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In 1661, King Charles II of Britain expanded the jurisdiction of the British East India Company to “exercise power and command over its fortresses.” This meant that the Company, beyond having legal jurisdiction, began to function as the de-facto rulers of Company controlled areas in India.

Ṣubḥ al-`a’shā fī sinā’at al-inshā is a late medieval chancery educational book, intending to educate aspiring Mamlūk officials. The text contains several examples of correspondences and contracts that Qalqashandī finds exemplary.  This particular text renders a Sultanic decree of appointment to a Ḥanbalī judge, and outlines various points that the Sultan expects the judge to adjudicate according to his school’s rulings.

Al-Mughnī is a commentary on al-Khiraqī's (d.945) Mukhtaṣar, a treatise on Ḥanbalī law. The excerpt in question deals with the question of sharecropping, where ibn Qudāma explain's his madhhab's position and defends it against potential detractors. 

Majmū’ al-fatāwā is a collection of the various fatwās the Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya gave during his lifetime. The two fatwās in this document answer questions regarding the legality of sharecropping. Ibn Taymiyyah provides an extended explanation of his legal school's position, citing both textual and analogical sources.

A translation of the Arabic Majallat al-Ahkam al-A'dlīyyah. This is a book on the principles of rules and regulations according to Muslim jurists under the Ottoman Empire. 

A book on the principles of rules and regulations, according to Muslim jurists under the Ottoman Empire. 

An excerpt from the book al-Muqni' fī 'ilm al-Shurūt, this section details the legality on issues of marriage, paternity, and children. 

An excerpt from the book al-Maqsad al-Mahmūd fī Talhīs al-'Uqūd, this section details the legality on issues pertaining to marriage, paternity, and children. 

Following the loss of the last Muslim-controlled territory in Spain in 1491, remaining Muslims came under significant pressure to accept baptism and adopt Christian customs. In response to this situation, a North African mufti, believed to be Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah al-Maghrawi al-Wahrani, wrote the Oran Fatwa in 1504. The fatwa lauds Muslims in Spain for continuing to practice their religion in the face of oppression. It also specifies ways in which Muslims may alter the ways they carry out the commands of Islam in order to ensure their survival.

In his treatise on Shāfiʿī law titled al-Muḥarrar, Rāfiʿī seeks to restate Shāfiʿī rulings in summary form. In this excerpt, he reviews and summarizes the opinions that he presented in his earlier work al-ʿAzīz (a commentary on Ghazālī’s legal treatise)on the issue of translation in early Islamic courts and presents a brief outline of requirements that must be met for a court translator to be acceptable: impartiality, independence, and observance of religious constraints (taklīf) and of regulations concerning the number of witnesses (ʿadad). In his chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Mahmood Kooria uses this text, alongside Rāfiʿī’s ʿAzīz, to demonstrate a break in the Shāfiʿī conception of the status of non-Arabic speakers and translation in judicial proceedings, especially among Shāfiʿīs hailing from Persia.

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 sources and other material used in and related to the book.

In this excerpt of his compendium of law-related ḥadīth reports, al-Ṣanʿānī (d.211/827) relays prophetic sources on various topics, among them an ambiguous ḥadīth on the criterion for witness eligibility, which states that, “No community may testify against another, except the community of Muḥammad.” Ahmed El Shamsy notes in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts that this verse is legally ambiguous. Later authorities debate its correct interpretation. While it is widely agreed that non-Muslims are ineligible to serve as witnesses against Muslims, some argue that in certain circumstances a scripturalist (generally defined as Jews and Christians) might testify against another scripturalist. Notably, Ṣanʿānī is the only source which transmits this ḥadīth, and it is not included in the work of his contemporary Ibn Abī Shayba.

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.  

Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798) records a statement attributed to the Caliph ʿUmar I (d. 23/644) on the legal standing of non-Muslims which considers "all of unbelief" to be a single community in contradistinction to the community of Muslim believers and concludes that “neither do we inherit from them, nor they from us.” In this respect, non-Muslim and Muslim communities operate under separate legal statuses. Abū Yūsuf also relates in the same text the noteworthy opinion of Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī (d. 96/715), an Iraqi jurist and forebearer of the Hanafī school, regarding non-Muslim testimony.  Nakhaʿī opined that the verse of Q. 65:2 functioned to proscribe non-Muslim testimony and could be understood to abrogate the allowance of non-Muslim testimony in verse 5:106. Ibrāhīm’s opinion differed from that of Companion Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī (d. between 42/662 and 53/673), among others, who had relied on the Quranic verse 5:106 to specifically permit non-Muslims testimony to record the last will of a Muslim traveler who dies away from home. Ḥammād b. Salama (d. 167/784) distinguished all non-Muslims as one community discrete from Muslims in his argument that non-Muslims were permitted to testify against any other non-Muslims, regardless of confessional lines. Ahmed El Shamsy notes the legal premise of non-Muslims' and Muslims' separate legal status in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts.

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book. 

Al-Jāmiʿ is an addendum to ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī’s Muṣannaf—a collection of Hadith that bring attention to the theme of enmity between Muslims. He relates an account in which Caliph ʿUmar I (d. 23/644) reacts negatively when the spoils of a conquered territory are brought before him because of his fear that “when such opulence besets a people, God casts enmity and hatred in their midst!” This quote reveals the Caliph’s concern about how wealth would exacerbate social tensions among the people. In Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts Ahmed El Shamsy cites this account to provide historical background to the subsequent institution of progressive limitations on the eligibility criterion for serving as a witness, which aimed to address biases that might be introduced into the judiciary from internal rivalries.

