Casting Off Egyptian Ḥanafism: Sharīʿa, Divorce, and Legal Reform in 20th-Century Egypt

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Samy Ayoub
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Divorce Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Judicial Reasoning ◽  
The Government

AbstractThis article explores an important debate on divorce law in early 20th-century Egypt between the sharīʿa judge Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (d. 1958) and the adjunct to the last Shaykh al-Islām of the Ottoman Empire, Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī (d. 1952). The debate is centred on Shākir’s argument that triple divorce (three pronouncements of the divorce oath in one utterance, deemed irrevocable according to the Ḥanafī school) should be treated as a single revocable divorce, a position that the Ḥanafī school rejects. The Egyptian divorce law was changed on 10 March 1929 to embrace the revised position, supported by the government, that a triple divorce counts as a single divorce, thereby making it revocable. Shākir argued that the official adherence of the sharīʿa courts to the preponderant opinions (al-rājiḥ) of the Ḥanafī school was one of the key obstacles to meaningful legal reform in this case. Despite his declared following of the Ḥanafī school, Shākir dismissed Ḥanafī legal norms and authorities, and advocated an urgent break with the control of the Ḥanafī legal school on the process of judicial reasoning in the Egyptian sharīʿa courts. To further demonstrate this dynamic, I take up a close reading of a court decision on whether custody payments (ujrat al-ḥaḍāna) include housing support (sakan), or if the latter is a separate calculated expense. Shākir not only ruled in opposition to the Ḥanafī preponderant position but also rejected the late Ḥanafī authority Muḥammad Amīn ʿĀbidīn’s (Ibn ʿĀbidīn, d. 1836) effort to harmonize the school’s position on this matter. I propose that Shākir was an iconoclastic Ḥanafī.

scholarly journals State Supervision of the Periodicals Distribution System in Russia in the Early 20th Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-22
Author(s):  
Е.Н. Крылова
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Distribution System ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Train Station ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Supervision ◽  
History Of ◽  
Newspaper Distribution ◽  
The Government ◽  
History Of Journalism

В статье затронут малоизученный аспект государственного контроля за системой распространения периодических изданий в России на примере столичных городов в начале ХХ века. Цель исследования — выявить основные каналы распространения столичных газет в начале ХХ века и определить механизмы государственного контроля за системой дистрибуции периодической печати. На основе имеющихся архивных источников автор приходит к выводу, что основными каналами распространения столичной прессы были подписка, розничная продажа в разнос и в магазинах и на железных дорогах. К началу Первой мировой войны система дистрибуции периодических изданий постепенно менялась. Нормативные акты, принятые в конце XIX века, уже не позволяли эффективно контролировать распространение информации, а правительственные меры предпринимались запоздало или были незначительны. Существовавшая система государственного контроля за системой дистрибуции не могла оперативно реагировать на кризис, что способствовало распространению нежелательной для правительства информации среди населения, в том числе запрещенной литературы. Полученные результаты могут быть использованы в первую очередь при подготовке общих курсов по истории России, чтении курсов лекций и спецкурсов по истории журналистики. The article treats some under-investigated issues associated with the state supervision of the periodicals circulation and distribution system in Russia in the early 20th century. The aim of the research is to study the main channels of capital newspapers circulation and distribution in the early 20th century and to identify the mechanisms of state supervision of the periodicals distribution system. The analysis of archival materials enables the author to conclude that capital newspapers were distributed via subscription, retailing, train station retail, and delivery. During the pre-war period, the system of newspaper distribution was undergoing gradual changes. Normative acts issued in the late 19thcentury were no longer enough to efficiently control the spread of information; state measures were often insufficient and untimely. The existing system of state supervision of newspaper distribution failed to respond to the crisis, therefore the public had an access to information the government wished to conceal and to literature that was forbidden. The validity of the results of the research will be recognized by lecturers, by teachers who conduct Russian history classes, by teachers conducting classes in the history of journalism.

Of Horizontal Exchanges and Inter-Islamic Inquiries

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-261
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Lhost
Keyword(s):  
Legal Reform ◽  
Female Education ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single State ◽  
The Government

Abstract In 1924, the government of Afghanistan wrote to the Jam‘iyat ‘Ulama-yi Hind looking for legal justifications to support Emir Aman Allah Khan's (r. 1919–29) proposed reforms—particularly those relating to female education. Known for securing Afghanistan's independence from the British, and now recognized as a pioneering modernizer and renegade constitutional monarch, Aman Allah introduced a series of reforms during his reign that Faiz Ahmed has recently characterized as “a burgeoning model of Islamic legal modernism.” Yet the story of Afghanistan's experiments with Islamic legal modernism are greater and extend beyond the history of a single state. Taking the above claim about Afghanistan seriously, and in response to Ahmed's Afghanistan Rising this essay offers a close reading of the exchange between Kabul and Delhi to interrogate ideas about Islamic legal reform, Islamic modernity, and inter-Islamic circulations at the time of waning empires and rising nation-states.

