Presented by Claude for Zia H Shah MD

The Qur’an does not prescribe any fixed political system. It binds every Muslim polity to a small set of enduring principles: justice, the faithful discharge of trusts, consultation, authority conditioned on righteousness, cooperation in good, and public welfare. The institutional machinery it leaves to human reason, experience, and consent.

• The verses name duties, not institutions. None of the verses usually cited for an “Islamic state” (3:26, 6:57, 12:40, 4:58–59, 42:38, 3:159) specifies an office, a term of rule, a method of succession, or a constitutional structure. They state moral limits and duties. The first generation of Muslims chose each of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs by a different procedure.
• Today’s constitutions show the same variety.
  • Saudi Arabia declares the Qur’an and Sunna its constitution under an absolute monarchy.
  • Iran vests guardianship in a jurist.
  • Egypt makes the principles of sharia “the principal source” of legislation.
  • Pakistan bars laws “repugnant” to Islam.
  • Malaysia names Islam the religion of the Federation.
  • Tunisia’s 2022 constitution drops a state religion.
  • Indonesia and Turkey have no state religion. None of these can claim a Qur’anic monopoly on form.
• The test is the same for everyone. For citizens of the 57 OIC states, and for Muslims living as minorities, judge any constitution by whether it secures justice, accountability, consultation, honest speech, fidelity to covenants, and the common good. Do not judge it by whether it reproduces a particular historical form.

Abstract

This essay argues that the Qur’an and the normative Islamic tradition do not mandate a caliphate, a monarchy, a theocracy, or any specific constitutional design. Instead, scripture lays down enduring principles that discipline power wherever it is exercised:

• the sovereignty of God as a moral limit on all human authority;
• impartial justice (‘adl, qist) that overrides tribe, kin, and self-interest;
• the faithful rendering of trusts (amanat);
• consultation (shura);
• conditional obedience to lawful authority, which disqualifies the oppressor;
• cooperation in righteousness oriented to public welfare (maslaha).

The argument proceeds principle by principle. Each verse is quoted in Arabic with six public-domain English renderings. The essay then treats free expression as al-amr bi’l-ma’ruf wa’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar (enjoining good and forbidding wrong), the Qur’anic command to learn from history, and the maxim that wisdom is the believer’s lost property.

It surveys the historical record. This runs from the Charter of Medina and the four caliphal accessions, through the dynastic empires and the classical theorists (al-Mawardi, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Khaldun, al-Shatibi), to modern thinkers (Abdel Raziq, Abduh, Rida, Abou El Fadl, an-Na’im, Ghannouchi, Kamali). It also compares today’s constitutions.

It applies the same principles to Muslims living as minorities, drawing on fiqh al-aqalliyyat and the emigration to Abyssinia. It answers the strongest counterarguments and closes with a meditation.

A note on the texts. The six renderings are:

• George Sale (1734); WikipediaWikipedia
• J. M. Rodwell (1861); Wikipediaamazon
• E. H. Palmer (1880, Sacred Books of the East); sacred-texts +2
• Marmaduke Pickthall (1930);
• Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1934 original);
• M. H. Shakir.

Rodwell’s and Palmer’s verse numbering sometimes runs a few verses behind the standard count. Copyrighted modern translations (Asad, Abdel Haleem, Sahih International) are only paraphrased.

I. Divine Sovereignty and the Limits of Human Rule

Every Islamic political argument begins with God. The question is what kind of claim divine sovereignty is. It could be a claim about which institution should govern. Or it could be a claim about the moral horizon within which any institution must operate.

Qur’an 3:26

قُلِ ٱللَّهُمَّ مَـٰلِكَ ٱلْمُلْكِ تُؤْتِى ٱلْمُلْكَ مَن تَشَآءُ وَتَنزِعُ ٱلْمُلْكَ مِمَّن تَشَآءُ وَتُعِزُّ مَن تَشَآءُ وَتُذِلُّ مَن تَشَآءُ ۖ بِيَدِكَ ٱلْخَيْرُ ۖ إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

The verse is a prayer, not a statute. Its political meaning is that power is lent, never owned. It names no rightful recipient of power, no way of conferring it, and no mechanism for removing it. It establishes that every human regime is contingent, and for that very reason no particular regime can be made sacred.

