Abstract: What is the role of Islamic law in literature and, reflexively, the role of literature in Islamic law? We set about to answer this intriguing question, often asked in other interpretive communities of law and literature, with reference to one of the most acclaimed storytellers in early Islamic history.¹ Abū ʿAlī al-Muḥassin al-Tanūkhī (d. 384/994) was a scholar of Arabic-Islamic literature who doubled as a judge, and had something to say about both law and literature, though not necessarily in ways one might expect. His were not stories about the literary themes of law. They were not like dramatizations of