1 Introduction: Bukharan Fatwas as Written Artefacts

Written artefacts which record the legal opinion or fatwa (Ar. fatwā, pl. fatāwā) of an Islamic jurist or muftī have a long tradition in the Islamic world.¹ The earliest extant fatwa documents that have come to light so far are recorded on papyrus from the ninth–tenth centuries and on paper from the eleventh–twelfth centuries.² These early fatwas are in Arabic. In the eastern Islamic lands, among non-Arabic speaking peoples, fatwas were also written in Persian. At least eleven fatwas written in Persian on paper in medieval Islamic Khurāsān, from the region of present-day Afghanistan, are known.³ Though undated, based on their script, it is likely they are from the twelfth–thirteenth centuries. This study will focus on a more recent example of fatwa writing in Persian from nineteenth-century Bukhara in present day Uzbekistan. The three Bukharan fatwas examined here were found glued along with other fatwas and legal documents inside a manuscript in Qum, Iran, in 2007. Their long-distance displacement from Bukhara to Qum and their preservation inside a manuscript as infixes will be discussed in the second part of this paper. In the first part, however, the aim will be to understand the production and movements of these fatwas locally in Bukhara itself. What physical traces did different social actors in Bukhara such as the scribe, questioner/litigant, jurist (muftī), and the local ruler (amīr) leave on such documents as they passed through their hands?

2 Three Bukharan Fatwas

The first Bukharan fatwa (doc.130) is written on a piece of horizontal paper in landscape format measuring 41 cm in length and 26.7 cm in width. It records a legal opinion issued in favour of the defendant on the inadmissibility of the testimony of witnesses brought by the claimant in a retaliation (qiṣās) lawsuit (see fig. 10.1).⁴ There are three vertical fold lines visible at regular intervals of 10 cm. This suggests that the document was at some stage preserved by being folded into a strip. This folding, however, resulted in some tears along the fold lines, and there are signs of repair carried out by gluing in small bits of paper. The left- and right-hand edge of the sheet also appear to be trimmed. It is not clear if the folding and trimming occurred before, during, or after the sheet was preserved inside the manuscript (see below). On unfolding the sheet, the eye of the reader is drawn to three main elements: a complex monogram (A), marginal text on the right-hand corner (F), and four round black ink seal impressions (1–4) at the bottom of the sheet.

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Figure 10.1

Doc.130, 41 × 26.7 cm. A fatwa from nineteenth-century Bukhara on the inadmissibility of testimony by the claimant’s witnesses in a retaliation (qiṣās) lawsuit with the seal impressions of four muftīs

© Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī collection, Qum, Iran

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Each of these elements and their spatial organisation was deliberate. The monogram-like text (A) is the Perso-Arabic introductory clause that opened such fatwa documents: tayyamunan li-dhikrihi l-aʿlā mā qawlu aʾimmat al-islām raḍī allāhu taʿālā ʿanhum dar īn masʾala ki (“Seeking good omen by remembering His sublime name, what is the opinion of the scholars of Islam, may God the Exalted be pleased with them, concerning this question/case”).⁵ The monogram was clearly the work of a professional scribe, and it is likely that each scribe active in Bukhara who wrote such fatwa documents had a specific way of executing this formula on the sheet (compare the same element in fatwa 2 and 3, fig. 10.2, 10.3). It was thus possible to distinguish from the way the formula was executed on the sheet which scribe had written the document. The introductory formula thus functioned as a personal monogram or ṭughrā (Ar. ṭughrāʾ) with an authenticating function.⁶ Moreover, it announced immediately the document’s legal typology as a fatwa and not, for example, a deed of sale or a judicial decision. The introductory formula marks the beginning of the main text. This main text presents the circumstances of a case and ends with a negative question to the muftī asking if the circumstances presented were in accordance with the sharīʿa or not. The negative question starts with the clause “according to the sharīʿa is such and such” (bi-sharīʿat …) and finishes with the clause “in accordance with its stipulations or not?” (… bi-sharāiṭihi yā nay?). These clauses bi-sharīʿat (B) and bi-shāriṭihi yā nay (C) were also written by the scribe in a distinctive manner, thus helping the reader immediately identify where the negative question was in the document.

