Folio 6 recto

Variety of Legal cases heard by the judge in Isfahan - Names that appear in court cases - Isfahan’s city scape - Inscriptions on reading and collecting  - Dates - Hands of owners - Transcription - Translation

View transcript of pins 1 and 2

As we turn to folio 6 recto [pin # 1] of the judge’s anthology we can imagine the cases he heard and settled concerning ownership of property in Isfahan. His notes begin with a template of a sales contract where generic names of two guarantors, Muhammad Nazar and Mirza Muhammad [pin #2], are recorded. Two Muslim male witnesses certify the sale of a portion (three-sixths) of a storefront (dukkān) in accordance with Islamic law (shari’a). The judge records the legal formula which he must have evoked daily to certify the ownership of plaintiffs: “The rights of owners (mallāk) to their property is amongst their rights.” That the date of this settlement is left blank to be filled out according to the month (such-and-such) of judgement, signals the frequency of such formulaic cases the judge carried out.

Facsimile of an ownership contract of objects

A case of inheritance follows the verification of property ownership creating a legal connection between sales and inheritance. The judge records in red ink spelling out the genre as a copy of an ownership contract of objects. [pin #3] We hear the invocation of praise to the prophet Muhammad and his family as we are introduced to what seems to be a historical case. No longer recorded in terms of a template, the judge gives us the name of the deceased Muhammad Zaman Birinjī [rice producer/seller], the son of Qasim, who has passed away. His inheritors are his three sons, Muhammad Qulī, Zāhid, and Rasūl, and his wife, Shuhrih Bānū, the mother of his sons [pin#4]. The name of his wife, Shuhrih Bānū, is further identified as the daughter of Muhammad Husayn.

View the transcript of pins 3 and 4

View the transcript of pin 5

The eponym of the deceased father, Birinjī, reveals his profession as a rice seller. His three sons, in order of age, as well as his wife are named as consecutive inheritors. Moreover, property is delineated according to the limits of the inherited land that borders other legal property owners. The family property is in the orchard of Mir Muhammad and extends to the house of Āqā Husayn Qumī/Raghmī, the house of Tālib Bek and the house of Bihzād on three corners all the way to the street. This is a telling description of the way property was demarcated and space was delineated beyond the abstract concepts of ownership in Shi’i law. An orchard and three domestic spaces overlooking a street gives us a sense of the residential landscape of a merchant quarter in Isfahan. [pin #5] Moreover, this deed of ownership provides a local history of the Birinjī family. After the rice sellers three sons have died, the land was to be inherited by their mother, Shuhrih Bānū, and when she died by the next generation, a son of Āqā Husayn Qumī/Raghmī, who became the rightful owner of his grandfather’s land.

The marginal inscriptions of folio 6 recto are written by two distinct hands []. One anonymous owner records an inscription on the bottom left margin of the judge’s text in red ink, probably dating to the early 18th century, unambiguously describes habits of reading and writing in this anthology. With a fascinating comment: “If someone buys a book and writes on its margins, the two should be read together,” this owner makes explicit how inscriptions by multiple hands are to be read collectively on a page [pin #6]. Capturing a moment in time when inscriptions were being added to anthologies in circulation, new techniques of reading were announced where central texts and marginalia simultaneously were configured as a singular folio.

View the transcript of pin 6

View the transcript of pin 7

If we are to read the margins together with the central text, what are we to make of the marginalia directly following this testimonial on reading habits? We encounter another hand , this time dated to 1724. [pin #7] The owner names the anthology as the second Jami’ al-Abbasi, or The Abbasi Collection. The judge’s anthology is recognized as a sequel to a manual authored by a prominent sixteenth century religious scholar, Shahkh Baha’i (d. 1621) who composed his Jami’ on proper etiquette and Shi’a religious obligations. Written in simple Persian, Shaykh Bahaʾi dedicated the manual to the ruling king, Shah Abbas I (d. 1629) as a text to educate the population of Isfahan about Shi’i rites and rituals. The Jami’ written by Shaykh Bahaʾi, however, did not contain legal practices such as sales, divorce, or marriage contracts. The content of the judge’s original anthology, which assembled his professional notes for his everyday adjudication of cases is later reclassified as a manual on contractual law. Allegedly, the 1724 owner reads the judge’s anthology as an auxiliary to the Jami’ basing himself on a codex he says he saw in the possession of a respected young man by the name of, Rizā Qulī, who lived in the northwestern city of Ardabil. Manuscripts were clearly in circulation and owners of household anthologies classified them according to their knowledge of manuscripts published in the field. Subsequent owners of this codex will have had to contend with the new classification of this manuscript not as a personal anthology belonging to a 17th century judge but as a legal case book, a supplement to Shaykh Baha’i’s Jami’.

