In this excerpt from his manual on judicial practice, Khaṣṣāf describes the appropriate etiquette that the qāḍīmust observe when undertaking his judicial activities. Khaṣṣāf describes the qāḍī’s preliminary rituals, the location of the parties within the courtroom, and the handling of the archive containing files pertaining to the day’s cases.In her chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Nahed Samour uses this passage to provide a spatial description of a court’s setting in a mosque, confirming the presence of jurist-advisors next to the judge.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.