With the intensified electoral competition of General National Conference (GNC) seats, the public in Libya  has come to know, for the first time, terms like “civil state” and “secularism”.

With the intensified electoral competition of General National Conference (GNC) seats, the public in Libya  has come to know, for the first time, terms like “civil state” and “secularism”.

These words were used like arms by parties with socio-Islamic backgrounds to face the Gathering of National Forces, headed by Mahmoud Jibril. Coming from a civil background, Jibril has swept the elections even though some observers asserted that the religious parties would win as they did in Tunisia and Egypt, given that the Libyan people were not different from the Egyptian and Tunisian people.

Jibril’s belief in secularism and the civil state he is advocating has spread amongst the public, which means that his party is associated with atheism and faithlessness. Unfortunately, however, neither the civil state advocates nor the Islamic currents were familiar enough with the civil state and its relationship to the Islamic state. Furthermore, the interweaving between Islamists and liberals in Tunisia, where the Ennahda Party won, was deemed jaundiced by the Libyan circles. There was no indication that such a convergence might take place in Libya as it was, in the media and out of the ballot boxes, conclusively for the favour of the Islamic entities.

To the contrary of what happened in Egypt, where the civil state advocates allied against the religious currents to criticize them and disclose their inadequacies, Jibril and his coalition in Libya received blows everywhere, from Facebook and the media, including Arab channels affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, to the religious establishment in Libya, which invited people not to vote for those who were trying to separate religion and life.

All this leads us to one question: is the state of Islam a civil or a religious one?

Muslim clerics have answered this question using the mosques and the high illiteracy levels to convince people that a civil state means removing the hijab—scarf covering the hair of Muslim womem— and legalizing corruption. A religious state is the safety valve for them where all economic, political and social aspects of the state would end in their hands. Therefore, some Islamists tried to forbid elections, because they didn’t exist in the state of the Prophet Muhammad, right?

Wrong.

I’m going to examine the first elections after first explaining a civil state.

A civil state is defined as the state that is administered and controlled by professional competencies, rather than religious scholars or clerics. It separates between the three powers together with political and party pluralism. Iran is a religious state; the supreme leader has the final word over the parliament and the president, which is an outcome denied by the advocates of a religious state, though their approach would simply lead to it.

There is substantial proof that the state of Islam was civil. The final word wasn’t that of the clerics but of those with knowledge, wisdom and experience. In the first military confrontation with the Quraysh atheists in the Invasion of Badr, Habbab Bin Munther asked the Prophet whether the place he chose was ordered by a cleric or a field commander.  “Is this a place ordered by God, or by opinion, artifice and intrigue?” The Prophet responded as a civil leader “It is by opinion, artifice and intrigue”. Habbab then advised him to change the location so as to make the Wells of Badr behind the enemy.

Separating religion from politics is also reflected in the assuming of power. Even though he was a companion of the Prophet and his friend, Abu Bakr couldn’t succeed Muhammad without opinion and advice, which is known as the meeting of the Bani Sa’eda Saqeefeh (‘shed’), which was elections par excellence as they led to the sharing of power between the immigrants and the Ansar – the Prophet’s supporters – (Rulers shall be from us and ministers shall be from you). Furthermore, in his first sermon, he said that the state of Islam is a state of opinion and advice rather than of mandate and guardianship, to the contrary of the guardianship of the religious infallible jurisprudent in Iran now: “O people, I have been appointed as your Caliph even though I’m not the best of you. If I do well, help me, if I do wrong, correct me.” Correction means at the present time the respect for the other opinion, freedom of press and participation in governance.

Were there elections in the Prophet’s state?

Supporters of the religious state don’t know or deliberately ignore the proof in Islamic history of the Prophet’s adoption of elections as a way to run the state and a method for the people to participate in governance. Having been acknowledged by the Muslims as their leader in the Second Pledge at al-Aqabah, the Prophet said to them: “Select twelve deputies amongst you to assume your affairs.” They selected twelve deputies; nine from the Khazraj and three from the Aws (as per their populations). He then said to the deputies, “You are the sponsors of your people like when the disciples of Jesus were his sponsors and I’m the sponsor of my people.”  This was the first electoral process in Islamic history, as Europe in the seventh century was experiencing wars and conflicts and hadn’t yet known the civil state.

Moreover, the Prophet deliberately didn’t establish any way to assume power after his death so as to let Muslims choose the way that suited their time though the Righteous Caliphs after him assumed power through direct election until Muawiyah turned the governance into monarchy.

Finally, I would like to cite the story of a Jew who committed a sin, so the Prophet ordered him to be punished according to the Jewish, rather than Islamic jurisprudence, which proves that the state of Islam was civil. However, given that people don’t prefer to approach this issue being a taboo, some Islamic currents have contributed to affirming it and found a fertile soil, which is the origin of the ‘civil state’ as opposed to the religious state that prospered in Europe during the Middle Ages, then came secularism that separated religion from society.

We hope that the Arab Spring, which has led to political, social, cultural and radical changes through positively affecting the people, maintaining their way of thinking and changing their view of life, will change the stereotype of the states in Islamic societies that have, in the recent years, bred nothing but violence, chaos, dependency, negativity and reclusion.