Reconsiderations of the nature and responsibilities of the state have a continuous history in the Islamic world. Enayat, Hamid. 12 Jan. 2021 . One last attempt to wrest religious authority from the ulema was made under successive caliphs in the first half of the ninth century, in the course of the mihna, an inquisition during which prominent religious scholars were interrogated in order to establish their adherence or lack thereof to a particular theological doctrine; this attempt too failed, and its failure marked the voluntary or involuntary ceding of religious authority to the ulema. Many Muslim thinkers came to agree that the role of human government was to ensure that God's will, as expressed in the divine law, was enacted on earth. Maududi asserted strongly the idea that Pakistan should be not merely a state for Muslims but an Islamic state. One of the main purposes of government, then, was to maintain order in society and to ensure the harmonious functioning of its component groups. In the Age of Enlightenment, political entities expanded from basic systems of self-governance and monarchy to the complex democratic and communist systems that exist of the Industrialized and the Modern Era. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–1897), a highly influential commentator on political matters throughout much of the Islamic world during the nineteenth century, insisted that the Islamic religion was compatible with the exercise of human reason, and was thus compatible with the kind of scientific inquiry and technological development that had flourished in modern Europe. It is a topic I broach with mixed feelings. In all likelihood, the historical imams themselves allowed some of their followers to participate in the performance of certain functions, or delegated certain tasks to individuals. The Prophet himself had Thanks to a Thrive Grant from the Provost's Office, students in the Political and Social Thought Program traveled to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. on Saturday April 13, 2019. In Islamic times, authors adapted and developed many of these ancient Middle Eastern notions according to the regions and conditions in which they lived. However, the date of retrieval is often important. In order to prevent such disequilibrium, it was the ruler's task, by virtue of his own position above and outside any of the social categories, to ensure that each individual remained in the place appropriate to his station. God's Caliph. Coming from a distinguished family - on his father’s side descending from Codrus, one of the early kings of Athens, and on his mother’s side from Solon, the prominent reformer of the Athenian constitution - he was naturally destined to take an active role in political lif… See alsoCaliphate ; Imamate ; Iran, Islamic Republic of ; Law ; Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism ; Monarchy ; Pakistan, Islamic Republic of ; Political Islam ; Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa ; Reform: Iran ; Shi˓a: Imami (Twelver) ; Shari˓a ; Succession ; Ulema . New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Power and the Sacred inMuslim, Christian, and Pagan Polities. The early debates and struggles over leadership eventually crystalized in the emergence of distinct sectarian communities (generally grouped as Kharijites, Shi˓ites, and, eventually, Sunnis). Knowledge is your reward. Second, the early Muslim community rapidly found itself dispersed among a culturally diverse set of peoples, and Muslims became heirs to the variegated political cultures of the larger Middle East; these cultures contributed to the shaping and expression of the range of Islamic political ideas. While the Qur˒an, like other scriptures, does not treat political topics in a comprehensive way, it refers in several places to power and those who exercise it. political thought and studyingits history– alternatively,for studyingit in history–has beenformed and practised during that period, at Cambridge and other universities, andissofar associated with the first of these that it is often known by its name (perhaps with increasing confidenceasone Political Thought, Hegel's Political Thought of the American Founders, The Politics and Policy in Contemporary Argentina Politics, Gender Quotas in Politics of Anti-Americanism Politics of Class Formation Politics of Disaster Prevention and Management Politics of Ethnic Identity in China This, I shall argue, is a mistake. Mottahedeh, Roy P. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early IslamicSociety. Happiness was best attained by living in a "virtuous polity" (al-madina al-fadila), which al-Farabi defined as one led by learned and excellent men, and one in which the inhabitants co-operated in striving for ultimate happiness. Political Thoughts Political Thought is more than a field within Political Science-it is, an important sense, its foundation. The religion that God set forth for Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and muḤammad proclaimed by the latter in Arabia in the 7th century, which enjoys the…, Pan-Islam 17.03 Introduction to Political Thought. Among the many responses manifested in modern political thought, we may refer to the ideas of certain thinkers whose vision included both preservation of a redefined Muslim identity and the adoption