What does it take to make a Quranist state?

Quranism is a form of Islam which considers the Quran to contain the only words of religious authority, eschewing the Hadiths and other such resources that inform the laws and theology practiced by the other schools of Islam. They cite numerous passages of the Quran which seem to limit the authority of the prophet as justification for this.

What sort of geopolitical circumstances might lead to the development of a nation with a Quranist majority or regime? Perhaps a monarch converting to Islam to match a trend in his lands, but not wanting to bow to an outside authority (or, for that matter, a church authority) particularly given the scriptural support for this? Where might be a fertile ground for this? An Indonesia which has yet to widely adopt Islam, perhaps?
 
The problem here is that the Qur'an, without the additional guidance of the hadith and the later interpretive tradition, is hardly a guide to anything political, mostly detailing matters of faith, personal morality and some points of law. You simply cannot establish a polity upon those guidelines alone: not even the Prophet could do so, the Constitutions of Medina being not revealed.
There's a reason why the vast majority of Muslims felt the need to seek the example of Prophetic sayings and deeds to supplement what the Qur'an left unspoken in the matters of daily life - sometimes fabricating them when authentic ones were lacking, it seems.
(Even the hadith are fairly noncommittal in political terms - Medieval Islam turned out to defer very heavily to pre-Islamic traditions, especially Persian ones, for all matters of rulership and administration.)

I will go on and say that Islam established a "separation of Church and State" of sorts, relatively early on, by the means of an emphatic scornful disdain of the latter - I understand that this runs counter much currently disseminated wisdom on the topic, but in my humble opinion is the best way to make sense of the sources.

EDIT: so, on topic, you could have "Qur'anist" communities, but if they try to establish anything political, they'd have to turn pretty inventive. I suppose that the Rustemids and other historical Kharijite entities come close - although most Kharijites accept Hadith to a point AFAIK. In political matters, they took consensus of the community as the overarching principle (not so different in the underlying approach to what Sunni thought would be) which has some solid scriptural basis. But you will still need a body of ulema that take the interpretive task regarding the text, and possibly take a lot of interpretive liberty.
Another movement that could be described as "Quranist" of sorts in Medieval times were the Zahirites, who argued that the Quran should be taken at face-value rather than interpreted (oversimplification here; and they also did not really entirely reject hadith). Remarkably, they were never, to my knowledge, a political movement, only an intellectual current.
 
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The problem here is that the Qur'an, without the additional guidance of the hadith and the later interpretive tradition, is hardly a guide to anything political, mostly detailing matters of faith, personal morality and some points of law. You simply cannot establish a polity upon those guidelines alone: not even the Prophet could do so, the Constitutions of Medina being not revealed.
There's a reason why the vast majority of Muslims felt the need to seek the example of Prophetic sayings and deeds to supplement what the Qur'an left unspoken in the matters of daily life - sometimes fabricating them when authentic ones were lacking, it seems.
(Even the hadith are fairly noncommittal in political terms - Medieval Islam turned out to defer very heavily to pre-Islamic traditions, especially Persian ones, for all matters of rulership and administration.)

I will go on and say that Islam established a "separation of Church and State" of sorts, relatively early on, by the means of an emphatic scornful disdain of the latter - I understand that this runs counter much currently disseminated wisdom on the topic, but in my humble opinion is the best way to make sense of the sources.

EDIT: so, on topic, you could have "Qur'anist" communities, but if they try to establish anything political, they'd have to turn pretty inventive. I suppose that the Rustemids and other historical Kharijite entities come close - although most Kharijites accept Hadith to a point AFAIK. In political matters, they took consensus of the community as the overarching principle (not so different in the underlying approach to what Sunni thought would be) which has some solid scriptural basis. But you will still need a body of ulema that take the interpretive task regarding the text, and possibly take a lot of interpretive liberty.
Another movement that could be described as "Quranist" of sorts in Medieval times were the Zahirites, who argued that the Quran should be taken at face-value rather than interpreted (oversimplification here; and they also did not really entirely reject hadith). Remarkably, they were never, to my knowledge, a political movement, only an intellectual current.
When I say a Quranist state, I moreso mean a state that happens to be Quranist, rather than one founded on Quranism. The actual governance would, for the reasons you've detailed, be rather secular. Strict official interpretations of given passages would likely be confined to just those most easily taken at face value.
 
The problem here is that the Qur'an, without the additional guidance of the hadith and the later interpretive tradition, is hardly a guide to anything political, mostly detailing matters of faith, personal morality and some points of law. You simply cannot establish a polity upon those guidelines alone: not even the Prophet could do so, the Constitutions of Medina being not revealed.
There's a reason why the vast majority of Muslims felt the need to seek the example of Prophetic sayings and deeds to supplement what the Qur'an left unspoken in the matters of daily life - sometimes fabricating them when authentic ones were lacking, it seems.
(Even the hadith are fairly noncommittal in political terms - Medieval Islam turned out to defer very heavily to pre-Islamic traditions, especially Persian ones, for all matters of rulership and administration.)

I will go on and say that Islam established a "separation of Church and State" of sorts, relatively early on, by the means of an emphatic scornful disdain of the latter - I understand that this runs counter much currently disseminated wisdom on the topic, but in my humble opinion is the best way to make sense of the sources.

