Islam and the Foundations of Political Power

The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of 'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq by storm. It was the focus of much attention and the seed of a heated debate. At a time when the Muslim world was in great turmoil over the question of the abolition of the caliphate by Mustapha Kamal Ataturk in Turkey, Abdelraziq, a religious cleric trained at Al-Azhar University, argued in favour of secularism. The abolition of the caliphate had re-ignited the issue of Islam and politics, as traditional political systems were dissolving under pressure from European powers while most Muslim countries had lost their sovereignty. This essay gave rise to a series of 'refutations' of which three were published the same year. It also unleashed the Arab world's first great public debate with polemics supporting or refuting Abdelraziq's ideas published all over the press. Eventually he was tried by the Al-Azhar court, denounced, stripped of his title of 'alim and barred from future employment in education and the judiciary.

Abdou Filali-Ansary is Director at the The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations