| Introduction | Hallaq poses the central question: Can there be an "Islamic state"? He argues the concept is a contradiction in terms—the modern state and Islam's governance traditions are fundamentally incompatible. The modern state is a specific historical formation with particular features (sovereignty, monopoly on violence, bureaucratic machinery) that developed in post-Enlightenment Europe. Grafting "Islamic" onto it produces incoherence. | The "Islamic state" is not a retrieval of tradition but a modern hybrid. We must understand the modern state's unique features before asking whether Islam can inhabit it. |
| Chapter 1: Premises | Establishes foundational concepts. The modern state is defined by five essential features: its constitution as a historical product, sovereignty and territorial monopoly, legislative monopoly, bureaucratic machinery, and cultural hegemony capable of producing loyal subjects. Hallaq emphasizes the state's need to penetrate society and manufacture national identity. | The state is not a universal or natural form of political organization—it is a historically contingent European invention with specific structural requirements. |
| Chapter 2: The Modern State | Expands on the state's nature, particularly its sovereignty, which is absolute and indivisible. The state creates law rather than discovering it, making legislation a political act of will. The state also requires cultural homogenization, producing citizens whose primary loyalty is to the nation. Violence and coercion underpin all state functions. | Modern sovereignty is incompatible with divine sovereignty. Law in the modern state is positivist—made by humans for political ends—not derived from transcendent sources. |
| Chapter 3: Separation of Powers: Rule of Law or Rule of the State? | Critiques the notion that separation of powers limits state authority. Hallaq argues the executive, legislative, and judiciary are functionally unified in serving state interests. The "rule of law" is actually the "rule of the state"—law serves political power rather than constraining it. Judges interpret laws the state has made, reinforcing rather than checking sovereignty. | Constitutional checks are largely illusory. The modern legal system is circular: the state makes laws, enforces them, and adjudicates them—all in service of its own perpetuation. |
| Chapter 4: The Legal, the Political, and the Moral | Examines how modernity severed law from morality. In the modern state, law is a technical instrument disconnected from ethical grounding. Politics operates autonomously from moral considerations. This contrasts sharply with pre-modern systems where law, politics, and ethics were integrated. The chapter traces this separation to Enlightenment thought and secularization. | Modern governance suffers from a moral vacuum. Efficiency and order replaced virtue as the aims of political life. |
| Chapter 5: The Central Domain of the Moral | Turns to Islamic governance, describing the Sharīʿa as a moral-legal system where God's sovereignty is paramount. Law was not legislated by rulers but discovered by jurists through interpretation of revelation. The ulama operated independently of political power, and their authority derived from scholarly competence, not state appointment. The entire system was oriented toward cultivating virtuous individuals and communities. | In Islamic tradition, law served moral formation, not state power. Political authority was subordinate to a legal-moral order it did not control. |
| Chapter 6: Burdened Virtue | Explores the ethical subject in Islamic tradition. The Sharīʿa aimed to produce morally responsible individuals through practices, rituals, and community norms. Virtue was cultivated through habitual action and spiritual discipline. This "technologies of the self" approach contrasts with modern citizenship, which demands loyalty to the nation rather than moral excellence. | Islamic governance was fundamentally about character formation. The modern state produces citizens; the Sharīʿa aimed to produce virtuous believers. |
| Chapter 7: The Political Subject and Moral Technologies of the Self | Continues examining moral formation, focusing on how Sufi practices, legal obligations, and community structures worked together to shape ethical subjects. The individual was embedded in overlapping moral communities (family, guild, neighborhood, tariqa) rather than standing alone before the state. | Moral life in Islamic tradition was communal and multilayered. Modernity's atomized individual is a historical anomaly, not a universal norm. |
| Chapter 8: Concluding Notes: What is to be Done? | Hallaq reflects on the contemporary predicament. He does not offer a political blueprint but suggests that any authentic Islamic political project must reject the modern state form entirely and recover the moral foundations of Islamic governance. This requires reimagining politics around ethics, community, and divine sovereignty rather than nation, territory, and human legislation. | There is no quick fix or hybrid solution. Genuine alternatives require rethinking the very categories of modern political life—not merely Islamizing existing state structures. |