Published in Zamane / November 2010 The death of a head of state is always a momentous event. So what about the murder of a king? In all cultures, regicide is considered the ultimate political crime, like no other and deserves the worst punishment. For killing a king is obviously an attempt on the temporal order of the city, but it also overcome the law of God, which guarantees the smooth running of earthly affairs.
By Suleiman Bencheikh
A king is always more than just a chief of state: its legitimacy is to both temporal and divine right. Moreover, if the European kings were gradually freed from their religious legitimacy and their temporal power, they are nonetheless, in large international events, even today, ceremonial "superior ; " Presidents of the simple republic. This means that the sacred aura is all monarchy. This also means the stigma that affects everyone who is guilty of regicide.
The regicide is a parricide
To stay in Europe, history has captured the assassination of Henri IV, 14 May 1610, but also the exemplary punishment of his murderer. The "good King Henry," first Protestant and converted to Catholicism (as "Paris is worth a Mass", he confesses), died in the stabbing of Francis Ravaillac in central Paris (a plaque near the Forum des Halles is still there to remind passersby of the sad end of Henry IV). Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, will be tortured in the Place de Greve and his death will, in many ways, symbolic of the religious dimension of his crime.
His execution order for "the inhuman parricide committed by him in the person of King Henry the fourth " is very explicit: the prisoner must "[be] tortured the breasts, arms, thighs and calves of the legs, his right hand, which was the knife with which he committed the said parricide, burnt fire is sulfur, and places racked, it will cast molten lead, boiling oil, pitch resin burning wax and sulfur melted together. Then his body will be drawn and quartered by four horses. Members of his body will be consumed in fire reduced to ashes and thrown to the wind . According to the chroniclers of the time, his killing would have lasted a whole day.
Besides the unprecedented violence of punishment, it is interesting to revisit the term "parricide" as used in the award against Ravaillac, instead of "regicide," a word rarely used at the time. The king is in fact considered the father of the nation, his subjects are his children. The regicide is therefore an attack on universal moral and can not benefit from any political justification.
Kill the tyrant
Yet as far back as the murders of kings, some thinkers have tried to justify them. Thus, in ancient Greece, where the term "tyrant" is commonly used to refer to a king who rules by terror and corruption, the murder of the sovereign has sometimes been considered the duty of every citizen. The philosopher Demosthenes made for example of the model of perfect tyrannicide dedication democratic, while Aristotle sees a law of nature. Several centuries later, in Rome, Cicero uses the same theory to justify tyrannicide the assassination of Julius Caesar in full Senate.
Also in West found analysis of the concept of tyrannicide from the second half of the 16 th century among monarchomaques. Mainly Protestant, these thinkers writing in the context of religious wars in Europe and support the idea that if the king persecutes the true religion, it violates the contract between God and people. The latter is then entitled to revolt. The idea of tyrannicide logically lead to revolutionary doctrines in line with the Enlightenment and the social contract which will see the French execute their king, Louis XVI, January 21, 1793.
Islam and monarchy
If the regicide was sometimes justified in the West, what is it in Islam? A priori, the notion of regicide is alien to Arab-Islamic culture. Indeed, historically, the political and social order in the restive Muslim idea of monarchy. The monarchy would persist and a pagan, since the only true kingdom of heaven is, and the only legitimate royalty is that of Allah. A sura of the Qur'an (Al Mulk) is also there to remember: " Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, He is Omnipotent, He who created death and life to test you and know which of you is best, and it He is the Mighty, the Merciful .
However, if the title of king (Malik) does not exist in the early days of Islam, the religious and temporal power belongs to one person: the caliph, etymologically successor and representative of the Prophet. A Hadith mentions also the decline and renewal power by way of the Prophet: "The prophétat (An-nubuwwah) remain among you as Allah wants it to remain, then remove it when He wishes to be removed. Then there will be the Caliphate following the path of prophétat, and it will remain as Allah wants it to remain, and then remove it when he wants it removed. Then there will be a monarchy overwhelming, and it will remain as Allah wishes it continues, then remove it when he wants it removed. After that, there will be a monarchy tyrannical, and it will remain as Allah wishes it still, and then remove it when he wants it removed. Then there will be the Caliphate following the path of prophétat " (Masnada Ahmad bin Hanbal, Hadith of An Nu'man bin Bashir).
monarchy or royalty are thus associated with the least imperfect forms of power. They would ultimately degeneration of the caliphate system only truly legitimate in Islam. Devoid of all sacredness, the caliphate itself is merely a delegation of prophetic power.
From caliphate to royalty
In the early days of Islam, the killing is a political act almost commonplace and disputes are settled often in a bloodbath . The AH itself is the result of the assassination plot hatched by the Quraysh against the Prophet. At that time, Mohammed was certainly a preacher, but when it comes back to Medina, some years later, it will be chieftain, almost in "Head of State".
If the Prophet was able to avoid being assassinated, he is not the same for three of the first four caliphs, the rightly guided (or Rachidin Orthodox in Arabic). While Abu Bakr, who was already old when he took over from Mohammed, died a natural death after two years in power, but his three successors are murdered: Omar was killed in 644 by a slave Persian Christian. Othman died in 656, almost lynched by a mob of angry Muslims. Ali meanwhile was assassinated by kharidjites dissidents in 661.
Yet the murders of three caliphs "orthodox" are not strictly speaking of regicide: Omar, Othman and Ali are more of a head of state elected as monarch divine right. The elective and non-hereditary character of their accession to power made them accountable to the Muslim community and inevitably vulnerable at a time of strong religious and political strife.
Finally, with the Umayyads, and even more with the Abbasids, Islam entered the era of hereditary monarchy, with kings vying for a degraded version of the caliphate. The successive dynasties in the Islamic world then legitimize their power by a constant quest for holiness. The murder of the leader is no longer a single political assassination, he became a regicide, with all that that implies transgression of the law of God.
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