The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

‘Abd al-Raziq, ‘Ali (1887–1966)

A judge, politician, and Islamic political theorist whose views on the caliphate galvanized the Egyptian public sphere during the interwar period, ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq was born in 1867 into a wealthy landowning family in the province of Minya, Egypt. The family was identified with the Liberal Constitutionalists Party (al-Ahrar al-Dusturiyyun), and their house in Cairo hosted prominent intellectuals such as Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905), Rashid Rida (1865–1935), and Ahmad Lufti al-Sayyid (1872–1963). ‘Abd al-Raziq was educated at the Egyptian University in Cairo and at Azhar University, from which he graduated in 1912. Between 1912 and 1915, he studied at Oxford, and upon his return to Egypt, he became a shari‘a court judge in al-Mansura. He was dismissed from Azhar University in 1925 and did not return for two decades until his brother, Mustafa, was appointed grand shaykh of the university. He served as a minister of Awqaf (1948–49) and as a member of the Egyptian parliament, the senate, and the Egyptian Language Academy. He published several works, notably al-Ijma‘ fi al-Shari‘a al-Islamiyya (Consensus in Islamic law) in 1947, a volume of his lectures, and an edited collection of his brother’s works.

‘Abd al-Raziq’s most famous book is his 1925 al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm (Islam and the principles of governance), which at the time provoked wide discussion in the Egyptian public sphere. The major catalyst for its publication was the abolition of the caliphate by the Turkish state (March 3, 1924) and a series of conferences and public debates regarding the desirability of a new caliph in the modern period (debates in which the Egyptian king Fu’ad was very much involved). Many modern reformers, notably ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1849–1902) and Rashid Rida, had been fascinated by the concept of the caliph prior to the action of the Turkish state—and al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm continued these discussions. At that time, controversies were frequent and conformed to a pattern in Egypt: a famous scholar (e.g., Qasim Amin, ‘Abd al-Raziq, Taha Husayn) publishes a text in which he challenges some assumptions; a scandal ensues in which the scholar, though persecuted, cements his position as a precursor of modernity, while Azhar University and the more conservative circles present themselves as the guardians of the shari‘a. This was the case with ‘Abd al-Raziq’s work. On May 24, 1925, the noted intellectual and politician Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1888–1956) recommended in his journal al-Siyasa that people read al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm. The next month, Rida published an attack on the book. In August, Azhar University’s rector and 24 of its leading ‘ulama’ (backed by King Fu’ad) responded by dismissing ‘Abd al-Raziq from his judgeship, ousting him from Azhar University, and denouncing his book publicly. Husayn and Haykal defended ‘Abd al-Raziq, while some Azharis published books refuting the main arguments of al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm. The question that occupied many intellectuals then and later was whether ‘Abd al-Raziq was advocating a separation between state and church under the veneer of accepting Islamic political theory or attempting to strengthen Islamic political theory from within. Was he, in other words, the Egyptian John Locke or a new Mawardi?

Like many modern Muslim political theorists before him, ‘Abd al-Raziq relies heavily on the Qur’an, as well as on the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun, yet he also draws on scholars such as Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Locke, Thomas Arnold (notably, his work on the caliphate), and other political theorists who wrote on the question of governance.

‘Abd al-Raziq opens al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm by presenting two opinions on the source of the caliph’s power: God or (based on Locke’s theories) the community (umma). Although he does not clarify his own views at this point, the text as a whole seems to support the latter contention.

‘Abd al-Raziq’s main argument is that the caliphate emerged as a recognized form of political authority during the time of Abu Bakr, not before him. His historical readings of the institution of the caliphate in the post-Rāshidūn (Rightly Guided Caliphs) era are rather pessimistic, if not Machiavellian. He argues that nearly every caliph, including Abu Bakr, faced political opposition. While it was possible to assume that the legitimacy of the caliphate should be drawn from the voluntary will of the Muslims (ikhtiyāriyya), in reality the caliphate was based on power, and most commonly military power. Rulers in Islam also limited scientific inquiry, and thus despite the flourishing of medieval Islamic sciences and the interest in Greek thought, political science (al-‘ulūm al-siyāsiyya) was never developed in Islamic thought. This is because of the limitations on political and intellectual freedom under various leaders of the Islamic state, who promulgated the mistaken notion that obedience to political authority should be understood as obedience to God. This misguided view allowed them to establish tyrannies, lead the people astray, and manipulate the meaning of religion in order to rule. What enabled these leaders to control their nations—their command of Muslim armies, the development of cities, and the establishment of various ministries—had very little to do with religion and relied on reason, expertise, and technical knowledge. Nothing, then, prevented Muslims from being like other peoples and developing a theory of politics that would lay the groundwork for a different system of governance.

