Introduction 1
1. Mutual Functionality between Legal History and Comparative Law 1
2. Egyptian Law and Its Arab Weight 4
3. Methodology and the Art of Borrowing 9
4. Types of Courtroom Oaths 14
Ⅰ The Courtroom Oath in Islamic Law, Theory and Practice 16
1. Islamic Law and Methodology: Legal History and Historical Law 16
2. Intimate Involvement of God 27
2.1 The meaning of power 27
2.2 Triple impact of anxiety 28
3. The Islamic Courtroom Oath as a Source of Legal Determination 30
3.1 The courtroom oath and the legal right 30
3.2 The binary approach: between the bayyina and the oath 34
3.3 Criticism of the binary approach 38
3.4 The paradox of the badhl and the restriction of the oath 40
4. The Types and Modalities of Islamic Oath 43
4.1 The manifestation of the oath 43
4.2 The interpretation of the future oath-objective or subjective 48
4.3 Extra-legal considerations 51
5. The Technique of the Courtroom Oath 52
6. The Positions of the Schools on the Subject of the Courtroom Oath: Malikites versus Hanafites 54
7. The Illusive Mental Dimension of the Islamic Courtroom Oath 60
8. The Scope of the Courtroom Oath: Issues That May Form the Subject of an Oath 64
9. A Confrontation between Forms of Proof and Legal Determination: The Oath versus the Bayyina 69
10. The Defendant and the Courtroom Oath 75
10.1 Affinity (khulta) 77
11. The Rerendering of the Oath and the Burden of Proof 79
11.1 The development of dynamic revision 82
12. The Paradox of Mutual Plaintiffs and Defendants (tahaluf) 86
12.1 The lot (qur'a) as a tool for courtroom determination 88
13. Cases in which the Plaintiff Takes the Oath: A Conceptual Challenge for the Hanafites 89
13.1 Rendering the oath to the plaintiff when the defendant cannot defend himself (yamin al-qada, yamin al-'istizhar) 90
13.2 The course and outcomes of the judicial oath 92
13.3 The oath in a hisba suit-between human and divine order 95
13.4 The oath with a single witness 96
13.5 An oath cannot be made regarding an unknown matter 98
14. Judicial Discretion and the Decisive Oath 99
14.1 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya: from form to content 99
14.2 Restricted judicial space 102
14.3 Inspection of the legal competence of the parties 103
14.4 The mute's oath: when both verbal intention and inner intention are concealed 104
15. Can the Defendant Guide the Wording of the Oath in His Favor? 106
15.1 Redemption of an oath ('iftida') as avoidance of danger 111
16. A Religious Element in the Service of Law: The Intensification of the Oath 113
16.1 The text 113
16.2 Means of swearing on the Quran 115
16.3 Repetition 116
16.4 Way of ceremony (hal) 118
16.5 The dimension of place 119
16.6 The dimension of time 121
16.7 Non-Muslim 122
17. The Testimonial Oath 125
18. Special Types of Oaths: Curses (li'an) and Qasama 127
18.1 The terrible story of 'Uwaymar and his wife Khawla 127
18.2 Management of the curse procedure: the ceremony 130
18.3 The outcome of the curses procedure: Legal analysis 132
18.4 Fifty oaths as a single oath: The consequences of the qasama 135
18.5 The course of the oath: two schools of thought 138
Ⅱ Sui Generis, The Legal History of Courtroom Oath 143
1. 'Tortura Spiritualis' 143
1.1 The anxiety of the oath and the potential of self-destruction 143
1.2 Decisive and complementary courtroom oaths 147
1.3 First reference: courtroom oath in Judaism 149
1.4 Second reference: Courtroom oath in Greek and Roman law 151
1.5 Third reference: The oath in European law and criticism of the institution 153
1.6 Direct criticism of the courtroom oath 158
2. Courtroom Oath in Egyptian Legal History: Continuity and Omission 159
2.1 The 'social engineering' of the courtroom oath 159
2.2 Legislative sources and the functionality approach 162
3. Reinterpretation and the 'Stifling' of the Courtroom Oath 164
3.1 Reservations concerning the decisive oath in Franco-Egyptian law 164
3.2 The imprisoning framework of modern law 168
3.3 The old Egyptian code: an individualistic declaration and the disappearance of the complementary oath 170
3.4 About-turn: from the individualistic approach to the sociological one 172
3.5 The subjection of the oath to the doctrine of the abuse of a right (ta'assuf) and the super-doctrines 176
3.6 The sociological about-turn regarding the finality of the legal hearing 179
3.7 The technique of rapprochement and distancing vis-a-vis Islamic law 182
3.8 Prevarication around the term Bayyina 184
3.9 Kaffara (Penance) in the rule of religion and the rule of law: Imitatio Dei 186
3.10 Breaking the link with the Islamic sources: an independent entity 189
4. The Oath and 'Judicial Truth' as a Double Narrative 191
5. The Restriction of the Oath due to Injury to the Component of Legal Certainty 196
5.1 A ghost that may intervene at any stage 197
5.2 The oath and justice 199
5.3 The mechanical nature of the decisive oath 201
