Erwin I. J. Rosenthal – författare

This book deals with more than political philosophy in medieval Islam. The Islamic community was a religio-political unity, and as a consequence Islamic thought drew no clearcut distinction between what was strictly religious and what was political or legal. This makes it impossible to study its political ideas without delving into its thought in general and the evolution of its institutions and legal systems. This delving Mr. Rosenthal has done well, and by doing so he has produced a book which not only outlines the political philosophy of Islam ... but gives us also an idea of its general thought and the development of its principal institutions. - American Historical Review

Muhammad founded a World-State as well as a faith; as Islam spread from its first centres, Muslim political thinkers had to apply the divinely revealed law of the Prophet to new circumstances. They had to relate new realities of power and authority to the ideal constitution which he had laid down and which his immediate successors had elaborated. Against this background Dr Rosenthal discusses the later Muslim philosophers who were influenced by the political thought of Plato and Aristotle. He shows how Greek thought modified the Islamic and yet was always subordinated to Muslim categories of thought and political needs. Dr Rosenthal thus surveys the chief traditions of Islamic political thought from the eighth to the end of the fifteenth centuries. He emphasises the basic unity given by the shared faith of the writers, without diminishing the individuality of each. Orientalists will welcome the book; so will historians of the medieval West, for it shows them the religious, political and intellectual positions underlying the expansion of Islam.