A Critique of Theories and Theorizing in Social Sciences: Special Reference to Islamic Political Experience Garba Bala Muhammad Abstract This paper seeks to present a critique of and an alternative to theories and theorizing employed by social scientists to explain the relationship between religion and politics in general and Islamic Political Experience in particular. Within the context of the paper we argued that politcal theory can be conveniently understood in terms of the co-existence of two distinct and rival styles of though Positivism and historicism. For the lack of better terms we take positivism and historicism to be conventional and radical paradigms respectively. The paradigms are found wanting in that they do not have the capacity to provide a satisfactory framework of ideas and common vocabularly with which to conduct discourse on Islamic Political Experience. In any case, for a paradigm to do that, it must become fully subsumed in an Islamic worldview. A paradigm presented as a critique and alternative to these paradigms is based on conceptual analysis, with pure Qur’anic and Shariah concepts providing both the framework and methdological tools of analysis. It is an axiomatic approach as it involves systematic analysis of a number of axioms, the starting point of which is the idea of the totality of Islam as an ideal which Muslims endeaovur to concretize. Introduction Currently, students of social sciences are showing interest in theorizing on the relationship between religion and politics in general, and the Islamic political experience in particular. Islamization of social sciences ranks high in popularity with many intellectuals in the Muslim world. To see how the theoretical discourse on the Islamic political experience tended to remain within the conventional and radical paradigms is rather striking. The question that suggests itself and which should be considered here is this: Do Garba Bala Muhammad is a doctoral candidate and lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria. 34 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 the conventional and radical paradigms have the capacity to explain the Islamic political experience? Ta provide an answer to this question we intend to review four categories of theoretical literature on religion and politics. The first category concerns the question of religion and political legitimization. The second category concerns the problem of religion and partisan identification. The third category deals with the question of religion as it relates to the problems of reaction and revolution. And finally, the fourth category of theoretical literature deals with the problem of religious movements and Islamic resurgence. This article is organized into six parts. The first part provides an overview of the conventional and radical paradigms. The second part provides an overview of the theoretical literature that addresses the role of religion as the basis of legitimization and delegitimization of rule. The third part reviews theoretical literature on religion and partisan identification. The fourth part focuses the theoretical literature that addresses the question of the role of religion in reaction and revolution. The fifth part deals with the theoretical literature that focuses on religious movements and Islamic resurgence. The sixth part provides an alternative to the conventional and radical paradigms. Overview of the Conventional and Radical Paradigms Recently, Thomas Kuhn’s’ use of “paradigm” has interested political scientists. In Kuhn’s analysis, ‘paradigms’ are defined as universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners. In Kuhn’s notion, a paradigm relates to research firmly based on one or more past scientific achievements-achievements that some scientific community acknowl- edges for a time as supplying the foundation for its practices. These achievements become paradigmatic examples of actual scientific practice. Examples come from law, theory, application and instrumentation and provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research. This prefigures the notion of “what Eckstein has called ‘meta-theory,’ theory about theory, or the kind of research that is meant to lead to research rather than to findings.”* We can define paradigms as very basic metatheoretical assumptions which underscore the frame of reference, mode of theorizing and modus operundi of the political theorists who operate within them. Metatheoretical Garba Bala: A Critique of Theories and Theorizing in Social Sciences 35 assumptions refer to those assumptions that relate to the questions of appro- priateness, consistency, and comprehensiyeness of the theories used to explain the what, how, and why of the phenomena under study. In its simplest terms, a paradigm is just a pattern or framework that gives organization and direction to a given area of scientific investigation? Hence a paradigm is a scientific community’s perspective on the world, its set of beliefs and commitments-conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and instrumental. This is because a paradigm guides a scientific community’s selection of problems, evaluation of data, and advocacy of theory. Within the context of this article we are arguing that political theory can be conveniently understood in terms of the coexistence of the two distinct and rival styles of thought: positivism and historicism. Each style of thought relates to a dominant paradigm in political science and they may be labeled as conventional and radical paradigms, respectively. Each paradigm is defined by very basic metatheoretical assumptions in relation to the nature of science and society. The philosophical roots of the radical paradigm