Why a strong, singular executive—constrained by consultation, higher law and institutional checks—may offer a closer structural affinity to the early Islamic model than parliamentary government
I took one last, lingering look around my “Eyrie”—my little Eagle’s Nest on the rooftop of a high-rise plaza in F-10 Markaz.
The blue-and-white spread of my sofa-cum-bed was neatly in place.
On the western side, a crystal-clear, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window opened the room to the Margalla Hills, dressed in their lush green attire beneath a blue-sky horizon.
My writing desk stood where it always did, with two chairs, my desktop and laptop. Beside it stood a king-size bookshelf carrying magazines, three sets of the Holy Qur’an, the complete volumes of Tafheem-ul-Qur’an, and books covering the many worlds of thought that have occupied my mind over the years.
A few rolled-up maps rested quietly in one corner.
Wall-to-wall synthetic carpeting covered the floor, interrupted here and there by a Shikargah—an oriental carpet whose old-world warmth seemed perfectly at home among my books and maps.
On the southern side, a decorated wooden door opened into my wardrobe, dressing area and bathroom.
Everything was where it belonged.
But why was I looking at everything so carefully, so early in the morning?
Because I have always tried to keep my little world neat, clean and orderly.
Everything in its proper place.
Perhaps that habit also came, in part, from my spiritual guide, my Darvesh, BāBā Tāl—the Bell-man.
BāBā Tāl is a rather sophisticated personality.
He claims to have wandered through the historic darbars, cafés, corridors and palaces of the old world. He has a particular fondness for systems, order and accuracy—not merely in grand affairs, but in the smallest details of everyday life and the surroundings in which people live.
And then, at that very moment, my old brass kettle whistled.
Tea.
The unmistakable announcement that the morning’s first little parliament was about to convene.
I left my room for the small outside kitchenette.
A few moments later, I returned carrying two steaming mugs.
Then a familiar fragrance touched my senses.
Since BāBā Tāl entered my strange little world, my mind has learned to recognize that fragrance.
And from somewhere in the distance came another familiar sound—
A faint, delicate chiming melody.
He was there.
The person who, apparently by divine right, had come to claim the second mug of tea—the one I had made a little earlier.
There he stood in his navy-blue robe, with brass bells of different sizes sewn into it. His blue jeans were rolled up to the knees, revealing his white joggers beneath.
The bells chimed softly as he moved.
And, as usual, BāBā Tāl said nothing.
He simply looked at the tea.
I knew which mug was his.
Perhaps that is how our conversations have always begun.
Not with politics.
Not with constitutions.
Not with presidents or parliaments.
But with two mugs of tea—and a question waiting somewhere between them.
This morning, however, the question was larger than the room.
Much larger.
It was about how a state should be governed.
About the presidential system and the parliamentary system.
And, perhaps more importantly, about what history might tell us when we look beyond the borrowed vocabulary of modern constitutions and return to the earliest Muslim experience of political leadership—the Rashidun Caliphate.
I looked at BāBā Tāl.
He lifted his mug.
The bells on his robe gave a faint little chime.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then the question finally crossed the table.
Which system of government comes closer to the political spirit of the Rashidun legacy—a strong presidential executive, or a parliamentary government dependent upon the confidence of a legislative majority?
BāBā Tāl took a slow sip of tea.
And the conversation began.
The debate over forms of government is too often reduced to a contest of labels: presidential versus parliamentary, strong executive versus collective responsibility.
But for a Muslim society, the question reaches deeper.
It asks not merely who governs, but how authority is acquired, how it is exercised, and what stands above the ruler himself.
That is where the Rashidun experience becomes intellectually relevant.
The Rashidun Caliphate was not a modern constitutional state, and it would be historically careless to pretend that it was. Yet the first four caliphs demonstrate something politically important: leadership could be concentrated in a single executive authority while legitimacy remained tied to consultation, public allegiance, justice and accountability.
The four successions were not identical.
