Archive for June 8th, 2016

The Centre for Academic Shia Studies (CASS) is pleased to announce a weekly discussion event during the month of Ramadan. The discussions will be held at the Al-Khoei Foundation every weekend at 8.00 pm and will be followed by the breaking of the fast (iftar).

Saturday 11 June 2016: Arab Shi’as: Nationalism, Citizenship and Loyalty

Ranj Alaaldin, LSE

Jane Kinninmont, Chatham House

Ali Allawi, National University of Singapore

Saturday 18 June 2016: ISIS and the End of Times

Ayatollah Fadhil Milani, Imam Khoei Islamic Centre

Charles Tripp, School of Oriental and African Studies

Mina Al-Oraibi, Yale University

Saturday 25 June 2016: What is Shi’ism?

Ayatollah Fadhil Milani, Imam Khoei Islamic Centre

Amina Inloes, The Islamic College

Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter

Friday 1 July 2016: Militancy in Post-2003 Iraq

Luay Al-Khatteeb, Columbia University

Michael Stephens, Royal United Services Institute

Hayder Al-Khoei, Chatham House, CASS.

Kindly RSVP to events@shiaresearch.com

UCI urged to halt Bahraini-bankrolled WorldTour team over rights abuses

Zahir Bhalloo, “Judging the judge: Judicial competence in 19th century Iran”, Bulletin d’études orientales, 63 (2014), pp.275-293.

Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of the dominant Imāmī Šīʻī Uṣūlī doctrinal model in nineteenth century Iran of the jurist (muǧtahid) as arbiter (qāḍī al‑taḥkīm) on judicial practice. By drawing on a “litigant archive” from this period, I discuss one problem that emerged from the dominant doctrinal model. It became possible for litigants to challenge the binding force of a ḥukm by claiming they did not recognize the scholar who issued the ḥukm to be a muǧtahid and hence judicially competent. This ultimately forced Uṣūlī writers to come up with a juridical framework where one recognized muǧtahid would have to confirm the emergence of another one in cases where a scholar’s juristic qualifications (iǧtihād) were challenged. In practice, as I demonstrate, even if a scholar’s judicial competence as a muǧtahid was confirmed by another recognized muǧtahid, it was still no guarantee that the scholar’s ḥukm would be enforced.

Keywords
decentralization, judicial competence, qaḍāʼ, Uṣūlī, muǧtahid, judgement, Qājār, Iran.