Excerpt from "Political Theology and Islam"

POLITICAL THEOLOGY and ISLAM

FROM THE BIRTH OF EMPIRE TO THE MODERN STATE

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

PART

The book you have in your hands—or are reading on a screen—treats a big question. What is politics in Islam? I explore the question across the history of Islam, from its beginnings to the contemporary moment, on the basis of a set of case studies from Islam’s formative period (seventh through tenth centuries), classical period (eleventh through nineteenth centuries), and modern period (twentieth century until the present). I approach these cases through the lens of theology—political theology. Can theological inquiry offer insight for the study of politics in Islam? In the first part of the book, I present the argument in its general contours, spelling out the concepts and methods that inform the study of politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order, one with varied claims to sovereignty but also a general determination to realize a righteousness that stands at the heart of the message the Prophet Muhammad conveyed to his society in seventh-century Arabia. The following parts—the second through the fifth—illustrate, again, on the basis of case studies from both the past and the present, the diverse ways in which the umma, the community of Muslims, has struggled for a moral order that recalls its prophetic message.

The question I pursue in this study cannot be exhaustively treated in a single book, even one as lengthy as this. It has been my hope in undertaking this study, now over several years, to give greater shape to a method of thinking about the history of Islam. The purpose is twofold, first, to encourage scholars of Islamic Studies to think about the history of Islam through a theological lens and, second, to make it easier for scholars of other histories and traditions—and also other fields—to consider the venture of Islam in relation to their own research and reflection. I also hope general readers will find the ideas traced in this book personally edifying.

PART ONE THE STUDY OF POLITICS IN ISLAM

In the two chapters that make up part 1, I lay out the argument of this book: politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order in society. In the first chapter, I consider politics in Islam as a set of moral purposes—and the struggle to realize them in the name of Islam. Diverse forms of governance have ruled in the name of Islam over the centuries, from sultanates to democracies. Who determines the order of Islam, the sultan or the people? I highlight the fact that the authority to determine the order of Islam has never been singular. Such authority has long included not only the ruling powers and scholars of the law, which in Islam is known as shari‘a, but also pious communities that exist apart from governmental oversight. These communities, which have taken varied form over the centuries, are the moral educators of the umma, that is, the peoples of Islam in local societies across the globe.1 To be sure, Islam’s pious communities do not exist beyond the realities of human hierarchies. Their ranks include those with expertise in religious matters, both shari‘a norms and prophetic precedents. They also include people from all walks of life—from peasants to politicians. Still, while pious communities are always embedded in the local society, its governing structures included, they

exist in principle not to capture power or enforce the law but to educate the soul (the inner life where character is formed) in the ethics of Islam. In that sense, they enable Muslims to orient to God as their primary devotion—with effect on the manner in which they interact with others in society and organize for common moral purposes. These pious communities can therefore be said to have a role in shaping the order of Islam. As such, they cannot be overlooked when it comes to the study of politics in Islam. In other words, politics in Islam—as in other traditions—is not reducible to governmental order. In this sense, sovereignty, which I define as the authority to decide on the order of society, is not singular in Islam. This is not to suggest a modernist bifurcation between the secular and the religious but rather different modalities of sovereignty that interact with one another, sometimes in cooperation and sometimes in competition. Thus sovereignty in Islam is not only a function of power by which to enact shari‘a in society. It is also a function of devotion to God. In other words, while rulers—caliphs and sultans in the past, kings and presidents today—can present themselves as devoted to God by enacting the law, other figures too can display their devotion to God by undertaking the work of educating their local societies in the ethics of Islam. In this sense, these figures and the communities that look to them as moral authorities also have a share in determining the order of society and thus in the sovereignty of Islam. The sovereignty they represent is not necessarily at odds with the sovereignty of those who enact the law. Rather, these pious communities, by positioning themselves at a distance from the ruling elite and the worldly interests they represent, display a devotion to God that is distinctly otherworldly in orientation. To be sure, these communities are not above the forces of corruption. Still, they represent a parallel sovereignty in society, one that is not primarily oriented to the authority of the ruler—even a ruler who governs society in the name of Islam. Sovereignty, then, is not reducible to a system of governance that manages diverse peoples, ordering them as a single society. Such is true in general and not only in the case of Islam, but the matter has become confused in our secular age, when, it is assumed, the state is exclusively sovereign over human life, unrivaled in the power it wields to determine the order of society. As such, it demands our devotion.2 However, as this study indicates, the idea that a system of governance, the state in modern parlance, might be the object of one’s devotion exists only ambiguously in Islam. To be sure, those

who have governed in the name of Islam, past and present, have eagerly sought to associate their rule with the sovereignty of God, making it seem that it has a transcendent character of its own. Indeed, governmental authority, which is tasked with the establishment of justice in society, has long been recognized as sharing in the sovereignty of Islam. However, at the same time, the order of Islam assumes that heavenly devotions are operative in the souls of those who have been formed in the ethics of Islam through the mediation of pious communities, as mentioned above. Thus even when these communities acknowledge the governmental authority of the ruling power, their allegiance is not blind but contingent on the ways in which the governmental order aligns with their heavenly devotions.

To be sure, devotions are never entirely obvious. The opaqueness of our devotions is partly due to the fact that systems of rule do not only make and enforce laws. They also seek to orient the devotions of those they govern. That is, they need to show that they are sovereign—over one’s soul as well as over one’s society. In this sense, it is in the very nature of systems of rule— past and present—to attract the devotions of those they govern by claiming to represent them. It is, then, easy to become confused and believe that the mortal deity who rules society is the mirror of the immortal one in heaven. In principle, pious communities bring clarity to such confusion. By educating their members in heavenly devotions, they remind them that only God is God. Thus devotion to the ruling power can never be total. In addition, by educating the umma in heavenly devotions, pious communities enact a prophetic order, one marked by righteousness, alongside the governmental order. In this sense, they too are shapers of the order of Islam and therefore have a share in its sovereignty. The study of politics in Islam, then, cannot ignore the devotions of these communities, which are political even if not in the usual sense. That is, while these communities, as just noted, are shapers of the order of Islam, they are not essentially oriented to power. However, again, the question of devotions is not immediately obvious. A method is thus needed to allow us to see the way in which devotions shape the order of society.

