Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:00:38.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women’s Legal Agency and Property in the Court Records of Late Nineteenth-Century Brava

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2017

Lidwien Kapteijns  and
Alessandra Vianello
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Drawing on the Islamic court records of Brava, a small Indian Ocean port city on the southern Benadir coast of Somalia, dating from the period 1893–1900, this essay analyzes the legal agency and economic roles of the women of Brava and sheds new light on social (especially family) relations in this town. The qāḍī’s court records give evidence of married women’s fully recognized (even if qualified) legal personhood and their full-fledged financial and economic agency. The free, married women of Brava of this period contributed fully and autonomously to the economic endeavors of their families and also interacted with non-related businessmen in and beyond Brava. They also had the legal and social capacity to defend their interests in court and to get a fair hearing in accordance with the law. Given that both Somali women’s history and East African legal history suffer from a scarcity of concrete evidence for this time-period, the aspects of everyday life in Brava that come into view in the town’s qāḍī’s court records are of great interest.

Résumé:

En s’appuyant sur les archives judiciaires islamiques (1893–1900) de Brava, petite ville portuaire de l’océan indien sur la côte méridionale de la Somalie, cet essai analyse l’agency juridique et le rôle économique joué par les femmes de Brava et jette en même temps un nouvel éclairage sur les relations sociales (surtout familiales) dans cette ville. Les archives judiciaires du qāḍī témoignent de la personnalité juridique (même si celle-ci est qualifiée) reconnue aux femmes mariées et de leur agency financière et économique à part entière. Les femmes mariées libres de Brava de cette période ont contribué pleinement et de manière autonome aux efforts économiques de leurs familles et ont également interagi avec des hommes d’affaires en dehors de leur famille dans et au-delà de Brava. Elles disposaient également d’une compétence juridique et sociale pour défendre leurs intérêts devant les tribunaux et pour obtenir un procès équitable conformément à la loi. Étant donné que l’histoire des femmes somaliennes et l’histoire juridique de l’Afrique de l’Est souffrent d’une rareté de sources concrètes pour cette période, les aspects de la vie quotidienne à Brava qui sont visibles dans les archives de la cour du qāḍī sont d’un grand intérêt.

