• v. 1. The ancient Near East
• v. 2. Ancient Greece

Crime and punishment, criminal law and its administration, are areas of ancient history that have been explored less than many other aspects of ancient civilizations. Throughout history women have been affected by crime both as victims and as offenders. Yet, in the ancient world, customary laws were created by men, formal laws were written by men, and both were interpreted and enforced by men. This 2-volume explores the role of gender in the formation and administration of ancient law and examines the many gender categories and relationships established in ancient law, including marriage, parentage, widowhood, adoption, inheritance, debt, liability, and so forth. It presents data that has been newly discovered, underreported, or omitted from previous works on ancient law. It also re-examines and reevaluates prior interpretations and conclusions, to enable the silent voices of ancient women to be heard and their invisible lives to be seen in the light of modern feminist scholarship.
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• General Editor's Preface Foreword Acknowledgment List of Abbreviations Introduction I The Early Dynastic Period in Southern Mesopotamia (2900-2350 BCE)
• 1. The geographic and political scene, the actors and the sources
• 2. War
• 3. Treaties
• II The Old Akkadian and Ur III Periods in Mesopotamia (2350-2004 BCE) Part I. The Old Akkadian Period
• 1. The expanded geographic scene and its political regime
• 2. War
• 3. Treaties Part II. The Ur III Period
• 1. Ur III political scene
• 2. War
• 3. Dynastic marriage alliances
• 4. The legal obligation of gratitude III The Near East in the Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 BCE)
• 1. The political and cultural scene
• 2. War
• 3. Treaties
• 4. Commercial treaties and the status of the traveling merchant
• 5. Managing conflicts
• 6. Extradition and asylum
• 7. Diplomatic law IV The Near East in the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BCE)
• 1. The political scene
• 2. War
• 3. Treaties
• 4. Dynastic marriage alliances
• 5. Managing conflicts and state responsibility
• 6. Refugees and Extradition
• 7. Diplomatic law V The Near East 1200 - 330 BCE
• 1. The political scene
• 2. War
• 3. Treaties
• 4. Rules pertaining to maritime traffic
• 5. Arbitration
• 6. Extradition and asylum
• 7. Diplomatic law Concluding Remarks Bibliography Indexes
• A. Texts
• B. Designated Texts
• C. Treaties and Loyalty Oaths
• D. Topics.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book offers a unique survey of legal practices and ideas relating to international relations in the Ancient Near East between 2500 and 330 BCE. Rather than entering into the debate on the continuous development of international law in Antiquity, the book discloses a vast amount of textual material from the Ancient Near East which sheds light on the legal regulation and organization of international relations in different epochs of pre-classical Antiquity. The book is a treasure trove of information for the historian of international law who wants to acquaint himself with the remotest history of international law, while it will also serve the general historian of the Ancient Near East who wants to acquaint himself with the international law of the period.
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• The historiography of ancient Near Eastern law
• The comparative method
• Sources
• Overview
• Form
• Framing
• Nature, funciton and purpose
• Role of judge and king
• Marriage and divorce
• Property and inheritance
• Real Estate
• Inheritance
• Adoption
• Contract
• Loans
• Distraint
• Deposit and safekeeping
• Breach of contract
• Crime and delict
• Theft
• Kidnap
• Sex laws
• False accusation
• Sorcery
• Murder
• Personal injury
• Negligence causing loss of or damage to property
• Penalties
• Corporal
• Capital
• Talionic, vicarious and equivalent
• Diachronic analysis of HL
• Was there a common legal culture and/or widespread borrowing?
• Systematic differences and their explanation
• Reflections on the nature, function, and purpose of the collections
• Implications for further research.

