The First Islamic Legal Theory: Ibn Al-Muqaffa' on Interpretation, Authority, And the Structure of the Law (Essay‪)‬

I. INTRODUCTION Disorder in the law is a recurring concern in legal systems. Premodern Islamic legal systems are no exception, and indeed we find concerns about disorderly jurisprudence expressed even in the formative period of Islamic law, as we shall see below. Commitment to the rule of law is a commitment to orderly jurisprudence, sometimes in the name of orderly governance. But, of course, anything as complex as a legal system is by nature disorderly. Conceptualizing the ordering of a legal system therefore invariably involves an ideological move in which some spheres of the law are imagined as well ordered (whether or not they are) and others portrayed as potentially more fluid. Obviously, the distinction between settled law and law requiring interpretation, reform, and so on, involves questions of epistemology and authority, especially interpretive authority, issues that are closely linked in premodern Islamic legal thought. (1) We find precisely such a distinction, driven by concerns about epistemology and interpretive authority, at the dawn of Islamic legal theory, in the Risala fi-l-sahaba of 'Abdallah Ibn al-Muqaffa' (d. ca. 757). (2)