In the second chapter of part 1, I discuss what is methodologically at stake in the study of politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order. After all, the history of Islam includes tyrants who sought to invest their power with transcendent character by cloaking it in the language of Islam.3 What, then,

does it mean to speak of politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order when tyrants have ruled in the name of Islam? Politics is not simply a struggle for power—a contestation for control of society’s resources, including its human members, as if mere biological entities. In other words, when it comes to politics, one cannot overlook the ethical agency of humans beyond their status as biological entities to be managed by the ruling power. Politics in Islam too does not unfold apart from moral assumptions, including righteousness of a kind as the fruit of one’s cultivation of heavenly devotions. Put differently, it would be difficult to speak of politics as politics in Islam if society showed no evidence of the righteousness that stands at the heart of the prophetic message and that is generally understood to be the fruit of the umma’s worship of God. The study of politics in Islam therefore entails assessment of the diverse ways in which the umma’s political devotions are oriented to the sovereignty of God.

The sovereignty of God, as represented by the order of Islam, is twofold. The ruling power, wielder of governmental authority, exists, at a minimum, to ensure security in society,4 while divine guidance, as mediated by pious communities, educates souls in the ethics of Islam with effect, as noted above, on interactions in society, including collective efforts for common moral purposes. The idea that the sovereignty of God takes twofold expression, as just noted, implies that politics in Islam includes two sets of transcendent claims: those of the ruling power to discipline society into order by virtue of its legal authority and those of pious communities to educate souls in the ethics of Islam by virtue of their spiritual authority. Theology, the study of transcendent claims, is thus needed to disclose not only the nature of the twofold sovereignty that determines the order of Islam but also the way in which the political devotions of the umma are diversely oriented to the sovereignty of God. It is not my intention in this study to adjudicate these diverse claims to transcendence, only to follow the logic of the twofold sovereignty of Islam, which would see the transcendent claims of the ruling power as ambiguous at best, arguably false, since it is not divine, and those of pious communities as more certain, since, in principle, they are based in divine guidance as revealed by the prophetic message. In other words, the transcendence of divine guidance, in contrast to that of governmental authority, is a true transcendence. As such, divine guidance endows the umma, its recipient, with a sovereignty of its own—with its own ethical agency beyond the power of

governmental authority to order human life. In sum, the umma’s political devotions are not singular because the sovereignty that determines the order of Islam is not singular, making it necessary to look to theology to disclose the varied claims to sovereignty, over souls and over society alike, within the order of Islam.

Put differently, theology is needed for a fuller comprehension of politics in Islam. Theology, as I use it in this study, does not refer to scholastic inquiry into divine matters, known in Islam as “the science of speaking” (‘ilm al-kalām), that is, discourse about the essence and attributes of God. Theology, here, is political theology, the study of human devotions in relation to politics where transcendent claims are never absent even in societies where politics is conceived in secular terms. The field of political theology, it needs to be stressed, remains a work in progress. The term is used inconsistently in the scholarly literature, not always in reference to the study of political devotions and the diverse claims to transcendence that would orient them, but, more commonly, to the idea that the governmental authority of the ruling power is quasi-divine insofar as it brooks no rivals to its sovereignty. We look to theology as a method to uncover a fuller understanding of the sovereignty of Islam and, in turn, of politics in Islam.

Indeed, given the imprecise usage of political theology, there is a need for it to be applied more rigorously as a method. This study is one attempt to do so, offering perspective on politics in Islam not only as a “secular” (worldly) phenomenon but also, as Muslims have long seen it, as a divinely ordained enterprise that embraces society as a whole. By this view, all sovereignty belongs to God—over society as well as over souls—but God does not descend from heaven to rule the order of Islam directly as its unique sovereign. While details differ from one context to the next, what is consistent is the struggle to represent the sovereignty of God in terms of a moral order. Significantly, this struggle has never been averse to nonrevealed wisdom, that is, secular or worldly wisdom, or to cooperation with non-Muslim peoples. In this sense, the sovereignty of Islam, as Muslims recognize, can be realized in societies where the ruling power governs by norms that are not explicitly those of Islam but that align with its purposes. In other words, the order of Islam is not clearly religiously uniform, and that, as we will see, by the logic of Islam.

In sum, politics in Islam cannot be studied simply as a set of power calculations, which, while always at play, are only partially determinative of the order of Islam. Alongside power calculations are moral assumptions, informed by divine guidance as prophetically revealed, so theology is needed to grasp politics in Islam as a worldly venture that is to be pleasing to God.

CHAPTER ONE A MORAL HISTORY

Political liberty exists only when there is no abuse of power, but everyone who possesses power abuses it until checked. Thus, to prevent against the abuse of power, it is necessary for it be checked by another power so as to ensure that no one is constrained to do things the law does not oblige or not to do what the law permits.

OPENING REFLECTIONS

This book is about a big question: What is politics in Islam? We have endless studies on politics across diverse contexts where Muslims have lived and rule has been established in the name of Islam. We also have endless studies on the many political treatises that Muslims have composed over the centuries. Digesting all of these studies only leaves one with the impression that politics in Islam takes endless form. In some contexts, Muslims embrace democracy as a modern version of the principle of consultation (shūrā ), which has deep roots in Islam as a communal decision-making process. In other contexts, Muslims claim that they can only be ruled by what God has revealed. By this view, human decision making is a kind of political idolatry whereby one ends up “worshipping” by a rule other than God’s rule. In still other contexts, Muslims pledge allegiance to kings who claim to be successors to the Prophet Muhammad. In this case, disobedience to the ruler is tantamount to infidelity. In the end, what, then, can be said of politics in Islam? To be sure, all communities disagree on fundamental matters, but it would seem naive to hope that the study of the history of Islam might offer a coherent picture of politics in Islam.

