154 Christopher Melchert
not long after the passage just quoted, concerning the employment of
non-Muslim subjects in positions of authority:
[Ibn Mufliḥ al-Qāqūnī] says in al-Furūʿ, “There are two versions [of what
Aḥmad said] concerning this problem. The first is that it is forbidden,
which was the choice of our Shaykh [meaning al-Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn] and
others as well, for it entails corruption or leads to it. It is more pressing
than the question of jihad.” The Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn said, “Whoever of
them [polytheists] operates a ministry (dīwān) for the Muslims has vio-
lated the terms of his pact, for it goes against humiliation (al-ṣaghār).” [Ibn
Ḥamdān] says in al-Riʿāya that it is discouraged except when necessary.^7Ibn Taymiyya is not the only shaykh quoted as explaining a rule, as
here; however, al-Mardāwī seems to quote none other so regularly
to explain his preference, nor anyone else so regularly to bring up a
ramification not discussed elsewhere. Al-Mardāwī plainly respected
Ibn Taymiyya as a significant and original thinker. In a short work,
al-Mardāwī even names Ibn Taymiyya as a recent example of al-muj-
tahid al-muṭlaq, someone capable of inferring rules directly from the
revealed sources, not bound to adhere to a pre-existing school.^8 How-
ever, Al-Matroudi is justified in concluding that al-Mardāwī, although
well acquainted with Ibn Taymiyya’s views, remained in the end more
a reporter of them than an advocate.^9
As for the apparent insignificance of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
it might be objected that, although he is little cited in the whole of
al-Inṣāf fī maʿrifat al-rājiḥ, he may yet appear a leading authority in
some specialized parts of the law. The obvious example is the law of
non-Muslim subjects, for Ibn al-Qayyim wrote a long (and useful)
book on precisely this topic, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma (The Ordinances
Concerning the Protected Peoples).^10 I have therefore also counted
7 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 105 (K. al-Jihād, bāb mā yalzamu al-imām wal-jaysh, after
qawluhu wa-lā yastaʿīn bi-mushrik).
8 Al-Mardāwī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Sulaymān: Qāʿida nāfiʿa jāmiʿa li-ṣifat al-riwāyāt
al-manqūla ʿan al-imām Aḥmad (A Beneficial, Comprehensive Principle Con-
cerning the Character of Transmitted Versions of [the Position of] the Leader
Aḥmad), appended to idem, al-Inṣāf fī maʿrifat al-rājiḥ, vol. 12, pp. 177–218, at
p. 191.
9 Al-Matroudi, The Ḥanbalī School, pp. 145–150.
10 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shams al-Dīn: Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma, ed. by Ṣubḥī
al-Ṣāliḥ, n. p. 1381/1961, reprint Beirut 1401/1981. I have looked at two other
editions. That of Ṭāhā ʿAbd al-Raʾūf Saʿd, Beirut 1415/1995, is a mere retyping
of Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ’s, to be avoided. That of Abū Barāʾ Yūsuf b. Aḥmad al-Bakrī
and Abū Aḥmad Shākir b. Tawfīq al-ʿĀrūrī, Dammam and Beirut 1418/1997,
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