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216 SharÊ‘ah Law: An Introduction ×anbali, Ja‘fari and so forth, is testimony to their civilian character away from government control. The official adoption of one or other of these madhhabs by states and constitutions is basically a latent development that featured under the Ottomans. The civilian aspect of these non-governmental associations was so accentuated as to become simultaneously a blessing and a problem, as I have discussed elsewhere. Producing legal opinions to address new and controversial issues was not the prerogative of the state but that of the private scholars who organized themselves in terms of scholastic and doctrinal orientations. The ‘ulamÉ’s real goal was not to pressurize governments, but to provide law and order that enabled the people to exercise their rights under the SharÊ‘ah. Since their legitimacy was grounded in civil society and not in formal governmental institutions, the influence of the ‘ulamÉ’ was moral and therefore beyond the coercive power of the state. Further to illustrate this anti-statist tendency among the ‘ulamÉ’, we may refer to the idea of general consensus (ijmÉ‘), which is the only formula of making binding law known to the SharÊ‘ah, next to the Qur’Én and Sunnah, and it is conspicuously non-statist.28 The Sufi orders embodied yet another powerful civil society movement that has remained influential in almost every period of Islamic history. The Sufi masters were venerated by their followers as spiritual guides and leaders. The tenacity of the master-disciple relationship and associational network of Sufi orders often vested them with considerable influence. Ruling authorities were wary of the Sufi orders because of their autonomy and independent action. Research on sainthood and Sufism in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Morocco, for instance, indicates that they often set limits to the abuse of authority. In their teachings, the Sufi movements emphasized the spiritual essence of the faith far beyond the narrower stipulations of law-based religion and scholarship. Sufism was critical of single-minded attachment to money, power and sacrifice of values in their pursuit and instead emphasized the spiritual impulse of Islam. The reassertion of Sufism in the 1980s, like those of other Islamic orders and associations, also signified renewed interest for collective action independent of both radical fundamentalists and the state. Another important traditional institution of note is that of waqf (pl. awqÉf – charitable endowment). It has often been argued that the rise of civil society in Europe was to a large extent conditioned by economic factors, most importantly the higher income levels and existence of surplus that empowered citizens to create non-governmental