RELIGION AND THE STATE: THE FUNCTIONAL PURPOSES AND THE ISSUE OF LEGITIMACY

Abstract

The present paper examines the importance of the functional criterion employed in assessing the legitimacy of the state in the context of political and Islamic communities. The main, underlying hypothesis is that the existence of the state, as envisaged by Muslims political scholars, is linked to the realization of the legitimate purposes as well as the empowerment of the Ummah’s sacred values and principles. This approach, which is based on the religious criterion of legitimacy presumes that the legitimacy of the state is contingent upon its commitments towards the requirements that were initially established to achieve. Regarding the methodology, this paper combines a historical approach to explore the origins of the state and its connection to religion, alongside content analysis aimed at comprehending the metaphysical foundation underlying the state’s inception. The paper concludes that the state, in its Islamic perspective, is a historical product, wherein text and history intertwine, resulting from the interaction of the political community that rule it with their believed religious metaphysics. This requires the subordination of the state to the Ummah as a functional tool rather than an independent entity.

Keywords

• religion, state, function, umma, community, legitimacy.