This is the second part of our study, in which we deconstruct the concept of Hakimiyah as presented by Sayyid Qutb in his book Milestones. This deconstruction relies on the Qur’anic text and its context, as taking a verse out of its context is a fragmented—piecemeal—reading, as referred to by the Qur’an. This study aims to clarify the issue of ‘piecemeal deception’ employed by Sayyid Qutb in his declaration of takfir (excommunication) against every Muslim who rejects his concept of Hakimiyah. This concept is still advocated by political Islam movements and extremist organizations that have emerged from them.
The paper aims to show that the issue of state and Hakimiyah is a human matter, not a divine one. It presents the Prophet’s application of the civil state through the Constitution of Medina and the prophetic conduct. It also highlights the alignment of the concept of divine Hakimiyyah with the concept of Imamate in Khomeini’s Iran. This will be explored in two parts through the following themes:
Part Two:
- Deconstructing Sayyid Qutb’s Concept of Hakimiyyah!
- First Issue: The State is a Human Jurisdiction, Not Divine!
- Did the Khawarij and Mu’tazilites Precede Karl Marx in the Concept of the State’s Existence?
- Second Issue: Hakimiyah and Authority Between the Children of Israel and the Message of Islam
- Third Issue: The Prophet’s State and the Civility of Its Constitution!
- The Alignment of Sayyid Qutb’s Concept of Hakimiyyah with Imamate in Khomeini’s Ideology!
- Sayyid Qutb’s Declaration of Takfir Against Muslim Societies that Do Not Implement Divine Hakimiyyah!
- Conclusion
Deconstructing Sayyid Qutb’s Concept of Hakimiyah
As discussed in the first part of this study, it is now necessary to address three critically important historical issues related to the topic. These issues were either overlooked, ignored, or misunderstood by Sayyid Qutb, yet they carry clear intellectual implications that entirely dismantle the theory of Hakimiyah in its entirety:
First Issue: The State is a Human Jurisdiction, Not Divine!
The state—as the framework within which political authority is exercised—since its earliest existence, with its three main components (land, people, and authority), was never a divinely ordained system from heaven for human society. Instead, it is a human invention, emerging over a long historical process, as a necessary organizational tool for managing societal affairs within a comprehensive political framework that encompasses the entire social existence of a people within its geographical boundaries after settling historically on their own land among other nations.
Thus, the political authority governing the people within the state framework emerged solely as a human innovation, shaped by humanity’s long-term experience in organizing society and managing its civil affairs. In most historical stages, political authority was an instrument of domination by certain factions or classes, produced by social conflict within the state. Since its inception, it has been merely an organizational tool for managing conflict and societal affairs within the state framework. Therefore, it has always been the exclusive domain of human beings, not divine authority, as divinity is far above such matters. If the divine will wished, it would not need such a direct political tool to manage human and societal affairs, as politics in the human world is exclusively a human matter, not a concern of God.
This is the practical reality in human society throughout history. Intellectually, within Islam as a religion and ideology, the texts of Islam—both Qur’an and Sunnah—are devoid of any implicit or explicit statement regarding the religious obligation or necessity of political authority. Thus, early Muslim jurists had differing opinions about its obligation, legitimacy, and necessity during periods of power struggle. Only the jurists of the Shi’ite school argued for the religious necessity of political authority.
It is also noted in the annals of Islamic political thought that the Najdat faction of the Khawarij and some scholars of the Mu’tazilite school linked the necessity of political authority, expressed through the terms “Imamate” or “Emirate,” to the evils and injustices suffered by people. If these evils were eliminated and the causes of injustice removed, political authority as a tool for deterrence would lose its necessity and legitimacy. In this idea, they preceded Karl Marx by more than ten centuries, as he linked the existence of political authority as a tool of class oppression to the state of class division and conflict within society. According to Marx, political authority would lose its legitimacy and necessity and eventually disappear with the end of class division during the communist phase.
Regardless of the realism or idealism of this idea, and while acknowledging its utopian nature in both its Islamic and Marxist versions, the essence of the idea according to “Najdat ibn ‘Amir” and some Mu’tazilite scholars is that political authority is a social organizational necessity, not a religious or legal one. This was expressed by Ali ibn Abi Talib in a different form: “The Muslims must have an emir, whether righteous or sinful.”
