ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that the study of Islamic political leadership should be carried out by a contextual approach which facilitates the study of this leadership as an integral component of the Islamic polity. It discusses the Islamic theories and practices of political leadership. Despite the general acceptance of the indispensability of leadership, Islamic theories of leadership differ in terms of leaders’ qualifications, functions, and sources of legitimacy and modes of succession to power. The Ithna ‘Ashari Shi’is advocates continuity in leadership, thereby attesting explicitly to the indispensability of leadership to the development of the community. Abul A’la Mawdudi’s great-man theory—a mechanistic theory of leadership—also attributes the indispensability of leadership to the need for societal change and dynamism. The Shi’i doctrines of imamah are neither monolithic nor do they correspond to the practice of leadership in Islam. The Ismaili doctrine of imamah represents probably the most revolutionary twist in the concept and philosophy of leadership in Islam.
