Pelosi on unemployment insurance - spending is good

[ootii]

In this Youtube video Nancy Pelosi explains why unemployment insurance is a good deal for the economy .

She says that people spend their unemployment checks almost immediately and that the money goes straight into the local economy where it creates jobs. This is the typical American double-edged charity - get something for myself by being charitable - but it nevertheless did remind me of the underlying reason behind Zakat: to keep money in circulation.

Talking about money in 7th century Madinah may be somewhat of an anachronism. At that time the Arabs were at a transitional stage between barter and cash economies. Six commodities were used for exchange. These so-called /al-sila3ah al-sittah/ were gold and silver, wheat and barley, dates and salt.

Zakat was more of a penalty than a tax. You could avoid paying it by spending your money and keeping it in the economy. If you preferred to hoard wealth, then you would pay a penalty on it of 2.5% per annum, until your entire hoard was dissipated. The beneficiaries of zakat are also narrowly restricted by the Quran itself.

So, where does the state get revenue?

There is a land tax or khums. I believe this is also regarded as zakat so cannot be spent on many kinds of things.

Looking at the power of the state in Shariah, we see that it can collect zakat, that it can organize the community for its common defense, that it can enforce law derived from Sharia sources and administrative laws deemed ancillary to that purpose, and that it can sustain its own administrative apparatus from zakat funds. That's about it.

I expect that scholars - particularly those sponsored by the political authority - would attempt to dilate the power of the state following a trajectory of "helping the helpless" and national security, much as has been done in the US. It's too bad that "Islamists" are so obsessed with reactive politics and ranting about "kufar" - there is much more important work to be done.

[hlatif]

Salaam Omar,

I envision the Islamic state as being somewhat libertarian. It imposes laws more on the public sphere of conduct and not the private sphere. It does have to arbitrate potential disputes and it may need, through Hisbah, to have some economic policies and rulings to help prevent disputes and so on. I remember that the attempt by Umar to set the Mahr was rejected by a woman and Umar (r) stood corrected.

The land tax of early Islam was only set for the land that was conquered mainly in Iraq. So, it is not really a tool and the Khums can be used for Allah and Rasool and that is understood as helping the governing body which the Rasool was. The khums of Fay' can be extended to any mineral wealth or natural resource the country has and so on.

However, the Muslim government is not prohibited from taxing for special projects either and to help the public works of the state. However, the public works can fall generally in the category of "Fee Sabili Allah".

Take care and thanks for bringing this subject to discussion.

Hussein

[ootii]

Salaam Hussein,

I think the power to tax is fundamental to government and if government is to be restrained, then circumscribing its power to tax is a primary means of doing that. I think the authority to tax for "special projects" may be contentious. Practically speaking, some infrastructure projects require massive funding. Most of what government does, however, could be more efficiently organized through non-government channels. Private health care systems organized through religious organizations are a case in point in the US. Egypt is another country where religious organizations have stepped in to provide minimum standards of health care.

Saudi Arabia is a Sharia state and does not have a written constitution. There are probably good reasons for this. To my knowledge, Taqi al-Din al-Nabahani is the only person in modern times to attempt to write a constitution for an Islamic state. He was the founder of the Hizb al-Tahrir so I expect this had something to do with the caliphate. The document is in an appendix to one of his books. It may have been The Islamic State, but I don't recall. I don't have a copy.

I'll be be passing through Atlanta in week or so. PM me if you'll be in the area.

Salaam,

Omar

[hlatif]

Salaam Omar,

As a doctor in the US, I come to look very skeptically at the private enterprise of Health insurance. One can argue that a government controlled enterprise is worse, and probably there has to be a balance. I am very skeptical of a system that is very capitalistic and controlled by the power of money to be able to regulate itself. However, I am ranting in a sense.

The discussion about constitution and the Islamic state. I would say that Saudi Arabia is closer to how the original Islamic state functioned. Basically, there may not be a constitution but there is an understanding that rulings should be at least in harmony with the Islamic Texts and certainly not in contradiction to them.

The Ottoman empire tried to implement Tanzimat towards the end of their rule. Then they tried to make laws for all the Judges to adhere to and so on. I do not know if that could be considered some element of constitution. Howewver, Noah Feldman, in his book, "the fall and rise of the Islamic State", suggested that this is a factor in the demise of Fiqh towards the beginning of the last century because it took the independance of the Judges and scholars and put them under more direct rule of the government, something that is very negative.

Hussein

[ootii]

Assalamu alaikum Hussein,

I would be cautious about generalizing America's experience with heathcare to the rest of the world. I suspect that most of America's problems in this regard stem from poor organization and regulation of the insurance industry. The medical profession itself is capable of resolving most of the other problems.

I agree that Saudi Arabia is probably closer to the model of the original state at Madinah than much else we have today. A constitution does not need to be written - Britain's isn't.

