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Dr Yasser Kadi, Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi and welcome back to the thinking Muslim. It's a pleasure to have you with us once again

Waliikum, Assalamu alaikum. It's a pleasure to be here. We had a good conversation last time, insha'Allah. Let's continue that insha'Allah

We did well. Look, Dr Yasser

I really want to explore a very important theme today that of Islam and political power

Now, we often declare that Islam is political from its first moments

Islam was linked to a state-building process and the Sharia explicitly addresses rules that can only be discharged by a government

such as the rules of Hadood or the rules of apostasy

Imam Ghazali even linked the collection of Zakaar and the marriage contract contingent on having an Islamic government

I think it is not incorrect to argue that for a long duration of Islamic history

Muslims in a majority of Muslim countries have lived under Islamic caliphates or empires

even those on the peripheries remain conscious of this political power

intrinsic intrinsically linked to their faith

however

Much of this is much of this less to do with religion and more to do with the circumstances early Muslims found themselves in

Is Islam wedded to its foundational moment politics fused with a spiritual foundation

Many Muslim revivalist movements were established after the demise of the Ottomans with varying degrees of success

Possibly one may argue but ultimate success has alluded them

But the issue of political power remains a vexed one

Some have pursued programs that can only be described as authoritarian

Building conceptions of state power and centralization that really existed in past eras

So how do we assess these programs and relevant to us?

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