MM’s Reviews > Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment > Status Update

contra Lapidus, the Abbasid-era development of the ulema's authority with the caliph's patronage can't be seen as secularization but rather as a compromise where the ummah maintains political authority thru legal theory whilst the caliph obtains political authority as long as he abides by the ummah (or rather by fiqh)