Islam • 61ligious ideas and practices take root not because they are pro-
moted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown
to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they
are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred
transcendence. To this day, Muslims remain deeply attached
to the Shariah, which has made them internalize the arche-
typal figure of Muhammad at a very deep level and, liberat-
ing him from the seventh century, has made him a living
presence in their lives and a part of themselves.
But like all Islamic piety, the Shariah was also political. It
constituted a protest against a society that was deemed by the
religious to be corrupt. Both Malik ibn Anas and al-Shafii had
taken part in Shii uprisings against the early Abbasids; both
had been imprisoned for their politics, though they were re-
leased and patronized by al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid, who
wanted to exploit their expertise and create a uniform legal
system throughout the empire. The Shariah totally rejected
the aristocratic, sophisticated ethos of the court. It restricted
the power of the caliph, stressed that he did not have the same
role as the Prophet or the rashidun, but that he was only per-
mitted to administer the sacred law. Courtly culture was thus
tacitly condemned as un-Islamic. The ethos of the Shariah,
like that of the Quran, was egalitarian. There were special
provisions to protect the weak, and no institution, such as the
caliphate or the court, had any power to interfere with the
personal decisions and beliefs of the individual. Each Muslim
had a unique responsibility to obey God's commands, and no
religious authority, no institution (such as "the Church") and
no specialized group of "clergy" could come between God
and the individual Muslim. All Muslims were on the same
footing; there was to be no clerical elite or priesthood acting
as an intermediary. The Shariah was thus an attempt to re-
build society on criteria that were entirely different from
those of the court. It aimed to build a counter-culture and a