Shura and Good Governance in Islam: Balancing Consultation, Justice and Competence
Governance is basically deciding what others or everybody must do, telling them to do it, and expecting their compliance. The only explicit Qur’anic guidance related to governance is the encouragement to Muslims in Sura al-Shura to consult one another before governance decisions are taken and implemented. It is implicit, not explicit, that the ones to be consulted are those who will be affected by the decisions. There is no justification for the claim that somehow this encouragement to consultation is a validation of democracy as it is practised in modern Western or Westernising nation-states. The verse in question says nothing about how those who happen to enjoy the authority to govern could or should be replaced by a different group, nor that the authority to govern can only be validated by the so-called ‘will of the people’ expressed periodically through public voting. What the verse does say is sufficient for Muslims in power and for Muslims subject to power to understand how governance should function in a way pleasing to their Creator. Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel
The principle made clear in Surat al-Shura applies at every level of decision-making: from parents to business executives to officers and heads of state. What is this principle? It is that the procedures for making governance decisions should, at some stage, be open to the people affected so that their priorities and concerns, their hopes and fears about those decisions, are taken into account.
The large modern democracies have many virtues and benefits associated with their being democracies, but, as is obvious to everyone, what they deliver most reliably is that the holders of real power within and over the state, the real designers of policy and managers of decisions, are effectively hidden from public view and never come forward for election. The governments that win power through public election may wish to represent and implement the ‘will of the people’ but in practice they cannot prevail over the established structures of political and economic power. Over time, people lose their trust in the system, and either do not vote, or vote with no serious hope of substantive change. Voting has become a cultural, not a political, activity; it expresses identification with the rhetoric of one party rather than another, or still worse, with the public persona of one individual rather than another. This has nothing to do with shura.
Muslims have an obligation to shura, they have none whatever to two-or-more party democracy. Nevertheless, democracy is a know-how, and therefore in theory neutral: Muslims are not forbidden from seeking the good in it – for example, how to transfer power from one regime to another without bloodshed. But if this transfer of power, except for trivial changes in how the same policies are dressed up, does not in reality reflect the present ‘will of the people’, then the ‘consultation’ and participation of the people in the election of who governs them is not a substantive achievement.
Can the obligation of shura be practised in modern times at the level of state governance? Probably not, given the scale and complexity of government functions. Many large businesses make an effort to consult their staff and workers – they are nowadays typically called ‘stakeholders’ – before any major decisions are taken. So, perhaps, state level governance could move in this direction also? In practice, good governance has to be something better than an exercise in cosmetics, in how a business or government is perceived by its ‘stakeholders’.
Good governance is an outcome of the interplay between the virtue and competence of the governing authorities.
By competence I mean the ability to define an objective precisely and organise the means to realise it efficiently, i.e., reliably, quickly, economically. Competence also entails the ability to organise several objectives, to prioritise among them and to adapt to changes in the means available to realise them. It should not need saying that competence is still cpmtence regardless of whether its outcome is deemed ‘good’ or ‘evil’. Typically, competence is concerned with near and mid-term objectives, and the long-term consequences of those objectives, or the consequences for people far away, do not enter into its calculations of what is efficient.
By virtue I mean the conscious effort to define and pursue general purposes that are pleasing to Allah, such as, for example, doing no harm to others, in the near or long term. Yet, since virtuous ends, general or particular, cannot be achieved without deploying the appropriate means, a manner of governance committed to virtuous outcomes cannot dispense with competence and know-how. That is why knowledgeable Muslims have always stressed that for any objective to be called ‘good’, both ends and means must be halal, that is securely within the class of behaviours that Allah and His Messenger salla-llah `alayhi wa-sallam have described as approved or at least permissible.
Most importantly, it is necessary to always remind ourselves that no virtuous intention or action exists in some blank or neutral space. It is indeed entirely possible, that the most pious, personally incorruptible government official or judge or scholar will find him or herself trying to do the right thing in the midst of widespread corruption, and yet more difficult: sometimes he or she may have to accept doing a small wrong thing in order to stay in office, to hold on to the ability to do the right things at least some of the time.
In sum, good governance, a just exercise of authority, is in practical reality a balancing act – balancing the claims of different interest groups with different or opposed priorities, balancing the greater good against the lesser evil. This is only sustainable if the person with power acts in fear of Allah’s perfect scrutiny of their intentions and actions, and with a strong hope that He will, as He best judges, erase the effects of their failures and wrong-doings, and reward their good decisions and good actions. Good governance, in sum, depends on the ability to act on the belief that ultimate authority and sovereignty belong to Allah and because that is the case, good prevails here and hereafter, even when it seems otherwise.
