Recent discussions regarding the Islamic state and modernity unfold predominantly along two strands; the first emphasizes the difficulty of transplanting the classical Islamic model of governance and legal derivation into modern state structures, while the second highlights ways in which the classical Islamic mode of governance can be seen as promoting the same ideals of modern nation states. Both avenues of inquiry remain important and acknowledge that the presence of an Islamic state remains a political possibility as well as a religious ideal in the minds of many. My paper, while broadly engaging with these issues, steps back to analyze the one argument for the absence of the Islamic state which was put forward by the classical jurist and theologian Abū Maʿalī al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085). In one of al-Juwaynī’s works, al-Ghiyāth al-Umam, he hypothesizes about a weak Islamic state which eventually collapses to leave individuals without formal government. With the absence of formal government, al-Juwaynī argues that individuals will continue to live orderly and meaningful lives around Sharīʿa norms which have become imbricated within society to the extent that individuals are naturally governed by them. In this state, while government is absent, the Sharīʿa is able to still provide mechanisms of governance that support society. Though this is by no means a political or legal ideal for al-Juwaynī, it presents an alternative mode of understanding the Sharīʿa and governance which is removed from the realm of formal government and highlights the roles of custom, continuous practice of the Sharīʿa and a notion of ijtihād which evolves to the contours of legal knowledge present in any given moment.