Locating ḥākimiyya in global history: the concept of sovereignty in premodern Islam and its reception after Mawdūdī and Quṭb

Journal article

The concept of ḥākimiyya (sovereignty), as understood by its leading proponents, refers to the notion that it is God, rather than humans, Who possesses the prerogative to make laws. A concomitant of this is that Muslims with political power and authority must recognise the supremacy of Islamic law. This notion, perhaps most notably articulated in modern times by Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, may be viewed as the rearticulation of ideas latent in the premodern Islamic juristic tradition, but whose modern incarnation as ḥākimiyya emerged in response to the legislative norms of the liberal colonial state. Despite its modern articulation, and against the views of several scholars, I argue that ḥākimiyya qua sovereignty finds its antecedents quite clearly in the Islamic scholarly tradition. Such an understanding leads into a discussion of how Islamic conceptions of sovereignty can help us reassess influential Western articulations of the concept. I also show that Mawdūdī's influential younger contemporary, the Islamist alim Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī, upholds ḥākimiyya despite his critique of Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb's conceptions of it. I conclude with a brief reflection on how our understanding of ḥākimiyya as sovereignty can help us provincialise Europe in global historical studies.

Authors: al-Azami, U

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 355 - 376
• Publication date: 2021-11-26
• Acceptance date: 2020-10-28
• DOI: 10.1017/S1356186321000675
• EISSN: 1474-0591
• ISSN: 1356-1863
• Language: English
• Keywords: sovereignty; Quṭb; Mawdūdī; FFR; Islam and modernity; Islamic political thought; Islamic law; ḥākimiyya