of certain foreign institutions, such as the nation-state, democratic representation, constitutionalism, and so on; and to the ideas of thinkers who assert an Islamic form of politics that, in theory at least, is independent of Western models. Political Theory helps us better understand the concepts that have shaped our politics, including freedom, equality, individuality, democracy and justice. Although highly controversial in Pakistan, Maududi's books and pamphlets have been translated into many languages and are widely read throughout the Islamic world. Human beings were connected by a chain of authority, which was based on their degree of knowledge and understanding. In fact, the historical experience of Muslim societies has generated a large repertoire of political ideas, many of which assume or accommodate themselves to certain premises or coalesce around certain themes, but which collectively constitute a wide-ranging body of thought. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Libertarianism is the most diplomatic and open-minded political philosophy in the world. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Azmeh, Aziz al-. This idea shapes much of the discourse of contemporary Islamists. In the period immediately following the death of the Prophet in 632, issues such as the nature of political leadership and the identity of the rightful holder of political authority were much disputed. Khomeini, however, took the view that Muslims need wait no longer. However politics or Political Science is … Overview. Ibn Sina emphasized the roles of law and justice, and the need for their enforcement by a legislator and preserver of justice, as the basis for the necessary social transactions among people. Political correctness (PC) refers to language that avoids offending persons of various genders, races, sexual orientations, cultures, or social conditions. While some believe these … See related courses in the following collections: Sarah Song. (Partly in order to distinguish between the rightful holders of authority and the actual ruling powers, Shi˓ites refer to the persons whom they regard as their leaders as imams rather than as caliphs.) Some authors adopt the old Iranian concept of farr, the aura or nimbus that signifies the charisma of kingship. Some of the major issues political philosophy deals with are the rights of individuals, legal concerns and property rights. Rifa˓a Rafi˓ al-Tahtawi (1801–1873) employed the term watan (corresponding to the French patrie) to denote the territorial aspect of the concept of the state; but he did not reject the concept of the pan-Islamic umma. Arjomand, Saïd. A SelectSmart.com Selector by Thomas Smitherman Please take this quiz to find your political philosophy according to classical, consistent definitions. It had much in common with the Mutazilite Islamic thinking in that the Roman Catholics though subordinating philosophy to theology did not subject reason to revelation but in the case of contradictions, subordinated reason t… Al-Mawardi's book, together with the identically titled work of his contemporary, Abu Ya˓la b. al-Farra˒ (d. 1066), contributed to a gradual change in the perception of the caliphate. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY--determine your philosophy. Al-Afghani, for whom the period of the Rashidun was the period of perfected Muslim government, seems to have regarded regional nationalisms as possible steps towards the reconstitution of the Islamic umma. The history of political thought dates back to antiquity while the history of the worldand thus the history of political thinking by man stretches up through the Medieval period and the Renaissance. By extension, Ibn Taymiyya declared the illegitimacy of any ruler who failed to uphold the law. Political theory is an interdisciplinary endeavor whose center of gravity lies at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political science. Sultans and other dynastic rulers whose power was sometimes local but sometimes very far-reaching were often the recipients of literary gifts, such as works offering advice (nasiha[t]) on the art of government, or "mirrors for princes," in which the ruler's duties and his subjects' needs were discussed, and the monarch's own justice was invariably praised. Explore materials for this course in the pages linked along the left. Systematic political thought in ancient Greece begins with Plato, and quickly reaches its zenith in the rich and complex discussions in Aristotle's Politics. Plato was born in Athens in c. 427 B.C.E. B. Tauris, 1997. "Political Thought Modern Islamic Political Thought. We find the etymological origins of two key terms in the title of thisarticle, “political” and “philosophy”, inancient Greek: the former originally pertaining to the polisor city-state; the latter being the practice of a particular kind ofinquiry conceived literally as the “love of wisdom”(philosophia). The diffusion that characterizes the wide range of premodern political thinking results from many factors, two of which deserve particular mention. Political philosophy. It has been generally viewed that political theory stands for the ideas of an individual or a school of political thinking, whereas political thought is the study of political speculation of a whole community, over a certain