LAHORE, May 18: Former senator Dr Javid Iqbal said on Saturday Allama Iqbal wanted caliph’s powers as head of an Islamic state to be delegated to an elected parliament.

He was speaking to a select gathering of intellectuals on Iqbal’s Concept of Nationhood and Islamic State at a meeting of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Foundation at Aiwan-i-Karkunan-i-Tehrik-i-Pakistan. This was his second lecture on the subject.

He said Iqbal disagreed with the traditional concept of an all powerful caliph and a majlis-i-shoora in an advisory capacity. He said Iqbal was not the only political thinker who wanted constitutional restrictions on caliph’s powers. Jamaluddin Afghani and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan also held the same opinion.

He said Iqbal wanted a democratic state. Unfortunately, he said, throughout the Islamic history the khalifa had been an arbitrary ruler who could turn down the advice of the shoora. Instead, he said, the shoora should be a consultative body and with its advice and decisions should be binding on the khalifa.

He said there had been four, rather five modes of choosing a khalifa. The first was election as in case of Abu Bakar, the second was nomination as in case of Omar, the third, in case of Osman was election by an electoral college of elders and the fourth, in case of Ali, a referendum. The fifth method of assuming power, he said, was by usurping power. He said Islamic jurists had held all these modes valid.

He said while legal order of an Islamic state had been rigid, the political order had been flexible. There was a time when there were three caliphs, one ruling from Baghdad, the other from Spain and the third from Cairo.

The lecture remained inconclusive and will continue at the Foundation’s meeting next month.