Firstly: introduction:

1- In CHAPTER I, we have demonstrated the contradiction between a Quran-based rule in a given country (i.e., a country based on civil, secular, direct democracy and human rights) and the theocracies established by the Muhammadans as per the dominant Middle-Ages culture of tyranny and oppression when rulers, sultans, and caliphs were despots who confiscated to themselves all wealth, authority, and power and actually 'owned' people living within this or that caliphate or empire. A Quran-based rule is indeed the civil rule of a country which is based on justice, equity, and fairness, balancing rights of society and those of the citizen. This Islamic (i.e., Quranist or Quranic) society is the one of citizens owning security, power, authority, and wealth as they enjoy equality and all rights within social solidarity system. This topic entails a whole separate book about the social, political, and economic features of a Quran-based rule in a given country and its civil society; let us briefly below point out the main feature of the civil state which is based on Islam (i.e., Quranism): the judicial authority.    

2- There are a main difference within the foundation of the tyrannical state/country and the democratic state/country. Within the tyrannical one, armed forces of the military are loyal only to a theocrat or a military general/ruler and used by this ruler or tyrant to establish, rule, and 'own' the country and people living in it. the classical example of such a case is Moses' Pharaoh. Within the democratic one, the power and authority are centered in the nation itself with all its citizens, and a country is founded upon a social contract among free citizens regardless of their age-groups, gender, races, colors, etc. who choose their ruler who would be a civil servant (in public service) to all of them. This is real loyalty, allegiance, or fealty mentioned in the following Quranic verse regarding the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad: "O prophet! If believing women come to you, pledging allegiance to you, on condition that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit adultery, nor kill their children, nor commit perjury as to parenthood, nor disobey you in anything righteous, accept their allegiance and ask God's forgiveness for them. God is Forgiving and Merciful." (60:12). Within a tyrannical theocratic and/or military rule, a tyrant cannot rule by himself alone; he has to form groups of people around him with some authorized powers, such as military leaders of armed forces that intimidate civilians and administrators within governmental sectors and ministries to control all affairs of the citizens, or rather ''subjects'', as they are regarded as tools owned by the tyrant in service of his state. Among these groups are those who brainwash the subjects within controlled media, clergymen, religious institutions, and corrupt arts so that people would be submissive to tyrants and to allow the culture of slavery to be inculcated into them. Of course, a chief group within such tools of control and hegemony are judges in courts of the judicial system within a tyrannical state or a theocracy. Of course, such groups are 'soldiers' or henchmen of the tyrannical rulers, or their ''retinue'' as per Quranic terminology within the story of Moses' Pharaoh. Indeed, we repeat here that Moses' Pharaoh is the classical example of tyranny, mentioned in the Quran as a warning to all people, and within his Quranic story, he is linked with the terms ''soldiers'' and ''retinue'' many times within the Quranic text.       

