Islamic Law

SLAVERY AT A CROSSROADS: STATE, RELIGION, RACE AND LAW IN MUSLIM WEST AFRICA

by Chris Gratien

DRAFT ONLY

This paper examines one of the earliest intellectual works to directly address the intersecting issues of race and... more This paper examines one of the earliest intellectual works to directly address the intersecting issues of race and slavery that emerged with the rise of a global capitalist economy based on slave labor and the plantation system that took root in the early modern Atlantic. I examine the works of a Muslim scholar, Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti, who himself was enslaved, and I examine his use of scholarly traditions and innovative thoughts on the origins of race by Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldoun to author a resounding critique of not just race-based slavery but the entire practice of enslavement as he experienced it in the realms of the Moroccan caliphate of Ahmad al-Mansur.

The Craft of Fatwa: A Window into Contemporary Islamic Juristic Thought

by David Drennan

Law has long been studied as a social and cultural force and we can discover the socio-political concerns of jurists... more Law has long been studied as a social and cultural force and we can discover the socio-political concerns of jurists and lawyers through linguistic analysis of their texts. This attentiveness to ‘linguistic practice’ is common in studying Western law through the ‘law and literature’ movement; however, it is an underdeveloped area in the study of Islamic juristic literature. Furthermore, little focus has been given to the role of muftis and fatwas in Muslim societies since colonialism and the heralding of ‘modernity’ in the Muslim world.

In this paper I look at the genre of adab al-mufti (juristic etiquette), which is a neglected resource for understanding the relationship between the mufti and his fatwas in the contemporary context. Studying the adab al-mufti genre gives us a further avenue towards understanding the intellectual and institutional changes within the Islamic religious tradition caused in no small part by the onset of colonialism and modernity.

I argue that the concerns of the ulama have demonstrated a fundamental shift in authority, from the ulama being part of an established intellectual and legal system (the madhahib) in Muslim societies, to having persuasive moral authority among individuals and communities only. Furthermore, with the decline of both endowments and the madhāhib as structured institutional authorities in the modern age, the interpretative approach taken by modern scholars tends to be redefined. It is comparative and principle-based, focusing on universal legal maxims and the objectives of the shari'a as interpretive tools rather than strict adherence to their specific madhhab alone. This is seen most clearly in the context of Muslim-minority communities in Western societies, which allows no official institutionalised structure for Muslim authority.

Mazhab In Islamic Economics (Indonesian Language)

by Ali Muhayatsyah

Ada tiga sudut pandang/mazhab atau corak pemikiran dalam mengkaji ilmu Ekonomi Islam. Mazhab tersebut adalah Mazhab... more Ada tiga sudut pandang/mazhab atau corak pemikiran dalam mengkaji ilmu Ekonomi Islam. Mazhab tersebut adalah Mazhab Baqir as-Sadr, Mazhab Mainstream, Mazhab Alternatif Kritis.

Paradigm Of Intergration-Interconection In Islamic Economics (Indonesian Language)

by Ali Muhayatsyah

This paper is presented in the course of Islamic Studies Approach with lecturers Prof. Drs. H. Akh. Minhaji, M.A., Ph.D. At concentrations of Shariah Finance and Banking, Graduate School UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta.

Ide sentral yang membatasi ilmu ekonomi Islam, dan yang menempatkan berbeda dengan ekonomi (neo-klasik) positif,... more Ide sentral yang membatasi ilmu ekonomi Islam, dan yang menempatkan berbeda dengan ekonomi (neo-klasik) positif, adalah desakan untuk memasukkan secara eksplisit nilai-nilai etik yang didasarkan pada agama dalam suatu framework analisis yang terpadu.

Terkait hal tersebut bahwa ekonomi Islam tidak bisa begitu saja terlepas dari ekonomi konvensional. Paradigma ekonomi konvensional akan tetap berfungsi dalam membentuk paradigma ekonomi Islam dan pelaksanaannya. Teori-teori ekonomi konvensional, baik yang mikro maupun makro, akan tetap terpakai dalam diskursus ekonomi Islam. Dalam melakukan proses islamisasi ekonomi perlu mengambil tiga bentuk pendekatan yang adil terhadap ekonomi konvensional. Adapun pendekatan tersebut adalah: Pendekatan menolak (negation). Pendekatan memadukan (integration). Pendekatan menambah nilai (value addition).

