"Religion and Authority: A Contemporary Reading of Sovereignty" by Muhammad Shahrur
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The Book and the Author
The book "Religion and Authority: A Contemporary Reading of Sovereignty" by Syrian thinker Muhammad Shahrur was published in 2014 by Dar al-Saqi in Beirut, spanning 480 pages. This book comes within Shahrur's comprehensive intellectual project that began with his famous work "The Book and the Qur'an: A Contemporary Reading" in 1990. It aims to present a new reading of the Qur'anic text that keeps pace with the modern era and liberates Islamic thought from the stagnation of heritage.
Muhammad Shahrur (1938–2019) was a Syrian thinker of Damascene origin. He held a doctorate in civil engineering from Ireland and worked as a professor at the University of Damascus. Some accused him of adopting Marxist thought during his studies in Moscow, but he later affirmed that he had abandoned this ideology, finding in it similarities to extremist Islamic thought in aspects of excommunication (takfir) and rupture. Shahrur's project was distinguished by its reliance on a linguistic and historical methodology in reading the sacred text, and its rejection of considering the Prophetic Sunna as an independent legislative source, which sparked widespread controversy between supporters and opponents of his ideas.
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Division of the Book
The book is divided into two main sections, each containing three chapters:
First Section: Sovereignty (Al-Hakimiyya)
· Proposals on Sovereignty in the Twentieth Century: Presentation and Analysis
· Characteristics of the Muhammadan Message Compared to Previous Scriptures
· A Contemporary Reading of Sovereignty
Second Section: Religion and Authority
· The Dialectic of Religion and Authority
· Tyranny
· The Civil State
The first section analyzes and critiques the conceptions of sovereignty held by the most prominent theorists of political Islam, from Abul A'la Maududi and Sayyid Qutb to contemporary Salafi-jihadi movements. The second section addresses issues of coercion and freedom, state authorities, the constitution, citizenship, and the concept of the civil state in Islam.
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Critique of the Concept of Sovereignty in Heritage and Political Islam
Shahrur argues that the concept of sovereignty as presented by political Islam movements—whether moderate or extremist—entails a serious transgression of the authentic Qur'anic concept. These movements relied on political hadiths to justify any political behavior by those in power, and they gave the Prophet's decisions—made to administer his state in peace and war—a sacred dimension, even though these decisions were not originally religion but rather human ijtihad issued from the station of prophethood (nubuwwa), not from that of the message (risala).
Shahrur criticizes the transformation of the phrase "sovereignty belongs to God" into a political program through which a group or human authority grants itself the right to represent the divine will. This critique is not limited to extremist groups but extends to the reference framework of political Islam parties that relied on jurisprudential and hadith heritage in building their conceptions of the state.
Shahrur clarifies that attributing an absolute religious character to the decisions of authority removes them from the realm of critique and accountability. He calls for placing jurisprudence (fiqh) within its historical context and separating the work of jurists from that of contemporary legislative authority, thereby preventing the duality of civil law and jurisprudential rulings.
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The Distinction Between Prophethood and the Message
The distinction between the stations of "prophethood" (nubuwwa) and "message" (risala) is one of the fundamental pillars of Shahrur's political thought. The message, in his view, is the domain of rulings, values, and rituals that the Prophet conveyed to people, and it is fixed and unchanging. Prophethood, on the other hand, relates to knowledge, teaching, and the ijtihadat that occurred in the context of the Prophet's life and society; it is historical and subject to change.
Shahrur uses this distinction to argue that the measures concerning the administration of the Medina community, warfare, and the organization of authority were historical measures tied to their circumstances, and not an institutional form binding on every subsequent state. The Prophet followed the laws of warfare prevalent in his era, and therefore one cannot derive legislation from, for example, the case of Banu Qurayza, as the punishment was according to their own law.
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The Three Levels of Sovereignty
Shahrur presents an innovative conception of sovereignty based on three levels, linking them to his division of actions into prohibitions (muharramat), restrictions (nawahi), and permissible acts (mubahat):
First: Pure Divine Sovereignty: Concerns the prohibitions explicitly enumerated in the Qur'an. The prohibition here is a divine authority that neither the jurist, the state, nor the legislative body may expand upon or attribute new prohibitions to God. These prohibitions are specific, detailed, and eternal—meaning there is no ijtihad concerning them.
Second: Divine-Human Sovereignty: Concerns the restrictions (nawahi) whose origin is mentioned in the text, while leaving it to society to regulate them through changing legislation that considers social and economic circumstances. In these restrictions, God left the door ajar for the human aspect, which exercises ijtihad according to temporal and spatial conditions.
Third: Human Sovereignty: Includes the regulation of the lawful and permissible domain through laws established by human institutions according to the interests of society and the requirements of public life. Organizing the lawful is purely human ijtihad and is not religion, and it falls under the principle "rulings change with changing times."
Based on this, Shahrur distinguishes between religious "prohibition" (tahrim) and legal "prohibition" (man'). The state may prohibit or restrict certain actions for the public interest, but its decision remains a temporary human law subject to amendment and does not transform into an eternal religious prohibition. The book presents the prohibitions that Shahrur limits to fourteen categories.
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Religion and Coercion: The Separation of Powers
The book distinguishes fundamentally between the authority of religion and the authority of the state. For Shahrur, the authority of religion has its reference in conscience and individual choice. Faith cannot be imposed by coercion, and the state's role in the religious domain should be limited to protecting freedom of belief and facilitating the practice of rituals, not determining the correctness of citizens' creeds.
Shahrur considers the confusion between the two authorities as one of the sources of tyranny: if the state uses religion to grant its decisions a sacred character, or if a religious institution possesses the coercive means of the state, human authority becomes positioned beyond objection and accountability. In contrast, he presents a model in which law, constitution, and citizenship serve as tools to control authority and protect individual freedoms.