3- Moses' Pharaoh as a self-deified tyrant imposed his dominance and hegemony over people by intimidating and terrorizing them by his torture, especially by torturing and punishing people in public to impose fear and awe of him inside hearts and minds of the subjects. In the Quran, we read how Moses' Pharaoh used torture in public to impose his political authority by threatening, and executing his threat soon enough, to torture and put to a violent death the magicians who believed in the message of Moses; see 7:124 and 20:71. As for the very first example in the history of the Muhammadans, we read how the third caliph, Othman Ibn Affan, who was among the four pre-Umayyad caliphs deified later by Sunnites, was the very first caliph to punish and torture people in public as he dealt with opposition figures; he ordered public beatings and flogging of some of them, banished many of them out of his capital, Yathreb, and some others among his foes were forced to roam within the Levant and Iraq while heavy guarded to keep them from gathering supporters in any city by settling in it for too long. This very last punishment imposed by Othman was suffered by known figures among the so-called "companions of the prophet", such as Ibn Massood, Ammar Ibn Yasser, and Abou Al-Dardaa. Moreover, in our opinion as a historian, psychological torment suffered by such opposition figures exceeded the physical torment or torture, because they had earlier witnessed the democracy of the Quran-based rule of the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad. Let us be reminded that God has said the following to Muhammad as a ruler/leader of the Yathreb city-state: "It is by of grace from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh, hardhearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the conduct of affairs..." (3:159). This means that Muhammad himself was keen on being gentle with citizens of this Yathreb city-state (as per God's command to him in 3:159) and had to appeal to them and satisfy them because they were the only and real source of authority; if they would have dispersed from around him, he would have lost his authority as a leader and the Yathreb city-state would have been lost, because it is based on its dwellers as the only source of power – in the political sense. Hence, since the figures tortured and punished by caliph Othman had witnessed such era of the democratic Quran-based rule of the Yathreb city-state, they must have been much grieved when they saw how the balances of power changed to the worse as the Umayyads controlled Othman and they managed to urge him to use torture and other punishments to oppress and intimidate all people into submission, a policy that was later on adopted brutally and heartlessly on higher levels by the Umayyad caliphs and others after them. Maybe Ammar Ibn Yasser was the one man mostly influenced negatively by such bad change, because history tells us that he was tortured on two separate occasions: at one time as a young man in Mecca when he converted to the new faith and the polytheistic Umayyads at the time persecuted and tortured him to revert to their religion, and the second time as an old man during the caliphate of Othman who was incited by the Umayyads who controlled him to torture Ammar for his political opposition against policies of Othman, while they convinced Othman that he had the 'divine' right as a ruler to do anything he wanted. Thus, we assert here that the policy of torture is another more prominent difference between the Quran-based rule and the tyrannical theocracies or tyrannical 'civil' states; rulers and ministers, etc. in the Quran-based rule within a given country are civil public servants who indeed serve citizens and fear the people in awe, and they work diligently so as to avoid driving citizens to disperse from around them. In contrast, within tyrannical countries, the tyrants are harsh and hardhearted to terrorize and intimidate people. The presence of torture is an indicator that a given country is ruled by tyranny, regardless of the civil façade and democratic décor apparent outwardly. Of course, it is historically known that the Umayyad caliphs in their theocratic empire had widened the scope of the use of severe torture to terrorize and intimidate its foes, even when these foes were peaceful. So many governors and viziers appointed by Umayyads were known for their torturing severely all foes of the Umayyad dynasty, especially the vizier/governor famous for his brutality Al-Hajaj Ibn Youssef. In a lengthy article of ours, we have tackled how the grand religious scholar Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab was tortured by tightened a rope around his neck to be pulled with it in all streets of Yathreb because he refused to swear fealty to the new Umayyad caliph (and former friend of his) Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan.                               

4- Typically, the tyrannical state would turn itself into a terrorizing deity with its military armed forced generals and soldiers and its clergy as infallible daunting gods, with their supreme deity the ruling tyrant on top of them all, and all such persons would bludgeon and persecute people. The more tyrannical ways are adopted and higher levels of despotism are reached, the more the retinue members of rulers would deify themselves. The prominent example of course is Moses' Pharaoh, the megalomaniac who, before his people and soldiers and retinue members, declared self-deification and proclaimed his owing lands and rivers of Egypt, while he was surprised to know that God exists and arrogantly, as a self-deified tyrant, demanded to see Him; see 28:38, 40:36-37, and 79:23-24. Within the eras of tyranny within the history of the Muhammadans, past and present, the tyrants were deified explicitly and overtly as was the case during the Fatimid caliphate or implicitly and indirectly as was the case within the Abbasid and the Ottoman caliphates. Sadly, the Muhammadan tyrannical rulers in our modern age have inherited this Middle-Ages dominant culture of theocratic tyranny that deifies rulers implicitly; who among the 'Saudi subjects' would dare to utter any criticism against the Saudi royal family members? Who among the 'Iraqi subjects' would have dared to utter any criticism against the Saddam Hussein regime when it was in power? Saddam Hussein used to deify himself implicitly by inventing 'holy' epithets and names to himself and to force Iraqis to use them! The same tyranny of self-deified 'infallible' rulers who would punish any critics of them applies to Libya, Morocco, Jordan, and the rest of the countries of the Muhammadans. Even in Egypt, we find laws that punish anyone who would dare to criticize Mubarak, who owns, rules, and controls everything and cannot be questioned or impeached as per the Egyptian constitution; this gives ample room to deify Mubarak as an 'infallible' god whose actions and decrees must not be put to question, despite his despotism and authoritarianism. In sum, we infer clearly here that the huge difference between the Quran-based rule and the tyrannical theocratic rule is as follows: in the latter, we find the tyrant dominating and controlling everything, whereas in the former, we see the prominent role of citizens/the people in the ruling system and its affairs. Therefore, direct democracy is an essential component of the Quranic sharia and the Islamic faith tenets, whereas tyranny is a type of polytheism and disbelief, because of deifying mortals. Since Muhammad has been commanded in the Quranic verse 3:159 to adopt consultation (or "Shura" in Arabic and Quranic tongues), we deduce that those rulers who never adopt Shura/consultation out of disdain and haughtiness are raising themselves above the status of prophets, and this is deemed the implicit and explicit sin of self-deification. Ministers and their likes are responsible before the nations and can be questioned, and rulers who refuse out of arrogance to be questioned and checked by citizens are explicitly deifying themselves, because God is the Only One never to be questions, unlike mortals who are questioned, as per the Quran: "He will not be questioned about what He does, but they will be questioned." (21:23). Hence, the country of a tyrant is the one of disbelief, injustices, persecution, and aggression, even if the 'subjects' (as they are not ''citizens'', of course, in that case) are weak Muslims or Muhammadans. Indeed, we cannot help but notice that in the Quran text, injustice and disbelief are linked closely together as synonyms in many verses.                          