This leads me to the following question: Were Ali ibn Abi Talib and the early Muslims, who directly derived their Islamic knowledge from the Prophet, unaware of what Sayyid Qutb and his followers philosophically grasped—that political Hakimiyah is one of the exclusive attributes of divinity? The answer is clear and requires neither philosophers nor theologians: If political Hakimiyah in human society were one of the exclusive attributes of divinity, God would not have neglected it in His holy book to such an extent. Rather, He would have given it at least the attention it deserves as one of His exclusive attributes, just as He did with His other divine attributes, which are explicitly mentioned in clear Qur’anic verses (such as oneness, eternality, immortality, omnipotence, knowledge of the unseen, knowledge of the visible, and so on).
In fact, if political Hakimiyah were truly one of the exclusive attributes of divinity, God would not have left it historically on human ground as a game open to the unbelievers, tyrants, and oppressors to manipulate, using it for their own interests and playing with God’s religion and the human world. If it were one of the exclusive attributes of divinity, God would have sent a verse from the heavens concerning it, to which people would have submitted, as He is capable of doing that—just as He managed the community of angels in the celestial realm or as He governs all other creatures on earth.
However, God gave human beings, unlike other creatures, absolute freedom regarding faith and disbelief, based on the principle: “There is no compulsion in religion. Whoever wills, let him believe, and whoever wills, let him disbelieve.” So it follows that He also gave humanity—and indeed He has—the absolute freedom to manage worldly affairs, allowing humans to organize and govern their lives independently once they reached a stage of scientific and cultural awareness and maturity. This way, humans bear full responsibility for their actions in this life and will be held accountable before God’s justice on the Day of Judgment. Freedom is the basis of responsibility, and herein lies the logic of accountability and God’s justice in judging human beings on that day.
When humans assumed political Hakimiyah on their own, with all its dimensions and implications, to manage their societal lives in every detail within the framework of the state they themselves created, they did not step outside God’s absolute authority as Sayyid Qutb claims. Nor did they deviate from a system or order different from the one that governs the universe, requiring the Prophet to return humanity to God’s Hakimiyah as Qutb asserts. Instead, what humans did was a necessary consequence within the divine plan, which itself gave humans the space in their world to manage all their worldly affairs independently. For this reason, God created humans with a special, unique constitution among His other creatures—He breathed into them from His spirit and granted them the abilities that make them capable and qualified to carry out this mission.
Beyond the scope of this task, and within the same divine framework concerning the relationship between humans and God in terms of religion and faith, as well as humanity’s position on God’s divinity and oneness, and the place of humans—both individuals and societies—within the vast expanse of this universe, that is an entirely different matter. From the time God chose Adam as His vicegerent among humanity until this day, and until the Day of Resurrection, humans are inevitably subject to God’s absolute sovereignty, just as the universe, which is governed solely by God, and humanity is an integral part of this universe. How could humans, in their worldly lives, escape God’s sovereignty?
Say: “He is the one able to send upon you punishment from above you or from beneath your feet or to confuse you into factions and make you taste the violence of one another.” Look how We diversify the signs that they might understand. But your people have denied it while it is the truth. Say, “I am not over you a manager.” (Al-An’am: 65–66).
And how could they escape the boundaries of this universe in the face of God’s authority?
“O company of jinn and mankind, if you are able to pass beyond the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass. You will not pass except by authority.” (Ar-Rahman: 33).
But they will never pass. There is no escape or refuge under any authority before the power of God.
The Second Issue: Hakimiyah and Authority Between the Israelites and the Message of Islam
From confirmed historical sources, and primarily from the Qur’an itself, we know that throughout humanity’s long history since the establishment of the state, no form of political Hakimiyah was ever subject to God’s political sovereignty. If the Hakimiyah of prophets and religious figures is considered an example of God’s political rule, then such a model only existed for a brief period—barely noteworthy in the trajectory of human history—lasting approximately a century. This occurred when Prophet David (Dawud) assumed power as king over the Israelites by divine inspiration and empowerment from God. Similarly, his son Solomon (Sulaiman) followed him as both a prophet and ruling king. This was a legislative acknowledgment from God of the unity of religious and political authority in the state of the Israelites, a stance tied to the circumstances and specificities of that era.
One of the most notable characteristics of that period was that humanity’s inherited culture, spanning many ages, had settled on the idea of singular authority, inherently religious in essence, without distinguishing between religion and politics. At that time, the human mind could not conceive of political authority independent of religion. Religion existed long before political authority, and since its inception, political power was directly tied to religion. Consequently, the political ruler, in the understanding of the people, was seen as an agent of the gods and responsible for religious affairs, surrounded by priests and temple clergy. Even when a new political ruler came to power through forceful usurpation, the people still viewed him as a new agent of the gods, appointed and supported by divine authority. Otherwise, he would not have been able to defeat the previous ruler.
