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Orientalism, Colonialism, and Legal History: The Attack on Muslim Family Endowments in Algeria and India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

David S. Powers
Affiliation:
Cornell University

Extract

One of the earliest and most highly developed areas of orientalist scholarly production was the study of Islamic law. Modern western investigation of Islamic law emerged during the era of European colonial expansion, and the first studies of the subject were written by citizens of the colonial powers, many of whom had lived in the colonies for extended periods. These men produced the first translations of legal texts, the first studies of individual legal institutions, and the first comprehensive studies of Islamic law, thereby laying the foundations for the modern discipline of Islamic legal history. Surprisingly, students of orientalism have devoted little attention to the colonials' views of Islamic law—that is, to the attitudes and assumptions that underlay their writings and interpretations—or to the impact of those views on the development of Islamic legal studies as a discipline.

Type
Courts and Inheritance
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1989

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References

I would like to thank Avram Udovitch and the two anonymous readers of Comparative Studies in Society and History for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article, and Penny Beebe for her invaluable editorial assistance.

1 See, for example, Henry, Jean-Robert and Balique, François, La Doctrine coloniale du droit musulman algérien: bibliographie systématique et introduction critique (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979).Google Scholar

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5 A semifamilial or “mixed” endowment combines the features of public and family endowments; the founder assigns a certain portion of the revenues to a religious institution and the remainder to the members of a lineal descent group. The two component parts of such an endowment operate simultaneously.

6 Barnes, John Robert, An Introduction to Religious Endowments in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), 4344, 83;Google ScholarKöprülü, Fuad, “L'institution du Vakouf: Sa nature juridique et son evolution historique,” Vakiflar Dergisi, 2:3 (1942). French section.Google Scholar

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11 Hanki, , Wakf, 9, 15.Google Scholar Indeed, the area of waqf land in Egypt rose to an estimated 400,000 feddāns by 1918, to 611,000 by 1927, and to 677,000 by 1942. Were it not for Nasser's nationalization of public endowments and abolition of family endowments, Hanki's worst fears might have materialized (Baer, , Studies, 79).Google Scholar On the proliferation of Muslim religious endowments in India, see Kozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 37, 41.Google Scholar

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17 Anderson, , “Religious Element,” 298;Google ScholarBarnes, , Religious Endowments, 6163.Google Scholar It was not until 1950 that major reforms were enacted. In that year Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran imposed major limitations upon family endowments, while Syria abolished the waqf ahli system altogether. On these measures, see Anderson, , “Religious Element,” 299;Google Scholaridem., “Recent Developments,” 259;Google ScholarBaer, , Studies, 88ff;Google ScholarKozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 20.Google Scholar

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21 The number of Frenchmen living in the Algerian countryside reportedly increased from 119,000 in 1871 to 200,000 in 1898. See Abun-Nasr, , History, 268.Google Scholar

22 ibid., 260–2. N.B. Muslims, especially those with salaries to invest, also purchased land.

23 Mameur, André, La Chefa (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1910), 145–6;Google Scholar cited in Henry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 27.Google Scholar

24 Two additional categories of land that posed problems for the French were privately owned land (mulk) and collective tribal land ('arch). On these, see Cannon, Byron, “Perceptions of the Algerian Douar-Commune and Reactions to 'Arch Land Law: 1863–1881,” in Connaissances du Maghreb: Sciences Sociales et Colonisation, Vatin, Jean-Claude, ed. (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984), 369–85.Google Scholar See also Abun-Nasr, , History, 261;Google ScholarHenry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 2930.Google Scholar

25 Mercier, , Code, 90.Google Scholar

26 The French attitude towards habous was conditioned by their own experience with entails. Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries A.D., Europe had known a system of inheritance similar to that of family endowments. In order to preserve family wealth intact, land was “entailed,” that is to say, the owner could not sell, give away, or encumber the land, nor could he dispose of it by will. An important source of political power for the nobility and the gentry, the system of entails was attacked in the eighteenth century by the supporters of democratic ideals and by economists of the classical school. The latter argued that entails not only stood in the way of mortgaging land for purposes of improvement, but also that the inalienability of land prevented it from coming into the hands of the most efficient cultivators. The system of entail collapsed during the Napoleanic revolution, and in the Napoleanic code, great care was taken to prevent its reestablishment. See Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia, 1983 ed., s.v., “Inheritance.”

