteousness (i.e., higher Quranic values of Islam) and advise against evil within verbal advice (NOT resorting to violence and oppression as is the case with the religious police of the KSA), and their peaceful preaching is done by all of them among  one another, not by a specific group assigned to perform this duty in authoritarian manner while being unquestionable. This peaceful preaching without inquisition-like coercion or compulsion is the best manner to apply the divine commands we find in these verses: "...And cooperate with one another in virtuous conduct and conscience, and do not cooperate with one another in sin and aggression. And fear God. God is severe in punishment." (5:2); "...those who believe, and do good works, and encourage truth, and recommend patience." (103:3).          

4- Without Quranist culture, the route toward democracy is very hard, dangerous, and bloody: Europe did not get rid of tyranny unless within centuries of revolts, armed struggles, conflicts, and bloodshed, when both free people and tyrants underwent several stages of repeated victories and defeated (esp. in France). Europe witnessed WWI and WWII and Nazism and fascism were crushed, as they were the fiercest embodiment of tyranny, replaced for while by the communist tyranny that ended later on in its turn. This left room for the emergence of some forms of tyranny under the guise of racist attitudes as in Serbia, but all tyrannical regimes ended in Europe eventually once and for all before the advent of the 21^st century. Tyrannical regimes linger in today's world in the Arab Middle-East, and within few Asian and African countries. As for the Egyptian renaissance, it began as Muhammad Ali Pacha, governor of Egypt in the 19^th century and later its king and founder of his own dynasty, made many Egyptians learn in Europe (mostly in France) many branches of science and he made Frenchmen train and prepare an Egyptian army, and this ended up in carrying the West culture of democracy in Egypt as the very first Egyptian parliament was founded in the second half of the 19^th century. The liberal epoch of Egypt (1923-1952) flourished despite the fact that Egypt was occupied at the time by Britain. The 1952 coup d'état of the Egyptian Free Officers of the Egyptian military army (supported at first by the terrorist Wahabi MB organization) aborted all steps of democracy attained within the liberal epoch, and military presidents removed the West culture of democracy burgeoning at the time and replaced it with leftist military tyrannical rule under Nasser and then theocratic Wahabi tyrannical rule under Sadat until now. Democratic waves have reached Latin American, Asian, and African countries, whereas the evil Wahabi KSA and its MB terrorist organization managed so far to abort, foil, thwart, and nip in the bud any steps toward applying democracy as they aim to make the Muhammadans and Arabs accept the revival of the Abbasid and Ottoman models of caliphate or theocracy. This is reinforced by the settled Arab Sunnite Wahabi monarchies in Arabia (i.e., the KSA and the Gulf monarchies) as opposed to the Shiite Persian theocracy settled in Iran now. This has led other military regimes in other Arab countries (e.g., Egypt and Sudan) to stick to some features of the Sunnite religion outwardly in order to survive. Thu, everyone tends to forget all about the Quran-based type of rule which is founded on human rights and direct democracy.  It is very known now that the Quranist trend and school of thought is being persecuted and fought, and it suffers media blackout, because Quranists are peaceful intellectual thinkers who advocate and preach reform on all levels, not just the religious one. Quranists (in Egypt and other Arab countries) are made foes to both sides that vie for power and regard each other as veritable threat: the military regime and the terrorist MB. Without Quranist culture within education of democracy to people (as Quranists advocate and propose), those who struggle for cultural, educational, economic, democratic, and political reform will have to go on the bloody route followed by Europe for centuries of civil strife bloodshed, coups, struggles, conflicts, wars, etc. and would eventually attain indirect democracy (i.e., of representatives and parliament members), which will reflect only the power, authority, wealth, and control of bloodsucking capitalists, as is the case inside the USA and the West countries. This sort of elected democracy where the majority of people has no political participation but to elect representatives and responsible people (and clap their hands for them) produces only overt change in appearance, and not the desired radical change for the better for the sake of all citizens. Within parliaments, two parties or more would just compete with one another and the status quo (of keeping rulers who reached power through 'free' elections as owners/controllers of everything who monopolize power and authority) would be maintained.                   