This was the case in pagan societies before the Torah was revealed, ever since humanity first recognized political authority. The Torah law was entirely in line with human awareness and culture concerning this matter during that era. Thus, the society of the Israelites, from its inception, was under the direct authority of the prophets, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “The prophets governed them. Every time a prophet perished, another would succeed him.”
After the Torah, Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) came with the Gospel and established a different stance and a new approach, which was the complete separation between religion and politics, between religious and political authority. Jesus came as a prophet, not a ruler. He neither sought nor aimed to establish a Christian religious state under his political authority in the pagan Roman Empire. Jesus confined his religious authority to his followers as a prophet and messenger from heaven and distanced himself entirely from state politics. He left political authority in the state to Caesar and his nobles.
This was a completely different position, not a form of precaution by Jesus in the face of Caesar’s tyranny. The same God who aided Moses against the tyranny of Pharaoh could have supported Jesus against the tyranny of Caesar. Instead, this was a foundation for a new culture regarding the relationship between religion and politics, paving the way for a new approach in a later era.
In the later period, after Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), the last prophet and messenger from heaven came. He affirmed the faith of both the Torah and the Gospel but differed from them in matters of politics.
As humanity matured through experiences spanning tens, if not hundreds of centuries, and reached a stage of intellectual, scientific, and cultural maturity, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) introduced a new and distinct political approach.
The Prophet, through his leadership, established the first state for the Islamic nation based on the Sharia of the Qur’an. After the state system had solidified in the human and social world and became essential for a society’s weight among others, this new Muslim nation needed a state among the states to organize and manage its external relations—whether in peace or war—and to regulate and manage its internal societal affairs within the framework of the state, ensuring its social unity as a vanguard for spreading the final divine message to the nations.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) established a new political system for the Muslim state, which was unprecedented in human history. It rejected both the unification of religious and political authority as seen in the Torah, and the separation of the two as seen in the Gospel.
This new system was built on a novel principle: the distinction, rather than the separation, between religious and political authority, especially since both these authorities converged in the person of the Prophet (peace be upon him) as both a prophet and a ruler. This was a divine acknowledgment that religion and politics should not be confused, particularly as these two authorities were united in the person of the Prophet during the early Muslim state. This arrangement also prepared for the eventual abolition of religious authority in the Muslim state after the Prophet’s death, leaving only political authority—a civil authority devoid of religious sanctity—as an administrative necessity for managing the state’s affairs and ensuring the unity of the nation socially and politically within the state’s framework. Even if the ruler was immoral, as Ali ibn Abi Talib pointed out, saying, “Muslims must have an emir, whether righteous or sinful.” There must be an emir, even if sinful, or else the nation would divide, its unity would dissolve, and it would revert to pre-Islamic tribal and clan fragmentation. Eventually, it could be lost among the nations, just as the Israelites were after their kingdom split following Solomon’s reign. Even though Ali pursued a different political approach when he took on the caliphate, that is another matter.
The new Sharia—the Sharia of the Qur’an—abolished religious authority from the Muslims after the Prophet (peace be upon him) and did not delegate it to anyone in his place, either in the name of God or the Prophet. Even if some claimed otherwise (as in the case of the Shia of Ali), such claims are baseless and lack any scriptural support from the Qur’an. To fill this gap after the Prophet’s passing, Qur’anic Sharia granted Muslims the right to Ijtihad (independent reasoning) and made religious authority a consultative process among the people of the nation, ensuring that their affairs would be governed by mutual consultation.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) passed away, and among the things he left for the Muslims from his noble tradition was the necessity of preserving the state and political authority. However, he did not appoint a successor as a political leader of the state, nor did he impose a specific model for political authority. Political authority is the right of the nation (the ummah), not the right of God; it is the authority of the nation, not the authority of God. He left the matter of political authority entirely to the choices of the Muslims after him, as it pertains to their worldly affairs, which are ever-changing and constantly developing based on the principle that “their affairs are conducted by mutual consultation between them.”
In summary, this is the historical methodology of Islam as a religion, across its three primary laws (Torah, Gospel, and Qur’an), and this is Islam’s stance on politics and political authority, as we understand it from the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet, away from the realm of philosophical religious fantasies, which Islam outright rejects.
The logical and realistic Islamic intellect can only accept one conclusion and nothing else: the divine methodology, which abolished “religious authority” over Muslims after the Prophet, naturally makes “political authority” a matter for the nation (ummah), not for God.
