Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T03:42:33.495Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constitutional Incrementalism in a Religiously Divided Society: A Case Study of Afghanistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2018

Shamshad PASARLAY
Shamshad PASARLAY*
Affiliation:
Herat University School of Law, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the constitutional provisions that define the role of Islam and the shariah in Afghanistan’s many constitutions. It highlights that successful Afghan constitutions have always recognized Islam and the shariah and established a method of realizing them, while leaving open the possibility that the government could change its approach to realizing them in the future. Unsuccessful Afghan constitutions, by contrast, have allowed actors at the center to try to realize and interpret Islam in a rigid way that does not allow for ongoing negotiations with actors who would prefer to realize and interpret Islam in a different manner. In other words, Afghanistan’s longest-lived and successful constitutions have not entrenched Islam in a way that imposes the desires of one side of the debate. Instead, they have designed religious provisions in vague and ambiguous terms, thereby deferring to the future the question of what Islam really means and how it should be realized in practice – a strategy that proved considerably effective in preventing conflict over the role of Islam in a severely divided and heavily armed society. Drawing on this insight, the article explores how in overwhelmingly, but diversely, Muslim societies, it is important to create constitutional regimes that recognize Islam but leave room for rival interpretations of Islam. Incremental constitution writing is a useful tool in creating such constitutional regimes.

Type
Article
Information
Asian Journal of Comparative Law , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , December 2018 , pp. 255 - 281
Copyright
© National University of Singapore, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

PhD, University of Washington School of Law; Senior Lecturer, Herat University School of Law (Afghanistan). This article builds and expands upon ideas discussed in Clark B Lombardi and Shamshad Pasarlay, ‘Constitution-Making for Divided Societies: Lessons from Afghanistan’ in David Law (ed), Constitutionalism in Context (CUP 2018) forthcoming. I wish to thank Clark Lombardi, Arif Jamal, Dian AH Shah, and the participants at the Religion and Constitutional Practices in Asia Conference (International Centre For Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 9-10 November 2017) for useful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Any mistakes or errors are the author‘s alone.

References

1. See Green, Nile (ed), Afghanistan’s Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban (University of California Press 2017) xiii CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. ibid.

3. Lombardi, Clark B and Pasarlay, Shamshad, ‘Constitution-Making for Divided Societies: Lessons from Afghanistan’ in David Law (ed), Constitutionalism in Context (CUP 2018)Google Scholar forthcoming.

4. Horowitz, Donald L, ‘Constitutional Design: Proposals Versus Processes’ in Andrew Reynolds (ed), The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy (OUP 2002)Google Scholar; Lijphart, Arend, ‘Constitutional Design for Divided Societies’ (2004) 15(2) Journal of Democracy 96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lerner, Hanna, Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (CUP 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bâli, Asli and Lerner, Hanna, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment: Lessons from Religiously Divided Societies’ (2016) 49(2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cornell International Law Journal 101.

5. Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4) 124–155; Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

6. Ginsburg, Tom and Huq, Aziz, ‘What Can Constitutions Do?: The Afghan Case’ (2014) 25(1) Journal of Democracy 116, 119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Ginsburg, Tom and Huq, Aziz Z (eds), Assessing Constitutional Performance (CUP 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For instance, the 1931 Constitution of Afghanistan (adopted on 31 October 1931) [1931 Constitution] was one of the most successful constitutions in the country. It was successful not simply because it endured for more than three decades, but also because it successfully channeled conflict through formal institutions, generated legitimacy for the state, created for the first time in Afghan history democratic institutions (the parliament) and facilitated the delivery of public goods. More importantly, the 1931 Constitution managed to prevent conflict among Afghanistan’s divided religious communities and facilitated peaceful coexistence among them for more than three decades. By contrast, the 1977 Constitution of Afghanistan (adopted on 4 April 1977) [1977 Constitution] was an unsuccessful constitution by any benchmark. It not only died in less than a year after it was promulgated, but also failed to create legitimacy for the state and to channel political (and religious) conflicts through formal constitutional institutions.

9. Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4) 115.

10. ibid.

11. ibid 116.

12. ibid.

13. ibid 115.

14. Hirschman, Albert O, ‘Social Conflict as Pillars of Democratic Market Society’ (1994) 22(2) Political Theory 203, 214 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. ibid 213.

16. Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4) 101, 130.

17. Lerner, Hanna, ‘Constitution-Writing in Deeply Divided Societies: The Incrementalist Approach’ (2010) 16 Nations and Nationalism 68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hanna Lerner, Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (n 4); Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4).

18. Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4) 110.