Paradigma integratif-interkonektif secara konseptual memang sangat relevan bagi perkembangan keilmuan islam, di mana dialog antar disiplin ilmu akan semakin memperkuat keilmuan Islam dalam menghadapi tantangan zaman dengan segala kompleksitas yang ada. Dengan kata lain, Islam menjadi budaya masyarakat. Lebih jelasnya, seluruh pihak yang terkait dengan perkembangan ilmu Ekonomi Islam harus mampu menampilkan Ekonomi Islam dengan terbuka sehingga mampu merealisasikan Islam sebagai rahmatan lil ‘alamin.

Review Article: Paradigm of Islamic Studies (Indonesian Language)

by Ali Muhayatsyah

This paper is presented in the course of Islamic Studies Approach with lecturers Prof. Drs. H. Akh. Minhaji, M.A., Ph.D. At concentrations of Shariah Finance and Banking, Graduate School UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta.


Tulisan ini merupakan Review Article dari karya Muhammad Amin Abdullah, Islamic Studies di Perguruan Tinggi Pendekatan Integrasi Interkoneksi, diterbitkan oleh Pustaka Pelajar tahun 2010.

Amin Abdullah melalui buku “Islamic Studies: Pendekatan Integratif-Interkonektif” ini melakukan upaya dekonstruksi... more Amin Abdullah melalui buku “Islamic Studies: Pendekatan Integratif-Interkonektif” ini melakukan upaya dekonstruksi atau merombak ulang untuk kemudian ditata kembali konstruk berpikir masyarakat dalam melihat agama relasinya dengan ilmu pengetahuan. Melalui buku ini, Amin hendak menawarkan paradigma keilmuan “interkoneksitas” yang lebih modest (mampu mengukur kemampuan diri sendiri), humility (rendah hati) dan human (manusiawi). Asumsi dasar yang diusung konsep ini adalah, bahwa untuk memahami kompleksitas fenomena kehidupan yang dihadapi dan dijalani manusia, setiap bangunan keilmuan apapun, baik keilmuan agama (termasuk agama Islam dan agama-agama lainnya), keilmuan sosial, humaniora, kealaman dan sebagainya, tidaklah dibenarkan bersikap single entity (berdiri sendiri). Masing-masing harus saling bertegur sapa antara satu sama lain. Sebab, ketika bangunan-bangunan keilmuan itu saling membelakangi, maka cepat atau lambat akan berubah menjadi narrowmindedness (pola pikir yang amat sempit dan menyempitkan bagi yang lain).

Islamic Values ​​in the Theory of Consumption (Indonesian Language)

by Ali Muhayatsyah

This paper is presented in the course of Islamic Economics: Micro and Macro with lecturers Drs. Munrokhim Misanam, MA.Ec., Ph.D. At concentrations of Shariah Finance and Banking, Graduate School UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta.

Islam menggariskan bahwa tujuan konsumsi bukan semata-mata memenuhi kepuasan terhadap barang (utilitas), namun yang... more Islam menggariskan bahwa tujuan konsumsi bukan semata-mata memenuhi kepuasan terhadap barang (utilitas), namun yang lebih utama adalah sarana untuk mencapai kepuasan sejati yang utuh dan komprehensif yaitu kepuasan dunia dan akhirat. Kepuasan tidak saja dikaitkan dengan kebendaan tetapi juga dengan ruhiyah atau ruhaniyah atau spiritual, bahkan kepuasan terhadap konsumsi suatu benda yang bertentangan dengan nilai-nilai Islam, maka kepuasaan ini harus ditinggalkan. Oleh karena itu konsumen rasional dalam ekonomi Islam adalah konsumen yang dapat memandu perilakunya supaya dapat mencapai kepuasan maksimum sesuai dengan norma-norma Islam yang dapat pula diistilahkan dengan maslahah. Jadi, tujuan konsumen muslim bukanlah memaksimumkan utility, tetapi memaksiumumkan maslahah.

