Politics is one of the fundamental activities at the center of societies’ efforts to sustain their existence. While the human instinct for survival compels individuals to live together, the question of how they will live together naturally brings politics to the forefront. For this reason, much of public debate – directly or indirectly – takes shape around politics. The nature of politics, its purpose, its source of legitimacy and whether it possesses an autonomous domain are questions as old as human history itself. As conceptions of existence evolve, the meaning of politics inevitably changes as well. Within this framework, significant works on political thought have been produced in our intellectual tradition, establishing a continuous platform of discussion and generating a rich body of knowledge about the role of politics within society.
As modern civilization has transformed all areas of life according to its own language and logic, politics has likewise received its share of this transformation and continues to do so. Given the profound influence politics exerts on daily life, it becomes necessary to revisit its origins, its meaning, and its societal aims. The Teklif magazine, which examines a specific topic in depth in each issue and opens it to multidimensional discussion, approaches this matter from a broad perspective in its special issue titled "Politics." While bringing the debate into the present, it also provides a platform that carries it into the future through the new questions it raises.
While living together is an unavoidable necessity for human beings, the need for a strong structure that can protect societies against dangers ensures the security of this necessity. As Mehmet Akif Kayapınar states: “Therefore, for people to live together in peace, a hierarchical power structure or a concentration of authority is essential. The institution we call the ‘state’ is the most fully embodied form of this concentration of power.” Thus, with the emergence of power networks within society and the relations formed through these networks, politics also begins.
Politicization manifests itself not only through participation in power relations but across a much broader spectrum – from ensuring security to determining how prosperity will be shared, from defining the limits of authority to shaping the functioning of the civil sphere. Among the most critical issues in these debates is how the state or political authority, which constitutes a deterrent force against threats, will use its immense power and, more importantly, how individuals can be protected from that very power. Kayapınar explains: “Yet this time, the questions of what will protect vulnerable individuals against this mighty authority, why, and how, and even more importantly, how their spiritual existence will be preserved, impose themselves.” In other words, what determines the boundary that protects the civil sphere from concentrated political power? In civilizations that regard God as the source of legitimacy for authority, this boundary is justice. Therefore, in the words of Ihsan Fazlıoğlu, “Politics is the pursuit of securing the public good that ensures justice for society.”
In Sunni societies, it is well known that imamate forms of governance, and therefore politics, are considered within the scope of jurisprudence (fiqh). Thus, rather than focusing on what the form or structure should be, discussions center on the foundations that guide the functioning of that form – justice, competence, consultation and so forth. In this context, for example, justice falls within the realm of definitive principles (katiyyat), while forms are evaluated within the realm of probabilistic practices (zanniyat). Fazlıoğlu also said: “Let us note here that issues such as the structure of the political system, the identity of the ruler, the method of selection, and the mechanism of governance, which fall under the domain of politics, were generally evaluated within the sphere of zanniyat.” Likewise, the classical tradition of "nasihatname" and "siyasetname" literature offered reminders regarding politics primarily within the framework of kat‘iyyat. Within this framework, the relationship between fiqh and politics in Sunni societies is evaluated in terms of conformity to the revealed sources (muvafakat) and the absence of contradiction.
In our classical tradition, the human being is described as God’s vicegerent on earth, scholars as the heirs of the prophet, and rulers as the shadows of God. To be human is essential; to be a scholar or a ruler is a matter of divine allotment. Therefore, scholars and rulers – being human – are also God’s vicegerents on earth and are thus accountable and responsible. Yet, in terms of their social function, they bear the additional responsibility of safeguarding societal processes in a way that enables the moral and spiritual perfection (kemal) of the human being addressed by divine obligation. Politics should strive to produce the public good (maslahat) that ensures the flow of these three definitions within the framework of definitive principles. For this reason, politics must “rest upon law (mutual virtue) and ethics (virtue without reciprocity).” What is expected from such a society is ultimately to enable the human being to attain the possibility of spiritual perfection. Thus, “each human being, together with others, becomes the locus of a perfection that transcends them and is realized within the order of their relations.” In this way, while the possibility of virtue is secured at the individual level, the public good (maslahat) is produced at the societal level.
In today’s world, the dominant global civilization has, above all, removed the public good from its original context and, as Fazlıoğlu notes, effectively transferred it to multinational corporations. At the same time, as in all other domains, it seeks to strip politics of its values. Thus, an attempt is being made to construct “a politics cleansed of judgments of good and evil, operating solely according to the principles of power and interest (might and benefit).” In this situation, it becomes inevitable to confront, for example, the conclusion raised by Alev Alatlı – that what is legal is not necessarily lawful or morally permissible (“For every legal right is not and cannot be halal!"). For, while “the political good is realized by placing everything in its proper place, in accordance with the order of being,” this possibility has now been wounded.
Moreover, by weakening the bond between the human being, who is addressed by divine obligation, and the divine obligations themselves, an effort is being made to eliminate the human capacity to be virtuous. Ultimately, it is unthinkable that international politics – characterized by deep interconnectedness and strong permeability – would not affect national politics. Similar processes are being imposed upon all countries. The aim appears to be the eradication of virtue at the individual level and the annihilation of maslahat at the societal level.
In sum, the discussion of politics leads us to the conclusion that politics is not a technical field confined merely to power relations, but rather a foundational activity directly connected to the human understanding of existence, morality and the pursuit of perfection. Therefore, there is no realm “above” politics, just as there is no realm “below” it. The political understanding constructed in the classical tradition – centered on justice, competence, and maslahat – offers a framework that restrains power, protects the civil sphere and safeguards the human capacity for virtue. In contrast, the modern tendency to strip politics of values and reduce it to relations of interest and power erodes this framework. This erosion weakens not only state-society relations but also individuals’ moral sense of responsibility and societies’ capacity to produce the common good. Thus, what is needed today is to reunite politics with its source of legitimacy: to rethink a political vision that does not exclude law or ethics, that places justice – conceived as a definitive principle – at its center, and that prioritizes meaning over form. Such a reconsideration appears to be the only viable path to restoring politics to its proper role – not as a source of crises, but as an activity that serves the perfection of both the individual and society.
