The study of political systems, power, governance, and the conditions for legitimate authority.

Political science navigates the tension between descriptive and normative work, between explaining power and challenging it. Questions of democratic legitimacy, the ethics of political violence, and the relationship between expertise and democratic accountability are structurally embedded.

The Sufi tradition developed a sophisticated analysis of the corruption of political power and the conditions for just leadership. The concept of 'adl (justice) as a cosmological principle — not merely a social arrangement — provides a foundation for political ethics that transcends proceduralism.