19. See Benomar, Jamal, ‘Constitution-Making after Conflict’ (2004) 15 Journal of Democracy 81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rubin, Barnett R, ‘Crafting a Constitution in Afghanistan’ (2004) 15(3) Journal of Democracy 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thier, J Alexander, ‘The Making of a Constitution in Afghanistan’ (2007) 51 New York Law School Law Review 557 Google Scholar; Rabb, Intisar A, ‘“We the Jurists”: Islamic Constitutionalism in Iraq’ (2008) 10 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 527 Google Scholar; Gluck, Jason, ‘Constitution-Building in a Political Vacuum: Libya and Yemen in 2014’ (2014) in Melanie Allen and others (eds) Annual Review of Constitution-Building Processes: 2014 (International IDEA 2014)Google Scholar; Shamshad Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan: A History and Analysis Through the Lens of Coordination and Deferral Theory’ (PhD Dissertation, University of Washington School of Law 2016); Lackner, Helen, ‘Yemen’s “Peaceful” Transition from Autocracy: Could it have succeeded? (Stockholm: International IDEA, 2016)Google Scholar.

20. Lerner, ‘Constitution-Writing’ (n 17), 70; Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4) 116–117.

21. See Bâli, Asli and Lerner, Hanna (eds), Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy (CUP 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Lerner, ‘Constitution-Writing’ (n 17), 68; Bâli and Lerner, ‘Constitutional Design without Constitutional Moment’ (n 4).

23. Gregorian, Vartan, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880–1946 (Stanford University Press 1969) 25–38 Google Scholar; Barfield, Thomas J, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton University Press 2010) 23–32 Google Scholar.

24. Bellew, W, Journal of a Political Mission to Afghanistan in 1857, under Major (now Colonel) Lumsden; with an Account of the Country and People (Smith, Elder and Co 1962) 18; Fraser-Tytler, William Kerr, Afghanistan: a Study of Political Developments in Central Asia (OUP 1950) 57 Google Scholar; Gregorian (n 23) 37.

25. Roy, Oliver, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (CUP 1986) 30 Google Scholar.

26. Edwards, David B, ‘The Evolution of Shi’i Political Dissent in Afghanistan’ in Keddie, Nikki R and Cole, Juan RI (eds), Shi’ism and Social Protest (Yale University Press 1986)Google Scholar; Gregorian (n 23) 38; Olesen, Asta, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (Curzon Press 1995) 53 Google Scholar.

27. Gregorian (n 23) 38; Roy (n 25) 30.

28. Green (n 1) xiii.

29. Roy (n 25) 69; Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 227–228.

30. Lombardi, Clark B and Brown, Nathan J, ‘Do Constitutions Requiring Adherence to Shariʿa Threaten Human Rights: How Egypt’s Constitutional Court Reconciles Islamic Law with the Liberal Rule of Law’ (2006) 21 American University International Law Review 379, 394–405 Google Scholar.

31. ibid 397.

32. ibid.

33. ibid 399, 406–414; Lombardi, Clark B, State Law as Islamic Law in Modern Egypt: The Incorporation of the Sharīʻa Into the Egyptian Constitutional Law (Brill 2006) 78–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (discussing these modernist theories of Islamic Legal interpretation in the Egyptian context). The Egyptian modernists that Lombardi discusses would be studied by Afghans and would influence the Afghan Islamists.

34. Lombardi and Brown (n 30) 399–400.

35. ibid 406.

36. Niamatullah Ibrahimi, ‘The Failure of a Clerical Proto-State: Hazarajat, 1979–1984’ (2006) Crisis States Research Center Working Paper No 6, 3–4 <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.604.3516&rep=rep1&type=pdf> accessed 28 August 2018; Roy (n 25) 146–147.

37. Mousavi, Sayed Askar, The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study (Palgrave Macmillan 1997) 238 Google Scholar;

Ibrahimi (n 36) 3–4.

38. Ibrahimi (n 36).

39. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

40. Malleson, Colonel GB, A History of Afghanistan, from the Earliest Period to the Outbreak of the War of 1878 (WH Allen & Co 1879) 276–277 Google Scholar; Hamilton, Angus, Afghanistan (JB Millet Company 1910) 224 Google Scholar.

41. Olesen, Asta, ‘The Political Use of Islam in Afghanistan during the Reign of Amir Abdur Rahman (1880-1901)’ in Chistel Braae (ed), Contributions to Islamic Studies: Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Aarhus University Press 1987) 59–105 Google Scholar.

42. Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 61–81.

43. Ghani, Ashraf, ‘State-Building and cCentralization in a Tribal Society: Afghanistan 1880–1901’ MA Thesis, University of Beirut 1977) 74.Google Scholar Amin Tarzi, ‘The Judicial State: Evolution and Centralization of Courts in Afghanistan, 1883-1896’ (PhD dissertation, New York University 2003) 35.

