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Between Traditional and New Forms of Authority in Modern Islam r ec ep şe n t ür k I f the traditional authority structure in Islam had always been polyphonic, modernization made it even more so. ‘‘Islam’’ means submission to God’s authority alone, as expressed in the divine revelation, the Qurān and the H . adı̄th. Yet the authority to interpret the divine revelation is not the monopoly of a person, group, or institution. On the contrary, all Muslims , men and women, are required to study the Qurān and even memorize some of it.1 The only source of authority is expertise and knowledge, which the ulamā, scholars of religion, enjoyed over the centuries. Secularization, the spread of education, developments in the media, and information technology, which are briefly referred to as modernization, contributed to the further dissemination of religious knowledge and thus the rise of new authorities besides the ulamā, based, in contrast to what had traditionally been the case, on popularity rather than expertise. Furthermore, modernization created new legitimacy mechanisms based on publicity, image-making, and marketing in the media, which had counted little in the past. ‘‘The kings are the rulers of the people; the scholars are the rulers of the kings; and the law is the ruler of everyone.’’ This time-honored Arabic proverb was inspired by a saying of the Prophet Muh .ammad: ‘‘Nothing is more powerful than knowledge. Kings are rulers of the people but scholars [al-ulamā] are the kings of the rulers.’’2 However, today in most Muslim societies there is neither a king (sultan) nor the ulamā. Even Islamic law does not exist in some Muslim societies where secularism is accepted.3 What have changed are not only the actors but also the mechanisms by which authority is legitimized. Consequently, official and civilian attempts emerged during the last century to restructure authority and legitimacy to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the traditional authority structure. However none of these attempts have been fully successful . Today the remnants of the old system exist side by side with the new 45 46 Recep Şentürk forms of authority, but they are in great tension with each other. As neither the old nor the new prevails completely, legitimacy crises coupled with segmentation or factionalization is the best way to characterize the authority structure in the Muslim world today. Conflicting approaches among Muslims to the question of authority, founded on the contrasting cosmologies of traditionalism and modernism, find their manifestations not only in religious thought and political theology but also in the constitutions of some Muslim countries. ‘‘Authority (sovereignty) belongs to the nation without any condition or limit.’’ This was the motto of the founders of the Turkish Republic, which still has its place in the Turkish constitution. It meant turning the previously mentioned traditional system upside down by putting the people at the top and the rulers below, as well as excluding the caliph and ulamā.4 In contrast, some Muslim thinkers in Iran, in the Arab world, and in the Indian subcontinent reacted against this secularist approach during the last century and formulated another motto with the opposite idea: ‘‘authority (sovereignty) belongs to God.’’ This idea, which also gained popularity among the masses, and which is in fact an innovation in Muslim political theology, reacting to the claim that authority belongs to the nation, has also found its place in the constitutions of such countries as Iran and Pakistan. In addition to the changing political and cultural context, especially with the collapse of the Ottoman state and the rise of nationalism and secularism, there was another very important factor that played a significant role in the transformation of the authority structure in Muslim societies: developments in the fields of media and communication technology. At first, the rise of newspapers and magazines gave rise to the emergence of lay intellectuals besides the ulamā class. These intellectuals did not come from madrassas, but they mastered the new media such as novels, plays, newspapers, and magazines and thus established themselves as authorities.5 Similarly, the rise of TV and the Internet enabled the emergence of new authorities such as TV preachers and Internet sites. The formation of authority in the media and cyberspace has its own dynamics and rules, which are different from those that applied in the traditional world. It is evident that the traditional authority system is no longer intact in the Muslim world...

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