Another marginal note on the top of folio 6 recto [pin #8] gives us a sense of yet another owner of this codex. It is a legal text that has to do with the claim of a salary, or draft (barat) in the sum of 30 Tumans to be paid from the proceeds of a royal endowment. The owner-judge certifies the validity of the claim noting that it should be recorded in the imperial registers. There is much material relating to the judicial profession in this family archive from the seventeenth century. Assembled during the judge’s lifetime, with additional information added by another judge such documents display habits of collecting, reading, and writing. In the case of the judge’s household, what one wrote as a religious judge was the intellectual property of the family; lines demarcating work and family, even for a religious judge appointed by the imperial court, were considered permeable. Although Safavid “state” archives have not survived the trials of time, this family archive therefore provides important clues as to what would have been included in the imperial archives.

View the transcript of pin 8

Transcription

ومحمد نظر و میرزا محمد ضامن درک شرعی مبیع مذبور شدند ضمانا شرعیا من بعد سه دانگ دکان مذبور متعلق به مشتری میرزای مذبور داده بهر نحوی که خواهد تصرف نماید تصرف الملاک فی املاکهم و ذوی الحقوق فی حقوقهم فی شهر فلان. 

صورت قباله اشیاء: الحمدلله رب العالمین و الصلوة والسلام علی خیر خلقه محمد و اله اجمعین و بعد باعث بر تحریر این کلمات شرعیه المقدمات آنست که چون محمد زمان برنجی قاسم ولد مش قاسم؟ فوت شده از هر سه پسر مسمیون محمد قلی و زاهد و رسول و زوجه ذات الولد منها مسماة شهره بانو بنت محمد حسین و از مخلقه او بود تمامی شش دانگ یکدست سراچه معینه واقعه در باغ میرمحمد محدوده بخانه آقا حسین قمی و بخانه طالب بیگ و بخانه بهزاد و بشارع و بعد محمد قلی و زاهد و رسول فوت شده اند و از سر والده شهره بانو مزبوره بعد شهره بانو نیز فوت شده از سر یک پسر قمی  

Marginalia:

حاشیه: اعترف بالتوکیل لدی حرره العبد الاقل فلانی

وکیل مطلق و قایم مقام خود شرعی گردانیدم اقل العباد فضیلت و افادت شعار فلان بن فلان ساکن فلان را در باب اخذ و بازیافت وجه برات سه تومان وظیفه که از سرکار موقوفات نواب عالی که در وجه اینجانب مقررات است و برات مذکور سلیم براة مذکور تسلیم؟ ابن فلان نویسنده دفتر عالی شده که به وصول که وجه سی تومان مذکور را از مشارالیه بازیافت؟ فلان نویسنده دفتر عالی شده که به وصول؟ که وجه سه تومان مذکور را از مشارالیه بازیافت نمایی؟ تو...صحیح شرعی و کان ذالک فی شهر…

 نماید عنایت؟صحیح شرعی و کان ذلک فی شهر فلان ؟ شهدت فی الوکاله  و انا العبد الفقیر فلان ابن فلان

شهدت بمافیه لذی و انا العبد الفقیر فلان بن فلان  

اعز البائع المذبور بما یر فیه لدی

همواره وجود شریف عالی حضرت سامی رتبت متعالی منزلت پسندیده خصالی ستوده خصلت ادامه الله عزه ازهرگونه مکاره زمان در حفظ حفیظ امان ملک منان باد بعد از گزارش دعوات مشهود را گرامی میدارد که چون درینوقت  

اگر کسی کتابی بخرد در حاشیه کتاب چیز نویسد بهم خوانده   

و صارهذة الکتاب المسماة بجامع العباسی الثانی من تملکات شاب الاعز المدعو برضاقلی خلف الارشد کربلایی ولیمحمد قرامانلو الساکن فی دار الارشاد الاردبیل حفظه الله تعالی من قهر و الوبیل فی سنه باریس ئیل سنه۱۱۳۷