Islamic rulership


The idealised Islamic state is not utopian, in that it does not espouse near impossible themes that have little bearing to reality. Islamic states did once exist and can function again in contemporary times, provided the requirements of a contemporary Islamic state are understood and appropriately developed from the fundamentals that already exist within the Islamic polity.

A comparison between the modern secular state and the ideal Islamic state is unavoidable as an investigation of differences in the application of familiar themes in both systems is a useful way of understanding the basis of an Islamic state.

Potency of politics in Islam

It is a well-known fact that Islam has a value-system applicable to government and politics. This is a powerful theme that raises spontaneous opposition from the West due to the West's own historical experience of the renaissance when the state and church were painfully separated. However, there a number of reasons which compel Muslims, even those who are aware of the Western experience, to consider politics, even modern politics, as being part of practical Islam. These are:

Islam does not separate the secular from the spiritual. It is a comprehensive way of life. To this effect, it provides man with theoretical and practical guidance covering all aspects of life, of which the political aspect is but one. The world, in its view, is a place of preparation of the soul for the hereafter and that this preparation fulfils the purpose of creation of man. One cannot therefore consider parts of worldly life as having no meaning with regards to that final purpose.
The majority of Islamic injunctions apply to the Islamic ummah rather than the individual. The importance of society and laws governing social interaction in Islam therefore becomes obvious. The rulership of such a society requires Islam to provide guidelines for the establishment of a just government and the running of the state machinery.

When Prophet Muhammad established the first Islamic state in the city of Madinah, he personally laid down principles by which an Islamic state would run, including the unity of religious, political and legal institutions. The idea of that original Islamic state, governed by a perfect ruler enjoying direct communion with God has remarkable potency for the Muslim even after fourteen hundred years.

The Islamic world was ruled for at least five centuries by some form of Islamic government partly or fully based on the original idealised model. A vast amount of material for such governship thus exists in the classical literature. There is a great attraction in looking into these texts to find means of developing the methods then used into something that would be applicable in contemporary times.

Sovereignty & legitimacy

The most fundamental principle of Islam is tawhid, which means unity or oneness of God. This principle is the spirit behind all ideas and practices in Islam. Translated into political philosophy, it asserts that sovereignty belongs only to Allah. This means that the explicit commands of Allah, as laid down in the Qur'an cannot be changed and must be adhered to by all. The principle of oneness further asserts that the sovereignty of God is fulfilled by the vicegerency of a single person in each age, called the Imam. It is a principle of faith that such an Imam, a divinely appointed direct descendant of the Prophet, will always exist on the face of the earth. This is the source of the political legitimacy for the leadership of the head of state, who is charged to exercise divine authority within the limits prescribed by Allah.

Another principle that applies here is that of the khilafah, that is the representation of the lordship of Allah as His trustee. Humankind is the recipient of a lordship over other creatures of Allah and ultimately bears the responsibility towards Allah of how this duty is executed. This responsibility is epitomised in a complete and perfect way in the person of the Imam, who for that reason is also called the khalif. The later term, popularly written caliph, commonly denotes the Imam in his capacity as the successor of the Prophet and the head of the Islamic State.

Head of state

There can be no doubt that the type of government espoused by Islam is a form of theocracy in which the head of state has ultimate decision-making powers. It is not a theocracy of the kind that once existed in Europe, as the suzerainty of God is not translated to an arbitrary rule of a priestly class but is invested in a single head whose rule operates within the divine injunctions of revelation, that is the Qur'an and the practice of the Prophet. He is the final interpreter and guardian of religion and its very embodiment, one to be emulated and one who provides the moral basis for law. His predecessor through an act of designation can only make his appointment.

The very basis for government in Islam is God-given morality and the ruler has to be the embodiment of that notion. Such high standards are demanded of the ruler that only such men as Prophets or Plato's Philosopher King in the Republic would do the post justice. In the Shi'a Fatimi Isma'ili faith, the ruler, that is the Imam, is at once the sinless and in-errant religious head of the ummah (Islamic community) and also the khalif, its political ruler.

The Imam represents the Prophet and commands the same authority in so far as obedience to him is concerned. The Qur'anic verses

"So accept what the Apostle assigns to you and deny yourselves that which he withholds from you. And fear Allah; for Allah is strict in Punishment."(59:7)


"But no by your Lord they can have no (real) Faith until they make you judge in all disputes between them and find in their souls no resistance against your decisions but accept them with the fullest conviction." (4:65)

apply equally for the Imam. The Imam therefore provides the dynamics within religion and law. He interprets religion in accordance with the requirements of the time. The authority inherent in the Imam deals with the question of antiquity and irrelevancy of historical perspectives or of developing classical Islamic institutions for a new age. The Imam in an Islamic state would have the authority to adopt laws, even divine laws and to enact constitutions and choose the administrative system to govern with according to the prevailing circumstances and needs of the times.

The subject of administrative systems allowable in Islam is vast and includes structure of government, taxation and wealth distribution, security etc. and will not be dealt with in this dissertation. This dissertation will limit itself to the judiciary, the philosophy of law and its ethics, the role of morality, human rights and democracy in an Islamic state, as these are also the principles upon which a contemporary secular state is based.

Essentials of a modern secular state

Almost all models of government all over the world follow the models that exist or once existed in Europe, whether they are dictatorships, monarchies or democracies. Western Europe defined nation-states and developed ideas that have shaped world governments, international politics and virtually all machinery required to run a contemporary state. There are a number of themes that such states aspire to. These can be classified as follows:

Government should be based upon an elected parliament.
The judiciary should be independent of other centres of power.
A degree of egalitarian participation of the people in the running of the state, that is, a form of democracy.
The protection of individual human rights and civil liberties.


This dissertation will investigate the role of each of these themes in an ideal Islamic State.

One should note that these themes are not always fully applied even in the most ardent of liberal democracies. Often, even a democratically elected government acts against the wishes of the people for selfish or paternalistic reasons. In other cases, as in the case of the trade union acts in UK, the judiciary gives extreme interpretation to law and over-rules the intent of parliament. Prejudices sometimes allow different interpretations of the same law to be applied for different sets of people. Democracy often produces undesired governments and protection of one set of rights often lead to violation of others.