Such apparent incoherency features in the language that—it is commonly assumed— establishes the categories of politics in Islam. For example, the caliphate, a basic concept in that respect, eludes definition. Indeed, a survey of “caliphate” shows that a simple examination of politically relevant terms from the history of Islam will not disclose the meaning of politics in Islam. The idea of being a caliph, which was not unknown in pre-Islamic Arabia, is used in a particular way by the Qur’an, which connects it with the biblical idea of the righteous inheriting the land (e.g., Q 21.106).1 In that sense, caliphs are those who succeed the peoples of past nations (e.g., Q 24.55), now no more because of their failure to heed the message of God. Thus, according to the Qur’an, caliphs are not rulers but those whom God has ordained to prosper in “the land” because they live righteously, while the unrighteous are doomed to disappear.2

However, recent studies show that Muslims have taken the qur’anic narrative on being caliph in multiple and sometimes apparently contradictory directions. For example, the caliphate of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, was fashioned as a globalizing power where modern states and international boundaries are religiously inconsequential and even constitute a roadblock to the supremacy of Islam over the world. It was also fashioned as a doctrinally pure society where those deemed insufficiently monotheistic, including Muslims who recognize creeds and authorities other than those of ISIS, are to be eliminated.3 In contrast, other Muslims see the caliphate as a kind of democracy.4 They look to the qur’anic discourse that speaks of Adam, humanity’s father, as caliph. In this view, then, all humans are caliphs, all of Adam’s progeny and not only Muslims. As a result, no one has a privileged right to rule, and those who do rule are accountable to their fellow citizens, who, being offspring of Adam, are also caliphs. In sum, we seem to have two very different views of the caliphate in this current moment. One, as promoted by ISIS, signals a kind of authoritarianism under shari‘a rule, while the other, echoes of which featured, for example, during the Arab Spring, signals a democratic society where all are political equals and shari‘a is cast as a set of human values.5 The point is not that one of these two modern interpretations of “caliphate” is more consistent with the qur’anic narrative, only to suggest the disparate ways in which Muslims “hear” the term today.

In contrast to the caliphate of ISIS, which could be called a global nationalism to which one belongs by doctrine, the caliphate, historically, is

associated with empire. The earliest caliphs presided over vast territories—a realm—that we might see in terms of empire, that is, the conquest of lands, their consolidation into a centrally ordered yet complex administrative system, and the cultural orientation of the conquered peoples to the language and religion of the conquerors. In addition, empire, historically, is never separate from a moral order—a territory where peace is to prevail thanks to a divine law. Thus, when caliphs ceased to be warrior leaders as early as the ninth century and real power in the Abode of Islam fell to warlords, the former still enjoyed a religious stature as successors to the prophet. In this sense, authority in Islam became increasingly complex—as I detail over the course of this book. The warlords, once established as rulers over the Abode of Islam, might have seen their reign as divinely ordained by virtue of their conquest of territory, but the Abode of Islam was not simply a domain of conquest. It was also a moral order with roots in the message of the Prophet Muhammad. In such a context, the generalissimos of the age sought to be invested by the caliphs, the successors to the prophet, with titles befitting the glory of those who pretended to rule over the Abode of Islam. In other words, the caliphate became the symbol of a moral order that was understood to prevail over lands stretching from North Africa to Central Asia and North India— and, in time, to Southeast Asia in the archipelago of Indonesia. For example, Muslims living beyond the territories under the rule of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1924), known as “the refuge of the caliphate,” might still appeal to the sultan in Istanbul for protection wherever infidels threatened the supremacy of Islam within his “caliphal” domain.6 Here, shari‘a signaled not a cultural identity, as some would view it today, but a moral order that included non-Muslim communities, classified as the People of the Book, protected peoples who, having submitted to the rule of Islam, could govern their internal affairs by their own shari‘a. In sum, the Abode of Islam, a phrase found in neither the Qur’an (scripture) nor the Sunna (communal tradition), was envisioned as a moral domain that accompanied the rise of empire in Islam. Here, the caliphal office was the institution that represented moral continuity with the Abode’s prophetic origins.

A persistent question involving the caliphate, the symbol of the prophetic order of Islam, was the lineage of its head. For centuries, it was thought—at least in the circles of Sunnism, as opposed to those of Shi‘ism— that the caliph should be a descendant of the prophet’s wider clan, known as

Quraysh.7 Some still see descent from Quraysh as one of the conditions for holding the caliphal office. Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī (1971–2019), recognized by ISIS loyalists as caliph, claimed descent from Quraysh, as was noted in the formula used for the pledge of allegiance to him. However, despite the significance of prophetic lineage for leadership in Islam, it was not difficult for the caliphate to be conceived and constituted apart from such lineage. A cogent example comes from the Ottoman Empire, which traced its origins to a Turkic warrior, Osman Ghazi of thirteenth-century Anatolia, and which ended only in 1924 with the rise of Turkey in Asia Minor as a modern republic whose leaders saw no use for the caliphate in its territories. Be that as it may, the culture of empire under the Ottomans envisioned sultans as caliphs, despite their lack of prophetic lineage. Instead, caliphal stature was affirmed through elaborate titles and ceremonies that featured sultans as God’s delegates on account of their noble character, the justness of their laws, and the universal reach of their power. They were caliphs because they were superior beings, still human but ordained by God to bring about a divine order on earth.8

