A Common Justice. Uriel I. Simonsohn

      

      A Common Justice

      DIVINATIONS: REREADING LATE ANCIENT RELIGION

       Series Editors

      Daniel Boyarin, Virginia Burrus, Derek Krueger

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

      A COMMON

      JUSTICE

      The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam

      URIEL I. SIMONSOHN

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2011 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Simonsohn, Uriel I., 1971–

      A common justice : the legal allegiances of Christians and Jews under early Islam / Uriel I. Simonsohn. — 1st ed.

      p. cm. — (Divinations : rereading late ancient religion)

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4349-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      1. Legal polycentricity—Middle East—History. 2. Conflict of laws—Middle East—History. 3. Conflict of laws—Jurisdiction—Middle East—History. 4. Conflict of laws (Islamic law)—Middle East—History. 5. Conflict of laws (Canon law) 6. Conflict of laws (Jewish law) I. Title. II. Series: Divinations.

      K236.S56 2011

      340.5—dc22

      2011011279

       In memory of my friend Shay Green (1971–2000)

      CONTENTS

       Note on Transliteration

       Introduction

       PART I. LEGAL PLURALISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND CLASSICAL ISLAM: SURVEY AND ANALYSIS

       Chapter 1. A Late Antique Legacy of Legal Pluralism

       Chapter 2. Islam’s Judicial Bazaar

       PART II. THE JUDICIAL CHOICES OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS IN THE EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

       Chapter 3. Eastern Christian Judicial Authorities in the Early Islamic Period

       Chapter 4. Rabbanite Judicial Authorities in the Late Geonic Period

       Chapter 5. Christian Recourse to Nonecclesiastical Judicial Institutions

       Chapter 6. Jewish Recourse to Islamic Courts

       Conclusion

       List of Abbreviations

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

      The transliteration of Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic in this book follows the system of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

      Aramaic and Syriac are similarly transcribed, with the following exceptions:

      sh = š

      Soft bgd kft letters are not indicated—thus, kh = k, th = t, etc.

      Vocalization of Syriac is primarily East Syrian.

      Long vowels: a = ā; u = ū; o = ō (e.g., išō ʿ)

      Epsilon = ē

      Hebrew follows the system of the Association for Jewish Studies Review, yet whereas Hebrew words that appear in Judaeo-Arabic texts are indicated by the transliteration of צ as ṣ, ט as ṭ, and ח as ḥ, the same consonants that appear in original Hebrew texts will occur as tz, t, and h, respectively.

      The transliteration of Pahlavi follows the system of D. N. MacKenzie’s Concise Pahlavi Dictionary.

      Introduction

      The fragmentary remains of Christian and Jewish legal documents composed in the Eastern Mediterranean in the first five hundred years of Islamic rule reveal that Christian and Jewish religious elites were preoccupied with the fact that their coreligionists were taking legal cases outside the community for litigation in what appear to have been primarily Islamic courts. This book examines the legislative response of Christian and Jewish religious elites to the problem posed by the appeal of their coreligionists to extra-confessional judicial institutions. Focusing on the late seventh through the early eleventh century in the region between Mesopotamia in the east and North Africa in the west, the study explores the multiplicity of judicial institutions that coexisted under early Islamic rule as part of the complex array of social obligations that bound individuals across confessional boundaries. Contrary to the notion of a non-Muslim autonomous existence in a rigid social setting, strictly demarcated along confessional lines, a comparative study of Christian and Jewish legal behavior under Islamic rule exposes a considerable degree of fluidity across communal boundaries. Such transcendence of religious affiliation threatened to undermine the position of traditional religious elites. In response, these elites acted vigorously to reinforce communal boundaries, censuring recourse to external judicial authorities and threatening transgressors with excommunication.

      Maintaining judicial power as a means of sustaining social power and religious boundaries was of great importance for Christian and Jewish elites even prior to Islamic rule. The sages of the Mishnah (the