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.  

This text documenting the positions of the jurist Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) relays a disagreement he had with the scholar Isḥāq Ibn Rāhawayh (d. 238/853). While Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal had maintained the non-Muslims might only testify regarding the last will of a deceased Muslim, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh upholds the opinion suggested by earlier jurists that non-Muslim scripturalists might testify in Muslim courts so long as they only testify against members of their own faith communities. Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh cites an event in the Prophet Muḥammad’s life as Sunnaic proof for the admissibility of non-Muslim testimony in court. He relays an incident in which Muḥammad apparently accepted the testimony of Jewish individuals against a Jewish couple accused of adultery. Ahmed El Shamsy notes in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts that Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh seems to be one of the only jurists of his day to employ this anecdote to permit non-Muslim testimony.

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.  

In this historical text, Wakīʿ documents the historical feud between Qaysī and Yamanī Arabs which precluded members of each group from testifying against the other in Muslim courts due to concerns of bias. The factional tension also affected political and judicial spheres. For example, Wakīʿ relates that the governor of Basra ʿUqba b. Salm (in office 149–50/766–67) was pressured into releasing an unjustly imprisoned man by the judge Sawār b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Qudāma (in office 138–56/ 755–73). The judge complied with this order because of pressure and instability due to factional political alliances. Given the degree to which Qaysī and Yamanī rivalries influenced the political sphere, it seems understandable that their testimony against each other was not accepted in the courtroom. Ahmed El Shamsy references this source in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts as the first of many historical cases in which progressive restrictions were placed on who might be permitted to give testimony resulting from increased political rivalry.

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.  

In this passage, the Quran addresses the Islamic community as witnesses against mankind, declaring: “We have appointed you a middle nation, that ye may be witnesses against mankind, and that the messenger may be a witness against you.” Some suggest that this passage could be interpreted as having implications for legal procedure in Islamic courts. However, Ahmed El Shamsy maintains in "The Logic of Excluding Testimony in Early Islam" in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts that this passage does not have practical relevance to judicial procedure but rather relates to ethical witnessing in this world or the hereafter. 

This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.  

This is one of many sources in which Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) and many others including companion Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī (d. between 42 and 53/662–73) echo the criteria forwarded by al-Shāfiʿī for determining the credibility of witness. However, these sources slightly diverge in permitting non-Muslims to testify in the specific case regarding the last wishes of a Muslim who dies while traveling, a scenario explicitly condoned in Q. 5:106.

In this literary source purportedly recounting early episodes of judges, Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798) issues a clever ruling for ʿAbbāsid Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, effectively saving his son – a prince – from an accusation of zinā (fornication or adultery) by operation of the “doubt canon,” which requires legal officials to “avoid criminal punishments in cases of doubt.” The doubt here is a judicial knowledge, rather than established evidence by a confession or witnesses. He is rewarded by being made Chief Judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt) of Baghdad.

In his collection of biographies of judges and governors in the early Islamic empire, the historian Kindī (d. 350/961) provides a history of qāḍīappointments in Egypt. His entry for Isḥāq b. al-Furāt contains several anecdotes, one of which indicates that Isḥāq was the first non-Arab of mawlābackground (tribal client or associate) to be appointed to the position of qāḍī; the appointment took place in 184/800. Kindī’s accounts suggest that in spite of his foreign status, Isḥāq was well regarded by his contemporaries, who recommended him for the position because of his astute scholarship of Islamic law and his mastery of the Arabic language. Moreover, he was deemed one of the most important associates of Mālik b. Anas, the founder of one of the four principal Sunnī schools of law. In his chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Mahmood Kooria uses this source to demonstrate the growing presence of non-Arab qāḍīs in early second/ninth-century Egypt. Nonetheless, the language spoken and used by these mawālī was Arabic, minimizing translation challenges within a Arab-dominated judicial system.

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 sources and other material used in and related to the book.

In this passage from his literary collection, Kūfī recounts an anecdote in which a translator comes to the rescue of a prison warden about to be executed. In the anecdote, the Muslim commander Muḥammad b. Qāsim has traveled to Daybul to save a few Muslim prisoners who had been captured by robbers. Upon breaking into the temple and rescuing the prisoners, Ibn Qāsim commands that the prison warden, Qubla, be brought before him and executed. However, Qubla pleads with Ibn Qāsim to spare his life on account of the kindness he has shown toward the prisoners. Ibn Qāsim verifies Qubla’s claim by employing a translator to inquire with the prisoners about their treatment. The translator conveys the prisoners’ affirmation of Qubla’s kind treatment of them. Ibn Qāsim consequently decides to spare Qubla’s life. In his chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Mahmood Kooria uses this anecdote to show the critical role of translatorsin ensuring that justice was served and to illustrate the trust that that the Muslims of South Asia placed in the capacity of Islamic rulers to mediate between local and foreign languages in the seventh/thirteenth century. Notably, the text appeared after the second or third attack waged by Muslim rulers on the South Asian regions in which they subsequently established dominance.

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 sources and other material used in and related to the book.