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This document is a beyānnāme, or declaration, sent by the Ottoman reʾīsül-kuttāb (chief scribe) to Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, justifying the Ottoman declaration of war on Russia by explaining Russia's violation of treaty obligations. The document gives insight into eighteenth-century Ottoman attitudes to international law and its relationship with Islamic law. Its use of the phrase naḳż-ı ʿahd (breaking the treaty), which has its origins in a specifically Qurʾānic context illustrates one way in which war was legitimized within the Ottoman Empire. Other phrases used in the beyānnāme demonstrate how Ottoman legal plurality functioned within a martial context. 

Herein, Ibn Rushd I (d. 520/1126) reviews the prohibition of cross-confessional testimony. He clarifies that cross-confessional testimony is specifically forbidden between Christian and Jews, due to the historical presence of enmity between the groups, but is generally permissible in other cases such as among Zoroastrians. In Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Ahmed El Shamsy surveys Ibn Rushd as a springboard to discussing the admissibility of testimony which might be prohibited on a case-by-case basis if enmity is known to exist.   

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 text Abū Bakr al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370/980) and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 321/933) documents the Hanafī position—upheld by al-Shāfiʿī’s (d. 204/820) teacher Mālik (d. 179/795)—which maintained stricter criteria for the qualification of witnesses. Mālik held that the testimony of witnesses who displayed any degree of heresy should be rejected automatically. In Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts Ahmed El Shamsy contrasts Mālik’s position with that of his student Shāfiʿī who had more leniently maintained that heretical beliefs can only disqualify a witness if they have no precedent and have no basis in any possible interpretation of revelation.

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 excerpt from his legal treatise, the Hanafī jurist al-Sarakhsī relays how the imperial grand judge Yaḥyā b. Aktham (d. 242/857) upheld the Ḥanafī position regarding the eligibility of non-Muslims to serve as witnesses. Yaḥyā was said to have permitted non-Muslim testimony against any other non-Muslims. He explained his position, writing that, “consulting the opinions of the earliest jurists, I have found no one forbidding the testimony of the protected people, except two [conflicting] opinions attributed to Rabīʿa.” Further, Sarakhsī relays the Ḥanafī criterion for witness eligibility which developed in a specific hierarchical framework. Muslims were placed above non-Muslims and, within that, locals above outsiders (dhimmī vs. ḥarbī). As Ahmed El Shamsy notes in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, this framework equates the right to give testimony with the right to demonstrate legal authority (wilāya) over another.

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 document is a beyānnāme, or declaration, sent by Recāī Efendi, the Ottoman reʾīsül-kuttāb (chief scribe), to Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. It justifies the Ottoman declaration of war on Russia by explaining Russia's violation of treaty obligations, and gives insight into eighteenth-century Ottoman attitudes to international law and its relationship with Islamic law.

A.V.M. Horton edited this 1987 edition of the 1904 report written by M.S.H. McArthur on conditions in the Sultanate (and then-British protectorate) of Brunei. It is a detailed survey of government, administration, and social and economic conditions in the Sultanate, written to the end of informing British administration in Brunei. It predates the establishment of the Residency by two years. This edition includes Horton's preface and annotations, along with supplementary materials.

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. 

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 this excerpt, al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044) cites a number of opinions regarding whether judges are permitted to rule according to their personal knowledge of a case. He focuses specifically on the question of how many additional witnesses are needed alongside a judge’s use of his own knowledge to render a valid verdict. In his chapter on circumstantial evidence in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Hossein Modarressi cites this source to illustrate some Shīʿī jurists’ endorsement of the validity of judicial 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 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.

This is a reference to some of the various terms used in early sources to refer to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and his followers, the Jaʿfarīs (e.g., aṣḥāb Jaʿfar), during and after Jaʿfar's lifetime.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to an early definition of Shīʿism by the Kūfan scholar Abān b. Taghlib (d. 141): "The Shīʿa are those who follow the opinion of ʿAlī when reports from the Prophet are contradictory, and the opinion of Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad [al-Ṣādiq] when reports from ʿAlī are contradictory."

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to how Mālik b. Anas (the eponym of the Mālikī school of law) remembered Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq: exceptional in his manners and religious devotion.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to the year 83 AH as the date of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's birth. Hossein Modarressi notes that this is the preferred date of al-Ṣādiq's birth in most Shīʿī sources.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's advice to a questioner to burn his astrological books. Hossein Modarressi cites this reference in his discussion of some of the features of al-Ṣādiq's personal life.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to the concentration of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's large number of followers in Iraq in general and Kūfa in particular during his lifetime. Hossein Modarressi cites this reference in his discussion of some of the features of al-Ṣādiq's political stance.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq attending the Friday prayer with other Muslims, in contrast to some Muslims who did not pray with anyone who did not share their doctrinal tendencies. Hossein Modarressi cites this reference in his discussion of some of the features of al-Ṣādiq's rejection of sectarianism.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to ʿAlī's description of the Sunna of the Prophet. Hossein Modarressi argues that in the legal legacy of the Family of the Prophet, the Prophet's Sunna was next to the Qurʾān in importance.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's use of term Āl Umayya rather than the more common term Banū Umayya to refer to the Umayyads. Hossein Modarressi draws on this reference to make the case that al-Ṣādiq's advice to his followers to follow that which contradicts the masses had no sectarian implications; rather, it was because the Umayyads had insisted on promoting beliefs and practices that explicitly contradicted the legal legacy of the House of the Prophet. 

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).