Qur’an 6:57

قُلْ إِنِّى عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّى وَكَذَّبْتُم بِهِۦ ۚ مَا عِندِى مَا تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِهِۦٓ ۚ إِنِ ٱلْحُكْمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ ۖ يَقُصُّ ٱلْحَقَّ ۖ وَهُوَ خَيْرُ ٱلْفَـٰصِلِينَ

Qur’an 12:40

مَا تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِهِۦٓ إِلَّآ أَسْمَآءً سَمَّيْتُمُوهَآ أَنتُمْ وَءَابَآؤُكُم مَّآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ بِهَا مِن سُلْطَـٰنٍ ۚ إِنِ ٱلْحُكْمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ ۚ أَمَرَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوٓا۟ إِلَّآ إِيَّاهُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ ٱلدِّينُ ٱلْقَيِّمُ وَلَـٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

Context is decisive.

• 6:57: The Prophet answers Meccan scoffers who demand that he hasten punishment. The “judgment” meant is God’s verdict between truth and falsehood.
• 12:40: Joseph preaches monotheism in prison. The phrase in al-hukmu illa lillah sits between a denunciation of idols and the command to worship God alone.

In neither verse is the subject the design of a state. Read this way, divine sovereignty is the Qur’an’s most potent anti-authoritarian doctrine. It forbids any human authority from claiming the finality that belongs to God.

The Kharijite slogan and Ali’s reply

After Siffin (657), Ali accepted arbitration with Mu’awiya. A faction of his army seceded, crying la hukma illa lillah, “judgment belongs to God alone.” The slogan drew on verses such as 6:57, 12:40 and 40:12. WikipediaWikipedia These Kharijites:

• declared Ali’s caliphate void; Wikipedia
• declared those who disagreed unbelievers; Wikipedia
• killed civilians. Wikipedia

Ali defeated them at Nahrawan in 658. A Kharijite assassin killed him in 661. Wikipedia

Ali’s verdict has become proverbial: kalimatu haqqin yuradu biha batil, “a word of truth by which falsehood is intended.” shahidkingbolsen It is transmitted in Sahih Muslim and the Nahj al-Balagha. In the latter he adds that people nonetheless need a ruler, righteous or wicked, under whom taxes are collected, roads made safe, and the weak take their right from the strong.

Ali did not deny that judgment belongs to God. He denied that the phrase settles who governs and by what procedure. G. R. Hawting’s study (BSOAS, 1978) shows the slogan working as a political weapon in the first civil war, not as a constitutional doctrine. cambridge

Divine sovereignty therefore sets moral limits, not an institutional form. It is silent on whether the executive should be elected or hereditary, or whether judges should be appointed or chosen.

II. Justice and Accountability (‘Adl)

Qur’an 4:58

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَن تُؤَدُّوا۟ ٱلْأَمَـٰنَـٰتِ إِلَىٰٓ أَهْلِهَا وَإِذَا حَكَمْتُم بَيْنَ ٱلنَّاسِ أَن تَحْكُمُوا۟ بِٱلْعَدْلِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ نِعِمَّا يَعِظُكُم بِهِۦٓ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ سَمِيعًۢا بَصِيرًا

Ibn Taymiyya built al-Siyasa al-Shar’iyya on this verse and the next. For him, public offices are trusts to be given to the most competent and trustworthy, and the treasury is held in trust for the community. That turns a verse about returning deposits into a theory of accountable, merit-based office-holding. Yet it specifies no mechanism of appointment.

Qur’an 4:135

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُونُوا۟ قَوَّٰمِينَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ شُهَدَآءَ لِلَّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوِ ٱلْوَٰلِدَيْنِ وَٱلْأَقْرَبِينَ ۚ إِن يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقِيرًا فَٱللَّهُ أَوْلَىٰ بِهِمَا ۖ فَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا۟ ٱلْهَوَىٰٓ أَن تَعْدِلُوا۟ ۚ وَإِن تَلْوُۥٓا۟ أَوْ تُعْرِضُوا۟ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا

Qur’an 5:8

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُونُوا۟ قَوَّٰمِينَ لِلَّهِ شُهَدَآءَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ ۖ وَلَا يَجْرِمَنَّكُمْ شَنَـَٔانُ قَوْمٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَلَّا تَعْدِلُوا۟ ۚ ٱعْدِلُوا۟ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرٌۢ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ

These verses make impartial justice the primary political obligation. It overrides self, parents, kin, class, and even enmity toward a hostile people.

