Impaired Foundations, Perduring Law: The Meaning and Aims of Māwardī's al-Ahkām al-sultāniyya

Abū al-hasan al-Māwardī's treatise al-Ahkām al-sultāniyya has attracted attention for two separate but related reasons. The first is its place in the history of Sunni political thought as one of the first comprehensive juristic manuals of government. The second is the context of its authorship under an 'Abbāsid caliphate that had already lost effective rule to the Buwayhid confederation. The treatise aimed at legitimation of contemporary governmental structure and practice by subsuming them under the legal structure of the historical caliphate, as argued by H.A.R. Gibb. The present article supports this interpretation and seeks to substantiate it through analysis of the topics of delegation of powers in Māwardī's theory and his treatment of substantive issues of administration. In addition, Māwardī's consistent rejection, pace the anafīs, of the expansion of governmental prerogative indicates that his concerns were shaped more by the Shāfi'ī legal tradition than by any concrete political project.