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Breaching the Bronze Wall : Franks at Mamluk and Ottoman Courts and Markets
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ISBN: 900443173X 9004382747 Year: 2020 Publisher: Leiden, The Netherlands : Brill,

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Breaching the Bronze Wall deals with the idea that the word of honorable Muslims constituted proof and with the concept that written documents and the word of non-Muslims were inferior. Foreign merchants in cities like Istanbul, Damascus or Alexandria could barely prove any claim, as neither their contracts nor their words were of any value if countered by Muslims. Francisco Apellániz explores how both groups labored to overcome these ‘biases against non-Muslims’ in the courts and markets of Mamluk Egypt and Syria of the 14th and 15th centuries, and how the Ottoman conquest (1517) imposed a new, orthodox view on the problem. The book dives into the Middle Eastern archive and the Ottoman Dīvān , and scrutinizes the intricacies of sharia and the handling of these intracacies by consuls, dragomans, qaḍīs and other legal actors.


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The expert witness in Islamic courts : medicine and crafts in the service of law
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ISBN: 0226749339 9780226749334 9786612538650 0226749355 1282538659 9780226749358 9781282538658 Year: 2010 Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press,

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Islam's tense relationship with modernity is one of the most crucial issues of our time. Within Islamic legal systems, with their traditional preference for eyewitness testimony, this struggle has played a significant role in attitudes toward expert witnesses. Utilizing a uniquely comparative approach, Ron Shaham here examines the evolution of the role of such witnesses in a number of Arab countries from the premodern period to the present. Shaham begins with a history of expert testimony in medieval Islamic culture, analyzing the different roles played by male experts, especially physicians and architects, and females, particularly midwives. From there, he focuses on the case of Egypt, tracing the country's reform of its traditional legal system along European lines beginning in the late nineteenth century. Returning to a broader perspective, Shaham draws on a variety of legal and historical sources to place the phenomenon of expert testimony in cultural context. A truly comprehensive resource, The Expert Witness in Islamic Courts will be sought out by a broad spectrum of scholars working in history, religion, gender studies, and law.

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