period. CALIPHATE . Conservatism is a philosophy, not an ideology. Political philosophy, they presume, cannot in the end avoid taking one or the other of the two opposing paths. Abu Bakr was followed by three further individuals who had enjoyed close personal ties to the Prophet, after the last of whom, ˓Ali, a dynastic principle was adopted with the establishment of the Umayyad caliphate. The ideal earthly ruler, called an imam, was a leader who ruled according to God's laws and who was consequently entitled to the loyalty and obedience of his community. Such traditions of kingship came to be widely disseminated and formed a base for many kinds of courtly literature across the linguistic and cultural range of the medieval Islamic world. The Succession to Muhammad. During the premodern period, Islamic political thought found expression in a diverse group of writings such as legal compendia, theological treatises, philosophical writings, literary works on the subject of statecraft, wisdom literature, historiography, and even poetry. (His is the "sovereignty over the heavens and the earth," as the Qur˒an states repeatedly.) The historical context for such reconsiderations has evolved particularly rapidly, however, over the course of the past two centuries. Satan seeks to tempt Adam with the prospect of imperishable sovereignty (20:120); the Children of Israel were sometimes favored with both prophethood and kingship (for example, 5:20; 38:20); and Solomon prays for kingship (38:35). Madelung, Wilferd. The Kharijites continued to challenge the power of the Umayyads and the ˓Abbasids for at least two centuries before those groups that survived retreated to remote areas and lived as separate, but generally quietist, communities. Lewis, Bernard. London and New York: I. The caliphs' claims to religious authority encountered resistance, however, with the emergence of numbers of religious specialists, who came to be known collectively as the ulema (scholars) or "those possessed of religious learning" (˓ilm). Hobbes presented his political philosophy in different forms for different audiences. After the onset of the occultation in the late ninth century (when the imam became hidden), however, Imami Shi˓ites could no longer turn to their imam directly, and they, like Sunnis, turned increasingly to their religious scholars for guidance in religious matters. Ibn Taymiyya sought to elevate the condition of both the state and society through upholding the law, and held that a leader who promoted increased observance of the law was owed obedience by his subjects. It considers the ways in which thinkers have responded to the particular political problems of their day, and the ways in which they contribute to a broader conversation … No enrollment or registration. As this dissemination occurred, the view of royal justice expressed in this courtly literature was often linked to the upholding of the shari˓a, and, with the establishment of Turkish and Turko-Mongol dynasties in much of the Islamic world, many of these Perso-Islamic concepts of government also became fused with Central Asian concepts. This set of concepts is expressed clearly in the widely recorded "circle of justice," according to which the king's rule is dependent on the army, which in turn depends on wealth, which is generated through agriculture (and sometimes trade), which in turn flourishes under the king's effective exercise of his royal authority. As part of his analysis of societies, Ibn Khaldun argues that ruling families whose ties of solidarity (˓asabiyya) are strongest are best situated to impose their dominion over others in a process that gives rise to conquest and expansion. While the classical juristic literature deals with political thought within the context of the topics of imamate and caliphate, and refers to the sultanate primarily in connection with these institutions, other branches of literary expression treat the institution of the sultanate, or kingship, in its own right. While the Qur˒an, like other scriptures, does not treat political topics in a comprehensive way, it refers in several places to power and those who exercise it. Instead, they could hasten the return of the imam by acting themselves to resist injustice and to establish an Islamic political order in the here and now. The same jurist, and still more notably his pupil Ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli (d. 1325), adopted the principle of ijtihad, according to which each Shi˓ite jurist was obliged to undertake an investigation of the legal sources in order to reach his own conclusions in legal matters. On the earthly plane, kingship is depicted as a great but sometimes treacherous boon that human beings are often predisposed to covet. Sayyid Qutb, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, composed many of his most influential works while imprisoned under Jamal ˓Abd al-Nasser. The idea of deputyship to the imam was developed further in the writings of leading Imami thinkers, such as al-Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022), who indicated that throughout his occultation the imam remained God's proof (hujja) on earth, but that, during his absence, the imam could appoint a deputy or deputies. De Cive states his theory in what he regarded as its most scientific form. Modarressi, Hossein. As