St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (Aug 2024)
Islamic Political 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.
