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(a.), court. The subject-matter of this article is the administration of justice, and the organisation of its administration, in the Muslim countries, the office of the judge being dealt with in the art. ḳāḍī . The following topics are covered: 1. General The judicial functions of the Prophet, which had been expressly attributed to him in the Ḳurʾān (IV, 65, 105; V, 42, 48-9; XXIV, 48, 51), were taken over after his death by the first caliphs, who administered the law in person in Medina. Already under ʿUmar, the expansion of the Islami…

(a.). Inheritance (pl. mawārīt̲h̲ ) ; wārit̲h̲ the heir, mūrit̲h̲ the person leaving the estate. This branch of Islamic law is also called ʿilm al-farāʾiḍ “the science of the ordained quotas” (cf. sūra IV, II) after its most important and most difficult part. 1. In pre-modern times i. In keeping with the patriarchal system prevailing among the Arabs, the estate of a deceased tribesman went ab intestato to the nearest male relative(s); the order of succession in which these relatives, the socalled ʿaṣaba (corresponding to agnati ), were called upon to inherit…

(a.), a notion in Islamic law. 1. In classical Islamic law. The basic meaning of lafaḳa and form II laffaḳa is “to sew (a garment) together (by joining two lengths of cloth)”, whence “to patch together”, and by an extension of meaning, “to piece together (a verse or story), to concoct”, which is close to the legal meaning. In legal jargon, talfīḳ connotes the bringing together of certain elements of two or more doctrines in such a manner as to create therefrom yet another, different doctrine. It is to be noted that no technical dicti…

(a.), marriage (properly, sexual intercourse, but already in the Ḳurʾān used exclusively of the contract of marriage). In the present article, marriage is dealt with as a legal institution; for marriage customs, see ʿurs . I. In Classical Islamic Law 1. The essential features of the Muslim law of marriage go back to the customary law of the Arabs which previously existed. In this, although there were differences according to districts and the conditions of the individual cases, the regulations governing marriage were based upon the pa…

(a.), repudiation of a wife by a husband, a form of divorce, effected by his pronouncing the words anti ṭāliḳ . The root idea of the verb ṭalaḳa is to be freed from a tether, etc. (of a camel), to be repudiated by a man (of a wife; in this sense also ṭaluḳa ), hence ṭallaḳa , to release (a camel) from a tether, to repudiate (a wife); ṭāliḳ means a camel untethered or a woman repudiated by a man (see Lane, Lexicon s.v.). I. In classical Islamic law. 1. The right to a one-sided dissolution of a marriage belonged to the man exclusively, among the pre-Islamic Arabs. Long before Muḥammad, this ṭalāḳ …

(a.), in Islamic law, the act of founding a charitable trust, and, hence the trust itself. A synonym, used mainly by Mālikī jurists, is ḥabs , ḥubus or ḥubs (in French often rendered as habous ). The essential elements are that a person, with the intention of committing a pious deed, declares part of his or her property to be henceforth unalienable ( ḥabs, taḥbīs ) and designates persons or public utilities as beneficiaries of its yields ( al-taṣadduḳ bi ’l-manfaʿa , tasbīl al-manfaʿa ). The Imāmī S̲h̲īʿa distinguish between waḳf and ḥabs, the latter being a precarious type of waḳf in which th…

(a.), a technical term of Islamic law-making. 1. Definition and historical context. Tas̲h̲rīʿ , in the modern context, signifies statutory legislation incorporating elements from the s̲h̲arīʿa . In theory, legislative authority is alien to Islam. In the Middle Ages, temporal legislation by caliphs and rulers based on siyāsa s̲h̲ārʿiyya [ q.v.] was a common practice. This took place, however, within the framework of a theocracy, the underlying concept of which was the sovereignty of the s̲h̲arīʿa assumed to reflect the revealed will of Allāh on earth through His authori…