Pre-modern Islamic states never had a single unified religious law.

Evidence

Shari¯‘a courts had primary jurisdiction over urban Muslims, rural tribes followed customary rules and procedures (‘urf ), and milliyya courts were regulated by and for the various sects of Christians and Jews. Hence shari¯‘a courts were by no means the only form of law administration. Indeed, the ruler had his own body of administrative law (qanu¯n) that did not draw its authority from the shari¯‘a. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 997

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the Orientalist binary Cooper-adjacent readings presuppose: plural jurisdictional orders preceded the ‘secular’ state in Muslim societies too.
• SEED: Angle: the myth of a monolithic shari’a regime was projected retroactively by both colonial and modernizing Islamic discourse.
• SHARE: For someone working on legal pluralism / precolonial jurisdiction — this punctures the common ‘shari’a was the only law’ assumption neatly.