Political Islam: A Parallel Sovereignties & Modern Political Hegemony

An islamic polity in the pre-nation state age had distinct political and religious spheres. "Political Islam" is a modern phenomenon, but so is the "Hegemony of the Political: Nation State". The islamic-nation-state is islamic which could operate without the influence of anything non-islamic. This write up is an essay titled "Islamic polity between parallel sovereignties and modern political hegemony" and is being shared for wider audience discussion.

أَعُوذُ بِاللّٰهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

اللہ کے نام سے شروع جو بڑا مہربان نہایت رحم کرنے والا ہے

In the name of ALLAH, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Political Islam: A Parallel Sovereignties & Modern Political Hegemony

The concept of khilafah between traditional ethico-spiritualism and modern islamism.

Husnayn (Husnain Bin Sajjad @husnayn_)

Published on Jun 11, 2026 in Substack.com

An islamic polity in the pre-nation state age had distinct political and religious spheres; however it cannot be conceived as secular but bi-sovereign (p. heck) to be specific, in the sense that the governing bodies (politically sovereign) were responsible for upholding a certain requirements and obligations (demanded by religion-Islam itself) so the other sovereign class could carry out their responsibilities, the political sovereignty here had little control over the religious-communal praxis - which was governed by the parallel sovereignty - the religio-socio-communal authorities (ulema & sufis).

Each had their own sphere of upholding and maintaining islamic ideals, even though the operations of the socio-communal sovereignty depended on the sovereignty of the political-military for security concerns, this did not grant the latter an allowance to interfere in the essential functions of Islam as manifested and discussed by the socio-communal polity (with exceptions occasionally). Imam Shafii methodological efforts to secure the development of Islam from the arbitrary influences of the political sovereignty cemented this bi-sovereignty. (el-shamsy)

What usually gives the impression of secularism (not -ization: al attas) to an outsider to the tradition is the independency of the scholarly class's culture and administration of the religious-mystical-social environment of the society, that remained unaffected the political intervention for the most part, regards to shaping the religio-ethico-social culture of the society. The subtle point of consideration here is the minimally-interventionist nature of the political establishment, that although was under the same fabric of religious consciousness, yet understood its duty as not of defining & controlling the religious, but as protecting it and facilitating a secure environment for its growth and movement - which makes the traditional muslim political sovereignty not secular but a minimally intervening (muslim) security state.

The distinction in the two sovereignties is one of the factors that the political theology, rather than remaining a restricted parallel to the religious-communal sovereignty, sought and incorporated models that allowed a vertical hierarchical relationship to the religious-communal over a horizontal equally interdependent one, and therefore it adopted separate inspirations from the traditional political cultures of the byzantine, persian and the turkic-mongol worlds (greco-roman, shahnameh, yasa-e-chingizi) that influenced majority of the abbasid, seljuk, ottoman, safavid & mughal governance models and projected self-imagery. Such was the context that at times created circumstances of rivalry between the sufi articulations of khilafah (mystical caliphal sovereignty) and the self-imaginations of the muslim rulers (sultans) as heirs to the legacy of kingship of the world (prophethood & kingship are two sides of the same coin: ferdowsi) which didn't necessarily stem from the islamic caliphal paradigm primarily but the idea of the empire-logics that had existed sans-islam, Islam and muslim-hood here, for the most part became a mere contingency rather than primary source of political sovereignty, (the norm was the governance of Akbar, Aurangzeb was an exception).

The religious-communal scholarly class remained mostly unaffected by the integration of such political cultures since as mentioned, they had operated as a distinct sovereignty with proper grip over the laity's religious, ethical and social order through sufi-networks(which also at times became influential enough to disrupt the extra-islamic political cultures and guide the political class through properly islamic virtue ideals - (w. ziad, h. yilmiz) - hence establishing throughout the history sufi-caliphal tradition of political power). Because the political class remained mainly muslim, not interfering the in the functions of the communal-scholarly class, the latter rarely felt the need to seriously confront the political elite, since the masses/ subjects were primarily subjects of the scholarly ethico-religious governance in terms of lifestyle and guidance rather than being subjects of the political governance and thus the influence of the scholarly sovereignty was rarely curtailed (a classic example of pre-nation-state polity) (we do have multiple cases of the confrontation when the extra-islamic political attitudes of the rulership started affecting the masses).

This drastically changed with the advent of the hegemonically interventionist culture of the nation-state framework. The parallel sovereignty of two distinct and interdependent spheres that existed in the muslim world was disrupted by a power-logic that demanded a submission/subjugation of all human spheres (religious, spiritual, ethical, social, communal) to the political. Through the modern technologies of surveillance, identity construction/manipulation, fixed structural legality and centralised education, the nation state paradigm allowed no room for any area of human existence to remain devoid of political control and interference. Therefore the reason, the discourse of "Political Islam" feels modern/recent, is not due to the secular nature of pre-modern Islam but in fact due to the hegemonic shift in regards to the nature of the political in modern times, the reason contemporary muslim thinkers (maulana mawdudi, hassan al-banna, syed qutb etc) shifted focused heavily on the Political is because the modern state left little room for the religious-communal-scholarly class to function freely (as they did, as a parallel sovereign class), hence necessitating their involvement in the political directly, as the free flow of the religious could not be, except through the allowance of the political.

"Political Islam" is a modern phenomenon, but so is the "Hegemony of the Political: Nation State", (Hallaq's discourse on the impossibility of an Islamic nation-state undercuts this notion by highlighting the required hegemonic functions of the political in the modern age and the free-flowing communally sovereign operations demanded by islamic ideals of social existence: as witnessed in traditional muslim societies). When the religious is constantly under a uni-sovereign sphere of the political and being manipulated by it, it obligates the muslim thinkers to be fixated with the political, since now integration and infiltration of the political becomes the only means of achieving a sovereign religious sphere as the nation-state allows no form of legitimate existence except through its own apparatus - ultimately turning the parallel sovereignty system (two interdependent spheres) into a zero-sum battle for absolute sovereignty (hierarchical governance of all spheres).

Neither the traditional muslim polity was secular, nor the modern articulations of muslim political thought extra-islamically political, indeed they depart from traditional understanding but this distinction in thought is not a result of non-islamic political influences, they are completely rooted in normative islamic ideals of ethico-social activity - which manifested themselves varyingly in traditional societies due to sociopolitical culture of the age (since they could influence the social, ethical, communal and religious directly: which in the modern age are the very subjects of the political ) and are manifesting themselves currently based on the necessary socio-political realities of the nation-state era (since now the social, ethical, religious and communal can't be influenced freely except through the medium of the Political).

The islamic-nation-state is a compromise so the islamic could operate without the influence of anything non-islamic (and not an ideal ought), it's not because an islamic polity demands a hegemonic enforced imposition of its ideals by the political, such an outcome would be simply an unfortunate consequence of Islam's infusion with the nation-state paradigm - and without such a fusion Islam would itself have no option but to always remain a subject of the unipolar sovereignty of the secular-political, except if miraculously, a minimally interfering muslim security state is achieved despite the modern technologies of control & governance in a realist geo-political context.