• Preface--
• 1. From Islamic to Middle Eastern Law:a Restatement of the Field-- I HISTORY--
• 2. The Formation of Middle Eastern law-- II PUBLIC LAW--
• 3. Introduction to the Contemporary Middle East--
• 4. Constitutional Law: the Specificity of Middle Eastern Constitutionalism--
• 5. Constitutional Review: the Spread of Constitutional Councils and Courts--
• 6. Judicial Review-- III PRIVATE LAW--
• 7. Introduction to the Age of Codification--
• 8. Civil law: on Style and Substance--
• 9. Commercial Law: Modernity and its Hiccups--
• 10. Family Law: the Search for Gender Equality--
• 11. Epilogue: Justice and Lawyering in the Middle East-- Bibliography-- Tables of Cases, legislation, Verses and Hadiths.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book provides an introduction to the laws of the Middle East, defining the contours of a field of study that deserves to be called 'Middle Eastern law'. It introduces Middle Eastern law as a reflection of legal styles, many of which are shared by Islamic law and the laws of Christian and Jewish Near Eastern communities. It offers a detailed survey of the foundations of Middle Eastern law, using court archives and an array of legal sources from the earliest records of Hammurabi to the massive compendia of law in the Islamic classical age through to the latest decisions of Middle Eastern high courts. It focuses on the way legislators and courts conceive of law and apply it in the Middle East. It builds on the author's extensive legal practice, with the aim of introducing the Middle Eastern law's main sources and concepts in a manner accessible to non-specialist legal scholars and practitioners alike. The book begins with an exploration of the depth and variety of Middle Eastern law, introducing the concepts of shari'a, fiqh, and qanun, (which all mean 'law'), and dwelling on Islamic law as the 'common law' of the Middle East. It provides a historical introduction to the contemporary Middle East, exploring political systems, constitutional law, judicial review, the laws of tort and obligations, commercial law (including Islamic banking, company law, capital markets, and commercial arbitration); and examines legislative reform in family law and the position of women in the legal system. The author considers the interaction between Islamic and Western laws and includes a bibliography designed for further research into the jurisdictions and themes explored throughout the book.
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• Legal and religious obligation
• Religious obligation is sanctioned by the deity himself
• Covenant as the foundation of religious organization
• Types of "Law"
• Israelite law
• The laws of the covenant code
• The law of monarchy
• The reform of the law
• The nature of the covenant
• The structure of the covenant
• Other factors in the covenant
• Covenant forms in Israel
• The covenant of Joshua 24
• The breakdown of covenant form
• The rediscovery of Moses.

• La justice au regard des sources documentaires
• La justice en terre d'Islam d'après les papyrus
• Les limites de la papyrologie
• Papyrus juridiques et judiciaires
• Représentativité spatio-temporelle des papyrus judiciaires
• Provenance géographique des papyrus
• Fourchette chronologique
• Autres papyrus
• Entre le dux et le pagarque : la justice à l'époque sufyànide
• Des ordonnances ducales
• L'examen des litiges privés
• Par le duc/émir
• Par le pagarque
• Le gouverneur et le pagarque : la justice à l'époque marwânide
• De Fustàt à Isquh : la justice de Qurra b. Sarik
• Un bureau des plaintes ?
• La justice du gouverneur
• L'administration judiciaire en Palestine : l'exemple de Hirbet el-Mird
• Deux rescrits judiciaires : P.Mird 19 et 20
• Le chaînon manquant ? P.Mird 18
• Les autres attributions judiciaires du gouverneur marwanide
• Des mandats d'amener : la justice directe du gouverneur ?
• Justice fiscale et ordonnances législatives
• L'acheminement des lettres judiciaires
• Vers un renforcement de l'autorité judiciaire des pagarques
• Émergence d'une justice omeyyade par délégation
• La justice déléguée au Fayyùm
• Médiation et adjudication : la hiérarchie judiciaire à Jeme
• Les papyrus de 'Abd al-Malik b. Yazïd : justice du gouverneur ou du sous-gouverneur abbasside ?
• Un problème d'identification
• P.Vindob. Inv. A.P. 1944 : les avatars de la procédure omeyyade
• P.Louvre Inv. 6377: un contrôle épisodique de la justice ?
• Prolongements abbassides : développements d'une justice par délégation
• Chrest.Khoury I 84 : le sous-gouverneur et son wakïl
• P.Cair.Arab. III 167 : du sous-gouverneur au cadi
• La justice directe du gouverneur abbasside
• Des pétitions à l'émir de Fustat
• Développements d'une justice "fiscale"
• La justice du cadi d'après les sources papyrologiques
• La naissance documentaire du cadi
• Le cadi, absent des papyrus omeyyades
• Premières traces documentaires de l'appel au cadi
• Une structure judiciaire de transition ?
• La judicature au miroir des documents notariés
• Le notariat : une croissance exponentielle
• La confession des parties
• Les témoins
• Les allusions aux institutions judiciaires
• Diffusion des tribunaux de cadis
• Des citations à comparaître : une juridiction musulmane dans la campagne copte
• La judicature et son référent juridique
• Autres instances judiciaires et parajudiciaires
• Documents de l'administration carcérale
• Le tribunal du cadi selon la tradition littéraire
• Regard historiographique sur la judicature musulmane
• Premiers ouvrages consacrés à la judicature
• Les témoins survivants de la littérature consacrée aux cadis
• Des approches diversifiées
• Une littérature post-mibna
• Une littérature d'adab?
• L'historien et le genre des abbdr al-qudat
• Les siècles nébuleux de la judicature : une quête jurisprudentielle des origines
• Contradictions et hétérodoxie
• Principes de sélection du matériau historique
• À la recherche des anciennes strates de controverses juridiques
• La justice du cadi aux deux premiers siècles de l'Islam
• Organisation des audiences judiciaires

