Sovereignty vs. taklīf: Individual moral responsibility in state apparatuses in Imam al-Qarafi's texts

Individual moral responsibility within state apparatuses has been a pressing issue with profound consequences, including the loss of human lives. It gained particular attention after the Holocaust (Arendt, 1963), where two independent explanations emerged for the lack of moral responsibility: the positivist excuse and the epistemic excuse (Luban, 1992). While the former is concerned with legitimacy and legality of orders, the latter focuses on the technicalities of how the design of state apparatuses obscures knowledge and moral judgement. In light of the crisis political theory faces (Bakshi, 1998), this thesis uses a comparative Islamic model derived from the Malikī jurist Imam al-Qarafi to offer an alternative framework for rethinking the problem of individual moral responsibility, specifically within what Althusser names "repressive state apparatuses" (Althusser, 1973). Fitting with Hallaq's characterization of Islamic governance (Hallaq, 2013), the political sphere in Imam al-Qarafi's framework only exists to serve the moral purpose of creation: al-Haqq, or the Truth. Imam al-Qarafi redefines the human society to be primarily a body-moral, centralizing Taklīf, or individual moral obligation towards the Divine. The Divinely-ordained individual authorities that result from Taklīf fundamentally reshape the nature and the structure of the political apparatuses. Instead of being sites where moral agency is suspended, these apparatuses become founded upon individual moral responsibility, naturally eliminating the positivist and epistemic excuses. The comparative model exposes how the positivist and epistemic excuses are intertwined, two faces of the same coin. Both are rooted in the modern concept of sovereignty, which redefines the human society to be primarily a body-politic aimed at order and stability. For Imam al-Qarafi, institutional features such as hierarchical obedience and divided jurisdictions in repressive state apparatuses do not prevent individual moral judgement and responsibility. However, in a sovereign body-politic, these same features become obstacles to accomodating individual moral responsibility – not inherently, but due to the implications of modern sovereignty on the essence and design of these apparatuses.