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  • 4 - LAW AND JUSTICE

  • from PART VIII - ISLAMIC SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION
  • Edited by P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Islam
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    21 April 1977, pp 539-568

  • Summary

    The sacred law of Islam, the Sharia, occupies a central place in Muslim society, and its history runs parallel with the history of Islamic civilization. Islamic law had its roots in pre-Islamic Arab society. Muhammad began his public activity in Mecca as a religious reformer, and in Medina he became the ruler and lawgiver of a new society on a religious basis, a society which was meant, and at once began, to replace and supersede Arabian tribal society. Muhammad's legislation, too, was a complete innovation in the law of Arabia. At an early period, the ancient Arab idea sunna, precedent or normative custom, reasserted itself in Islam. The Safavids supervision of the religious institution was more thorough than had been that of the preceding Sunni rulers, and by the second half of the eleventh/seventeenth century the subordination of the religious institution to the political was officially recognized.