Law, empire, and the sultan : Ottoman imperial authority and late Hanafi jurisprudence / Samy A. Ayoub

In Law, Empire, and the Sultan, Samy Ayoub offers a fresh perspective on two of the most widely debated issues in Islamic legal history: the relationship between fiqh as a 'jurists' law and the authority of temporal rulers, and the process of codification. The study adds substance to the growing recognition that the rise of the nation state did not represent a sudden rupture in the development of Islamic legal discourses, but was preceded by significant developments in scholarly attitudes toward the legal authority of rulers. Rather than focusing on the agency of the Ottoman state, Ayoub offers a perspective from within the intellectual and religious world of Ottoman legal scholars.