[3][4] He is considered to be an eminent scholar of his time who wrote on numerous subjects, including Qur'anic interpretations, religion, government, public and constitutional law, language, ethics and belles-lettres.
There, he pursued his education in Hadith and Fiqh and joined the renowned Abu Hamid al-Isfarayini's halaqah (study circle).
[9] Between the late tenth and mid-eleventh centuries, when al-Mawardi lived, the Muslim political landscape was marked by instability and collapse.
The monarch al-Qadir assembled four legal scholars from the four schools of jurisprudence in 429 Hijriyah to create summaries in order to address the troubling and chaotic periods.
Al-Mawardi was one of them; he was assigned to represent the Shafi'i school and authored the book al-Iqna, while al-Quduri wrote the famous al-Mukhtasar on behalf of the Hanafites.
The title of Malik al-Muluk al-A'zam was earlier granted to Jalal al-Dawla, the Buwaihid ruler, by the same jurists, thus al-Mawardi ignored these objections and kept the position until his death in 450/1058.
He played a vital role in restoring Muslim unity by negotiating with the Buyid emirs and Seljuk sultans.
[6] Al-Mawardi lived during the Islamic Golden Age, a period of intellectual and cultural flourishing, but also within the decline of the Abbasid caliphate.
He lived in a time signalled by a period of progressive deterioration of social and political disintegration that finally led to the fall of the Abbasid dynasty in 1258.
Additionally, their way of thinking was influenced by the Mu'tazilah, a rationalistic religious movement, and the rising Shi'ism ideology that the Abbasid dynasty's rulers from the Buwayhid group accepted.
These books discuss the principles of political science with special reference and ministers, relationships between the populace and the administration, as well as calculations to strengthen the government and secure a victory in conflict.
[4] The first Islamic jurisprudence work devoted solely to political application and governance was his book Al-Ahkām As-Ṣulṭāniyyah.
He was in favour of a strong government and spoke out against unlimited powers given to the governors which he postulated would create disorder and chaos on the other hand, he has brought forth clear principles for elections of the Caliph rulers and standards of the voters among which the most important achievement of a degree of intellectual capacity and also morality of the character.
Despite having to relocate frequently due to his judicial duties, al-Mawardi persisted in teaching and mentoring his pupils while writing a book.