Reversing Schmitt: The sovereign as a guardian of rational pluralism and the peculiarity of the Islamic state of exception in al-Juwaynī’s dialectical theology
| Author | Ahmed Abdel Meguid |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1474885117730672 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
Reversing Schmitt: The
sovereign as a guardian
of rational pluralism and
the peculiarity of the Islamic
state of exception in
al-Juwaynı¯’s dialectical
theology
Ahmed Abdel Meguid
Department of Religion, Syracuse University, USA
Abstract
This study presents an Islamic conception of sovereignty from mainstream Sunni the-
ology by closely examining Ghiya
¯th al-umam f ı
¯iltya
¯th az
_-z
_ulam, the major political work
of Ab
ual-Ma‘a¯lı
¯al-Juwaynı
¯(d. 478 AH/1085 CE), one of the key figures of the Ash‘arı
¯
school. Like Carl Schmitt, al-Juwaynı
¯attempts to excavate the grounds of sovereign
power by considering states of exception to political norms; however, al-Juwaynı
¯’s
position is the reverse of Schmitt’s. Al-Juwaynı
¯argues that the state of exception,
which defines the essence of sovereignty, is the absence of the sovereign power and
that the ultimate task of the sovereign is to secure a rationally pluralistic community.
Examining al-Juwaynı
¯’s Islamic conception of miracle (mu‘jiza), the study argues that the
epistemological foundation of his characterization of the function of the sovereign
power is based on a uniquely dialectical critique of rational absolutism.
Keywords
al-Juwaynı
¯, exception, Ima¯ ma, Islam, pluralism, Schmitt, sovereignty
European Journal of Political Theory
2020, Vol. 19(4) 489–511
!The Author(s) 2017
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1474885117730672
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
Corresponding author:
Ahmed Abdel Meguid, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, 501 Hall of Languages, Syracuse
University, Syracuse, 13244, USA.
Email: aelsayed@syr.edu
Prelude
At the end of the first chapter of Political Theology, Schmitt (2005: 15) cites the
following quote from Kierkegaard:
The exception explains the general and itself. And if one wants to study the general
correctly, one only needs to look around for a true exception. It reveals everything
more clearly than does the general. Endless talk about the general becomes boring;
there are exceptions. If they cannot be explained, then the general also cannot be
explained. The difficulty is usually not noticed because the general is not thought
about with passion but with a comfortable superficiality. The exception, on the
other hand, thinks the general with intense passion.
Schmitt intended this quote to serve as a critique of the modern theory of the liberal
state, which claims to overcome arbitrariness and despotism through the regularity
of universal rationality. However, by purporting to eliminate arbitrariness, Schmitt
argued that the modern theory of the state attempts to circumvent the fundamental
issue at the heart of any political theory: sovereignty. The sovereign power exist-
entially manifests its capacity and legitimacy to rule by challenging rational norms;
hence, Schmitt (2005: 5) famously wrote that the sovereign power is the ‘‘one who
decides on the exception.’’ In turn, this state of exception has a deeply theological
character inasmuch as it mirrors the way the miracle manages to interrupt the
natural order of things. Schmitt’s characterization of ‘theology’ and ‘miracle’
follows an essentially biblical perspective that has permeated Western political
philosophy since the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
1
According to this perspec-
tive, through the miracle the transcendent God prevails over the immanent world
of material nature; the miracle is the place where the metaphysical/trans-historical
God intervenes and overpowers the physical/historical context. This is the defining
character of the concept and practice of sovereignty. Analogically, the sovereign
power intervenes in the juridical order to judge history metaphysically; such inter-
vention occurs in an absolutely arbitrary manner. This last point has led many
critics of Schmitt to highlight the dictatorial implications of his analysis. The state
of exception (die Ausnahme) is completely irreducible to any attempt that desires to
explain away the arbitrariness embedded in the sovereign constitution of political
judgment in terms of either a rational or a material teleology. Hence, to Schmitt,
political theology as a concept and practice is the arbitrary decisionism associated
with the state of exception; as such it is the originary moment of political judgment.
In this study, I put forward an Islamic response to Schmitt’s fatalistic charac-
terization of sovereignty as inescapably dictatorial through a careful examination
of Ghiy
ath al-umam f
ı ilty
ath az
_-z
_ulam (Redemption of the Nations), the major
political work of one of the key figures of the Ash‘ar
ı school, the mainstream
representative of Sunni theology, Ab
u al-Ma‘
al
ı al-Juwayn
ı (d. 478 AH/1085
CE).In this work, al-Juwayn
ı develops a rather unique approach to the question
of sovereignty (im
ama), setting him apart from most Ash‘ar
ı and Sunni thinkers.
2
490 European Journal of Political Theory 19(4)
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