2012. Watching “Sharia Business” At Close Quarter. Verfassungsblog.

by Julie Billaud

A global mega-city with a colonial past like London is the place to study the interaction of Islamic law and the... more A global mega-city with a colonial past like London is the place to study the interaction of Islamic law and the modern world. This is what I am going to do during my three months of research at the Muslim College. Some first impressions:

Saudi imams warn against mixing of sports, politics and protest

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing... more By James M. Dorsey

Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing of sports and politics and protests against autocratic regimes, which, according to some, results from of the mingling of the sexes in sports.

The warnings come against the backdrop of Saudi efforts to shield the Gulf from the wave of popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, renewed focus on the role of militant soccer fans opposing military rule in Egypt and pressure on the kingdom to allow women to compete for the first time in an international tournament during the London Olympics.

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh quoted in the kingdom's Al Watan newspaper warned that the protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war were sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.

Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation. These are the things that are associated with sports that the believers have to be careful with,” Abu Abedallah said.

“So there is nothing wrong with watching and practicing your favourite sport as long as you adhere to the norms. When it comes to the way you dress and the way you behave, where you’re going to be, what are you going to be listening to; are you going to be mingling in crowds you are not supposed to be mingling with? All of those things do matter when you are practicing or you are watching your favourite sport,” the imam said.

The clerics’ statements came as Saudi Arabia prepares for a summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which it hopes to foist closer political and military cooperation on its largely reluctant co-members Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. Bahrain, which last year brutally squashed with Saudi assistance an uprising against its minority Sunni Muslin rulers, is likely to be the only GCC state to fully endorse the notion of a political union.

The statements also come as International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge is under pressure to make good on his pledges earlier this year to stand for gender equality by banning Saudi Arabia from this year’s London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes. A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

With Qatar and Brunei expected to have women athletes for the first time this year in their delegations, Saudi Arabia would be the only country in the world that still refuses to allow women to compete. The kingdom has recently hinted that it would not stand against Saudi women living abroad competing, but would not field athletes from the kingdom itself.

In separate statements, two Saudi religious scholars admonished soccer players that bad behaviour could lead to a ban on public attendance of matches. It was not immediately clear what incidents of bad behaviour they were referring to.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry. The continuation of these bad phenomena which pose a threat to the ethical values of our sons makes the attendance of these matches a hateful thing. This means that going to these matches could become prohibited because what is happening there has a strong negative impact on the society.”

In a statement of his own, Sheikh Abdullah Al Mutlaq, another member of the supreme committee, denounced players for allegedly faking incidents in a bid to get a referee to award a penalty in their team’s favour. “These are acts of deception, which is hated and forbidden in Islam…..the sin becomes worse when the player swears by Allah falsely…players should refrain from such wrong acts as they have become a bad example for the young generation,” Sheikh Al Mutlaq said without reference to specific incidents.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

Light upon Light: Succession in the Shia Ismaili Imamat

by Khalil Andani

Published by IsmailiMail

In Shi‘a Isma‘ili Islam, the succession of the Imamate – including the demise of the predecessor and the enthronement... more In Shi‘a Isma‘ili Islam, the succession of the Imamate – including the demise of the predecessor and the enthronement of his successor – is an event which combines both clarity as well as ambiguity. The face of the succession is clear – this Imam has succeeded thatImam. But the underlying matters are nebulous and in modern times are often subject to speculation: How is the next Imam chosen? Does the Imam-to-be know of his own status beforehand? Was he prepared for his function? Why does the Imamate continue in a single line of male descent? This article, written from a theological perspective, will explore these questions pertaining to the Isma‘ili Imamate and the matter of succession in light of some of the historical sources from the intellectual heritage of Isma‘ilism.

Vivre en prison à l’époque abbasside

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 52 (2009), p. 635-659.

In this article, we investigate the conditions of life in jail under the Abbasids. A comparative study of chronicles,... more In this article, we investigate the conditions of life in jail under the Abbasids. A comparative study of chronicles, biographical dictionaries, adab and legal literature allows a reconstruction of the main features of prison life. We argue that prisoners were supplied with the bare necessities by the prison institution and highly depended on their relatives or on public charity. The degree of promiscuity, hunger and dirtiness was quite similar in the politico-military prisons and in those of qādīs; in the first type of jail it played a major role in the criminals' punishment, in the second one it was part of the pressure put on debtors.

