Islamic Law in Early Modern Iran: Sharīʿa Court Practice in the Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries By Zahir Bhalloo

This study aims to describe the formal structure of Imami Shiʿa legal documents and shariʿa court registers, in particular the scribal and archival practices, including the seals used. It further aims to identify the practitioners of Islamic law as well as how they intervened procedurally in dispute resolution about religious endowments or waqfs. It examines the evolution of a system of religious courts presided over by state-appointed qāḍīs and shaykhs al-islām to one where under influence of Uṣūlī doctrine, non-state appointed mujtahids engaged in dispute resolution, leading to a decentralized judicial system. However, in the absence of standardized regulations for judicial rulings and of a records office, the ruling of a mujtahid could be challenged by appealing to those residing in other cities. This, of course, led to dispute settlements that were not necessarily the result of respect for the facts of the case, such as these may have been.

The book has six chapters. In ch. 1 the author offers a description of the formal structure of the Safavid religious judiciary and of the importance of the role of attestations or sijills and legal formulas or ṣīghas in identifying legal practice and its practitioners. It is of further interest that Safavid judicial courts kept an archive of their decisions, but these were not public state archives, but private ones that have not survived. This necessitated the renewal of legal deeds held by titleholders in later times. The chapter further attests that Safavid legal practice continued during the Afsharid and Zand periods. Although the formal structure suggests that there was a national centralized judiciary system, in reality it was a decentralized one. Despite the existence of the national state functions of ṣadrs, and later of the mollā-bāshī, appointment of provincial religious judges was usually no more than the confirmation of the succession by a family member, given the persistence of judicial functions held by local families from the Safavid down to the Qajar period. Also, the combining of local functions of qāḍī and shaykh al-islām suggests that there was often interference by other officials or religious leaders, which is borne out by the challenge of legal decisions by religious officials who believed that they held a higher standing.

The focus of ch. 2 is on the scribal and archival practices of the shariʿa court in Shiraz that belonged to the descendants of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Tammāmī, who held the post of shaykh al-islām in the late Safavid period. It discusses court officers (such as muḥarrirs and registrars) usually being members of sayyid families, and the differentiated styles for seals and documents (such as attestations) deployed by the different, rival courts. Other shariʿa courts in Shiraz used practices similar to that of the Tammāmī court. What they have in common is that these practices were all Safavid in origin. However, the difference was that in the Safavid era scholars tended to issue legal opinions, while in the Qajar period their main activity was to notarize legal documents, at least, as suggested by the surviving documents. Only those scholars who were locally recognized as mujtahids were acknowledged as having the authority to issue legal opinions and/or certify claims in legal disputes. The rise of shariʿa courts presided over by mujtahids, without a state appointment, was the result of the dominance of Uṣūlī doctrine in Qajar Iran.

Chapter 3 discusses a Tehran shariʿa court established by Sayyid Ṣādiq Ṭabāṭabāʾī Sangalajī, a non-state-appointed shariʿa practitioner, whose authority was derived from his perceived ability to exercise ijtihād. This court used a typical sijill (including the use of coded letters) or attestation and legal formulas or ṣīghas; both were required on a document. The author discusses how these were written, used, and archived. Furthermore, the annulment, authenticity, reissues, duplicates, and revisions of documents is detailed, including the use of the accounting script or siyāq.

The subject of ch. 4 is the validity of a waqf document, which led to a dispute between leading mujtahids in Iran itself as well as from the ʿatabāt. The author examines the nature, function, and binding force of a mujtahid’s legal ruling in this case, where the ruling by a more powerful and politically well-connected mujtahid could prevail over that of lesser scholars.

Chapter 5 also discusses waqf disputes, this time in Gorgan, showing that the validity of one legal scholar could be questioned by any of the litigators by referring to more prominent ones and thus, the binding enforcement of his ruling. This required the certification of ijtihād by other scholars. This case also shows that the absence of a standard for legal rulings as well as of a records office for archiving such rulings made the outcome of litigation more uncertain and open to arbitrariness.

In the final chapter a case is discussed where the right of a family waqf from the Safavid period was revived and enforced through the use of witness statements or ishtishhād-nāmas. The latter formed the basis for the legal ruling or ḥukm-i sharʿ.

The author concludes with a reminder to the reader that his study is not a definitive study of Islamic legal practice in Safavid–Zand–Qajar Iran, for which more research is needed encompassing other sources. However, his methodology as well as the identification of important markers in legal documents, enhanced with a large number of illustrations of such markers, will facilitate and guide research by other scholars in this field of research. The author’s indication of important issues for further research is also very helpful. In short, this excellent study is a must for anyone interested in the judicial system of premodern Iran, in particular of its practitioners, its procedures, and its documents.