Siyasa (سياسة) is an Arabic term associated with political authority. In pre-modern Islamic literature it was used to refer to statecraft and management of the affairs of the state. This usage has given rise to the sense of "politics" that the word has in modern Arabic. In classical Islamic works of Greek-influenced political theory, such as

al-Farabi Abu Nasr Muhammad Al-Farabi ( fa, ابونصر محمد فارابی), ( ar, أبو نصر محمد الفارابي), known in the Western world, West as Alpharabius; (c. 872 – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951)PDF version was a reno ...

's ''al-Siyasa al-Madaniyya'', the term refers to a branch of philosophy that studies the art of managing a polity. In Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (''

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...

''), the term appears in the phrase ''siyasa shar'iyya'', which literally means governance according to

sharia Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...

. The phrase refers to the doctrine, sometimes called the political dimension of Islamic law, which was elaborated in the late medieval period in an attempt to harmonize Islamic law with the practical demands of statecraft. The doctrine emphasized the religious purpose of political authority and advocated non-formalist application of Islamic law if required by expedience and utilitarian considerations. It first emerged in response to the difficulties raised by the strict procedural requirements of Islamic law, which rejected circumstantial evidence and insisted on witness testimony, making criminal convictions difficult to obtain in courts presided over by ''

qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...

s'' (sharia judges). In response, Islamic jurists permitted greater procedural latitude in limited circumstances, such as adjudicating grievances against state officials in the ''

mazalim ''Al-maẓālim'' (injustices, grievances) were an ancient pre-Islamic institution that was adopted by the Abbasids in the eighth century CE. The main purpose of the ''mazalim'' courts was to give ordinary people redress. ''Mazalim'', or the sulta ...

'' courts administered by the ruler's council and application of "corrective" discretionary punishments for petty offenses. However, under the

Mamluk sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16th ...

, non-qadi courts expanded their jurisdiction to commercial and family law, running in parallel with sharia courts and dispensing with some formalities prescribed by fiqh. Further developments of the doctrine attempted to resolve this tension between statecraft and jurisprudence. In later times it has been employed to justify legal changes made by the state in view of

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...

, as long as they are not contrary to sharia. It was invoked by Ottoman rulers to promulgate a body of administrative, criminal, and economic laws known as '' qanun''.

References

Islamic terminology Arabic words and phrases in Sharia {{Islam-stub