Mazalim

Mazalim

Flag of Abbasid dynasty
Abbasid Government Institution overview
Formed	Late eighth century
Dissolved	Thirteenth century
Jurisdiction	Caliphate
Headquarters	Baghdad Samarra
Abbasid Government Institution executive	Abbasid Caliphs

Al-Maẓālim (Arabic: المظالم, romanized: al-maẓālim, lit. 'injustices, grievances') were an ancient pre-Islamic institution that was adopted by the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century CE. The main purpose of the maẓālim courts was to give ordinary people redress.^[1] Al-Maẓālim, or the sultan's court, was distinguished from the shurṭa or police courts.^[2]

References

1. Duindam, J.; Harries, J.D.; Humfress, C.; Nimrod, H. (2013). Law and Empire: Ideas, Practices, Actors. Rulers & Elites. Brill. p. 40. ISBN 978-90-04-24951-6. Retrieved 2023-07-19. the mazalim tribunals were an ancient institution that was adopted by the ʿabbasids in the eighth century. Its main purpose was to enable ordinary subjects to complain about the administrative elite of the empire.
2. Vikør, K.S. (2005). Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law. Oxford University Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-19-522398-9. Retrieved 2023-07-19. group them into two main types recognized by the adab literature: mazalim, or the sultan's court, and shurta, police courts.

Bibliography

• Tyan, Emile. Histoire de l'organisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1960.
• Nielsen, Jorgen. Secular Justice in an Islamic State: Maẓālim under the Baḥrī Mamlūks, 662/1264-789/1387. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1985.
• Tillier, Mathieu. Qādī-s and the political use of the mazālim jurisdiction under the ʿAbbāsids. In Maribel Fierro and Christian Lange (eds.), Public Violence in Islamic Societies: Power, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-18th Centuries CE. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 42-66. Online: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/61/38/82/PDF/Tillier-Mazalim-Epreuves.pdf
• Tillier, Mathieu. The Maẓālim in Historiography. In A.M. Emon and R. Ahmed (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 357-380.
• van Berkel, Maaike. Embezzlement and reimbursement. Disciplining officials in ‘Abbāsid Baghdad (8th-10th centuries A.D.). International Journal of Public Administration, 34 (2011), p. 712-719.