44. Ghani, Ashraf ‘Islam and State-Building in a Tribal Society Afghanistan: 1880–1901’ (1978) 12 Modern Asian Studies 269 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Amin Tarzi, ‘Islam, Shari’a, and State Building under Abd al-Rahman Khan’ in Green (n 1) 133–137.

46. ibid.

47. Ghurjistani, Mohammad Essa, Kala-ye Minār ha dar Afghanistan [Minarets of Skulls in Afghanistan] (Ismailyaan 1993)Google Scholar.

48. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

49. ibid.

50. Fundamental Principles of the Exalted State of Afghanistan (adopted on 9 April 1923) [1923 Constitution].

51. ibid.

52. Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 120–126.

53. 1923 Constitution, art 72.

54. Nawid, Senzil, Religious Response to Social Change in Afghanistan, 1919–1929: King Aman-Allah and the Afghan Ulama (Mazda Publisher 1999) 79–80 Google Scholar.

55. Ibid.

56. Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, Law in Afghanistan: A Study of the Constitutions, Matrimonial Law and the Judiciary (Brill 1985) 20 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 121.

57. Nawid (n 54) 110.

58. ibid.

59. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

60. ibid.

61. Nawid (n 54) 111.

62. ibid.

63. 1931 Constitution (n 8).

64. Pasarlay, Shamshad, ‘Rethinking Afghanistan’s Longest-Lived Constitution: The 1931 Constitution through the Lens of Constitutional Endurance and Performance Literature’ (2018) 10 Elon Law Review 283 Google Scholar.

65. Ali, Mohammad, Progressive Afghanistan (Punjab Educational Electronic Press 1933), 190 Google Scholar; Gregorian (n23) 295; Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 184.

66. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

67. Olesen, Islam and Politics (n 26) 199.

68. ibid.

69. ibid.

70. Roy (n 25), 70.

71. Constitution of Afghanistan 1964 (adopted on 3 October 1964) [1964 Constitution].

72. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) ch 2.

73. ibid 100.

74. Said Amir Arjomand notes that the 1964 Constitution was ‘the product of the meeting of liberal constitutionalism and Islamic modernism that proposed to interpret the principles of Islam without undue restriction from the rigidities of medieval Islamic jurisprudence and succeeded in finding the finest formula for the reconciliation of Islam and constitutionalism in the Middle East to that date or since’. Incontrast to the 1931 Constitution, a secular body, the National Center for Legislation in the Ministry of Justice, whose members were exclusively trained in the country’s secular law schools, had the duty to make sure that state legislation did not contradict the principles of Islam. Arjomand, Said Amir, ‘Constitutional Developments in Afghanistan: A Comparative and Historical Perspective’ (2005) 53 Drake Law Review 943, 952–953 Google Scholar.

75. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

76. Kakar, Hasan, ‘The Fall of the Afghan Monarchy in 1973’ (1978) 9 International Journal of Middle Studies 195 Google Scholar.

77. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) 124–130.

78. Shamshad Pasarlay, ‘Islam and the Sharia in the 1993 Mujahideen Draft Constitution of Afghanistan: A Comparative Perspective’ (2016) 3 The Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law 183, 192–196.

79. Roy (n 25) 69–70.

80. Pasarlay, ‘Islam and the Sharia’ (n 78) 197–201.

81. ibid 199.

82. Dawlatabadi, Basir Ahmad, Shinasnama-ye Ahzāb wa Jiryānāt-i Siyāsi-ye Afghanistan [An Introduction to Afghanistan’s Political Movements and Parties] (Fransher 1993) 279–280 Google Scholar.

83. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) 139.

84. For a complete discussion of the Iranian Guardian Council, see Shirvani, Foroud, ‘A Different Approach to the Control of Constitutionalism: Iran’s Guardian Council’ in Rainer Grote and Tilmann J Röder (eds), Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity (OUP 2012) 279–290 Google Scholar.

85. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) 140.

86. For more information on the powers of the Iranian Guardian Council, see Shirvani (n 84) 283–285.

87. Barfield, Afghanistan (n 23) 259–264.

88. Rasanayagam, Angelo, Afghanistan: A Modern History: Monarchy, Despotism or Democracy? The Problems of Governance in the Muslim Tradition (I B Tauris 2003) 143–144 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) 146.

90. Chris Johnson, William Maley, Alexander Thier, Ali Wardak, ‘Afghanistan’s Political and Constitutional Development (Overseas Development Institute January 2003); Khalilzad, Zalmay, The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey through a Turbulent World (St Martin’s Press 2016)Google Scholar; Dobbins, James F, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Potomac Books 2008)Google Scholar.