What logic cannot accept, regardless of one’s religion, is the idea that God would abolish religious authority over Muslims and leave it to mutual consultation between them, while at the same time retaining political authority over them for Himself. Furthermore, according to Qutb’s philosophy, this political authority would be restored to God whenever it is usurped.
If God’s Hakimiyah includes both religious and civil matters, and if both are exclusively under His control as Sayyid Qutb claims, then how could He leave religious matters to the Muslims to resolve through consultation after the Prophet’s death? The Prophet himself acknowledged this when he said: “What concerns your religious matters is mine, but what concerns your worldly affairs, you are more knowledgeable about.”
And if their worldly affairs are exclusively God’s domain according to Qutb’s philosophy, how can Muslims be more knowledgeable about them, as mentioned in the prophetic tradition?
Moreover, after God left religious matters to be resolved through consultation among Muslims, and then also left civil matters to them as mentioned in the tradition, what remains of divine authority in society? Glory be to You, exalted above what they describe! With what minds do they think?
Did they not ponder over verse 38 from Surat Ash-Shura: “And those who have responded to their Lord and established prayer and whose affair is [determined by] consultation among themselves, and from what We have provided them, they spend.”
In this noble verse, there is a clear and explicit acknowledgment that, specifically in the community of Muslims (those who have responded to their Lord and established prayer), political and administrative matters are considered “their affair” — the affair of the Muslims. It is not God’s affair. If it were God’s affair, He would not have made it subject to “consultation among them” as stated in the verse.
Their affairs, in the context of the verse, encompass a broad, general framework with no ceiling or limits. It starts from the smallest communal matters within society and extends to the most significant public issues concerning the entire community, including political authority at the highest level of the state.
This is the divine method, and this is Islam’s stance on politics in the realm of humanity and human society according to this method and position: politics is a human affair, not a divine one. The noble Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not come to return people to God’s political sovereignty, nor to reclaim God’s usurped authority and return it to Him, as Sayyid Qutb claims. God is far too exalted for anyone to usurp His authority. Political authority belongs to the nation, not to God, and when a tyrant ruler usurps it, he usurps it from the nation, not from God. Thus, the responsibility of reclaiming the usurped authority falls upon the nation.
Had the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) come to return people to God’s political Hakimiyahas Sayyid Qutb sees it, we could confidently say that the Prophet failed in this mission! Or at least, he did not succeed to the level required for such a sacred prophetic mission! The proof of this is that his success was temporary, lasting only the ten years during which he was both a prophet and a political ruler of the Islamic state. After that, from the very moment his pure soul ascended to the heavens—before his blessed body was even buried—the political authority in the state began to falter. In other words, God’s political authority—the most distinct aspect of divinity—began to shake in the very first Islamic state and was later usurped once again from God.
The turmoil began in the Saqifah of Banu Sa’idah with heated political debate about political authority between the Ansar and the Muhajireen. This was followed by political (not religious) rebellion against the political legitimacy of Abu Bakr, forcing him to fight those who politically rebelled, to bring them back under his political authority. Then came the revolt and assassination of Uthman bin Affan, followed by a bloody struggle for power between Ali and Mu’awiyah. Ultimately, matters led to the isolation and assassination of Ali, after which Mu’awiyah bin Abi Sufyan established a monarchical system, transforming political authority in the Islamic state into a hereditary, tyrannical monarchy. This political authority was then inherited by the Umayyads for nearly a century, followed by the Abbasids and the Mamluks for over five centuries, and then by the Ottomans for four centuries, until political affairs in the Muslim nation reached the state we are in today: oppression, tyranny, injustice, and corruption.
All of this occurred in the Islamic state as a result of the struggle for power, even during the time of the first generation of Muslims—the generation that was directly taught by the Prophet himself—based on the principle of “There is no god but Allah.” If the Prophet had come to restore people to God’s political Hakimiya has Sayyid Qutb claims, then the Prophet would have failed in his mission, or at least failed to establish what he came for.
But far be it from the Messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be upon him), to fail. He did not come for that purpose. Instead, he came with a different mission, one that he fulfilled completely, with great success, in line with God’s will: “This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as your religion.” (Al-Ma’idah: 3)
And if not all or most people believe in what the Prophet came for, that is the will of God: “And most people, though you desire it, are not believers.” (Yusuf: 103) “And if Your Lord had willed, He would have made mankind one community. But they will not cease to differ.” (Yunus: 99)
This is exactly what the three heavenly religions have conveyed, as we know from the Quran, not from any other source. This is precisely what happened to political authority in the Islamic state after the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as we know from confirmed Islamic historical sources.
