Sharjeel Imam’s letter from prison is a powerful intellectual and emotional document, rooted in deep study, personal pain, and historical insight. His articulation of the systematic exclusion of Muslims from India’s political imagination, his critique of majoritarianism, and his call for introspection within Muslim circles deserves serious engagement. While much of what Imam recounts in terms of historical fact and the crisis of representation is accurate, I offer the following response to critically assess the political philosophy he embraces and the intellectual frameworks he relies upon.
Imam rightly points to the Congress Party’s betrayal of the Cabinet Mission Plan, Nehru’s centralizing ambitions, and Jinnah’s prescient warnings about the fate of Muslims in a majoritarian democracy. These are well-documented realities corroborated by even Congress insiders like Maulana Azad. The post-Partition Indian polity has indeed produced a systemic exclusion of Muslims from meaningful political agency, especially under the First Past the Post (FPTP) system.
Furthermore, the cultural and political erasure of Muslims in postcolonial India, particularly in narratives shaped by “secular” nationalism, is a reality that cannot be denied. Imam’s lived experiences and intellectual contributions shed important light on these injustices.
However, a pressing question to Sharjeel Imam and all sincere Muslim activists is this:
Can Enlightenment concepts be “Islamized” without adopting their secular soul?
This is not a question of semantics but of worldview. Even when Islamic phrases are used; such as Adl, shura, and ummah, if the underlying method is derived from secular liberalism, the result remains within that paradigm. The language may be Islamic, but the architecture remains Western. The political philosophy Sharjeel Imam relies on for both diagnosing the problem and suggesting a framework for resistance is fundamentally anchored in Islamic modernism, a tradition that emerged as a defensive reaction to colonial domination and the intellectual crisis that followed. Figures like Jamaluddin Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Iqbal, and even Jinnah attempted to negotiate with modernity; especially its rationalist, nationalist, and statist impulses, but ultimately worked within the paradigms established by the very West they sought to resist.
The core issue is that these thinkers attempted to reconfigure Islamic political thought within the framework of modernist epistemology, which includes notions like popular sovereignty, rationalist interpretation of revelation, nationalism, and the nation-state. While these ideas were products of their time and possibly necessary as tactical responses, they lack the ontological grounding in classical Islamic political philosophy.
The entire conceptual vocabulary of Imam’s analysis; whether federalism, representation, or democratization, is derived from European Enlightenment philosophy. The notion of democracy based on individual suffrage, the idea of state legitimacy through the general will, and the belief in progress through human reason are Enlightenment ideals. Key figures such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Voltaire, and later J.S. Mill shaped this paradigm.
However, these values are not neutral or universal; they are culturally situated within the post-Christian secular epistemology of Europe, which prioritizes man as sovereign (rather than God), sees religion as a private affair, and upholds the nation-state as the final political unit. Imam’s framework borrows heavily from this model, even when it is expressed through the language of Islam and Muslim suffering. In doing so, it inadvertently affirms the metaphysical assumptions of liberal modernity, even while attempting to critique its exclusions.
Imam invokes Iqbal and other modernist ideas as a guiding star, yet the political outcome of their visions; namely the creation of Pakistan, did not solve the Muslim problem but merely shifted it geographically and transformed its nature. Pakistan itself has struggled with questions of identity, democracy, and Islamic governance since its inception. Iqbal’s philosophical synthesis and Jinnah’s constitutionalism remain inspirational, but they failed to produce a systemic Islamic alternative to the colonial nation-state model.
In 2025; Post Gaza genocide, when the liberal world order is visibly collapsing, the United Nations is becoming irrelevant, and secular nationalism is being exposed as inadequate to resolve identity conflicts, it is not sufficient to revive mid-20th century Muslim modernist frameworks. Is it wise to once again place our trust in the very frameworks that have failed Muslims repeatedly?
Instead of this, we need to recover our own political tradition,one that existed for centuries before colonialism dismantled it. Classical scholars like Imam al-Mawardi, Ibn Khaldun, and Shah Waliullah developed rich, nuanced political theories. For example, Imam al-Mawardi in Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyyah outlined a system where leadership is a trust (amanah), accountability is a duty (mas’uliyyah), and justice (‘adl) is central to governance. He emphasized shura (consultation), but not as a numerical vote, it was a moral and legal duty among the qualified. Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, analyzed the rise and fall of civilizations and stressed the importance of group solidarity (asabiyyah) rooted in religious values, as well as in ethnic and geographic factors.
Shouldn’t Imam engage these texts and scholars in addition to modern political writers?
Shouldn’t we construct our political imagination using the concepts introduced by these scholars rather than “liberalism,” “secularism,” and “representational democracy”?
Muslims must no longer adopt the nation-state as a value-neutral and universal model. It is not. The nation-state emerged in Europe as a product of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and later evolved through colonial imposition across Asia, Africa and America. It is a historically contingent construct with deep theological implications, including the separation of religion from politics, sovereignty of the people over divine command, and territorial loyalty over ummatic affiliation.
A truly Islamic political philosophy must reject the idea that the nation-state is the only horizon of political imagination. Rather, we must shift our reference point from Enlightenment thinkers to our own classical scholars and jurists, and from a secularized vision of justice to one rooted in Shari‘ah.The solution to the Muslim crisis lies not in invoking modern thinkers who adapted Islamic ideas to fit within colonial institutions, but in reviving our own intellectual and political heritage.
This does not mean copying medieval models in form, but in essence. The methodology must be one of ijtihad, not limitation, yet our point of departure must be the Usul (principles) of the fiqh, not Western liberalism. As if now, we have already tried the western models either in content or form, and time has proven that it was a failed attempt, therefore it is time to decolonise muslim political thoughts in true sense. Muslims must imagine a post-secular, post-nation-state future, in which they reclaim political agency on their own terms, not through borrowed paradigms.
