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Islamic state
An Islamic state is a form of government which is based on Islamic law. As a term, it has been used to
describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world.[1] As a translation of
the Arabic term dawlah islāmiyyah (Arabic: ‫ )دوﻟﺔ إﺳﻼﻣﯿﺔ‬it refers to a modern notion associated with
political Islam (Islamism).[2][3]

The concept of the modern Islamic state has been articulated and promoted by ideologues such as
Mohammed Omar, Abul A'la Maududi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Israr Ahmed, Sayyid Qutb or
Hassan al-Banna. Implementation of Islamic law plays an important role in modern theories of the
Islamic state, as it did in classical Islamic political theories. However, the modern theories also make use
of notions that did not exist before the modern era.[1]

Today, many Muslim countries have incorporated Islamic law, wholly or in part, into their legal systems.
Certain Muslim states have declared Islam to be their state religion in their constitutions, but do not
apply Islamic law in their courts. Islamic states which are not Islamic monarchies are usually referred to
as Islamic republics.

Contents
Historical Islamic states
Early Islamic governments
Essence of Islamic governments
Revival and abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate
Modern Islamic state
Development of the notion of dawla
Development of the notion of Islamic state
Islamic states today
Iran
Pakistan
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Historical Islamic states

Early Islamic governments

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The first Islamic State was the political entity established by Muhammad in Medina in 622 CE, under the
Constitution of Medina. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah (nation). It was
subsequently transformed into the caliphate by Muhammad's disciples, who were known as the Rightly
Guided (Rashidun) Caliphs (632–661 CE). The Islamic State significantly expanded under the Umayyad
Caliphate (661–750) and consequently the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258).

Essence of Islamic governments

The essence or guiding principles of an Islamic government or Islamic state, is the concept of al-Shura.
Several scholars have different understandings or thoughts, with regard to the concept al-Shura.
However, most Muslim scholars are of the opinion that Islamic al-Shura should consist of the
following:[4]

Meeting or consultation that follows the teachings of Islam.

Consultation following the guidelines of the Quran and the Sunnah.
There is a leader elected among them to head the meeting.
The discussion should be based on mushawarah and mudhakarah.
All members are given fair opportunity to voice out their opinions.
The issue should be of maslahah ammah or public interest.
The voices of the majority are accepted, provided it does not violate the teachings of the Quran or
Sunnah.

Muhammad himself respected the decision of the shura members. He is the champion of the notion of
al-Shura, and this was illustrated in one of the many historical events, such as in the Battle of Khandaq
(Battle of the Trench), where Muhammad was faced with two decisions, i.e. to fight the invading non-
Muslim Arab armies outside of Medina or wait until they enter the city. After consultation with the
sahabah (companions), it was suggested by Salman al-Farsi that it would be better if the Muslims fought
the non-Muslim Arabs within Medina by building a big ditch on the northern periphery of Medina to
prevent the enemies from entering Medina. This idea was later supported by the majority of the sahabah,
and thereafter Muhammad also approved it.

Muhammad placed great emphasis on agreement about the decision of the shura because the majority
opinion (by the sahabah) is better than a decision made by one individual.

Revival and abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate

The Ottoman Sultan, Selim I (1512–1520) reclaimed the title of caliph which had been in dispute and
asserted by a diversity of rulers and shadow caliphs in the centuries of the Abbasid-Mamluk Caliphate
since the Mongols' sacking of Baghdad and the killing of the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, Iraq 1258.

The Ottoman Caliphate as an office of the Ottoman Empire was abolished under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
in 1924 as part of Atatürk's Reforms. This move was most vigorously protested in India, as Mahatma
Gandhi and Indian Muslims united behind the symbolism of the Ottoman Caliph in the Khilafat
Movement which sought to reinstate the caliph deposed by Atatürk. The Khilafat Movement leveraged
the Ottoman political resistance to the British Empire and this international anti-imperial connection
proved to be a galvanizing force during India's nascent nationalism movement of the early 1900s for
Hindus and Muslims alike, although India was far from the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate in Istanbul.
However, the Khilaphat found little support from the Muslims of the Middle East themselves who
preferred to be independent nation states rather than being under the Ottoman Turkish rule. In the
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Indian sub-continent, although Gandhi tried to co-opt the Khilafat as a national movement, it soon
degenerated into a jihad against non-Muslims, also known as Moplah riots, with thousands being killed
in malabar region of Kerala.