Nous proposons dans cet article d'examiner les conditions de vie dans les prisons à l'époque abbasside. Le croisement des chroniques, des dictionnaires biographiques, de l'adab et de la littérature juridique permet de reconstituer les principales caractéristiques de l'univers carcéral. Il apparaît que les détenus n'étaient entretenus qu'a minima par l'institution carcérale et dépendaient dans une large mesure de leurs familles ou de la charité publique. La promiscuité, la faim et la saleté, d'un degré comparable dans les prisons du pouvoir politico-militaire et dans celles des cadis, contribuait au châtiment des malfaiteurs dans les premières et à la pression exercée sur les débiteurs dans les secondes.

In pursuit of the pagans: Muslim law in the English context

by Prakash Shah

Western and Muslim law. Muslim law is itself a complex, pluralistic amalgam of different legal ‘bricks’, and in the... more Western and Muslim law. Muslim law is itself a complex, pluralistic amalgam of different legal ‘bricks’, and in the context of the struggle for Islam to be acknowledged as a legitimate source of value pluralism in the Western context, the religious aspects of Muslim law, with their doctrinal justifications, are being foregrounded. With the English case as the main focus, I further argue that customs among Muslims are suppressed in this process of ‘shariatisation’. Beyond that, even Muslim doctrines are being placed under the spotlight in various ways. These changes are taking place as a result of Muslims living as nondominant communities in Europe, where they are under the gaze of the dominant culture and are judged to be potential or actual violators of human rights and the rule of law. Relying on Balagangadhara’s (2005) explanation of the ‘dynamic of religion’, I present these processes as an outcome of the collision of two religious cultures, the Islamic and the Western.

Reasons to Ban? The Anti-Burqa Movement in Western Europe

by Prakash Shah

This MMG Working Paper 12-09 (Göttingen: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity) is Co-authored with Ralph Grillo, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Publications include: Pluralism and the Politics of Difference: State, Culture, and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective, Clarendon Press (1998); editor of The Family in Question: Immigrant and Ethnic Minorities in Multicultural Europe, Amsterdam University Press (2008); co-editor of Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity, Ashgate (2009). Ralph Grillo is a member of the Advisory Group of the Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen.

During the 2000s, the dress of Muslim women in Muslim-minority countries in Europe and elsewhere became increasingly a... more During the 2000s, the dress of Muslim women in Muslim-minority countries in Europe and elsewhere became increasingly a matter for debate and, in several instances, the subject of legislation. In France, a ban on the wearing of the headscarf
in places of education (2004) was followed in 2010 by the law criminalizing the wearing of the face-veil (usually but inaccurately referred to as the ‘burqa’) in public space. Other countries have enacted similar legislation. Muslim women’s dress has historically been a controversial matter in Muslim-majority countries, too, most recently in North Africa following the Arab Spring, but the present paper concentrates on the movement against face-veiling in Western Europe, documenting what has been happening and analysing the arguments proposed to justify criminalizing this type of garment. In doing so, the paper explores the implications for our understanding of contemporary (ethnically and religiously) diverse societies and their governance.
Is anti-veiling legislation a protest against what is interpreted as an Islamic practice unacceptable in liberal democracies, a sign of a wider discomfort with non-European otherness, or an expression of an underlying racism articulated in cultural terms?
Whatever the reason, is criminalization an appropriate response? An Appendix notes some topics for further research.

Prostitution, Islamic Law and Ottoman Societies

by James E Baldwin

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55 (2012)

This article examines the treatment of prostitution in several genres of Ottoman legal writing—manuals and... more This article examines the treatment of prostitution in several genres of Ottoman legal writing—manuals and commentaries of Islamic jurisprudence, fatwās (legal opinions) and kānūnnāmes (Sultanic legislation)—and looks at how prostitution was dealt with in practice by the empire's sharīa courts and by its provincial executive authorities. The article uses prostitution as a case study to investigate the relationships between the different genres of legal writing and between normative law and legal practice. It also throws light on various manifestations of prostitution in the Ottoman provinces of Egypt and Syria between the mid-sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries.

