In this passage from Akhbār quḍāt Miṣr,Wakīʿ (d. 306/918) records reports about a judge making funny comments and ridiculing people in the course of his juridical duties. According to this excerpt, ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī (d. 168/785), a judge in Basra, recited poetry in court and made fun of serious affairs. During an inquiry regarding a particular man, it was revealed that the man loved young boys; the judge reacted by asking: “Is he the knight or the lancer?” On another occasion, al-ʿAnbarī asked a litigant from the tribe of Rabīʿa whether he knew some verses satirizing his tribe. The litigant responded with verses that denigrated the judge’s tribe, prompting the judge to acknowledge that his behavior had not been acceptable. In a further anecdote, al-ʿAnbarī joked about a woman in his court who answered in kind, with the exchange escalating to sexual remarks. However, al-ʿAnbarī’s jokes were not always welcome: according to Wakīʿ, some people complained to the governor about his attitude. In her chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Maribel Fierro uses these anecdotes to highlight people’s overall acceptance of jokes and jesting by judges.
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.