Khomeini exceeded Shari’a procedural norms by making rather than applying law

Evidence

But, as with any accusation in Shari‘a as in any system of law, there had to be an arraignment, a trial, confrontation between the accused and his accuser, judicial consideration, verdict and, if appropriate, sentence. No such procedure preceded the death sentence pronounced on Salman Rushdie. There is a hadith, that is, a saying attributed to the Prophet, accepted by Shi’ites and by a small minority of Sunnis in Central Asia, according to which the Prophet said: “If anyone insults me, then any Muslim who hears him must kill him immediately, without any need to refer to the imam or the sultan,” in other words, without needing to refer to the judicial or police authorities. Even in this rather extreme form, the tradition speaks of a spontaneous response by one who actually hears someone insult the Prophet. It says nothing about an arranged killing for a reported insult in an unread book in a far place, and Khomeini clearly was making law rather than following it. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 582

Categorization

• QUESTION: A useful hinge: does Lewis intend to rescue Islamic jurisprudence from Western caricature, or to isolate Khomeini as an outlier — and how does his framing itself shape the legibility he analyzes?
• XREF: Feeds the Said-adjacent cluster: Lewis resists the ‘irrational Islamic death cult’ stereotype while simultaneously performing Orientalist authority over what Islam ‘really’ is.