It is commonly assumed that the concept of caliphate is applicable only to empire under Islam as just discussed. However, it has long featured in other contexts with no less significance for the moral life of the umma, the community of believers. As early as the ninth century, roughly two centuries after the rise of Islam, the title of caliph was applied to saintly figures who held no worldly power but who were seen as successors to the prophet on account of their high spiritual stature. The emergence of such figures, known as the allies of God (awliyā’ allāh), is partly attributable to the need for religious guidance on a local level. Islam was at first the religion of the conquering warriors, largely Arabs, but as conquered peoples accepted Islam, local forms of religious guidance took shape under saintly figures. In addition, writers from as early as the ninth century spoke of the need for ethical training. As they argued, the mere existence of a legal order under Islam was not enough to make Muslims righteous. One could appear to be a Muslim, performing the prescribed prayers but doing so without sincere devotion. Thus, in addition to shari‘a, the order of Islam came to be marked by education in prophetic character—ethics (akhlāq)—which certain figures were seen as modeling for the wider society. The awliyā’, guides of their communities in this sense, were called caliphs,9 successors to the prophet not because of any

worldly power they held but because of their otherworldly character. In this view, their otherworldly character was obvious simply by looking at them. It was enough to behold them to be reminded of God.10 They were the guarantors of the community’s righteousness. It was their otherworldly orientation that made them, rather than the heads of empire, Islam’s true rulers, the prophet’s true successors as agents of divine guidance on earth. Similarly, as early as the tenth century, philosophers began to speak of the mind as the Caliph of God. The idea was expressed in different ways. Some spoke of the mind, once properly formed, as participating in the rationality of the universe. As such, it could range across the cosmos, engaging all bodies of knowledge. All that was good in the human condition was recognized as positively related to Islam, including other religions and nonrevealed knowledge. A prominent example of this outlook is the Brethren of Purity, a tenth-century group whose encyclopedic writings constitute part of the canon of the branch of Islam known as Ismailism. They understood the mind, having mastered all branches of knowledge, as enjoying a caliphal stature. Other philosophers of this period tied the caliphal stature of the mind more closely to the teachings of Islam. In this view, the mind, once trained in the logic of Aristotle, would necessarily conclude that Islam’s teachings represent the middle way in comparison to other religious traditions, the mean between the extremes. The human mind could be caliph since, once freed by the power of logic from all prejudice for its own tradition, it would come to recognize and defend Islam as the true religion, reaching this conclusion on the basis of philosophical argumentation rather than blind acceptance of the teachings of one’s tradition. One proponent of this outlook was a figure named Abū al-Ḥasan al-‘Āmirī (d. 992) from the eastern parts of today’s Iran.11 While he is largely forgotten, his philosophical conception of Islam had a noticeable impact on later scholars who are still revered today, notably Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), one of Islam’s towering figures, remembered for his use of philosophy in defending its teachings, for speaking of the highest ranks of Islam’s scholars as the prophet’s true caliphs, and for his close relation to Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 1092), the powerful vizier of the Seljuq Empire.12

In speaking of saintly figures and philosophers who lived in the shadow of dynasties that ruled their realms in the name of Islam, we should not imagine them operating on the margin of society even if they were not the holders

of power. Communities formed out of a common devotion to the awliyā’ and society as a whole looked to them for guidance. They enjoyed a religious authority that placed them, in Islam’s hierarchy, above those at the head of empire. Indeed, they might admonish sultans and viziers for failing to rule justly. After all, the saints represented the heavenly court, and rulers were in principle to govern on its behalf. As for the philosophers during this period, they were patronized for their wisdom by rulers who had come to power by conquest, had no prophetic lineage, and therefore wanted to show that their rule aligned with philosophical notions of the good. As Aristotle had tutored Alexander the Great, philosophers could help warlords present their power as embodying the wisdom of the ages.13

This brief survey shows that politically significant concepts in Islam, such as caliphate, have never been fixed. Such concepts are important, but on their own they do not tell us much about politics in Islam. Is it empire or democracy? Is it shari‘a supremacy or common human values? Who enjoys ultimate authority under Islam, ruling powers or saintly figures? Indeed, no one paradigm has prevailed even within a single context. Today, for example, in a single nation, some might recognize the ruler as the mediator of the contract that the umma, the community of believers, has with God, associating him within the purview of their religious allegiance, while others see the ruler as a tyrant, a worldly power who has nothing to do with the umma’s contract with God and thus no claim on its religious allegiance.14 Such tension featured in the Arab Spring, which, beginning in late 2010, toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya. Some religious authorities warned that protests would only open the door to chaos. They saw them as acts of disobedience against God. Others felt that the dictators, long ruling in the name of Islam, had made a mockery of the religion. They saw the protests as religiously legitimate.15

Despite the cacophony of meanings when it comes to politics in Islam, this book argues that we can speak of it coherently in terms of a moral history. I do so through the specific lens of sovereignty, which I define as the authority to decide on the order of Islam. Considering cases from Islam’s formative, classical, and modern periods through the lens of sovereignty, we can note patterns that show a coherency of meaning when it comes to politics in Islam, which I define as a set of assumptions about the order of society and its moral purposes and the struggle to realize them in the name of Islam. Thus, if

politics in Islam is a struggle for a moral order, the sovereignty of Islam is the authority to determine it. However, the sovereignty of Islam, while a singularly divine affair, is represented in distinct ways by both rule and religion.16 In other words, sovereignty is not exclusive to the regime in power; other elements in society, including pious communities, are also shapers of the order of Islam.17 There is, then, reason to think of politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order even—perhaps especially—when the regime in power governs tyrannically for its own particular interests despite its claim to rule in the name of Islam. When it does govern tyrannically, other elements in society can call people to the order of Islam because they too enjoy a share in the sovereignty of Islam and have a hand in shaping its order. The order of Islam is therefore a function of both governmental and religious authority, the latter being as much moral and even legal as it is spiritual and ethical. Also, it needs to be emphasized that religious authority belongs not only to shari‘a scholars, who may align with the regime in power as lawmaker/enforcer, but also to pious communities, which align, in principle, with the ethics of Islam and, as such, are oriented to a sovereignty beyond that of the regime in power. The epigraph to this chapter suggests a moral order is never a given but always a struggle between society’s diverse players. Politics in Islam, in its own way, also works in such a fashion.

