Al-Mawardi 972 – 1058

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi was an Arab Islamic jurist of the Shafi'i school and the principal classical theorist of Sunni political thought. Born in Basra and trained at Baghdad, he served as chief qadi of several Iraqi towns and as a high diplomatic envoy of the Abbasid caliph to the Buyid sultans. His Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyyah, the Ordinances of Government, set out the qualifications of the caliph, the powers of viziers and provincial governors, the functions of judges, and the obligations of subjects, and remained a foundational reference for Sunni political theory for centuries. His Adab al-Dunya wa-l-Din offered a celebrated treatise of practical ethics.

Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi was born at Basra in 972 (364 AH), where he received his early training in Shafi'i jurisprudence and theology, and continued his studies under leading masters at Baghdad. He served as qadi in several towns, was appointed chief qadi of Ustuwa, and was repeatedly entrusted by the Abbasid caliphs al-Qadir and al-Qa'im with delicate diplomatic missions to the Buyid amirs whose protection of the caliphate had reduced it to ceremonial supremacy. He spent the last decades of his life as a respected jurist and scholar at Baghdad, where he died in 1058 (450 AH).

His works include the enormous Shafi'i fiqh manual Al-Hawi al-Kabir; the Qur'anic commentary Al-Nukat wa'l-'Uyun; the ethical treatise Adab al-Dunya wa'l-Din; the political manual Tashil al-Nazar wa-Ta'jil al-Zafar; and above all Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya, the most influential classical work of Sunni political theory.

In Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya al-Mawardi set out the office of imam, the procedures for his selection, the duties and limits of his power, and the offices of vizier, governor, and qadi; written when the caliphate had become a constitutional fiction beside the Buyid sultanate, the treatise gave Sunni jurisprudence a vocabulary for legitimating de facto power within a still-recognisable shari'a framework. It remained the canonical reference for Sunni political thought for nearly a thousand years.