can be traced back to the late nineteenth century when historicism grew out of German academic debate. The leading proponents of historicism include, among others, Hegel and Marx. Sometimes referred to as perspectivism and relativism, historicism deals with history. Writing in the historicist tradition, Hegel and Marx dealt with this problem by showing that a succession of historical epochs would lead to the creation of a final epoch, which would represent the historical process as a whole. The historicists argue that the main task of the social scientist is to discover the laws of historical development and on the basis of such laws make predictions about the future! Historicists take exception to positivist thought by arguing that data based on sensations are not acquired in unbiased situations. The mind is active, not passive, and it selects and shapes experience according to prior awareness. One cannot determine if the source of experience corresponds to the objective world. Moreover, there are multiple views, not a single view of the objective world. Distinct perspectives of the world are found from one epoch or culture to another. Truth is relative to the worldview characteristic of the epoch or culture to which one belongs. Hence, world- views are temporal and relative rather than absolute. Historicism takes the position that science can only be understood in terms of history, in sharp contrast to positivism, which served as a reaction to historicism. Positivism grew out of classical British empiricism. It is 36 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 associated with the name of Auguste Comte, who is said to have been partially influenced by Henri Saint Simon, who places greater emphasis on science, knowledge, and technology. The classical British empiricists- Saint Simon, Comte, and others-provided some of the principles which underpin what is today called behavioralism, which emphasizes the con- cepts, laws, and theories of empirical science that reflects occurrences in the real world.5 The conventional paradigm was formulated from the positivist tradition, especially from logical empiricism, which captivated many positivist thinkers of the late nineteenth century and behavioralists of the midtwentieth century. Logical empiricism holds that thought processes alone cannot know the whole truth and that they need the support of human observation. Hence knowledge is based on objectivity and on observations of real experience. A reconstruction of positivist thought suggests the following tendencies. First, scientific principles are based on sensory experience and thus are independent of time, place, and even circumstance. They may, however, be revised according to subsequent developments in the field. The empirical sciences stress laws, concepts, and theories that differ from metaphysical accounts of the world or from nonempirical endeavors in logic and pure mathematics. Second, generalizations about the external world are mean- ingful only if they are constructed from, or tested by, the raw material of experience. One cannot know what one cannot see, touch, smell, or hear. Experience-based knowledge is the only objective knowledge. In part, the conventional paradigm evolved as a reaction to the noncom- parative, descriptive, parochial, and static character of the traditional approach, which focused on formal and legal aspects of government. The conventional paradigm also incorporates a critique of traditional political thought, including Marxism, that interrelates facts and values in compara- tive analysis. The historicists, it is argued, postulated overly ambitious theories of history rather than engaging in any meticulous empirical testing of hypotheses and.formulations of concepts.6 In summary, the two paradigms evolved their own view of the world, the individual, and society, which has led to the appearance of different concepts, principles, theories and laws used by the political analyst to explain political phenomena. The radical paradigm seems to have explanatory superiority over the conventional paradigm, but it is much too faithful to its own theoretical constructs and far too negligent of empirical Garba &la: A Critique of Theories and Theorizing in social Sciences 37 data. As the radical paradigm draws its historicist assumptions from Marxist thought, many of the criticisms labeled against Marxism apply equally to it. Marxism, however, has several commendable features. First, it recognizes an inevitable class conflict in an unjust society. Second, it is concerned with socioeconomic equality. Third, it contains a well-founded critique of the greed and exploitation found in feudalism, colonialism, and capitalism. And fourth, it has a relatively broad and comprehensive perspective on human society? Marxism, Lenczowskis argued, is a grossly oversimplified and inaccurate view of history and society, whose fallacies have been amply exposed by democratic and revisionist writers alike. Marx’s monocausal view of social change, his historical determinism, his dogmatism about the necessity of class conflict, and his narrow concept of the alienation of the masses as stemming from the control of the means of production by the capitalists have been challenged on many occasions. It is also characterized by “overwhelming determinism, pervasive materialism and capitulation to uncritical s~ientism.”