Obedience, Authority and the Modern Nation-State: Examining the Concept of Ṭāʿat Uli ’l-Amr in Bin Bayyah's Political Theology

Abstract

The Qur’anic injunction of obedience (ṭāʿa) to ulu ’l-amr (“those of authority”) has long been a site of contestation in Islamic political thought. Debates regarding the identification of ulu ’l-amr and the nature and scope of ṭāʿa have occupied a central position in both classical and contemporary Islamic discourse spanning a variety of disciplines. With the advent of the nation state, political structures and modes of governance were radically transformed, raising questions regarding the legitimacy of the current political order and thus, the applicability of the classical framework of obedience to authority in the modern age. Notwithstanding this contextual transformation, the injunction of ṭāʿa to ulu ’l-amr has been used by many contemporary scholars to argue for a religiously mandated obligation of obedience to modern-day political authority. In addition, the scope of ṭāʿa has often been extended to preclude any form of resistance in the face of abusive authority, thus overriding the classical mechanisms that historically safeguarded the political agency of the Muslim subject after the corruption of power. This thesis presents a critical examination of the conceptualization of ṭāʿat uli ’l-amr in the political project of the contemporary Mauritanian scholar Abdullah bin Bayyah. By weighing his juristic methods against the classical Sunni paradigm, it interrogates his approach in theorizing authoritarianism and defending the nation-state as an Islamically legitimate structure of governance.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Islamic Studies