Abstract
This article examines various aspects of conditional sales (bayÊ¿-i shará¹) and other types of loans in Qajar Iran (1796-1925). Islamic law prohibited usury, but ShiÊ¿i jurists found a way to legalize money lending at interest. In this paper, I explore how these transactions occurred in practice and what features they had. To this end, I consider three groups of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ deeds from the National Archives of Iran, discussing how each case proceeded and how differences between cases reveal the ways in which this type of transaction functioned. While similar types of transactions were allowed in other regions and schools of law, the details of ShiÊ¿i legal devices were distinctive.
Introduction
Today, it is a consensus among Muslims that Islam prohibits usury. Modern Islamic banks always try to avoid loans with interest. The QurʾÄn explicitly prohibits ribÄ (QurʾÄn II 275 and III 130) and this term, ribÄ, has been interpreted as usury.1 However, as Maxime Rodinson showed in his famous book Islam et capitalisme, there have historically been a number of ways to lend money at interest under the rule of Islamic law.2 This was also the case in Qajar Iran. BayÊ¿-i shará¹, which literally means âa sale with stipulationâ or âconditional sale,â was one such means in ShiÊ¿i law. This mechanism was almost exactly the same as the bayÊ¿-i jÄʾiz in Hanafi law, which was developed so as not to violate ShariÊ¿aâs prohibition of ribÄ. In previous work, I have discussed the conditional sale based on the court records of Sayyid Muḥammad á¹¢Ädiq SangilajÄ« and Shaykh Fażl AllÄh NÅ«rÄ«, who were leading mujtahids or legal experts in Tehran in the second half of the nineteenth century.3 Having acquired statistical information about this type of transactions, it is now possible to analyze its use and popularity at the shariÊ¿a court in Qajar Tehran from 1860s to 1880s. The bayÊ¿-i shará¹ was the second or third most common transaction and comprised 12 to 18 percent of the records in each register.4 This fact indicates that the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ was not only wide-spread at the court but also indispensable for commercial life in Qajar Tehran. However, legality of the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ was sometimes challenged as NÄá¹£ir al-DÄ«n Shah (r. 1848-96) once prohibited the foreclosure of conditional salesâ security for this reason, which historian considered it as one of the shahâs achievements.5
In this paper, I attempt to explore how Islamic law was applied in the Qajar period without obstructing economic life. To this end, I examine three groups of original bayʿ-i sharṠdocuments from Qajar Tehran that are preserved in the National Archives of Iran, and attempt to reconstruct the transactions that are related in these materials.
As I examined previously, shariʿa court records, i.e. collections of summaries of shariʿa documents recorded in a court, provided information on each transaction occurred in the court but each record concerns a single transaction and does not indicate any other transactions related to them, which could occur in another court. Also, the court records sometimes refer to the foreclosure of a mortgage of bayʿ-i sharṠtransactions but, even in those cases, the records do not always provide information of the original bayʿ-i sharṠtransactions.6 However, the three sets of original bayʿ-i sharṠdocuments, which will be examined here, will reveal what happened in a series of transactions from the beginning to the end in a certain period of time. At the end of paper, I provide the text of one such bayʿ-i sharṠtransaction, to illustrate the conventions and formulae used in this still little-known documentary genre.