Over the course of this chapter, I consider politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order with a focus on the way in which the sovereignty of Islam is represented by various elements in society, pious communities especially, in addition to the regime in power. I begin with a handful of examples to illustrate what I mean by politics in Islam. I then discuss two points that will be at play over the course of the book. First, I consider the way in which rule in Islam, even when not corrupt, is able to represent the order of Islam only ambiguously, despite the fact that rule has long been seen as divinely ordained, that is, as integral to the order of Islam. Second, I consider what is meant by pious community in Islam, which, unlike rule in Islam, exists not to discipline society into order but to orient the souls of believers to God, forming them in a righteousness that distinguishes society as a prophetic order. Through the centuries, pious communities in Islam, even if ordered primarily to the otherworld, have nevertheless been thoroughly involved in shaping the order of this world. I thus speak of these communities in terms of engaged distance. They are “distant” from worldly affairs, attuning the souls

of the umma to a sovereignty beyond that of the ruling power, yet also “engaged” in society, including its politics, even if not seeking to replace the regime in power.18 Here we need to consider the spiritual life, that is, the education of the soul—the inner life where character is formed—as part of the ethics of Islam, which, again, encourages one to be devoted to the otherworld—to God—even while in this one. I emphasize two points in this regard: first, the spiritual life is not morally or societally irrelevant; and, second, the relevancy of the spiritual life in this sense is best understood as spiritual capital, 19 whether concentrated, organized in clearly defined communities under a recognized leadership, or loosely operative in society through the ethical sentiments of its affiliates.20

In the next chapter, I discuss political theology, the method that informs this study. Theology was long ago banished from the modern university since, it was held, it deals with otherworldly matters, which, being essentially nonempirical in nature, have no explanatory value for the study of politics. However, political theology has come into fashion in recent decades, yet it is used in varied and even cacophonous ways. What is it exactly? And how does it offer perspective for the study of politics in Islam? Also in the next chapter, I consider the conundrum of sovereignty confusion whereby the governmental authority of the ruling power, known today as the state, is understood to be singularly sovereign over society, leaving no room for parallel expressions of sovereignty in society, such as religion. Sovereignty confusion, it is held, prevails especially in the modern period. It can thus be asked: If the state is now singularly sovereign over society, does it still make sense to speak of politics in Islam as a struggle for a moral order under the twofold sovereignty of rule and religion? Some, answering in the negative, would balk at my inclusion of the modern period in this study, which, it is commonly believed, is essentially unlike the past because, today, religion is no longer politically relevant. In this view, today’s politics is wholly ordered to worldly power apart from questions of otherworldly piety. A number of issues are at play in sovereignty confusion, notably, the state’s attempt to become the nation’s religious no less than its governmental authority, thereby turning religion, paradoxically, into a secular affair—sometimes known as political religion. Nevertheless, it is premature, I contend, to dismiss the ethical and even spiritual side of politics. Today it is common to think of politics wholly in terms of sovereignty confusion whereby the ordering power of the modern

state, it is assumed, is all-encompassing. However, this outlook can actually blind us to the greater political reality on the ground, where the twofold sovereignty of Islam—and of other traditions—is still operative even if taking forms that the “modern” eye has trouble beholding.

THE IDEA OF TWOFOLD SOVEREIGNTY

In this section, I turn to a handful of examples, from both past and present, to illustrate the idea of politics in Islam in terms of its twofold sovereignty. The distinctions are never neat, but they are noticeable. I begin with Senegal in the early 1970s at a time of severe drought. Abdou Lahatte Mbacké, leader of one of the nation’s largest spiritual associations, with several million adherents, known as the murīdiyya, castigated the ruling elite for their neglect of the nation during its crisis.21 In addition, he called on his followers, many of whom were farmers, to plant sustenance crops rather than peanuts, which constituted a large part of the nation’s foreign trade, making it a major source of the hard-currency reserves that benefited the ruling elite in Dakar even as they ignored the country’s farming communities. In the end, Mbacké would restore good relations with the ruling elite but only after they had conceded to his demands, including forgiveness of the mounting debts of farmers.22 His goal was not to capture the state for himself and his community but to defend their basic needs by invoking the sovereignty of Islam against the ruling elite and their neglect of the good of the nation as a whole. In other words, even if, in modern parlance, he was a non-state actor, Mbacké played a role in determining the order of society in Senegal where, even if the state is constitutionally secular, the life of the nation is inseparable from Islam.23 On the one hand, the spiritual capital in question in this case was concentrated, that is, organized in a clearly defined community under a recognized leadership. On the other hand, it needs to be emphasized that Mbacké succeeded not only by mobilizing the communal solidarity of his followers but also by admonishing the ruling elite in the language of Islam for the sake of securing the good of the nation as a whole, even if his immediate concern was the welfare of the members of his own pious community, the murīdiyya. In sum, in a context of crisis, his voice became a sovereign decider on the order of the nation, despite the fact that he held no governmental authority. The dynamic

of twofold sovereignty, as illustrated by this example, captures the meaning of politics in Islam as I explore it in this book over the centuries, where the ruling power is only ambiguously sovereign, existing alongside a parallel sovereignty, which, traditionally, is represented by figures like Mbacké but, in our democratic age, increasingly by citizens who embody the ethics of Islam in service of the moral life of the nation.

Before turning to the next example, it is worth noting that my focus on the twofold sovereignty of Islam is not meant to imply that Islam encourages a political dualism whereby a religious domain exists apart from the rest of society under the ruling power. The latter also has a place in the moral imaginary of Islam in light of its governmental authority. Sultans of the past maintained networks of loyalty to their person at least in the circles of the ruling elite,24 who, by virtue of their association with the worldly power of the sultans, were viewed by the wider society with a kind of dread (hayba). Today loyalty to the head of state, whether king or president, can take on the likeness of a personality cult with society-wide displays of devotion to the ruler at least in the public space if not also in the private home. Indeed, the role of being a government official in service to the ruler can be understood as a sacred duty, giving it a quasi-religious quality that makes it associable with Islam. Nevertheless, worldly power, even when recognized as legitimate, is intrinsically ambiguous as the object of one’s devotion. This is hardly specific to Islam. Something in humanity balks at the idea of pledging allegiance wholly—awarding devotion entirely—to the ruling power and its governmental authority even if one recognizes the need for rule. Society, collectively, looks for something beyond power as the object even of its political devotions, and networks of moral authority that take shape as pious communities have long offered a place where society’s devotions are satisfied—to its benefit.

