Introduction

This book explores the compatibility between the Islamic understanding of the political world and Rawlsian Political Liberalism (PL). John Rawls, as the pre-eminent liberal political philosopher of the twentieth century, directly addressed the issue of doctrinal pluralism and formulated a fundamental set of liberal ideas. He optimistically assumed that the reasonable moral and religious doctrines of a pluralistic society would not conflict with the principles underlying a liberal democratic political culture. Furthermore, Rawls posited that reasonable doctrines have a limited capacity to generate radical doctrinal change. I share two Rawlsian assumptions: (i) a liberal democratic society requires the support of different doctrinal traditions to enjoy legitimacy and political stability, and (ii) religious citizens’ commitment to fundamental political liberal principles cannot be considered plausible if they rely on radical interpretations of divine sources. Accordingly, I map out a clear and detailed spectrum of Islamic orthodoxy positionsIslamic orthodoxy positions to assess the plausibility of reconciling Islamic doctrines with liberal political values. I demonstrate that the mainstream Islamic outlook (i.e., the four major Sunni schools) provides only conditional support for the justness of a freestanding political order, contingent upon Muslims being in politically unfavourable conditions within a liberal state. While acknowledging that compatible Islamic doctrinesCompatible Islamic doctrines do not represent the mainstream outlook, I argue that they can still be grounded in reasonable or acceptable interpretations of divine sources within the Islamic intellectual traditionIslamic intellectual tradition. Thus, I demonstrate that the Islamic Sunni intellectual tradition is rich and flexible enough in political sources to offer observant MuslimsObservant Muslims convincing, binding, or at the very least acceptable technical judicial arguments that support the fairness of a freestanding political order, namely, a possible Islamic overlapping consensusIslamic overlapping consensus (IOC) (IOC).