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, while divine guidance, as mediated by pious communities, educates souls in the ethics of Islam with effect, as noted above, on interactions in society. In this sense, politics in Islam includes two sets of transcendent claims: those of the ruling power to discipline society into order and those of pious communities to educate souls in the ethics of Islam. 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 our intention 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, it endows the umma, its recipient, with a sovereignty of its own, that is, 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 society and also over souls, in the order of Islam.
Put differently, theology is needed for a fuller comprehension of politics in Islam. Theology, as we 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, about 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 expressed in secular terms. However, the discipline of political theology remains a work in progress. The term is used inconsistently in the scholarly literature, not always in refererence 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 such attempt to do so, offering perspective on politics in Islam not only as a “secular” 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. However, 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. However, the struggle for such a moral order has never been averse to non-revealed wisdom, that is, the secular wisdom of the world, nor to cooperation with non-Muslim peoples.
In other words, 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 still align with its purposes. In sum, politics in Islam cannot be studied simply as a set of power calculations, which, while present, are only partially determinative of the order of Islam. Amidst power calculations are moral assumptions, informed by divine guidance as prophetically revealed. For this reason, theology is needed to grasp politics in Islam as a venture both worldly and divinely inspired.
