Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts

by Intisar A. Rabb (Editor), Abigail Krasner Balbale (Editor)

Overview

This book presents an in-depth exploration of the administration of justice during Islam’s founding period, 632–1250 CE. Inspired by the scholarship of Roy Parviz Mottahedeh and composed in his honor, this volume brings together ten leading scholars of Islamic law to examine the history of early Islamic courts. This approach draws attention to both how and why the courts and the people associated with them functioned in early Islamic societies: When a dispute occurred, what happened in the courts? How did judges conceive of justice and their role in it? When and how did they give attention to politics and procedure?

Each author draws on diverse sources that illuminate a broader and deeper vision of law and society than traditional legal literature alone can provide, including historical chronicles, biographical dictionaries, legal canons, exegetical works, and mirrors for princes. Altogether, the volume offers both a substantive intervention on early Islamic courts and on methods for studying legal history as social history. It illuminates the varied and dynamic legal landscapes stretching across early Islam, and maps new approaches to interdisciplinary legal history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674984219
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	12/25/2017
Series:	Harvard Series in Islamic Law , #7
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Intisar A. Rabb is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a director of its Islamic Legal Studies Program. She also holds appointments as Professor of History at Harvard University and as Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Abigail Krasner Balbale is Assistant Professor, Cultural History of the Islamic World, Bard Graduate Center.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction xi

I Judicial Procedure and Practice During the Founding Period of Islamic Law

Section Introduction William Graham, Harvard University 1

Chapter 1 The Logic of Excluding Testimony in Early Islam Ahmed El Shamsy, University of Chicago 3

Chapter 2 Circumstantial Evidence in the Administration of Islamic Justice Hossein Modarressi, Princeton University 16

Chapter 3 The Curious Case of Bughaybigha, 661-883: Land and Leadership in Early Islamic Societies Intisar A. Rabb, Harvard Law School 23

Chapter 4 A Critique of Adjudication: Formative Moments in Early Islamic Legal History Nahed Samour, University of Helsinki 47

II Concepts of Justice in the 'Abbasid East

Section Introduction Intisar A. Rabb, Harvard Law School Abigail Krasner Balbale, Bard Graduate Center 67

Chapter 5 Words of 'Ajam in the World of Arab: Translation and Translator in Early Islamic Judicial Procedure Mahmood Kooria, Leiden University 71

Chapter 6 The Judge and the judge: The Heavenly and Earthly Court of Justice in Early Islam Christian Lange, Utrecht University 91

Chapter 7 Justice, Judges, and Law in Three Arabic Mirrors for Princes, 8th-11th Centuries Louise Marlow, Wellesley College 109

III Judges and Judicial Practice in the Islamic West

Section Introduction Michael Cook, Princeton University 129

Chapter 8 Joking Judges: A View from the Medieval Islamic West Maribel Fierro, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) 131

Chapter 9 Judicial Procedure and Legal Practice on Li'an (Imprectory Oath) in al-Andalus: Evidence from Model Shurut Collections, 11th-12th Centuries Delfina Serrano, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) 149

Supplement: Reading with Roy: The Scholarly Output of Professor Roy Mottahedeh

Section Introduction Cemal Kafadar, Harvard University 173

List of Publications 178

Tabula Gratulatoria 187

Contributors 200

Bibliography 204

Index 232

Editorial Reviews

This book will be welcomed as a significant contribution toward a better understanding of the development of Islamic law in practice. Students of Islamic law have generally relied on the theoretical and ideal formulations of judicial procedure in manuals and chapters in textbooks that Muslim jurists wrote on dispensing justice. By contrast, this book offers path-breaking studies on Islamic legal practice by exploring biographical literature, local histories, and more, and by critically analyzing judicial contexts. These studies enlighten the reader about close interactions between jurists and judges on the one hand, and between judicial and political authorities, who kept revisiting concepts of the rule of law and of justice as they led the early Muslim societies, on the other.

Judge M. Khalid Masud

This book makes a valuable contribution to the literature. It will be widely used and appreciated by scholars and graduate students with an interest in the historical practice and development of Islamic law.

Marion Katz