The Shariʿa subordinated all political power to itself, unlike the modern state

Evidence

As a representation of a higher value, one seen to stand above the arbitrariness of ever-changing human predilections, the Shariʿa regulated the entire range of the human order, either directly (through its jurists) or by means of a well-defined and limited delegation (through the executive). Whereas the modern state rules over and regulates its religious institutions, rendering them subservient to its legal will, the Shariʿa ruled over and regulated “secular” institutions. Accordingly, any political form or political (or social or economic) institution was ultimately subordinate to the Shariʿa and a derivative thereof, including the executive and judicial powers. The Shariʿa itself, on the other hand, was the “legislative power” par excellence, and legislation was both a cumulative and a collective process, which is to say that “law,” in the moral and technical legal senses, was the result of a corporate-like entity, a collectivity of juristic voices over time and space, and not subject to the will or whim of any single jurist, any single ruler, or even any contemporaneous group of jurists. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 163

Categorization

• XREF: Inverts the modern state-religion relationship; connects to debates about secularism and how premodern Islamic governance actually operated versus modern caricatures.
• DEFINE: Clarifies what Shariʿa meant as an institutional arrangement, distinct from modern positive law.