• Lieux de l'audience
• Controverses omeyyades sur le lieu de l'audience
• Des lieux d'audience diversifiés
• Vers l'adoption de la mosquée comme siège du tribunal
• L'organisation matérielle du tribunal
• Organisation spatiale et distance des plaideurs
• Mobilier de l'audience
• Le personnel judiciaire
• Kufa
• Basra
• Médine
• Fustat
• La réception des plaideurs
• Placets, ruq'a-s, qissa-s
• La convocation des plaideurs
• Les preuves légales : le témoignage
• Les règles du témoignage
• Basra
• Kûfa
• Médine
• Damas
• Fustàt
• Bagdad
• Qui peut témoigner? Vers une théorie du témoin modèle
• Témoignage du mineur
• Témoignage des femmes
• Témoignage de l'esclave
• Témoignage des non-musulmans
• Témoignage en faveur d'un proche
• Témoignage des infirmes : l'exemple de l'aveugle
• Des critères moraux : vers une définition positive de la 'adala
• Procédures de sélection des témoins
• Une sélection négative ou l'empirisme des débuts
• Quand le témoin amène son propre témoin
• Des enquêtes de moralité
• Vers une restriction de la capacité à témoigner
• Le témoignage au fondement de la science islamique
• Les preuves légales : le serment judiciaire
• Quand les témoins devaient prêter serment
• Le serment du demandeur
• La procédure du double serment
• Un serment en plus de la bayyina
• Le serment référé au demandeur (radd al-yamin)
• Le serment du défendeur
• Premiers développements de la procédure
• Des réticences face au serment
• Le "jugement de David", une innovation du VIIIe siècle ?
• Premières conclusions sur le serment
• Autres types de preuve
• La preuve écrite
• "Le témoignage des morts"
• L'écrit devant les tribunaux
• La connaissance préalable du cadi
• Des preuves circonstancielles
• L'expertise
• La firasa ou le "jugement de Salomon"
• Le duel judiciaire, un procédé médinois archaïque?
• La judicature musulmane remise en contexte
• Les institutions judiciaires du Proche-Orient avant l'Islam
• Les institutions judiciaires impériales
• La justice dans l'Empire romain d'Orient
• La justice séculière étatique
• L'arbitrage
• Les institutions judiciaires sassanides
• Les acteurs de la justice
• Procédures
• La justice des communautés juives du Proche-Orient
• Les autorités judiciaires
• Dans l'Empire byzantin
• Dans l'Empire sassanide
• Les procédures
• L'audience
• Les preuves
• Le jugement
• Justice et procédures dans la chrétienté syriaque
• Les sources juridiques syriaques remarques méthodologiques générales
• La justice de l'Église syro-occidentale
• L'episcopalis audientia dans l'Empire romano-byzantin
• La justice des clercs jacobites
• Les procédures de l'Église syro-occidentale avant l'Islam
• Justice et procédures dans la chrétienté syro-orientale sous les Sassanides
• Les autorités judiciaires
• Le droit des procédures
• En marge des empires : l'Arabie antéislamique
• Des hakam-s païens ?
• Le poids des cultures impériales
• La justice des non-musulmans dans le Proche-Orient islamique