The clause immediately after the negative question is the imperative Arabic formula bayyinū tuʾjarū (clarify and be rewarded) (D). The sense here is a recompense from God, though we know that Central Asian muftīs were also paid for their answer. In this fatwa, there is an additional line of text (E) relating to the circumstances of the case directly after the bayyinū tuʾjarū clause below the negative question. The scribe had to add this later as an additional clarification after he had written the negative question. What appears to be a large block of marginal text (F) are in fact seven separate citations drawn from two classic texts of Ḥanafī jurispudence: Muḥīṭ al-Burḥānī, a well-known work by Burḥān al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣadr al-Shahīd al-Bukhārī b. al-Māzah (d. ca. 1174) and Mukhtār al-Fatāwā (also known as Mukhtārāt al-Nawāzil) by Burhān al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Farghānī al-Marghīnānī (d. 1197).

These seven citations are the evidence upon which the decision of the muftī was based. The citations support without exception the claim of the defendant. In other words, the drafting of this fatwa for the needs of the defendant was a premeditated socio-juridical act. Ken’ichi Isogai, drawing on a different set of fatwas from Samarqand, argues that the role of the muftī was, thus, to offer their “clients” (claimant or defendant) the best possible fatwa in support of their claim based on Ḥanafī sources of jurisprudence. This would maximize their chances of obtaining a favourable judgement (ḥukm) from the qāḍī. Such practice was not without its consequences, and in the lawsuit he examines, for example, the conflicting fatwas of both sides ultimately resulted in a reconciliation between the parties.⁷

What is difficult to determine is whether the main text and citations are the work of a single individual such as a professional scribe or the muftī himself or of both working together based on a rough draft. The citations end by mentioning which work Muḥīṭ al-Burḥānī or Mukhtār al-Fatāwā they are from. The Arabic clause min nafsihi (from the work itself) is added after mentioning the text in question. In an important recent study, Jürgen Paul discusses in detail the significance of such citation practices.⁸ The citations were meant to link the present fatwa directly to the classical works of Ḥanafī jurisprudence, thus giving authority to the fatwa.⁹ In the first two citations, the folio numbers of the works are also cited (muḥīṭ al-burhānī min nafsihi waraqa 497, muḥīṭ al-burhānī min nafsihi waraqa 278). This citation of folio numbers is surprising. It is possible that these numbers refer to folios in a manuscript copy of the Muḥīṭ which were consulted by the scribe/muftī that wrote the fatwa. In theory, therefore, these references could be consulted again. They might have thus functioned as a means of authenticating the transmission of the cited text as it was recorded in the fatwa document. As our document is sealed by four separate muftīs (1–4) (see below), however, it is difficult to say which muftī’s copy of Muḥīṭ these folio numbers refer to. Presumably the folio numbers applied to the copy of the Muḥīṭ of the muftī in whose office the fatwa was drafted.¹⁰ This does not explain, however, why only some of the citations referring to Muḥīṭ have folio numbers and none of the citations referring to Mukhtār al-Fatāwā mention folio numbers. Either, the mention of a few folio numbers was sufficient for authentication purposes, or alternatively the folio numbers were perhaps only used as an aide-memoire for less well-known citations.

At the bottom of the fatwa document are four circular shaped black ink seal impressions with the following diameters: (1) 5.2 cm; (2) 4.7 cm; (3) 6 cm and (4) 4.5 cm.¹¹ The seal with the largest diameter probably belonged to the most important and high-ranking Bukharan muftī. The inscription on the seal of each muftī uses a distinctive formula. This formula is usually based on a combination of Arabic proverbs such as man ṣabara ẓafara (“he who is patient is victorious”) and pious invocations such as allāhu yahdī man yashāʾ ilā ṣirāt al-mustaqīm (“God guides whom he wants onto the straight path”), followed by the name of the muftī and the date the seal was made. From the dates on the four seals, it is possible to work out that the fatwa was made after 1244/1828–1829. There can also be no doubt regarding the Bukharan provenance of the document, as the inscription on the second seal suggests it belonged to the military muftī of Bukhara (muftī-yi ʿaskar-i shahr-i bukhārā).

