Judicial Crisis in Damascus on the Eve of Baybars’s Reform

This essay reconstructs a late-Ayyubid court case in Damascus that was litigated repeatedly between 651/1253 and 655/1257, five years prior to the beginning of Sultan Baybars’s judicial reform in 660/1262. The case involved the marriage of a minor orphan girl. The Shāfiʿī chief justice of Damascus initially permitted the marriage but later instructed his deputy judge to annul it, a move that outraged jurists and elicited a transregional debate. I reconstruct the case proceedings and ensuing controversies primarily from an unpublished treatise by Abū Shāma al-Maqdisī (d. 665/1268), which is partly corroborated by contemporaneous fatwas and historical chronicles. The case illustrates that pre-reform Ayyubid courts lacked the coherent jurisprudence and institutional oversight that might have prevented abuses of power by unscrupulous and inept officials. Although Baybars’s reform has long been recognized as a critical turning point in Islamic legal history, this case exposes the social and institutional dilemmas that the reform sought to address

Fiqh · Girl · Islam · Jurisprudence · Minor (academic · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sharia · Social reform · Sociology · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Medieval History and Crusades · Philosophy

• Dört Mezhepli Memlük Yargı Sisteminde Mûceb ve Sıhhatle Hüküm Verme

  Open Access•Burak Ergin•Şırnak Üniversitesi İlahiyat…•2025

  Add to list