1 Legal Definition of bayÊ¿-i shará¹
As its name implies, bayÊ¿-i shará¹ is categorized in Islamic law as a kind of sale (bayÊ¿). Here the term shará¹ (condition, stipulation) alludes to the formulation khiyÄr al-shará¹ or stipulated option. Islamic law authorizes several types of khiyÄr, or right of rescission, and the khiyÄr al-shará¹ is one of these. The term denotes the right to cancel a contract unilaterally during a certain agreed-upon period of time. According to the prevailing opinion among Hanafi and ShafiÊ¿i jurists, the period should be not more than three days.7
ShiÊ¿i jurisprudence also admits the permissibility of khiyÄr al-shará¹. Unlike Hanafi and ShafiÊ¿i legal opinion, it furthermore holds that the length of the mutually agreed-upon âcooling-off periodâ during which one or other party may cancel a contract is not subject to any specified time restriction.8 However, when the seller and buyer combine the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ with a lease contract for an optional period, the buyer can lend money with interest and security to the seller. For example, the owner of a house sells the house to another person by âconditional sale.â This means that the owner receives money from the buyer. At the same time, the original house owner leases their own house from the buyer with rent, which means de-facto interest that the buyer must pay later. Here, the original owner continues to use their house although technically the house is owned by the buyer. Then, the original owner takes back the rights to the house from the buyer when the original owner repays the money to the buyer with the rent as interest. If the original owner cannot pay back the money during the mutually agreed-upon contract period, the sale contract will be validated, and the original owner will lose the house to the buyer, in the same way one can lose security for a loan. Therefore, relations concerning the conditional sale must be read as:
Equivalent terms of simple loan and conditional sale
Citation: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 64, 5-6 (2021) ; 10.1163/15685209-12341548
Although conditional sale was a type of sale contract, it provided money lending at interest with security. The borrower of the money (=seller in conditional sale) could use oneâs property (=mortgage) even in the loan period. This system was well-prepared for avoiding ribÄ in Islamic law.
Similar transactions took place in other regions, although the legal measures for legitimizing the transactions were different. An earlier example is found in one document dated 1103 from Geniza. A Muslim sold half of his house to two Jews with the right to buy it back ten years after. The Jews also permitted the Muslim to live the house by paying rent at a rate that produced five percent annual interest.9 Given that Geniza documents were composed in Judeo-Arabic, this kind of transaction evidently was not confined to Persianate societies.
In the Ottoman Empire, including the Arab regions, where Hanafi jurisprudence predominated, such transactions were named as bayÊ¿ bil-istighlÄl (sale with mortgage) or bayÊ¿ biâl-wafÄ (sale with the right of redemption).10 In Central Asia, another Hanafi region, the transactions were known as bayÊ¿-i jÄʾiz (literally, âpermitted saleâ). Kenâichi Isogai has examined in detail the forms of bayÊ¿-i jÄʾiz deeds written in Turkic from 19th-century Khiva. According to him, bayÊ¿-i jÄʾiz documents did not include any conditions (shará¹) for redeeming the property because Hanafi law does not permit conditions because they could harm the main contract of sale. Instead, bayÊ¿-i jÄʾiz documents included a promise (waÊ¿da) to return the property to the seller if the seller repaid the price.11 In another Hanafi region, Mughal India, bayÊ¿ al-wafÄ was an instrument for ribÄ.12 The text of one such Persian document published by J.S. Grewal self-nominates as a bayÊ¿ al-wafÄ, but the point of this document is to have one-year term for repayment, which is distinct from girwÄ«-nÄmas (mortgage deeds), the transactions which did not have a time period.13 It was natural for Hanafis not to use khiyÄr for the transactions, given that, as noted above, Hanafis permitted only three days for khiyÄr In the case of Iran, the seller leased the property from the buyer until the seller repaid the price, and rent meant de-facto interest.
