The Concept of Al-Ḥākimiyyah and its Divergence from the Concept of Sovereignty: An Analysis of Mawdūdī's and Sayyid Quṭb's Ideas

The concept of al-hakimiyyah is a scholarly topic among different categories/discussed and debated by various types of researchers, globally. The term al-hakimiyyah was pronounced and brought into the Islamic and western dictionaries by Sayyid Abū 'Alā Mawdūdī and theoretically developed by Sayyid Quţb. Sovereignty is the common and general word/term that is always used as the English word for/substitute for al-hakimiyyah. Thus, many researchers have analyzed al-hakimiyyah based on the concept of sovereignty found in the western perspective, which has led to some misconceptions regarding the concept. So, this paper intends to address the concept of al-hakimiyyah in the discourse of Abu 'Alā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quţb and its divergence from the concept of sovereignty found in the western perspective. Qualitative approach was employed in this research to collect the data from different sources and analyze it accordingly in order to determine the areas of difference between both the concepts. The findings revealed the difference between these two concepts in terms of their literal and contextual meanings. Likewise, it was revealed that the concept of al-hakimiyyah has some connotations which the western concept of sovereignty does not have. To summarize, the concept of sovereignty in the western perspective does not represent fully the concept of al-hakimiyyah as manifested by Sayyid Abū 'Alā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quţb.