From these confirmed historical sources, the nation since then up to the present moment has experienced all forms and models of political Hakimiyah known to humanity across its various religions. It has gone through periods of disparate, conflicting quasi-states; and other times it lost political authority entirely and was subjected to the rule of conquerors and colonizers of other religions hostile to Islam. Meanwhile, Islam as a religion has remained unchanged, a divine faith firmly entrenched in the conscience of the nation based on the principle of “There is no god but Allah,” understood in its true religious meaning by those who grasped the significance of the Arabic language, not in the philosophical-political sense presented by Sayyid Qutb.
The Third Issue: The State of the Prophet and the Civil Nature of Its Constitution
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as a prophet and political ruler of the first Islamic state in history, established what no previous state had known: the first civil political constitution in human history, known as the (Constitution/Document).
Regardless of the content of the Constitution, despite its importance on this matter, and regardless of its validity over time, what is crucial in the context of this discussion is that its source was not heavenly. It was not a religious text revealed from the heavens but rather a civil, consensual document agreed upon by the social components of the state, despite their different religious affiliations. It served as a social-political contract to organize societal relations in a state where people differed in religion but were united and agreed politically. This represented a new model of state that humanity had not known before, namely the civil state model, not the religious theocracy that had prevailed in that era and before it, even though the political ruler in the civil state of the Muslims was a prophet and messenger from heaven in reality, not a pretense—a precedent unknown before.
The historical and methodological value of the Constitution is that it was established during the Prophet’s own lifetime and bears his esteemed signature as both the prophet of the Muslims and the political ruler of their state. It was not established in a later period under any of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, for instance. Had it been established later, it would have been a temporary political judgment, potentially causing disputes among Muslims and possibly considered a deviation from religion. This has significant and clear implications:
- First: An Islamic confirmation of the distinction and avoidance of mixing religion with politics.
- Second: A clear methodological affirmation from the Islamic religion that the source of authority is the nation, not heaven; that political authority in the state is the authority of the nation, not the authority of God; and that political Hakimiyah is a civil worldly matter, not a sacred religious one. This is fully agreed upon by all Islamic schools and sects except the Shiites.
However, the theory of (God’s Hakimiyah) aligns with the Shiite exception and contradicts the general Islamic schools and sects by mixing religion with politics, explicitly acknowledging two complementary theories, which together form the pillars of a religious state—a state that Islam firmly rejects, accepted only by Shiite Islam, Sayyid Qutb, and his followers:
- The First Theory: Rule by divine right.
- The Second Theory: The source of authority is heaven, not the nation.
The acknowledgment of the first theory is clear in many of Sayyid Qutb’s texts, most notably in his comprehensive definition of the concept of “God’s sovereignty.” In this definition, as he states, Hakimiyah means: “Reclaiming God’s usurped authority and returning it to God, expelling those who have usurped it, who rule people with laws of their own making, thus positioning themselves as lords and reducing people to the status of slaves… Its meaning is the destruction of the kingdom of humans to establish the kingdom of God on earth, or, as expressed in the Qur’an: ‘And He is God in the heavens and God on the earth.'”
The Alignment of Sayyid Qutb’s Concept of Hakimiyah with Khomeinist Imamate
Certainly, returning God’s usurped Hakimiyah to Him does not mean that God directly assumes political authority on earth. Political authority can only be held by a human ruler in a human society. If the task of this ruler is to reclaim God’s usurped authority and return it to Him to establish God’s kingdom on earth, then according to this theory – even if it does not explicitly state it – this ruler becomes an agent of God and His deputy, even a representative of God’s divinity on earth. Since political Hakimiyah in human society is considered a part of divinity according to Sayyid Qutb, what more is needed for the political ruler to govern based on the theory of divine right?
Sayyid Qutb attempted to escape this dilemma in his presentation of the theory, but he was unsuccessful. His attempt resulted in a logically contradictory statement that implicitly acknowledges the very theory he outwardly claims to reject. He says: “God’s kingdom on earth does not come through specific men who take on God’s Hakimiyah in the way the church held authority, nor through men who speak in the name of the gods as was the case in what is known as theocracy or the rule of divine right. Rather, it is established when God’s law is the ruler and the ultimate decision is referred back to God according to the law He has prescribed.”
