The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought by Andrew F. March (review)

This volume is an essential read for students of political theory, Middle East studies, and Muslim politics. Andrew March masterfully demonstrates that, in Islam, conceptions of divine and popular sovereignty stem from the same theology that introduces possibilities of popular sovereignty and Islamic democracy. The Caliphate of Man is an important contribution to Islamic political theory by locating Islamist intellectual discussions within the broader debate about democratic governance. It offers rich insights about the "invention of popular sovereignty in modern Islamic thought" (p. xviii) by focusing on difficulties and paradoxes inherent in the political theology of Islam. The book centers its argument around the duality between omnipotent nature of divine command that leaves little room for human legislation and man's vicegerent status assigning him freedom and responsibility in making legislation. The parts of this duality are not necessarily in contradiction and can be integrated in a unique doctrine. The doctrine of the "caliphate of man" rests on freedom of man and popular sovereignty. It provides the intellectual foundation that may lead to Islamic democracy or acceptance of deliberative processes within the political theology of Islam. The volume presents the trajectory of doctrine of Islamic political sovereignty (the caliphate of man) and traces the resolution of paradoxes and theoretical difficulties in this doctrine in the works of early modernists (Chapter Three), late Islamists including Pakistani intellectual Abu al-A'la Mawdudi (Chapter Four) and the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (Chapter Five), and one of the most prominent contemporary intellectuals, Rached Ghannouchi (Chapter Six).

Chapter One problematizes the puzzle of democratic governance in Islam by providing examples from modern constitutions in Iran, Egypt, and Pakistan and by presenting the main problematic of the book. Chapter Two delves into the problem of sovereignty in classical political tradition. After a brief overview of classical governance model resting on equilibria among power of rulers, moral authority of 'ulama, and dynamic applications of shari'a, March demonstrates that this tradition cannot establish the conception of the sovereignty of the Muslim community (umma) as a political principle in Islamic theology. He also does not find any justification for popular sovereignty in the premodern conceptualizations of the caliph (from khalifa, Arabic for vicegerent) "as a basis justifying the Muslim community's derivative political sovereignty over its worldly rulers and the custodianship of the shari'a" (p. 37). This issue, for March, is at the heart of the political debate as seen in the works of 20th century Islamists. Chapter Three focuses on the caliphate crisis after the abolition of this institution by the Turkish republic in 1924. After differentiating this moment from the modernizing reforms and constitutionalist movements of 19th century, March provides an account of the works of Rashid Rida and 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri. He finds that the attempt to rescue the institution of caliphate as a religious obligation by Rida (and many other intellectuals) places his political thought within the premodern paradigm of political authority as opposed to the modern paradigm of mass political participation.

March finds the foundations for the doctrine of the caliphate of man in the writings of Mawdudi and Qutb (Chapters Four and Five), both of whom represented a theocratic tradition that relies on the ideas of absolute divine sovereignty and self-sufficiency of Islam as a holistic faith. Nonetheless, while rejecting Western political models, both developed political models that make divine sovereignty a basis for popular sovereignty and the mass participation of the umma. Whether it is Mawdudi's theo-democracy or Qutb's utopian vision of harmonious Islamic society, March argues that these intellectuals lay the foundation of popular sovereignty, largely informed by the agency of believers. While it is more difficult to establish a link from divine sovereignty to the notion of popular sovereignty within the "high utopian Islamism" of Qutb (p. 75), his argument concerning the harmony between divine law and human nature leads to an emancipatory view that, nonetheless, opens the...