26 The Messenger of God reported that the Qurʾan contains accounts of past and future generations, wisdom, guidance, decisive pronouncements, and legal rulings. In addition, God called the Qurʾan wisdom, an explanation, guidance, and a cure. The Messenger of God reported that if anyone seeks guidance in any other source besides it, God will lead him astray. How can these ignorant people claim that God chose to impose as faith on his people something which He did not reveal in His Book and which He did not convey through His Messenger? This being the case, how could God impose such a thing on creation, and who could teach it to them, when such knowledge is not to be found in the Book of God, nor has it come down to us in the utterances of His Messenger?
27 The Messenger taught only what God taught him, and followed only that which came to him from God. God said, «Say: I follow only that which is inspired in me from my Lord»68 and «He taught you that which you did not know. God’s bounty toward you has been immense.»69 The angels addressed God: «Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are indeed the Knowing and Wise!»70 By claiming that they derive rulings concerning lawful and unlawful things which are not found in the Book of God or the Practice of the Messenger of God, these ignorant people have asserted for themselves a status above that of the prophets and the angels. They have turned away from the command of God, contradicted His Book, and claimed to reveal legal rulings just as God did, insolently affronting Him, looking with contempt on His religion, arrogantly defying His chosen wards,71 disdaining to refer what they do not know to those to whom He commanded them to refer, and declining to consult the People of Knowledge among His worshipers whom He commanded them to consult.72 So they instead referred that about which they were ignorant to themselves and consulted themselves regarding what they did not know, rejecting and violating the word of God.
THE METHOD OF THE ADHERENTS OF THE TRUTH WHEN THE CORRECT RULING ON AN ISSUE IS NOT KNOWN
28 The firmest evidence on which I rely in this chapter and the soundest argument I cite for the point I have undertaken to prove in this book, after the Book of God and the Practice of His Prophet Muḥammad, is what the Imam al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, the Commander of the Faithful, God’s blessings upon him and his pure forefathers, the upright guides, entrusted to me in a letter of appointment which he wrote to confer upon me the office of judge. I have seen fit to record the text of this document in this book because it provides proof of the point I set out to make in it and because it is extremely instructive and profound in meaning. Moreover, it is among those writings which he, God’s blessings upon him, undertook to compose himself, and I am not aware that any such letter exists among earlier letters of appointment to the judiciary. I have also seen fit, in addition to presenting the proof it contains for the arguments of this chapter, to perpetuate his eternal remembrance in this book, and in doing so I also gain perpetual remembrance and eternal honor through the praiseworthy qualities that the chosen Ward of God attributed to me therein. This is the verbatim text of the decree:
29 In the name of God, the Merciful and the Beneficent
This is a decree from the servant and Ward of God, Maʿadd Abū Tamīm al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, the Commander of the Faithful, to the judge al- Nuʿmān ibn Muḥammad.
30 The Commander of the Faithful, because God has selected him for the lofty position of the caliphate and the exalted station of the Imamate, made him a shining lamp on His earth by which people might be guided and by whose light the path might be illuminated, and set him up as a landmark for His creation who might uphold His right, plant firmly the pillars of faith, confirm the covenants of Islam, and clarify the laws of his forefather Muḥammad the Messenger of God, has seen fit to exalt the status of the judiciary to the extent that God did so and to set forth the status of those whom he has appointed to it and considered qualified therefor, according to their entitlement on account of their piety, good administration, and freedom from corruption, so that whoever among them behaves properly and engages in sensible conduct, who is grateful for the favors he has received from his Lord, God, and from the Commander of the Faithful, his Imam, may increase in good behavior, and he who strives to do what will result in praise and recognition may yet increase his efforts. May God grant the Commander of the Faithful success, guide him aright, help him, and support him.
31 The Commander of the Faithful, having observed your piety, religiosity, trustworthiness, freedom from corruption, and praiseworthy conduct, hereby entrusts to you sole responsibility for judicial matters in al-Manṣūrīyah and its attached districts. He grants you absolute authority to examine the cases of those who submit grievances to you among the inhabitants of the cities where judges and magistrates are found as well as in all other regions and authorizes you to dispense justice against those for whom it is required and render rights to those who deserve them. Upon witnessing your sincere commitment to and devoted pursuit of the truth in your rulings, the admirable traits that trials have revealed of you, the mettle that tests have proven in you, and the noble deeds that you have performed for the cause of justice, he has deemed it proper to confirm, buttress, strengthen, reinforce, and augment your appointment in a public decree issued to you to that effect. He does this so that the hopes of plaintiffs before you might be raised, those against whom your sentences are to be carried out might remain in awe, and the hopes of those who would contravene justice by shunning your court and resorting to other judges might be dashed.
32 Let your command be enforced and your verdict be carried out for all those who raise grievances to you or against whom grievances are raised before you among all inhabitants of the territories of the Commander of the Faithful and the entire population of his provinces, both those near to him and those far from him. Let none of the judges of al-Mahdiyyah and al-Qayrawān overstep his bounds to hear the suit of any inhabitant of the surrounding rural districts, since the Commander of the Faithful had granted absolute authority to each judge in those two cities to hear cases in the city where he is located and the immediate environs, but not the right to transgress that to hear cases from areas outside th0se two, for he granted authority to other judges to hear cases from the outlying regions of their cities. Let none of them appoint a judge or trustee in any of the districts where there are no judges, and let none of them have jurisdiction over members of the entourage of the Commander of the Faithful, the various classes of his slaves, or the army stationed in his presence, but let the jurisdiction in all of this be yours, entrusted entirely to you without restriction. None of the other judges may contest you in this, and if one of the parties to a suit brings his case to you, and the other to another judge besides you, then the one who has brought suit before a judge other than you must bring the case with his opponent before you, willingly or otherwise.
33 Know that this is the considered opinion and command of the Commander of the Faithful: Submit and follow it, preface your commands and exhortations with it, and read the decree of the Commander of the Faithful on the pulpit, so that it might be disseminated among the populace and become generally known among the townsfolk and the inhabitants of rural regions, near and far. Proceed according to the charge the Commander of the Faithful has entrusted to you, continuing to dispense and uphold justice as God enabled you and guided you aright therein in the past, and imposing the canonical punishments on those who deserve them, treating the tyrannical with severity, championing what is right, supporting the oppressed, helping the forlorn, fortifying the weak, drawing in your rulings and judgments on the Book of God, «which invalidity cannot approach, either from before or from behind—a Revelation from One Wise and Praiseworthy.»73 For in it God explained His permitted and forbidden things, clarified His