ABSTRACT
Law is the command of God; and the acknowledged function of Muslim jurisprudence, from the beginning, was simply the discovery of the terms of that command. Muslim jurisprudence of the early tenth century formally recognised that its creative force was spent and exhausted in the doctrine known as "the closing of the door of ijtihad". The rigt of ijtihad was replaced by the duty of taqlid or "imitation". The elaboration of the law is seen by Islamic orthodoxy as a process of scholastic endeavour completely independent of historical or sociological influences. Once discovered, therefore, the law could not be subject to historical exegesis, in the sense that its terms could be regarded as applicable only to the particular circumstances of society at a given point in time. In the Islamic concept, law precedes and moulds society; to its eternally valid dictates the structure of State and society must, ideally, conform.
