The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

justice

The most common terms for justice in the Qur’an are ‘adl and qisṭ; its opposite, oppression, is ẓulm. The foundational text of Islam exhorts believers to be just, standing with the marginalized—the orphans, the needy, and the destitute (2:177; 90:8–18)—and speaking out against oppression, even if it entails going against one’s own family (4:135). The Qur’an describes a deity who is thoroughly committed to justice. Indeed, as the famous Qur’anic metaphor testifies, God will not commit any amount of injustice, even if it be the weight of a mote or speck (4:40; 99:6–8). Moreover, because God is just, righteousness according to the Qur’an is ascertained not by tribal lineage or gender affiliation—a radical departure from pre-Islamic Arabian society—but solely on the basis of taqwā, one’s level of piety (49:13). Whereas God does not wrong anyone (4:40; 45:22), human beings are fully capable of either upholding justice or committing oppression.

The obligation to promote justice and curb oppression was viewed as a central function of the ruler in premodern Islamic political theory and a major feature of the social contract between the ruler and the ruled. According to the medieval scholar Mawardi (d. 1058), the subjects of the ruler owe him obedience and support and, in return, he has ten public duties: (1) guarding the faith against heresy; (2) maintaining the rule of law; (3) ensuring public safety; (4) punishing criminals; (5) defending the Muslim territory; (6) supporting the expansion of Islam and recognition of its superiority; (7) collecting taxes; (8) making payments from the treasury; (9) appointing responsible and effective officials; (10) watching over the realm personally, without delegating or shirking responsibility. Justice is stressed particularly with regard to maintaining the rule of law—the point of this is regularly described as preventing the oppression of the weak by the strong. The ruler is therefore viewed as the champion of the oppressed, even when the oppressors are government officials. For this reason, Islamic regimes instituted special courts for the redressing of injustices, termed maẓālim. Instructional manuals on political leadership and court chronicles stress the ruler’s obligation to facilitate the settlement of disputes and claims and to allow unrestricted access to the ruler, such as the ability of a commoner to submit a petition directly to him or to attend an audience before him. Justice is also stressed with regard to the imposition of taxes: they should be limited to legal taxes and should not be extremely burdensome or oppressive. Injustice, however, was viewed by most Sunni theorists as insufficient cause for rebellion or removing a ruler from office. While the legality of rebellion against an unjust ruler was disputed, the majority opinion was that rebellion should be discouraged and rebels subdued through negotiation if possible and by force if not.

Justice is a key theme in modern political Islamic thought. The Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) called for the creation of an Islamic state with justice as its core principle. Imprisoned and eventually executed by a regime that was clamping down on Islamic activists, Qutb wrote in a context of oppression. In Social Justice in Islam (1949) and later Milestones (1964), Qutb argued that only a government based on the sovereignty of God (ḥākimiyyat Allāh)—in other words, a distinctly “Islamic” system—could ensure both socioeconomic justice and religious harmony. During the popular upheavals against the shah of Iran in 1978–79, Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989) condemned the regime as an oppressive monarchy that had sold Iran to American interests. That Khomeini’s alternative, fleshed out in The Guardianship of the Jurist (1971), was a state supervised by religious jurists underscores a core, and often unquestioned, assumption of political Islamic thinking: that only an “Islamic” government will translate into a truly just Muslim order.

Some of the most profound articulations of justice in Islamic religious terms have taken place outside the historic heartlands of Islam. The African American activist Malcolm X (d. 1965) saw in Islam a radical message of liberation from white supremacy. He converted to Islam while in prison and, upon his release, became the most influential minister in the Nation of Islam, transforming the then fledgling black Muslim group into a powerful voice of racial equality. African American Muslims have also played a leading role in the struggle for gender justice, most notably the feminist scholar Amina Wadud (b. 1952). By undertaking a gendered reading of the Qur’an, she has challenged the historical monopoly that men have exercised over exegesis. Using the concept of tawḥīd (the central Islamic tenet of the absolute unity of God), Wadud has argued that equality constitutes a fundamental component of gender justice in Islam. Any practice that undermines the sacrosanct equality of women and men therefore violates the very unity of God. Questions of religious pluralism have also taken center stage in the Islamic quest for justice. During the collective struggle against Apartheid, the South African Islamic scholar Farid Esack (b. 1956) articulated a Qur’anic theology of liberation committed to socioeconomic, racial, and gender justice through a framework of religious pluralism. This understanding of Islam relinquished any claim of Muslim exclusivism—that adherence to Islam constituted the only possible path toward the transcendent—in favor of interreligious solidarity against oppression.