The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

dissent, opposition, resistance

Though dissent is often understood in negative terms, primarily as a means of expressing opposition, in the Islamic tradition dissent can also be construed in terms of a positive duty. The duty of commanding right and forbidding wrong has been emphasized as a primary obligation for Muslims throughout Islamic history. It has often been construed as a duty to dissent against unjust forms of government; a Prophetic tradition recorded by Ahmad b. Hanbal and others states that to be killed as a result of speaking up to an unjust ruler is the best form of holy war. Thus, Islam has a long tradition of political dissent; even the earliest caliphs faced some dissenters motivated to speak out against injustice or the un-Islamic comportment of the ruler.

Equally prevalent within the tradition, especially among Sunnis, has been a trend of limiting the conditions under which the exercise of this duty may be carried out. The Hanbali thinker Abu Ya‘la b. al-Farra’ (d. 1066) offers one set of restrictions on the duty that is mirrored by many other Sunni writers. Ibn al-Farra’ argues that the obligation to command right and forbid wrong, even to political leaders, applies only when it can be carried out without a risk of bodily harm to oneself, when it is likely to succeed, and when its exercise does not carry the risk of engendering a greater evil. Effectively, these restrictions serve to limit the extent to which this duty can be used to legitimate political rebellion. Many Sunni thinkers argued that because of these or similar restrictions, dissent against those in political power could be carried out only in the heart rather than through physical violence or even spoken opposition. These restrictions limited the likelihood that political dissent would turn into actual rebellion.

Even with these limitations, however, dissent has of course always been a characteristic of Islamic communities; furthermore, it has sometimes resulted in physical rebellion. Marshall Hodgson describes, for example, the widespread “piety-minded” opposition that eventually contributed to the success of the Abbasid revolution. Shi‘ism has often been understood as a movement founded in part on the basis of political opposition, as early Shi‘is saw the imam as an alternative to the injustices of the ruling caliph. Abdulaziz Sachedina, a scholar of Shi‘ism, argues that early Shi‘is’ position as political resisters of the caliphate had a strong influence on some important aspects of Shi‘i theology, including the eschatological nature of its doctrine of the Mahdi, who came to be understood as a redemptive figure of political resistance. In the contemporary context, Shi‘ism continues to be the source of political resistance in many regions, especially in Muslim-majority countries in which Shi‘is are a minority and seek greater political access and social privilege.

Two other contemporary Islamic dissent movements are Islamism and reformism. Individuals supporting these movements are likely to limit their resistance to the sphere of speech, in accordance with the restrictions described earlier. However, at particular moments each of these movements has manifested itself in a violent manner. Mohammed Hafez’s study of resistance in Muslim-majority countries demonstrates that the move to rebellion or violence is precipitated by particular identifiable factors. Islamic resistance is much more likely to become violent if resisters are denied other means of expressing their dissent; thus, resisters in countries that lack institutional access and popular participation in the government are more likely to turn to violence. When governments provide the inclusive space in which dissenters can express their opposition in meaningful ways, they are more successful at preventing dissent from becoming violent rebellion.