ABSTRACT
Al-Mawardi's work on the Ordinances of Goverment, alAhkam as-Sultaniyah, is too well known among Islamic scholars and in Muslim political circles to require any introduction.^ Since the revival of interest in the caliphate it has been generally accept ed as the most authoritative exposition of the Sunni Islamic politi cal theory,2 and indeed the existence of other works on the subject is frequently ignored. Yet in spite of its reputation, no attempt has been made to situate the work in its own setting. This task involves an investigation into three things: the reasons for its compilation, al-Mawardi's sources and the use which he makes of them, and the reception of his work by the scholars of his own and succeeding generations. To discuss the subject fully would outrun the limits of an essay, and I propose only to treat in out line the first and second questions, with reference to the chapter on the caliphate and to the section of the third chapter which deals with the "Amirate by Seizure.**
It might seem, in the first place, unnecessary to postulate any special reasons. Almost every comprehensive work on fiqh in cluded a section, long or short, on the Imama, and a jurist who aspired to cover the whole field had of necessity to give his atten tion to this among other questions, so that it might well be made the subject of a special study. Since the list of al-Mawardi's sur viving works shows him to have taken an interest in matters of political conduct,^ it might have been assumed without question that the reason lay in his personal preferences had not he related
otherwise. For his introduction, after the usual exordium, opens with the words: "Since the ordinances of government have a special claim upon [the attention of] those who are set in authority, and since their admixture with all [manner of other] ordinances debars these persons from making a thorough study of them-not to speak of their preoccupation with policy and administrationI have devoted a book exclusively to this subject. In so doing I have complied with the command of one to whom it is obligatory to render obedience, in order that he may know the views of the jurists as to those ordinances which define his rights, that he may exact them in full, and his duties, that he may perform them in full, with the object of showing equity in his execution and judgment, and from a desire to respect the rights of others in his taking and giving."^
T o whom do these expressions refer? None of the biographers directly answer this question, but a brief survey of the political situation during the period to which the book must be ascribed enables us to give a reasonably definite reply. Since 334: 946 the caliphs of Baghdad had been kept under strict control by the Buwaihid amirs, but from the beginning of the fifth century the authority of the Buwaihid house was undermined by internal dissensions and military revolts. Simultaneously, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna was engaged in the creation of a vast empire in Iran and the adjacent lands, with many professions of loyalty to the Abbasid house. These circumstances encouraged the Caliphs alQadir billah (d. 422:1031) and his son and successor al-Qaim biamrillah to hope for a restoration of Abbasid rule and even to take some tentative steps to reassert their claims.^ It is well known that al-Mawardi, who had been honored with the novel title of aqdalqudahj^ was the emissary and mouthpiece of the caliphs in their negotiations with the Buwaihid amirs. There can be little doubt, therefore, that it was at the wish of one or other of these caliphs that his book was composed. This is confirmed by the language of the introduction itself, since, while **one to whom it is obligatory to render obedience" could, in the jurists' view, be applied to any civil authority, it applied more especially to the caliph, and it is only the rights and duties of the caliphs that are discussed by the earlier jurists.
