Islam Rediscovered
12. Islamic Fundamentalism
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If the establishment of an ideal State were the actual
target of Islam, there should, accordingly, be
express injunctions to this effect in the Quran and
hadith
. For instance, there should be verses of this
type in the Quran: “O Muslims, you are enjoined to
establish an ideal State.” But there is no such verse
and neither is there a single
hadith
which could lead
to this conclusion. The references put forward by
the upholders of this concept are all inferential in
nature, whereas according to Islamic jurisprudence,
on the issue of any basic Islamic injunction,
inferential argument is in no way valid. Such
argument is for peripheral matters and not for
basics.
There is another important point in this connection.
Those who uphold the establishment of an ideal
State to be the goal of Islam ought to learn this
lesson from the early period of Islam that this aim
was neither achieved in this ideal period nor was it
achievable. Those who present the first phase of
Islam to be that of an ideal society or an ideal State
have fallen prey to a fallacy. They present the
example of ideal individuals, equating them with
the ideal society or the ideal State. The truth of the
