Islamic Political Theology

The following is a detailed outline of Islamic political theology by Dr. Ovamir Anjum published on St. Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology.

Abstract

The central idea within Islamic political theology is that sovereignty, or the authority of final judgment, in nature as well as law, belongs to God. At its heart lies God’s revealed command rather than a logically derived corollary of God’s nature or analogy with God’s governance. The Qur’an does not teach the rule of a class of men authorized by God; it teaches that the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11 AH/632 CE) was the last of the prophets, after whom God no longer governs through a spokesperson. Hence the question naturally arose: who could possibly succeed the Prophet? For the Sunnī majority, the answer was the Umma, the community of those who believe in the Prophet’s message, who were to be governed and led in their mission by a successor (khalīfa or caliph) chosen from the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraysh. This position lay between two radically opposed alternatives: the Khārijites, who questioned any hierarchy in favour of plain reading of scripture and a violent, exclusionary piety; and the Shīʿa, for whom chosen men in the lineage of the Prophet’s cousin ʿAlī inherited infallible knowledge and the exclusive right to rule as Imām. Throughout history, the tension between Umma-centred and Imām-centred interpretations of Islamic political theology have generated creative reinterpretations. The aftermath of colonialism and the encounter with secularism has been particularly fertile in intellectual experimentation. In our arguably post-secular age, Islamic political theology is witnessing a robust revival in interest and creativity.

Table of Contents

• 1 Political theology and Islam
  • 1.1 Risks and inevitability of translation
• 2 Qur’anic political theology
  • 2.1 Legal sovereignty
  • 2.2 Political sovereignty
  • 2.3 Rational sovereignty
  • 2.4 Post-prophetic sovereignty
  • 2.5 Ummatic exceptionalism
• 3 Political theology in the hadith
• 4 Inheriting the Prophet’s sovereignty: the early caliphate
  • 4.1 Caliphate, rather than kingship
  • 4.2 The First Fitna
    • 4.2.1 Khārijism
• 5 Inheriting the Prophet: the Umma and the Imām
  • 5.1 God’s deputies: the contested political theology of the imperial caliphate
  • 5.2 Shīʿī political theology: sacred lineage, infallible rulers
• 6 Classical Sunnī political theology: rulers as trustees
  • 6.1 Key works
  • 6.2 The obligation of appointing an imām
  • 6.3 Appointing the imām
• 7 Eastern political theologies
• 8 Islamic political theology in comparison
  • 8.1 Jewish and Christian political theologies
  • 8.2 Hellenistic political theology
• 9 Late classical developments
  • 9.1 Descending interpretations: al-Ījī
  • 9.2 Ascending interpretations: Ibn Taymiyya
  • 9.3 The empirical turn: Ibn Khaldūn
  • 9.4 Eighteenth-century reformism
    • 9.4.1 The last great synthesis: Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi
    • 9.4.2 Purist revivalism
• 10 Colonialism and after: Muslim political theologies in a fragmented world
  • 10.1S ecularizers
  • 10.2 Colonial-era Islamizers
  • 10.3 Postcolonial Islamizers
  • 10.4 The new Shīʿī political theology: vilayat-e faqih
  • 10.5 Islamic political theology in the era of globalization
• 11 New directions

Read the full entry here:

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/IslamicPoliticalTheology

Ovamir Anjum

Ovamir Anjum is Chief Research Officer at the Ummatics Institute. He is the author of the article “Who Wants the Caliphate?” published in 2019 at Yaqeen Institute which serves as the provocation for this project. He is professor and endowed chair of Islamic studies in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo, co-editor of the American Journal of Islam and Society (previously known as the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences), and recently appointed editor-in-chief for the review board the Yaqeen Institute. His areas of research include Islamic history, theology, political thought, and history broadly. His publications include Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and Ranks of Divine Seekers: Translation of Ibn al-Qayyim’s Madarij al-Salikin(Brill, 2020), first two of four volumes. His selected publications can be accessed at https://utoledo.academia.edu/OvamirAnjum