The Evolution of Third-Party Mediation in Sharīʿa Courts in 19th- and early 20th-century Central Asia

by Paolo Sartori

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 54/3 (2011): 311-52

While in the Ottoman Empire reconciling disputing parties in sharīʿa courts occurred without the direct involvement of... more While in the Ottoman Empire reconciling disputing parties in sharīʿa courts occurred without the direct involvement of state officials, in modern Central Asia functionaries appointed by the ruler’s chancellery acted as mediators and mediation procedures were consistent with the state’s intervention in the resolution of a conflict. This ended with Russian colonization. Conflict resolution was left to the sharīʿa courts; mediation continued to be important but state appointees were no longer officially involved in bringing it about.The Russian colonial and Soviet administrations made the community responsible for seeking
amicable settlements. Only afterwards did they realize how easy this made it for local groups to circumvent the state’s supervision.

Colonial Legislation Meets Sharīʿa: Muslims' Land Rights In Russian Turkestan

by Paolo Sartori

Central Asian Survey.” Theme issue “The land question in colonial Central Asia,” ed. P. Sartori, 29/1 (March 2010): 43-60

The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact of Russian legislation on the notary activity of sharīʿa courts with... more The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact of Russian legislation on the notary activity of sharīʿa courts with regard to transactions involving landed property. The hypothesis is that incorrect assumptions made by Russian lawmakers as to the 'tradition' of Muslims' land rights caused a substantial loophole in the application of colonial substantive laws. On the one hand, the Russian state attempted to retain land ownership for itself by introducing regulations that formally restricted Muslims' land rights to possession and usufruct; on the other hand, the colonial administration never established regulations that ensured that these laws would be enforced by sharīʿa courts and failed to integrate them into the application of Islamic law. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight how the colonial definition of Muslims' land rights was largely disregarded when the Muslim judiciary notarized transactions on land in accordance with sharīʿa. This will lead to the conclusion that the limited effectiveness of the colonial legislation with regard to land in Turkestan stemmed from the failure to reform Islamic procedural law, a process that would have entailed codifying it.

The Birth of a Custom: Nomads, Sharīa Courts and Established Practices in the Tashkent Province, ca. 1868-19

by Paolo Sartori

Islamic Law and Society, 18/3-4 (2011): 293-326

In colonial Central Asia qāḍīs played a key role in establishing customary legal practices.
In adjudicating... more In colonial Central Asia qāḍīs played a key role in establishing customary legal practices.
In adjudicating claims of horse theft, qāḍīs operating in the Tashkent province under
Russian rule had recourse to customary rules of evidence known in the local Kazakh
communities. If a qāḍī ascertained that an animal was not stolen, but had been
acquired from a third party by a bone fide purchaser, he routinely used a probative
procedure unknown of in the Central Asian judicial manuals of the 19th and early
20th centuries. Based on an examination of sharīʿa court registers from the Tashkent
province, Bukharan shurūṭ works and unpublished archival material, I argue that the
establishment of Russian rule in the region and the introduction of triennial elections
for choosing judges made it necessary for each qāḍī to meet the demands of the
community that had elected him, thereby encouraging him to confer sharʿī legitimacy
on local legal practices.

Il mito del credente perfetto nel pensiero dello sciismo šayḫî

by Gianroberto Scarcia

La versione finale dell'articolo è pubblicata in
P. Pisi e B. Scarcia Amoretti (a cura di), Religione e politica. Mito, autorità, diritto, Roma, Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2008, pp. 118-129

The Qāḍīs of Fusṭāṭ–Miṣr under the Ṭūlūnids and the Ikhshīdids: the Judiciary and Egyptian Autonomy

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Journal of the American Oriental Society, 131 (2011), p. 207-222.