91. Khalilzad (n 90) 117.

92. UNSC, ‘Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions’, UN Doc S/2001/1154 (5 December 2001), art I(4) <www.refworld.org/docid/3f48f4754.html> accessed 11 July 2018.

93. ibid arts I(1), and I(4).

94. Secretariat of the Constitutional Commission of Afghanistan, ‘The Constitution-Making Process in Afghanistan’ (10 March 2003) 2 <http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN016658.pdf> accessed 20 July 2018.

95. Pasarlay, ‘Making the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan’ (n 19) 155–163.

96. See Thier (n 19) 567–568.

97. ibid 186–188.

98. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

99. ibid.

100. ibid.

101. Draft Constitution prepared by the Constitutional Drafting Commission (March 2003), arts 1, 2, and 3 (copy on file with the author).

102. Records of the Constitutional Review Commission, March 2002 – November 2002 (copy on file with the author).

103. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

104. Shamshad Pasarlay, ‘Constitutional Interpretation and Constitutional Review in Afghanistan: Is There Still a Crisis?’ (I-Connect: Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law, 18 March 2015) <www.iconnectblog.com/2015/03/constitutional-interpretation-and-constitutional-review-in-afghanistan-is-there-still-a-crisis/> accessed 6 September 2017.

105. John Dempsey and J Alexander Thier ‘Resolving the Crisis over Constitutional Interpretation in Afghanistan’ (Peace Brief, United States Institute of Peace 2009), 1–2 <www.usip.org/publications/2009/03/resolving-crisis-over-constitutional-interpretation-afghanistan> accessed 4 July 2018.

106. Lombardi and Pasarlay (n 3).

107. ibid.

108. ibid.

109. Barfield, Thomas, ‘Afghanistan: The Local and the Global in the Practice of the Shari’a’ in Robert W Hefner (ed), Shari’a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World (Indiana University Press 2011) 191 Google Scholar; Hartmann, Michael E, ‘Causalties of Myopia’ in Whit Mason (ed), The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction (CUP 2011) 194 Google Scholar.

110. Knust, Mandana and Afshar, Rassekh, ‘The Case of an Afghan Apostate - The Right to a Fair Trial Between Islamic Law and Human Rights in the Afghan Constitution’ in A von Bogdandy and R Wolfrum (eds), Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (Brill 2006) 593 Google Scholar.

111. Under Islamic shariah, Muslim women are forbidden to marry non-Muslim men.

112. Knust and Afshar (n 110) 593.

113. It is outside the scope of this article to describe the penalties that Islamic shariah determines for the crime of apostasy. Medieval Islamic law determines punishment up to the death penalty.

114. 2004 Constitution, art 130.

115. Knust and Afshar (n 110) 593.

116. ibid.

117. ibid.

118. Munadi, Sultan M and Hauser, Christine, ‘Afghan Convert to Christianity is Released, Officials Say’ The New York Times (Kabul and New York, 28 March 2006)Google Scholar.

119. Wafa, Abdul Waheed and Gall, Carlotta, ‘Death Sentence for Afghan Student’ The New York Times (New York, 24 January 2008), A8 Google Scholar.

120. ibid.

121. The Prosecutor v Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, Case Concerning Insult to the Holy Religion of Islam and the Holy Prophet Mohammad (2007) Kabul Court of Appeals, Decision No 580.

122. ibid.

123. Tahir Qadiry, ‘RIGHTS-AFGHANISTAN: Internet Article Lands Journalist on Death Row’ (Inter Press Service, 30 January 2008) <www.ipsnews.net/2008/01/rights-afghanistan-internet-article-lands-journalist-on-death-row/> accessed 11 July 2018.

124. Robert Maier, ‘Karzai Steps in: Kabul Press Reports Important Updates in Case of Parwiz Kambakhsh’ (Kabul Press, 31 January 2008) <www.kabulpress.org/article992.html> accessed 4 July 2018. However, subsequent reports suggested that President Karzai would not intervene. See for eg ‘An Afghan Condemned’ (Editorials, Washington Post, 6 February 2008) <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020503844.html> accessed 4 July 2018.

125. ‘Parwiz Kambakhsh Released from Prison,’ (Kabul Press, 7 September 2009).

126. Kim Sengupta, ‘Free at last: Student in hiding after Karzai’s intervention’ (The Independent, 7 September 2009) <www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/free-at-last-student-in-hiding-after-karzais-intervention-1782909.html> accessed 4 July 2018.

127. ibid.