27 Mercier, , Code, 9091.Google Scholar

28 Sautayra, Edouard and Cherbonneau, Eugene, Droit musulman: du statut personnel et des successions (Paris: Maisonneuve. 18731874), II, 414.Google Scholar

39 Mercier, , Code, 9091.Google Scholar Traditional modes of Algerian land tenure were further weakened by the sénatus-consulte of 1863, a decree approved by the French Senate which, by interpreting tribal usufruct of land as ownership, facilitated the acquisition of collective tribal lands. See Ageron, , Les Algériens, I, 74;Google ScholarAbun-Nasr, , History, 264.Google Scholar

31 Sautayra, and Cherbonneau, , Droit musulman, I, i.Google Scholar

33 For more on these differences, see Henry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 1516.Google Scholar

34 Sautayra, and Cherbonneau, , Droit musulman, II, 413.Google Scholar

36 ibid., 413–4.

37 N. B. French colonial policy was neither simple nor unidimensional. At the same time that the colonial administration was interested in “mobilizing” land, it also had an interest in propping up the great families of traditional leaders. These interests could be contradictory.

38 On the distinction between droit enseignement and droit règlement, see Vatin, Jean-Claude, “Exotisme et rationalite: A l'origine de l'enseignement du droit en Algérie (1879–1909),” in Connaissances du Maghreb, 163.Google Scholar

39 For an attempt to quantify this literary production and to relate it to colonial policy, see Henry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 5455.Google Scholar

40 See Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1964), 9799 and the bibliographical references cited at 250.Google Scholar

41 Henry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 1213.Google Scholar See also Henry, , “Droit musulman,” 305–14.Google Scholar

42 Henry, and Balique, , Doctrine, 118–21,Google Scholar list the following nine studies devoted to habous that were published between 1886 and 1904: Meyer, Ernest, Les associations musulmanes (Paris: Alcan, 1886);Google ScholarMercier, Ernest, Le habous ou Ouakof: Ses règles et sa jurisprudence (Alger: Jourdan, 1895);Google Scholaridem., Deuxieme étude sur le habous ou waqf, à propos du nouvel ouvrage de M. Clavel,” Revue Algérienne, tunisienne et coloniale de législation et jurisprudence, 13: Pt. 1 (1897), 113ff;Google Scholaridem., Le code du Habous ou Ouakf selon la législation musulmane (Constantine: Braham, 1899);Google ScholarEyssautier, L. M., “La Propriété indigène (le habous) en Algérie,” Revue Algerienne, 14: Pt. 1 (1898), 1326, 2954;Google Scholaridem., Le habous en Algérie: effets de l'aliénation et de l'hypothèque,” Revue Algerienne, 16: Pt. 1 (1900), 105–11;Google ScholarTerras, Jean, Essai sur les biers habous en Algerie et en Tunisie (Lyon: Imprimerie du Salut Public, 1899);Google ScholarAbribat, J., “Essai sur les contrats de quasi-aliénation et de location perpétuelle auxquels l'institution du habous a donné naissance,” Revue Algérienne, 17: Pt. 1 (1901), 121–51;Google Scholaribid., 18 (1902), 21–36, 81–90; Morand, Marcel, “Etude sur la nature juridique du habous,” Revue Algerienne, 20: Pt. 1 (1904), 8593, 127–54.Google Scholar

43 See n. 28 above.

44 Sautayra would later become Président de Chambre of the Court of Appeals and a member of the first Council of the School of Law. See Vatin, , “Exotisme,” 166, 175.Google Scholar

45 Cherbonneau, Sautayra et, Droit musulman, I, i–ii.Google Scholar

46 ibid., II, 213, 220.

47 ibid., 375. An ascendant is a lineal or collateral relative in the ascending line. A collateral relative is one belonging to the same ancestral stock but not in a direct line of descent (e.g., a brother, cousin, uncle, or nephew). An affine is a relative by marriage (e.g., one's wife's brother).

