« O. REŻ ĀʼĪ. ‘Pīšīne va nahv-e s̱ abt-e asnād dar bandar-e būšehr (1308 h.q.- 1350 h.q.)’ Fasḷ -nāme-ye asnād-e bahārestān 1/1 (1390/2011), p.79-94. », Abstracta Iranica, vol. 34-35-36, 2016, n°1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
This article presents a preliminary study of how an Imamite Shīʻī sharīʻa court in Iran in the Qājār period (1796-1925) issued a judicial decision in a lawsuit relating to religiously endowed property (vaqf). After an introduction to the state of research on sharīʻa court documents from Qājār Iran, we study how the scribe of an Imamite Shīʻī sharīʻa court in Neyrīz, a small town in the south-west province of Fārs, recorded details of a vaqf lawsuit onto a cotton document. Next, based on a comparative analysis between the Neyrīz sharīʻa court document and some previously edited Qājār sharīʻa court documents, we distinguish between the decision of a judge at the end of a lawsuit and the judge’s notarial certification of a claim based on the evidence of one party. We demonstrate that the recording procedures of the Neyrīz sharīʻa court leave no room for doubt that the judge issued a decision after he reviewed the evidence of both sides. This was important in order to ensure effective closure of the lawsuit in the decentralized Qājār judicial system. The article concludes with an edition and a facsimile of the Neyrīz sharīʻa court document.
A pre-Mongol New Persian legal document from Islamic Khurāsān dated AH 608/1212 CE
BSOAS, 2023
Since the 1990s several caches of New Persian documents have come to light in Afghanistan. These documents, written on paper, are now the most significant sources for understanding how New Persian in Arabic script was used as an administrative and legal language in the eastern Islamic lands between the eleventh and early thirteenth centuries before the Mongol conquest of Khurāsān. After a brief survey of the three main collections in which these New Persian paper documents are preserved today, this article presents a preliminary edition, translation and commentary on one of the New Persian documents held in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art. The document, dated AH 608/1212 CE, is a record of court proceedings and the decision of a judge (qāḍī) in a lawsuit over water rights initiated by a woman. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000745
The Lives of Qabalas: Annotation, Transcription and Registration of Documents in Early Modern Iran
2014
The article describes the tradition of documentation as a part of written culture in early modem Iran. Unlike book manuscript in pre-modem period, on which one can easily expect that it has the readers and copyists, a traditional qabala or private deed, such as a sale deed, a lease deed, a loan deed, a marriage deed or a waqf deed, which were drawn up at Shari'a courts, one might not expect that it would be read by the public or be copied by copyists. However, historical evidences show us that these kinds of documents also were sometimes referred to again and again. Sometimes they were annotated, transcribed, and registered later. In other words, the qabalas also had their own lives: some information added to them as annotation in the course of time, and their information was transmitted to other type of documents.
Inscribing Authority: Scribal and Archival Practices of a Safavid Decree
JESHO, 2019
The mis̱āl, a type of administrative decree associated with the most important religious official in Safavid Iran (1501-1736), the ṣadr, has received little scholarly attention. This article attempts to lay the preliminary groundwork for a more comprehensive future study on the mis̱ āls of the Safavid ṣadrs. In the first part, we introduce the ṣadr and his department, the dīwān al-ṣadāra. In the second part, we study how the scribal and archival practices of the mis̱ āl construct the religious and administrative authority of the ṣadr and the dīwān al-ṣadāra. We focus on an unpublished mis̱āl relating to the endowment (waqf) of the shrine of a prominent Sufi shaykh of the Ṭayfūriyya tradition in Basṭām, Shaykh Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Dāstānī (d. 417/1026). The appendix includes the text, translation, and a facsimile of the document. Keywords Safavid Iran-ṣadr-mis̱āl-ṭughrā-scribal and archival practices
Written artefacts which record the legal opinion or fatwa (Ar. fatwā, pl. fatāwā) of an Islamic jurist or muftī have a long tradition in the Islamic world.1 The earliest extant fatwa documents that have come to light so far are recorded on papyrus from the ninth-tenth centuries and on paper from the eleventhtwelfth centuries.2 These early fatwas are in Arabic. In the eastern Islamic lands, among non-Arabic speaking peoples, fatwas were also written in Persian. At least eleven fatwas written in Persian on paper in medieval Islamic Khurāsān, from the region of present-day Afghanistan, are known.3 Though undated, based on their script, it is likely they are from the twelfth-thirteenth centuries. This study will focus on a more recent example of fatwa writing in Persian from nineteenth-century Bukhara in present day Uzbekistan. The three Bukharan fatwas examined here were found glued along with other fatwas and legal documents inside a manuscript in Qum, Iran, in 2007. Their long-distance displacement from Bukhara to Qum and their preservation inside a manuscript 1 The authors would like to warmly thank the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (csmc), Universität Hamburg and its Cluster of Excellence "Understanding Written Artefacts" for providing a stimulating intellectual home for writing this essay. We would also like to acknowledge the help at various stages of Aygerim Serikovna (Gylym Ordasy, The Museum of Rare Books, Almaty, Kazakhastan), Saidakbar Mukhammadaminov, Said Gaziev, Ahmad
