Peranan Pemerintah Islam dalam Sistem Negara Moden untuk Menerapkan Nilai Moral Islam: Daripada Penguat Kuasa ke Pemudah Cara The Role of Islamic Government in the Modern State System to Implement Islamic Moral Values: From Enforcer to Facilitator

Abstract

The implementation of Sharīʿah (taṭbīq al-Sharīʿah) by the Islamic government has been a longstanding principle in Islam, where the separation between state and religion, as observed in the West, is absent. However, the extent of the Islamic government’s involvement in enforcing moral standards in the modern state system remains a complex question. The advent of modernity, originating in the West, ushered in a bureaucratic concentration of state power, thereby transforming the process of implementation of morality, relegating them from the concerns of the state. The question thus has arisen whether Islam followed a similar trajectory. Therefore, this article aims to analyse the role of the Islamic government in the modern state era in implementing Islamic morality. This is achieved by unravelling the fundamental elements in the modern state system that have influenced the polemic on the legal enforcement of morality in the modern West, followed by a detailed comparative analysis with the jurisprudence of the Sharīʿah. This study reveals that as the primacy of morality prevails in Islamic law, the Islamic government in the modern state era continues to play a primary role in implementing and enforcing Islamic moral values. Notwithstanding, an approach that highlights a more appropriate role for the Islamic government as a facilitator in implementing Islamic morality, rather than merely as an enforcer, is very much needed.