~ Scientism, as Hayek points out, is “the slavish imitation of the method and language of science.”’O Marxist analysis overemphasizes material life to the exclusion of other vital aspects of life. In any case, an approach that emphasizes economic stimuli to the exclusion of other factors is not satisfactory in elucidating political phenomena. Marxist analysis is characterized by a tendency to twist facts until they fit into a framework of preconceived ideas, neglecting facts that do not fit. In sharp contrast with the Marxist thesis, history does not appear to be a unilinear, inexorable, and irreversible process. Moreover, as Karl Popper rightly noted, historical phenomena are susceptible to a plurality of interpretations that are fundamentally on the same level of both suggestiveness and arbitrariness. These interpretations could be presented as unobjectionable points of view. Instead, Marxist scholars present them as doctrines or theories, asserting that all history is the history of class struggle. If they actually find that their point of view is fertile, and that many facts can be ordered and interpreted in its lights, then they mistake this for a confirmation, or even for a proof of their doctrine. In practice, Marxism tends not only to be characterized by evasiveness and opportunism, but as Dilnawaz Siddiqui notes, it has always ended up becoming a state totalitarianism and party dictatorship. It fails to recognize the individual’s need for a certain measure of personal freedom to maintain hisher sanity and to actuate hisher creativity. Its morality has no lasting 38 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 metaphysical standards; it allows no dissent or human rights; and it has no stable, clear-cut criteria of goodness, beauty, and truth.’* The conventional paradigm, on the other hand, eschews theoretical unassailability in order to achieve fidelity to facts. But it is obsessed with the notions of objectivity and value neutrality. So much so that it tends “to throw out the baby value with the bathwater impre~ision.”’~ Despite the nonideological nature of inquiry that the conventional paradigm advocates, it tends to assimilate some liberal premises; for example, the separation of religion and government. Secularism in politics was accompanied by the liberal notion of John Locke and later of John Stuart Mill, that every person has the right to hold and profess an opinion, as long as the opinion is not seditious. A positive belief in the liberty of conscience was integrated as a law of nature. Interestingly, system metaphor is basic in the conventional paradigm and systems approach has its roots in structural-functionalism. Moreover, as John Paden points out, “the system paradigm, which is the basic paradigm in social science-whether in critical theory, positivism, behavioralism, post-behavioralism, or phenomenology-is inevitably rooted in a normative context.”14 This means the conventional paradigm too is built on metaphysical assumptions and abstractions about the nature of social and political phenomena. Hence there is no such thing as scientific objectivity. The conceptualization, theoretical formulation, empirical verification, and final packaging of knowledge takes place in a sociocultural milieu. Hence to hide it under the carpet amounts to dishonesty and hypocrisy.15 Religion: The Basis of Legitimization and Delegitimization of Rule? Political history suggests an intimate relationship between theology and politics in the thought of ancient man. l6 Perhaps the best indicator of this is the “divine theory” whose underlying assumption is that some people are God‘s chosen ones. Political power came from God and those who were chosen to exercise it were higher on the social scale than ordinary people. Consequently, people were duty bound to obey the prince, even if he was a tyrant, because he was God’s magistrate on earth.17 Consistent with this line of thought, Maurice Duverger notes: For centuries, those in power have sought religious sanctions. Political leaders regarded themselves as God‘s representatives, or more simply even claimed to be gods themselves. Furthermore, religious beliefs in 44 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 bourgeoisie, it is argued, deflect intraclass contradictions into the stream of religious consciousness to serve narrow Religious strifes that often flare up in Nigeria are said to be politically motivated, neatly planned by the bourgeoisie who systematically use antisocial elements to achieve specific results. For instance, U ~ m a n ~ ~ admirably chronicled in great detail the various ways in which the country’s bourgeoisie skillfully manipulated religious feelings and symbols to realize their political and economic aspirations. The importance of Usman’s4 work is that he brings this crucially important idea of the manipulation of religion into discussion. Manipulation, however, is not the whole story. Had he taken a multicausal approach, he would have realized that manipulation of religion alone does not explain the entire matter. But he was unwilling to probe beyond the level of class relations. The lack of such a perspective distorts his conclusions, affects the kind of questions he asked, and limits fruitful lines of inquiry. There is no denying the parsimony of squeezing everything into class categories, but fidelity to facts is bound to lose out to simplistic reductionism in the process. As Watt rightly notes, manipulation of religious symbols and ideas by the bourgeoisie for political purposes does not necessarily strengthen their power ba~e.4~ Moreover, the thesis of manipulation of religion tends to overspecify the guile of the bourgeoisie and gullibility of the masses. Whatever insight into the nature of religious strife this thesis may show, one thing is clear: it cannot adequately elucidate the problem. We have already noted that Marxist scholars emphasize the reactionary signrficance of religion, but some of them see the Maitatsine uprising as a critique of Nigerian society. The Maitatsine uprising brought the fundamental