Islamic law in early modern Iran : Sharia court practice in the sixteenth to twentieth centuries / Zahir Bhalloo.

Historical studies on the practice of Islamic law (sharīʻa) tend to focus on practice in a Sunni setting during the Mamluk or Ottoman periods. This book decenters Sunni and Mamluk and Ottoman normativity by investigating the practice of sharīʻa in a Twelver Shiʻi Persian-speaking milieu, in early modern Iran between the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Drawing on documentary evidence and narrative sources, it reconstructs who the practitioners of Islamic law were, how they authenticated, annulled, and archived legal documents, and how they intervened in the resolution of disputes over religious endowments (waqf).