• Justice et procédures dans les communautés juives
• Les autorités judiciaires
• L'exilarque
• Les gaons
• Les juges locaux
• Les procédures
• Plaideurs et témoins
• Documents
• Serments
• Jugement et exécution
• La justice de l'Église syro-occidentale
• Une extension de la juridiction ecclésiastique
• Règles de procédures
• Justice et procédures dans la chrétienté syro-orientale
• Rendre la justice à la fin du VIIe siècle : de Georges à Hnaniso
• Première définition d'une justice ecclésiastique en terre d'Islam
• Les lettres de Hnaniso
• La codification des procédures au tournant du IXe siècle
• De Timothée Ier à Iso bar Nûn
• La codification juridique d'Iso'bokht
• Épilogue : la fabrique de la judicature musulmane
• L'héritage arabe
• Des antécédents impériaux ?
• Justice sassanide et pratiques musulmanes en Irak et au Khurasan
• Pratiques byzantines et justice musulmane en Égypte et en Syrie
• Pratiques et interactions
• Des dynamiques intercommunautaires
• Les musulmans et leurs voisins
• Rencontres dans l'arène judiciaire
• Tribunaux juifs, chrétiens et musulmans
• Justice juive et musulmane
• Justice chrétienne et musulmane
• Dynamiques régionales et impériales
• Diversité régionale et facteurs d'unification
• La nature des "anciennes écoles."

"Le cadi est une figure emblématique des sociétés musulmanes prémodernes. Savant, juge, administrateur de biens, il incarnait plus que toute autre institution le règne d'un ordre social fondé sur les préceptes de l'islam. Les anciens développements de la judicature musulmane, aux VIIe et VIIIe siècles, demeurent pourtant empreints de mystère. Comment rendait-on la justice aux premiers temps de l'Islam, avant que le droit musulman n'acquière les structures pérennes offertes par les écoles juridiques classiques ? Est-il possible de retracer les étapes de développements régionaux ? Quel rôle le pouvoir et les savants jouèrent-ils dans la formation de l'institution ? En quoi la judicature musulmane est-elle liée aux autres systèmes judiciaires de l'Antiquité tardive ou des débuts de l'Islam? Mathieu Tillier livre ici les résultats d'une plongée au coeur des sources les plus anciennes du Proche-Orient islamique, croisant papyrus arabes, droit musulman archaïque et textes canoniques syriaques. Cette quête des dynamiques qui présidèrent à l'épanouissement de la judicature musulmane fait apparaître une image nouvelle des tribunaux qui se partageaient le jeune empire islamique. Elle met par ailleurs en lumière le processus dialectique de formation des pensées juridiques proche-orientales, qui s'élaborèrent non seulement au gré d'interactions entre savants d'une même confession, mais également en lien avec le droit des communautés dont ils tentaient de se distinguer."--Page 4 of cover.

