Taghut (every object of wrongful obedience)

الطاغوت

Sha'rawi defines taghut as an intensive form of tyranny. Its forms include Satan, clerics who legislate in religion's name for worldly power, sorcerers and charlatans, and a ruler who rules without God's command. He holds that taghut is the one whom obedience makes more tyrannical 1 2 3.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Prophetic Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
Review
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Worship and the pillars

Summary

Sha'rawi holds that taghut comes from the root of tyranny and that its form signals intensity. It includes Satan, the cleric, the sorcerer and the unjust ruler 1.

Its forms

He says taghut may be Satan, or someone who takes to himself the right to legislate, declaring others unbelievers or believers according to desire, or a sorcerer or charlatan, or anyone who exceeds the limit in a matter 1.

The gradual rise of tyranny

He holds that tyranny begins by testing the ground and grows if people endure it, and that obedience in small matters increases the tyrant's power over the obedient 2.

Singular and plural

He explains that taghut is treated as singular in the verse, so that it covers one or several, as one says "a just person" for one or many 3 4.

Not yet checked

The list of forms is Sha'rawi's own and has not been checked against the tafsir and history books. No academic or non-Sunni view has been checked.

People and things also explored

The ruling on one who abandons prayer· Ada' (performance of an obligation within its time)· Adhan (the call to prayer: its ruling, wording, conditions, recommended features and the muezzin)· Bone (adhm): purity, use and retaliation· The adornment of desires and the goods of this world· The people of the bench (ahl al-suffa)· The earth made a place of prayer and purity· Spending in the way of God (infaq)

Sources

  1. Sha'rawi's Khawatir around the Holy Quran, volume one (scan copy) , p.1115
  2. Sha'rawi's Khawatir around the Holy Quran, volume one (scan copy) , p.1116
  3. Sha'rawi's Khawatir around the Holy Quran, volume one (scan copy) , p.1120
  4. Sha'rawi's Khawatir around the Holy Quran, volume one (scan copy) , p.1121
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Taghut (every object of wrongful obedience)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/taghut/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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Related

The ruling on one who abandons prayer

Al-Sallabi quotes Ali: whoever does not pray is an unbeliever. He then reports from al-Nawawi the dispute over one who neglects prayer while believing it obligatory: the majority (Malik, al-Shafi'i) hold him a sinner to be asked to repent, others hold him an unbeliever, a view ascribed to Ali; Abu Hanifa and the Kufans hold him not an unbeliever but to be disciplined.