Where does power lie? In some sense the source of earthly power is the ability to inflict physical pain and to kill. Say you want someone to move aside. “Move” you say. “No” the person says. If you are the state, you might threaten them and tell them that unless they move, you will fine them, sanction them, or imprison them. But if the person refuses to move then the state must employ force to move them. Say we want them to go to jail because they refused to move, unless they willingly walk to jail, we must corral them and shove them into jail.
Social mores such as the fear of shame are another incentive to produce behavior. Trying to get someone to talk in a criminal investigation for example, relies on people’s propensity to talk. The wise and the devious might say nothing unless coerced by threats, intimidation, or physical suffering. The person who refuses to move may have to be shoved or hit to get moving.
In the case of politics and Islam, some Wahabbi’s believe that God’s law should be supreme over the laws of man. But this is not the case in practice. A state is imposing secular or mixed laws which do not reflect God’s rule. Since the Wahabbi’s do not have the coercive power of the state at their disposal to take away jobs, money, or impose other sanctions, they resort to raw exercises of power via brute force. In other words they kill and maim those in their way. States are supposed to have a monopoly on killing, as it is the ultimate form of power on earth. The Wahabbi’s aim to control the world, expanding the Umma through killing, and to usurp the state’s monopoly on killing, or achieving rule in states like Pakistan, so that their power is legitimated.
But I find it odd to ponder on the fact that the bottom line is that all that keeps us in line is the threat of ultimate power that resides behind every institution. The power to tax, fine, imprison or kill.