Thus whoever tampers with them, by making an allegorical interpretation not apparent in itself, or [at least] not more apparent to everyone than they are (and that [greater apparency] is something non-existent), is rejecting their wisdom and rejecting their intended effects in procuring human happiness. This is very apparent from [a comparison of] the condition of the first believers with the condition of those who came after them. For the first believers arrived at perfect virtue and fear of God only by using these sayings [of Scripture] without interpreting them allegorically; and anyone of them who did find out an allegorical interpretation did not think fit to express it [to others]. But when those who came after them used allegorical interpretation, their fear of God grew less, their dissensions increased, their love for one another was removed, and they became divided into sects.--Ibn Rushd, The Decisive Treatise (Treatise 3), p. 69, translated by George Fadlou Hourani.
translated by George Fadlou Hourani.
In these lines, in the context of his treatment of the proper stance by experts/learned to sharing their esoteric/allegorical interpretations of Scripture with the non-learned (see the first sentence [and recall]), offers a terse natural history of the rise and fall of political virtue ("perfect virtue and fear of God") that is coextensive with (and historically only coextensive with) the (first) Ummah. The very stylized natural history has three stages which I analyze below. Before I get to that I note that he relies on a distinction between the many and the learned/experts.
In the Decisive Treatise, we learn little about the characterization of the first stage. It's clearly an imperfect polity to some degree. But he does not say what the ingredients are that made it receptive to becoming a better (if not best city). We know he cared about characterizing the political (and demographic) pre-conditions that make such virtue possible elsewhere (for example in his commentary on Plato's Republic). But we do learn they required revelation to reach it. In particular, they relied on a literal interpretation of the sayings. Ibn Rushd does not distinguish here between the "sayings" (or Hadith) of the prophet and the Quranic text (and I will not do so either)--both constitute Sharia for generations of Muslims. (Of course, the members of the first Ummah have more immediate access to the Prophet's sayings than later generations, who had to rely on memory and compilers and for whom the sayings also become textual.) Sometimes, I will 'revelation' to refer to such sayings.
That is to say in virtue of understanding and obeying the dictates of the literal meaning of revelation by the populace of the imperfect polity the community is made more perfect both in the sense of becoming more virtuous and by embracing the fear of God. Obviously, the previous sentence glosses over lots of political and psychological mechanisms that, if known, may be very illuminating on how to move from imperfect to more perfect city. He also suggests (and this echoes, recall, earlier passages in the Decisive Treatise) that those, if there were any, who discerned and understood the allegorical or esoteric bits of revelation keep quiet (recall also this post). (It's not clear if they do so from fear or self-command.)
As an aside, this is a model of human community in which the experts do not communicate with each other or others. As we have seen, elsewhere Ibn Rushd allows the experts to talk to each other, but not the larger community.
The main thing we learn about the second stage, the community of the first believers, is that it does not reproduce itself. But in his treatment of the third stage, we also learn that the second stage is characterized by, "fear of God," political and religious unity, and mutual love.* Unfortunately, in this text he does not describe that these qualities entail. The third stage is characterized by less fear of God, political disunity, mutual animosity, and sectarianism.
Now unlike Plato's Republic, here Ibn Rushd does not point to the failure of sexual breeding to explain the cause of decline between the more perfect second and the less perfect third stage(s). (Ibn Rushd discusses this in his commentary on the Republic, although he does not follow Plato slavishly on this point--some other time more about this.) But, rather, he suggests that the decline is set in due to the fact that revelation invites non-literal interpretations which become familiar to the masses. And he implies that allegorical interpretations are not capable of generating consensus or unity among the (vulgar) masses. As Borges discerned, Ibn Rushd treats allegorical interpretations that are shared with the non-learned as akin to poetry--meanings multiply over time.** In fact, his treatment entails that in the generations subsequent to the first believers, those attracted to allegorical interpretations do not keep quiet (this is connected to his criticism of Al-Ghazali's willingness to share allegory with the masses elsewhere in the Decisive Treatise, and (recall) his criticism of the "Mutakallimun" elsewhere). In fact, he seems to rely on a distinction between the ethical/political teachings of Scripture(s) which is literally available to all, and the more abstruse metaphysical/scientific teachings of Scripture(s) which can only be discerned by the few expert-learned.
But this entails there are two, related political problems with revelation. First, revelation invites non literal interpretation of some of its verses (see Quran 3:7) and, in so, doing it undermines the possible stability of meaning not just of the allegorical texts, but the rest of texts (it renders more of the text poetic, we might say). Second, the community of the first believers does not have the right educational institutions that educate/cultivate would-be-allegorists or the learned and, thereby, confine esoteric knowledge to the experts. So, from Ibn Rushd's perspective, revelation needs to be supplemented by a proper political science. This entails that Ibn Rushd rejects Al-Ghazali's claim that revelation is sufficient for political life.
*I am unfamiliar with work on sympathy by Ibn Rushd, but one can say that for him the best city exhibits sympathy.
**Non shared esoteric meanings known (only) to the experts by demonstration may generate consensus for Ibn Rushd.
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