The sign of this contradiction is that God’s law, as a system of rules, values, and religious constants, is not an inevitable divine ordinance in the world of humanity. It is not a natural, objective law that automatically governs human behavior and beliefs, like the objective scientific laws that control the movement of things and phenomena in the world of the universe and nature. If it were such a law, then the human world would be like the world of stars and planets, each orbiting in its fixed path. Rather, it is something akin to man-made laws, though we can say figuratively, with our full belief in its sanctity: It is a man-made law in essence, but one authored by God… not by humans.
With this human-like nature of God’s law, its effectiveness in human reality lacks the element of objective inevitability. In other words, humans are completely free in front of it, not compelled. They can adhere to it out of faith and belief, or even out of hypocrisy, and they can ignore or violate it, partially or completely, whenever they wish—if not openly, then secretly. This is just like the man-made laws that humans create. The degree to which one abides by it is determined by one’s stance on religion and the depth of one’s faith and religiosity.
Thus, for it to be the ruling authority in human reality, in the comprehensive, mandatory manner that the theory speaks of, there must be a human ruler tasked with enforcing and implementing it, with the help of religious scholars, as they are the most knowledgeable about God’s law. This task must be sacred, given the sanctity of the law and its divine Legislator. Therefore, this ruler and his men must speak on behalf of the Legislator, who is God, just as was the case with the authority of the church and exactly as it was with what is known as theocracy. This is the essence of the theory of Hakimiyah by divine right.
The theory of God’s _Hakimiyah explicitly rejects the idea that the people are the source of authority and clearly affirms that the source of all authority, without exception, is God. This is clearly stated in the text: “The meaning of establishing this principle theoretically is that the entirety of human life must return to God, (they do not decide in any matter of their affairs, nor in any aspect of their lives, from themselves). Instead, they must refer to God’s ruling in it and follow it.” There is no need for intellectual or linguistic analysis of the text, as it is clear and explicit both intellectually and linguistically. It completely strips the people of their right to decide for themselves in any matter, in any of their worldly affairs whatsoever.
It is important to note that this is a right that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) acknowledged for the people during his time as a Prophet and a political leader in the Islamic state, as seen in his saying: “What is related to your religion is mine, but what is related to your worldly affairs, you are more knowledgeable about.” While this hadith referred to a specific scientific issue unrelated to societal politics—the pollination of palm trees—it was expressed in a general linguistic and intellectual form, establishing a general methodological rule that applies to all civil and political matters. His political practice provides many practical examples confirming this as an Islamic methodology for managing the affairs of Muslims.
One of the most prominent aspects of his political practice was that his companions (may God be pleased with them) would frequently ask him when he presented an opinion, “Is this revelation or consultation, O Messenger of God?” If he responded that it was revelation, then it was a divine, sacred matter, and they had no choice but to listen and obey. But if he responded that it was consultation, then it was a civil, political opinion, and they had a sacred right to express their opinion and consultation. Therefore, they would advise him and engage in dialogue, and he would either convince them or be convinced by them. There are many cases where he was convinced and changed his opinion, and in some of these cases, the result was catastrophic. However, God praised him and commanded him to uphold the principle of consultation, stating that if he had been harsh or hard-hearted and rejected their consultation, they would have dispersed from around him, and the catastrophe would have been even greater.
In this, there is definitive Islamic acknowledgment that politics is a purely human matter and not a sacred, divine one, and that the people, not the heavens, are the source of authority. In other words, this is an Islamic affirmation rejecting the two theories that Sayyid Qutb endorsed.
After Sayyid Qutb’s acceptance of these two theories, contrary to the Islamic position, what remains of his claim to reject the idea of a theocratic state? Nothing remains but the explicit endorsement of the concept of Inquisitions, as the Church acknowledged in theocratic Europe during the Dark Ages, where they would investigate and scrutinize people’s consciences for anyone who did not believe in their divine right to legislate, rule, and hold political power on behalf of God—the supreme ruler and source of all authority. Anyone who did not believe was considered a heretic and an apostate, deserving, by law, a slow death while hanging on the cross, or beheading under the guillotine.
Sayyid Qutb’s Excommunication of Muslim Societies That Do Not Implement Divine Hakimiyah:
Although Sayyid Qutb did not explicitly call for such courts, he clearly justified their necessity by excommunicating anyone who does not believe in God’s Hakimiyah in the manner he described. He also excommunicated anyone who acknowledges any political authority other than God and anyone who accepts living under the shadow of such authority in their homeland, even if they are devout Muslims. This is why Daesh-inspired groups, following Qutb’s ideology, established their own courts when they violently and terrorizingly usurped political authority in some Muslim lands, claiming to “return it to God,” or rather, to monopolize it on behalf of God.
