RT Article
T1 Institutionalizing Sectarianism: The Lebanese Ja'fari Court and Shi'i Society under the French Mandate
JF Islamic law and society
VO 15
IS 3
SP 371
OP 407
A1 Weiss, Max
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2008
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1820636852
AB Abstract The French Mandate authorities in Greater Lebanon formally recognized the Ja'fari madhhab in January 1926. As a result, state-led shari'a courts in Beirut, South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, the Lebanese Ja'fari court, were authorized to adjudicate matters of personal status—marriage, divorce, nafaqa, inheritance and property. As the first Lebanese Shi'i institution to enjoy communal autonomy granted by the state, the records from the Ja'fari courts provide insight into the everyday life-worlds of ordinary Shi'i Muslims in Lebanon during a period of gradual social change. Through a close reading of some unique cases—dealing with inheritance, maslaha and zinā—this article invites a consideration of how both the bureaucratization and practice of Shi'i law in these courts were central to the institutionalization of a new kind of Shi'i sectarianism in Mandate-era Lebanon.
K1 FRENCH MANDATE
K1 JA'FARI COURT
K1 Lebanon
K1 SHI'ISM
K1 PERSONAL STATUS LAW
DO 10.1163/156851908X366165