Three of the seal impressions (1–3) have the note in Persian bāshad, wallāhu aʿlam (“it is, and God knows best”) or bāshad in short written above the seal. This note was probably written by the respective muftī himself in his own hand. It is clear from other examples that the bāshad note was written by the muftī after he had affixed his seal on the sheet, as in some cases the note is visible in places above the seal impression or in the blank space left when the seal was not properly affixed. The bāshad note was intended as a reply (jawāb) to the negative question that ends the presentation of the facts of the case. Not all seals had a bāshad note. For instance, seal 4 in this case does not have one. Analyzed from the perspective of rhetoric and logic, bāshad was not a constative statement (khabar) that can be true or false, but a performative construction (inshāʾ) with the sense of an imperative order from a position of superiority or compulsion: bāyad bāshad or bāyad bi-shawad (“it must be”).¹² The use of bāshad in this way emphasizes the performative act of the issuance of the fatwa by the muftī. This does not, however, affect its juridical non-binding legal character as an opinion on the case.

The survival of a second fatwa (doc.134, see fig. 10.2) which is sealed by the same muftīs as the first fatwa suggests that there was a particular order in which the muftīs of Bukhara affixed their seals onto fatwas. The second fatwa measures 40.3 cm in length and 25 cm in width. It relates to a case of murder (qatl).¹³ It is also folded in the same manner as the first fatwa, leaving three horizontal fold lines. It is not clear if the second fatwa, however, belongs to the same case as described in the first fatwa. It is sealed by ten separate muftīs. The seal impressions of muftīs 1,2, 3, and 4 from the first fatwa retain their same positions on the second fatwa. The seal impressions of muftīs 1, 2, and 3 cluster around the first and second horizontal fold line, while muftī 4 affixes his seal near the third horizontal fold line. The reason for this identical sealing practice in the two fatwas might be because they were produced at the same time and in the same place where these four muftīs had gathered. The four muftīs thus retained their respective positions on both documents. The remaining muftīs sealed the second fatwa after it was presented to them by the scribe or questioner/litigant at a later stage, perhaps in a mosque, madrasa, house, or even in the bazaar.

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Figure 10.2

Doc.134, 40.3 × 25 cm. A fatwa from nineteenth century Bukhara in a case of murder (qatl) with the seal impressions of ten muftīs

© Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī collection, Qum, Iran

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The process of producing a Bukharan fatwa thus clearly involved the movement and exchange of the document between multiple actors: scribes, questioners/litigants, and muftīs. Ultimately, however, the document was destined to be presented to a judge or qāḍī. The more muftīs that a questioner/litigant succeeded in obtaining in support of his claim, the better his chances were of obtaining a favourable decision from the qāḍī based on the fatwa. It was thus essential to leave enough blank space at the bottom of the sheet for the seal impressions of muftīs. Before some fatwas arrived in the hands of the qāḍī, however, they could also be presented to the local ruler (amīr) of Bukhara.

A good example of this is a third fatwa (doc.104, see fig. 10.3) in which a claimant asks a muftī for his opinion on the validity of his claim in a case involving the restitution of water rights.¹⁴ The main reason for soliciting the fatwa was to compel the defendant to appear before a qāḍī. This was not a fatwa relating to a theoretical problem raised by the lawsuit like the previous two fatwas. In this case, the fatwa is also arranged differently. The sheet of paper used measures 25.9 cm in length and 21.9 cm in width. Unlike the previous two fatwas, the layout is more vertical in shape. The sheet does not appear to have been folded at regular intervals like the previous two fatwas. Its monogram introductory clause is spatially arranged towards the bottom of the document after the claim for restitution or claim protocol (maḥḍar) is described. The muftī who has sealed the fatwa and has written a short bāshad note above it, however, is Muḥammad ʿĀlim Khwāja, the same muftī whose seal impression also appears in the previous two fatwas (muftī no. 1). The scribe of the third fatwa also included a citation from Ḥanafī juristic sources relating to the claim in the right-hand margins, which is cut off. This probably occurred when the document was removed from the manuscript. Some text is also missing from the top of the sheet. We know from similar claims of restitution that such documents usually begin with an address to the amīr of Bukhara as follows: ḥaḍrat-i amīr sallamahu l-lāh taʿāla (the noble amīr, may God the Exalted bless him) written at the top center of the sheet.¹⁵