Abu Bakr [R.A] emerged from intense consultation at Saqifah and subsequent allegiance; Umar bin Khattab [R.A] was nominated by Abu Bakr [R.A] and subsequently accepted by the community; Uthman bin Affan [R.A] was selected through a council appointed by Umar[ R. A] ; and Ali ibne Abi Talib [R. A] assumed leadership amid the extraordinary circumstances following Uthman[R. A]’s assassination.
The mechanisms differed.
But consultation, communal legitimacy and responsibility remained recurring elements of the political experience.
That distinction matters.
The Qur’an does not present political authority as a license for personal rule. It places shura—consultation—among the characteristics of the believing community:
«“And those who have responded to their Lord, established prayer, and whose affair is [determined by] consultation among themselves…”
— Qur’an 42:38»
The principle is powerful precisely because it does not require every decision to disappear into endless committee government.
It establishes something more fundamental:
The affairs of the community are not the private property of the ruler.
And the Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] gave political authority an equally powerful moral definition:
«“All of you are guardians and responsible for those under your care.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 893»
The ruler, therefore, is not simply powerful.
He is responsible.
This is where the presidential model deserves a more serious examination.
A modern presidential system normally places executive authority in one constitutionally defined office. The president possesses an independent electoral mandate, serves for a fixed term, appoints ministers and senior officials within constitutional limits, and bears identifiable responsibility for the direction of government.
The legislature makes laws and controls public finances.
The judiciary interprets and applies the law.
Constitutional mechanisms restrain the executive.
In other words, one person may carry executive responsibility without possessing unlimited power.
That distinction is crucial.
A presidential system should not mean a president above the law.
It should mean a president visible under the law.
Here the Western political tradition unexpectedly meets the Islamic principle of accountable authority.
Montesquieu, writing in The Spirit of the Laws, warned that liberty is endangered when legislative, executive and judicial powers are concentrated in the same hands. His answer was not the abolition of executive authority, but its placement inside a structure of institutional restraint and separated powers.
This gives us a fascinating convergence.
The Qur’anic principle says: consult.
The Prophetic principle says: responsibility.
Montesquieu says: restrain power through institutions.
And the presidential model, properly designed, can bring these three ideas into one constitutional architecture.
The contrast with a pure parliamentary model becomes clearer here.
In a Westminster-style parliamentary system, the head of government is dependent upon maintaining the confidence of the legislative majority.
That arrangement has obvious virtues: continuous parliamentary accountability, flexibility and the ability to remove a government that loses its majority.
But it can also create a peculiar political condition:
The government spends much of its energy maintaining its political survival.
Coalition arithmetic begins to compete with national planning.
Party loyalty can become more important than administrative competence.
Short-term parliamentary survival can crowd out long-term national policy.
A government may fall not because the country has rejected its programme, but because several members of its own political family have changed sides.
That is not necessarily democracy’s failure.
But it is a structural weakness worth examining.
A president elected for a fixed constitutional term has a different relationship with the legislature.
He does not need to wake every morning wondering whether a handful of legislators will withdraw political support before breakfast.
He can govern.
And because the mandate is identifiable, the responsibility is identifiable too.
If the economy improves, the president cannot hide behind a coalition.
If it collapses, he cannot easily blame the coalition.
If institutions strengthen, the credit is visible.
If institutions fail, the responsibility is visible.
That clarity of responsibility may be one of presidential government’s greatest democratic virtues.
But—and this is the but upon which the entire argument depends—
A strong president without strong institutions is not presidential democracy. It is merely concentrated power.
The constitutional model I advocate must therefore be neither a presidential monarchy nor an elected autocracy.
It should be a presidential republic under higher law.
The president should possess a clear mandate, but not unlimited authority.
Parliament should legislate, scrutinize expenditure and investigate government, but not hold the executive hostage to perpetual coalition bargaining.
The judiciary should remain genuinely independent.
The election commission should be insulated from the government of the day.
The public treasury should be treated as a trust rather than a political warehouse.
And the civil service should serve the state—not whichever party happens to occupy the executive office.