5- Within tyrannical countries, there are no responsible rulers questioned, checked, and held accountable elected willingly and freely to serve citizens for a certain period in return for a certain salary, but there are ever-present domineering and controlling gods/deities described as inspired leaders, and those gods own the lands and resources, full power and absolute authority, as well as people who are voiceless and worthless. The evidence to support this view is the fact that people inside and outside Egypt talk all the time about presidents Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, and no one talks about any achievements of the Egyptian people because they are inactive agent in terms of rule, power, and authority – despite the fact that the Egyptians are the oldest nation on earth with seven-millennia-old civilization. Likewise, people worldwide talk about Kaddafi, and not Libyan people, and about Saddam Hussein and not the Iraqi people (until 2001 and beyond), and so on and so forth. In the same vein, most of the history of the Muhammadans revolve around despots and their cronies and henchmen, without focusing on the nations or rather ''subjects''. This is like dealing with a farm-owner while giving no attention at all to tools, workers, peasants, and cattle inside the farm! We never get bored by repeating the fact that Quran-based rule has a model nearer to it in West models of rule. In relation to the point above, we find it hard to remember to know the names of the queen of The Netherlands and presidents of Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries. The reason: the main talk is about the active nations and citizens who have a say in the rule and in the conduct of all affairs, while people within the administrations (presidents and others) are in the background like small actors (or Comparse)  as civil public servants who serve citizens within a democracy. In contrast, in the Middle-Eastern tyrannical countries, tyrants alone are in the foreground and get the main focus and spotlight; everyone knows Mubarak, Saddam, Kaddafi, the Saudi king, etc. When one would undertake a survey or a poll to know about the public opinion, one is accused of spying and damaging the societal peace. There is no public opinion in such countries because there are not real citizens with rights. The only one in the picture is the tyrant and his decrees and commands, and he represents the country, its religion, its aspects, etc.                       

Secondly: the influence of the establishment of Quran-based rule on the cultural formation of the Muslim society:

1- It is not easy: It is not easy that a nation would liberate itself from the culture of slavery and that citizens would rise to stand up for their rights and gain access to power and authority to establish a ruling system based on direct democracy, where rulers and those under them would be real civil public servants who serve all citizens equally and can be checked, impeached, removed from office, questioned, held accountable, etc. It is not easy that citizens in a given country would restore and retrieve its wealth confiscated and stolen by the affluent classes of bloodsucking thieves and to install a just regime and ruling systems to distribute wealth of the nation while balancing equal opportunities and social solidarity and social justice and at the same time stopping all forms of monopoly and interference of the financial capital of the filthily rich ones in politic affairs. This just regime would apply the Quran-based rule and would apply this verse: "Do not give the immature your money which God has assigned to you for support. But provide for them from it, and clothe them, and speak to them with kind words." (4:5). As per this verse, we know that the wealth of a given nation or people is owned by all citizens equally, and one has the right to get one's inheritance as long as one can manage it, as for immature irresponsible ones who cannot do so, the society, as the original owner of wealth, must control and manage the inheritance for the benefit of society while respecting the immature one's right to live with dignity and enjoying this inheritance. The Muhammadans in Egypt, the Levant, Iraq, Arabia, and North Africa have given their public wealth (e.g., oil revenues) in their respective countries to the immature and irresponsible as well as the tyrannical corrupt ones, and the West nations ridicule them.           

