Page 183 - UAE Truncal States_Neat

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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