In the first excerpt from the jurist Māwardī’s al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya, a treatise that explicates the functions, rights, and duties of various governmental offices in a juridical manner, the author states that he composed the work to make the ruler to whom it is addressed and “to whom obedience is incumbent” aware of the different juridical opinions regarding his rights and duties. In the second passage, Māwardī lists ten duties of the ruler. In her analysis of Islamic mirrors-for-princes literature on judging in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Louise Marlow refers to the first passage to introduce Māwardī’s work and to the second to point out its overlap with the ten duties listed in Māwardī’s treatise on statecraft titled Tashīl al-naẓar wa-taʿjīl al-ẓafar.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.