EDIT: so, on topic, you could have "Qur'anist" communities, but if they try to establish anything political, they'd have to turn pretty inventive. I suppose that the Rustemids and other historical Kharijite entities come close - although most Kharijites accept Hadith to a point AFAIK. In political matters, they took consensus of the community as the overarching principle (not so different in the underlying approach to what Sunni thought would be) which has some solid scriptural basis. But you will still need a body of ulema that take the interpretive task regarding the text, and possibly take a lot of interpretive liberty.
Another movement that could be described as "Quranist" of sorts in Medieval times were the Zahirites, who argued that the Quran should be taken at face-value rather than interpreted (oversimplification here; and they also did not really entirely reject hadith). Remarkably, they were never, to my knowledge, a political movement, only an intellectual current.



I understand your points on the Khawarij. In all honesty we have already had a Quranist state in the terms that the ruler was a self proclaimed Quranist. This state interestingly was Libya under Gadaffi, not befitting the west's liberal dream, am I right lol?

With the Khawarij said, the closest we could come to a Quranist state would be either a state based on Murji'ah and or a mixture of Murji'ah Hukm with that of Khawarij anti statism. But in all honesty a Quranist state before the 1900s and within the timeframe that I specialize in is essentially impossible.
 
When I say a Quranist state, I moreso mean a state that happens to be Quranist, rather than one founded on Quranism. The actual governance would, for the reasons you've detailed, be rather secular. Strict official interpretations of given passages would likely be confined to just those most easily taken at face value.

The problem is that the vast majority of historical Muslim sects accepts Hadith in some form or another. The authority accorded to it varies (and varied even more in the past), as the does (sometimes very significantly) the corpus recognized as authentic, but honestly I cannot think of any coherent tradition of thought that rejects them explicitly and entirely, except perhaps some schools within the Mu'tazila (They certainly were highly suspicious of non Qur'anic tradition, but I believe that for the most part they weren't totally opposed to the entirety of it). Some modern thinkers of various trends downplay, reject or, more commonly, just ignore much of the extra-qur'anic tradition, but they are not representative of communities holding that belief, and they rarely if ever go as far as a blanket refusal of it altogether.
"A state that happens to be Quranist" would mean, if understand you correctly, a state where at least a sizable portion of the population, or the ruling elite, hold a form of Islamic belief that is based exclusively on the Qur'an to the exclusion of other authoritative source accepted by most Islamic branches. Such belief has rarely if ever existed in a coherent organized form as the creed of significant communities, although the tendency to emphasise the Scripture over the tradition is widely represented by a number of schools and movements old and new.
So the challenge is to have this belief more widespread and structured in the first place.
A more successful/more radical Mu'tazila might work. A problem here is that more successful probably means less radical (that is, more open to accept tradition). Another problem is the strong elitism/intellectualism of the Mu'tazilites - they tended to have following only in courtly and learned milieus without caring about what we would call "academic outreach".
 
I understand your points on the Khawarij. In all honesty we have already had a Quranist state in the terms that the ruler was a self proclaimed Quranist. This state interestingly was Libya under Gadaffi, not befitting the west's liberal dream, am I right lol?

Well, I don't think that much Muslim people (if any) except him in Libya ever considered to be anything other than ordinary Sunnis or Ibadis. But Qaddhafi indeed claimed to rule Libya in accordance with (his interpretation of) the Qur'an, so this might notionally fit the bill.
 

Cueg

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I'm confused, why can't a polity operate and exist solely on the Qur'an? Can Sharia not be constructed though the sole interpretation of the Qur'an? Basically, I'm wondering what's missing in the Qur'an with regard to social facilitation.
 
Well, I don't think that much Muslim people (if any) except him in Libya ever considered to be anything other than ordinary Sunnis or Ibadis. But Qaddhafi indeed claimed to rule Libya in accordance with (his interpretation of) the Qur'an, so this might notionally fit the bill.


Well there are self proclaimed Quranists, but to do so really means you throw thousand years of Islam under the bus and further you remove the life of Muhammad. It is a question received periodically on is it permissible to be a Quranist or if Quranists are Mu'min or the more common, is it permissible to pray behind a known Quranist or Murji'ah (sometimes Khawarij as well).

" And We have revealed the scripture unto thee only that thou mayst explain unto them that wherein they differ, and (as) a guidance and mercy for a people who believe." -An-Nahl 16:64 Quran

This basically means Muhammad is a guidance unto the whole of mankind through his conduct and teachings in life. And since the Quran has no stories from the life of Muhammad this Surah is referring to the Hadith and Sunnah of the Prophet. This is and was the Ijma (consensus) of the Ulema since the death of Muhammad. Thus you would not just lose how the Shariah is to be applicated, you also lose the interpretation of the Quran from the one whom it was revealed to and you lose even how to read it. This is the clear Ijma of the Ulema and is a clear cut issue.
 
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[/QUOTE]I'm confused, why can't a polity operate and exist solely on the Qur'an?[/QUOTE]

' Cause it is pretty silent on most political topics.

[/QUOTE] Can Sharia not be constructed though the sole interpretation of the Qur'an? [/QUOTE]


Perhaps it is possible, but I highly doubt that anyone ever tried. There's a lot of gaps to be filled creatively.

[/QUOTE]Basically, I'm wondering what's missing in the Qur'an with regard to social facilitation.[/QUOTE]

Anything regarding "states" more or less. Roughly all it said on the topic is that Muslims have to obey the Prophet and their superiors.
 
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