“Divide According to Sharī͑a”: The Islamic Inheritance System in the Russian Empire
Garipova R.
2025Brill Academic Publishers
Die Welt des Islams
2025#65Issue 2-3250 - 279 pp.
Until the end of the imperial period, the Volga-Ural Muslim communities in the Russian empire practiced several methods of intergenerational property transfer, such as waṣiyyat (bequest), hiba (gift), ṣulḥ/takhāruj (peaceful settlement) and the “science of the shares” (͑ilm al-farā͗iḍ). The Volga-Ural Muslims considered them all as legitimate ways of property division according to Islamic law (sharī͑a). However, a significant shift occurred in the early 1820s when the Russian imperial state confirmed the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly as the court of appeal for family and inheritance matters. Subsequently, Volga-Ural Muslims began to petition the oa, seeking a reconsideration of their inheritance divisions, specifically requesting a division “according to sharī͑a”. By the end of the nineteenth century, most of these petitions resulted in divisions based on the science of the shares. I argue that the oa served as an extra-communal venue where Muslims could challenge intra-familial or communal methods of inheritance division, and request divisions based on the science of the shares.
bequest , colonialism , division of inheritance , inheritance system , Russian Empire , science of the shares , Volga-Ural Muslims
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Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Department of History
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