2- It is easy only when applying the Quranist culture: This means to establish and apply democracy by raising the awareness of people and spreading the culture of democracy first to pave the way for it, and the best way to spread the culture of democracy is to spread the Quranic/Quranist culture; this is a very long story, but we briefly mention its main features below. During Muhammad's lifetime, early believers or Muslims learned in Mecca the culture of direct democracy by focusing on two main aspects as follows.

A) The first aspect is purifying faith tenets from submission to mortals, as real monotheistic believers submit only to God and never sanctify or deify mortals. This is the very first basis of direct democracy; real believers never fear any mortals as they fear only God, and they know that the four elements of Fate are predetermined only by God (as per Quranism, these four elements are birth, death, earnings, and calamities). Consequently, real believers never fear mortals, as they fear only the Creator of human beings based on truly sincere and practical faith and the belief in the Last Day, Resurrection, the Final Judgment, and Hell and Paradise. Real monotheistic believers fear God' Hell and desire to enter His Paradise, and they know that the real winning is in the Afterlife, based on sincere faith and good deeds deemed acceptable by Almighty God. Hence, real believers, who seek Paradise in the Afterlife, seek no superiority on earth and never accept corruption: " That Home of the Hereafter-We assign it for those who seek no superiority on earth, nor corruption. And the outcome is for the pious ones." (28:83).   

B) The second aspect is to inculcate in people higher moralistic and ethical values, which include the will to apply change and reform as per God's commands in the Quran. We discern form the Quran that God makes the human will of change (within reform as well as spiritual guidance) precede God's will; i.e., if they are willing to change to the better, God will help them to do so: "...God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves..." (13:11). We infer from this verse that people must change their status of submissiveness and laziness and other features of the culture of slavery to replace it with the culture of free citizens as per Quranic higher values that comprise justice, charity, peace, religious freedom, freedom of thought and expression, rights of people (i.e., human rights as we know it today), and in that case, God will help them and grant them success. Otherwise, if a certain nation or people would choose to remain submissive to and subjugated by tyrants, God will accept and maintain what they have willingly chosen and accepted. It is within this context that we understand the Moses was sent to address Pharaoh, and not to address ordinary Egyptians of his time, because most Egyptians at the time accepted Pharaoh as their master and supreme god. Thus, early Muslims in Mecca during the lifetime of Muhammad learned these values and tenets and practiced Shura consultation (direct democracy, in the modern term), and let us be reminded that the Quranic Chapter 42 titled "Shura" was revealed in Mecca not in Yathreb, and this allowed them to practice and apply direct democracy within the 11-year-old Yathreb city-state, when Quranic verses related to sharia legislations were revealed in Yathreb, and some of these verses are linked to direct democracy or Shura as well.         

