Chapter 7: Current and Emerging Patterns of Muslim Leadership

The chapter aims at providing a theoretical overview of Muslim authority and leadership and, to analyze the reasons behind the current pluralization of religious authority and emerging leadership patterns and challenges. The author argues that Muslim leadership shall be studied as reciprocal relationship, that is an interactive and dynamic process. In addition, it is discussed that understanding of leadership and the leadership process necessitates developing an understanding of leader, the follower(s), the context, the processes, and the resulting consequences.

The Weberian approach to leadership and to be more precise, three ideal types of authority can provide us with the analytical lenses for interpreting the complex networks of authority that have formed throughout the history of Islam and that, at the same time, are evident in the current Muslim societies.