Intellectual Intifada: Blueprint for Restoring the Caliphate

by Asrar Rashid

In his first two books, ‘Islam Answers Atheism’ and ‘Navigating the End of Time’, Asrar Rashid described the obstacles to the finding of a pure worship of Allah—the ideologies, -isms and deceptions of the educated modern: the self-worshipping humanist. ‘Intellectual Intifada’ traces the steps of the Prophetic model for the establishment of just governance—stepping round the misconceptions and misrepresentations of Islam, laying bare the collective responsibility of each believer to bring the Caliphate into being. Far from becoming an autocratic tyranny, Rashid shows that a concerted attempt—under the guidance of ijtihād and the ahl al-ḥall wa al-ʿaqd—to eliminate the unjust taxes, the punishment by inflation through usurious banking mechanisms, and the wastefulness of warmongering military budgets, may produce something close to the perfect example of society as established in Madinah. The intelligent way to change the disastrous state of affairs, or affairs of the state—Rashid never shies from calling a spade a spade—is to change oneself. To shake off the shackles of the monocultural consumer slavery that binds us requires—not in violent reaction—but an acute grasp of how things are. “Intellectual Intifada is constructive, creative, lateral-thinking, and effective in disarming the enemy and weakening him while at the same time strengthening harmed and subjugated peoples.” The balance of Sharīʿa and Ḥaqīqa is the key, and this book explains the unlocking.

Genres: Islam, History

168 pages, Paperback

Published September 17, 2023

Reviews

[Muhammad Usama · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intellectual Intifada by Asrar Rashid is an admirable effort to shrug off the negative baggage associated with the words "Caliphate" and "Shariya" . It explains why and how Caliphate is a viable politico-economic and socio-cultural system for the contemporary times while highlighting the shortcomings of western systems. The author highlighted the drawbacks of western ideologies and systems with concrete examples and proofs. It addresses the common objections to Islamic system by seculars and the west. The writer also categorically proved that Islam provides better human, political, social and legal rights to everyone than any other system. However, instead of a "BluePrint" , it is better to view this work as "the need to restore" and "the key components of Caliphate" because the formation of a "shura" or " ahl al hall wal aqad" as writer describes is the starting point of establishing the Caliphate. This step is still a hope and such a party will emerge automatically as a result of intellectual intifada according to author. So positively, author rejects any violent campaign to bring caliphate deeming it unIslamic and moot and stresses on rejection of the west and embracing the Islamic roots by Muslims. All in all, the book beautifully summarise the concept of caliphate in the modern times and made one long for such a peaceful system while urging one to shrug off western influence from their thinking i.e intellectual intifada

[Arif Istiaque · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The mantra, "We need the IMF loans to pay off debts" never mentions how the debt was created by IMF loans in the first place with usury, paper money, loans necessitating higher taxes, the selling off national assets and autonomy of corporations and banks.”


In his book ‘Intellectual Intifada’ Asrar Rashid tries to depict the charade of the existing World Order and suggest an alternative i.e. Islam is the path to solve all the miseries modern man faces. 


The first chapter is dedicated to the discrepancies and hypocrisies of the Western world. The author discusses how capitalism, democracy, feminism and all the isms of the post Industrial world not only fails to solve the problems of humankind but also exacerbates the problems that we are facing.”


The author later shows how the Islamic caliphate has functioned to solve similar problems in the past. The author tries to convince his readers by delivering both theoretical and pragmatic discussions. He takes shelter from the vast works of history and fiqh(Islamic jurisprudence) to establish his argument. Many common arguments against the Shahriah have also been addressed to strengthen the author’s argument.


“Umar b. Abd al- Aziz did not die until the time when a man came to us with wealth saying, 'Spend this wherever you want', we would return the man's wealth saying, "Thank you, but Umar has made everyone rich.”


This is the first time I have gone through any literary work advocating for the Islamic caliphate. The author has done an excellent job to produce an eccentric literary piece. I believe he has been unarguably successful in depicting the problems of the existing word order and he has also done a pretty good job to showcase the Islamic Caliphate as the saviour of humankind.


The last of the two chapters of the book is more than a hundred pages long. I think the readers would find the book more enjoyable if there were sub chapters of that chapter. I also doubt if anyone with an anti-caliphate bias would be convinced with the author’s argument as the work may seem more of a theoretical work as it leaves some of the common queries unanswered e.g. why has the caliphate not been an ideal one for most of its history, how will all the muslim nations come together to form a single caliphate.


I would suggest this book to anyone curious about the Caliphate, the Shariah or the political aspects of Islam in general. This book will also be of benefit to those who have studied any other isms.


"A fixed level of affluence is not guaranteed by the Caliphate, although it was a feature of some periods of rule, yet nor is it a utopian pipe dream, but rather the Caliphate is a guarantor of justice in policy and the human effort to implement the law of Allah."

[Molvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book very much. The author introduces many relevant topics in an engaging way. He makes a case for the restoration of the Caliphate based on a number of cogent arguments. The examples he cites are insightful and useful. The topics covered are detailed especially on the way a Khaliphate will be established and the various functions of the governance system.
The book lacks subheadings and as a result it is difficult to follow the logical development of the discourse. This should be added since Asrar Rashid has done this in his previous works.
Nevertheless this is a worthwhile contribution that should be an important book in this genre. It is an easily manageable read and the language flows well.

[Md. Shaiful Islam Shohag · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book.