SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study examines different methods employed by Muslim jurists to criticise the rulers and ruling elites of the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk period (c. 1230–1330). It treats three such methods: the use of the sermon at Friday prayer, legal opinions (fatwa¯s), and juristic discourse on rebellion. Generally, pre-modern Islamic political tradition and court culture continually accommodated reasonable and mild forms of criticism, which were often found in court poetry, advice literature, and even in artistic expressions such as shadow dramas. Likewise, there is also subtle and oblique political censure by pre-modern Muslim jurists, and this merits further examination given their authority over Islamic law, sway over the judiciary, proximity to rulers, dependence on the charitable endowment of the elites, and their service in the administration. These jurists were well qualified and conveniently placed to level criticism of the ruler’s political and administrative decisions without threatening the social order or political stability of Ayyubid and Mamluk realms. Although they consistently called for obedience and unity, the jurists did not relinquish their prerogative to censure the rulers in subtle ways that were often concealed in legal discourses. As such, this study will reflect the art of passing criticism within a ‘framework of legality’, an art that some Muslim jurists seemed to have mastered and employed regularly.