By endorsing these two theories and adopting the excommunication approach that stems from them, the advocates of the theory of “God’s Sovereignty” aligned entirely with the Shiite scholars who advocate the theory of Imamate. They only differ in the method of appointing the Imam or ruler. Both agreed on the idea of rule by divine right, thereby stripping the ummah (community) of its right to be the source of authority, i.e., they stripped the community of its right to legislate and regulate its ever-changing and developing worldly social reality, claiming that the authority to legislate earthly matters belongs to the heavens and is not something humans have the right to interfere with.
Regarding these two groups, Dr. Muhammad Emara said:
“These individuals, who are engaged in Islamic studies and activism, go to great lengths to fabricate a contradiction between the notion that authority belongs to the ummah and the idea that Hakimiyah belongs to God. Their method is to conflate issues that cannot be mixed. Moreover, based on their ‘corrupt’ premises, they declare anyone who assigns political authority to something other than God to be a disbeliever.”
It is known that Shiite scholars followed the same Qutbian method of selectively interpreting Qur’anic texts and philosophically interpreting them to arrive at the theory of Imamate. They also understood the principle of “There is no god but God” with the same philosophical interpretation as Sayyid Qutb. They added to it, “And that Ali is the friend of God.” For this reason, they considered the Imamate to be a fundamental part of the faith, even the most important of all its tenets. In their view, the Imamate is part of divinity, and divinity includes the Imamate, just as, according to Sayyid Qutb, political Hakimiyah is part of divinity, and divinity includes political sovereignty. And political Hakimiyah is one of the most important characteristics of divinity.
Based on these corrupt premises, as Dr. Emara described them, just as the proponents of the theory of Imamate excommunicated anyone who does not believe in the Imamate, so too did Sayyid Qutb excommunicate anyone who does not believe in God’s political sovereignty. According to him, belief in God’s sovereignty, in this specific sense, is the criterion that distinguishes between faith and disbelief. Anyone who does not believe in God’s political sovereignty, as defined by Qutb, is considered outside the fold of Islam. He stated this explicitly and clearly in his writings.
Sayyid Qutb’s concept of Tawhid (the oneness of God) is comprehensive, encompassing not only the belief in God’s oneness but also the acknowledgment of His absolute Hakimiyah in all aspects of life. According to Qutb, the core principle of Islam throughout human history is the testimony of faith, “There is no god but God” (Lailaha illa Allah), which requires a person to recognize God’s Hakimiyah in all matters: belief in their heart, worship in rituals, and the application of His laws in everyday life. For Qutb, this complete integration of belief, worship, and law is essential for the testimony of faith to be considered valid, both in religious and legal terms. It is only in this complete form that a person’s claim to being Muslim is valid.
Using this criterion to distinguish between believers and non-believers, Qutb categorizes the entire world as being in a state of jahiliyyah (ignorance), including modern societies, because they infringe upon God’s sovereignty. He defines this jahiliyyah as the usurpation of God’s ultimate authority by humans, particularly in the realm of Hakimiyah. Qutb argues that this manifests not in the primitive forms of idolatry seen in earlier pagan societies, but rather in the modern context where humans claim the right to legislate, set values, and establish laws independent of God’s guidance.
He emphasizes that in any system other than the Islamic one—according to his understanding—people, in one way or another, end up worshiping one another. This includes what he calls “Muslim societies” that claim to be Muslim but fail to adhere to God’s laws in the Hakimiyah of their social, political, and legal systems. While these societies may not literally worship someone other than God or even believe in any deity other than God, they, according to Qutb, give the exclusive right of God—the power to legislate and govern—to human authorities. By doing so, they follow non-divine systems and accept norms, traditions, and values imposed by other than God.
Thus, for Qutb, these societies, despite their claims of belief in God’s oneness, fall into shirk (associating others with God) because they assign a critical aspect of divinity—sovereignty—to entities other than God. In his view, a society is truly Islamic only if it completely surrenders its Hakimiyah and laws to God’s will, as revealed through Islamic law (Sharia).
In Sayyid Qutb’s thought, any society that does not govern according to God’s law is considered a “Jahili” (ignorant) society, even if it claims to be Muslim. Only those who adopt the concept of “God’s sovereignty” (Hakimiyyat Allah), meaning that God alone legislates and rules, are the true Muslims in his view. These people are what could be called “Sayyid Qutb’s sect,” such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the jihadist factions that emerged from this ideology. According to this theory, this Islamic vanguard is seen as tasked with restoring God’s usurped authority, meaning returning Hakimiyah to God by establishing a system based on His law.