The Tanzimat failed because scholars were unable to reconcile competing schools of fiqh. The Turks follow the Hanafi madhdhab while the Arabs are generally Shaf'i or Malaki, with a smattering of Hanbalis and Hanafis. Al-Azhar attempted a similar project with similar results. In the 1930s, King Abdul Aziz Al Saud tried to deal with the notorious independence of judges by restricting them to a short list of fiqh manuals, to which they were required to refer when giving judgments. These included non Hanbali sources that the judges did not know or understand well. This list was later revised to only Hanbali sources. This edict is still in force today, I believe.

Salaam,

Omar

[Jamal]

There are some very interesting points in this discussion. I have a lot to say in response.

However, I would like to first offer the question of what exactly a government is.

A lot of it has to do with the use of violence. Governments can use violence in a non-immediate sense. That's what makes them different than individuals or private organizations. Individuals have the right to use violence to defend against immediate threats to themselves, but they don't have the right to individually seek justice for such offenses, nor do they have to right to use violence to preempt violence. It's questionable whether governments have that right either.

We've discussed 5:45 a bit here, and I think it's very relevant to this conversation. In a lot of senses, governments are the arbitrators of 5:45. They define what's balanced and just compensation.

Does 5:45 allow governments to use violence to enforce things like tax laws and drug laws where no violent offense was committed? I personally think it doesn't. Governments have no business enforcing such things on individuals unless it's consensual.

I agree with Hussein. I view Sharia as ultimately very libertarian.

In terms of the greater role of government, that of dealing with sociological problems, beyond the notion that there may be good ideas, I think it's necessary to look at the notion of whether or not governments have jurisdiction to enforce such ideas.

For instance national health care is a very good idea. However, does 5:45 prohibit governments from confiscating wealth from individuals to pay for it? Are there less coercive ways of handling it? I personally think there are.

I think the notion of consent is very important here. In the case of America, we're just too big and too diverse to enforce such things on a national level. That's why I think a lot of these things should be dealt with at a state level or else give states the option to opt out. That way you offer people the right of consent.

In terms of Sharia and 5:45, I think the consent part of it overrides the issue of coercion. Taking something from someone that they agreed to give is not theft.

The issue of reconciling Zakat with 5:45, I suppose is that Zakat doesn't really belong to you. In that sense it's society's property and not yours, so there is no theft in taking it. The key thing to remember is, again, the issue of limitations. There are definite limits on the taking of Zakat. When you start taking 40,50,60% of people's wealth, that's going way beyond what is acceptable.

To me the issue of limitations comes forefront in this discussion. It's something that the Quran deals with very nicely, and our modern US constitution deals with not so nicely. The really fascinating thing is that there are a lot of limited government, libertarian, and libertarian leaning people in America who if you really sat down and parsed their beliefs item by item could easily be identified as political Muslims.

[ootii]

Salaam Jamal,

You ask what government is. We have this definition in the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Founders deferred to natural rights. Now, outside of religious systems it is difficult to demonstrate that these natural rights actually exist. But since we are speaking about Islamic government, this needn't concern us too much.

Government, in the Liberal tradition that animates American political ideology and in the Muslim tradition rooted in the Quran and the Sunnah, is organized by people to in order to defend their natural rights. While non-Muslims may have some difficulty stating exactly what these natural rights are and why they should exist at all, Muslims will refer to the Quran and the Sunnah to provide evidence of both their nature and their existence. One such rights is to worship God, and when that right is curtailed, Muslims will assert themselves, as the Americans did, and declare that their allegiance to tyrants "is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."

With respect to 5:45, as we have discussed preciously, the ayat limited punishment to what was deemed to be commensurate with the crime. Sharia would apply to all political authority, regardless of its form - and not all political authority takes the form of an organized state. With regard to coercion, one of the Sahaba is said to have remarked that whoever would not be restrained by the Quran, would be restrained by the Sultan, and again, the hudud represent, for all intents and purposes, a limitation on the authority of states and rulers, not a license.

Zakat is punitive. It is not intended to fund the state but rather to dissuade people from hoarding wealth. That is clear from the Quran. I believe that if powerful "caretaking" governments were mandated by the Quran, some mechanism for funding them would have been made clear. This is not the case. This omission leads me to believe that Islamic government has a narrow mandate to secure public safety and to defend the natural rights of the people, following the Quran and Sunnah.

I believe you are right: there is a lot in American thought and tradition that resonates with Muslims, and vice versa. Once people begin to realize this, a lot of things will begin to change.

Salaam,

Omar

[Jamal]

That's an interesting point, that Zakat is a form of punishment. It would be great if we could look at taxation that way. It's a lot different than the common interpretation of "give Ceasar what is Ceasar's." I think there's a tendency in Europe and America to look at governments as all powerful, that as long as they are "democratic," there is no limit to how far they can intrude into people's lives. I think in other places, there's a much greater distrust of the concept of government in general.

It's ironic that many Muslims see Islam as giving license to highly oppressive governments. I see it exactly the opposite. Maybe a little of it is how you view freedom. When I was younger I thought the most important freedoms were symbolic things like the ability to wear my hair long and insult the government. I've concluding that these things aren't so important, though. I think other freedoms, for instance the ability to form economic associations and collectives without government interference are much more important.