Seyyed Qutob's Theological Foundations for the Political Legitimacy of Religious Government

Seyyed Qutob is among the thinkers who believe in the theological nature of the idea of religious government and tries to elucidate the theological principles of religious rule according to the traditions and Quranic verses. He believes that the right to form a government and lay down laws according to which the community affairs are run belongs to God, and if society is not governed according to these laws, people will live in ignorance. Seyyed Qutob argues that the only way of safeguarding the society from ignorance is establishing a religious government and adopting divine laws. He holds that, according to these theological foundations, the religious government cannot be considered legitimate unless the ruler is popularly elected. When we go through the theological foundations proposed by Seyyed Qutob relating to religious government, we find that his theory about the political legitimacy of religious government does not conform with his sound theological foundations. Using a descriptive- analytical method, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between Seyyed Qutob's theological foundations for religious government and his theory about the legitimacy of religious government.