A saying widely attributed to Ibn Taymiyya runs: “God upholds the just state even if it is unbelieving, but not the unjust state even if it is Muslim.” ucsbgoodreads I found it only in secondary sources, so it should be checked against the Majmu’ al-Fatawa. Ibn al-Qayyim (al-Turuq al-Hukmiyya) argued that wherever the signs of justice appear, there is God’s law.

On this view, legitimacy is measured by justice achieved, not by conformity to a historical template.

III. Consultation (Shura)

Qur’an 42:38

وَٱلَّذِينَ ٱسْتَجَابُوا۟ لِرَبِّهِمْ وَأَقَامُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَأَمْرُهُمْ شُورَىٰ بَيْنَهُمْ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَـٰهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ

Qur’an 3:159

فَبِمَا رَحْمَةٍ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمْ ۖ وَلَوْ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلْقَلْبِ لَٱنفَضُّوا۟ مِنْ حَوْلِكَ ۖ فَٱعْفُ عَنْهُمْ وَٱسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِى ٱلْأَمْرِ ۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُتَوَكِّلِينَ

42:38 is Meccan. It was revealed before any Muslim state existed. It lists consultation beside prayer and almsgiving as a trait of faith, not as a rule of government.

3:159 came after Uhud. There the Prophet had followed the majority’s wish to march out of Medina, with calamitous results. Yet he is told to keep consulting the very people whose counsel failed. Consultation is justified by the dignity of those consulted, not by guaranteed results.

Neither verse sets a mechanism. They do not say who is consulted, how those people are chosen, whether their counsel binds, or how disputes are resolved. Classical jurists debated whether shura is obligatory or recommended, binding or advisory.

• Abduh and Rida argued that the form was deliberately left open. Rida identified the ahl al-hall wa’l-‘aqd (“those who loosen and bind”) with the nation’s elected representatives.
• Kamali argues that parliaments, referenda, and constitutional checks can all legitimately embody shura.

The text’s silence on mechanism is a delegation to human judgment.

IV. Obedience and Leadership: Authority Conditioned on Righteousness

Qur’an 4:59

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَطِيعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا۟ ٱلرَّسُولَ وَأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَمْرِ مِنكُمْ ۖ فَإِن تَنَـٰزَعْتُمْ فِى شَىْءٍ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَٱلرَّسُولِ إِن كُنتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ وَٱلْيَوْمِ ٱلْـَٔاخِرِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ وَأَحْسَنُ تَأْوِيلًا

Qur’an 2:124

وَإِذِ ٱبْتَلَىٰٓ إِبْرَٰهِـۧمَ رَبُّهُۥ بِكَلِمَـٰتٍ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّى جَاعِلُكَ لِلنَّاسِ إِمَامًا ۖ قَالَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِى ۖ قَالَ لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِى ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ

In 4:59, “obey” is repeated before God and before the Messenger, but not before “those in authority.” Many exegetes read their obedience as derivative and conditional. The verse also anticipates dispute and refers it to the shared sources, not to the rulers.

The Sunna makes the condition explicit:

• “Obedience is only in what is right” (al-Bukhari).
• “No obedience to a creature in disobedience to the Creator” (Ahmad).
• Abu Bakr’s inaugural address: “Obey me so long as I obey God and His Messenger; if I disobey, you owe me no obedience” (Ibn Hisham).

Verse 2:124 adds that God’s covenant of leadership does not reach wrongdoers. Lineage confers nothing and injustice disqualifies. Al-Zamakhshari and al-Razi drew from this verse the principle that an oppressor cannot be a legitimate imam.

Sunni quietism is real. Ibn Taymiyya endorsed the saying that “sixty years under an unjust imam are better than one night without a sultan.” Wikipedia It was born of the trauma of civil war (fitna). But quietists never held that the ruler’s command overrides God’s. Wikipedia

The Qur’anic principle is therefore double: respect for lawful order, and no absolute allegiance to injustice. Term limits, judicial review, impeachment, and elections honor both halves. They remove the unjust without the bloodshed the quietists rightly feared.