This is where the Rashidun analogy becomes meaningful without becoming artificial.
The early Islamic political experience cannot simply be copied into a twenty-first-century constitutional state. The Rashidun order operated within a community whose ultimate normative framework was revelation, whereas modern constitutional states operate through written constitutions, elected institutions and codified law.
The comparison, therefore, is not one of identity.
It is one of political architecture.
A singular executive.
Consultation.
Public legitimacy.
Personal responsibility.
Justice as a governing obligation.
And authority constrained by principles higher than the ruler.
These are the points at which the comparison becomes intellectually defensible.
Indeed, the strongest argument for presidential government may not be that it creates a “strong man.”
It is that it can create a strong office.
There is an enormous difference.
A strong man needs loyalty.
A strong constitutional office needs institutions.
A strong man asks citizens to trust him.
A strong constitutional office asks citizens to trust the system.
A strong man can become a problem.
A strong office can survive the man.
And that, perhaps, is the real lesson modern Muslim democracies should draw from the Rashidun legacy.
Not that we should recreate the seventh century.
But that we should ask whether our constitutional arrangements embody the moral architecture we claim to admire.
There is an old wisdom in the political world:
When responsibility is everywhere, responsibility can become nowhere.
And somewhere in the quiet corner of the Eyrie, I can almost hear BāBā Tāl whisper:
“Give one man the wheel—but never give him the road.”
The wisdom is deceptively simple.
A nation may need a driver.
It certainly needs direction.
But the road must be marked by law, the passengers must have a voice, and the driver must know that even the steering wheel is held in trust.
That is where shura enters.
That is where accountability enters.
That is where constitutional restraint enters.
And that is where presidential government can become something much more sophisticated than the caricature of “strongman rule.”
The choice, ultimately, should not be between a weak government and a powerful government.
It should be between unaccountable power and accountable authority.
A parliamentary system may achieve that balance.
A presidential system may achieve it too.
But for societies seeking an executive with a clear popular mandate, continuity of government and unmistakable responsibility—while retaining consultation, judicial independence, legislative oversight and constitutional restraint—the presidential model deserves serious consideration.
Perhaps the question we should therefore stop asking is:
“Do we want a strong president?”
The better question is:
“Can we design a presidency strong enough to govern—and institutions strong enough to restrain it?”
If the answer is yes, then presidential government need not stand against the principles of consultation and accountable authority.
It may, under the right constitutional architecture, bring them closer together.
As I was putting the papers of my article back into their folder, BāBā Tāl leaned a little toward me.
“Bācha!” he said with a smile. “I enjoyed today’s chat—very much!”
His eyes were sparkling with joy, happiness—and perhaps a little sharārat.
Then, with that familiar mischievous glint, he looked straight into my eyes.
“You are taking such a keen interest in the presidential system,” he said, “and then the parliamentary system, too. It seems you are planning to become one yourself!”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
He laughed heartily.
Even in his laughter, there was dignity.
I could not help smiling.
Perhaps BāBā Tāl was merely teasing me.
Or perhaps, as he so often does, he had left one last question hanging in the air.
I looked once more at the papers before me.
The presidential system.
The parliamentary system.
And somewhere behind both was the older question—the one that refuses to disappear:
What happens when political power is not merely a constitutional arrangement, but a trust?
BāBā Tāl lifted his tea.
The little brass bells on his robe chimed softly.
For a moment, the Eyrie fell silent.
Only the Margalla Hills remained beyond the glass—green beneath the blue horizon.
Perhaps some questions are not meant to be answered immediately.
Perhaps they are meant to linger.
And perhaps, sometimes, they become poetry.
And sometimes—
Poetry becomes tears.
□■□■POETEARS■□■□
[coined by T. Hejazi — where tears become poetry, and poetry becomes tears.]
One hand may hold the helm, but law must light the way,
Let one voice bear the trust, yet hear what many say;
For power without a chain can turn the night to flame,
But power bound by justice may safely lead the day.
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