404 Abdessamad Belhaj
1. Review of Contemporary Literature
The modern Arabic literature on siyāsa sharʿiyya is quite abundant
and needs a separate critical evaluation. It suffices here to review two
recent contributions on the subject. First, the work of Ibrāhīm ʿAbd
al-Raḥīm^14 seems to represent the normative line of Islamic reasoning
on siyāsa sharʿiyya, with its long chapters that gather every material
possible on the subject without being able to link them either to the
context or to medieval sources. He reads these materials ahistorically
in a way that allows him to “theorize” and to establish a normative
model of how policies should be executed if they are to be consid-
ered Islamic. In fact, the chief focus of the author is to make Sharia
relevant as a source of politics. Thus, he considers siyāsa sharʿiyya to
be politics based on the rules of Islamic law, its judgments and its ori-
entation in opposition to positive policies (siyāsa waḍʿiyya).^15 For him,
siyāsa sharʿiyya is a subcategory of Islamic law that concerns itself with
political issues. All things considered, the literature of Ibn Taymiyya
and Ibn al-Qayyim on the subject does not support the sharp distinc-
tion that ʿAbd al-Raḥīm establishes between positive politics and legal
politics. On the contrary, if his concern was to undermine (human)
positive politics and therefore to show that it is less valuable and advis-
able than legal politics (supposed to be divine),^16 Ibn Taymiyya and
Ibn al-Qayyim insisted that positive politics, as long as they serve the
authority of Islamic law, should be considered equally as important
as legal politics. Above all, he does not seem to be aware of the com-
mon ground between positive and legal politics, while, before modern
times, Sunni jurists never questioned that there was common ground.
Abū ʿUmar al-Tamīmī’s contribution, though a radical standpoint,
is not very different in its results. A Saudi radical operative and jurist
in the North Caucasus, he was killed in 2005. Among the radical
Chechen fighters, he enjoyed a high religious authority as the Mufti of
Chechnya. He embodies how radical activists and intellectuals equate
Competing Texts. The Relationship between al-Mawardi’s and Abu Yaʿla’s al-
Ahkam al-sultaniyya, Cambridge 2007.
14 An Egyptian professor and vice-director of the Center of Islamic Studies and
Research at Cairo University. He teaches siyāsa sharʿiyya at the famous Dār
al-ʿUlūm.
15 ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, Ibrāhīm: al-Siyāsa al-sharʿiyya. Mafhūmuhā, maṣādiruhā,
majālātuhā, Cairo 2006, pp. 19–20.
16 Ibid., p. 49.
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated