Overview

Two centuries of Orientalist scholarship have denied that Islam has a constitutional concept. Premodern Islamic political practice has been subject to mistranslation, misinterpretation and condescension through the eyes of colonisers, and judged inferior to the norms of Western liberalism. Wael Hallaq, a leading scholar of Islamic law, sets the record straight in this groundbreaking volume. Traumatised by the tyranny of absolute monarchies, Europe came to see in Islam everything that it despised about itself. By seeking to understand Islamic governance from within its own tradition of reason, Hallaq reveals premodern Islam to have a rich and distinctive constitutional tradition: starting from the individual as a political subject up to the power of executives.

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9781836431176

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Reviews

'Hallaq has already authored definitive books on how Islamic civilisation articulated law and how both Western scholarship and many Islamist movements have grossly misunderstood Islamic law and the premodern state. Now this latest, fascinating volume draws on a career of expertise to bring these studies together, laying out how the Shariah and state fit together and should be understood today.' Jonathan A. C. Brown, author of Islam & Blackness

'Hallaq has already authored definitive books on how Islamic civilisation articulated law and how both Western scholarship and many Islamist movements have grossly misunderstood Islamic law and the premodern state. Now this latest, fascinating volume draws on a career of expertise to bring these studies together, laying out how the Shariah and state fit together and should be understood today.' Jonathan A. C. Brown, author of Islam & Blackness 'Hallaq offers a much-needed corrective to the Orientalist narratives, which do not provide a viable foundation for historical inquiry nor serve as building blocks for new scholarship. In their place, he presents a panoramic account of constitutionalism and the separation of powers, giving readers a fine-grained perspective on the primacy of law in curbing, limiting, and guiding executive authority. Spanning the millennium from the tenth to the eighteenth century, Hallaq not only presents a historical account of constitutional practice but also offers a narrative infused with theoretical inquiry and multidimensional critique. The reader will appreciate the book’s explication of a Shariʿa-oriented, ulema-led mode of political thought in relation to recent scholarly interventions on the secular adab al-siyasa discourses of good governance in Islamic history.' Hayrettin Yücesoy, author of Disenchanting the Caliphate

Author Information

Wael B. Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is a leading authority in Islamic law,  and has published widely on legal theory, Orientalism and the critical problems of modernity. His previous books include Restating Orientalism and The Impossible State.

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