5.4 Extra-legal considerations 203
5.5 Custom, society and trust in the realm of the courtroom oath 205
5.6 Refusal to take the oath as a source of confession 209
Ⅲ The Egyptian Courtroom Oath and its Function 212
1. The Franco-Egyptian Courtroom Oath 212
1.1 The source of the written articles 213
1.2 Doctrines of reference and Legal system 214
1.3 Active involvement by leading French jurists 217
1.4 Borrowing the major transformation undergone by the French legal system 217
2. Research Methodology 218
3. The Paradox of the Courtroom Oath 221
4. The Presentation of Courtroom Oaths: Decisive and Complementary 223
5. The Decisive Oath as a Quasi-Contractual Model 224
6. The Decisive Oath as Equity 227
6.1 Legal justice and imbalance 227
6.2 The 'stroll through the realms of justice' parable 231
7. Judicial Discretion and the Decisive Oath 232
8. The Motif of Equality: The Oath is Granted to Both Parties 237
9. The 'Ritual' of the Oath and the Parties 238
10. The Balance of Threat of the Renderer 245
11. The Legal Capacity Required for a Decisive Oath 247
12. The Oath as a Text 248
13. 'Public Order', the Wild Horse, and Morality 251
14. The Oath and the Role of God as a Default 254
15. The Rerendering of the Oath 258
16. The Refusal (Nukul) to Take the Decisive Oath 260
17. The Doctrine of the Finality of the Hearing 261
18. The Decisive Oath Outside the Courtroom 262
19. The Complementary Oath 265
19.1 The management of the complementary oath 268
20. Hybrid Oaths: Between the Decisive Oath and the Complementary Oath 270
20.1 The oath of estimated value 270
20.2 The oath of affirmation 271
20.3 The oath of clarification ('istizhar) 273
21. The Testimonial Oath 274
Ⅳ Comparative Law-Two Oaths, Two Legal Regimes 275
1. A Current Thesis 275
2. A Charged Realm of Encounter 276
2.1 A historical perspective: divergence and rapprochement 276
2.2 Two chains of transmission of knowledge 282
2.3 The oaths and legal proceeding: Four chronological developments 283
2.4 Distinct points of departure 285
2.5 Points of contact 289
2.5.1 The Egyptian shaykh and Judge Makhluf al-Minyawi 289
2.5.2 The footnote technique 290
2.5.3 Terminology 292
2.5.4 The Shari'a Courts Procedural Law 293
2.5.5 The Iraqi civil code 295
3. The Decisive Oath and the Challenge of the Legal Right 295
4. The Oath between Legal Time and Human Time 300
4.1 Human time: the Islamic courtroom oath grants legitimacy to the Franco-Egyptian oath 301
4.2 Time as an agent of mutual threat 303
5. God as a Key Player 304
6. The Approach of Comparative Justice: Involvement or Interference? 307
7. Legal Reasoning and Intimidation 311
8. The Source of Authority: The Courtroom Oath as a Social Function 314
9. Judicial discretion and the Oath 317
10. The Mental Foundation of the Oath as a Subversive Element 319
10.1 'Intention' versus 'will' in the decisive oath 319
10.2 Mala fide: The mental foundation as a source of risk 321
11. Ceremony, Mysticism, and Ritual 323
12. The Oath and the Motif of Equality 327
13. The Realm of the Oath 329
14. The Relationship Created between the Parties to the Courtroom Oath 333
14.1 Access to the institution of the oath 333
14.2 The oath as distress for the defendant 334
14.3 The oath as the progenitor of a dynamic balance of power 337
14.4 The approach to non-Muslims as a function of sovereignty 339
14.5 The oath and considerations in penalization 341
15. Differences in Technique 343
15.1 The oath and the rerendered oath 343
15.2 The formulation of the oath text: Agreement or coercion 344
15.3 The oath versus the written document 346
15.4 The utterer and the text of the oath 349
16. The Complementary Oath: From a Binary Model to a Dynamic Perspective 351
Ⅴ Perjury as Ideology: The Motif of Falsehood in the Islamic and Franco-Egyptian Oaths 354
1. Introduction: The Transformation of the Perjury in Franco-Egyptian Law and the Concept of Falsum 354
1.1 'The concern of the gods' 354
1.2 Modern state and perjury 357
1.3 The changing perception of falsehood 360
2. A Proposed Model for Examining Perjury in Islamic Law 361
2.1 The component of falsum: The false oath versus the descending oath 362
2.2 The exposure of falsehood and the institution of tazkiyya 365
2.3 The use of equivocation and self-preservation 368
2.4 The spiritual dimension: The sin and its purgation 372
2.4.1 The alternative course approach 374
2.4.2 The strict approach 375
2.4.3 The lenient approach 375
2.5 The doctrine of the legal penalization of perjury in the fiqh 378
3. Perjury as an Institution and a Procedure in Egyptian Civil Law 379
3.1 Perjury between Islamic and Franco-Egyptian law 379
3.2 Without fanfare: perjury does not exist, as an institution, in Egyptian law 383
3.3 Further step toward the secular perception of falsehood 388
3.4 The scope of change in Arab legal systems 390
4. Perjury versus Courtroom Oath: Complement and Contrast 392
Bibliography 397
Index 405