Research output
Complete citation
Poljarević, Emin. “Negotiating the State: Citizenship and Political Theology in the Thought of Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Rachid al-Ghannouchi.” Political Theology 26, no. 4 (2025): 383–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2025.2476314.
Status
Published (2025)
Publication type
Peer-reviewed journal article
Overview
This article compares how Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Rachid al-Ghannouchi rethink citizenship, sovereignty, legitimacy, and Islamic normativity within the modern nation-state. Both are treated as major representatives of middle-ground reformist, or waṣaṭī, thought whose positions developed through exile, political experience, and sustained engagement with modern institutions. Al-Ghannouchi gives greater weight to democratic pluralism and shūrā-based governance, while al-Qaradawi retains a more jurisprudential account centred on the normative authority of the sharīʿa. Combining textual analysis with empirical fieldwork, the article shows that reformist Islamism is not a fixed ideological programme but a dynamic political-theological project. Its contribution is a comparative account of how Islamic ethical reasoning negotiates authoritarianism, secularism, citizenship, and state power.
Research question or central concern
How do al-Qaradawi and al-Ghannouchi reconcile Islamic normativity with citizenship and political legitimacy in contemporary Muslim nation-states?
Main argument, approach, and contribution
The study combines comparative textual interpretation with fieldwork. It argues that waṣaṭī political thought is an evolving political theology whose internal differences illuminate competing Islamic approaches to pluralism, sovereignty, and the state.
Keywords
Political theology; citizenship; sovereignty; waṣaṭiyya; Yusuf al-Qaradawi; Rachid al-Ghannouchi; Islamism
Links
Related publications
- New Islamic Movements and Concepts of Citizenship
- The Ambiguity of Citizenship in Contemporary Salafism
- Navigating the Islamist Landscape
Emin Poljarević 