A religious figure in fifteenth-century Central Asia, ‘Ubaydallah Aḥrār (d. 1490), stood at the head of one such network. His sovereignty, based on his saintly character, was formidable enough to challenge the worldly potentates of his day—much like Mbacké in contemporary Senegal. The network of pious communities under his aegis operated as a moral “space” that offered protection from the injustices of the ruling elite. Aḥrār’s “regime” guaranteed freedom from oppressive taxation while carving out a space of peace in society apart from the widespread violence of competing warlords that at times threatened to ruin it.25 Here too the sovereignty of Islam was twofold. Along-

side sultans, whose manner of ruling often brought more harm than benefit to society, figures such as Aḥrār effectively established a regime of righteousness. To be sure, no order is without its pretenders, even one that seeks to represent the righteousness of Islam. Muslims, like other peoples, poke fun at religious authorities since, they know all too well, some of them are more interested in wealth and prestige than in piety. Such charlatans have their place in the history of Islam, exploiting people’s expectations of righteousness by falsely presenting themselves as its purveyors. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to confuse the corruption of the institution with its purpose, even when both exist in society simultaneously.

The sovereignty of Islam as represented by pious communities and their leaders, such as Mbacké and Aḥrār, is not reducible to wealth and prestige. The purpose of divine guidance as mediated by pious communities and their leaders lies in its benefit (naf‘) to the community if not to society as a whole.26 Whether in communities under the likes of Mbacké and Aḥrār or through more diffuse expressions of the ethics of Islam as they feature in today’s faithbased nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), foundations, and even banks, pious activity can be self-serving. One does not become righteous simply by using the language of Islam. Pious activity, believers recognize, needs to be ordered to society’s well-being (al-maṣlaḥa) for it to win their allegiance and devotion.27 In this sense, the twofold sovereignty of Islam, worldly and otherworldly in its orientation, including divine guidance alongside rule, serves to ensure that society does not exist simply as a struggle for power but, primarily, for the sake of a moral order, a vision of goodness that embraces all of society. However, society in this sense, at least when it comes to politics in Islam, cannot exist by the ordering power of rule alone. Politics in Islam also depends on righteous figures who encourage people to prefer the wellbeing of society as a whole over their own interests when the latter would lead to injustice or harm the good of others.

Countless instances of the twofold sovereignty of Islam exist across the ages even if the details vary from one context to the next. In the cases of Mbacké and Aḥrār, the sovereignty of religion, as opposed to that of rule, took the shape of pious communities with spiritual capital that was highly concentrated in the sense described above. However, every context also includes cases where such capital is more loosely operative, shaping the moral imaginary of society through the ethical sentiments of its members, not only

its religious elite, but also the umma, the community of believers, as a whole. We see this, for example, during the Mamluk Dynasty (1250–1517), which ruled over Egypt and Syria as a military oligarchy. Its members—the ruling elite of the age—had originally been brought into the Abode of Islam from Central Asia as slaves, purchased to staff the army of the Ayyubid Dynasty (1171–1250), which Salāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin, d. 1193), famous for his victories over the Crusaders, had founded after he toppled, in the name of Sunnism, the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), a dynasty that had ruled in the name of Ismailism from its capital in Cairo. Eventually, the Mamluks, which means “slaves,” did away with their Ayyubid masters. They ruled in the name of Islam and cast their sultanate as a divinely ordained enterprise on the basis, first, of their military success—jihad—against the Mongols and the Crusaders and, second, of their patronage of Islam, including the funding of mosques and schools for the study of the prophetic heritage.28 In addition, they made use of Islam in ceremonies that were meant to cast their own power as a transcendent affair. For example, attending the inauguration of new sultans were the heads of the four shari‘a schools of Sunnism and also the caliph, now a puppet figure but still symbolic of the umma’s continuity with its prophetic origins. Thus, in some measure, the Mamluks were recognized as the rulers of Islam, despite their slave background, especially for their defense of Islam against infidel forces.

Nevertheless, their claim to represent the sovereignty of Islam was always in question. Their approach to governance was notoriously rapacious—and given to infighting. The commanders who made up the ruling elite under the Mamluks were known for their abuse of power. For example, in lieu of salaries, they were assigned vast tracks of land—not to own but to use for agricultural production. For this purpose, they entered into contracts with the farmers who worked the land, but they used their power to exploit them. In response, shari‘a authorities undertook a wide-ranging and in-depth review of the law of the realm on sharecropping contracts to ensure more equitable treatment of the farmers, including their right to share in the produce of their labor.29 In short, the Mamluk Dynasty, the ruling power, was not the only sovereign in its realm. To be sure, their subjects were not disposed to revolt, not only because they had little chance of success against the dynasty’s military might, but also because they recognized that the Mamluks, despite their abuses of power, had preserved the Abode of Islam from the onslaughts of

Mongols and Crusaders.30 Nevertheless, the righteousness of the realm, including the idea that all were to receive their due, was the work not of the dynasty but of shari‘a authorities.31

In addition to the efforts of shari‘a authorities to establish a more equitable sharecropping law under the Mamluks, whose manner of ruling put the overall welfare of society at risk, the sovereignty of Islam—over against the pretensions of the ruling power to represent it—was enacted in other ways.