the Islamic polity grew in extent and in the diversity of its population, the claim of this new intellectual elite to religious leadership and authority among the Muslims of the empire was itself contested by some individuals who held that such authority should be centralized and held by the ruler, rather than by a number of loosely associated specialists over whom the ruler had little control. The whole community may refer to “the articulate sections of the community. How to use political … Soroush, ˓Abdolkarim. Crisis and Consolidation in the FormativePeriod of Shi'ite Islam. He noted that the latter form of imamate, based on the exercise of might, was the only form that existed in his own time. While these ideals have been widely expressed, Muslims have naturally differed in their understandings of the implications of the relationship between the religious and political realms. Gradually, however, Imami Shi˓ites reached a consensus, agreeing that the role of the imamate was to provide comprehensive leadership over religious and worldly matters. Translated by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. In the course of the eighth century, most Shi˓ites adopted a politically quietist stance, and they abandoned the attempt to establish general leadership for their imams, whom they continued to follow as leaders within their own communities. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651. Mostly, however, they have been used to justify or legitimate the existence of contemporary political structures by appealing to "rationality," "reason," or, among others, "natural law." Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong inIslamic Thought. Political philosophy must be a more complex enterprise than either of the customary positions assumes, if it is to combine these two dimensions. Among the thinkers whose ideas have been most influential in the twentieth-century Arab world are Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935), who regarded al-Mawardi's work as formative to the Islamic tradition, and ˓Ali ˓Abd al-Raziq(d. 1966). This emphasis on the relativity of human forms of authority in relation to the divine reality is one that has left an imprint on many areas of the Islamic tradition, into the modern period. During the first two centuries of Islamic history, many Shi˓ite groups attempted to seize power for their imams. The most frequently invoked Qur˒anic passage, in discussions of political matters, is 4:59: "Obey God, obey the Prophet, and those in authority among you." In this chain, each individual was in a position of both learning from and governance by those above him, and of instructing and exercising authority over those below him, down to the level of those who were fit only for service. These responsibilities should be exercised not through the collective body of qualified scholars but through a single jurist. Many of the political ideas of al-Afghani were further developed in the Arab world by Muhammad ˓Abduh (1849–1905). Modify, remix, and reuse (just remember to cite OCW as the source. This model was adopted by numerous later writers, and was especially important to many Ottoman thinkers. Radical Islam. The separation of state and religion, while supported by ˓Abd al-Raziq and other secularists, is rejected by Islamists, for whom Muslims' primary allegiance should be to the religious community (the umma) and for whom an Islamic order necessarily embraces the political as well as the personal religious realms. Since people are by nature sociable – there being few proper anchorites who turn from society to live alone – the question follows as to what kind of life is proper for a person amongst people. Sunna refers, in common usage, to the normative example of the prophet Muhammad, as recorded in traditions (hadith) about his speech, his actio…, Political, Legal, and Social Issues of Overweight and Obesity, Politics and Politicians in Latin America, Politics and Religion: Politics and African Religious Traditions, Politics and Religion: Politics and Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Politics and Religion: Politics and Buddhism, Politics and Religion: Politics and Chinese Religion, Politics and Religion: Politics and Christianity, Politics and Religion: Politics and Islam, Politics and Religion: Politics and Japanese Religions, Politics and Religion: Politics and Judaism, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/political-thought. ." As an academic discipline, Western political philosophy has its origins in ancient Greek society, when city-states were experimenting with various forms of political organization including monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. According to the mainstream view, the first Muslims responded to the Prophet's death by recognizing one of their own members, Abu Bakr (d. 634), as the first caliph. "Political Thought Almost three centuries later, following the execution in 1258 by the Mongol conqueror Hulegu of the Abbasid caliph and the establishment of the Mongol empire over much of the eastern Islamic world, the Syrian Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) asserted with vigor the supremacy of the shari˓a as the means to ensure the exercise of divine sovereignty on Earth. 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