V. Social Cooperation and Ethical Governance

Qur’an 5:2 (excerpt)

…وَتَعَاوَنُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلْبِرِّ وَٱلتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْعُدْوَٰنِ ۚ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ۖ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ شَدِيدُ ٱلْعِقَابِ

Qur’an 22:41

ٱلَّذِينَ إِن مَّكَّنَّـٰهُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ أَقَامُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَءَاتَوُا۟ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَأَمَرُوا۟ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَنَهَوْا۟ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ ۗ وَلِلَّهِ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلْأُمُورِ

Verse 5:2 came while Quraysh’s obstruction of the Sacred Mosque was still a fresh grievance. It forbids that grievance from licensing aggression. It sets a universal test for every alliance: cooperate in righteousness, refuse to cooperate in sin, whoever is asking.

Verse 22:41 is the Qur’an’s nearest thing to a job description for the powerful. It says much about morals and nothing about institutions. Worship, zakat, and enjoining the recognized good (ma’ruf, literally “the known”) are ends, not means.

• Welfare systems, endowments, and fair taxation can each serve zakat’s purpose.
• A free press, an ombudsman, and constitutional courts can each serve the purpose of enjoining right.

Al-Shatibi (al-Muwafaqat) made the maqasid (the purposes of the law) the organizing principle: preservation of religion, life, intellect, lineage, and property. Governance is legitimate insofar as it realizes these purposes, whatever its form.

VI. Freedom of Expression as an Instrument of Accountability

Qur’an 3:104

وَلْتَكُن مِّنكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى ٱلْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ ۚ وَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ

Qur’an 3:110 (excerpt)

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ

Qur’an 9:71 (excerpt)

وَٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَٱلْمُؤْمِنَـٰتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَآءُ بَعْضٍ ۚ يَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ

The duty belongs to the whole community, men and women alike (9:71). It also belongs to those in power (22:41). It runs in every direction: citizen to citizen, ruler to citizen, and citizen to ruler.

“The best jihad is a word of justice before a tyrannical ruler” (Abu Dawud; al-Tirmidhi, hasan). A free press is the modern institutional form of that word.

But speech is a trust, disciplined by truth.

Qur’an 49:6

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِن جَآءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌۢ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓا۟ أَن تُصِيبُوا۟ قَوْمًۢا بِجَهَـٰلَةٍ فَتُصْبِحُوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلْتُمْ نَـٰدِمِينَ

Qur’an 24:15

إِذْ تَلَقَّوْنَهُۥ بِأَلْسِنَتِكُمْ وَتَقُولُونَ بِأَفْوَاهِكُم مَّا لَيْسَ لَكُم بِهِۦ عِلْمٌ وَتَحْسَبُونَهُۥ هَيِّنًا وَهُوَ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ عَظِيمٌ

Qur’an 24:19

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُحِبُّونَ أَن تَشِيعَ ٱلْفَـٰحِشَةُ فِى ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا وَٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

Surat al-Nur 24:11–20 answered the slander against ‘A’isha. The passage condemns repeating unverified accusations and the appetite for scandal. In modern terms these are the ethics of responsible journalism: verify, source, be fair to the accused, and refuse defamation.

Qur’an 4:83 (excerpt)

وَإِذَا جَآءَهُمْ أَمْرٌ مِّنَ ٱلْأَمْنِ أَوِ ٱلْخَوْفِ أَذَاعُوا۟ بِهِۦ ۖ وَلَوْ رَدُّوهُ إِلَى ٱلرَّسُولِ وَإِلَىٰٓ أُو۟لِى ٱلْأَمْرِ مِنْهُمْ لَعَلِمَهُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَسْتَنۢبِطُونَهُۥ مِنْهُمْ

Verse 4:83 is sometimes invoked for censorship. In fact it commends referring security rumors to “those who can search out the knowledge of it.” That is a charter for expertise and verification, not for a state monopoly on information.

Qur’an 4:148

لَّا يُحِبُّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْجَهْرَ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ مِنَ ٱلْقَوْلِ إِلَّا مَن ظُلِمَ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ سَمِيعًا عَلِيمًا

Verse 4:148 is the warrant for the whistleblower: the wronged may speak aloud. A regime that silences victims inverts the verse.

Kamali’s Freedom of Expression in Islam derives the same structure from the sources. It grounds a broad liberty of speech in sincere counsel, hisba, and shura, bounded by bans on slander and incitement. That is a constitutional architecture that press law and whistleblower protection can make concrete.