In Hadramaut, a ShafiÊ¿i and Arabic-language region, the transaction was known as bayÊ¿ al-Ê¿uhda. In this case, the main transaction did not concern property ownership but instead temporary custodianship and use of the property. However, in some cases, rental agreements were concluded separately for an Ê¿uhda property, which meant a de-facto loan with interest.14 On the other hand, Oman and Zanzibar, where the Ibadi jurisprudence prevails, also had abundant examples of the loans made through use of the khiyÄr, which were notarized in Arabic.15
The bayʿ-i sharṠwas thus the Shiʿite version of the phenomenon, widely attested not only in Persianate societies but throughout the entire Islamic world, of securitized loan at interest. Although most widely attested in the Qajar period, the bayʿ-i sharṠis known to have existed in earlier times: a bayʿ-i sharṠdeed from Astarabad is dated 1119 AH (1708),16 and a collection of document specimens from late Safavid period contains three examples of bayʿ-i sharṠdeeds, one of these dated 1103 AH (1692).17
2 Form of the Deeds
The compositional form of bayʿ-i sharṠdeeds reflected their legal definition. Constituting it did in Islamic law a form of bayʿ (sale), the bayʿ-i sharṠwas notarized in a fashion similar to a standard sale deed.18
The main legal formula in a bayÊ¿-i shará¹ deed was the statement bifurÅ«kht bi-mubÄyaÊ¿a-i khiyÄriyya-i shará¹iyya, which could be translated as âhe has sold through the mubÄyaÊ¿a with the condition of option.â This is of course similar to the main formula in a conventional sale deed, namely bifurÅ«kht bi-mubÄyaÊ¿a-i lÄzima-i jÄzima (âhe has sold through binding and obliging mubÄyaÊ¿aâ). Usually, the sellerâs name came before the main formula, though the order occasionally varied to show respect.19 After the main formula and the names of both parties, the property details were described, and were then followed by the price details, which determined the coins to be paid. In all these details, aside from the wording of the main legal formula, the form of the first part of the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ deed was exactly the same as conventional sale deeds.
The second legal formula shará¹-i sharÊ¿Ä« shud (âthe legal condition is fixedâ), appeared after the price was fixed, which set the terms for the recovery of the merchandise after repayment. This formula was then followed by the stipulation of a mutually-agreed fixed period (muddat-i khiyÄr), such as âwithin the six days after six months passed.â If the seller repaid the price to the buyer or the buyerâs representative during said fixed period, the seller repossessed the property. On the other hand, if the seller could not repay the price, the transaction was irrevocable, and the seller lost the property completely.
The third legal formula ijÄra-i sharÊ¿Ä« shud (âthe legal lease has occurredâ) stated that the buyer would lease back the property to the seller for the same period. After this, the rent details were described with the name and weight of coins to be paid. This lease allowed the seller (borrower) not to hand over the property to the buyer (lender) and enabled the seller (borrower) to keep the property during the fixed period.
There were some variations in the legal formulas. In Qajar Iran, the contract of settlement (á¹£ulḥ) could function as the contract of sale or lease. For this reason, the first and third formulas could be substituted with the á¹£ulḥ contract. When one used the sulḥ contract, the main formula was maá¹£Älaḥa-i khiyÄriyya-i shará¹iyya shud (âthe settlement with the condition of option has occurredâ). Also, the third formula could be changed in the á¹£ulḥ contract, as one can see in Document 1.20
The bayʿ-i sharṠdeeds bore the endorsements and the seals of the ulama in the upper part of the documents in the same way that conventional sale deeds had. This indicates that they were drafted at a Shariʿa court. A careful examination of these documents reveals no illegal elements in the form of deeds, as they were constructed very carefully.
3 Description and Analysis of bayʿ-i sharṠDocuments
Like other shariÊ¿a court documents, original bayÊ¿-i shará¹ deeds were kept by those who had the right over the related property. Today Iranian archives is collecting such documents. Three group of documents that I examine here were preserved in the khazÄna collection of National Archives of Iran.21 The name of khazÄna might indicate the collection was brought from the Qajar royal treasury, but it contains private deeds, too.