Thirdly: the influence of the establishment of Quran-based rule on the nature and mechanisms of the political system:

1- In the Quran-based rule within a given country, there is no ruler in the literal sense of the term; the society (i.e., the citizens of a given nation) is the source of rule, power, and authority, as all citizens share equally the right to participate in the ruling system, and this is the real meaning of Islamic Shura: to make all citizens practice authority and rule, without the need for a ruler in the ordinary sense of the word. This means that rule is the right of society alone within Shura consultation, without this given society ceding rule and authority to any sort of representatives (e.g., parliamentary members) within any secular social contract. This is self-rule and autonomy of direct democracy (i.e., Islamic Shura in the Quran) without representatives. As for the executive authority within this Quran-based rule, it consists of responsible experts in certain fields who will be held accountable before Shura councils and meetings (that include all citizens of both genders) to serve all citizens. We infer from the Quranic text and sharia that this Shura is directly linked to faith: all faithful believers must attend Shura councils, assemblies, and meetings, without being absent from them, or being reluctant to attend, and it is not acceptable even to stealth away from them (before the meetings would end) after attending them, so as not to allow creating a minority that would monopolize rule and authority; see 24:62-64. Prophet Muhammad, though divinely inspired by God, has been commanded in the Quran to consult: "It is by of grace from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh, hardhearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the conduct of affairs..." (3:159); hence, those who refuse to apply Shura consultation in rule place themselves higher above Muhammad. The Quranic verse 3:159 asserts that the nation (all citizens) is the source of all types of authorities, even in the Yathreb city-state ruled and led by Muhammad himself, as we read in 3:159 that God has commanded him to bear patiently with citizens of Yathreb, to treat them gently, to ask forgiveness from God for them, to pardon them, and not to decide on any affairs without consulting them first; otherwise, they would disperse from around him and this would have made Muhammad lose the source of power and authority derived from dwellers of Yathreb. Hence, the Quran-based rule has no ruler ins the sense of social contract concept, as each citizen would not cede his/her share of power to any representative members or groups. the Quran-based rule has no despots (tyrannical or absolutist rulers) of any type: military generals or theocrats/caliphs. This means that the caliphates of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ottoman, etc. had nothing to do with Islamic way of Quran-based rule and had no legitimacy of any type since all of their caliphs had usurped with arms and ,military struggles the right/share of the nations to participate fully in the affairs of rule. We understand now why Muhammad died in Yathreb without choosing a successor or appointing a ruler; as the citizens (or the nation) should manage their own affairs themselves. Yet, narratives, hadiths, and accounts fabricated about Muhammad during the eras of caliphate tyranny revolve around the disputes and conflicts over appointing rulers as per caliphate dynasties system introduced later on.                   

2- The Quran never addresses a Muslim ruler but rather the Muslim society at large; it is noteworthy the all Quranic verses containing sharia laws and legislations revealed in Yathreb – when Muslims had a Quran-based rule in the Yathreb city-state – do not address Muhammad as a ruler/leader, but they are addressing all believers in general. This point made the Egyptian Azharite religious scholar and thinker Ali Abdel-Raziq (1888 – 1966 A.D.) in his seminal book titled "Islam and the Foundations of Governance: Research on the Caliphate and Governance in Islam" assert that Muhammad did not found a state and was never a ruler of any. We beg to differ of course; we have proved within our Quranist views that he ruled democratically the Yathreb city-state, within conditions similar to (and this state was a precursor of) modern democracies of today. Religious scholars at Al-Azhar at the time could not discern from the Quranic verses the Shura ruling system of the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad, because they thought of rulers only as absolutist (theocratic or secular) despots within tyrannical states, and this fossilized vision led Abdel-Raziq to deny Muhammad's being a ruler in Yathreb. Religious scholars at Al-Azhar at the time could not imagine that Muhammad had held councils and meetings of Shura consultation in the main mosque in Yathreb, as per what we infer from the Quran. The reason: all historians in the Abbasid Era (where writing down of traditions and history of Arabs began for the first time) deliberately ignored such Quranic facts because the Abbasid Era witnessed theorization of Sunnite fiqh (religious jurisprudence) by historians and religious scholars of theology that would serve purposes of theocratic tyrants.       

