Maulana Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi on Law, Politics, and Government, in Islam

Abstract

This paper is an precis of an unfinished early draft, written mainly in 1945-1946, of the seventh and final volume of Shibli Nu‘mani’s Life of the Holy Prophet (Siratunnabi, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), in Urdu, that was completed by Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi and published posthumously. The volume, entitled Transactions (or Dealings, mu‘amalat), was to have been a comprehensive work on civil law, in Sayyid Sulaiman’s expanded conception of the traditional field of the Islamic law of transactions. In view of its published content, however, later editions have also been titled, Foundations and Principles of Islam’s Political Order. This precis is roughly one-tenth of the length of the original (in English translation, under preparation), which it follows closely. It is analytical because it summarizes the logic of the argument, leaving out the rich textual evidence with which the argument is supported in the original, which in many ways is its far more valuable part.