Mu‘tazilite Conception of Politics: al-Amr bi’l-Ma‘rūf wa al-Nahy ‘an al-Munkar

Abstract

One of the problems that emerged after the death of the Prophet was whether or not a power of sanction could be mentioned about the implementation of religious commandments. If a sanction can be mentioned, it is the question of who belongs to this sanction and how(?) One of the solution suggestions made in the post-prophet period; It manifested itself in the form of a division of labor, and the government was the top executive of this division. "El-emr bi'l ma’ru f ve’nehyu ani’l-munker", which is one of the basic principles of Islamic political theory, has assumed an important task in this process. Even if different practices are encountered between different theological schools, there is no controversy about the fact that this principle is “wajib”. We tried to find out how the adaptation practices of the principle to the social and political field had an impact on the Muslim community, and which discussions gave results. The fact that a religious principle has been left to the state in Islamic political theory has allowed the president(khalif) to determine the religious sphere. This situation has been one of the important reasons for the processes that result in the ruling conflict. In this study, the approaches of Mu'tezilî theological school, which gives an important responsibility in their religious understanding to the principle of “el-emr bi’l-ma’ruf ve’nehyi ani’l-munker ”, will be discussed. While doing this, we made an evaluation on the texts of Kadi Abdulcebbâr, the most known name of the current in theology circles.