In this excerpt from his biographical dictionary of Egyptian judges, Kindī mentions a scribe (kātib) in describing an event that took place in the year 105–6/724. In his chapter comparing earthly justice with heavenly justice in the early Islamic imagination in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Christian Lange uses this report in the context of a discussion of Q. 50:21 (“Every soul shall come, and with it a driver [sāʾiq] and a witness [shahīd]”). He reports that the term sāʾiqwas interpreted by some as kātib, and he points out that Kindī’s account shows that the kātibwas already an established functionary of the court by the end of the first century of Islam.
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.