SHARIAsource

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.

In this excerpt from his history, the ninth/fifteenth-century Persian historian Mīrkhwānd reports that the Sāmānid prince Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad was renowned for rendering justice personally. In her analysis of Islamic mirrors-for-princes literature on judging in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Louise Marlow uses this source to argue that in addition to their dedication to religious knowledge, the Sāmānid amīrs were well known for their commitment to the redress of grievances (maẓālim).

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.

The sixth/twelfth-century scholar Samʿānī devotes a section of his biographical dictionary of traditionists to the Sāmānids. He writes of Aḥmad b. Asad’s hearing of ḥadīth from prominent traditionists and also of his sons’ relating ḥadīth from him. According to Samʿānī, the ḥadīths transmitted by these princes usually touched on topics such as raiding at the frontier (ghazw), justice, and respect for scholars, all of which are common themes in the genre of mirrors for princes. In her analysis of Islamic mirrors-for-princes literature on judging in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Louise Marlow refers to these learned Sāmānids as examples of a “semiprofessional” group of religious scholars.

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.

In this excerpt from his mirror for princes, the fifth/eleventh-century Seljuq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk records that. Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad would ride his horse to the main square of Bukhārā to hold court even “when the cold was severe and snow was falling heavily.”  In her analysis of Islamic mirrors-for-princes literature on judging in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Louise Marlow uses this source to argue that in addition to their dedication to religious knowledge, the Sāmānid amīrs were well known for their commitment to the redress of grievances (maẓālim).

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.

In this excerpt, the historian Narshakhī describes Aḥmad (I) b. Asad, the Sāmānid governor of Samarqand, as a learned and pious ruler. In her analysis of Islamic mirrors-for-princes literature on judging in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Louise Marlow uses the examples of the learned and pious Sāmānid and Ṭāhirid rulers to supply context for Pseudo-Māwardī’s stress on the need for the ruler to cultivate religious knowledge.

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.

In this excerpt, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 908/1502–3), philosopher and chief judge of the southern Iranian province of Fars in the late fifteenth century CE, reports that the maẓālim courts were able to resolve many cases because of their ability to consider diverse forms of evidence. In contrast, he says that the traditional Islamic courts’ admission of only oral testimony could hamper Muslim judges’ ability to administer justice. In his chapter on circumstantial evidence in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Hossein Modarressi draws on Dawānī’s treatise and its illustration of how justice was obstructed in the traditional courts of his day through bureaucratic maneuvers orchestrated by the ʿudūl, or court clerks. The ʿudūl nitpicked at the specific wording of the petitions and various types of testimony, and they oversaw a lengthy process of determining the credibility of witnesses by bringing in further witnesses to testify for or against the main witnesses. Modarressi quotes Dawānī’s lament that as a consequence, “a small petition [lingered] around in the court for such a long time that the parties [got] fed up with the process. When the case is a criminal case, the purpose is completely lost” (115). Modarressi argues that these difficulties in traditional courts were exacerbated by the fact that Islamic legal procedure restricted judges to using testimony or oaths, and that these procedural rules were not open to modification.

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.