Muslim, Non-Muslim citizenship issues

The tram from Eminonu-on-the-Bosphorous to the book bazaar at Beyazid Gate has a stop at Gulhane, where the Topkapi palace (now museum) is situated in Istanbul. The period of modernisation of the legal system, the Tanzimat of the Ottoman empire in fact began with the proclamation on Nov 3, 1839 of the Hatti-Sherif of Gulhane or the Imperial Edict of the Rose Chamber. The Tanzimat broadly refers to the period of bureaucratic, legal and military reform.

Gul means rose in Turkish. According to Turkish friends, the rose also symbolises the Prophet Muhammad in the Ottoman empire. The Hatti-Sherif was a charter comprising of four principles one of which is equality before the law of all Ottoman subjects, regardless of their religion.

The foundations to the Ottoman empire were laid when Turks first defeated the Byzantines in 1071 at Manzikert. The empire ended with the First World War in 1924. In its heyday, the empire included Asia, Africa and Europe. The successor states to the Ottoman empire are Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Balkan states.

A week's sojourn in Istanbul provided the inspiration to mull over the reformation experiences of the Ottomans. I think our understanding of Islam and Islamic law would benefit from the history and country experiences of Islamic reformation.

At the very least, it might root our academia, professionals and scholars in practical solutions rather than an idealism of some glorious past. The study of comparative codes of post-caliphate Muslim countries devoid of its cultural-historical experiences paints an incomplete picture of the problems facing real communities.

Having said that, much of the corpus juris of what some Muslims here claim to be the 'authentic non-justiciable' Islamic law of that 'glorious past' was in fact formulations developed during the declining years of the Muslim caliphate (mid 8th to the end 9th century). The Prophet died in 632AD.

It is critical to check the historical record in order to examine whether Muslims in the past struggled with analogous issues. We study history not in order to resurrect the solutions of the past, but to learn from experiences.

The Ottoman experiment of a common citizenship or 'Ottomanism' grew out of practical necessity. The empire then comprised of various religious and ethnic groups. In ethnic terms these included Arabs, Turkomen, Armenians and Kurds. In religious terms the population included Sunni Muslims, Twelver and Ismaili Shii Muslims, Druzes, Alawis, Christians of several denominations and Jews. The Ottoman empire was cosmopolitan and perhaps more so than the rest of Europe.

The Ottomans before the Hatti-Sherif had simply followed the historical tradition of Muslim dynasties since the 7th century. The relevant categories of population were Muslim and non-Muslim. This tradition places all non-Muslims in the category of dhimmis.

Dhimmis pay a special tax. In some historical examples, they face restriction on the construction of new religious buildings and public religious observances. They are excluded from military functions. In return for the acceptance of these conditions, their person and property are protected and they have the right to administer their own ecclesiastical, communal and personal affairs.

Early Ottoman reform to this tradition was the 15th century introduction of the millet system. This system recognised the several Christian and Jewish communities as corporate entities, each with its respective ecclesiastical hierarchies. Each acted as intermediaries between their co-religionists and the Ottomans.

Reformist statesmen of the Tanzimat (1839-1924), brought two very important concepts of citizenship: the nationalist idea of a community whose members share the same political identity; and the liberal idea of civil and political rights. The historical category of dhimmi would be abolished.

The meaning of the term 'Ottoman' which traditionally referred only to members of the imperial family and the military, religious and bureaucracy which served the sultan, changed with this reformation.

'Ottomanism' was intended to generate a feeling of solidarity among the various religious and ethnic groups of the empire.

Ottomanism was officially enshrined in Hatti-Humayun of 1856 which included guarantees that non-Muslims would have equal access to imperial schools and to public office.

Islamic law as a unifying factor is no longer politically defensible in an empire which is increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. It is noted that the ulama (in the state bureaucracy and independents) were not mentioned as reformers in Ottomanism.

An immediate factor, if any, which encouraged common citizenship was the growing phenomenon of European powers providing protection and patronage of non-Muslim subjects of the empire, and thereby exercising their influence.