The Evolution of Third-Party Mediation in Sharīʿa Courts in 19th- and early 20th-century Central Asia

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Sartori
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Direct Involvement

AbstractWhile in the Ottoman Empire reconciling disputing parties insharīʿacourts occurred without the direct involvement of state officials, in modern Central Asia functionaries appointed by the ruler’s chancellery acted as mediators and mediation procedures were consistent with the state’s intervention in the resolution of a conflict. This ended with Russian colonization. Conflict resolution was left to thesharīʿacourts; mediation continued to be important but state appointees were no longer officially involved in bringing it about. The Russian colonial and Soviet administrations made the community responsible for seeking amicable settlements. Only afterwards did they realize how easy this made it for local groups to circumvent the state’s supervision.

Uncommunicative Communication: Competing Egyptian, Ottoman and British Imperial Ventures in 19th-Century Egypt

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 399-422
Author(s):  
Maurus Reinkowski
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
British Occupation ◽  
The Way

The contribution “Uncommunicative Communication: Competing Egyptian, Ottoman and British Notions of Imperial Order in 19th-Century Egypt” by Maurus Reinkowski (University of Basel) sees Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th century as a particularly illustrative case of competing imperial ventures, in particular of the Egyptian, Ottoman and British states. Whereas the Egyptian imperial venture, prominent under Muḥammad ʿAlī in the 1820s and 1830s and revived under Ismāʿīl (r. 1863–1879) in the early 1870s, quickly degenerates into bankruptcy and finally British occupation from 1882 onwards, the Ottoman-British imperial competition continues until 1914. A particularly colorful example of how the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain – in the way of uncommunicative communication – strived to maintain respectively to enforce their notion of an appropriate imperial order is to compare of Aḥmed Muḫtār Paşa and Lord Cromer. Aḥmed Muḫtār, a high-ranking Ottoman officer, was sent in 1885 as Extraordinary Commissioner to Cairo, where he stayed until 1908. Muḫtār’s semi-exile in Cairo was characterized by factual powerlessness as he was completely overshadowed by Sir Evelyn Baring, the British consul general who was the factual ruler of Egypt between 1882 and 1907. Starting from the assumption that Aḥmed Muḫtār’s status in Egypt does not only reflect his personal isolation, but also the precarious imperial status of the Ottoman Empire, this paper examines Aḥmed Muḫtār’s presence and politics in Cairo as a case of both personal self-reassurance and imperial self-representation.


Реформация системы вакфов в поздней Османской империи: институциональный кризис и поиск новой философии вакфа

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.V. Shlikov
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
The Public ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Early Republican

Аннотация В фокусе внимания статьи процесс трансформации традиционного института вакфа в Османской империи XIX начала XX в., основные детерминанты которого определили судьбу вакфов в раннереспубликанский период истории Турции. Распространение коррупции и снижающаяся эффективность деятельности значительного числа вакфов, использование сомнительных механизмов эксплуатации, замены и аренды вакуфного имущества негативно отразились на общественной репутации института, поставив под сомнение целесообразность и правомерность существования многочисленных вакфов. Озаботившись установлением непосредственного контроля над вакфами и их ресурсами, султан Махмуд II учредил в 1826 г. Министерство вакфов с обширными полномочиями. Однако разрозненность вакфов и их функциональное многообразие свели деятельность министерства к минимуму формальной регистрации решений, принимаемых на местах. В результате, система вакфов сохранила децентрализованный характер, а ее деятельность по-прежнему определялась преимущественно корпоративными и семейно-клановыми, а не государственными интересами. Наряду с распространением злоупотреблений важным катализатором кризиса системы вакфов во второй половине XIXв. стала политика османских властей по наращиванию роли государства в сфере социального обеспечения и благотворительности. В совокупности все это подготовило почву для масштабной конфискации вакуфной собственности, проводившейся в начале XX в. в разных частях Османской империи (от Турции до Сирии и Египта).Abstract The paper analyses the transformation of the traditional waqf institution in the 19th and early 20th century Ottoman Empire the process which determined the fate of waqfs in the early republican period of Turkeys history. The spread of corruption and precarious practices of exchange and rent of waqf properties together with the declining effectiveness of many waqf activities all this had a negative impact on the public reputation of waqfs and questioned both the legitimacy and usefulness of numerous waqfs and the large scale waqf network. The Ottoman authorities were concerned about the direct control of waqfs and their properties, in 1826 the Sultan Mahmud II established a Ministry of Waqfs with extensive power and jurisdiction. However, the scale, diversity and ramified structure of the waqf system reduced the real work of the ministry mostly to the formal registration of the decisions taken at the local level. As a result, the waqf system remained decentralized and its activities were determined mostly by family and corporate interests and not by the state. Along with the widely spread corruption and misuse of waqf properties another factor conducive to the growing of crisis in the waqf system was the Ottoman states aspiration to play an increasingly important role in the sphere of social welfare, social security and charity in the late 19th century. The combination of these factors paved the way for the large-scale confiscation of waqf properties in various parts of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century (from Turkey to Syria and Egypt).