3- A Muslim society is an active and interactive one of charity and goodness: The share of a given society of involvement, interaction, and active participation determines its share of liberation and strength. Even within tyrannical countries, sometimes one would notice raised levels of liberation in terms of verbal and written self-expression in Egypt where its president is being criticized in the recent years, while other Arab tyrants never allow anyone to even voice the slightest form of criticism. Sadly, the Egyptian president Mubarak, as a tyrant, allows a margin of verbal criticism only within certain limits to make people vent their fury and to give the appearance of allowing certain freedoms. Yet, we notice in recent years in Egypt that there have been a rise in peaceful actions like demonstrations and organizing strikes. Of course, the military armed forces use its security forces and anti-riot police to quell such change from verbal criticism to opposition movement and actions by intimidating the unarmed demonstrators with raised arms and imprisonment terms. The free nationalistic trends in Egypt will succeed one day if they are ready to face and bear patiently with such oppression, intimidation, and suppression. Admittedly, in comparison with the rest of the Arab countries, Egypt has more political movements, trends, and interaction that raise people's awareness and involve many youths who love their homeland indeed and are ready to sacrifice anything to achieve its welfare. Other Arab countries suffer brutal quelling of even the slightest voice of protest by Arab people who are unwilling yet to sacrifice anything for their countries and fear for their own personal safety; besides, their political experience is not as ripe, mature, and ready as the case of Egyptians. Within a real Quran-based rule of a real Muslim society, there is no room for silent masses because the practice of Shura consultation (direct democracy) is a religious duty, an act of worship, and a way of obedience of God's Quranic commands; this means that all Muslims within Quran-based rule in a given society must attend all meetings and councils of Shura and not to be absent from them. Even the Quran tells us about the divine warning against those who did not attend all meetings of Shura within the Yathreb city-state, as per the last verses of the Quranic Chapter 24, which were among the very first verses revealed to Muhammad in Yathreb. Muslims in such a Quran-based rule in a given country are not only Quran-believing citizens; we mean by the word ''Muslims'' here the literal sense of the term: all peaceful ones/citizens. This means that all peaceful citizens must participate in building their society and country by attending and participating actively in all Shura councils and meetings, regardless of their races, colors, religious affiliation, gender, age-group, etc. More details on that topic in our article on the concept of citizenry in the Quran-based rule in a given country, and we have asserted in it that the ''Muslim citizen'' is the peaceful one regardless of faiths and religious beliefs (or even lack of them), because no mortal is to judge people's faiths and religious beliefs; this is God's business on the Last Day. In brief, this is the essence of the motto spread in Egypt: "religion pertains to God, while homeland pertains to all citizens". Let us be reminded that the Quran talks about hypocrites within the Yathreb city-state and how they had full rights of peaceful opposition within a level of freedom never repeated again even within the modern democracies of today's world, as we have explained in our article on the concept of citizenry. Active participation in the Muslims society is guaranteed to both genders and include everyone, because the Quran addresses both genders of believers/Muslims (i.e., all peaceful ones in terms of their demeanor). We have shown how the Quran talks about allowing even all conspiring opposition figures in Yathreb at the time as long as they are peaceful (in the sense that they never committed aggression or raise arms against peaceful people) and their freedom was not confined to expressing their opposing the politics of Muhammad as the leader of this city-state; indeed, the freedom of the hypocrites included at the time to be vociferous in rejection of higher values of the Yathreb society by urging evil ways and repelling against righteous ways and goodness. In fact, the opposition figures, named in the Quranic text as hypocrites, enjoyed their freedom because they are part of the Yathreb city-state as they live in it, and this means that they were part of the participators in rule and its related affairs of the Yathreb city-state. This is real direct democracy. We affirm our views here by quoting these Quranic verses about the society of the Yathreb city-state that included both genders of believers and hypocrites/opposition figures: "The hypocrite men and hypocrite women are of one another. They advocate evil, and prohibit righteousness, and withhold their hands. They forgot God, so He forgot them. The hypocrites are the sinners. God has promised the hypocrite men and hypocrite women, and the disbelievers, the Fire of Hell, abiding therein forever. It is their due. And God has cursed them. They will have a lasting punishment." (9:67-68). This indicates that hypocrites of both genders moved freely in all streets and markets of Yathreb to advocate evil ways and repel against piety and good deeds, and no one stopped them at all (compare such freedom to the unjust, brutal, oppressive religious police of the KSA). God is the One to punish hypocrites if they die without repentance, and they were NOT punished by any mortals at all, as the eternal Afterlife punishment is enough loss and torment for them. In contrast to hypocrites of both genders in Yathreb, God says the following about other dwellers/citizens of the Yathreb city-state among the believers of both genders at the time: "The believing men and believing women are friends of one another. They advocate virtue, forbid evil, perform the prayers, practice charity, and obey God and His messenger. These-God will have mercy on them. God is Noble and Wise. God promises the believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever, and fine homes in the Gardens of Eden. But approval of God toward them is even greater. That is the supreme achievement." (9:71-72). We infer from these verses that as opposed to hypocrites of both genders in Yathreb at the time, there were believers of both genders who moved freely within streets and markets to urge righteousness (i.e., higher Quranic values of Islam) and advise against evil within verbal advice (NOT resorting to violence and oppression as is the case with the religious police of the KSA), and their peaceful preaching is done by all of them among  one another, not by a specific group assigned to perform this duty in authoritarian manner while being unquestionable. This peaceful preaching without inquisition-like coercion or compulsion is the best manner to apply the divine commands we find in these verses: "...And cooperate with one another in virtuous conduct and conscience, and do not cooperate with one another in sin and aggression. And fear God. God is severe in punishment." (5:2); "...those who believe, and do good works, and encourage truth, and recommend patience." (103:3).          

