Jurisprudence and authority in the dilemma of overcoming An analytical analysis of the message “On Working with the Sultan” by Sayyid Al-Murtada (d. 436 AH)

Abstract

This research analyzes the terrain of religious heritage in one of its sensitive formulations. In the structure and engineering of the jurisprudential mind, the jurist remained hemmed in between two oppressive and tense poles: the authority of the text and the authority of the state. The text was not merely a metaphysical reference, but rather a foundational architecture for reason, while the state, through its intermingling with religion, imposed its rhythm on interpretation and the re-establishment of meaning. When the two authorities merged, the text lost its innocence and became a document of justification, and the jurist became a scribe in the sultan's court, not a questioner of meaning, but rather an author of a fatwa that legitimized dominance and framed obedience.

Under the Buyid state—a disputed sectarian identity—critical events took shape in the history of Imami jurisprudence, leading to friction between the jurist and the sultan outside the era of occultation. Sayyid al-Murtada (known as 'Alam al-Huda), as one of the managers of sanctification affairs, did not confer legitimacy on the rule. Rather, he established the position of the jurist as a critical mediator, negotiating with authority without identifying with it. His treatise "On Working with the Sultan" should not be read as a justification, but rather as a positioning: neither guardianship nor isolation, but rather a rational adaptation to the times. Here, the jurist was an internal critic, not a follower, monitoring the distance between Islamic law and the state, not to reduce or isolate it, but to maintain its creative tension. This was a space for a non-sultanic jurisprudential political vision, fragile and complex, yet a project for both demarcation and participation.