استعمار
Istiʿmār
Mankind’s commission to build up the earth and human society in line with the patterns God revealed to the Prophet.
What it means
The root of istiʿmār means to inhabit, cultivate and build. The Quran says: “He produced you from the earth and made you settle in it” (11:61), using the verb istaʿmara. Faruqi takes the word in this Quranic sense: the divine commission to reconstruct the material and human world in fulfilment of the patterns that God revealed to His Prophet (peace be upon him). It makes human beings responsible for developing the earth, in farming, building, learning and just social order. The task is part of the trust (amāna) that God gave to humankind. On this view work in the world is a form of obedience when it follows God’s guidance.
Often misunderstood as
In modern Arabic the word means colonialism, which is the opposite of the Quranic sense of building the earth for the good of its people.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 40, listed as ISTIʿMĀR. The definition is restated here.