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This article examines the institution of Wilāyat al-Maẓālim, the department of grievance redress, as it developed under the Abbasid Caliphate. Although often mentioned only briefly among the ten departments of the Abbasid dīwān system, the institution played a distinctive role in classical Islamic governance, operating alongside the qāḍī courts to address wrongs that formal judicial procedure could not always reach, particularly those committed by powerful officials against ordinary subjects. Drawing on both the theoretical framework set out largely by al-Māwardī in Al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyyah and a range of recorded case examples from the reigns of al-Manṣūr, al-Mahdī, Hārūn alRashīd, al-Ma’mūn, and al-Muhtadī, the article traces three interrelated dimensions of the institution: its historical formalization under the early Abbasids, its structural composition and jurisdictional boundaries, and the practice of personal caliphal supervision in specific cases of redress. The study argues that the institution's durability rested on its capacity to adapt as caliphal power itself evolved, shifting from a personally exercised prerogative of the caliph to a more delegated institutional function, a flexibility that allowed Wilāyat al-Maẓālim to survive the political fragmentation of the later Abbasid period and to serve as a template for subsequent Muslim dynasties.

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Wilāyat al-Maẓālim, Abbasid Caliphate, Islamic judicial administration, al-Māwardī, grievance redress.

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This study examines the distinctive methodology of Imām al-Shāṭibī in al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿah and argues that, although the work belongs to Uṣūl al-Fiqh, its methodological framework differs fundamentally from the established approaches of the Mutakallimīn and the Fuqahāʾ al-Aḥnāf. Whereas the former emphasized deriving legal principles directly from the nuṣūṣ and the latter relied on istiqrāʾ to formulate universal legal principles, Imām al-Shāṭibī reconstructed the discipline upon the foundation of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah. Although earlier scholars, including Imām al-Ḥaramayn alJuwaynī, Imām al-Ghazālī, and ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, introduced the essential concepts of maqāṣid, al-Shāṭibī was the first to integrate these dispersed discussions into a coherent and comprehensive theoretical framework. He established the relationship between al-kulliyyāt and al-juzʾiyyāt, connected aḥkām, ʿilal, maṣāliḥ, and maqāṣid, and maintained that valid ijtihād requires not only mastery of the nuṣūṣ but also a comprehensive understanding of the objectives of the Sharīʿah. Furthermore, he distinguished between the maqāṣid al-Shāriʿ and the maqāṣid al-mukallaf, identified the principal sources for recognizing maqāṣid, and demonstrated that yusr, rafʿ al-ḥaraj, rukhaṣ, and iʿtidāl constitute integral components of the legal system rather than exceptions to it. The study concludes that al-Muwāfaqāt represents the first systematic exposition of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah and continues to serve as a foundational source for contemporary Islamic legal theory, ijtihād, and fiqh al-maqāṣid.

Keywords

al-Shāṭibī, al-Muwāfaqāt, Ijtihād, Uṣūl al-Fiqh, Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah