Radical Separation of Powers: A History of Islamic Constitutionalism

Wael Hallaq
Hardback, 592 pages
9781836431176

'The breadth of Hallaq’s analysis of Islamic constitutionalism and the philosophical depth that he brings to it open new vistas on political thought in pre-modern Islam. His brilliant readings of key texts in Islamic political theory serve to peel off thick layers of misrepresentation, bringing those texts to life and allowing us to view them with fresh eyes. Along the way, he offers a trenchant critique of both Orientalism and liberalism.' - Muhammad Qasim Zaman

'This is Wael Hallaq at his provocative and erudite best. He re-imagines Arabic philology as an empathetic praxis, shows how modern scholars must re-integrate the fields of Islamic learning artificially separated by Orientalism, and in the process re-writes the history of Islamic political thought to make a powerful case for a distinctive Islamic constitutionalism rooted in prophethood, ethics, and above all the Shari‘a.' - Joseph E. Lowry

Two centuries of Orientalist scholarship have denied that Islam has a constitutional concept. Premodern Islamic political practice has been subject to mistranslation, misinterpretation and condescension through the eyes of colonisers, and judged inferior to the norms of Western liberalism. Wael Hallaq, a leading scholar of Islamic law, sets the record straight in this groundbreaking volume. Traumatised by the tyranny of absolute monarchies, Europe came to see in Islam everything that it despised about itself. By seeking to understand Islamic governance from within its own tradition of reason, Hallaq reveals premodern Islam to have a rich and distinctive constitutional tradition: starting from the individual as a political subject up to the power of executives.

Contents
1: The Philosophical Foundations of Governance
2: The Politics of Practical Ethics
3: Framing the Sultanic Executive
4: The Legislative: From Qur'anic Constitutionalization to the Madhhab
5: Locating the Judiciary
6: The Exception that Proves the Rule: Juwayni on Executive Power
7: Reaffirming the Boundaries of Executive Power: The Mamlük Shaff'i Discursive Tradition
8: Moral Distension of Judicial and Executive Oversight: A Mamlük Hanbali Posture
9: A Constitutional Synthesis: Maliki Delimitation of Executive Power and the Triumph of the Judiciary
10: The Hanafi Tradition, Circassian Anarchy, and Pre-Colonial Ottoman Constitutionalization
11: Ottoman "Dynastic Law" and Sharia's Constitutionalism: Whose Law?
12: Sovereignty and Biopower: Is Constitutionalism Enough?