Type
New Insights into Source Materials
Information
History in Africa , Volume 44 , June 2017 , pp. 133 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdi, Cawo, “Convergence of Civil War and the Religious Right: Reimagining Somali Women,” Signs 33–1 (2007), 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agmon, Iris, “Muslim Women in Court according to the Sijill of Late Ottoman Jaffa and Haifa” in: El Azhary Sonbol, Amira (ed.), Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History (Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996), 126–140.Google Scholar
Agmon, Iris, Family and Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine (Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Bang, Anne K., Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, 1860–1925 (New York: Routledge, 2014).Google Scholar
Barwani, Naila, Gone Is Yesterday (Imepita jana) (Sandy, Bedfordshire: Bright Pen, 2010).Google Scholar
Bechor, Guy, God in the Court Room: The Transformation of Courtroom Oath and Perjury in Islamic and Franco-Egyptian Law (Leiden: Brill, 2012).Google Scholar
Bishara, Ahmad Fahad, “A Sea of Debt: Histories of Commerce and Obligation in the Indian Ocean, c. 1850–1940,” PhD dissertation, Duke University (Durham NC, 2012).Google Scholar
Bontinck, François, with Janssen, Koen, L’Autobiographie de Hamed ben Mohammed el-Murjebi Tippo Tip (ca. 1840–1905) (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 1974).Google Scholar
Boxberger, Linda, “Avoiding Ribā: Credit and Custodianship in Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth Century Ḥaḍramawt,” Islamic Law and Society 5–2 (1998), 196–213.Google Scholar
Cerulli, Enrico, Il Diritto Consuetudinario della Somalia Italiana Settentrionale (Napoli: Tip. Francesca Golia, 1919).Google Scholar
Chiesi, Gustavo, La Colonizzazione Europea dell’ Est Africa (Torino: Unione Tipografica Torinese, 1909).Google Scholar
Ciamarra, Guglielmo, La Giustizia nella Somalia (Napoli: Giannini, 1914).Google Scholar
Colucci, Massimo, Principi di Diritto Consuetudinario della Somalia Italiana Meridionale (Firenze: Società Editrice “La Voce,” 1924).Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).Google Scholar
Declich, Francesca, “‘Gendered Narratives,’ History, and Identity: Two Centuries along the Juba River Among the Zigula and Shanbara,” History in Africa 22 (1995), 93–122.Google Scholar
Declich, Francesca, “Poesia Religiosa Femminile – Nabi Ammaan – nel Contesto Rurale della Somalia,” Africa 51–1 (1996), 50–79.Google Scholar
Declich, Francesca, “Sufi Experience in Rural Somalia: a Focus on Women,” Social Anthropology 8–3 (2000), 295–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doumani, Beshara, “Adjudicating Family: The Islamic Court and Disputes between Kin in Greater Syria, 1700–1860,” in: Doumani, Beshara (ed.), Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 171–200.Google Scholar
En Nawawi, Mahiudin Abu Zakaria Yahya ibn Sharif, Minhaj Et Talibin: A Manual of Muhammadan Law According to the School of Shafii (London: W. Thacker, 1914).Google Scholar
Ergene, Bogaç, “Pursuing Justice in an Islamic Context: Dispute Resolution in Ottoman Courts of Law,” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 27–1 (2004), 51–71.Google Scholar
Fadl, Mohamed, “Two Women, One Man: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in Medieval Sunni Legal Thought,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997), 185–204.Google Scholar
Fay, Mary Ann, “Women and Waqf: Toward a Reconsideration of Women’s Place in the Mamluk Household,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29–1 (1997), 33–51.Google Scholar
Gerber, Haim, “Social and Economic Position of Women in an Ottoman City, Bursa, 1600–1700,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 12–3 (1980), 231–244.Google Scholar
Guillain, Charles, Documents sur l’Histoire, la Géographie et le Commerce de l’Afrique Orientale, partie II, tome I and II (Paris: A. Bertrand, 1856).Google Scholar
Hallaq, Wael B., “The ‘qāḍī’s dīwān (sijill)’ before the Ottomans,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61–3 (1998), 415–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, Susan F., “Kadhi’s Courts as Complex Sites of Resistance: The State, Islam, and Gender in Postcolonial Kenya,” in: Lazarus-Black, Mindie and Hirsch, Susan F. (eds.), Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 1994), 207–230.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Susan F., Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Jennings, Ronald C., “Limitations of the Judicial Powers of the Kadi in 17th C. Ottoman Kayseri,” Studia Islamica 50 (1979), 151–184.Google Scholar
Kapteijns, Lidwien, with Omar Ali, Maryan, Women’s Voices in a Men’s World: Women and Tradition in Northern Somali Orature, 1899–1980 (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1999).Google Scholar
Kapteijns, Lidwien, with Omar Ali, Maryan, “The Discourse on Moral Womanhood in Somali Popular Songs, 1960–1990,” Journal of African History 50 (2009), 101–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMahon, Elisabeth, Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Meriwether, Margaret L., The Kin Who Count: Family and Society in Ottoman Aleppo, 1777–1840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Middleton, John, The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Mohamed, Hamdi, “Multiple Challenges, Multiple Struggles: A History of Women’s Activism in Canada,” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa (Ottawa, 2003).Google Scholar
Molon, Marina, and Vianello, Alessandra, “Brava, Città Dimenticata,” Storia Urbana: Rivista di Studi sulle Trasformazioni della Città e del Territorio in Etá Moderna 53 (1990), 199–240.Google Scholar
Moors, Annelies, “Women’s Gold and Shifting Styles of Embodying Family Relations,” in: Doumani, Beshara (ed.), Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 101–117.Google Scholar
O’Malley, Gabrielle E., “Marriage and Morality: Negotiating Gender and Respect in Zanzibar Town,” PhD dissertation, University of Washington (St. Louis MO, 2000).Google Scholar
Peirce, Leslie, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purpura, Alyson, “Knowledge and Agency: The Social Relations of Islamic Knowledge in Zanzibar Town,” PhD dissertation, City University of New York (New York, 1997).Google Scholar
Reese, Scott S., “Patricians of the Benaadir: Islamic Learning, Commerce and Somali Urban Identity in the Nineteenth Century,” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1996).Google Scholar
Reese, Scott S., Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir (Leiden: Brill, 2008).Google Scholar
Robecchi Bricchetti, Luigi, Somalia e Benadir (Milano: Carlo Aliprandi, 1899).Google Scholar
Robecchi Bricchetti, Luigi, Dal Benadir: Lettere Illustrate alla Società Antischiavista d’Italia (Roma: La Poligrafica, 1904).Google Scholar
Romero, Patricia W., Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port (Princeton NJ: Markus Wiener, 1997).Google Scholar
Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984 [1964]).Google Scholar
Sorrentino, Giorgio, Ricordi del Benadir (Napoli: Tip. A. Trani, 1912).Google Scholar
Stiles, Erin E., An Islamic Court in Context: An Ethnographic Study of Judicial Reasoning (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).Google Scholar
Stockreiter, Elke E., “Tying and Untying the Knot: Kadhi’s Courts and the Negotiation of Social Status in Zanzibar Town, 1900–1963,” PhD dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies (London, 2008).Google Scholar
Stockreiter, Elke E., “‘British Kadhis’ and ‘Muslim Judges:’ Modernization, Inconsistencies and Accommodation in Zanzibar’s Colonial Judiciary,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 3–3 (2010), 560–576.Google Scholar
Stockreiter, Elke E., Islamic Law, Gender and Social Change in Post-Abolition Zanzibar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Strobel, Margaret, Muslim Women in Mombasa 1890–1975 (New Haven: Yale University, 1979).Google Scholar
Tucker, Judith, In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Tucker, Judith, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Vianello, Alessandra, “Brava Skullcaps (Makofia Ya Stunru),” Halabuur 4–1/2 (2009), 37–39.Google Scholar
Vianello, Alessandra, and Kassim, Mohamed M. (eds.), Servants of the Sharia: the Civil Register of the Qadis’ Court of Brava, 1893–1900 (two volumes) (Leiden: Brill, 2006).Google Scholar
Welchman, Lynn, Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States: a Comparative Overview of Textual Development and Advocacy (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Ze’ev, Dror, “Women in 17th-Century Jerusalem: Western and Indigenous Perspectives,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27–2 (1995), 157–173.Google Scholar