"Modernity", "Tradition", and the Battleground of Gender in Early 20th-Century Damascus

2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gelvin
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Structures

AbstractIn early 20th-century Damascus, a group of religious scholars who called themselves mutadayyinūn (the "very pious") and who claimed to represent an Islamic "orthodoxy" launched a journal, al-Haqā'iq, to expose the crimes of the mutafarnijūn (the "overly Frankified") and to agitate for a return to "true Islam". According to the mutadayyinūn, the mutafarnijūn were introducing into the Ottoman Empire practices borrowed from the West and were thus abetting a Western conspiracy against the empire and Islam. Among the practices the mutadayyinūn found particularly irksome were those that threatened "traditional" and "scripturally-dictated" customs relating to gender, such as veiling and the seclusion of women. What becomes clear through an analysis of the debate, the reasons for its prominence on the pages of al-Haqā'iq, and the method and style of argumentation adopted by the mutadayyinūn, however, is that despite their claim to be the upholders of tradition, the mutadayyinūn relied on the same epistemic assumptions as those they castigated. Thus, unbeknownst to them, they were engaged in the process of inventing a religio-political synthesis coherent with contemporary social and political structures and institutions. The traces of this religio-political synthesis, later adopted or reinvented by others, remains embedded within the structures and institutions of the contemporary Syrian state.

scholarly journals Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way Through Tea

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Holmes
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
British Identity ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Behavior

The government of the Dominion of Canada hoped their western territory would be filled with immigrants eager to work the land and further strengthen the British Empire in the early 20th century. British stock were viewed as ideal settlers as they would be able to represent and maintain the customs and behavior of the British Empire. Many brought with them to the Canadian frontier a variety of traditions - one of which was the habit of drinking tea. How did tea reinforce British identity and Empire in the Canadian West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? This paper contends that tea was a powerful tool for nation builders because it reinforced British identity and empire.

scholarly journals Millar v Taylor as a precedent for statutory interpretation

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-221
Author(s):  
John J Magyar
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Statutory Interpretation ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Exclusionary Rule ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Judicial Reasoning ◽  
The 19Th Century

Millar v Taylor is an iconic case for statutory interpretation. It has long been regarded as the case in which the rule prohibiting reliance on legislative history was first put forward by Mr. Justice Willes in 1769. However, a close reading of the judgment reveals an uncomfortable fit between the rule that the case purports to stand for and the judicial reasoning within it. Meanwhile, the case was cited frequently throughout the 19th century, but never in support of the exclusionary rule. During that time period, the judiciary was aware of the fact that Mr. Justice Willes’ famous statement was contradicted by reasoning in the case. It was in the 20th century that scholars began citing Millar v Taylor in support of the exclusionary rule—a time when the quantity of published cases and secondary literature had increased significantly, and cases like Millar v Taylor were being cited without necessarily being read. This stands as a cautionary tale: one ought to quote with care, particularly when citing older cases.

scholarly journals The Reader’s Interest of Seminarians during the Period of Social Rise in the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Century

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 608-620
Author(s):  
Olga D. Popova
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theological Seminaries ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Reading Circle

The article analyzes the reader’s interests of students of theological seminaries of the second half of the 19th — early 20th century. Libraries were a mandatory element of the functioning of theological seminaries. Memoirs of the seminarians provided the background for the present article. The author analyzes the state policy on formation of the ideological education of children of the clergy. The article describes the content of the libraries of theological seminaries and the mechanisms for their replenishment. The study is aimed to demonstrate that the library collections did not meet the interests of seminarians, and the reading circle of young people was being influenced by the social rise in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Revolutionary populists were greatly affecting the reader’s interests. The students of seminaries were willing to read the works of leading authors of that time: H.T. Buckle, H. Spencer, N.K. Mikhaylovsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky, D.I. Pisarev. An analysis of archival documents demonstrates that the government attempted to monitor what students read in theological seminaries. Books of the leading authors were banned and withdrawn. The seminarians sought to create their own reading circle. Therefore, many students made attempts to visit city libraries, to take books from friends and acquaintances, to create their own secret collections.The article reveals the history of secret libraries in Kostroma and Vladimir. The study helps to understand that the authors of the memoirs shared their reader’s interests in order to show the impact of reading books by progressive authors. Most of the memoirs’ authors claimed that the interest in the clandestine circles had been caused by a desire to diversify the monotonous daily life in seminaries. Seminarians read forbidden literature because of their interest in current problems of Russia and society.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document