The second half of the third/ninth and the fourth/tenth centuries are of particular importance for the development of... more The second half of the third/ninth and the fourth/tenth centuries are of particular importance for the development of the judiciary in the central lands of the Abbasid caliphate. At the end of the mihna period and the victory of Sunnism under al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-247/847-861), the caliphate agreed not to interfere further within the legal sphere, thus allowing the principal schools of law to complete their development toward their classical structure. In Iraq, thanks to the growing independence of the legal sphere and to the political weakness of the caliphate, the qadis increased their judicial freedom. Meanwhile, the political situation in Egypt was very different. The provincial rulers and two successive dynasties, the Tulunids (254-292/868-905) and the Ikhshidids (323-358/935-969), profited from the weakness of the caliphate, and imposed their autonomy de facto. The role played by the judiciary in this process is still unclear, as is the impact of Egyptian autonomy on the development of the local judiciary. In this paper, I discuss the evolution of the relationship between the Egyptian governors and the judiciary, from the accession of Ahmad b. Tulun in 254/868 until the arrival of the Fatimids in 358/969. Several elements are taken into consideration: (1) The institutional links between political power and the judiciary: Who appointed the qadis? How were they selected? Did the government choose to rely on local scholars or did the qadis come from outside the province? (2) The financial connection between the governors and the qadis, which was not only symbolic of the delegation of power, but could also denote the submission of the judiciary to the government. (3) The daily interactions between the qadis and the governors. (4) The judicial practice of the qadis. (5) Their reputation. I study to what extent the judiciary and its control was a political issue for the Tulunids and the Ikhshidids, and how the efforts of these two dynasties to build an Egyptian autonomy had important consequences on the structure of the legal milieu.

Scribes et enquêteurs. Note sur le personnel judiciaire en Égypte aux quatre premiers siècles de l’hégire

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 54 (2011), p. 370-404.

Résumé : Cet article entreprend dans un premier temps de reconstituer des listes de scribes (kātib-s) et d’enquêteurs... more Résumé : Cet article entreprend dans un premier temps de reconstituer des listes de scribes (kātib-s) et d’enquêteurs judiciaires (ṣāḥib-s al-masā’il-s) actifs à Fusṭāṭ entre le Ier/début VIIIe et le IVe/Xe siècle. L’identification de ces personnages permet, dans un second temps, de mieux comprendre le recrutement du personnel judiciaire égyptien. Leur réputation en tant que savants, ainsi que leur origine ethnique, géographique et tribale, montrent que la carrière judiciaire fut longtemps limitée par des barrières sociales. Jusqu’au IIIe/IXe siècle, les fonctions de scribe revinrent le plus souvent à des mawālī, les plus élevés d’entre eux pouvant éventuellement briguer le poste d’enquêteur, tandis que les cadis étaient arabes. Le cloisonnement de la judicature révèle ainsi une hiérarchie sociale complexe, allant au-delà de la distinction entre Arabes et non-Arabes. Les résultats de cette étude permettent accessoirement de réévaluer l’impact de la révolution abbasside sur la société égyptienne.

Abstract: This article undertakes first a reconstruction of lists of legal scribes (kātibs) and investigators (sāḥibs al-masāʾil) active in Fustāt ̣between the 1st/early 8th and the 4th/10th century. Identification of these people allows a better understanding of the recruitment of Egyptian judiciary staff. Their reputations as scholars, as well as their ethnical, geographical and tribal origins, show that legal careers were limited by social barriers for a long time. Up until the 3rd/9th century, the office of scribe was mostly held by mawālī—high-ranking clients could possibly aspire to the office of investigator—, whereas qāḍīs were recruited among Arabs. The partitioning of the judiciary reveals a complex social hierarchy beyond the mere distinction between Arabs and non-Arabs. The results of this study also allow a re-evaluation of the Abbasid revolution’s impact on Egyptian society.

Guardando verso Sud, a cura di Elisabetta Fazzini e Eleonora Cianci. Ed. Rocco Carabba Lanciano 2009

by Eleonora Cianci

Quaderni del Mediterraneo 2. Collana Diretta da Bernardo Razzotti. Università 'G. d'Annunzio' di Chieti-Pescara, Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere. Atti della Convenzione Internazionale tra l'Università 'G. d'Annunzio' di Chieti-Pescara e l'Université '7 Novembre à Carthage' di Tunisi.