Teori dan Pemikiran Politik Modern Muhammad Abduh dan Ali Abd al-Raziq

Abstract

This article examines two influential strands of modern Islamic political thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Muhammad Abduh’s integrative reformism and Ali Abd al-Raziq’s political critique of the sacralization of state institutions. Employing a qualitative library-based approach and content analysis, the study investigates key themes in religion–state relations through the primary text Al-Islam wa Usul al-Ahkam (1925) and relevant secondary literature on Islamic reform and political philosophy. The findings indicate that Abduh conceptualizes shūrā (consultation) as an institutional mechanism within representative governance and frames love of the homeland as a foundation of civic ethics, strengthened through educational reform and social solidarity. By contrast, Abd al-Raziq affirms the autonomy of the political sphere by viewing the state and forms of government as products of historically situated human ijtihād; Islam is positioned as a moral-spiritual message rather than a fixed blueprint for governance, and the caliphate is understood as a historical construct rather than a theologically binding obligation. Theoretically, the study suggests that modern Islamic political discourse spans a spectrum between an integrative-ethical orientation—where religion grounds public ethics and institutionalized consultation—and a political-autonomy orientation—where the state is treated as a rational, contingent human construction..