The Qajar jurist and his ruling: A study of judicial practice in nineteenth century Iran
2013
3.4. Shaftī's judicial decision and its enforcement 3.4.1. Intrigues of the opposition 3.5. Discussion: The jurist as muftī 3.6. Text and translation of selected documents Chapter 4 The ruling as a judicial decision in sharīʿa litigation 4.1. The resolution of a land dispute in Astarābād 4.1.1. Summary of the case 4.2. Dramatis personae 4.2.1. The claimants: The Dirāzgīsū sayyids 4.2.2. The ʿulamāʾ of Isfahan 4.2.3. The ʿulamāʾ of Astarābād 4.2.4. The defendants: ʿAbbās Khān Qājār Bēglerbēgī and his descendants 4.3. The archive of the Dirāzgīsū sayyids 4.4. The rulings of the ʿulamāʾ of Isfahan in Astarābād 4.4.1. Historical background 4.4.2. Why Isfahan? 4.4.3. The issuance of Āqā Muḥammad Mahdī's ruling 4. 4.4. Āqā Muḥammad Mahdī's ruling in Astarābād 4. 4.5. Sayyid Muḥammad Bāqir Shaftī's ratification (imḍāʾ-i ḥukm) 4. 4.6. Shaftī's ratification in Astarābād 4. 4.7. Ḥājjī Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Kalbāsī's ratification 4. 4.8. The issuance of Kalbāsī's ratification 4. 4.9. Certifying the issuance of Kalbāsī's ratification 4.4 .10. Kalbāsī's ratification in Astarābād 4.5. Ḥāj jī Mullā Riḍā Astarābādī's ruling revived 4. 5.1. Why revive an old ruling? 4. 5.2. From a share in revenues to a return of the lands 4. 5.3. Certifying the issuance of Ḥājjī Mullā Riḍā Astarābādī's ruling 4. 5.4. The issuance of the ruling on a witness statement 4. 5.5. Mīr Mūsā and Mīr Taqī's witness statement 4. 5.6. Bīja Sharaf's acknowledgement 4.6. Attempts at enforcing arbitration 4. 6.1. The attempt at arbitration before imām-jumʿa Sharīʿatmadār 4. 6.2. The first binding agreement at the royal court 4. 6.3. ʿAbbās Khān's new petition to the royal court 4. 6.4. The attempt at arbitration before Mullā Muḥammad Taqī 4. 6.5. The second binding agreement at the royal court 4.7. Discussion: The jurist as qāḍī 4. 7.1. Failing to appear in court as a strategy 4. 7.2. Choosing the judge for arbitration 4. 7.3. The meaning of mujtahid-i nāfidh al-ḥukm 4. 7.4. Contesting the judge's competence 4. 7.5. Ratifications and invalidations 4.8. The legal debate over the rulings and the settlement 4. 8.1. The ruling of Raʾīs al-ʿUlamāʾ 4. 8.2. The binding force of the text 4. 8.3. The circumstances of issuance 4. 8.4. Documents of possession of the Qajar khans 4. 8.5. Territorial jurisdiction 4. 8.6. The ruling in the defendant's absence TMN = Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Riḍwānī ed. Iʿitimād al-Saltana, Muḥammad Ḥasan Khān. Tārīkh-i Muntaẓam-i Nāṣirī. Volumes 1-3. Tihrān: Dunyā-yi Kitāb, 1363-1367sh/1984-1988. TAS = Muḥammad Muḥsin Āqā Buzurg Tihrānī. Ṭabāqāt Aʿlām al-Shīʿa. Volumes 11 and 12. Bayrūt: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī li al-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 2009. TU = Muḥammad Riḍā Azharī and Ghulām Riḍā Paranda eds. Muḥammd b. Sulaymān Tunikābūnī. Tadhkira al-ʿUlamāʾ. Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhuhish-hā-yi Islāmī, 1372sh/1994. ZDMG = Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 40 "The transcript corresponds to the original which has thirteen seals altogether on the recto and verso and twelve sijills on the recto. Written by the miserable wretch on the night of 25 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1285/16 July 1868" (al-sawād muṭābiqun li-aṣlihi l-mushtamal matnan wa zahran ʿalā thalthata ʿashara khātaman wa matnan ʿalā ithnay ʿashara sijillan ḥarrarahu al-aqall fī layla 25 shahr Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1265), see AM, p.11 and bottom left hand corner p. 148. 40 "This document was registered on 3 Ramaḍān 1284/29 December 1867. [Written on] 19 Shawwāl 1284/13 February 1868" (īn tamassuk dar tārīkh 3 shahr Ramaḍān al-mubārak sana 1284 thabt shuda ast, bi tārīkh 19 Shawwāl 1284), see AM, p. 11 and the top margin note on the left hand column, p.34. 41 "It corresponds to its registered entry and is valid. Written by the miserable wretch on 19 Shawwāl 1284/13 February 1868" (muwāfiq-i thabt wa muʿtabar ast; ḥarrarahu al-aqall fī 19 Shawwāl al-mukarram 1284), see left hand column last entry AM, p.52 42 "This document on 5 Dhū al-Hajj 1284/29 March 1868 was annulled and the seal of Sangalajī was removed from the original" (īn nivistha bi-tārīkh-i panjum-i shahr-i dhī hijja 1284 bāṭil shud wa muhr-i jināb āqā kishida shud), see AM, p.12 43 AM, p.12. 44 AM, p.12