Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T00:59:26.501Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 27 - Authenticating Marriage

An Egyptian Family Court Case of Ithbāt al-Zawāj from 2012

from Part IV - Court Judgments and Other Court Documentation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Monika Lindbekk
Edited by
Omar Anchassi  and
Robert Gleave
Omar Anchassi
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Robert Gleave
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores a 2011 Egyptian court case of marriage authentication (ithbāt al-zawāj). Such requests are often filed when the registration of the marriage contract has failed, or in cases in which one party denies the existence of marriage. The text translated in this chapter shows the methods used by judges to fill gaps in the law. The broader historical context is the transformation of Egypt from the 19th century onwards, which period witnessed the emergence of a centralised and hierarchical legal system and the promulgation of law codes inspired by French law, which effectively marginalised Islamic law and its practitioners, a process that continued throughout the 20th century.

Keywords

Marriage contract (ʿaqd al-nikāḥ)Marriage authentication (ithbāt al-zawāj)Family CourtsCodification (taqnīn)Personal Status (al-aḥwāl al-shakhṣiyya)Legal reform.
Type
Chapter
Information
Islamic Law in Context
A Primary Source Reader
 , pp. 288 - 295
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Passage on marriage authentication (ithbāt al-zawāj) from a judgment by a Cairene family court, 26 February 2012.Google Scholar
Qadrī, Muḥammad. al-Aḥkām al-Sharʿiyya fī l-Aḥwāl al-Shakhṣiyya wa-Sharḥ li-Muḥammad Zayd al-Abyānī, ed. Sirāj, Muḥammad Aḥmad and Muḥammad, ʿAlī Jumuʿa, 4 vols. (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2006).Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Berger, Maurits and Sonneveld, Nadia. ‘Sharia and National Law in Egypt’, in Sharia Incorporated, ed. Otto, Jan Michiel (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), 51–88.Google Scholar
Brown, Nathan. The Rule of Law in the Arab World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuno, Kenneth. Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology, and Law in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Dupret, Baudouin. ‘Legal Pluralism, Plurality of Laws, and Legal Practices: Theories, Critiques, and Praxiological Re-Specification’, European Journal of Legal Studies 1 (2007), 1–26.Google Scholar
Dupret, Baudouin. ‘What is Islamic Law? A Praxiological Answer and an Egyptian Case Study’, Theory, Culture and Society 24 (2007), 79–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupret, Baudouin, Bouhya, Adil, Lindbekk, Monika and Utriza, Ayang. ‘Filling the Gaps in Legislation: Comparative Perspectives on the Use of Fiqh by Contemporary Courts’, Islamic Law and Society 26 (2019), 405–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasso, Frances. Consuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Middle East (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kholoussy, Hanan. For Better, for Worse: The Marriage Crisis that Made Modern Egypt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindbekk, Monika. ‘The Enforcement of Personal Status Law in Egyptian Courts’, in Adjudicating Family Law in Muslim Courts, ed. Giunchi, Elisa (London: Routledge, 2013), 87–105.Google Scholar
Lindbekk, Monika. ‘Inscribing Islamic Sharīʿa in Egyptian Divorce Law’, Oslo Law Review 2 (2016), 103–35.Google Scholar
Lombardi, Clark. State Law as Islamic Law in Modern Egypt: The Incorporation of the Sharīʿa into Egyptian Constitutional Law (Leiden: Brill, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messick, Brinkley. The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Ruud. ‘From Jurists’ Law to Statute Law or What Happens When the Shari’a is Codified’, Mediterranean Politics 7 (2002), 82–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaham, Ron. The Expert Witness in Islamic Courts: Medicine and Crafts in the Service of Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaham, Ron. Family and the Courts in Modern Egypt: A Study Based on Decisions by the Sharīʿa Courts, 1900–1955 (Leiden: Brill, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikør, Knut. Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law (London: Hurst, 2005).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×