Page 183 - UAE Truncal States_Neat
P. 183

Chap I or Four

                 other source of law better defined, for the very reason that qudah
                 were employed because they had studied fiqh, which is the
                 jurisprudence of sharVah.
                   Although most qudah in the main population centres of IheTrucial
                 Stales during this century were born outside the area00 they also look
                 into consideration the traditional concept of the local population
                 concerning right and wrong, fairness and justice in punishment. In
                 some cases the opinion of the Ruler was of considerable weight and
                 could even be the decisive factor in reaching a verdict.
                   During the first decade of this century, men trained in the
                 interpretation and application of sharl'ah were appointed by several
                 of the Rulers of the Trucial States. This generated competition, not
                 only as to which of the legal principles should be applied, namely
                 sharVah, *urf or a Ruler’s opinion, but also among the judicial
                 authorities. As has been shown above,01 most disputes between
                 members of the tribal society never actually reached the Ruler, nor
                 the qacji; they were dealt with on the family or tribal levels. But cases
                 with domestic or external political relevance were tried by the Ruler:
                 his very title in Arabic, hakim, was, not for nothing, derived from the
                 same root as another word forjudge. Matters concerning the pearling
                 community were tried by an independent diving court, salifah al
                 ghaus, manned by respectable members of that community, mer­
                 chants, captains, and divers alike.
                   All these ad hoc or institutionalised judicial bodies, while not
                 necessarily referring to particular paragraphs of the relevant books
                 on fiqh, nevertheless were imbued with the spirit of Islam and
                 sharVah in the wider sense, even though they might in the end base
                 their decision on the 'ur/. It is significant, however, that for a period
                 earlier this century when there was increasing alienation between
                 the various groups residing in the coastal towns, due to immigration
                 from abroad and from the desert, there was also an increase in
                 disputes over property and over money, there was more fraud and
                 theft, and there were more marriages between non-relaled families.
                 This made it necessary to engage judicial authorities who had  no
                 local tribal links and were separate from the existing hierarchy.
                 Their jurisdiction was based exclusively on the universally accept­
                 able interpretation of sharVah.
                   The Rulers in the coastal towns, with increasingly diversified and
                 sophisticated societies, were   eventually expected to delegate to the
                 qudah judicial cases which were brought to their attention. An
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