3- The Quranic terms 'judge' and 'judgment' does NOT means to politically rule and govern people. This intentional misconception is based on the linguistic misunderstanding of the Quranic/Arabic term (Hukm); this term in the Arabic tongue is semantically related to governance or government and also judgment, whereas in the Quranic tongue, in all contexts of all verses where the word (Hukm) is found, it means ONLY judge and Judgment. Sadly, until now, the wrong meaning of the term (Hukm) (as governance and political government) is being propagated by the Wahabi preachers of theocracy (Sunnite Salafists and the MB), and this misunderstanding contradicts the Quranic sharia legislations. The three often quoted verses by Wahabi preachers of theocracy in Egypt (brandished at the Mubarak regime) contain derivations of the root (Hukm) as to mean to judge and judgment and NOT to rule and govern: "...Those who do not judge according to what God revealed are the unbelievers." (5:44); "...Those who do not judge according to what God revealed are the evildoers." (5:45); "... So judge among them according to what God revealed, and do not follow their desires if they differ from the truth that has come to you..." (5:47). Hence, these three verses tackle the judicial authority using God's sharia legislations and NOT affairs of rule and political authority. Let us be reminded of the context of these verses in the Quranic Chapter Five; the context is about some People of the Book (some Israelites in Yathreb) resorted to Muhammad to be their judge, and God has told Muhammad: "But why do they come to you for judgment, when they have the Torah, in which is God's Law?..." (5:43). This means that the Torah was the source of legislations to judge among the Israelites used by their judges, and the Quranic sharia acts the same role for Muslims, and this is NOT related at all to political rule and government. The Quranic word/root (Hukm) is used in relation to judging and judgment (and NEVER in the sense of political rule and government) in the Quranic stories of David and Solomon: "And David and Solomon, when they gave judgment in the case of the field, when some people's sheep wandered therein by night; and We were witnesses to their judgment." (21:78); "When they entered upon David, and he was startled by them. They said, "Do not fear. Two disputants; one of us has wronged the other; so judge between us fairly, and do not be biased, and guide us to the straight way."" (38:22). Of course, not all contexts of the term (Hukm) refer to court judgment by judges; in some cases, the term refers to adopted stances or views reproachable in the Quran (and this also has nothing to do with political rule): "...Evil is the judgment they make." (16:56); "...Terrible is their judgment!" (29:4); "...Evil is their judgment!" (45:21).  In other verses related to Quranic sharia legislations, we find the verb "to judge" derived from the root (Hukm) within context of legislations related to pilgrimage: "O you who believe! do not kill game while you are in pilgrim sanctity. Whoever of you kills any intentionally, its penalty shall be a domestic animal comparable to what he killed, as judged by two honest persons among you - an offering delivered to the Kaaba..." (5:95). As for the word (Hukam), which means literally "the judges", it is mentioned only once in the Quran NOT referring to "political rulers" as Sunnites have assumed but to judges, within the context of prohibition of the sin of evil people offering bribes to judges to get what is not lawfully theirs: "And do not consume one another's wealth by unjust means, nor offer it as bribes to the judges in order to consume part of other people's wealth illicitly, while you know." (2:188). Hence, as far as the root (Hukm) and its derivations, judging among people (within courts or outside them) is NOT the same as ruling over them. The Quran contains the former sense of this root and NEVER the second sense.  

4- The Quranic discourse addresses people and societies and not any rulers at all. Since we have proven in the above point that the term/root (Hukm) and its derivations in the Quranic text sharia legislations are related to judgment and never to rule and dominance, and we have proven that the Quran-based rule does not entail a theocratic or even a secular ruler because people are the source of all types of authorities, we assert here that self-ruling people in that case appoint judges that judge fairly and justly in the name of all people and that the Quranic discourse addresses people in general and never a secular ruler or group of managers of political affairs and not even  tyrannical theocrats at all. Thus, God in the Quran addresses all people within society as they are the real and only source of authorities, including the executive and judicial ones; for instance, God says in the Quran: "God instructs you to give back things entrusted to you to their owners. And when you judge between people, judge with justice..." (4:58). This means that all citizens in a given society cooperate and coordinate to apply commands in this verse that include justice in judicial authority. In the very next verse after 4:58, God commands people to obey Him, the messenger (i.e., the message, the Quran itself, since Muhammad the messenger died) and also experts in their experience and authority within specialized fields (e.g., any scientific field, judicial system, sharia laws, etc.) for the welfare of society. In the three cases, one obeys God after all: Quranic commands of God revealed in the Book conveyed by the messenger Muhammad, and experts in all fields (including the Quranic sharia) are to be obeyed since they apply the higher Quranic values for the welfare of a given society: "O you who believe! Obey God and obey the messenger and those experts in authority among you. And if you dispute over anything, refer it to God and the Messenger, if you believe in God and the Last Day. That is best, and a most excellent determination." (4:59). This means that those experts in authority are the ones who specialize in certain fields of daily life affairs serving their society in relation to many cases and topics (e.g., engineers, medical doctors, pharmacists, judges, military leaders, etc.). This is further explained in another verse in the same Quranic Chapter: " When some news of security or alarm comes their way, they broadcast it. But had they referred it to the Messenger, and to those experts in authority among them, those who can draw conclusions from it would have comprehended it..." (4:83). Of course, these verses address their general terms and their details of Quranic sharia legislations to all people in a given society, NOT to rulers or governors, by saying phrases like (O you who believe!...); see, for example, 4:2-6.  The word (Hakam) which literally means "a judge or an arbiter" does not refer to rulers at all in the following verse, but to those people chosen from families of a husband and a wife in cases of reconciling them after a dispute: " If you fear a breach between the two, appoint an arbiter from his family and an arbiter from her family. If they wish to reconcile, God will bring them together..." (4:35).         

Lastly:

  This is the political climate and culture in which judges perform their duty in their posts as part of the judicial authority in a given society. Within the next chapter, laws or legislations used by judges in the cases they tackle are discussed.