VII. Learning from History

Qur’an 3:137

قَدْ خَلَتْ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ سُنَنٌ فَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَٱنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

Qur’an 12:111 (excerpt)

لَقَدْ كَانَ فِى قَصَصِهِمْ عِبْرَةٌ لِّأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَلْبَـٰبِ

Qur’an 30:9 (excerpt)

أَوَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ

Qur’an 22:46

أَفَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَتَكُونَ لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ يَعْقِلُونَ بِهَآ أَوْ ءَاذَانٌ يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا ۖ فَإِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَى ٱلْأَبْصَـٰرُ وَلَـٰكِن تَعْمَى ٱلْقُلُوبُ ٱلَّتِى فِى ٱلصُّدُورِ

Qur’an 6:11

قُلْ سِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ثُمَّ ٱنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

Qur’an 40:21 (excerpt)

أَوَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَانُوا۟ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ

Verse 40:22 gives the cause of their ruin: they rejected the clear proofs their messengers brought. The Qur’anic concept of sunan (the regularities by which God governs history) makes history intelligible. Pickthall renders it “systems”; Yusuf Ali, “Ways of Life.” Societies rise by justice and fall by arrogance. “It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts.”

The command is to look at all peoples who came before. That licenses the study of every political experiment: Roman law, Persian administration (the early caliphate borrowed the diwan), English common law, the separation of powers, constitutional courts.

Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima (1377) did exactly this, deriving the laws of ‘asabiyya (group solidarity) and dynastic cycles from many peoples. Wikipediamediorientedintorni Modern constitutionalism is the kind of accumulated human experience the Qur’an commands believers to examine.

“Wisdom is the lost property of the believer”

الْكَلِمَةُ الْحِكْمَةُ ضَالَّةُ الْمُؤْمِنِ فَحَيْثُ وَجَدَهَا فَهُوَ أَحَقُّ بِهَا

“The word of wisdom is the lost property of the believer; wherever he finds it, he has more right to it.” abuaminaelias

Sources and grading:

• It is recorded by al-Tirmidhi (no. 2687) and Ibn Majah (no. 4169), from Abu Hurayra. islamanswers
• Al-Tirmidhi himself called it gharib and said its narrator Ibrahim ibn al-Fadl al-Makhzumi is weak.
• Ahmad, al-Bukhari, Abu Hatim, and al-Nasa’i weakened this narrator; al-Bukhari and al-Nasa’i called him munkar al-hadith.
• Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut judged the chain very weak.
• Al-Suyuti graded it hasan, but that is a minority view.

The preponderant verdict is da’if (weak). It should not be cited as authenticated prophetic speech.

Its meaning, however, is widely accepted. It is supported by the Qur’an’s commands to reflect and travel, and by 39:18, which praises “those who listen to speech and follow the best of it.” Ibn Taymiyya wrote in Minhaj al-Sunna that one may not reject truth spoken even by a Jew or Christian; one rejects only the falsehood in it.

A Muslim society adopting an independent judiciary or a free press is not “Westernizing.” It is reclaiming lost property.

VIII. The Historical Record: No Single System Was Ever Fixed

The Prophet and the Charter of Medina. The Sahifa of Medina, preserved by Ibn Ishaq and Abu ‘Ubayd, joined emigrants, Medinan tribes, and Jewish allies into one umma for defense and dispute resolution. It guaranteed each group its own religion. Serjeant and Lecker (The “Constitution of Medina”, 2004) read it as a set of treaties. Either way, the first Muslim polity was a negotiated, pluralist compact. The Qur’an gives no instruction on succession.

Al-Qarafi (d. 1285) distinguished the Prophet’s acts as messenger, as judge, and as head of state, the last being policy tied to circumstance. This attribution should be checked against his al-Furuq or al-Ihkam.

Four caliphs, four procedures:

• Abu Bakr (632): acclaimed at the Saqifa after an improvised debate. Umar later called it a falta, a sudden unplanned event, and warned against repeating it without consultation (al-Bukhari).
• Umar (634): nominated by Abu Bakr.
• Uthman (644): chosen by a council of six named by the dying Umar, with Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Awf canvassing opinion.
• Ali (656): received a pledge in the crisis after Uthman’s murder; Mu’awiya contested it.

That is four methods in a quarter-century, all considered legitimate by Sunnis. Had a procedure been revealed, the Companions would have followed it.