48 ibid., 347, 375. A gift inter vivos (gift between living people) is a voluntary gratuitous alienation of property by one person to another, not made in contemplation of death.

49 ibid., 399.

50 For more on the intergenerational transmission of property, see pp. 566–8 of this article.

51 Zeys, E., Traité élémentaire de droll musulman algérien, 2 vols. (Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1885–1886), I, vii, xi.Google Scholar

52 See previous note.

53 See Christelow, , Muslim Law Courts, 233–43.Google Scholar

54 Zeys, , Traité, II, 185–6.Google Scholar

55 See below, pp. 563–5.

56 See n. 44 above.

57 Although Mercier was of necessity sensitive to the wishes of Muslims, he may have associated habous with what he considered a decadent class of Muslims: rentiers who lived on unearned wealth. On Mercier, see Albertini, Eugene, Bernard, Augustin, Berthier, André, L' Afrique à travers ses fils: Ernest Mercier, historien de l'Afrique septentrionale, maire de Constantine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1944);Google ScholarChristelow, , Muslim Law Courts, 240–41.Google Scholar

58 Mercier, , Code, iii, 15.Google Scholar

59 ibid., 27, 43–45, 129–32.

60 ibid., 14–15, 45, 132. In fact, some Muslims supported family endowments, while others—especially the emerging new classes—did not. The differing attitudes of Algerian Muslims toward this institution is a subject that requires further investigation.

61 ibid., 43–45, 132.

62 ibid., 14, 132–4.

63 Morand, , “Etude,” 8593, 127–54, published separately as Etude sur la nature juridique du Hobous (Algiers: Jourdan, 1904), reprinted in Etudes de droit musulman algerien (Algiers: Jourdan, 1910), 225–66. All references hereafter are to Etudes (1910).Google Scholar

64 For a discussion of Morand's involvement in the development of this institution, see Vatin, , “Exotisme,” 179.Google Scholar

65 Morand, , Etudes, 228.Google Scholar

67 ibid., 229–30.

68 ibid., 226.

69 ibid., 227.

71 ibid., 226.

72 ibid., 227–28.

73 See, for example, Ishaq, Khalīl b., Mukhtasar (Paris: Matba'a al-Dawla al-Jumhūriyya, 1900), 201ff;Google Scholar Muḥummad b. Muḥammad al-Ṭarabulsī al-Maghribī, known as al-ḥaṬṭāb), Mawāhib al-Jalīl li-sharḥ mukḥtaṣar al-Khalīl (Libya: Maktabat al-Najāḥ, 1969), VI, 18ff;Google Scholaral-Shinqītī, alDāhal-Fatḥ sharḥ 'aiā naẓm risālat Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (Cairo: Maktaba al-Qāhira, 1969), II-III, 88ffGoogle Scholar

74 Morand, , Etudes, 233.Google Scholar

75 Ageron, , Les Algériens, I, 88ffGoogle Scholar

76 For a survey of various theories on the origins of waqf, see Köprülü, , “Vakouf,” 348.Google Scholar

77 a, Etudes, 249–50. The statement by Mercier is found in his Code, 14.Google Scholar

78 See Morand, , Etudes, 250–5, where the author points out a series of parallels between Islamic public endowments and Byzantine piae causae and advances the thesis that the former institution is modeled upon the latter. On the issue of origins, see p. 566.Google Scholar

79 ibid., 264–66.

80 Morand, Marcel, Avant-projet de code (présenté a la Commission de codifīcation du droit musulman algērien) (Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1916), 17;Google ScholarBorrmans, Maurice, Status Personnel et Famille au Maghreb de 1940 à nos Jours (Paris: Mouton, 1977), 110;Google ScholarChristelow, , Muslim Law Courts, 253–6. Note: Morand's concession may have been influenced by the fact that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the French, having asserted their domination, were again seeking to accommodate the Muslim leadership; the colonial regime was attempting to establish hegemony in Algeria, a project that required the collaboration of the Muslim notables.Google Scholar

81 The institution of family endowments was not abolished until the year 1963, that is to say, not until one year after Algeria achieved its independence. The parameters of the debate over family endowments during the course of the twentieth century may be followed in Charnay, Jean-Paul, La vie musulmane en Algérie d'après la jurisprudence de la premiére moitié du XXe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965); and Borrmans, Status Personnel.Google Scholar