3.1 Transactions between MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m and Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla22
The first document concerns the transactions between MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m, a Jew from Isfahan, and Sulá¹Än Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla, the forty-eighth son of Fatḥ Ê¿AlÄ« Shah, and the author of a famous court memoir, TÄrÄ«kh-i Ê¿AżudÄ«.23 The deeds of the seven transactions, dated from 1843 to 1846, appear on both sides of a sheet of paper. Contrary to what one might lazily presume, MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m, who was Jewish, was the seller-borrower. It is difficult to establish any information about his identity or background.24 According to the first transaction dated 7 áºÄ«á¸¥ijja 1258 AH/9 January 1843, notarized in the center of the right side of the sheet, he sold three shops, a bakery, a goldsmith shop, and a sandal (gÄ«vih) shop, to Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla for 100 tumÄns by means of a bayÊ¿-i shará¹ contract with a six-month term. Moreover, MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m acquired six monthsâ profits of the shop from the shopsâ new owner, Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla, by paying 12 tumÄns and 5000 dÄ«nÄrs to him. In other words, he borrowed 100 tumÄns from Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla for six months at 25 percent per annum. The contract had another clause in the margin of the document: if the transaction contained a fraud, or the property belonged to a third party, MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m and his brother had to pay 200-tumÄn indemnity to Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla.25
What happened next? The deed of the second transaction, written on the reverse side of the sheet, dated 28 JumÄdÄ II 1259 AH/26 July 26 1843, states: âFrom the sale contract written on the front of the paper, the seller, the buyer and the owner of the shops have been exempted by each other (az ham guzashtah).â The meaning of this statement is not immediately clear. One might assume it means that MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m repaid the debtâbut this seems not to be the case: if he had done so, one would expect to see payment notarized by use of the term âcancelâ (faskh), which does not appear here; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that he did not repay the debt. Instead, this second transaction goes on to say that MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m borrowed 100 tumÄns again from Ażud al-Dawla for six months at an interest of 12 tumÄns using the same security: the shops. Therefore, we can assume that both parties actually renewed the loan after the end of the first term.
Five more transactions took place between MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m and Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla. The third transaction dated 4 Muḥarram 1260 AH/25 January 1844 was notarized on the reverse side. After the term of the second transaction had passed, both parties closed another similar contract. The security was the same shops as in the previous contracts. The loan amount was 112 tumÄns, which was equal to the sum of the loan and the interest in the second transaction. The option period was the six days after five months passed, the interest was only 100 dÄ«nÄrs, which means 0.02 percent per annum. In other words, Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla granted grace to MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m for the second transaction with low interest.
The fourth transaction dated 27 Rajab 1260 AH/12 August 1844 is notarized in the margin of the right side. More than one month after the third transaction had passed, both parties closed another contract. The loan amount returned to the original 100 tumÄns. The option period was the ten days after five months and four days passed, and the interest was 12 tumÄns, which meant 28.1 percent per annum.
The fifth transaction dated 4 á¹¢afar 1261 AH/12 February 1845 was inscribed on the reverse side. Both parties closed another contract more than six months after the previous contract. The loan amount was the same 100 tumÄns and the interest cost the same 12 tumÄns. The option period was the six days after five months passed, which meant that the annual interest rate was 28.8 percent.
The sixth transaction dated 15 ShaÊ¿bÄn 1261 AH/19 August 1845 was on the reverse side. The next contract ended more than six months after the previous contract. The amounts of the loan and interest, 100 tumÄns and 12 tumÄns, respectively, did not change. The option period was the six days after six months passed, which meant the interest rate was 24 percent per annum.
The seventh transaction dated 25 RabÄ«Ê¿ I 1262 AH/23 March 1846 was on the reverse side. The last contract was closed more than seven months after the previous contract. Again, the loan amounts and interest did not change; 100 tumÄns and 12 tumÄns, respectively. The option period was the three days after three months passed, which meant the annual interest rate was 48 percent.
In all six transactions, the 100-tumÄn loan and 12 tumÄns of payable interest were fixed. The only apparent exception was the third transaction, but one can interpret that the 12 tumÄns of interest was added to the original 100-tumÄn loan in this case. If we calculate the total loans, MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m borrowed 100 tumÄns from Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla for three and a half years at the annual rate of 3.4 percent. This is quite a low rate, but we do not have any information about why it should have been so low. We will see a very different situation in the next two cases.