4- Without Quranist culture, the route toward democracy is very hard, dangerous, and bloody: Europe did not get rid of tyranny unless within centuries of revolts, armed struggles, conflicts, and bloodshed, when both free people and tyrants underwent several stages of repeated victories and defeated (esp. in France). Europe witnessed WWI and WWII and Nazism and fascism were crushed, as they were the fiercest embodiment of tyranny, replaced for while by the communist tyranny that ended later on in its turn. This left room for the emergence of some forms of tyranny under the guise of racist attitudes as in Serbia, but all tyrannical regimes ended in Europe eventually once and for all before the advent of the 21^st century. Tyrannical regimes linger in today's world in the Arab Middle-East, and within few Asian and African countries. As for the Egyptian renaissance, it began as Muhammad Ali Pacha, governor of Egypt in the 19^th century and later its king and founder of his own dynasty, made many Egyptians learn in Europe (mostly in France) many branches of science and he made Frenchmen train and prepare an Egyptian army, and this ended up in carrying the West culture of democracy in Egypt as the very first Egyptian parliament was founded in the second half of the 19^th century. The liberal epoch of Egypt (1923-1952) flourished despite the fact that Egypt was occupied at the time by Britain. The 1952 coup d'état of the Egyptian Free Officers of the Egyptian military army (supported at first by the terrorist Wahabi MB organization) aborted all steps of democracy attained within the liberal epoch, and military presidents removed the West culture of democracy burgeoning at the time and replaced it with leftist military tyrannical rule under Nasser and then theocratic Wahabi tyrannical rule under Sadat until now. Democratic waves have reached Latin American, Asian, and African countries, whereas the evil Wahabi KSA and its MB terrorist organization managed so far to abort, foil, thwart, and nip in the bud any steps toward applying democracy as they aim to make the Muhammadans and Arabs accept the revival of the Abbasid and Ottoman models of caliphate or theocracy. This is reinforced by the settled Arab Sunnite Wahabi monarchies in Arabia (i.e., the KSA and the Gulf monarchies) as opposed to the Shiite Persian theocracy settled in Iran now. This has led other military regimes in other Arab countries (e.g., Egypt and Sudan) to stick to some features of the Sunnite religion outwardly in order to survive. Thu, everyone tends to forget all about the Quran-based type of rule which is founded on human rights and direct democracy.  It is very known now that the Quranist trend and school of thought is being persecuted and fought, and it suffers media blackout, because Quranists are peaceful intellectual thinkers who advocate and preach reform on all levels, not just the religious one. Quranists (in Egypt and other Arab countries) are made foes to both sides that vie for power and regard each other as veritable threat: the military regime and the terrorist MB. Without Quranist culture within education of democracy to people (as Quranists advocate and propose), those who struggle for cultural, educational, economic, democratic, and political reform will have to go on the bloody route followed by Europe for centuries of civil strife bloodshed, coups, struggles, conflicts, wars, etc. and would eventually attain indirect democracy (i.e., of representatives and parliament members), which will reflect only the power, authority, wealth, and control of bloodsucking capitalists, as is the case inside the USA and the West countries. This sort of elected democracy where the majority of people has no political participation but to elect representatives and responsible people (and clap their hands for them) produces only overt change in appearance, and not the desired radical change for the better for the sake of all citizens. Within parliaments, two parties or more would just compete with one another and the status quo (of keeping rulers who reached power through 'free' elections as owners/controllers of everything who monopolize power and authority) would be maintained.                   

Thirdly: the influence of the establishment of Quran-based rule on the nature and mechanisms of the political system:

1- In the Quran-based rule within a given country, there is no ruler in the literal sense of the term; the society (i.e., the citizens of a given nation) is the source of rule, power, and authority, as all citizens share equally the right to participate in the ruling system, and this is the real meaning of Islamic Shura: to make all citizens practice authority and rule, without the need for a ruler in the ordinary sense of the word. This means that rule is the right of society alone within Shura consultation, without this given society ceding rule and authority to any sort of representatives (e.g., parliamentary members) within any secular social contract. This is self-rule and autonomy of direct democracy (i.e., Islamic Shura in the Quran) without representatives. As for the executive authority within this Quran-based rule, it consists of responsible experts in certain fields who will be held accountable before Shura councils and meetings (that include all citizens of both genders) to serve all citizens. We infer from the Quranic text and sharia that this Shura is directly linked to faith: all faithful believers must attend Shura councils, assemblies, and meetings, without being absent from them, or being reluctant to attend, and it is not acceptable even to stealth away from them (before the meetings would end) after attending them, so as not to allow creating a minority that would monopolize rule and authority; see 24:62-64. Prophet Muhammad, though divinely inspired by God, has been commanded in the Quran to consult: "It is by of grace from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh, hardhearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the conduct of affairs..." (3:159); hence, those who refuse to apply Shura consultation in rule place themselves higher above Muhammad. The Quranic verse 3:159 asserts that the nation (all citizens) is the source of all types of authorities, even in the Yathreb city-state ruled and led by Muhammad himself, as we read in 3:159 that God has commanded him to bear patiently with citizens of Yathreb, to treat them gently, to ask forgiveness from God for them, to pardon them, and not to decide on any affairs without consulting them first; otherwise, they would disperse from around him and this would have made Muhammad lose the source of power and authority derived from dwellers of Yathreb. Hence, the Quran-based rule has no ruler ins the sense of social contract concept, as each citizen would not cede his/her share of power to any representative members or groups. the Quran-based rule has no despots (tyrannical or absolutist rulers) of any type: military generals or theocrats/caliphs. This means that the caliphates of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ottoman, etc. had nothing to do with Islamic way of Quran-based rule and had no legitimacy of any type since all of their caliphs had usurped with arms and ,military struggles the right/share of the nations to participate fully in the affairs of rule. We understand now why Muhammad died in Yathreb without choosing a successor or appointing a ruler; as the citizens (or the nation) should manage their own affairs themselves. Yet, narratives, hadiths, and accounts fabricated about Muhammad during the eras of caliphate tyranny revolve around the disputes and conflicts over appointing rulers as per caliphate dynasties system introduced later on.                   

