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Abstract
The article aims at illustrating the "interpretative viability" of the Ottoman Family Code of 1917—i.e., its susceptibility to changing interpretations—and to discuss some of the interpretative tools that qāḍīs have applied to it over the years. By tracing the changing implementation of Article 130 of this law (nizāʿ wa-shiqāq) by sharīʿa courts in Palestine/Israel over a period of one hundred years (1917–2017), the article shows that the codification of the sharīʿa did not produce a closed, immutable, monolithic legal system, but rather has provided qāḍīs with considerable interpretative freedom—much more than is commonly assumed. Moreover, the hermeneutic tools employed by qāḍīs to interpret the code build on earlier, pre-codification sources of pluralism and interpretative freedom within the sharīʿa. Thus, by highlighting the continuities between pre-codified and post-codified sharīʿa, the article aims at contributing to the debate concerning the transformation of the sharīʿa in modern times.

This article argues that organizational ethnography, and an organizational perspective more generally, can help to shed new light on the phenomenon of legal pluralism. While the literature on legal pluralism has tended to focus on the interrelations between normative orders in situations of legal pluralism, this article directs attention to the organizational level, to the day‐to‐day routines in courts that operate under conditions of legal pluralism, and to the interorganizational relations between such courts. To demonstrate the utility of that approach to legal pluralism, the article presents an ethnographic case study from present‐day Jerusalem. Focusing on two sharī'a courts, one Israeli and one Jordanian, that operate in the city and serve the same population, the article describes how legal pluralism unfolds in daily organizational life. It portrays the complex fabric of the interrelations between these courts and tracks the evolution of these interrelations that transformed over the years from mutual antagonism to mutual dependence. These processes are examined within the turbulent political context in Jerusalem.

Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- List of Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- PART I HISTORICAL AND FORMAL LEGAL CONTEXT -- 2 Shari'a Courts in Palestine and Israel: A Socio-Historical Review -- 3 Shari'a Courts in Israel: The Legal Setting -- 4 Establishment of the Shari'a Court in West Jerusalem -- PART II A COURT IN MOTION: ETHNOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT -- 5 The Site -- 6 The Cast of Characters -- 7 Organizational Routines -- 8 Doing Ethnography in the Shari'a Court in West Jerusalem: Some Reflexive Notes -- PART III THE WEST JERUSALEM SHARI'A COURT AND THE FAMILY COURT -- 9 Breaking Shari'a Courts' Monopoly in Jurisdiction -- 10 Shari'a Courts' Response to Competition -- 11 Forum Shopping: Where to File a Maintenance Suit -- PART IV A TALE OF THREE COURTS AND ONE CITY -- 12 Three Shari'a Courts in Jerusalem -- 13 Forum Shopping between Shari'a Courts -- PART V CONCLUDING DISCUSSION -- 14 Israeli Shari'a Courts as Pluralistic Organizations: A New Institutional Perspective -- 15 Empirical and Theoretical Implications -- Appendix 1: Shari'a Court Fees -- Appendix 2: Form for Court Petition -- Appendix 3: Fatwa by the Mufti of Jerusalem -- Bibliography

Abstract
This essay aims to provide some analytical foundations for the study of legal pluralism in Muslim-majority colonies. Specifically, we contend that the incorporation of Islamic law into the colonial legal systems should be distinguished from the process of integration and codification of oral customs. As Islamic law constitutes a well-established legal system, based on written traditions and on elaborate institutions of learning and adjudication, its incorporation into the colonial legal system carried with it a number of implications. These are discussed, as are the tripartite relations that often emerge in Muslim-majority colonies between statutory laws, Islamic, and customary laws (ʿādat, ʿurf). The final section of the essay aims to present the articles included in this special issue and to place them within this broad context.
Le présent article vise à établir des fondements théoriques à l'étude du pluralisme juridique dans les colonies à majorité musulmane. Il insiste en particulier sur la nécessité qu'il y a à distinguer l'incorporation de la loi islamique aux systèmes juridiques coloniaux, du processus d'intégration et de codification du droit coutumier non écrit. La loi islamique constitue un système bien établi, fondé sur des traditions écrites et pourvu d'institutions de formation et d'exercice complexes. Son incorporation au sein du système juridique colonial a entraîné un certain nombre de conséquences spécifiques, qui sont analysées ici. Une attention particulière est en outre accordée aux relations triangulaires qui se font jour entre loi statutaire, loi islamique et droit coutumier (ʿādat, ʿurf) dans les colonies à majorité musulmane. Enfin, la dernière partie est consacrée à la présentation des articles réunis dans le numéro spécial dédié à ces enjeux.

AbstractBecause of the unique set of sources available, the Fayyum in Middle Egypt offers a unique case study of large-scale irrigation from antiquity to the Islamic period. A close reading of a cadastral survey of the province from 641/1243-4 shows that the distinctive aspect of the Islamic period was the local control of water supply and management. Drawing on the engineering experience of the villagers, water allocation and management in the gravity-fed canals of the Fayyum were in the hands ofiqṭāʿholders and tribal groups along the main canals, a pattern similar to that which pertained in mediaeval al-Andalus.