| Summary/Abstract |
The influence of Sayyid Qutb’s writing on political Islam and Islamist groups cannot be overstated. In constructing his radical political theory, special attention is usually given to Qutb’s two binary concepts, hakimiyyah (usually translated as divine sovereignty) and jahiliyyah (the condition of any place or society where Allah is not held to be the sovereign being). This article interrogates the commonly accepted notion that hakimiyyah is equivalent to divine sovereignty. Instead, I argue that Qutb’s hakimiyyah is best understood as an Arendtian form of authority (or a bounded sovereignty), even though Qutb’s project is essentially foundational while Arendt’s is antifoundational. Thus, rather than appealing directly to the authority of sharia, Qutb bounds hakimiyyah to a historical founding moment in the city of Mecca, the Meccan Quran, and the ‘unique generation’ during this period. Examining hakimiyyah through the Arendtian lens of authority substitutes the logic of sovereignty with authority based on a voluntary command/obedience relationship. This approach unsettles the binary logic of sovereignty that is often latently integrated into the academic literature on Qutb’s political writing. Consequently, examining Qutb’s hakimiyyah through the Arendtian lens of authority generates a consistent and coherent reading of his political thinking, which is usually deemed inconsistent and paradoxical.
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