Pre-modern Islamic law stood above all political will and could not be suspended

Evidence

The Shariʿa is then the moral code, an earthly, sociologically contextualized representation of divine moral will. The temporal and spatial expression of God’s Law and Will, the Shariʿa precedes all other forms of rule, both logically and in time. The law, being an expression of collective and mass-produced “legal” interpretation over time and space, stands above all, especially above all political structures and any form of political organization. This was not just another persistent benchmark, but perhaps the benchmark of all benchmarks. As will become all too obvious in due course, this unwavering benchmark precluded political power not only from commanding the law and its legislation (as the modern state does), but also from interfering in the performative educational and intellectual formations that produced the Muslim subject. Unlike the modern citizen, largely a product of the state, the Muslim subject was produced by nonstate socioethical formations. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 161 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Islam proved compatible with every major polity and economic form in history. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 277; Premodern Islamic governance could not suspend its law under any exception; In classical Islamic order, law stood above and constrained all political power — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 161 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• In classical Islamic order, law stood above and constrained all political power #corroborates (0.97) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 161