Islamic Monarchy

After the political disintegration of Mongol rule in the fourteenth century, new Muslim Turkic monarchies arose and modeled themselves on the Muslim Mongol example. At first they struggled with the dominant Mongol ideology and styled themselves guardians of the Chinggisid heritage by marrying Chinggisid princesses, using Chinggisid puppets, and upholding Mongol law. Later, Turkic dynasties began to replace Genghis Khan with their own noble ancestors and promoted both their own tribal law codes and their own versions of Mongol-style divine favor. Simultaneously they ruled as Muslim military leaders and made use of the well-established themes of justice and order. Among these was the warlord Timur (Tamerlane, d. 1405), who began as a Genghis Khan imitator but also relied on Islamic models of kingship. Timur's own dynasty ultimately grew to rival that of Genghis Khan and reached a conclusion in the career of Babur (d. 1530), founder of the Mughal Empire in northern India (1526–1858). Babur epitomized the Muslim sovereign but also prided himself on his impeccable lineage: his paternal descent was from Timur, and his maternal descent from Genghis Khan.

A long-term problem for Muslim monarchs of nomadic origin was their tribal laws, which posed a potential challenge to Islamic law (Ar., shari'a). Under the longest-lived Islamic dynasty, the Ottomans (1281–1923), tribal laws coexisted uneasily with Islamic law until Muslim thinkers under Sultan Kanuni Süleyman (Süleyman "the Lawgiver," r. 1520–1566) reconciled the two into a single coherent legal system (Ar. to Ottoman Turk., kanun), which became identified with the Ottoman state in general and the person of Süleyman in particular. Under the Ottomans the Persian and Greek concepts of the ruler as the upholder of justice and order were also linked both to the nomadic idea of the ruler as a lawgiver and to Islamic law itself.