Islamic Law
For Islam, the word of Allah as revealed in the Quran and the teachings in
the hadith, were the basis of sacred law, shariah. There was no distinction of
sacred and secular law, all law was sacred. For Islam, economic life was reg-
ulated by commercial codes derived from the Quran, more specifically the
Hanaficommercial codes.^16 Islam, with its shariah, laws and ethical regula-
tions that applied to all pacified and unified diverse peoples, enabled the
expansion of vast trade networks throughout the region. While this would
routinize commerce, it would also mitigate against the emergence of a secu-
lar space and the extent to which rational commercial law might emerge. The
institutionalization of a sacred commercial law resting on theological
justifications stood as a barrier to rational, predictable legal procedures and
standards of evidence such as in Indian law or Roman commercial law.
As Weber (1978) noted, in the Western system, legislative bodies passed
laws based on formal rationality, rules of evidence and prior cases. Western
judges dispensed justice based on abstract laws and precedents. But Islamic
law, as interpreted by trained mufti,legal scholars, and administered bykadi
judges, was jurist in nature. The great jurists who established the legal tra-
ditions of Islam were more “legal prophets”, establishing substantive-theo-
logical “stereotyped jurist law...that opposed secularization”. Formal-juridical
(rational) legal codes were wanting.^17 Its system of jurists appointed by the
central authority, were frequently antagonistic to the central authority. This
often gave the judge administrative authority that nevertheless made him
loyal to the central authority and prevented local powers or landed classes
from emerging.^18 In sum, Islamic law was conducive to the establishment of
large scale patrimonial State organizations such as the military or govern-
ment organizations, but it did not foster large scale autonomous institutions
such as mercantile organizations or, perish the thought, civil society organi-
zations or political groupings such as estates or parties.
The Muslim jurists, muftischolars andkadiadministrators, were religiously
trained experts, thoroughly qualified through examinations. But they were
From the Caliphate to the Shaheedim• 303(^16) See Kuran, 2001.
(^17) Wolfgang Schlucter, “Hindrances to Modernity, Max Weber and Islam.” In Huff,
Toby, and Wolfgang, Schlucter, Eds., Max Weber and Islam(New Brunswick, N.J.,
1999) 108. 18
Haim Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO., 1987).