Intellectual Dimensions of Madīnian Polity and its Implication for Islamic Governance: Lessons from the Early History of Islam

Abstract

The very first verse revealed to the Prophet of Islam ﷺ, namely ﴾ Read in the name of your Lord ﴿ implied the concept of knowledge that corresponds with the intellectual attestation of the first article of Islamic faith, that is, the belief in the unity of God, which for its part requires a specific kind of knowledge related to the Divine. With the same token, the Revelation continued to provide the Prophet ﷺ with the intellectual and spiritual insights that he ﷺ perfectly transformed into the nucleus based on which the first Islamic state known as the Madīnian polity was firmly established. Hence, in this paper, the analysis will cover the intellectual dimensions of the Madīnian polity portrayed here in three essential aspects: the revelation as the principal source of knowledge, the affirmation as the intellectual and practical application of knowledge, and the manifestation as the individual and communal reflection of knowledge. I will argue that the said aspects as they were displayed in the Madīnian polity are the core factors that underpin the Islamic governance as such.