The verso of the claim (see fig. 10.4) has a decree by the amīr of Bukhara, Amīr Naṣr-Allāh b. Amīr Ḥaydar, (1242–1277/1827–1860) dated 1247/1832. The decree is written on the top left-hand corner of the sheet. It summons the defendant before a qāḍī (fig. 10.4). The decree is sealed using the amīr’s round seal with the inscription al-ḥukm bi l-ʿadl 1247.¹⁶ This suggests that the document at some stage was brought to the amīr’s chancery or dīwān in the citadel or Ark of Bukhara. The scribes working there wrote the decree which was sealed by the amīr. The three Bukharan fatwas discussed above are by no means intended to constitute an exhaustive study of the issuance of Bukharan fatwas or of their legal content and function. What we are interested in here is tracing the steps involved in the production of such written artefacts and their movements as they changed hands within the town of Bukhara. After such fatwa documents were used, in some cases, as in the three examples cited here, they were glued into manuscript compilations known in Central Asia as jungs, a practice we will examine in the next section.

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Figure 10.3

Doc.104. 25.9 × 21.9 cm. Recto of a claim for restitution of water rights from Bukhara with the fatwa and seal impression of one muftī at the bottom

© Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī collection, Qum, Iran

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Figure 10.4

Doc.104. 25.9 × 21.9 cm. Verso of a claim for restitution of water rights from Bukhara with a sealed decree by the amīr dated 23 Dhū l-Qada 1247/24 April 1832 in the top right-hand corner

© Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmi collection, Qum, Iran

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3 Preservation and Displacement

Two pioneering articles by Sanjar Gulomov and Saidakbar Mukhammadaminov brought to light a distinctive preservation practice related to Islamic legal documents in the Ḥanafī milieu of Central Asia.¹⁷ Legal documents were glued inside the bifolia of jung manuscript codices in the form of infixes.¹⁸ Such legal document-rich jung codices are known to have been produced from the end of the sixteenth century onwards, though there may be earlier examples.¹⁹ They represent an interesting codicological example of convergence of two types of Islamic legal writings. To use the discursive categories proposed by Brinkley Messick, the prestigious “cosmopolitan” Islamic legal texts of the “library,” as compiled in a jung, become embedded here with the contingent, day to day, locally specific “archival” writings relating to the judge’s court, such as fatwa documents and notarial acts.²⁰

The compilers of such jungs were often qāḍīs and muftīs who used them during their daily routine or these officials’ madrasa students.²¹ In some cases, jungs were named after their qāḍī or muftī compilers, such as the jung-i qāḍī al-ʿabd al-ḥayy compiled by Qāḍī al-ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Khwāja b. Qāḍī Mīrakshāh, active as qāḍī in Bukhara between 1111–1121/1699–1709.²² The jungs were also inherited by the successors of individuals who held qāḍī and muftī positions.²³ There is also evidence to suggest that jungs were compiled and transmitted within families that held qāḍī and muftī posts.²⁴ The original and model legal documents jungs contained were intended to aid the practicing qāḍī or muftī in their work. The models provided formulae similar to those found in Islamic legal formulary works known as shurūṭ, while originals were documents that had been used in actual cases. Both were useful for the scribes who drafted such documents. The originals, moreover, had a certain symbolic value for jung compilers as they contained the seal impressions and handwriting of famous qāḍīs or muftīs of the town. Not surprisingly, student jung compilers would often add an additional note stating that the original was written and sealed by their teacher.²⁵ In some cases, we find seal cuttings from original documents glued into the jung manuscript.²⁶

The collection and preservation of legal documents in such jung manuscript codices by qāḍīs, muftīs, or their students does not constitute a qāḍī or muftī archive which could be systematically reviewed and consulted. Rather, the selection of documents, sometimes over 400, which ended up being preserved as infixes reflected the interests of the qāḍī, muftī, or student compilers.²⁷ Most jungs in addition to the glued-in documents contained compilations of legal questions dealing with various topics of the sharīʿa (masāʾil fiqhiyya). In some cases, the masāʾil fiqhiyya were included alongside famous texts on Ḥanafī law such as the Mukhtaṣar al-Wiqāya of ʿUbaydullāh b. Masʿūd al-Mahbūbī al-Bukhārī (d. 747/1348), which was often used by qāḍīs in addition to being popular within the circles of teachers and students of madrasas in Bukhara. While some jungs are devoted entirely to legal content, others are far more variegated and can contain personal notes of the compiler and a miscellany of non-legal texts relating to astrology, astronomy, occult sciences, mathematics, Sufism, history, and poetry.²⁸