Having critiqued the political framework that Sharjeel Imam employs; anchored in Enlightenment and Islamic modernist thought, it becomes crucial to articulate a constructive Islamic alternative rooted not in colonial or liberal categories, but in our own classical tradition. The fundamental issue Muslims face today is not merely exclusion from secular institutions but the internalization of secular-liberal assumptions as universal and normative. Thus, instead of seeking assimilation into these institutions, Muslims must rebuild their civilizational structure, beginning with the revival of their own spiritual, educational, social, political, and economic institutions as it is not the first time in the muslim history that a group of muslims are living under a non islamic political paradigm. Dr Hamidullah has collected good examples of muslim groups living under a non Islamic political paradigm in the past.
The foundation of any Islamic revival always begins with Tazkiyah, the purification of the self. In classical Islamic thought, moral and political decline is rooted in the spiritual disease of the soul. Thinkers such as Imam al-Ghazali, Ibn Qayyim, and Shah Waliullah emphasized that societal reform begins with personal reformation. Without purifying the soul and cultivating God-consciousness (taqwa), any external change becomes cosmetic and unstable. Majlis of dhikr, mentorship under spiritually trained scholars (Shaikh), and the incorporation of tazkiyah into daily life must be revived.
Parallel to this is the revival of education as envisioned in Islamic epistemology. The colonial rupture split the sacred from the secular, producing a generation of Muslims who are either spiritually informed but lack the skills to reply to modern epistemology , or scientifically skilled but spiritually bankrupt and having no clue about islamic epistemology. This bifurcation must end. We must restore the integration of ‘ilm and tarbiyah; knowledge and moral development, by rebuilding educational institutions that combine the classical sciences (‘Aqidah, Fiqh, Tafsir, Hadith, and Tazkiyah) with a reorientation of natural sciences disciplines under the umbrella of Tawhid. We must train scholars who are not only specialists in jurisprudence but are equipped and capable of confronting modern ideological challenges without compromising Islamic methodology. Most of our educational institutions are either covering one aspect of educational need and most of the so-called Islamic schools are carrying the colonial legacy and teaching natural sciences as per secular beliefs.
On the social front, we must re-establish the organic unity of the Ummah. The atomization of society under the modern state has reduced the Muslim identity to a legal minority or political pressure group. In contrast, the classical Islamic social order was built on mutual obligation, local leadership, and the fard kifayah of protecting collective rights. Community-based revival must include the strengthening of neighborhood jama‘ahs, local shura councils, and family structures. The Islamic principle of brotherhood(Ukhuwwah) must transcend caste, race, and economic class; uniting all Muslims under the banner of la ilaha illAllah Muhammadur Rasulullah. Marital practices, economic support systems, and dispute resolution mechanisms must reflect this unity. (it is an area to discuss and explore how to execute)
In terms of political philosophy, the Islamic worldview is fundamentally different from the Western secular model. Leadership is not the result of majority vote but is a sacred trust built upon the protection of the Ummah. Shura in Islam is consultation among the righteous and qualified, not the liberal idea of mass opinion-making. Muslims must abandon the illusion that participation in democratic elections under secular frameworks is a sufficient form of political agency. Along with participation in political agency, we must focus on building a model rooted in classical Islamic political jurisprudence. Even at a local level, Muslims can organize their communities through councils, community boards, and institutions guided by divine ethics.
The Islamic economic order revolves around zakat, waqf, (Muslim need to explore new modes of waqf like waqf in Business entities) and the prohibition of riba. These were not supplementary structures but the economic backbone of Islamic civilization. Zakat must be institutionalized not merely as a charitable act, but as a system for wealth redistribution and social upliftment. Waqf institutions can fund education, housing, and healthcare without being dependent on state grants. Muslim entrepreneurs must be trained in fiqh al-mu‘amalat, establishing interest-free partnerships (qirad, mudarabah) and Islamic cooperatives. We must escape the dependency on riba-based banks and financial institutions that entrap us in the same system we claim to resist. ( I am aware these do not seem feasible at this point, but the question is are we even thinking of introducing any model?)
Lastly, perhaps most crucially, and an especially urgent institution that needs our attention is the Darul Qada; the Islamic arbitration and adjudication body established historically in Muslim communities to resolve disputes according to the Shari‘ah. In India and elsewhere, Darul Qada has served as a vital legal and social pillar for Muslims, offering judgment on family law, inheritance, and communal matters through Islamic jurisprudence. However, over the years, this institution has weakened, partly due to external legal pressures, but largely because of internal neglect. Its decisions are often seen as symbolic rather than binding, and many Muslims now bypass it for state courts or secular meditation. If we are to revive our community the Darul Qada system is essential. We need qualified muftis, well-organized legal frameworks, and community-wide support to restore its moral authority and practical relevance. It must not only operate efficiently but also regain its standing as a credible institution of justice and reconciliation. Rather than letting it fade under pressure, we must invest our efforts in making Darul Qada a trustworthy, accessible, and respected alternative and it can play an important role to ease the burden of state judicial systems that often struggle with huge numbers of cases.
In sum, the solution is not only to demand space within modern secular-liberal structures but to rebuild our own institutions as well, rooted in tawhid and classical Islamic philosophy. It is not reform but revival; not adaptation but restoration; not imitation but ijtihad. The future belongs to those who can reject the Enlightenment’s false universalism and reclaim the Islamic worldview as the only complete and coherent framework for human dignity, justice, and salvation.
If we are to honor the struggle and sincerity of Sharjeel Imam, we must go beyond his references. The time for mere political negotiation is over. The time for intellectual and civilizational reawakening has come.