Law, governing institutions and administration

The big idea: Every dynasty faces the same problem once it holds power: how do you actually govern millions of people spread over a huge area?

The Abbasid Caliphate (from 750) answered with a tight, centralised bureaucracy based in Baghdad. The Mali Empire (from c.1235) answered by ruling loosely through local rulers who kept much of their own power. Same problem, two very different systems.

In Baghdad, the caliph sat at the top, but day-to-day rule was handled by the vizier and a set of government departments called diwans — one for tax, one for the army, one for the post and messages, and so on.

This meant Abbasid government could reach deep into a province through its own paid officials, rather than relying on whoever already ruled there.

Mali worked differently. The mansa (emperor) ruled a huge, trade-based realm, but he did not send officials to run every corner of it directly.

Instead, the empire mixed two kinds of local rule: appointed governors for the core provinces, and tributary chiefs — local rulers who kept their own thrones as long as they paid tribute and stayed loyal.

Why the difference makes sense: The Abbasids ruled dense, settled farmland and cities they could tax directly, so a full bureaucracy paid for itself.

Mali's power rested on trade, not on tightly farming one heartland — so it made more sense to rule loosely and simply keep the gold and salt caravans, and the tribute, flowing.

Whose law applied?: The Abbasid Caliphate ruled in the name of Islam, so its main legal system was sharia.

But sharia alone could not cover every dispute in a vast empire — so the Abbasids built a second, separate channel of justice alongside it.

Ordinary religious and civil cases — marriage, inheritance, contracts, debts — went to a qadi. Qadis were trained scholars of Islamic law, appointed in towns across the empire to hear cases and give rulings based on the Quran and Islamic legal tradition.

This gave the empire a shared, recognisable legal standard that stretched from Baghdad to distant provinces.

That second channel was the mazalim — literally 'complaints' or 'injustices'. It let ordinary subjects appeal directly against a corrupt tax collector or an abusive governor.

Because it was secular in procedure — not bound by strict sharia court rules — the mazalim could move fast and reach powerful men a qadi's court could not easily touch.

Religious law and secular authority, side by side: Sharia (through the qadi) gave the empire religious legitimacy and a shared moral code. The mazalim (backed by the caliph's own authority) gave it a practical safety valve against official abuse.

Running both together let the Abbasids claim to be a just Islamic state while still keeping a firm grip on power.

How this is tested (Paper 2): Examiners reward students who can name both systems and explain why an empire needed two. Don't just say 'they used Islamic law' — explain that sharia (qadi) and secular oversight (mazalim) solved different problems.

Law needs people to run it: A legal system is only as good as the people administering it. Both empires depended on trained officials and elite families to interpret law and keep order — but who those people were, and how they were trained, differed sharply.

In the Abbasid Caliphate, qadis were scholars first — men trained for years in Islamic law and the Quran before being appointed to a court. The vizier oversaw the wider bureaucracy, and a wali governed each province, backed by tax officials and army officers who answered to Baghdad.

This created a class of professional, appointed administrators whose authority came from training and appointment, not birth.

Mali had no equivalent qadi-and-diwan bureaucracy reaching into every village. Instead, the empire leaned on its Farba (also called Farin) — usually a trusted general or courtier sent from the centre — and on Mali's nobility and elite families.

Those noble families were not just wealthy landowners: they supplied military commanders, court officials and provincial advisers, forming the working layer of government between the mansa and the tributary chiefs.

Who kept the customary law alive?: In Mali, everyday customary law — covering land, marriage and inheritance for most ordinary people — was not written down. It was preserved and applied by community elders and by griots, who memorised and recited it across generations.

So alongside the Farba and the nobility, the griots were a kind of unofficial legal memory for the whole empire.

The comparison examiners want: Both empires relied on a layer of trusted people between the ruler and the ordinary subject. The Abbasids trained and appointed theirs (qadi, wali); Mali largely relied on loyalty, clan status and oral tradition (Farba, nobility, griots). Use this contrast to argue how each empire balanced central control against practical limits on its reach.