contradictions in the society into clear relief. According to Yaqub A. Adam,& Maitatsine’s teachings provided a reverse focus of Nigerian social values, as evidenced by Maitatsine’s followers’ total rejection of prevailing capitalist values. The fact that the bulk of them were of lumpen elements, Adam argues, proves the alienation and marginalization of certain groups in the society-those left behind in the consumer boom of the 1970s ushered in by petro-dollars. Bjom Be~kman,4~ however, describes Maitatsine’s followers as lumpen proletariat inspired by a confused revolutionary opposition to the new order. Heinecke agrees with those who view the Maitatsine uprising as a critique of Nigerian society.48 He holds, however, that the problem was not specifically a religious one, even though its expression was superficially Garba Bala: A Critique of Theories and Theorizing in Social Sciences 45 religious. Though crude, primitive and uncoordinated, these upheavals are a marked expression of mounting and widespread discontent in Nigerian society-blind struggles of people opposing repression and yearning for freedom. He argues that religion divides the oppressed and dissuades them from changing the system. He acknowledges, however, that it is not reli- gion generally that oppresses but its interpretation. Though Heinecke acknowledges the fact that both oppressor and oppressed tend to use religion to further their respective interests, he insists on fmding answers in terms of class relations; thus he obtains simplistic answers from important questions. Sometimes occupational concern with class analysis produces circular arguments that lead nowhere. For instance, H e i n e ~ k e ~ ~ argues that the masses are poor because they are religious and they are religious because they are poor. Putting this another way, he argues that poverty leads to intensity of religiosity which in turn leads to poverty. He mistakes cause for effect and effect for cause simultaneously. The general thrust of class analysis is that the mode of production is the material foundation of social life and it largely determines other aspects of life, particularly the legal system, the political system, the belief system, and morality. Once the mode of production is understood we have a fairly good idea of what the general character of other aspects of the social system will be like.5o Marxist class analysis defines classes as based entirely on the means of production, and portrays politics as an instrument for furthering the interests of the dominant class. Such a one-dimensional paradigm has little room in its explanatory model for phenomena that cannot be reduced into class categories. Halim Barakat?’ who uses class analysis as his theoretical framework, describes religion as an absolutist and medieval framework of reference without a clear program for solving complicated problems. He argues that religious visions on which Islamic movements are based on a reaction rather than a solution, an impasse rather than a way out, and a threat rather a promise. Even when people enthusiastically support activist religious movements, Barakat says?2 the ultimate product of their engagement is impoverishment rather then enrichment, and repression rather than transformation of reality. “When religion is conceptualized in such narrow materialist terms,” Najib Ghadbian maintains, “it is easy to overlook the religious vision as a viable Basic in the radical paradigm is denial of the transformative quality of religion. This attitude stems from the belief that religious movements are 46 T h e American Journd of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 vehicles for nothing more politically imaginative than petty-bourgeois ambition. Religious conflicts are believed to lack the capacity for transforming the social system, and communal actions cannot go beyond violence and protest to the creative act of political renewal. First and foremost, L0kw0od~~ argues, communal conflict is not directed at an alteration in the structure of power and deference by one section of the community to the disadvantage of the other. Revolutionary goals can only emerge from the antagonism of groups in plural societies when ethnic divisions happen to coincide with lines of economic and other power relationships. Clearly, from the foregoing overview, a theoretical framework organized around the ideas of mode of production and class does not have the capacity to capture the complex totality out of which religious movements emerge and in which they operate. Little wonder, the radical paradigm is not useful in analyzing and understanding religious conflicts. In fact, there' has been very little advance beyond the line of approach that presents religious conflict either as a joint product of bourgeois cunning and proletarian gullibility, or as a displacement of social antagonisms whose origins are to be found in multiple contradictions of the capitalist mode of prod~ction.