The accuracy of the literacy theory claims in the context of the medieval Arab-Muslim culture. Development of qadiship as an implication of the dissemination of writing and literacy

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development of the classical judgeship (qadiship) in Arab-Muslim culture from the perspective of the literacy theory. The premise of the article states that qadiship developed owing to the presence of writing. Judgeship is not a consequence of writing sensu stricto, but a consequence of the interaction of writing with the social structures and practices. The methodology of the present research takes two orders into consideration: the anthropological order (of the anthropology of cultural media) and the historical order. The considerations which are conducted in a diachronic sequence stop at about the middle of the third century AH/the middle of the ninth century, when the qadiship reached its maturity structurally and functionally. The article indicates the specific transformations which occurred in the context of the office under the influence of writing, at the same time presenting “the logic of writing”. Despite the co-occurring orality in Arab-Muslim culture, the identity of qadiship was constructed on the basis of a perception of the world formed by the oral-literary communicative order. In other words, the extent of the contribution of the medium of writing in specific practices of the qadi varied, although the institutional dimension of the office itself was attained as a result of the gradual textualisation of culture, including the legal culture and the law itself.