ABSTRACT
Christoph Werner provides a completely different interpretation of the shari‘a courts. According to Werner, the hierarchy of sheykh al-eslam–qazi–molla did not exist in Qajar Tabriz. All the major members of the ‘ulama, who were also referred to as mojtaheds, engaged in legal matters, regardless of their title. Willem Floor dealt with the shari‘a courts as part of the judicial system. According to him, shari‘a courts were places in which a judge (sheykh al-eslams, qazis, or mollas) sat in judgment on lawsuits. It is unclear whether every Qajar shari‘a court compiled court records, although Omid Reza’i found marginal notes in original deeds from various regions proving that the deeds were registered at court. The Qajar shari‘a court records contained a number of fatvas issued by the mojtaheds, while the Ottoman qadis rarely issued fatwas and the court records contained only muftis fatvas, which related to the lawsuits.