Dynasties and theorists. Mu’awiya’s designation of Yazid began hereditary rule. It continued under the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and the Ottomans, until the Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished the caliphate in March 1924. A hadith (Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi) foretells thirty years of caliphate followed by kingship.

Ibn Khaldun distinguished three kinds of rule:

• natural kingship (mulk tabi’i), ruling by force;
• rational political rule (siyasa ‘aqliyya);
• the caliphate.

He acknowledged that most real Muslim polities had been kingships.

Al-Mawardi (d. 1058, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya) held the imamate obligatory by consensus, while noting disagreement over whether reason or revelation grounds the obligation. His theory is flexible:

• the imam may be chosen by election by the ahl al-hall wa’l-‘aqd, or designated by his predecessor;
• he legitimized the “emirate by seizure” (imarat al-istila’) of military strongmen who upheld the law.

He wrote to shore up a weakened Abbasid caliphate. His work is accommodation to circumstance, not a blueprint.

Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Siyasa al-Shar’iyya barely discusses the caliphate. It focuses instead on the ethics of whoever holds power, and on consultation.

Al-Shatibi made the maqasid the measure of law. Institutions, on that view, are means.

The modern debate. Rashid Rida’s al-Khilafa (1922–23) sought a reformed, consultative caliphate. In 1925 the Azhari judge Ali Abdel Raziq published al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm. He argued that the caliphate was a political, not a religious, institution, and that the sources prescribe no form of government. In August 1925 al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Ulama expelled him and stripped him of his judgeship. Rida likened the book to the sudden arrival of the Day of Judgment. Abdel Raziq was later rehabilitated and twice served as Minister of Endowments.

This essay needs only his modest claim, that no form is mandated, not the claim that Islam lacks a political ethic. Later thinkers carried the argument forward:

• Abduh denied any priestly religious authority in Islam.
• Abou El Fadl (Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, 2004) argues that constitutional democracy best honors human vicegerency (khilafa) and prevents anyone from speaking for God.
• An-Na’im (Islam and the Secular State, 2008) argues that sharia enforced by the state stops being sharia, since it ceases to be a free religious commitment.
• Ghannouchi (Public Freedoms in the Islamic State, 1993) grounded pluralist democracy in shura. In May 2016 he told Le Monde that Ennahda was “leaving political Islam and entering Muslim democracy,” separating its politics from preaching.
• Kamali (Citizenship and Accountability of Government, 2011) describes Islamic government as civil government resting on consent and accountability.

Contemporary constitutions:

One faith underwrites all eight forms, and each has defenders who claim Islamic warrant. An Islamic clause guarantees neither just rule nor its absence. The meaningful question is whether a constitution:

• secures justice;
• protects trusts;
• makes consultation an institution;
• lets the wronged speak;
• removes the oppressor without bloodshed.

IX. Muslims as Minorities

Qur’an 5:1 (excerpt)

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَوْفُوا۟ بِٱلْعُقُودِ

Qur’an 17:34 (excerpt)

وَأَوْفُوا۟ بِٱلْعَهْدِ ۖ إِنَّ ٱلْعَهْدَ كَانَ مَسْـُٔولًا

Qur’an 8:72 (excerpt)

وَإِنِ ٱسْتَنصَرُوكُمْ فِى ٱلدِّينِ فَعَلَيْكُمُ ٱلنَّصْرُ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ قَوْمٍۭ بَيْنَكُمْ وَبَيْنَهُم مِّيثَـٰقٌ

Qur’an 60:8

لَّا يَنْهَىٰكُمُ ٱللَّهُ عَنِ ٱلَّذِينَ لَمْ يُقَـٰتِلُوكُمْ فِى ٱلدِّينِ وَلَمْ يُخْرِجُوكُم مِّن دِيَـٰرِكُمْ أَن تَبَرُّوهُمْ وَتُقْسِطُوٓا۟ إِلَيْهِمْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُقْسِطِينَ

Verse 8:72 makes a treaty with non-Muslims override even the duty to aid fellow believers. Covenant outranks religious solidarity. Citizenship, visas, and naturalization oaths are covenants of this kind. They bind the believer to lawful means. Verse 60:8 adds the positive duty: birr (kindness) and qist (justice) toward peaceful neighbors.

