This chapter shows how the judicial reforms of Governor Warren Hastings in 1772 attempted to recentre sovereign authority in the British settlement of Calcutta byco-opting and recasting late Mughal venues and practices of petitioning and dispute resolution. It explores how Hastings attempted to found the Company's legal system, not just on 'religious' forms of Muslim and Hindu law, but on Mughal practices of revenue administration. Even after 1772, the chief revenue office in Calcutta (khalisa sharifa or ‘khalsa’) – retained an important role as a site for investigating disputes over land and revenues, and for discovering a new form of ‘civil law’ based on the Company’s interpretations of late Mughal precedents.

This chapter surveys the rise of the Abbasid family as a branch of the Prophet's Hashimite clan, and the background of discontent against the Umayyads. After focusing on the Abbasid revolution in Khurasan-Transoxiana (747-750), the chapter surveys the consolidation of Abbasid rule under the caliph al-Mansur, and the establishment of a new capital at Baghdad in 762. The transition to the reign of al-Mahdi shows the first signs of Abbasid bureaucracy with the Barmakid ministers, and the emergence of an Islamic ideology, with an emphasis on patronizing the 'ulama and supporting the pilgrimage to Mecca.