2- The Quran never addresses a Muslim ruler but rather the Muslim society at large; it is noteworthy the all Quranic verses containing sharia laws and legislations revealed in Yathreb – when Muslims had a Quran-based rule in the Yathreb city-state – do not address Muhammad as a ruler/leader, but they are addressing all believers in general. This point made the Egyptian Azharite religious scholar and thinker Ali Abdel-Raziq (1888 – 1966 A.D.) in his seminal book titled "Islam and the Foundations of Governance: Research on the Caliphate and Governance in Islam" assert that Muhammad did not found a state and was never a ruler of any. We beg to differ of course; we have proved within our Quranist views that he ruled democratically the Yathreb city-state, within conditions similar to (and this state was a precursor of) modern democracies of today. Religious scholars at Al-Azhar at the time could not discern from the Quranic verses the Shura ruling system of the Yathreb city-state ruled by Muhammad, because they thought of rulers only as absolutist (theocratic or secular) despots within tyrannical states, and this fossilized vision led Abdel-Raziq to deny Muhammad's being a ruler in Yathreb. Religious scholars at Al-Azhar at the time could not imagine that Muhammad had held councils and meetings of Shura consultation in the main mosque in Yathreb, as per what we infer from the Quran. The reason: all historians in the Abbasid Era (where writing down of traditions and history of Arabs began for the first time) deliberately ignored such Quranic facts because the Abbasid Era witnessed theorization of Sunnite fiqh (religious jurisprudence) by historians and religious scholars of theology that would serve purposes of theocratic tyrants.       