• Editors' NotePrefaceIntroduction1. The Trial Scene in the Iliad2. Penelope's Dowry and Odysseus' Kingship3. Drakon's Homicide Law4. Barbarians at the Gates5. The Nature and Origins of the Twelve Tables6. Restrictions on Alienation of Property in Early Roman Law7. The Coherence of the Lex Aquilia8. Vitae Necisque Potestas9. The Origin of Laesio Enormis10. Codification and Canonization11. Reflections on the Law of Homicide in the Ancient World12. The Early History of LawAbbreviationsBibliographyIndex.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Throughout the twelve essays that appear in Ex Oriente Lex, Raymond Westbrook convincingly argues that the influence of Mesopotamian legal traditions and thought did not stop at the shores of the Mediterranean, but rather had a profound impact on the early laws and legal developments of Greece and Rome as well. He presents readers with tantalizing fragments of early Greek or archaic Roman law which, when placed in the context of the broader Near Eastern tradition, suddenly acquire unexpected new meanings. Before his untimely death in July 2009, Westbrook was regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on ancient legal history. Although his main field was ancient Near Eastern law, he also made important contributions to the study of early Greek and Roman law. In his examination of the relationship between ancient Near Eastern and pre-classical Greek and Roman law, Westbrook sought to demonstrate that the connection between the two legal spheres was not merely theoretical but also concrete. The Near Eastern legal heritage had practical consequences that help us understand puzzling individual cases in the Greek and Roman traditions. His essays provide rich material for further reflection and interdisciplinary discussion about compelling similarities between legal cultures and the continuity of legal traditions over several millennia. Aimed at classicists and ancient historians, as well as biblicists, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, and legal historians, this volume gathers many of Westbrook's most important essays on the legal aspects of Near Eastern cultural influences on the Greco-Roman world, including one new, never-before-published piece. A preface by editors Deborah Lyons and Kurt Raaflaub details the importance of Westbrook's work for the field of classics, while Sophie Demare-Lafont's incisive introduction places Westbrook's ideas within the wider context of ancient law.
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• INTRODUCTION
• I
• 1. The Sound of the Magic Flute in Legal and Religious Registers of the Ramesside Period: Some Common Features of Two 'Ritualistic Languages'
• 2. Law and Religion in Achaemenidian Iran
• 3. Law and Religion in Early Greece
• 4. Gods, Kings, and Lawgivers
• 5. Hated by the Gods and your Spouse
• 6. Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean
• 7. Fines and Curses: Law and Religion among the Nabataeans and their Neighbours
• II
• 8. Law and Religion in the Hebrew Bible
• 9. The History of the Legal-Religious Hermeneutics of the Book of Deuteronomy from the Assyrian to the Hellenistic Period
• 10. 'The peg in the wall': Cultic Centralization revisited
• 11. Is It Law or Religion? Legal Motivations in Deuteronomic and Neo-Babylonian Texts
• 12. Job's compositional history one more time: What its law might contribute
• 13. 'For the judgment is God's' (Deut.
• 1: 17): Biblical and communal law in the Dead Sea Scrolls
• 14. The Jurist as a Mujtahid - the Hermeneutical Concept of Abu l-Hasan Alial-Mawardi (d. 449/1058)
• INDEX.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

How was it possible that Greeks often wrote their laws on the walls of their temples, but - in contrast to other ancient societies - never transformed these written civic laws into a religious law? Did it matter whether laws were inscribed in stone, clay, or on a scroll? And above all, how did written law shape a society in which the majority population was illiterate? This volume addresses the similarities and differences in the role played by law and religion in various societies across the Eastern Mediterranean. Bringing together a collection of 14 essays from scholars of the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Greece, the Ancient Near East, Qumran, Elephantine, the Nabateans, and the early Arab world, it also approaches these subjects in an all-encompassing manner, looking in detail at the notion of law and religion in the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole in both the geographical as well as the historical space.
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• v. 1. The Shared tradition
• v. 2. Cuneiform and biblical sources.

• v. 1. The shared tradition
• v. 2. Cuneiform and biblical sources.

• Introduction : The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law / Raymond Westbrook
• Part 1. Third millennium
• Egypt : Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period / Richard Jasnow
• Mesopotamia : Early Dynastic and Sargonic Periods / Claus Wilcke
• Neo-Sumerian Period (Ur III) / Bertrand Lafont and Raymond Westbrook
• Anatolia and the Levant : Ebla / Amalia Catagnoti
• International Law : International Law in the Third Millennium / Jerrold Cooper
• Part 2. Second millennium
• Egypt : Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period ; New Kingdom / Richard Jasnow
• Mesopotamia : Old Babylonian Period / Raymond Westbrook
• Old Assyrian Period / Klaas Veenhof
• Middle Babylonian Period / Kathryn Slanski
• Middle Assyrian Period / Sophie Lafont
• Nuzi / Carlo Zaccagnini
• Anatolia and the Levant : The Hittite Kingdom / Richard Haase
• Emar and Vicinity / Raymond Westbrook
• Alalakh ; Ugarit ; Canaan / Ignacio Marquez Rowe
• International Law : International Law in the Second Millennium : Middle Bronze Age / Jesper Eidem
• International Law in the Second Millennium : Late Bronze Age / Gary Beckman
• Part 3 : First Millennium
• Egypt : Third Intermediate Period / Richard Jasnow
• Demotic Law / Joseph Manning
• Elephantine / Bezalel Porten
• Mesopotamia : Neo-Assyrian Period / Karen Radner
• Neo-Babylonian Period / Joachim Oelsner, Bruce Wells and Cornelia Wunsch
• Anatolia and the Levant : Israel / Tikva Frymer-Kenski
• International Law : International Law in the First Millennium / Simo Parpola.

