HEBRAIC POLITICAL STUDIES, VOL. 4, NO. 4 (FALL 2009), PP. 415–440, © 2009 SHALEM PRESS. Anver M. Emon To Most Likely Know the Law: Objectivity, Authority, and Interpretation in Islamic Law Abstract: his article addresses the implications of interpretation on objectivity and authority in Islamic law. Premodern Muslim jurists developed a jurisprudence that acknowledged the inevitability of interpreting in the law. heir jurisprudence concen- trated on how to legitimate interpretive agency and ofer standards of evaluation for a legal system whose ultimate authority rests on a theological commitment to God as sovereign. he issues of objectivity and authority in the law are hardly unique to the Islamic legal tradition. Indeed, if there is a distinct contribution that this study ofers, in addition to expli- cating the various Islamic legal theories, it is that however a legal system’s sovereign is understood, similar questions about objectivity and authority will arise in legal systems. Whether the sovereign is God or the state, the issue of interpretation remains of central concern. 1. Introduction In his dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago, U.S. Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter emphasized the importance of limiting the court’s extent of inquiry by a curious and perhaps now infamous reference to a stereotype of the Muslim judge. He said: “ his is a court of review, not a tribunal unbounded by rules. We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing jus- tice according to considerations of individual expediency.” 1 For scholars of Islamic law and jurisprudence, Justice Frankfurter’s comments raise, through a stark if not racist and bigoted image, fundamental questions 1 Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, at 11; 69 S.Ct. 894, 899 (1949).