Editing Political aspects of Islam (section)

===Sharia and governance (''siyasa'')===
{{Main|Siyasa}}

Starting from the late medieval period, Sunni fiqh elaborated the doctrine of ''siyasa shar'iyya'', which literally means governance according to [[sharia]], and is sometimes called the political dimension of Islamic law. Its goal was to harmonize Islamic law with the practical demands of statecraft.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|author1=Bosworth, C.E.|author2=Netton, I.R. |author3=Vogel, F.E.|title=Siyāsa |year=2012 |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam |edition=2nd|publisher=Brill |editor1=P. Bearman|editor2= Th. Bianquis|editor3= C.E. Bosworth|editor4= E. van Donzel|editor5= W.P. Heinrichs|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1096}}{{subscription required}}</ref> 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. The law rejected circumstantial evidence and insisted on witness testimony, making criminal convictions difficult to obtain in courts presided over by ''[[qadi]]s'' (sharia judges). In response, Islamic jurists permitted greater procedural latitude in limited circumstances, such as adjudicating grievances against state officials in the ''[[mazalim]]'' courts administered by the ruler's council and application of "corrective" [[Tazir|discretionary punishments]] for petty offenses. However, under the [[Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)|Mamluk sultanate]], 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 the doctrine has been employed to justify legal changes made by the state in consideration of [[Maslaha|public interest]], as long as they were deemed not to be contrary to sharia. It was, for example, invoked by the Ottoman rulers who promulgated a body of administrative, criminal, and economic laws known as ''[[Qanun (law)|qanun]]''.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|author=Yossef Rapoport|title=Political Dimension (Siyāsa Sharʿiyya) of Islamic Law|encyclopedia=The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2009|isbn=978-0-19-513405-6|url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195134056.001.0001/acref-9780195134056-e-635|editor=Stanley N. Katz}}{{subscription required}}</ref>