Shahrur emphasizes that voluntary submission to divine sovereignty is a purely individual matter that does not require an authority to impose it on people; it remains a private relationship between a person and their Lord. In comparing the two authorities, religion intervenes in human life with full will and possesses no coercive tool, relying solely on the authority of conscience, while the state regulates the lawful, possesses coercive power, and maintains security.
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Critique of Jurisprudence and Religious Authority
Shahrur directs harsh criticism toward the role of religious establishment figures in supporting political authority. He argues that since Al-Shafi'i, jurisprudence has transformed into religion and law governing every detail of human daily life. After the prevailing behavioral culture of the seventh century CE became religion, jurists established themselves as guardians responsible for enforcing it, even by force, which led to intellectual despotism that suppressed people in their rising, sitting, eating, and drinking.
Shahrur believes that this type of cultural oppression has reduced people to dwarfs before jurisprudential heritage. He adds: "The learned scholars have completed the dwarfing of the nation—how many people were born geniuses and died, thanks to the learned scholars, as beasts." He points out that hadiths incompatible with reason began to be employed during the time of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and Ja'far al-Mansur, aiming to prevent people from objecting or protesting anything the ruler did.
Shahrur concludes with the necessity of returning jurisprudence to its natural place—that is, issuing fatwas only concerning rituals—and stripping jurists of the authority they have acquired, so they have no right to intervene in legislation. He affirms that the matters of establishing the state by the Prophet and the companions were political measures subject to prevailing circumstances, and considering them as religious law renders us incapable of changing them.
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The Concept of Fitra (Human Nature) and Human Values
Shahrur offers a distinctive reading of the concept of fitra, viewing it as the rational aspect of the human being, not instincts or desires. Fitra represents natural laws and human values; it is the superego representing natural law, opposed to the animalistic, sensual side. Humans are created with an inclination toward obeying parents and not consuming people's wealth unjustly, and they do not need positive legislation to compel them to adhere to these.
Shahrur argues that allegiance to divine sovereignty is allegiance to human values, manifested through respecting these values, adhering to them, and defending them based on personal conviction derived from voluntary submission. This religious-human allegiance is the deterrent against anyone who might be tempted to practice tyranny over people and strip them of their freedoms, and it is what can achieve the global peace to which Islam urges.
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The Civil State and the Nation (Umma)
Shahrur distinguishes between the concepts of "umma" and "state." In his view, the umma is a cultural or religious bond that can unite people across time and space, while the state is a political entity that organizes the public life of citizens within a defined territory. He argues that the civil state can only be realized if liberal democracy is present within it, allowing free competition among different political orientations and ensuring the principle of popular sovereignty.
Shahrur asserts that the state established by the Prophet was undone by Mu'awiya, Al-Shafi'i, Al-Ash'ari, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Arabi—referring to the transformation of the Rightly Guided Caliphate into a hereditary kingship (mulkan 'adudan) and the transformation of jurisprudence into a tool in the hands of authority.
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Controversy and Criticisms Directed at the Book
"Religion and Authority" sparked widespread controversy in intellectual and religious circles, with reactions divided between strong supporters and fierce opponents. On one hand, supporters consider the book among the most important works addressing the problem of divine sovereignty and the poor performance of political Islamic movements, believing that its ideas can be built upon to create future laws and constitutions that ensure the proper functioning of the state and guarantee citizens' rights. Some readers find that the book intellectually shakes the reader and reveals that much of what has been transmitted over 1,400 years contradicted religion in its true form.
On the other hand, opponents strongly criticize Shahrur's ideas, with some accusing him of apostasy and heresy, and describing his book as one of the ugliest works due to its fallacies. They argue that Shahrur is ignorant of the basics of religious sciences, accuse him of being recruited to interpret the Qur'an without knowledge, and point out that the Prophet instructed us to pass quickly over wrongdoing—and that this book is one of Shahrur's calamities.
Some critics also accuse Shahrur of presenting a violent political interpretation of religion, claiming he undermines the legitimacy of Muslim rulers and calls for revolution against them, interpreting religious concepts such as disbelief in taghut (false gods) and disavowal of polytheism and its people as confrontation with tyrannical rulers. These critics view Shahrur's thought as tending toward violence, since violence—in Shahrur's own words—is "armed jihad justified for the sake of freedom."
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Summary and Evaluation
"Religion and Authority" represents an important milestone in Muhammad Shahrur's intellectual project, as it applies his contemporary reading methodology to one of the most problematic issues in Islamic thought: the relationship between religion and authority. The book presents a renewal-oriented vision of the concept of sovereignty, seeking to liberate the Qur'anic text from political readings that turned it into a tool in the hands of power, and to affirm Islam's universality and humanity as a merciful message rather than a tyrannical creed.
Although the book puts forward bold, provocative ideas—such as the distinction between prophethood and the message, the division of sovereignty into three levels, and the call to separate jurisprudence from legislative authority—it remains a serious attempt to renew religious discourse in a way that keeps pace with the age and achieves a balance between religious constancy and human change. Shahrur summarized his vision by stating that Islamic jurisprudence turned Islam into a historically surpassed religion, whereas reading the Wise Revelation with a contemporary approach acceptable to minds would return jurisprudence to its natural place and strip jurists of the authority they have acquired.
"Religion and Authority" remains an important intellectual document for understanding the problematics of the relationship between religion and politics in the modern era, and it represents a qualitative addition to the project of renewing Islamic thought, despite the controversy and disagreement surrounding the validity of its premises and conclusions.
For the original summary in Arabic
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