Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan.

• Author: Ulgul, Murat
• Position: Book review

Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan

By M. A. Muqtedar Khan

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, ISBN: 9781137557186

Political science literature has not been overly friendly toward Islam in recent decades. Questions about Islam's compatibility with democracy, its relationship with terrorism and the lack of good governance in Muslim countries have dominated academic discourse for a long time and Muslim scholars, who are generally defensive in these discussions, have had difficulty making their voices heard. Undoubtedly, the facts on the ground do not help those scholars who argue that Islam is not incompatible with good governance. Terrorist attacks by radical jihadist organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, which claim to act in the name of Allah, the failure of the democratization process in the Arab Spring, resistant-to-change authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and ongoing conflicts between different Muslim sects in places like Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan have supported the spread of the argument that Islam as a political force cannot bring fair, representative and well-functioning governance to Muslim people around the world.The solution, the prevailing argument goes, is the full secularization of politics in Muslim-populated countries.

In Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan, Dr. Muqtedar Khan challenges this argument by offering a normative account of Islam that relies on the concept of Ihsan (the pursuit of perfection), one of the three main components of din (religion) along with Islam (the practice of religion) and Iman (articles of faith). According to Khan, Muslim politics and academic discourse overwhelmingly focus on the implementation of Islamic rules and laws under the concept of Shariah while ignoring the "final destiny of the true believer:" Ihsan, in other words, doing beautiful deeds (p. 77). Sufi scholars and practitioners, as an exception, seem invested in the idea of Ihsan; however, either because they see politics as a corrupting force or because they believe that one reaches perfection only by detaching from the world, they are generally pessimistic, if not hostile, to the idea that Ihsan can play a role in Muslim politics. Yet, Khan points out, since "Allah has ordained Ihsan in all things" as the Prophet Muhammed reminded Muslims, it is not appropriate to avoid perfection in politics (p. 99). Ihsan is not only about non-political activities such as...