Editorial

Abstract

The feature articles in this issue of MISS constitute a foray into twodifferent, but related, topics: political authority, as discussed by TamaraSonn in “Political Authority in Classical Islamic Thought,” and by SalimMansur in “Constitutionalism and Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Pakistan,”and the interrelationships among God, humanity, and the universe, asfound in Yusuf Waghid‘s “In Search of a Boundless Ocean and NewSkies: Human Creativity is a Matter of A‘mdl, Jihad, and Ijtihad,” andMasudul Alam Choudhury’s ‘Toward Islamic Political Economy at theTurn of the Century.”In her article, Tamara Sonn analyzes the source of political authorityin the ideal Islamic state. Breaking up Islamic political authority betweenthe executive and the legislative-judicial branches, Sonn reveals how thelegislative-judicial branch, that is, the branch that ensured that the entiregovernment was functioning according to the laws of God, was dominantin classical Islamic political theory. Unlike Christianity, where theologywas the source of politics, Islamic legal thought constituted the source ofpolitical ideas, so much so that “the identity of a community as Islamic ornot lies not in the behavior of the leader but in whether or not Islamic lawprevails.” Far from espousing a theocracy, concludes SOM, the idealIslamic state is governed as a “nomocracy.”In a similar vein, Salim Mansur‘s article is a critical examination of therelationship between constitutionalism and ethnic conflict, with a focus onPakistan. Mansur challenges the analytical scheme that identifies developedsocieties with mature institutions of legitimate order that provide forpolitical stability, continuity of political authority, and established rules forconflict settlement as well as, conversely, identifies developing societieswith the weakness or absence of such institutions. Instead, he argues thatconstitutional norms, designs, and processes need not be separated fromissues of institution building and that “the idea of constitutionalism needsto be integrated into the study of developing societies in order to discoverhow it contributes to a conciliatory process of political participation andpluralism in a society that might be potentially open to fragmentation alongethnic lines.”The other two feature articles found in this issue address the complexquestion of the relationship among God, humanity, and the universe. Yusuf ...