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Akhbār Miṣr (History of Egypt), a chronicle written by al-Musabbiḥī (d. 420/1030), contains a new literary genre for Islamic criminal justice: criminal reports. Throughout the extant sections of the chronicle covering 414-415/1023-1025, al-Musabbiḥī will narrate in astonishing detail, with a dry and restrained tone, criminal cases that occurred in the Fatimid-era cities of al-Fusṭāṭ and Cairo along with crimes in rural areas. Al-Musabbiḥī’s criminal reports give a unique look on criminal law in action without significant literary embellishments in their portrayal. This criminal report is a rare example of a cold case where a murdered cloth merchant found in the desert is never solved. Such a narrative aptly illustrates the realities of criminal justice where solving some cases was extremely difficult, if not impossible, a fact that holds true today.

The source is edited by W. G. Millward in al-Musabbiḥī, Akhbār Miṣr fī Sanatayn (414-415 H.). Cairo:al-Hayʼah al-Miṣrīyah al- ʻĀmmah lil-Kitāb, 1980. A scan of this criminal case has been made available. 

The first extant investiture letter for a  ṣāḥib al-shurṭa can be found in a compendium of the rasāʼil (government letters) written by the head of the Buyid chancery in Baghdad, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābiʾ (d. 384/994). This letter was written for an official appointed as the ṣāḥib al-shurṭa over the city of Wāsiṭ in Iraq during the reign of the Buyid amir of Iraq, ʿIzz al- Dawla (r. 356-367/967-978). The text gives rare insight not only into the investiture genre for the shurṭa, but also into how his duties were shaped by sectarian conflicts raging in Iraq. 

This invesiture letter along with other rasāʼil were edited by  Iḥsān Dhūnūn al-Thāmirī in Diwān Rasāʾil al-Ṣābiʾ: the Registry of al-Ṣābiʾ Letters. London: Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2017.  A scan of this investiture letter from Volume 1 has been made available. 

The fifth/eleventh al-Aḥkām al-Kubra, represents a new and unique legal genre for Islamic criminal justice. The treatise serves as an early example of nawāzil literature composed in al-Andalus made up of a combination of reports on legal cases coupled with the opinions and judgements of jurists and magistrates associated with it. These nawāzil also include criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the shurṭa. Ibn Sahl (d. 486/1093), a jurist living in Cordoba under the Jahwarids (r. 422– 461/1031–1069) and author of al-Aḥkām al-Kubra discusses actual crimes cases which occurred in Cordoba, and portrays the shurṭa working with jurists to arrive at a judgment. This detailed portrayal of jurists being involved in the realities of criminal justice is a distinctive element of this text. The case presented in this text is a murder of a man, allegedly perpetrated by his family, and the complex social-legal challenges of prosecuting such a case. 

The source is edited by Yaḥya Murād in Abū al-Aṣbagh ʿĪsā b. Sahl, Kitab al-Nawāzil al-aʻlām al-musamma Dīwān al-aḥkām al-kubrál. Cairo: Dār al-Hadith, 2007. Scans of this case have been made available.

Nishwār al-muḥāḍara 

The Nishwār al-muḥāḍara, a compilation of anecdotes, offers literary embellished stories which give insight into the realities of Islamic criminal justice. The fourth/tenth-century Baghdadi historian, judge, official, and litterateur ʿAlī al- Tanūkhī (d. 384/944), who served in the Buyid administration, wrote the Nishwār to explore in a literary manner the social, political, and legal complexities of Muslim societies in Iraq. This story provides a full-length criminal case narrated by the victim of comedic and dire circumstances who becomes falsely arrested for murder. An investigation is conducted to find the real culprits. Besides entertaining the readers, al-Tanūkhī wants to convey to his audience what he found was ideal criminal justice where a shurṭa scribe, the hero of the tale, uncovers the case through ingenuity and good police work without resorting to the torture of an innocent man.   

The source is edited by ʿAbbūd Shāljī in ʿAlī al- Tanūkhī, Nishwār al- muḥāḍarah wa-akhbār al-mudhākarah, 8 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1971. Scans of this story from volume 5 have been made available. 

Among the preserved rasāʼil (letters) of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib (d. 132/ 750), the testament written for the ʿAbdallāh, the son of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwān II (r. 127-132/745–750), serves as one of the most pivotal legal-political treatises for early Islamic legal history. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib was the head of the chancery under Marwān II (r. 127-132/745–750). He elucidated in this testament matters of statecraft, particularly the duties and functions of the ṣāḥib al-shurṭa, the head of the elite military corps.  In this treatise, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd describes the ṣāḥib al-shurṭa as an official who acted as both an elite military commander and magistrate responsible for investigating criminal cases and punishing them in accordance with the judgments of the ruler. 

The source was edited (along with other letters) by the late Iḥsān ʻAbbās in his book, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Yaḥyá al-Kātib, wa-mā Tabaqqá min rasāʼilih wa-rasāʼil Sālim Abī Al-ʻAlāʼ. Amman, Jordan: Dār al-Sharq, 1988, and scans of the few pages dedicated to the shurṭa have been made available. 

The Siyāsat al-Mulūk is a mirror for princes written by an anonymous author sometime in the mid-fourth-tenth century. The author was likely a late Abbasid official in the financial administration who became a high official during the early Buyid era and wrote this treatise for the new rulers. In a chapter on the shurṭa, the text offers the most detailed administration of Islamic criminal justice in the Abbasid and Buyid periods. The author gives recommendations and instructions for the ṣāḥib al-shurṭa (chief criminal magistrate and police chief) based on how he should manage his various subordinates, inspect prisons, and patrol the city along with procedures not mentioned in other texts, such as the use of informants. Scans of the chapter on the shurṭa in this manuscript from Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul have been made available.

This investiture letter was written for a shiḥna (military governor) appointed over the Khorsanian city of Balkh,  found in the Saljūq secretarial compendium of ʿAtabat al-kataba. The  text was written by Muntajab al-Dīn al-Juwaynī  (After d. 552/1157), the head of the Saljūq chancery in Khurasan, and it provides a clearer understanding of criminal justice in the Near East during the sixth/twelfth century. 

The instructions al-Juwayni gives to the shiḥna of Balkh are reminiscent of other administrative texts related to criminal justice, such as Siyāsat al-Mulūk and the Buyid investiture letter for a ṣāḥib al-shurṭa of Wāsiṭ, but it also mentions that the enforcement of criminal law by the shiḥna had an intertwining of both siyāsa (governance) and shariʿa (sacred law).

This source was edited by Muḥammad Qazvīnī and Abbās Iqbāl in  Kitāb-i ʻatabat al-Katabah. Tehran: Shirkat-i Sahāmī-i Chāp, 1950. Scans of this investiture letter have been made available.