What is meant
Abu al-Qasim Hajj Hamd argues that sovereignty does not appear all at once, but rather passes through gradual historical stages In the stage of deputization, the transfer of rule begins from divine exclusivity to a gradual allowance for human intervention in ijtihad and governance Thus, sovereignty in his view is a historical concept that develops over time, not an absolute fixed rule
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: historical
- Direction of the argument: it makes sovereignty a historical process that gradually unfolds with the development of the human domain.
- Central terms: sovereignty, deputization, gradualism, history.
- Degree of centrality: central.
This atom presents sovereignty as a mobile historical concept rather than a rigid rule, linking governance to stages of transition and transformation, and granting human ijtihad a place within the course of development rather than outside it.
Reading links
- Muhammad Shahrur, Religion and Power
- The Civil State and Religion and Power
- Sovereignty
- History
- Islamic religion accords with fitra, and freedom is the basis of the human being
Grounding
- Supporting text: “B- The second stage: the sovereignty of deputization. Comes the stage of the sovereignty of deputization, in Abu al-Qasim Hajj Hamd’s contemporary reading of sovereignty, as a second stage in human history, and it is the stage in which the transition took place from exclusive divine rule, during which human intervention in ijtihad in governance was prevented, to a new stage in which it was gradually permitted to intervene in governance”.
Place of grounding in the book
- Book: Religion and Power.
- Location: at the beginning of the book
- Type of grounding: close evidence.
- Verification marker: stage of the sovereignty of deputization
- Reading note: It is suitable as support because it presents sovereignty as successive stages, with a shift in the level of human intervention.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The emphasis here is on historicity rather than on the normative fixation of rule.