3.2 Transaction between Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ, UstÄd Asad AllÄh and Others
Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ also belonged to the Qajar family, being the second son of Muḥammad QulÄ« MirzÄ, the second son of Fatḥ Ê¿AlÄ« Shah. He was the vice-governor of the Mazandaran province during Fatḥ Ê¿AlÄ« Shahâs reign, but appeared to lose his government position during Muḥammad Shahâs period.26 Unlike Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla, he was the seller-borrower, and UstÄd Asad AllÄh, a builder (bannÄʾ) from Tehran, was the buyer-lender.
The documents related to this transaction are included in three files. Three bayÊ¿-i shará¹ transactions took place between Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ and UstÄd Asad AllÄh from 1837 to 1839. The first document dated 14 Rajab 1251 AH/ 5 November 1835 concerns the purchase of a house by Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ from the three daughters of a certain MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿AlÄ« ShÄ«rÄzÄ«.27 This house, located in the Sangilaj district of Tehran, became the security for the later bayÊ¿-i shará¹ transactions. The second document, dated 29 áºÄ«á¸¥ijja 1252 AH/6 April 1837, records a further bayÊ¿-i shará¹ transaction.28 Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ borrowed 180 tumÄns from UstÄd Asad AllÄh for five months with an interest repayment of 21 tumÄns and 6000 dÄ«nÄrs, which meant 28.8 percent per annum. The security was the house Iskandar bought through the first document. The third document, dated 5 ShaÊ¿bÄn 1253 AH/ 4 November 1837, was drafted on the reverse side of the second document. The document states that Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ did not clear the debt in seven months; therefore, the ownership of the house passed to Asad AllÄh. As a result, Iskandar bought the house back from Asad AllÄh at 200 tumÄns, which was more than Iskandarâs original debt but less than his total debt including interest. Moreover, Iskandar again borrowed 200 tumÄns on the security of the same house and other items, such as shawls and small carpets. The interest was 25 tumÄns for six months, which meant 25 percent per annum.
Since Iskandar first paid 200 tumÄns and then borrowed the same amount, it is natural to suppose that both sides paid no money. In other words, this transaction was a kind of renewal of the contract, which is rather complicated because it transpired after the expiration of the previous agreement. Another point is that five tumÄns out of the total payable interest of 25 tumÄns went to the jurist, MullÄ Muḥammad Ḥusayn KhurÄsÄnÄ«, who endorsed the document as âcompensation for unjust transactionâ (radd-i maáºÄlim). This means that the jurist expected a future legal conflict and he would deal with it if it happened. The transaction contained a legal problem due to its complexity.
The fourth document, a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹, was dated 2 RabÄ«Ê¿ I 1255 AH/16 May 1839, more than one year after the previous term of contract terminated.29 The deed did not mention the two previous transactions but the security was the same house. The difference was that three shops were added to the security for the loan, which Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ built adjacent to the house. The loan amount was 350 tumÄns, the interest cost 22 tumÄns, and the option period was the three days after three months passed, which means the interest rate was 25.1 percent per annum. It is probable that Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ had not repaid the second loan and was able to renew the contract by adding the shops to the security. Although the loan amount in the deed increased to 350 tumÄns, it is unclear how much money Iskandar actually received from Asad AllÄh this time. Since the previous loan was 200 tumÄns at 25 percent interest per annum, Iskandarâs debt should have been more than 275 tumÄns after one year and seven months. Therefore, the balance between the amount of debt and the newly added security might have been determined the loan amount.
The fifth document, a deed of settlement, was dated 2 RabÄ«Ê¿ I 1257 AH/ 24 April 24 1841.30 Two years after the previous transaction, UstÄd Asad AllÄh legally owned the house and the shops because Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ could not clear his debt. The condition of the settlement was as follows: Asad AllÄh paid 100 tumÄns to Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ, and Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ yielded all of his rights on the house and shops, such as rent from the tenants.