Modern Islamic state

Development of the notion of dawla

The Arabic word dawla comes from the root d-w-l, meaning "to turn, come around in a cyclical fashion".
In the Quran, it is used to refer to the nature of human fortunes, alternating between victory and defeat
(3:140). This use led Arab writers to apply the word to succession of dynasties, particularly to the
overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids.[5] The first Abbasid caliphs themselves spoke of "our
dawla" in the sense of "our turn/time of success".[6] As Abbasids maintained their power, the dynastic
sense of dawla became conflated with their dynastic rule,[5] and in later times al-Dawla was used across
the Islamic world as a honorific title for rulers and high officials.[6]

Like their Christian contemporaries, pre-modern Muslims did not generally conceive of the state as an
abstract entity distinct from the individual or group who held political power.[5] The word dawla and its
derivatives began to acquire modern connotations in the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the 16th and 17th
centuries in the course of diplomatic and commercial exchanges with Europe. During the 19th century,
the Arabic dawla and Turkish devlet took on all the aspects of the modern notion of state while the
Persian davlat can mean either state or government.[6]

Development of the notion of Islamic state

According to Pakistani scholar of Islamic history Qamaruddin Khan, the term Islamic state "was never
used in the theory or practice of Muslim political science, before the twentieth century".[7][8] Sohail H.
Hashmi characterizes dawla Islamiyya as a neologism found in contemporary Islamist writings.[5]
Islamic theories of the modern notion of state first emerged as a reaction to the abolition of the Ottoman
caliphate in 1924. It was also in this context that the famous dictum that Islam is both a religion and a
state (al-Islam din wa dawla) was first popularized.[1]

The modern conceptualization of the Islamic state is attributed to Abul A'la Maududi (1903–1979), a
Pakistani Muslim theologian who founded the political party Jamaat-e-Islami and inspired other Islamic
revolutionaries such as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.[9] Abul A'la Maududi's early political career was
influenced greatly by anti-colonial agitation in India, especially after the tumultuous abolition of the
Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 stoked anti-British sentiment.[10]

The Islamic state was perceived as a third way between the rival political systems of democracy and
socialism (see also Islamic modernism).[11] Maududi's seminal writings on Islamic economics argued as
early as 1941 against free-market capitalism and state intervention in the economy, similar to
Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr's later Our Economics written in 1961. Maududi envisioned the ideal Islamic
state as combining the democratic principles of electoral politics with the socialist principles of concern
for the poor.[12]

Islamic states today

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Today, many Muslim countries have incorporated

Islamic law in part into their legal systems.
Certain Muslim states have declared Islam to be
their state religion in their constitutions, but do
not apply Islamic law in their courts. Islamic
states which are not Islamic monarchies are
usually referred to as Islamic republics,[13] such as
the Islamic republics of Afghanistan,[14] Iran,[15]
Pakistan and Mauritania. Pakistan adopted the
title under the constitution of 1956; Mauritania
adopted it on 28 November 1958; and Iran Government type among countries with a Muslim majority
adopted it after the 1979 Revolution that
overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty. In Iran, the form
of government is known as the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists. Afghanistan was run as an Islamic
state (Islamic State of Afghanistan) in the post-communist era since 1992, but then de facto by the
Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) in areas controlled by them since 1996 and after the 2001
overthrow of the Taliban the country is still known as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Despite the
similar name, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws.

Pan-Islamism is a form of religious nationalism within political Islam which advocates the unification of
the Muslim world under a single Islamic state, often described as a caliphate or ummah. The most
famous, powerful and aggressive modern pan-Islamic group that pursues the objective of unifying the
Muslim world and establishing a worldwide caliphate is the Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist movement Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant.

The Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration as of 3 August 2011 declared Islam to be the official
religion of Libya.

Iran

Leading up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, many of the highest-ranking clergy in Shia Islam held to
the standard doctrine of the Imamate, which allows political rule only by Muhammad or one of his true
successors. They were opposed to creating an Islamic state (see Ayatollah Ha'eri Yazdi (Khomeini's own
teacher), Ayatollah Borujerdi, Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari, and Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-
Khoei).[16] Contemporary theologians who were once part of the Iranian Revolution also became
disenchanted and critical of the unity of religion and state in the Islamic Republic of Iran, are advocating
secularization of the state to preserve the purity of the Islamic faith (see Abdolkarim Soroush and
Mohsen Kadivar).[17]

Pakistan

Pakistan was created as a separate state for Indian Muslims in British India in 1947, and followed the
parliamentary form of democracy. In 1949, the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan passed the
Objectives Resolution which envisaged an official role for Islam as the state religion to make sure any
future law should not violate its basic teachings. On the whole, the state retained most of the laws that
were inherited from the British legal code that had been enforced by the British Raj since the 19th
century. In 1956, the elected parliament formally adopted the name Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
declaring Islam as the official religion.

