The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c7.69

c7.69

The Muslim jurists had a remarkably practical outlook; whenever they saw an anomaly, they tried to remove it. In order to bring law into accordance with practice, they juggled with the interpretation of the word 'governor'. Māwardī, living in an age when the caliph's power was in decay, recognizes three kinds of governors. The first are the governors with limited powers, the second those with unlimited powers and the third *de facto* independent rulers and monarchs—men who carve out their own dominions—whom he styles 'governors by usurpation'.² It would be difficult, even impossible, to depose these last. Obviously it was practical politics to recognize them, and thus to regularize what was clearly rebellion. This method had the advantage of maintaining appearances, of respecting the feelings of the legalists and utilizing capable men in the interests of Islam by not driving them to extremes. It was, on the other hand, too compromising a method to make the unity of Dār-u'l-Islām a political reality. It was a cloak which only imperfectly covered the nakedness of the caliph's weakness. It, however, kept alive the idea of the unity of Islam.