Here we see what could happen if the borrower could not clear their debt within the time period stipulated in the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ contract. According to this document, there was no doubt about the fact the lender could seize the security. However, here Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ acquired more than 100 tumÄns. A buyer-lender could acquire a mortgaged house, but they could not do it prior to negotiations with the seller-borrower. According to our calculations, at that time the house and shops were worth 472 tumÄns by the fourth and fifth documents. According to the first document, the house cost 240 tumÄns; therefore, the value of the house including shops almost doubled.
The sixth document, a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹, was dated 7 RabÄ«Ê¿ I 1259 AH/ 7 April 1843.31 Two years after the above-mentioned settlement, Sulá¹Än Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ Ażud al-Dawla owned the house, though we do not have any document about how he had acquired it. According to this deed, Ażud al-Dawla borrowed 500 tumÄns from a certain ÄqÄ Ê¿Abd al-ḤamÄ«d for three months with the interest of 37 tumÄns, which means 29.6 percent per annum. A two-thirds share of the house was security for this transaction, which did not contain the shops built by Iskandar MÄ«rzÄ; UstÄd Asad AllÄh owned these shops. Contrary to the transaction with MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m, here we see Ażud al-Dawla as a seller-borrower, not as a buyer-lender. We do not have any information about the result of the transaction, but it is clear that the house was worth 750 tumÄns in total, excluding the shops. The seventh document is a sale deed dated 24 JomÄdÄ II 1259 AH/22 June 1843.32 According to this deed, Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla purchased the three shops from UstÄd Asad AllÄh at the price of 100 tumÄns.
The house changed owners three times in eight years, and it was mortgaged by two different people. The price of the house rose more than three times from 240 tumÄns to 750 tumÄns. This case indicates the fluidity of real estate in Qajar Tehran, and one factor was no doubt the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ transactions.
3.3 Transactions between Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn and Sulá¹Än Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla33
Naáºar Ê¿Ali KhÄn belonged to the BayÄt tribe from Zarand, a small town located 100 km south-west of Tehran. He had a house in Bazar district of Tehran that was mortgaged in transactions between 1844 and 1847.
The first transaction was a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 26 á¹¢afar 1260 AH/ 17 March 1844 inscribed in the right side of the first document. The deed is not original but an authentic copy (savÄd). Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn borrowed 160 tumÄns from Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla at the interest of 28 tumÄns using the house and ten millstones as security. Here the interest was called bÄqÄ« al-áºimma, the remnants of debt. It is possible that Nażar Ê¿AlÄ« actually owed Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla some money before this transaction, but in that case the deed needed to have explained the debt in more detail. According to the deed, the borrower had to repay both the original loan and the bÄqÄ« al-áºimma if he wanted to recover the house and millstones. The option period was the seven days after seven months passed, which means the interest rate was 30 percent per annum. The transaction used a á¹£ulḥ contract with option, i.e., muá¹£alaḥa-i shará¹iyya, for the loan. However, the borrower could not use the house because the document did not include a lease contract for the house and millstones. Therefore, another sulḥ contract related to the house and the mills was terminated; the borrower rented the house and the stone mills at 100 dÄ«nÄrs.
The transaction included another clause in the margin. If the borrower did not repay the debt at the fixed time and still did not deliver the security to the lender, the borrower had to pay 5 tumÄns per month to the lender. As we see above, lenders sometimes found it difficult to seize the loan security after the loan period had passed. This clause addressed this problem.
The second transaction was a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 28 ShavvÄl 1260 AH/ 10 November 1844 notarized on the reverse side of Document 1. Eight months after the previous transaction, Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn and Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla exempted each other (az ham guáºashta) and revised the contract like the prince and MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m did. However, in this case, Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ«âs loan rose from 160 to 180 tumÄns, and the interest (called bÄqÄ« al-áºimma) also rose from 28 to 40.5 tumÄns. The security was the same house and stone mills. The option period was the eight days after eight months passed, which means that the interest rate was 33.75 percent per annum. The transaction also contained a clause delaying the securityâs transfer in the case of non-repayment.