The proliferation of protgs presented several problems. The empire lost fiscal and legal authority over their non-Muslim subjects who were employed by foreign powers. These employees were granted exemption from most taxes. Protgs advanced the interests of their sponsoring power to the detriment of Ottoman interest. The Muslim subjects resented the advantages of non-Muslims. This led to spurts of civil unrest which created more pretexts for European intervention in the internal affairs of the empire.

Despite the well intentions of the reformers, the top-down approach made citizens wary. Non-Muslims do not want to be conscripted. Further, losing their dhimmi status would mean forfeiture of European protection and giving up their communal and ecclesiastical autonomy.

Muslims also resisted these reforms to citizenship. They thought that the empire was abandoning its raison d'etre, to uphold Islam and Islamic law by abolishing the status of dhimmi. The latter has been a constituent of the Islamic polity for centuries. They had also come to believe that dhimmis were privileged by European protection and abolishing this status would increase the advantage non-Muslims enjoyed.

There was an attempt to establish institutional controls over the sultan and high ranking bureaucrats. However, the first period of constitutionalism (although not popular democracy) from 1876-1878 was very short-lived. The empire was attacked by Russia (1877-78) and the very existence of the empire was under threat. The empire suffered heavy territorial losses in the 'Christian Balkans'. The influx of Muslim refugees from the Balkans into Asia Minor became a demographic concern in the empire.

Parliament was dissolved in February 1878 in the midst of the war and the reigning sultan returned to the historical basis of Ottoman political community, loyalty to the dynasty as guardian of Islam.

In 1889 political opposition was formed with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Often referred to as the Young Turks, this movement actually had backers who were Arabs, Armenians, Kurds and Greeks of several religious backgrounds. The Young Turks included Muslim religious scholars, Arab Christians and Arab Muslims, Turkish civil servants, and Arab and Turkish army officers.

Muslim religious scholars in this group envisioned a modernist version of Islamic beliefs and practices for a constitutional political order. Among the most famous was Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi from Damascus.

Al-Qasimi wrote a famous essay in 1908 which outlined the compatibility of the constitutional order with Islam. He supported the idea of constitutionalism which provides the individual citizen with protection from unjust actions of rulers and bureaucrats. His essay spoke about legislative mechanisms and a representative assembly. He spoke about religious freedom for all.

While Ottomanism remained the unifying theme of the political discourse, the dialectics were split. This was not dissimilar to the Malayan experiences pre-Merdeka.

There was support for a strong central government with firm control over the provinces in order to prevent secession like the Balkan states. There was also support for a decentralised federal structure that would provide provincial autonomy in certain spheres.

It is not the purpose of this brief article in malaysiakini to dwell into the modern history of the Ottoman period before World War I, although certainly one would benefit greatly from this knowledge. It will be noted that history of this period is still being re-written and reclaimed.

The pertinent point to be made is, the politicking did not help the development of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious political community of citizens against the inherited categories of ethnicity and religion.

According to some commentators, the notion of a political community comprising of individuals belonging to groups with equal political and legal standing had gained ground among the educated urban stratum. This was not brought to the broader social strata.

Ebrahim Moosa (2001) certainly envisages some of these discourses as a work-in-progress. He maintains that the stagnation as for example in the progress from dhimmi to equal citizenship lies in the fact that Muslims are still labouring under 'the politics of empire".

"One of the most common difficulties is when jurists presume the continued existence of an Islamic empire or that exists some sort of theo-juristic commonwealth of Muslim societies that should be preserved as a matter of religion. It is almost as if the existence of an Islamic political model is integral to the survival of religion. Not only does the juridical and exegetical vision assume Muslim political hegemony, imbricated in the language of law and theology, but there is also an equally ambitious desire to maintain such political power."

Modern day scholars and human rights defenders are revisiting the 'politics of empire' in for example, human rights hermeneutics.

Notes:

Commins, David (1999), " A Square Peg in a Round Hole? Citizenship, Ethnicity, and Religion in the Ottoman Empire", in Citizenship and Identity: International Perspectives. The Clarke Centre for the

Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary Issues, Dickinson College.

Moosa, Ebrahim (2002), Configuring Muslim Thought. ISIM Newsletter 12/June 2002

Moosa, Ebrahim (2001), "The Poetics and Politics of Law After Empire: Reading Women's Rights in the Contestations of Law", UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, 2001-02. vol 1 No.1.