This book offers an in-depth critical reading of the phenomenon of "theft of Islam"—the appropriation of the faith—and the exclusion of the individual within Islamic political thought, with a particular focus on *Sultanic Literature* (Adab al-Sultani) and the conceptions of power, religion, and society that emerged from it. Scholar Muhammad Abd al-Fattah Haliqawi begins by analyzing the foundational structure of Islamic thought to examine the perpetual tension between scriptural texts and the actual practices of political authority. In doing so, he reveals how the Islamic religion has, throughout various historical epochs, been exploited to serve as a tool for entrenching a culture of political obedience and for marginalizing the human being.
The book explores the dialectic between the religious and the political through the works of major figures in Islamic thought—such as Al-Mawardi, Al-Juwayni, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn Khaldun. It analyzes their contributions to the crystallization of a discourse of obedience and the legitimation of authority, while also examining the attempts embedded within their visions—sometimes faltering—to carve out spaces for *Ijtihad* (independent reasoning) or reform. Through this analysis, the author uncovers the contours of an authoritarian mode of thought that has contributed to the exclusion of the Arab and Muslim individual, and to the suppression of the values ​​of freedom, justice, and equality—all in the name of religion, unity, or political stability.