While ‘Abd al-Raziq’s opinions should be contextualized within the politics of King Fu’ad and the debates over the question of the caliphate in the Muslim world, the abuse of power under British colonialism in the Middle East also inspired his writings. ‘Abd al-Raziq makes mention of the newly appointed Iraqi king, Faysal b. al-Husayn, whose father challenged Ottoman rule with British support, thus guaranteeing that his son, Faysal, would be installed as king. Faysal was made king of Iraq based on the false claims of the British that the Iraqi people had freely elected him. In the same manner that Mu‘awiya and his son Yazid had achieved the bay‘a (oath of allegiance) of their own people—namely, by power—Faysal owed his position to his British backers, yet his rule was represented as reflecting the will of the people. ‘Abd al-Raziq was troubled by the new Arab leadership, whose authority had little to do with the will of the people and yet represented itself as democratic. While the need to limit the power of political leaders was a much-discussed theme in modern Islamic political thought (especially in the years preceding the constitutional revolutions in Iran and the Ottoman Empire), ‘Abd al-Raziq suggests that the power of the political leader should not be limited (by the ‘ulama’, consultation, or whatever other power) but rethought altogether.

‘Abd al-Raziq argues that neither the Qur’an nor the hadith devotes much space to the issue of the caliphate. To understand this, it was necessary to distinguish between political and religious governance. According to political scientists (‘ulamā’ al-siyāsa), some form of power is needed in order to govern any umma, whether it is secular (lā dīn lahā) or religious (Jewish, Christian, or Muslim). The nature of this power, however, differs according to whether the mode of governance is constitutional (dustūriyya), tyrannical (istibdādiyya), republican, or Bolshevik. In fact, part of the discourse of the ‘ulama’ on leadership (imāma) and the caliphate (khilāfa) centered on what political science calls governance (ḥukūma)—namely, political practices rather than religious ones.

Referencing the sīra (life of the Prophet), the chronicles of Tabari, and the hadith literature, ‘Abd al-Raziq seeks to establish that the caliphate was an institution that developed historically from less developed forms to more complex ones in tandem with the growth of the Islamic state. The Prophet, in this sense, was a religious leader (rasūl da‘wa dīniyya) and not a political leader in the fullest sense of the word. Many prophetic messengers (rasūl) were not necessarily political leaders; Jesus, one such figure, said famously, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). The Prophet did establish an entity that had elements (maẓāhir) of governance and traces (āthār) of power. Even though jihad was used as a weapon for the expansion of the new faith, its promotion was mostly attained by spiritual and nonviolent means. Evoking the Qur’anic verse “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256), ‘Abd al-Raziq proposes that the Prophet attempted to persuade people to embrace his religion rather than use force and, by extension, establish a state. In fact, the prophetic state (al-mamlaka al-nabawiyya, al-dawla al-nabawiyya) did not achieve perfection in terms of its political form but was rather a state in the primitive stages of development (dawlat al-basāṭa, ḥukūmat al-fiṭra) led by a man who loved simplicity and was close to the people. Therefore, the prophetic state was one of a kind; today a state without a fixed budget or ministries is inconceivable. The Prophet did not desire to establish a state, much less an empire, and in terms of leadership, he was more akin to Moses and Jesus than any political figure. The Muslims obeyed the Prophet without question because his authority emanated from the divine law. The rule of the Prophet, however, should not be confused with the rule of those who came after him. Islam was a call to reform mankind and a means to achieve happiness and not a political prescription for establishing a state. It was therefore possible that one day the world would experience religious unity, yet it was utterly impossible, and in contradiction to human nature, to have one state for all mankind.

