Islamic State and the Problem of Sovereignty: Sayyid Qutb's and Ruhollah Khomeini's Concept of Sovereignty and the Difficulties of its Practical Application
Abstract
The paper deals with the problem of sovereignty in the context of the modern Islamic political thought. Drawing on a couple of recent studies together with author's own comparison of Sayyid Qutb's and Ruhollah Khomeini's political writings and agency, it follows the specific attitude to this problem among the radical political Muslim activists throughout the second half of the 20th century as well as the problems which emerged with the attempts to its practical implementation.
As it is shown, the islamists based their vision of a political alternative to the post-colonial secular state on the rejection of the concept of sovereignty and its attribution to the transcendent divine authority. The example of the practical implemenatation of this thesis in the post-revolutionary Iran though reveals its practical untenability as it only ensues in emergence of disguised sovereing power concentrated in the hands of few and may even take a totalitarian character-as it is eventually implicitly acknowledged by Khomeini himself during the final stage of his tenure.