82 al-Sa'd, Amīn, La Dévolution ab intestat d'après le Rite Hanafite et le Droit Français (Paris: 1930).Google Scholar

83 See, for example, Baljon, J. M. S., The Reforms and Religious Ideas of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 1st ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1949);Google ScholarMetcalf, Barbara Daly, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 324.Google Scholar

84 Al-Sa'd, , La Dévolution, 57.Google Scholar

85 The alleged closing of the gates of independent reasoning has recently been challenged. See Hallaq, Wael, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16:1 (1984), 341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86 Al-Sa'd, , La Dévolution, 6, 124–6.Google Scholar

87 Boulos, Michel-Fares, La succession de droit musulman: son origin et son évolution, (Paris: Jouve éditeurs, 1925).Google Scholar

88 ibid., 9–17, 237ff. The call for the total reform of the Islamic law of inheritance advocated by Amin al-Sa'd and Michel-Farés Boulos made little or no headway at first. In the 1950s, however, legislative enactments were passed in Egypt, Iraq, and the Sudan that considerably increased the power of testation: It was decreed that a testator may leave a bequest to an heir within the bequeathable third and that such bequests are not subject to the consent of the other heirs. This reform allows a parent to make special provision for a particularly needy child or other relatives and to make similar distinctions between one heir and another; it also permits a testator to distribute his entire estate, item by item, among his heirs, provided only that this distribution does not favor some heirs at the expense of others. For details on these reforms, see Liebesny, Herbert J., The Law of the Near & Middle East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 182f;Google ScholarAnderson, J. N. D., “Recent Reforms in the Islamic Law of Inheritance,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 14:2 (1965), 349–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 Schacht, , Introduction, 9496;Google ScholarKozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 106ff.Google Scholar

90 Kozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 32ff.Google Scholar

91 Al-Sirājiyyah: or the Mahomedan Law of Inheritance, with a commentary by Sir Jones, William, Sircar, Shamachum, ed. (1792; Calcutta: The Sanskrit Press, 1861), 5.Google Scholar

92 Al-Sirājiyyah, 1.

93 See n. 1, above.

94 Macnaghten, W. H., Principles of Moohumudan Law, being a compilation of the primary rules relative to the doctrine of inheritance (including the tenets of the shia sectaries), contracts, and miscellaneous subjects, together with notes illustrative and explanatory and preliminary remarks (1825; rprt. Calcutta: The Brahma Samaj Press, 1861).Google Scholar

95 Baillie, Neil B. E., The Moohummudan Law of Inheritance according to Aboo Huneefa and his followers, with an appendix containing authorities from the original Arabic (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1832).Google Scholar

96 Elberling, F. E., A treatise on inheritance, gift, will, sale, and mortgage (Serampore: Serampore Press, 1844; rprt. Calcutta: The Law Press, 1861).Google Scholar

97 Macnaghten, , Principles, i.Google Scholar

98 Baillie, , Moohummudan Law, vi.Google Scholar

99 Ironically, the strict application of the Islamic law of inheritance also created problems for the British by contributing to a decline in the profitability of estates. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, revenue administration officials began to express their concern over this phenomenon. See Kozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 46.Google Scholar

100 ibid., 32–40. Cf. Habib, Irfan, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707 (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963), 312–3.Google Scholar

101 Kozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 9195.Google Scholar

102 ibid., 157–62.

103 ibid., 134–6.

104 ibid., 137.

105 ibid., 91–92, 96, 137–8.

106 ibid., 139–42.

107 ibid., 142–3.

108 It may be significant that all the lawsuits considered here involved a conflict between Muslim endowment-beneficiaries and Hindu creditors. The communal, sectarian aspect of the issue deserves further consideration.

109 Kozlowski, , Muslim Endowments, 141–6.Google Scholar

110 But see ibid., 149–50, where Kozlowski argues, with reason, that the Privy Council's ruling in Abdul Fata Mahomed Ishak may have been influenced by principles of British law and economics, notwithstanding Hobhouse's contention about his respect for Islamic law.

111 ibid., 146–50.

112 ibid., 155.

113 ibid., 165–8.

114 ibid., 168–9.

115 ibid., 169–72.

116 ibid., 178. The question was a procedural device adapted from the British Parliament, where it enabled members of the opposition party to challenge government policies and actions.

117 ibid., 178–9.

118 ibid., 181–2, 185.

119 ibid., 182–3, 185.

120 ibid., 188–9. The restrictive interpretation of the Act was subsequently overruled by the Mussalman Wakf Validating Act of 1930. See 8 Government of Pakistan Ministry of Laws, Unrepealed Central Acts (1953), 419.Google Scholar

121 See n. 125, below.

122 al-Shāfi'ī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Kitāb al-Umm (Būlāq: 1321–26; rpt. Cairo: Dār al-Sha'b, 1968), III, 280–1.Google Scholar

123 The prophetic precedent (sunna) for endowments is found in the following ḥadīth: Al ḥlumaydī—Sufyān— 'Abdallāh [or Tbaydallāh] b. 'Umar—Nāft'—Ibn 'Umar: 'Umar approached the Prophet and said, “O Messenger of God, I have acquired wealth unlike anything I had acquired previously. I have received the 100 shares that are in Khaybar and I want to use them in a manner that is pleasing to God.” The Prophet said, “Sequester (iḥbas) the capital and distribute the revenues.” In another, longer version of this ḥadīth, the Prophet says, “If you want, sequester the capital and distribute the revenues as charity,” and further details are given as to what 'Umar did. Both versions are found in all the major ḥadīth collections. Classical Muslim jurists routinely point to this ḥadīth as proof of the legal validity of the waqf institution. See, for example, Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed on the margin of al-Qasṭallānī, Iishād; al-sārī lisharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-Bulchārī (Cairo: al-Matba'a al-Kubrā al-Amīriyya, 1305/18871888), VII, 92.Google Scholar

124 See, for example, al-Shaybānī, Aḥmad b. 'Amr, known as al-Khaṣṣaf, Kitāb aḥkām alaweqāf (Cairo: Matbdat Dīwān 'Umūm al-Awqāf al-Misriyya, 1322/1904), 518;Google Scholaral-Ra'y, Hilāl b. Yaḥyā, Kikāb aḥkam al-waqf (Hayderabad: Matbdat Majlis Dā'irat al-Ma'ārif al-'Uthmāniyya, 1355/1936).Google Scholar

125 Al-Tirmidhī, for example, is reported to have said, “We are not aware of any disagreement among the Companions and the early legists regarding the permissibility of designating lands as religious endowments”; according to Qurtubī, “The rejection of waqf runs counter to the consensus (ijmā) and therefore should not be taken seriously.” See al-Ṣan'ānī, , Subul al-salam: sharḥ bulūgh al-marām min adillat al-aḥkām (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijāriyya al-Kubrā 196-), III, 85;Google Scholaral-Shawkānī, , Nayl al-awṭār (Cairo: Matba'a Mustafā al-Bābī-ḥalabī, 1952), V, 26;Google Scholar also see the standard legal texts of the four law schools (madhhabs) and Amin, Muḥammad Muḥammad, Al-awqālf wa-l-ḥayāt al-tjtimā'iyya fi miṣr, 648–923 A. H./1250–1517 A. D. (Cairo: Dār al-Nahḍa al-'Arabiyya, 1980), 22ffGoogle Scholar

126 al-Wansharīsī, Aḥmad, Kitāb al-mr'yār al-mughrib wa-1-jāmi' al-mu'rib 'an fatāwī ahl ifrīqiya wa-l-andalus wa-l-maghrib, 13 vols. (Rabat: Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, 19811983). See especially Vol. VII, entitled nawāzil al-aḥbās.Google Scholar

127 See, for example, Powers, David S., “A Court Case From Fourteenth-Century North Africa,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 110:1 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

128 See n.3, above.

129 Schacht, Joseph, “Early Doctrines on Waqf,” in Fuad Köprülü Armagani. Mélanges Fuad Köprülü (Istanbul: O. Yalcin Matbaasi, 1953), 443–52;Google ScholarCahen, Claude, “Réflexions sur le waqf ancien,” Studia Islamica no. 14 (1961), 3757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

130 On the subject of the origins of Islamic law, see Crone, Patricia, Roman, Provincial and Islamic law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). I intend to deal with the origins of family endowments in a separate study.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

131 For details on the historical development of the Islamic law of inheritance, see Powers, David S., Studies in Qur'ān and ḥadīth: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).Google Scholar

132 I do not deny that in certain places and under certain circumstances the application of the law of inheritance may have constituted a cultural pressure toward the fragmentation of property.