Abyssinia. Around 615 the Prophet sent persecuted followers to Abyssinia, “for there is a king there under whom no one is wronged, and it is a land of uprightness” (Ibn Hisham). The Negus was Christian. The Muslims lived under his law for years and defended their faith before his court through Ja’far ibn Abi Talib. They did not try to overthrow him. The criterion was justice, not the ruler’s religion.

Hilf al-Fudul. The Prophet reportedly praised the pre-Islamic Hilf al-Fudul, a pact to protect the wronged, saying he would join such a pact in Islam.

Fiqh al-aqalliyyat. Taha Jabir al-Alwani coined the term. He first used it in 1994, when the Fiqh Council of North America under his presidency issued a fatwa permitting American Muslims to vote. Yusuf al-Qaradawi developed it (Fiqh of Muslim Minorities, 2003) and through the European Council for Fatwa and Research. Both reasoned from the maqasid and maslaha. Al-Alwani rejected the old division of the world into dar al-Islam and dar al-harb for modern states where Muslims live securely. Critics exist on both sides, but the core ethic follows from the principles above:

• honor the covenant of citizenship;
• vote and serve;
• cooperate in good;
• speak against injustice through the press and the courts;
• verify before broadcasting.

Revolutionary calls to treat Western states as illegitimate betray the Qur’anic ethic of covenant. The Muslims of Abyssinia did not plot against the Negus.

X. The Strongest Counterarguments and a Response

1. The classical consensus on the imamate. Al-Mawardi, al-Juwayni, al-Ghazali, and Ibn Khaldun held the imamate obligatory. The Companions hurried to appoint a successor.

Response. The consensus establishes the need for legitimate, effective government, which several jurists grounded in reason. It does not establish a method of appointment, a term, a structure, or a mechanism of removal. The Mu’tazili al-Asamm and the Najdiyya argued that a just society might not need an imam at all, which shows the question was argued on grounds of utility. Modern constitutional states satisfy the obligation. The consensus cannot be stretched into a permanent mandate for a universal caliphate of Qurayshi lineage.

2. Mawdudi and Qutb on hakimiyya (divine sovereignty). Mawdudi called popular legislative sovereignty idolatry and proposed a “theo-democracy.” Qutb’s Milestones (1964) declared societies that do not implement God’s law to be jahiliyya, a state of pre-Islamic ignorance.

Response. Mawdudi’s call for consultation concedes that the text does not supply the machinery. Both men read in al-hukmu illa lillah as a doctrine about legislative authority in a modern state, which is precisely the Kharijite reading Ali rejected. God does not sit in a legislature; humans do. Any “rule of God” empowers fallible human interpreters and shields them from criticism. Qutb’s jahiliyya doctrine reproduced Kharijite logic, and violent movements later adopted it. Limiting all human authority, including religious authority, is the more faithful expression of divine sovereignty.

3. Hizb ut-Tahrir. Founded in 1953 by Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani, it holds that a single caliphate is the paramount obligation and that democracy is unbelief. It has drafted a full constitution for its caliphate.

Response. The drafted constitution proves the thesis. If scripture supplied a constitution, none would need writing, and the draft borrows modern state concepts. Political unity also collapsed early. By the tenth century three caliphates coexisted: Abbasid, Fatimid, and Umayyad in Cordoba. Jurists such as al-Juwayni accepted multiple rulers in distant lands. A doctrine that condemns a millennium of Muslim history as illegitimate proves too much.

4. Wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurist). Khomeini’s Najaf lectures (1970) extended the jurist’s guardianship to general rule. This was enshrined in Articles 5 and 107 of the Iranian constitution.

Response. It is a sophisticated doctrine but an innovative, minority one. Most Shi’i jurists limited guardianship to orphans, the incapacitated, and endowments. Al-Khu’i rejected the extension to political rule. Montazeri, once Khomeini’s designated successor, became a leading critic. (Both positions should be checked against primary sources.) Iran’s hybrid of elected and clerical institutions is itself a twentieth-century constitutional invention.

Each objection either concedes that humans must design the institutions or depends on the Kharijite reading. What survives is the duty of just, accountable government, not a revealed design.

Epilogue: The Lamp and the Vessel

The Verse of Light (24:35) speaks of a lamp in a glass, the glass like a shining star, lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west. The light is God’s. The niche, the glass, and the lamp are made by human hands. The light does not care whether the glass is round or fluted, whether the niche is Cordoban marble or Javanese teak. It asks only that the vessel be clear.

