Iftekhar Ahmed, UK
“O ye who believe! be strict in observing justice, [and be] witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or [against your] parents and kindred. Whether he, [against whom witness is borne], be rich or poor, Allah is more regardful of them both [than you are]. Therefore follow not [your] low desires that you may [be able to] act equitably. And if you hide [the truth] or evade [it], then [know that] Allah is Well-Aware of what you do.” (Surah an-Nisa’, Ch. 4: V. 136)
This divine injunction presents a standard of absolute justice that serves as a permanent criterion for all human affairs. It commands believers to uphold truth impartially, even when it conflicts with personal loyalties or self-interest. Yet secular states – whose claim to legitimacy rests on the rule of law – have, by their very structure, insulated themselves from moral accountability. In what follows, I will first examine a court ruling on Germany’s role in US drone strikes conducted via Ramstein Air Base, then expose its impossible evidentiary trap, analyse the deeper defect of secular sovereignty and finally sketch an Islamic alternative.
The case concerns the German government’s role in relation to the United States’ armed drone programme. Ramstein Air Base houses a US satellite-relay facility that transmits remote-control signals to Predator and Reaper drones operating over Yemen and elsewhere. Plaintiffs from Yemen, who lost relatives in a drone attack in 2012, argued that Germany has a constitutional and legal duty to stop its territory from being used for such operations. The German Federal Constitutional Court issued a ruling that, on the surface, appears balanced. It affirmed that the German state does possess a fundamental duty to protect human life, even of foreign nationals abroad, if German sovereign territory is involved. Yet, in the same breath, the court declared that this duty only activates a requirement for government action if there is clear evidence of systematic violations of international law by the United States. The court stated it could not find sufficient evidence of such a systematic breach. The court also rejected alternative approaches such as requiring Germany to conduct its own investigation into the drone programme’s legality or applying a precautionary principle that would halt potentially illegal activities pending clarification.
This logic is self-defeating: victims are asked to produce evidence held exclusively by the drone operators themselves. The court opens a door to justice – then hides the key. In effect, it erects an insurmountable barrier, turning due process into a cruel illusion.
The implications of this judgment extend far beyond its immediate context. It exposes a foundational defect in the very structure of modern governance. This is not a story of a single flawed court decision, but of a system operating exactly as intended. It demonstrates the core tenet of the modern state as an amoral machine. By amoral machine I mean a system whose internal logic of procedure and sovereignty overrides any external moral yardstick. Its highest purpose is its own sovereignty and self-preservation, making it the supreme source of its own legality, unsubservient to any higher divine or ethical law. Critics of divine governance often praise secular law’s neutrality as a virtue. Yet neutrality without moral substance is like a compass without north: it can point, but it cannot guide. This process represents a profound fragmentation of knowledge, where law is deliberately isolated as a technical discipline, stripped of the ethical and moral considerations that once guided it. In this way, a matter can be deemed “legally sound” while being morally bankrupt. An entire class of procedural functionaries – politicians, jurists and civil servants who operate according to institutional logic rather than moral conscience – is created to operate this apparatus. The judge, the politician and the civil servant are compelled to act not according to their conscience before God, but as agents fulfilling the logic of this machinery. Moral responsibility for the outcome is diffused into its anonymity.
Critics might argue that religious governance historically struggled with pluralistic societies and competing interpretations of divine law. Such an objection misunderstands the nature of absolute justice as presented in Islamic teaching. The Quranic injunction cited above explicitly transcends tribal, familial or economic loyalties – the very particularisms that secular systems claim to overcome but in effect reinforce through national sovereignty. The practical failure of secular systems to deliver justice, as demonstrated in the Ramstein case, cannot be dismissed by theoretical concerns about religious alternatives.
For decades, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, under the divine guidance of the Caliphate, has warned the world of this very predicament. Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih Vaa, has repeatedly called the world’s attention to the fact that peace can never be established without absolute justice. Addressing senior commanders at the German Military Headquarters in Koblenz on 30 May 2012, Huzooraa concluded his address by stating the ultimate solution:
“The leaders and their governments should strive to create laws that foster an environment and spirit of truth and justice, rather than making laws that are a means of causing distress and frustration to the people. Injustices and cruelties should be eliminated and instead we should strive for true justice. The best way to do this is that the world should come to recognise its Creator. Every form of loyalty should be linked to loyalty with God. If this occurs then we will come to witness with our own eyes that the very highest standards of loyalty will be established by the people of all countries and new avenues leading us to peace and security will open throughout the world.” (World Crisis and the Pathway to Peace, p.37 [fifth edition])
The principles Huzooraa speaks of are not relative. They are not subject to political convenience or national interest. They are rooted in a firm belief in accountability before God Almighty. This belief is the foundation of the true alternative. It is not a call to replace one man-made political system with another, but to shift the very basis of authority from flawed human sovereignty to the perfect sovereignty of God. When a state and its people see themselves not as the ultimate authority, but as trustees accountable to their Creator, the entire purpose of governance is transformed. Justice is no longer a conditional calculation of national interest, but becomes an inseparable part of faith itself – a fulfilment of one’s duty to God expressed through the selfless service of His creation.
Under a system guided by divine sovereignty, the evidentiary problem highlighted in the Ramstein case would be approached fundamentally differently. Rather than demanding victims prove systematic violations using classified information, the state would be obligated to actively investigate potential complicity in harm to human life.
The path from the Ramstein court’s impossible evidentiary standards to the broader failure of secular governance is predictable. The Ramstein case is not an anomaly. It is a direct outcome of a global system that has divorced its laws from divine morality. It demonstrates that where the state is sovereign, human rights become conditional and justice becomes a matter of political convenience. When contrasted with governance systems that recognise divine sovereignty – where authority is exercised as a trust from God rather than an end in itself – the moral bankruptcy of secular statecraft becomes undeniable.
Until law submits to a higher moral authority, the state will continue its pattern of impotence in the face of atrocity. We must shift authority from flawed human sovereignty to the perfect sovereignty of God. Only then will justice cease to be a conditional calculation and become the very substance of governance.