Sayyid Qutb calls on his followers to completely detach themselves from the Jahili society in which they live. He views any society that is not governed by God’s law as Jahili, even if it claims to be Muslim. He also urges them to not be loyal to the land or country in which they live if it is ruled by anything other than God’s law. For him, the homeland of a Muslim is not the geographic land or the country where they were born, but rather the Dar al-Islam (Abode of Islam), meaning the state that is governed by God’s law. Any land where God’s law does not rule is a “Dar al-Harb” (Abode of War) to the Muslim, regardless of whether it is their birthplace or where their relatives and possessions are located.
This is exactly what the jihadist Qutbist organizations are doing today in some parts of the Muslim world. They not only fight corrupt, unjust, and oppressive regimes but also deem it permissible to shed the blood of anyone living under the authority of these regimes, even if they are devout Muslims who oppose these regimes.
Conclusion:
These are the key features of the theory of “Hakimiyah of God” (Hakimiyyat Allah), which we have analyzed objectively and scientifically. We firmly believe in the absolute Hakimiya hand divinity of God, guided by Islam as a divine religion and methodology before any other approach, away from political ideologies and theories.
The core idea of the theory revolves around sovereignty, which is discussed by one of the prominent leaders of the first generation of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Ashmawy, in his book “The Arab Individual and the Problem of Hakimiyah” on pages 135-136:
“It is said that religious faith achieves God’s Hakimiyah on Earth. But what exactly is meant by God’s Hakimiyah on Earth? … He discusses natural laws and norms, then asks: Did God want the Earth to be governed in a specific way? Did He outline a model for Hakimiyah? He answers: No, I say this with confidence, and I challenge anyone who says otherwise to provide evidence… God’s Hakimiyah on Earth, in terms of the dominance of His laws, exists whether under a religious government, a non-religious government, or no government at all. However, the concept of God’s Hakimiyah on Earth as they present it as a banner for Hakimiyah means only one of two things: either a dictatorial religious government, which may be just if the nature or inclinations of its members favor justice, or oppressive if it chooses, and no objections can be raised since it represents God’s rule on Earth. Or it means chaos, where each faction sees itself as the guardian of God’s rule in every matter, striving to enforce it by force, leading to division within the nation and killing among its members.”
This is the theory of Hakimiyah (Hakimiyyat Allah) that the Indian thinker Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi critiqued in response to proponents of divine sovereignty:
“Those who confine God’s attributes and rights solely to the matter of Hakimiya hand supreme authority, seeing it as the essence of divine rights and primary divine demands, I fear that they might be subject to the verse: ‘They have not appraised Allah with true appraisal.’
In summary, politically speaking, this theory absolutely rejects democracy as a method for managing state and societal affairs. It considers democracy a departure from religion and a legitimization of polytheism because democracy is government by the people, where authority rests with the people. One of the key components of the democratic process is the peaceful transfer of power. In contrast, according to Sayyid Qutb and his followers, political authority in Islam belongs solely to God. Thus, it is not subject to transfer; it is their exclusive right as they alone represent God’s political authority on Earth.
According to their sacred Qutbist theory, they have either ignored or deliberately overlooked the fact that Islam, as a divine religion and a universal methodology transcending time and place, does not impose a specific Hakimiyah system on Muslims, nor does it provide a sacred political theory or legislation for any branch of politics. Rather, Islam offers a general framework, guidelines, and fixed objectives aimed at achieving the evolving and ever-changing interests of the Muslim community. From these guidelines, political theories with social, economic, and administrative implications are derived, considering the divine principle of change and transformation established by the Creator in the human and societal realm.
If these Islamist advocates of this theory and their supporters had embraced some of Islam’s rationality or political rationality, they would have respected the principle of differing opinions and beliefs, which is a divine law before being a fundamental aspect of democracy. They would have abandoned intellectual terrorism and political excommunication and recognized the right of others to engage in intellectual and political reasoning. They would have acknowledged that their political beliefs are merely specific interpretations inspired by Islam’s methodology, taking responsibility for their successes and failures. This approach would have prevented their failures and mistakes from being attributed to Islam itself, closed the door to Westernized intellectuals promoting the idea of Islam’s backwardness or its intellectual incapability to address contemporary issues, and prevented enlightened generations from reacting in the opposite direction by turning to Western secularism under the mistaken belief that Islam is an obstacle to progress or merely an idealistic theological concept divorced from reality.
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