The Formative and Classical Administration of Islamic Criminal Justice Revisited: A Historiographical Analysis

Islamic legal studies generally classify the administration of criminal justice during the formative and classical periods as a departure from traditional Islamic law. During this time, rulers, military-judicial authorities, and other officials largely oversaw the criminal courts, rather than the judges and jurists, who were considered the paramount actors of Islamic law. A primary challenge confronting any study of this topic is the scarcity of surviving criminal records, coupled with embellished narratives and concerns regarding the historical relevance of the jurisprudential material. Consequently, recent research, in the last few decades, has begun to investigate alternative sources on this administration of criminal justice: Egyptian papyri, administrative manuals and investiture diplomas, nawāzil (legal responses and rulings for new cases), Cairo Geniza, and criminal reports found in historical chronicles. This essay explores this rich historiography, focusing on these novel approaches to these texts, and aims to propose new methodological pathways for future research in this field.