Medieval Persianate Political Ethic
In: Studies on Persianate Societies: Volume 1 (2003/1382)Search for other papers by Saïd Amir Arjomand in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
The prevalent interpretations of medieval Islamic political thought are inordinately influenced by one particular genre of juristic writing in the form of systematic deduction of political authority from the caliphate, which H.A.R. Gibb regarded as defining the “constitutional organization” of medieval Muslim polity. The historicity of this view, however, is open to serious questions. The juristic theory of the caliphate emerged fairly late in the eleventh-century, and cannot be taken as representative of medieval Islamic political thought, which drew heavily on the Perso-Indian tradition of statecraft and was formally influenced by the Greek practical philosophy. Rather than focusing on the caliphate and the sacred law (shari‘a), the typical conception of political order found in the Persian literature of the medieval period on statecraft and the political ethic was that of a world order constituted by the two powers of prophecy (nobovvat) and monarchy (saltanat). From the end of the twelfth century onward, this idea of the two powers constitutive of order was developed into a type of political theory that is called “Islamic royalism” in this essay. Islamic royalism came to represent the constitutional organization of Muslim polities after the Mongol overthrow of the Abbasid caliphate.