Al-Ahkam As-Sultaniyyah is both the single most comprehensive account of the workings of Islamic governance and equally a highly influential theoretical outline of the nature of that governance. It is also as if it were a snapshot of the inner workings of Abbasid power at its height. Woven throughout it are accounts of the first community of Islam and the judgements of the early scholars of the salaf which are the book’s lifeblood and its light.