2

Editorial Note

D A V I D  H .  W A R R E N

This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises three 
main research articles, which respectively engage with the themes of 
political loyalty, justice and the just ruler, and popular preaching. We 
begin with Abdessamad Belhaj’s study, “Political Loyalty in Reformist 
Islamic Ethics: Resources and Limits.” Belhaj’s point of departure is to 
consider the work of three prominent Muslim scholars: the Egyptian-
Qatari Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (1926-2022), the Mauritanian ʿAbdallāh b. 
Bayyah (b. 1935), and the Iraqi-Qatari ʿ Alī al-Qaradāghī (b. 1949). Belhaj 
examines these three thinkers’ contributions to the question of political 
loyalty, especially when Muslims are the minority in non-Muslim con-
texts. In this informative and insightful work, Belhaj highlights the subtle 
differences in each authors’ approach while also placing them in conver-
sation with well-known European theorists such as Roger Scruton and 
Carl Schmitt. At the same time, Belhaj also notes some of the important 
limitations around the Muslim reformist view (as he defines his three 
subjects) with regard to the political loyalty of Muslims toward non-Mus-
lims, especially in increasingly pluralist states and societies.

We then turn to Fadi Zatari and Omar Fili’s contribution, “Justice 
and the Just Ruler in the Islamic Mirror of Princes.” The article explores 
the concept of justice in the al-Ādāb al-Sulṭānīyah literature, while also 
advancing an important critique of Muslim modernists’ own criticism 



EdItOrIAL NOtE    3

of this body of work. As Zatari and Fili argue, modernist critics of this 
classical literature on justice and just rule have typically contended that 
pre-modern Muslim political thought lacked a proper definition of jus-
tice, and instead preferred to merely uphold an authoritarian status quo. 
Reductive views of the premodern tradition are increasingly coming 
under criticism from a range of angles, and this article contributes to 
that conversation in significant ways.

For our third research article for this issue, we then have Hatim 
Mahamid and Younis Abu Alhaija’s work, “Popular Religious Preaching 
as Informal Education and its Impact on Medieval Islamic Culture.” Their 
article considers the place of popular preaching in premodern Muslim 
culture and society, which the authors highlight also acted as a kind of 
mass education for the public. By considering a range of different popular 
preaching assemblies and gatherings, often sponsored by Sufi shaykhs or 
rulers, the authors show that the primary objective of these events and 
initiatives was the preserving of Islamic values   and moral rules. At times, 
however, popular preaching also functioned simultaneously as a certain 
kind of propaganda, a form of political activity, and even as leisure.

This issue also includes two insightful forum pieces. The first is 
Mohamed Alio’s contribution, “The Mazrui Dynasty: Serving Islam 
in East Africa” and the second is Shahzar Raza Khan’s piece on the 
famous Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi. This issue of the American Journal 
of Islam and Society also includes several book reviews, including Iymon 
Majid’s review essay “Integrating Kashmir.” Majid’s essay considers two 
recently published and important works, Shahla Hussain’s Kashmir in 
the Aftermath of Partition and Hafsa Kanjwal’s Colonizing Kashmir: State-
Building under Indian Occupation.

David H. Warren 
Lecturer of Middle East Studies and Arabic 
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri 

Assistant Editor, American Journal of Islam and Society

doi: 10.35632/ajis.v41i3-4.3657