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See also
Syed Farid al-Attas
Former Salafist states in Afghanistan
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan
Islamic State of Azawad – a former short-lived unrecognised state declared unilaterally in 2012 by
the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad
Islamic State of Indonesia – (Negara Islam Indonesia or Darul Islam), Islamist group in Indonesia
that aims for the establishment of an Islamic state of Indonesia (an unrecognised state)
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Theocracy
Jewish state
Christian state
Christian republic
Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist

References
1. Ayubi, Nazih N.; Hashemi, Nader; Qureshi, Emran (2009). "Islamic State" (http://www.oxfordislamicst
udies.com/print/opr/t236/e0394). In Esposto, John L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic
World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Esposito, John L. (2014). "Islamic State" (http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e112
5). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. "[Islamic State] Modern
ideological position associated with political Islam."
3. Hashmi, Sohail H. (2004). "Dawla". In Richard C. Martin (ed.). Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim
World. MacMillan Reference. "One also finds in contemporary Islamist writings the neologism dawla
Islamiyya, or Islamic state."
4. Jeong, Chun Hai; Nawi, Nor Fadzlina. (2007). Principles of Public Administration: An Introduction.
Kuala Lumpur: Karisma Publications. ISBN 978-983-195-253-5.
5. Hashmi, Sohail H. (2004). "Dawla". In Richard C. Martin (ed.). Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim
World. MacMillan Reference.
6. Akhavi, Shahrough (2009). "Dawlah". In Esposito, John L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. Khan, Qamaruddin (1982). Political Concepts in the Quran. Lahore: Islamic Book Foundation. p. 74.
"The claim that Islam is a harmonious blend of religion and politics is a modern slogan, of which no
trace can be found in the past history of Islam. The very term, “Islamic State” was never used in the
theory or practice of Muslim political science, before the twentieth century. Also if the first thirty years
of Islam were excepted, the historical conduct of Muslim states could hardly be distinguished from
that of other states in world history."
8. Eickelman, D. F.; Piscatori, J. (1996). Muslim politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 53.
"The Pakistani writer Qamaruddin Khan, for example, has proposed that the political theory of Islam
does not arise from the Qur'an but from circumstances and that the state is neither divinely
sanctioned nor strictly necessary as a social institution."
9. Nasr, S. V. R. (1996). Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism. Chapter 4. New York: Oxford
University Press.

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10. Minault, G. (1982). The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India.
New York: Columbia University Press.
11. Kurzman, Charles (2002). "Introduction". Modernist Islam 1840-1940: A Sourcebook. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
12. Khir, B. M. "The Islamic Quest for Sociopolitical Justice". In Cavanaugh, W. T.; Scott, P., eds. (2004).
The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. pp.
503–518.
13. Elliesie, Hatem. "Rule of Law in Islamic Modeled States" (http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/download/attachme
nts/69533704/Elliesie+Islamic+Modeled+States.pdf). In Koetter, Matthias; Shuppert, Gunnar Folke,
eds. (2010). Understanding of the Rule of Law in Various Legal Orders of the World: Working Paper
Series Nr. 13 of SFB 700: Governance in Limited Areas of Statehood. Berlin.
14. Elliesie, Hatem. "Rule of Law in Afghanistan" (http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/download/attachments/223478
68/Elliesie+Afghanistan.pdf). In Koetter, Matthias; Shuppert, Gunnar Folke, eds. (2010).
Understanding of the Rule of Law in Various Legal Orders of the World: Working Paper Series Nr. 13
of SFB 700: Governance in Limited Areas of Statehood. Berlin.
15. Moschtaghi, Ramin. "Rule of Law in Iran" (http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/download/attachments/22347860/
Moschtaghi+Iran.pdf?version=3&modificationDate=1309541940000). In Koetter, Matthias; Shuppert,
Gunnar Folke, eds. (2010). Understanding of the Rule of Law in Various Legal Orders of the World:
Working Paper Series Nr. 13 of SFB 700: Governance in Limited Areas of Statehood. Berlin.
16. Chehabi, H. E. (Summer 1991). "Religion and Politics In Iran: How Theocratic is the Islamic
Republic?" (https://www.jstor.org/pss/20025388) Daedalus. 120. (3). pp. 69-91.
17. Kurzman, Charles (Winter 2001). "Critics Within: Islamic Scholars' Protest Against the Islamic State
in Iran" (http://www.drsoroush.com/PDF/E-CMO-20010100-Kurzman_Critics_Within.pdf).
International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. 15 (2).

Further reading
Ankerl, Guy (2000). Contemporary Coexisting Civilizations. Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and
Western. Geneva: INUPress. pp. 5001. ISBN 2-88155-004-5.

External links
Why the Islamic States Would Be Bad for Muslims (https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/200
8/05/01/why-islamic-states-would-be-bad-for-muslims)

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