133 On inheritance as a social process, see Gerholm, Tomas, “Aspects of Inheritance and Marriage Payments in Yemen,” in Property, Social Structure, and Law in the Modern Middle East, Mayer, Ann E., ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 129–51,Google Scholar esp. 135; Lev, Daniel, Islamic Courts in Indonesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 191.Google Scholar

134 Sautayra, and Cherbonneau, , Droit musulman, II, 220, 347, 399.Google Scholar

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136 Bousquet, G. H. and Peltier, Frederic, Les successions agnatiques mitigées: Etude cornparee du régime successoral en droit germanique et en droit musulman (Paris: Librairie Orientalist Paul Geuthner, 1935), 145–50.Google Scholar

137 See, for example, Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st ed., s. v. “Mīrāth” (Joseph Schacht), where family endowments are mentioned almost as an afterthought; and Coulson, Noel J., Succession in the Muslim Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), where family endowments and gifts inter vivos are never once mentioned.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

138 Berger, Morroe, The Arab World Today (New York: Anchor Books, 1964), 61.Google Scholar

139 For a discussion of the opposite tendency, namely, projecting the past into the present, see Hill, Enid, “Orientalism and Liberal-Legalism: The Study of Islamic Law in the Modern Middle East,” Review of Middle East Studies, no. 2 (1976), 5770.Google Scholar

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141 Ashtor, Eliyahu, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 113.Google Scholar

142 Hodgson, Marshall, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), I, 343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

143 Valensi, Lucette, Tunisian Peasants in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Archer, B., trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 67, 69.Google Scholar But see Rosen, Lawrence, “Social Identity and Points of Attachment: Approaches to Social Organization,” in Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society: Three Essays in Cultural Analysis, Geertz, Clifford, Geertz, Hildred, and Rosen, Lawrence, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 31,Google Scholar where the author refers to the possible adaptive value of the fragmentation of landholdings. Cf. Brugman, J., “The Islamic Law of Inheritance,” in Essays on Oriental Laws of Succession, David, M. et al., eds. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969), 8291, esp. 88, where the author acknowledges that “it cannot be denied that the Islamic law of inheritance is surprisingly modem in the sense that it prevents the accumulation of wealth.”Google Scholar

144 The literature on this subject is extensive. See, for example, Abdul-Rauf, Muhammad, A Muslim's Reflections on Democratic Capitalism (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1984), 14;Google ScholarAhmad, Shaikh Mahmud, Social Justice in Islam (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1970), 31;Google ScholarChapra, M. Umar, “The Islamic Welfare State and its Role in the Economy,” in Studies in Islamic Economics, Ahmad, Khurshid, ed. (Delhi: Amar Prakashan, 1983);Google ScholarMannan, Muhammad Abdul, The Frontier of Islamic Economics (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1984), 45, 77;Google ScholarDr. Qureshi, Anwar Iqbal, The Economic and Social System of Islam (Lahore: Islamic Book Service, 1979);Google ScholarUr-Rahman, Afzal, Economic Doctrines of Islam, 2 vols. (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1974);Google ScholarRazzaque, M. A., “Distribution of Wealth in Islam, ” in Thoughts on Islamic Economics (Bangladesh: Islamic Economics Institute, 1980);Google ScholarSadeq, Abdul Hasan M., “Distribution of Wealth in Islam,” in Thoughts on Islamic Economics;Google ScholarSiddiqi, Muhammad Najatullah, “Muslims Economics Thinking: A Survey of Contemporary Literature,” in Studies in Islamic Economics, Ahmad, Khurshid, ed. (Delhi: Amar Prakashan, 1983).Google Scholar