Obeying the (unjust) ruler: tracing a political ideology in the hadith corpus

Abstract

Within Sunni political discourse is the question of one’s relationship with the state and more specifically, the ruler. The majority opinion upholds a quietism requiring obedience to the ruler, even if he is unjust. This study traces the origins of this political quietism as well as its converse (political activism) through an analysis of Prophetic narrations (hadiths) espousing them. Through the relatively recent methodology of isnad-cum-matn which analyses both the chain of transmission (isnad) and the text of the Prophetic narration (matn), patterns are found in the spread of these hadiths. Namely, there is a concentration of political hadiths spreading from Iraq in the early to mid-second century AH. These results contribute to a better understanding of the political landscape of the early Muslim world, as well as some of its most prominent figures.