Based on the preceding, there is little doubt that the three Bukharan fatwa documents presented here were originally part of a Central Asian Ḥanafī jung codex, probably mainly devoted to legal questions, which was displaced at some point from its original site of production in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. The circumstances surrounding the displacement of the jung and its movements are difficult to reconstruct. The jung was acquired along with other manuscripts from Afghanistan by a private collector and clerical scholar in Qum, Sayyid Ṣādiq Ḥusaynī Ishkawarī, who runs the publishing house Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī (Association of Islamic Treasures). It should be noted that under the direction of Ishkawarī, the Majmaʿ has been active for several decades in safeguarding what it considers to be treasures of the Islamic world and saving them from destruction and loss mainly through digitization efforts conducted in situ. The problematic provenance of the jung and other manuscripts in this case, however, raises ethical questions about heritage preservation and research. This is a problem that is not unique to this case and is well-known with similar collections acquired by private collectors and institutions, such as for example the so-called Afghan Geniza or the Bactrian and Abbasid documents also from Afghanistan.

Ishkawarī relates that from the pile of manuscripts he bought, there was one that caught his attention. It had several pieces of glued-in folded paper inside its bifolia. These papers had large, round black ink seal impressions. On closer inspection, it became clear that over one hundred single-sheet documents of varying dimensions were glued and folded inside the manuscript. Some of the documents were glued on the edge near the spine folds of the bifolia of the manuscript. Many of the documents, however, appeared to have been removed from their original position in the bifolia, cut, and pasted to the bottom of the sewn text block when the manuscript was rebound. This had caused considerable damage to the documents. Over a period of a week, the glued documents in the bifolia and those bound to the bottom of the text block were carefully removed from the manuscript in Qum. In the end, eighty documents were rescued and digitized, the rest being completely damaged. Based on the seals and other textual clues, it became clear that these were legal documents written in Persian in the Khanate (1506–1785) and later Emirate (1785–1920) of Bukhara between the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.²⁹ The only exception was a piece of scrap paper containing a handwritten recipe for making soap in Pashtu in Arabic script. This infix must have entered the jung later, when the manuscript was brought to Afghanistan from Uzbekistan.

A selection of sixty-two documents was subsequently edited by Muḥammad ʿAlī Bāqirzāda.³⁰ The publication of the edition, quite unsually, also included a CD-Rom with the colour images of the documents. Most of the sixty-two included documents are either similar in structure and form to the first two fatwas examined here or to the third one containing a decree on the verso. Following the terminology used to catalogue a similar Central Asian corpus of Islamic legal documents from Samarqand, the first two fatwas can be described as “solicited legal opinions” while the third fatwa forms part of a “claim for restitution” or “claim protocol” (maḥḍar).³¹ The sixty-two documents include both examples of model claim protocols with names and places anonymized and actual claim protocols with an accompanying fatwa on the validity of the claim/lawsuit at the bottom of the recto and a decree on the verso.³² It is not always clear, however, if the fatwas originally contained seal impressions or not, as many of the documents have sustained damage during their initial removal from their original position inside the manuscript or the second removal that occurred later in Qum. In Central Asian Ḥanafī practice, unsealed fatwas were known as riwāya.³³ Besides the fatwas, the sixty-two documents also include the text of a deed of acknowledgement (iqrār) dated Rajab 1248/November–December 1832.³⁴

As the original manuscript and more than half of the documents found inside were subsequently sold by Ishkawarī to another collector, the only way to confirm that the documents were originally glued in the same way as in a traditional Central Asian jung was to find an example of a jung which still had its legal documents intact inside. During a search online, I came across a travel website based in Dubai offering tours to Central Asia. The website had several images of a codex which looked like a jung in a glass display case in a museum in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I e-mailed the museum via colleagues in Berlin and, through divine grace (baraka), received images of the manuscript the following day. The Almaty jung proved crucial to providing confirmation that the Bukharan fatwas were once preserved as infixes in a manuscript. The Almaty jung also turned out to have an unexpected link with the Bukharan corpus in the “Qum” jung, since it contained an iqrār deed dated Muharram 1247/June 1831 which was sealed on the bottom right-hand corner by the Bukharan muftī, Muḥammad ʿĀlim Khwāja (see fig. 10.5).

