Thank you for reading and for your comment. Yes, it’s a certain optimism on the part of Asad. But what makes it interesting are their assumptions about State Law (unspoken)— Rule of Law/Shariah and nations’ sovereignty (nationalism). For Hallaq, Islamic Law was the lens for understanding that rulers in Islam never had sovereignty. God’s will alone was sovereign, interpreted through Divine Law. Asad thought we could get back to the model and social values of the Four Rightly Guided khulafa’, that ‘freedom’/political will of the people could unite people, over the divisions of Fiqhi Law.