~~ Also clear from the foregoing overview is the unanimity among some scholars of both liberal and radical persuation on the question of the reactionary role of religion. Neither reaction nor regression, however, is the whole story. The revolutionary signdicance of religion, especially Islam, is an objective reality.56 Hence, to confiie the role of religion to reaction and regression is to remove some vitally important questions from view. The phenomenal rise of Islam as a viable social and political alternative, which has become an important subject of research and analysis in contemporary social sciences, provides the best example of a religious ideology of social change integrally related to political activism.57 As the history of Iran demonstrates, it is not a theory without foundation. The Islamic revolution in Iran has shown that revolution can be based on nonmaterialistic ideologies and ushered in by a collective action of all classes.58 Revolutions express themselves differently, and each has its own way of formulating its critique of the past and its aspirations for the future. The preferred future is always presented as a qualitative improvement over the present. The Iranian revolution presents itself in terms of Islam, that is to say: a religious movement with a religious leadership, a religiously Garba Ma: A Critique of Theories and Theorizing in Social Sciences 47 formulated critique of the old order, and religiously expressed plans for the Moreover, Muslim revolutionaries look to the birth of Islam as their paradigm, and see themselves engaged in a struggle against paganism, oppression and empire, to establish, or rather restore, a true Islamic order.@’ Hence the fallacy of Smith’s assertion that the revolutionary significance of religion is only discovered or rediscovered under the stimulus of Marxism.6l In political life, Islam still offers the most widely intelligible formulation of ideas of social norms and laws and of new ideals and aspirati0ns.6~ Islam, therefore, does not need the stimulus of any “ism” to make it relevant or legitimate as an instrument of socioeconomic and political change. According to Chaudhary and Berdk~e?~ through the application of ijtihad, Muslim society has the capacity to resolve any changes, new situations, or problems facing the Ummah. In ever-changing sociocultural and socioeconomic conditions, it is ijtihad that prevents fossilization and precludes the development of stereotypes within Islam. With ijtihad, Islam has the inherent capacity to address and respond to change while still following the teaching of the Qur’an‘and the Prophet. Thus, theoriziag on Islamic political experience with one’s back turned on ijtihad is bound to be a useless exercise, as ijtihad represents a means of replenishing the depleted reservoir of stale ideas from the fount of authentic sources. It is the principle of ijtihad which enables Islam to cope with the ever-changing pattern of life’s requirements, to offer the Muslim masses the framework within which they can attempt a change, and to give them an ideological bond that can hold their units together and w m them with the fire of revolt. In essence, the principle of ijtihad makes it possible for a Muslim society to raise its voice against injustice, fight tyranny, and strive to establish a society that upholds the value-pattern embodied in the Qur’an and Sunnah. Any general theory of Islamic political experience that does not fully incorporate this fact must forfeit all credibility. Religious Movements and Islamic Resurgence .The phenomenon of religious movements in general, and of Islamic resurgence in particular, has engaged the attention of scholars of different intellectual persuasions. For instance, Fernandez@ offers four models for examining religious movements defined against a background of Christian evangelism-ativitist, messianic, separatist, and reformative. Browns 48 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 18.2 offers six features of what he terms a paradigm of messianic movements in the semitic traclition-cataclysmic, charismatic, sectarian, revivalist, puritanical, and revelationist-which he uses to analyze the Sudanese Mahdiya. H~mphreys~ identifies fundamentalism, secularism, and modernism as the three poles around which the thought and behavior of Muslims in the contemporary world revolve. Gelh1er,6~ on the other hand, characterizes the phenomenon as puritanism and neopuritanism. The concepts of messianism, puritanism, and fundamentalism on which the main arguments of the above models hinge have their origin in Christian history. The terms puritanism and fundamentalism, with their non-Muslim origin in the late sixteenth century and early twentieth century, respectively, have no place in, and are therefore irrelevant to, the Islamic schema. There is no structural or semantic link between the Christian puritanical and fundamentalist movements and the contemporary Islamic resurgence. Hence the question of what the contemporary resurgence of Islam is about is beyond the capacity of these models. The models fail to clearly specify whether the impetus for the resurgence, the direction of the resurgence, and the agents of the resurgence are essentially Islamic or not. Moreover, the models are based on the world- view that is in sharp contrast to the worldview of Islam, and accepts the dichotomization of religion and politics. The point of our argument is that to buy into non-Islamic language and frames is to buy into theory, discome, and objects that in so many ways tear at the fabric of Islam. Such models neither adequately reflect the complex totality out of which the phenomenon of contemporary Islamic resurgence arose nor lead to a true understanding of Islamic political experience. In any case, for an approach to do this it must become fully subsumed in an Islamic worldview. Haddada offers three models for examining Muslim responses to the confrontation with the West-normativist, acculturationist, and neo- normativist. Watt69 argues that the contemporary Islamic resurgence is a product of the ulama’s desire to enhance their power and social prestige. E s p ~ s i t o ~ ~ maintains that a confluence of events has contributed to the current emergence of Islam in politics. These may be expressed by three themes: disenchantment with the West, disillusionment over the pervasive social and political decline, and, as a consequence, a quest for identity and authenticity-ew indigenously-rooted answers for pressing problems.