Islam & the Foundations of Political Power: A book that proves caliphate to be a big lie

Hanaa Kandil

Islam and the Foundations of Political Power, authored by Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek and published in 1925, is one the most important books that reveal mischievous ways adopted by takfiris to control minds and recruit more followers. The book stresses that Islam is a spiritual religion that has nothing to do with politics.

The book tackles three basic pillars: the caliphate and Islam, the government and Islam, and the caliphate in history.

The fall of the caliphate

The fall of the Ottoman caliphate was like an earthquake in the Muslim world. Al-Azhar called for a conference to discuss the matter and stressed that the caliphate is essential and named Egypt’s King Fouad to become caliph of Muslims.

However, Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek authored his book, proving that the caliphate has  nothing to do with Islam.

Sheikh Abdel Razek started his book with the definition of caliphate. He said the word “caliphate” has the sense of deputizing for someone, succeeding him or following in his wake.

Negligence of politics

Sheikh Abdel Razek delved into reasons why Muslim scholars were not so interested in politics. “Why, then, did they retreat from these investigations? Why did they neglect to study Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics, even as they admired the latter to the point of calling him the “First Teacher”? Why were the Muslim masses kept in total ignorance of the principles of politics and of the different kinds of governments invented by the Greeks; while they were all too willing to teach them the methods of the Assyrians in grammar and to train them in the discipline of mathematics that the Indian author, Baidaba, mentions in the Kalilah wa Dimnah,” Sheikh Abdel Razek wrote.

He ascribed negligence of politics to “coercion of the caliphate”. “The caliph had only arrows and swords for his defense,” he wrote.

No caliphate in Islam

There is no evidence in the Holy Qur’an and Hadith of Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) of the caliphate, according to Sheikh Abdel Razek. Nothing proves the principle of the caliphate or the great imamate, he stated.

He stressed that the caliphate, allegiance and imamate were not laid out by the Prophet like what Jesus said about Caesar when he stated: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”.

Sheikh Abdel Razek emphasized that the caliphate ‘has nothing to do with religion”.

“The caliphate is not among the tenets of the faith – no more so than the judiciary or some other governmental function or state position. These exist by dint of nothing else but political fiat, with which religion has nothing to do whatsoever, which it wants neither to know nor to ignore; which it neither advocates nor repudiates,” he wrote.