The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

utopia

A Latinate construct coined by Sir Thomas More (d. 1535) to signal an impossible, ideal community, utopia is a category of analysis external to Islamic discourses. Depending on the social theories on which the scholar draws in describing Islamic political thought as “utopian,” this term might carry a positive or negative valence, linked either to the history of European totalitarianism or the possibility of progressive change. A number of social phenomena and intellectual projects in Islamic history may be profitably understood as utopian.

Like Sir Thomas More, the Muslim philosopher Farabi (ca. 878–950) drew on Plato’s Republic to depict a program for an ideal community in al-Madina al-Fadila (The virtuous city) and other political works, including al-Siyasa al-Madaniyya (Perfect political rule). Farabi’s ideal city is defined by human cooperation with the aim of becoming virtuous and attaining happiness through the perfection of reason. While all citizens have some commonality in their idea of the good life, only a few can fully perfect the virtuous self. Farabi’s recovery of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical approaches was not merely an Islamic replication of earlier Greek works but instead an attempt to harmonize Greek philosophy with Islamic theories of divine law. Farabi’s writings therefore formed an influential source for much of later Islamic political thought, including middle-period works such as the Akhlaq-i Nasiri (The Nasirean Ethics) of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274) and, less directly, Ayatollah Khomeini’s idea of the “rule of the jurist” (wilāyāt al-faqīh) in the 20th century.

While the majority of Muslims have drawn on the example of Muhammad and those following him as ethical exemplars, the Salafi reformists view the Sunni golden age as particularly exemplary. Drawing on the works of the Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), the Salafi movement of the 19th and 20th centuries called for a return to tradition, largely as represented by the first three generations of Muslims. In Islams and Modernities, Aziz al-Azmeh distinguishes between the historical utopia of the golden age as an exemplary model and the negation of history in utopian attempts to re-create that golden age. In Azmeh’s reading, the utopianisms of radical Islamists or fundamentalists such as the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and the Pakistani Mawdudi (d. 1979) negate the passage of history entirely and impute the condition of jāhiliyya (the age of ignorance, preceding Muhammad’s prophetic mission) to the present historical moment.

The final type of Islamic utopianism situates itself around the coming of the Islamic messiah or Mahdi. Though not solely attributable to Shi‘i communities, scholars have focused on messianic utopianism in Shi‘i Islam rather than in Sunni Islam. According to Twelver Shi‘i doctrine, the Twelfth Imam disappeared in 874, and his occultation (ghayba) will last until the end of time, when he returns as the Mahdi. Throughout Shi‘i history, both preceding the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam and following it, the death or disappearance of an imam has often been read as a sign of a coming apocalypse. As Said Amir Arjomand has argued, the assumption of authority by Shi‘i jurists following the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam represents a rationalization of this cycle, though it was later disrupted with the rise of the Safavid dynasty. Shi‘i Iranian movements of the 20th and 21st centuries have demonstrated messianic expectations as well, most notably in the identification of Ayatollah Khomeini as an imam but additionally in the Hujjatiyyeh movement and in Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s (2005–) chiliastic readings of his own presidency.

Messianic ideas appeared early in Islamic history in Sunni circles as well. While the term “Mahdi” does not appear in the Qur’an itself and signified a religiopolitical leader rather than messianic deliverer in the earliest period of Islam, movements during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods set the template for later discussions of the Mahdi. ‘Abdallah b. al-Zubayr’s (d. 692) revolt against the Umayyads defined the typology of messianic figures for later Islam and became linked to the term “Mahdi” through pre-Abbasid Shi‘i claims to rule, in particular those of Ibn al-Hanafiya (d. 700–701). Outside of specifically Shi‘i theories of the imam’s return, by the ninth century most Sunni Muslims had accepted the theory of a Mahdi as well. Although the figure never occupied a central place in Sunni scholastic discussions, numerous Sunni messianic movements appeared over the course of Islamic history. These Sunni movements generally emphasized the renewal of Islamic law—a notable contrast to claims for a new religious dispensation seen in Shi‘i messianism. In the modern period, one Sunni messianic movement of particular importance was the 18th-century Sudanese Mahdis, led by Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi (d. 1885). The Sufi-inspired Mahdis fought off Turco-Eygptian rule and established a short-lived Islamic state from 1885 until the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of 1898. Other significant Sunni movements of the late middle and modern periods include the Mahdi of Jawnpur (d. 1505) in India and Shehu Usman dan Fodio (d. 1817), along with numerous others, in West Africa.