Breaching the Bronze Wall pdf download

Book Title	Breaching The Bronze Wall
Book Author	Francisco Apellániz
Total Pages	342
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Language	English
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Breaching the Bronze Wall – Franks at Mamluk and Ottoman Courts and Markets by Francisco Apellániz

BREACHING THE BRONZE WALL

Book’s Introduction

In the three- a hundred and forty-third Arabian Night the Mamluk sultan al- Mā-lik al- Nāṣir sent for the chiefs of police of each the three urban agglomerations of late medieval Cairo: al- Qāhira, the new city within the walls, Būlāq, its riverine port district on the Nile bank, and Fusṭāṭ, Coptic old Cairo.

Al- Mālik al- Nāṣir desired each inspector to recount the most astounding story they had encountered in the exercise of their duties. The chief inspector of Būlāq’s narrative dealt with counterfeiters and deceivers, while the chief of Fusṭāṭ told a gruesome story about thieves and their executioners. Most significantly for the present work, al- Qāhira, the new city built by the Fatimids and the epicentre of Mamluk life, served as the backdrop for a tale about false witnesses.

 The inspector narrated the story of two “professional witnesses” (ar. shuhūd ʿudūl, or simply ʿudūl); upright Muslims of good reputation and sound of mind permit-ted by the qadi to give testimony about people and facts under his jurisdiction. It was revealed that both witnesses had been secretly leading a life of dissolute ways, indulging in the company of low women and the consumption of wine.

The chief of police planned to trap the witnesses, with the complicity of the tavern- and brothel- keepers. Informed by the latter that an episode of debauchery involving the two men was taking place, the chief of police came to the brothel in disguise. With no apparent sign of alarm, the two men, together with the landlord, welcomed the police officer in and proceeded to bribe him for three hundred dinars.

Tempted by the money, the chief of police accepted to cover for the two corrupt men, but only that one time. To the police inspector’s horror, the following day the local qadi summoned him to appear in court, to answer to debt of three hundred dinars claimed by the brothel-keeper.

The plaintiff exhibited a written deed whereby the chief of police acknowledged the debt, a document duly certified by the two legal witnesses, who attested to the validity of the transaction. Unable to counter this burdensome evidence, the chief of police paid the sum and left vowing to have his revenge against the two witnesses.

 The story raises many questions for a contemporary reader: first of all, whether these men really did enjoy such a high reputation in their community, and why were they endowed with the privilege to testify in court.

Since the paper exhibited to the qadi clearly bore no signature, why was it accepted by the court? Was the record valid just because it was supported by two “legitimate” witnesses?

This book deals with the Islamic idea that the word of honourable Muslims constitutes the proof par excellence, and that written documents and the testimony given by non- Muslims are of inferior value. According to this view, a merchant hailing from Christian Europe was at great pains to prove even the smallest claim in court, as neither his contracts nor his word was of any value if countered by Muslims.

 By the same token, a Frank made captive by corsairs or in a borderland attack in the Balkans was expected to prove his free condition by means of Muslim witnesses, failing which he was delivered to whoso-ever claimed to be his legitimate master.

How, if at all, did Franks and Muslims manage to breach or circumvent what the late nineteenth-century jurist Francesco Contuzzi (1855–1925) called the “bronze wall”? This question lies at the heart of this book. In a nutshell, the present work addresses how the so-called ‘biases against non- Muslims’ were dealt with in medieval and early modern commercial litigation, in diplomatic talks and, more broadly, how discrimination based on religious affiliation could play out in the legal system.

Together with the mistrust that Islamic law exhibited towards the word of non- Muslims, this work deals extensively with the chief inspector’s dilemma concerning the written deed produced against him and its legal value.

In recent years, historians have focused on the effects of these biases on Islamic societies, asking how they might have impacted Islamic economic institutions, or whether they might have fostered a shift towards a more Euro-pean style of laws and courts.1

My research deals instead with these precepts as a historical object, by attempting to understand how, in a typical Islamic

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