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Figure 10.5

An iqrār deed dated Muharram 1247/June 1831 in the Almaty jung with the seal impression of the muftī, Muḥammad ʿĀlim Khwāja on the bottom right corner of the deed

© #394 Gylym Ordasy, The Museum of Rare Books, Almaty, Kazakhastan

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His seal impression appears in all three fatwas from Bukhara examined earlier. This suggests that both the Qum jung and the Almaty jung were mobile jungs which, though originally compiled in Bukhara, ultimately moved elsewhere. In the case of the Qum jung, we do not know what Ḥanafī legal text or texts it originally contained. The Almaty jung contains a commentary on the Mukhtaṣar al-Wiqāya, which as noted before was used in Bukhara by judges and madrasa students. The Almaty jung provides us with a sense of how the fatwas in the Qum jung were originally glued in as infixes in the bifolia of the manuscript near its spine folds (fig. 10.6, 10.7). For ease of reference, the fatwa documents in the Almaty jung are glued next to their relevant subject section in the Mukhtaṣar al-Wiqāya, highlighted in red ink such as the section on divorce (kitāb al-ṭalāq) (fig. 10.7) or on breastfeeding, which produces the legal impediment to marriage of foster-kinship (kitāb al-raḍāʿ) (fig. 10.6). In some cases, the fatwa was folded when the sheet was larger than the dimensions of the folios of the codex (fig. 10.7, 10.8).

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Figure 10.6

A fatwa infix relating to mairrage inside the Almaty jung

© No. 394 Gylym Ordasy, The Museum of Rare Books, Almaty, Kazakhastan

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In addition, based on the images Sanjar Gulomov includes of similar jung codices held at the Al-Biruni Institute in Tashkent, up to three documents could be glued to each other to form a large single sheet. This sheet was glued on one edge near the spine folds of the bifolia and folded so that it did not stick out when the codex was closed.³⁵ The folding and unfolding of such sheets glued inside jung codices resulted, unsurprisingly, in considerable wear and tear.

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Figure 10.7

A second fatwa infix relating to mairrage in the Almaty jung

© No. 394 Gylym Ordasy, The Museum of Rare Books, Almaty, Kazakhastan

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4 Conclusion

This study has sought to reconstruct the encounter between people and written artefacts in two different ways. It began by focusing on how the production of three legal opinions (fatwas) in Bukhara has left the traces of different social actors linked to this type of legal paperwork. The production and movement of the fatwas in the hands of these actors was only the first stage, however, of their life cycle. In the second stage, the fatwas were preserved along with other types of legal documents as infixes in compilations known in Central Asia as jungs. Depending on the nature of the compilation, the jung could serve as a personal and practical guide for qāḍīs, muftīs, scribes, or their students, often those who did not have the means to amass a vast and costly library of Islamic legal literature. On the other hand, jungs with legal documents containing the round circular black seal impressions of famous qāḍīs and muftīs were no doubt highly valuable on the Bukharan book market after their death or even during their own lifetimes. The fatwa infix was thus, after its use in, for example, an actual lawsuit, given new didactic and symoblic meaning inside the jung codex.

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Figure 10.8

A third fatwa infix relating to a property dispute in the Almaty jung

© No. 394 Gylym Ordasy, The Museum of Rare Books, Almaty, Kazakhastan

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As we have seen, the legal documents in jungs were of two types: models to guide the inexperienced scribe and originals which had been used in actual cases. Depending on their type, the models were either drafted by scribes working for the qāḍī or the muftī. In the case of muftī or student compilers, it is likely they collected originals after they were discarded by the qāḍī, who was the main recipient of originals. If the compiler was a qāḍī, he must have selected originals for his jung. It is also possible, in some cases, that the litigant, rather than the qāḍī recpient, preserved an original fatwa or iqrār deed after he recieved a judgement based on these documents from the qāḍī. In other words, some of the jung documents, especially legal deeds, may have been collected from the archive of the litigants. The precise mechanics of the collection of such legal documents and their preservation needs further research based on a much larger group of documents contained in such jungs.