Reflecting on current political theories (such as Pan-Arabism), ‘Abd al-Raziq suggests that Islam, as a global and humanistic mission, was neither an Arab religion nor a manifestation of Arab unity, as the Islamic faith did not privilege one nation, language, or historical period over another. True, the Prophet was an Arab and the Qur’an was an Arabic book—yet the Arabs at the time were not unified. They spoke different dialects and lived under different political regimes (some were ruled by the Byzantines; others were independent). Islam did provide the Arabs with certain laws regarding war, culture, speech, and etiquette, thus offering some form of unity, yet this unity was not intended to form a state because the Prophet’s authority was religious in nature, and the Arabs obeyed him based on their faith.

For ‘Abd al-Raziq, the transformation to the rule of Abu Bakr typified the shift to an Arab state. It is in the debates between the muhājirūn (emigrants) and the anṣār (helpers) that ‘Abd al-Raziq locates a new political vocabulary relating to governance. Abu Bakr did not intend to be a religious ruler, but his public persona and the people’s admiration for him solidified this religious notion. Unlike the Prophet, he was a political leader who had to unite the Arabs as he faced the challenge of the ethnotribal loyalties (‘aṣabiyya) emblematic of the Arabian political order. However, some of his followers wrongly believed that his authority was like that of Muhammad: Abu Bakr was not seen as replacing Muhammad but rather as a representative of Allah. In this context, the ridda (apostasy) wars should be understood as tribal rather than religious wars, relating to the rivalries between Quraysh and Tamim and the desire to keep the leadership of the Arab state within Quraysh. These processes of the consolidation of power, however, should be interpreted as arising out of the particular nature of the new state and not as articles of the Islamic faith. Certainly, there was a heretical group, such as false prophets, within the opposition to Abu Bakr. Yet some of those who rebelled against Abu Bakr could have been Muslims resisting the political hegemony offered by Abu Bakr, not the Islamic religion. The refusal to recognize Abu Bakr’s political authority was not in itself a sign of ridda, for individuals such as ‘Ali b. Abi Talib were not considered murtaddūn (apostates) or treated as such. Those who did not want to pay the zakat (alms tax) were not rejecting religion but rather the regime of Abu Bakr.

The ideas put forth by ‘Abd al-Raziq were truly revolutionary. On the one hand, he intentionally downplayed or ignored many elements in the Prophet’s biography (such as the signing of ‘ahd al-umma, the covenant of the community) in order to support his contention that the Prophet’s early community was not a political one. Moreover, by arguing that the prophetic state was a very primordial one at best and that the Prophet was a religious leader whose rule could not, and should not, be emulated by any other leader, ‘Abd al-Raziq negated the view, widespread in his time, that the Prophet and the salaf (Islam’s first generations) should serve as ideals for political figures. Going further, the implications of al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm were that Muslims should not attempt to emulate the political structure created at the time of the Prophet, as political systems, like all other systems, develop historically and change from time to time.

Unlike Islamists today, or even the Wahhabis during his time, ‘Abd al-Raziq was extremely cautious in calling another Muslim murtadd, or apostate. His writings marked a clear separation between state and religion, which was reflected not only in his call for democratic regimes in the future but also in his interpretation of the Islamic past. As an Azhari intimately familiar with the Qur’an and the hadith, he was able to amass numerous verses and traditions that accentuated nonviolent methods of proselytization in Islam and illustrated the primitive nature of the early Islamic state. While he recognized the need for the stability brought about by a government, he was critical of the ways in which religiosity was used to support undemocratic regimes. The mentions of democracy, Bolshevism, and tyranny in his writing indicate that he was thinking about current political regimes. His technique was not different from those of many of his contemporaries, who offered their own Qur’anic exegesis to resolve political dilemmas and imbued medieval Islamic concepts with modern meanings. Yet unlike many of his contemporaries, who evoked the idea of shūrā (mutual consultation) as a means of curbing the power of the sovereign, ‘Abd al-Raziq suggested a new reading of the past that rarely had been offered before—or would be after—to support radical political change.