The history of law can only begin after the written record of it commences; in the Middle East, that is a few centuries after the advent of writing itself in the fourth millennium BCE. That law is the oldest recorded, and is the foundation of the two great modern Western systems, the Common Law and the Civil Law. In sections covering the next three.

• Teil 1. Vorwort / Heinz Barta
• Grußworte / Bernhard Eccher
• Programm der 6. Innsbrucker Tagung : 'Lebend(ig)e Rechtsgeschichte' 2011
• Verfahrensrecht als frühes Zivilisierungsprojekt : zur Teleologie rechtlicher Verfahren / Heinz Barta
• Biologie oder Moral? / Kurt Kotrschal
• Die babylonischen Kudurru-Inschriften von der kassitischen bis zur frühneubabylonischen Zeit : die wichtigsten Ergebnisse aus rechtshistorischer Sicht / Susanne Paulus
• Kollektive Schuld und Haftung im Alten Testament und Alten Orient / Jan Dietrich
• Der Eid im neuassyrischen Gerichtsverfahren / Betina Faist
• Prozessrecht und Beweiseid im Keilschriftrecht und im biblischen Recht : ein rechtstypologischer Vergleich / Eckart Otto
• Gerichtsorganisation und Prozessverfahren im Alten Israel : Beobachtungen zu Zentralgericht, Richter- und Zeugengesetz im Deuternonomium / Simone Paganini
• Des Frommen Zuflucht, des Übeltäters Verderben : der assertorische Eid im Gerichtsprozess der spätbabylonischen Zeit / Kristin Kleber
• Prozesseide im Gesetz Drakons und ihr Nachleben im klassischen Athen / Gerhard Thür
• Sumerische und altbabylonische Eidesformeln in lexikalischer und kulturhistorischer Perspektive / Walther Sallaberger
• Klageverzichtsklauseln in altbabylonischen Vertrags- und Prozessurkunden als Instrumentarien der Konfliktvermeidung bzw. Konfliktlösung / Guido Pfeifer
• Ordal statt Eid : das Beweisverfahren in mittelbabylonischer Zeit / Susanne Paulus
• Die Rolle des Eides im hethitisichen Prozessverfahren / Elena Devecchi

• 1. Maryam's final word--
• 2. Hamida's children come of age: the shariÊ¿a court and its archives--
• 3. The different designs of Husayn and Ê¿Abd al-Wahid: the waqf as a family charter--
• 4. Good deeds: the family waqf as a social act--
• 5. Who's in? Who's out? The waqf as a boundary marker--
• 6. Property and gender: the political economy of difference--
• 7. Fatima's determination-- Bibliography-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In writings about Islam, women, and modernity in the Middle East, family and religion are frequently invoked but rarely historicized. Accessibly written and based on a wide range of local sources spanning two centuries (1660-1860), this book shows that there is no such thing as a typical Muslim or Arab family. Rather, it reveals dramatic regional differences, even within the same cultural zone, in the ways that family is understood, organized, and reproduced. By concentrating on family life in the Ottoman Mediterranean, in particular in what is now Lebanon and Palestine, Beshara B. Doumani skilfully uses examples of family waqf endowments, lawsuits between kin, and other cases from the shariʿa courts to reconstruct the encounters between kin and court and kin in court. Through his comparative examination of the transformations of family, property, and gender regimes, Doumani offers a ground-breaking examination of the stories and priorities of ordinary people. By doing so, he challenges prevailing assumptions about modern Middle Eastern societies.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Disability and its histories in the Arab world
• Framing this book
• Deafness and muteness
• Blindness
• Impairments of the mind
• Intersex
• Conclusion
• Epilogue.

Physical, sensory, and mental impairments can influence an individual's status in society as much as the more familiar categories of gender, class, religion, race, and ethnicity. This was especially true of the early modern Arab Ottoman world, where being judged able or disabled impacted every aspect of a person's life, including performance of religious ritual, marriage, job opportunities, and the ability to buy and sell property. Sara Scalenghe's book is the first on the history of both physical and mental disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa, and the first to examine disability in the non-Western world before the nineteenth century. Unlike previous scholarly works that examine disability as discussed in religious texts such as the Qur'an and the Hadith, this study focuses on representations and classifications of disability and impairment across a wide range of biographical, legal, medical, and divinatory primary sources.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)