The reuse of documents both on parchment and on paper is well known in the case of medieval Arabic manuscripts.³⁶ Documents or parts of documents were put to new material uses, including using them as new bifolia, title pages, or binding support for manuscripts.³⁷ Such practices, however, are less well studied in the case of manuscripts from outside the central Islamic lands. In the present study, Islamic legal documents in Bukhara are not given a new material use. They are preserved intact, glued near the spine folds of bifolia of the manuscripts as infixes and folded if their size exceeds the dimensions of the codex bifolia. This appears to be a distinctive preservation practice that emerged in the Ḥanafī milieu of Central Asia. This is by no means, however, the only way of preserving such legal documents. Ken’ichi Isogai has examined seven fatwa texts on five papers from a collection of 112 papers held in the Samarqand Museum. His study suggests there was also a different mode of preservation of fatwa documents. The Samarqand documents were originally bound by a thread in the middle of each sheet of paper, though it is not clear if these were the same thread tackets used to bind the quires of a manuscript.³⁸ This method of preservation appears to differ from the way the fatwas from Bukhara examined here were simply glued inside a manuscript. These practices, can, moreoever, be contrasted with the preservation of fatwas pasted in fatwa albums produced in a Ḥanafī Ottoman context dedicated specifically to fatwa documents.³⁹ In Qum, the Bukharan fatwas which were not subsequently resold by Ishkawarī were ultimately pasted onto passepartout cardboard frames and stacked together in a pile in a bookcase. Removed from their original Central Asian Ḥanafī environment and codicological setting inside the jung, the Bukharan fatwas thus acquire a new symbolic meaning and spatial setting in yet another stage of their life cycle. They become precious objects, ready for display, of Islamic written heritage in the Twelver Shiʿi Persianate cultural landscape of the shrine city of Qum.

5 Appendix: Translation of Bukharan Fatwa 3 (DOC.104)

Text: AM, 37–39.

Translation

Recto

1. Details of the four boundaries of five ṭanāb⁴⁰ of kharājī land (zamīn-i kharājī)⁴¹ situated in Fulādī, one of the dependencies of Tūmān of the noble

2. city of Bukhara. On the west adjoining the land of Muḥammad Rajab, son of Yūsuf, on the north adjoining the land of Yār Muḥammad

3. son of Darūn Beg, on the east adjoining the land of Rīz Naẓar Ṣūfī son of Nūr Muḥammad Ṣūfī, on the south, adjoining the land of

4. Tāhir Bāy, son of Bāqī Muḥammad. All the boundaries (fawāṣil fi l-kull) are known.

5. I claim, as the claimant, Ādīna Muḥammad, against the present defendant, Sapīd Khwāja son of Qalandar Khwāja, who is an inhabitant

6. of Fūlādī, one of the dependencies of Tūmān of the noble city of Bukhara, may God the Exalted protect it and

7. its rulers from all sorts of calamities and disasters, the following: I the claimant,

8. for a very long time, have been oppressed regarding the public stream of the said place whose boundaries are stated at the top (of the document).

9. The defendant has determinedly (taʿnnutan) prevented me from accessing the water from the said stream. It is necessary for the respondent to stop this obstruction (tamarrudan abā namāyad). I ask from you, the judge, may God exalt you, that you order the respondent to act in accordance with what is necessary.

10. Seeking good omen in His Exalted name, what is the opinion of the scholars of Islam, may God be pleased with them, on this problem: Does this claim according to the stipulations of the sharīʿa require a reply (by the defendant),

11. or not? Reply and be rewarded (by God).

[Reply and seal of the muftī]:

It is (bāshad).

Seal: Muḥammad ʿĀlim Khwāja 1243/1827–1828.⁴²

[Citation in the margin]:

The water rights of a river in a community are divided (among its members) … (missing).

Verso

[Decree by the Amīr of Bukhara]:

1. He is the Ever Living.

2. The erudite and noble qāḍī, Ākhūnd Mullā Mīr Qawwām al-Dīn,

3. should know that the claimant herein mentioned (on the recto) has a claim against the defendant.

4. They are to be summoned and questioned, and the lawsuit should be decided. [Written on] Wednesday 23 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1247/24 April 1832.

Seal: al-ḥukm bi l-ʿadl 1247.