Justice, trust, consultation, righteous authority, cooperation in good, and care for the common weal are the light. Monarchy and republic, parliament and council, are vessels. A vessel may be gilded and yet dark, a palace where no one dares to speak. Another may be plain and yet luminous, an assembly where the humblest may correct the powerful and be heard. The Qur’an asks Muslims to judge their vessels by the light that passes through them.

The four caliphs, chosen four ways, knew this in practice. So did the refugees of Abyssinia, who found under a Christian king the justice their own kin denied them. So did Ali, who heard a verse of God turned into a battle cry and named it for what it had become. Ibn Taymiyya knew it when he taught that God sustains the just state, whatever its creed. Ibn Khaldun knew it as he read the ruins of dynasties. Al-Shatibi knew it when he saw that the law was made for human beings.

For the citizens of fifty-seven Muslim-majority states, and for Muslims who live under other covenants in Birmingham, Detroit, and Melbourne, the inheritance is not a blueprint dug from the seventh century. It is a set of commands to conscience:

• render the trusts;
• stand for justice even against yourselves;
• take counsel together;
• obey in what is right and refuse in what is wrong;
• help one another in goodness, never in aggression;
• verify before you spread;
• let the wronged speak;
• travel, look, and learn.

Wisdom, the saying goes, is the believer’s lost property. It lies scattered across the earth, in the court of the Negus and the codes of Rome, in the councils of Medina and the parliaments of our age. The believer’s task is to gather it, and to build with it, in every age and land, a house where justice can live.

References

Qur’an translations

• Sale, George. The Koran. 1734 (Project Gutenberg #7440). gutenberg
• Rodwell, J. M. The Koran. 1861 (Project Gutenberg #3434). gutenberg
• Palmer, E. H. The Qur’an. Sacred Books of the East 6, 9. 1880.
• Pickthall, M. M. The Meaning of the Glorious Koran. 1930.
• Yusuf Ali, A. The Holy Qur’an. 1934.
• Shakir, M. H. The Qur’an.

Classical sources

• al-Tirmidhi. Jami’, no. 2687.
• Ibn Majah. Sunan, no. 4169.
• al-Bukhari. Sahih.
• Muslim. Sahih, Kitab al-Zakat (on the Kharijites).
• Ibn Hisham. al-Sira al-Nabawiyya (trans. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 1955).
• al-Mawardi. al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya.
• Ibn Taymiyya. al-Siyasa al-Shar’iyya; Minhaj al-Sunna.
• Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. al-Turuq al-Hukmiyya.
• Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah. Trans. F. Rosenthal.
• al-Shatibi. al-Muwafaqat.

Modern scholarship

• Hawting, G. R. “The Significance of the Slogan la hukma illa lillah…” BSOAS 41 (1978).
• Lecker, Michael. The “Constitution of Medina.” Darwin Press, 2004.
• Abdel Raziq, Ali. al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm. 1925.
• Rida, Rashid. al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-‘Uzma. 1922–23.
• Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Islam and the Challenge of Democracy. Princeton, 2004.
• An-Na’im, Abdullahi. Islam and the Secular State. Harvard, 2008.
• Ghannouchi, Rached. Public Freedoms in the Islamic State. Yale, 2022 (Arabic 1993).
• Kamali, M. H. Freedom of Expression in Islam. 1997; Citizenship and Accountability of Government. 2011.
• al-Alwani, T. J. Towards a Fiqh for Minorities. IIIT, 2003.
• al-Qaradawi, Y. Fiqh of Muslim Minorities. 2003.
• Fishman, Shammai. Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat. Hudson Institute, 2006.
• Mawdudi, A. A. The Islamic Law and Constitution.
• Qutb, Sayyid. Milestones. 1964.
• Khomeini, R. Islamic Government. 1970.

Constitutional texts

• Saudi Basic Law of Governance (1992).
• Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979/1989).
• Constitution of Pakistan (1973), Art. 227.
• Egyptian Constitution (2014).
• Federal Constitution of Malaysia.
• Tunisian Constitutions (2014, 2022).
• Human Rights Watch. “Q&A: Tunisia’s Constitutional Referendum.” 2022.
• USCIRF. The Religion–State Relationship and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief. 2005.
• Ghannouchi interview, Le Monde, 19 May 2016; reported in Foreign Affairs and France 24.