Between Hâkimiyyah and democracy : a critical analysis of Yusuf al-Qaradawi's thought

Abstract

Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi is one of the most influential and prolific representatives of moderate (Wasaṭî) Islamism in Egypt and the Arab world. His vision of the Islamic state, as outlined in his published books, claims to reconcile between the ḥâkimiyyah (sovereignty) of Islamic Sharîʿah and the promise of a viable modern democracy. Qaradawi's discourse of Wasaṭî Islamism, however, is challenged in Egyptian debates from both more 'rigorist' and more liberal holds. While 'rigorist' (i.e., Salafist) Islamists criticize some elements in Qaradawi's popular synthesis as incompatible with Sharîʿah, Egyptian Liberals throw doubt on its ability to bear true democratic reform. Taking my point of departure from Qaradawi's published books and the polemical exchanges between himself, the Salafists, and the Liberals -which remain largely un-translated from Arabic-, it is my main aim in this paper to answer two interrelated questions: (1) To what extent can Qaradawi's envisioned Islamic state be described as democratic?; and (2) To what extent can Qaradawi's project of 'fiqh renewal', necessary to achieve democratization, offer a viable and self-consistent alternative to 'rigorist' Salafism? Towards the aim of answering these two questions, my paper touches upon a host of politico-juridical and hermeneutic topics, relevant to the controversies between Qaradawi, the Salafists, and the Liberals. At the practical level, at issue are questions related to Wasaṭî Islamism's stance on democratic freedoms, cultural and social pluralism, human rights, and rights of women and religious minorities. At the hermeneutic (uṣûl al-fiqh) level, at issue are questions related to the relationship between divine revelation (naql) and human reason (ʿaql), between the 'immutable' (thawâbit) and the 'mutable' (mutaghayirât) in religion, and concerning the role that the Prophetic Sunnah and the traditional principles of fiqh and exegesis should play in shaping modern Islam. It is my argument ultimately that Qaradawi's project can raise several critical questions both with regard to the adequacy of democratic reform that his model of the state of Sharîʿah can allow and with regard to the self-consistency of his project of fiqh renewal. It is my claim further that addressing these two areas in Qaradawi's thought can, ultimately, allow us to point at crucial hermeneutic 'fault-lines' within the modern project of Islamism (i.e. political Islam) as a whole and with regard to the way orthodox Islam constructs its uṣûl al-fiqh model.