The Majalla as codified fiqh?

Abstract

Codification was a phenomenon widespread in Europe when the Majalla was created. The spirit of the times was such that Europe was heavily under the influence of the French Civil Code. In such a context the Majalla was envisioned as a means to fill the lacunae in the law as applicable in the judicial system. If we accept that the Majalla is a fiqh text transplanted into a codification paradigm, it raises the problem of whether the imperatives of fiqh accord with those of that paradigm. This article examines the phenomenon of codification and investigates to what extent the Majalla is an expression of a codified paradigm.

Keywords

• Majalla
• Codification
• Functions
• French Civil Code
• Comparison

References

1. Akgunduz, Ahmet. Karsilastirmali Mecelle-i ahkam-i adliye : Mecelle ta’dilleri ve gerekceleriyle birlikte. Turkey: Osmanli Arastirmalari Vakfi, 2013.
2. Bedir, Murteza. “Fikih to Law: Secularization through Curriculum.” Islamic Law and Society 11, no. 3 (2004): 378–401.
3. Bergel, Jean Louis. “Principal Features and Methods of Codification.” Louisiana Law Review, no. 5 (1988 1987): 1073–98.
4. Bourdieu, Pierre, Loic J. D. Wacquant, and Samar Farage. “Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field.” Sociological Theory 12, no. 1 (1994): 1–18.
5. Canale, Damiano. “The Many Faces of the Codification of Law in Modern Continental Europe.” In A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence: Vol. 9: A History of the Philosophy of Law in the Civil Law World, 1600-1900; Vol. 10: The Philosophers’ Philosophy of Law from the Seventeenth Century to Our Days, edited by Enrico Pattaro, Damiano Canale, Paolo Grossi, Hasso Hofmann, and Patrick Riley, 135–83. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2964-5_4.
6. Cevdet Paşa, Ahmed. Tezakir. Edited by Mehmet Cavid Baysun. Vol. 4. 4 vols. Ankara: Turk tarih kurumu basimevi, 1953. ———. Tezakir. Edited by Mehmet Cavid Baysun. Vol. 1. 4 vols. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1953.
7. Görgün, Tahsin. “‘Yeni’ Anlama ve Yorumlama Yöntemlerinin Fıkıh Usûlüne Göre Durumu.” İslâmî İlimlerde Metodoloji: Usûl Mes’elesi 1, 2005, 675–98.
8. Has, Şükrü Selim. “The Use Of Multaqa’l-Abhur in the Ottoman Madrasas and Legal Scholarship.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 7, no. 7–8 (1988). http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/oa/article/view/5000116787.

9. İnalcık, Halil. “Ḳānūn.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by P. J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, and W. P. Heinrichs, IV:556–62. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill, April 24, 2012.
10. Inalcik, Halil. “Kanun.” İn TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, 24:323–24. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kanun--hukuk.
11. Kızılkaya, Necmettin. Legal Maxims in Islamic Law: Concept, History and Application of Axioms of Juristic Accumulation. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Nijhoff, 2021.
12. Lau, Martin. The Role of Islam in the Legal System of Pakistan. London-Leiden Series on Law, Administration and Development 9. Leiden ; Boston: M. Nijhoff, 2006.
13. Legrand, Pierre. “Codification and the Politics of Exclusion: A Challenge for Comparativists.” U.C. Davis Law Review 31 (1997): 799.
14. ———. “European Legal Systems Are Not Converging.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 45, no. 1 (1996): 52–81.
15. ———. “Strange Power of Words: Codification Situated.” Tul. Eur. & Civ. LF 9 (1994): 1.
16. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media : The Extensions of Man. 1st MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.
17. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition). Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2004.
18. Paşa, Ahmed Cevdet. Maruzat. Edited by Yusuf Halaçoğlu. Çağrı Yayınları, 1980.
19. Scarman, L.G. “Codification and Judge-Made Law: A Problem of Coexistence.” Indiana Law Journal 42, no. 3 (1967): 355–68.
20. Simpson, Brian. “The Common Law and Legal Theory.” In Legal Theory and Common Law, edited by William Twining, 8–25, 1986.
21. Stone, F.F. “Primer on Codification.” Tul. L. Rev. 29 (1954): 303.
22. Varga, Csaba. Codification as a Socio-Historical Phenomenon. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1991.