The Shi'ite orthodoxy, represented by the Usuli trend, introduced a new institution, i.e. marja'-i taqlid, in the middle of the thirteenth/nineteenth century when the struggle for the authority of the Imam was heightened by the representatives of speculative thought in Shi'ism. This institution combined the status of the most learned mujtahid with the charisma derived from the vicegerency of the Imam of the Age without committing itself to miraculous performances or directly jeopardizing the ruling establishments. The Usuli orthodoxy successfully fought the Akhbaris' detachment from the formal bases of argumentation on the one hand and the direct pretension to the authority of the Imam by the Sufis and Shaykhis on the other hand. The Usulis not only placed the marja'-i taqlid at the head of the Shi'ite learned hierarchy, but gave his pronouncements as of binding authority for the community. Marja'-i taqlid benefitted from the growth of popular religion among post-Safavid Iranians whose religious alms and charities guaranteed the financial independence of the supreme mujtahids. Marja'-i taqlid played important roles in the socio-political development of the Shi'ite people of Iran and Iraq either by legitimizing their constitutional and reformist movements or opposing colonialist and Westernizationist processes. However, in practice, the institution of marja'iyat escaped any attempts to embed the institution into the constitutional system or into any formal structure of juristic hierarchy.

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This thesis is an attempt to interpret the conception of authority that was predominant among the Central and Northern Arabs at the time immediately preceding the rise of Islam. Since that conception was not explicitly formulated, we have analyzed the role and influence of the different political and religious functionaries as well as the reactions of their "subjects" to their commands in order to discover the basis of legitimacy for that authority. As there exists an essential relationship between authority and society, we have presented the social and economic organization and the ideal values of the pre-Islamic Arabs which might have influenced their conception of authority. That is why we discuss the Bedouin and the urban settlements separately. As a possible origin and justification of authority, we discuss its connection with religion, in particular, whether in pre-Islamic times there ever existed a theocratic rulership. [...]

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Text in English and Arabic / In pre-colonial Africa, the Southwestern Sahara which includes Mauritania, Mali and Senegal belonged to what was then referred to as the Sudan and extended from the Atlantic seaboard to the Red Sea. The advent of Islam and the Arabic language to West Africa in the 11th century heralded an intellectual marathon whose literary output still fascinates us today. At a time when Europe was emerging from the dark ages and Africa was for most Europeans a terra incognita, indigenous African scholars were composing treatises as diverse as mathematics, agriculture and the Islamic sciences. A twentieth century Mauritanian, Arabic monograph, Irshād al- Muqallidīn ʿinda ikhtilāf al-Mujtahidīn1, written circa 1910/1332, by a yet unknown Mauritanian jurist of the Mālikī School, Bāba bin al-Shaykh Sīdī al- Shinqīṭī al-Ntishā-ī (d.1920/1342), a member of the muchacclaimed Shinqīṭī fraternity of scholars, is a fine example of African literary accomplishment. This manuscript hereinafter referred to as the Irshād, is written within the legal framework of Islamic jurisprudence (usūl al-fiqh). A science that relies for the most part on the intellectual and interpretive competence of the independent jurist, or mujtahid, in the application of the methodologies employed in the extraction of legal norms from the primary sources of the sharīʿah. The subject matter of the Irshād deals with the question of juristic differences. Juristic differences invariably arise when a mujtahid exercises his academic freedom to clarify or resolve conundrums in the law and to postulate legal norms. Other independent jurists (mujtahidūn) may posit different legal norms because of the exercise of their individual interpretive skills. These differences, when they are deemed juristically irreconcilable, are called ikhtilāfāt (pl. of ikhtilāf). The author of the Irshād explores a corollary of the ikhtilāf narrative and posits the hypothesis that there ought not to be ikhtilāf in the sharīʿah. The proposed research will comprise an annotated translation of the monograph followed by a synopsis and commentary on its dominant themes. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Islamic Studies)