For example, the Qur’an describes prophets as advisers to the ruling powers of their day. They offer counsel (nuṣḥ) that is meant to bring about righteousness in society, and rulers who fail to heed such counsel pose a threat to their own societies (e.g., Q 11.34). In other words, the governmental authority of the ruling power is meant to be a transcendent affair, yet it represents the sovereignty of Islam only ambiguously because, as I explore later, its worldly power alone cannot ensure the righteousness of Islam. For this reason, Islam’s scholars, heirs to the prophets (warathat al-anbiyā’ ), were to offer counsel to rulers, which might take the form of reprimand when they neglected their duty to govern justly for the good of all. One example is Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī

(d. 1370), chief judge of Damascus and author of The Restorer of Bounties and the Dispeller of Chastisements 32 This work is a thinly veiled warning to the ruling elite that they risk being condemned as infidels if they continue to terrorize their subjects. The issue, here too, involved lands assigned to the ruling elite. According to al-Subkī, they failed the message of Islam in many respects, especially their abuse of farmers. As he pointed out, they had effectively made themselves lords over the peasants in disregard of the message of Islam, which says that God alone is lord over creation. To be sure, al-Subkī was not calling for revolt, but he was concerned with the ruling elite’s use of its power to dominate the commoners instead of protecting them from harm. He called for rule by God’s law, shari‘a, to ensure more lenient treatment of the commoners. His was not a call to separate rule from religion but rather to remind the ruling elite that they enjoyed divine favor only to the extent that they recognized the dignity of all and carried out the duties of their office accordingly. In short, he was saying that the umma is not simply a society that has been disciplined into order by governmental authority. It also includes the ethical expectation that all are to be dignified. The warning of al-Subkī, along with the work of the shari‘a scholars who brought about the reform of the sharecropping law, cannot be attributed

The Study of Politics in Islam

simply to their knowledge of shari‘a.33 As just suggested, they were motivated by ethical sentiments, including a commitment to the inviolability (ḥurma) of all society’s members, however lowly in the eyes of the world. In other words, their education included training in ethics as well as study of shari‘a,34 attuning them to the order of Islam as a domain of righteousness and not only of power. However, in this case, religion as spiritual capital did not take a highly concentrated form as it did with Mbacké and Aḥrār. To be sure, as a leading scholar, al-Subkī enjoyed a stature that allowed him to shame those in power, but his warning to the rulers is not explicable solely in terms of his own prestige. No less important was his orientation to the ethics of Islam. He and other educated members of society were known not only for their shari‘a learning but also for a righteousness that they were to model for society as a whole, even if they were not recognized leaders of clearly defined communities with large numbers of devotees, as was the case with Mbacké and Aḥrār. In other words, the sovereignty of religion could also take shape as a more loosely operative form of spiritual capital, namely, ethical sentiments—righteousness—that figures such as al-Subkī modeled for society as a whole. In this way, such sentiments could take root in the souls of its members, including uneducated ones, orienting them to a sovereignty beyond that of the regime in power and thus informing their interactions in society, not only their prayers in the mosque.

We see this side of the twofold sovereignty of Islam not only in the age of the Mamluks, but across the history of Islam. Islam’s ethical sentiments were sovereign over society insofar as they were embodied by righteous figures, who positioned themselves in relation to rule in diverse ways. In addition to the presence in society of such righteous figures, it is important to make note of the varied manuals on ethics that were composed for the education of souls, especially society’s learned members, who were to model Islam’s ethics for their communities, allowing for a wider diffusion that worked to orient society as a whole to a sovereignty beyond that of rule and that also sensitized individuals to their role in establishing the order of Islam.35 In other words, this side of the sovereignty of Islam was enshrined in a corpus of ethical literature.

One scholar who composed literature of this type during the age of the Mamluks was Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). A prolific writer, he advocated for the reform of society, doing so by calling for direct engagement with the texts of

revelation and reports of the companions of the prophet and their followers— the first generations of Islam known collectively as the righteous forebears (al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ). They were the moral exemplars whom the umma were to emulate for its piety, but its religious leaders, Ibn Taymiyya maintained, had become decadent, both the shari‘a establishment and the shaykhs of Sufism, Islam’s spiritual brotherhoods. In his view, the shari‘a establishment no longer operated according to the clear teachings of Islam but by juristic devices of their own making. Not only did this distortion of Islam’s norms put the religious integrity of the umma in jeopardy. These legal tricks, even if juristically sound, were ethically dubious, since they allowed the ruling elite to neglect their duties to society.36 Similarly, shaykhs, Islam’s spiritual masters, no longer worked, according to Ibn Taymiyya, to spread the ethics of Islam in society, only to bolster their own prestige by spiritual devices of their own making, which, they claimed, allowed people to become united with God. Thus, as Ibn Taymiyya saw it, the umma was in great need of reform, since it was now led by human concoctions rather than divine guidance as communicated by the texts of revelation and modeled by the righteous forebears.

Ibn Taymiyya not only called society’s religious leaders to guide the umma by the pristine message of Islam rather than their own human devices. He also called the ruling elite to govern righteously, even if commending them for their defense of Islam against infidels.37 In other words, he recognized that the state of the umma was due not only to the decadence of its religious authorities but also to the tyranny of its rulers. He therefore called rulers to put aside their worldly interests when governing society. Indeed, he argued, they should understand the work of governance in a contractual sense—as a set of mutual obligations as defined by shari‘a categories.38 Just as religious authorities were to carry out their duties according to the pristine message of Islam, so too rulers were to perform the duties that God had entrusted to them with the piety of the first Muslims, ensuring that none were treated unjustly, all given their due, thereby showing themselves to be worthy of their claim to be sovereign over the Abode of Islam.

In response to the moral crisis of his day, Ibn Taymiyya composed writings of various kinds, literature in which he sought to give life to what he saw as a theologically sound vision of the umma, one led by the fear of God rather than the human devices that were presented as religiously authoritative but

that served only to disguise tyranny in a false version of Islam. Among his writings is a treatise on ethics, “The Actions of Hearts” (a‘māl al-qulūb),39 which calls for a commitment to righteousness across all sectors of society. Islam, then, is not just a set of rulings and practices, which can be easily manipulated for worldly interests, as noted above. It is, he argues, ultimately based on love for God. All are obliged to love God, elites and commoners alike, and they are to show this love by truly worshipping God, and true worship of God, based on a perfect love for God, produces a commitment to righteousness (birr ), that is, a commitment to divine guidance, as known from the pristine message of Islam, rather than to one’s own worldly interests, which only results in the spread of tyranny in society. This treatise on the inner character of Muslims, even if addressed to society’s literate members, especially but not only its religious leaders, seems to have had implication for society as a whole. Its call to obey God by inner conviction would seem to suggests that the umma might be “self-governing,” not in the sense of being free to act as one pleases, but of being personally responsible for the order of Islam and no longer subservient to the devices of those who pretended to represent it.

Ibn Taymiyya seems, then, to have recognized that the umma as a whole has a share in the sovereignty of Islam by virtue of its ethical sentiments. He was by no means calling for regime change or the toppling of the religious hierarchy, only reform. His was by no means a democratic vision. He maintained—like countless others who wrote manuals on ethics, even if not as wholly focused on the righteous forebears as his—that the true sovereign over the umma was the divine word. As such, sovereignty was not the privilege of any one group but a common struggle. One was made righteous by receiving the ethics of Islam into one’s soul, and such righteousness in society indicated that the divine word was truly its sovereign. All were to be righteous. The society’s elites had their role to play, but so too did the commoners. What was to unite them as a single umma was a common devotion to the divine word as its unrivaled sovereign. In short, the umma as a whole owed its devotion to God, not to human authorities.

Ibn Taymiyya’s writings on ethics were part of a major genre of literature in Islam that continues today.40 Manuals on ethics, while taking different approaches, nevertheless all agreed on the need for the umma to be educated in righteousness. Given the provocative tone of Ibn Taymiyya’s writings, his

vision of the umma did not take hold, even if it caused a stir in his day,41 but it does raise questions, still at play in the umma today, about the sovereignty of Islam in terms of the loyalty of the heart, which should be wholly directed to God. As he argued, the sovereignty of Islam, even when one is a powerful sultan, a high-ranking scholar, or a saintly master, is predicated on devotion to the divine word above all, and one is to demonstrate this love through obedience to the message of Islam in its pristine form and not by setting oneself up as a human lord over others. In this sense, the sovereignty of Islam is a call for all ranks in the umma to become enamored by the divine word and to enact the order of Islam accordingly.42

The age of the Mamluks offers a glimpse into the way in which the sovereignty of Islam operates by a complex logic. Its varied forms do not exist in separate spheres but interact in diverse fashion in a single space, society, which has its coherency from God. To be sure, there is room for shortcomings. Relatively few seek a utopia. What is demanded is sufficient righteousness, demonstrating that the umma has not strayed from the straight path. However, the age of the Mamluks had its share of plagues and famines that made it seem God no longer found favor in the umma. Were calamities an expression of God’s wrath—divine signs that society was to repent of its waywardness? In addition, the extreme corruption of the ruling elite, especially but not only at times when the populace had trouble meeting its basic needs, could provoke public riots—and popular outrage at notoriously crooked officials.43 In short, emotionality of a kind, including divine wrath and public outrage, also had a role in determining the order of Islam. The share of emotionality in the sovereignty of Islam is a story waiting to be told. Chronicles of the period speak of the anger of the sultan, which was commonly expressed at breaches in the governmental order, including threats to his rule. In some sense, the sultan’s anger was seen as a reflection of God’s. Similarly, literature of the period that recounts the lives of religious scholars occasionally speaks of their anger, which was commonly expressed at breaches in the moral order or at heretical statements. Both rulers and scholars, each with a share in the sovereignty of Islam, could represent the wrath of God at breaches in the order of Islam. In contrast, the anger of the populace was perceived to be a destructive force. To be sure, mobs can wreak havoc on society, even when their cause is just, but the depiction of public riots in the sources seems to suggest moments of stasis when it is no longer clear whether those

in power, having failed to ensure the well-being of society, still enjoy the sovereignty of Islam. It is worth noting that similar questions surrounded the expressions of public outrage in relation to the Arab Spring. Some voiced reservations. Were they not bound to cause more harm than good? Others saw them as signaling that those in power were no longer rightfully sovereign, since, as al-Subkī argued in the age of the Mamluks, rulers who set themselves up as lords over others are guilty of idolatry, even if Muslim in name. Significantly, anger, arguably a virtue if expressed with moral purpose, has a place in the way in which the sovereignty of Islam, past and present, has been conceived. A righteous anger, identified with the wrath of God, indicates that the order of Islam has been breached, not only the realm and religion of Islam, but also the well-being of society as a whole.

THE AMBIGUOUS SOVEREIGNTY OF RULE IN ISLAM

Across the centuries, varied forms of rule, from imperial dynasties to modern states, have claimed to represent the sovereignty of Islam. From the conquests over the course of the seventh and eighth centuries that gave birth to empire under the banner of Islam to modern nations where Islam is the state religion, those in power, rulers, have presented their governing authority as divinely ordained, doing so by peppering their speeches with qur’anic language, patronizing the religious establishment, and applying the rulings of shari‘a. Even if the discourse of power is only one side of the story of sovereignty, it has long been integral to the order of Islam, yet not unambiguously so, since the mere possession of power does not immediately translate into the right to govern the lands of Islam—those territories that were historically part of the Abode of Islam or today those nations that belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).44

Today, of course, communities of Muslims exist in nations that do not belong to the OIC. As citizens of those nations, they have a stake in the way they are governed. In other words, it is not entirely possible to separate the concerns of the umma from the order of society at large wherever it might be. Thus, whether the majority or the minority, Muslims generally see rule as a necessary part of the moral order of society, and yet rule is ephemeral. The ruler is not divine. Those in power eventually meet their demise. In this