3- The Quranic terms 'judge' and 'judgment' does NOT means to politically rule and govern people. This intentional misconception is based on the linguistic misunderstanding of the Quranic/Arabic term (Hukm); this term in the Arabic tongue is semantically related to governance or government and also judgment, whereas in the Quranic tongue, in all contexts of all verses where the word (Hukm) is found, it means ONLY judge and Judgment. Sadly, until now, the wrong meaning of the term (Hukm) (as governance and political government) is being propagated by the Wahabi preachers of theocracy (Sunnite Salafists and the MB), and this misunderstanding contradicts the Quranic sharia legislations. The three often quoted verses by Wahabi preachers of theocracy in Egypt (brandished at the Mubarak regime) contain derivations of the root (Hukm) as to mean to judge and judgment and NOT to rule and govern: "...Those who do not judge according to what God revealed are the unbelievers." (5:44); "...Those who do not judge according to what God revealed are the evildoers." (5:45); "... So judge among them according to what God revealed, and do not follow their desires if they differ from the truth that has come to you..." (5:47). Hence, these three verses tackle the judicial authority using God's sharia legislations and NOT affairs of rule and political authority. Let us be reminded of the context of these verses in the Quranic Chapter Five; the context is about some People of the Book (some Israelites in Yathreb) resorted to Muhammad to be their judge, and God has told Muhammad: "But why do they come to you for judgment, when they have the Torah, in which is God's Law?..." (5:43). This means that the Torah was the source of legislations to judge among the Israelites used by their judges, and the Quranic sharia acts the same role for Muslims, and this is NOT related at all to political rule and government. The Quranic word/root (Hukm) is used in relation to judging and judgment (and NEVER in the sense of political rule and government) in the Quranic stories of David and Solomon: "And David and Solomon, when they gave judgment in the case of the field, when some people's sheep wandered therein by night; and We were witnesses to their judgment." (21:78); "When they entered upon David, and he was startled by them. They said, "Do not fear. Two disputants; one of us has wronged the other; so judge between us fairly, and do not be biased, and guide us to the straight way."" (38:22). Of course, not all contexts of the term (Hukm) refer to court judgment by judges; in some cases, the term refers to adopted stances or views reproachable in the Quran (and this also has nothing to do with political rule): "...Evil is the judgment they make." (16:56); "...Terrible is their judgment!" (29:4); "...Evil is their judgment!" (45:21).  In other verses related to Quranic sharia legislations, we find the verb "to judge" derived from the root (Hukm) within context of legislations related to pilgrimage: "O you who believe! do not kill game while you are in pilgrim sanctity. Whoever of you kills any intentionally, its penalty shall be a domestic animal comparable to what he killed, as judged by two honest persons among you - an offering delivered to the Kaaba..." (5:95). As for the word (Hukam), which means literally "the judges", it is mentioned only once in the Quran NOT referring to "political rulers" as Sunnites have assumed but to judges, within the context of prohibition of the sin of evil people offering bribes to judges to get what is not lawfully theirs: "And do not consume one another's wealth by unjust means, nor offer it as bribes to the judges in order to consume part of other people's wealth illicitly, while you know." (2:188). Hence, as far as the root (Hukm) and its derivations, judging among people (within courts or outside them) is NOT the same as ruling over them. The Quran contains the former sense of this root and NEVER the second sense.  

4- The Quranic discourse addresses people and societies and not any rulers at all. Since we have proven in the above point that the term/root (Hukm) and its derivations in the Quranic text sharia legislations are related to judgment and never to rule and dominance, and we have proven that the Quran-based rule does not entail a theocratic or even a secular ruler because people are the source of all types of authorities, we assert here that self-ruling people in that case appoint judges that judge fairly and justly in the name of all people and that the Quranic discourse addresses people in general and never a secular ruler or group of managers of political affairs and not even  tyrannical theocrats at all. Thus, God in the Quran addresses all people within society as they are the real and only source of authorities, including the executive and judicial ones; for instance, God says in the Quran: "God instructs you to give back things entrusted to you to their owners. And when you judge between people, judge with justice..." (4:58). This means that all citizens in a given society cooperate and coordinate to apply commands in this verse that include justice in judicial authority. In the very next verse after 4:58, God commands people to obey Him, the messenger (i.e., the message, the Quran itself, since Muhammad the messenger died) and also experts in their experience and authority within specialized fields (e.g., any scientific field, judicial system, sharia laws, etc.) for the welfare of society. In the three cases, one obeys God after all: Quranic commands of God revealed in the Book conveyed by the messenger Muhammad, and experts in all fields (including the Quranic sharia) are to be obeyed since they apply the higher Quranic values for the welfare of a given society: "O you who believe! Obey God and obey the messenger and those experts in authority among you. And if you dispute over anything, refer it to God and the Messenger, if you believe in God and the Last Day. That is best, and a most excellent determination." (4:59). This means that those experts in authority are the ones who specialize in certain fields of daily life affairs serving their society in relation to many cases and topics (e.g., engineers, medical doctors, pharmacists, judges, military leaders, etc.). This is further explained in another verse in the same Quranic Chapter: " When some news of security or alarm comes their way, they broadcast it. But had they referred it to the Messenger, and to those experts in authority among them, those who can draw conclusions from it would have comprehended it..." (4:83). Of course, these verses address their general terms and their details of Quranic sharia legislations to all people in a given society, NOT to rulers or governors, by saying phrases like (O you who believe!...); see, for example, 4:2-6.  The word (Hakam) which literally means "a judge or an arbiter" does not refer to rulers at all in the following verse, but to those people chosen from families of a husband and a wife in cases of reconciling them after a dispute: " If you fear a breach between the two, appoint an arbiter from his family and an arbiter from her family. If they wish to reconcile, God will bring them together..." (4:35).         

Lastly:

  This is the political climate and culture in which judges perform their duty in their posts as part of the judicial authority in a given society. Within the next chapter, laws or legislations used by judges in the cases they tackle are discussed.