استكبار
Istikbār
Arrogant power: the excessive and unjust claim to greatness made by tyrants.
What it means
Istikbār is the noun of istakbara. It names the assumption of excessive power by tyrants, a claim to greatness that no human has. The Quran gives Pharaoh and his armies as the standing example: “He and his hosts were arrogant in the land without right, and thought they would not be returned to Us” (28:39). In Quranic teaching, istikbār goes together with refusing the truth and with oppressing the weak (istiḍʿāf). The powerful who think themselves above accountability stand opposed to those they exploit. Modern Muslim writers sometimes use the word for the arrogant powers of the world that dominate other peoples, in the same sense as the Quran’s account of earlier tyrants.
What the sources say
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 45, listed as ISTIKBĀR. The definition is restated here.