The third transaction was a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 29 ShaÊ¿bÄn 1261 AH/ 2 September 1845 written on the reverse side of Document 1. Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn and Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla revised the contract again after nine months and the form of the transaction was the same as the previous one. The loan amount was the same 180 tumÄns, but the interest (bÄqÄ« al-áºimma) had decreased to 37 tumÄns. The security was the same house and stone mills. The option period was the six days after four months passed, which means the interest rate was 61.67 percent per annum.
The fourth transaction was a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 1 RabÄ«Ê¿ I 1262 AH/ 27 February 1846 written also in the reverse side of Document 1. Six months after the previous transaction, they again revised the contract. The loan amount was the same 180 tumÄns and the interest was 36 tumÄns. The security was the same house and stone mills. The option period was the eight days after eight months passed from 1 Muḥarram 1264 AH/30 December 1845, probably because they did not want a vacant period following the termination of the previous transaction. The interest rate was 30 percent per annum.
There is additionally a marginal note dated 23 áºÄ«qaÊ¿da 1263 AH/ 2 November 1847, indicating that the loan was unpaid, and the security was seized by the lender. However, there were some other documents drawn up prior to this note.
The fifth transaction, a deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 3 á¹¢afar 1263 AH/January 21, 1847, was notarized on a separate piece of paper (Document 2). Eleven months after the previous transaction, they closed another contract. Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn borrowed 200 tumÄns from Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla with the security of the same house and six stone mills (not the 10 millstones in the previous transactions). The interest was 48 tumÄns and the option period was the ten days after 11 months passed from the first of the next month. Therefore, the interest rate was 26.18 percent per annum.
There is a question about the relationship between this deed and the previous deeds. This deed did not mention any previous transactions. However, according to the marginal note of the previous deed, Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn did not repay his debt until áºÄ«qaÊ¿da of the same year. Although more than three months had passed since the end of the previous contract, this deed can be understood as a revised version of their previous transactions.
This document also includes a marginal note dated 1 RabÄ«Ê¿ II 1264 AH/ 7 March 1848 by MÄ«rzÄ AbÅ« al-QÄsim ImÄm JumÊ¿a, saying âSince two months passed without repayment after the end of the period for option, the transaction was confirmed and the security was seized by Sulá¹Än Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ.â In other words, Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn could not clear this debt. The following documents describe the details of the situation.
The sixth transaction was a deed of settlement between Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla and MahdÄ« KhÄn, Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ«âs brother, dated 5 JumÄdÄ I 1263 AH/19 April 1847 and notarized on another piece of paper (Document 3). Since Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn had passed away by this point, his brother agreed to pay the debt to Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla. The security was the same house and six millstones. MahdÄ« KhÄn would pay 110 tumÄns three months after the contract and an additional 122 tumÄns nine months after the contract. If MahdÄ« KhÄn did not repay within the due period, Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla had the right to cancel the transaction, and in that case, the previous deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ would be effective. Here, Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla tried to collect the debt from MahdÄ« KhÄn after Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ«âs death.
An undated administrative document reveals the aftermath of the transactions. It was addressed to TÄ«mÅ«r PÄshÄ MÄkūʾī, who was a member of military personnel close to the grand wazir, HÄjjÄ« MÄ«rzÄ ÄqÄsÄ«. The issuer does not appear in the document, but he was probably the grand wazir because the document started âdear brother.â
The document explained that MahdÄ« KhÄn escaped from Tehran without any payment. For this reason, MullÄ WalÄ« AllÄh, the representative of Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla, petitioned the Royal divÄnkhÄnih. The issuer sent two officials to arrest MahdÄ« KhÄn. TÄ«mÅ«r PÄshÄ was asked to send MahdÄ« KhÄn to Tehran to deal with the debts.
The seventh transaction was a deed of settlement between Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla and heirs of MahdÄ« KhÄn, dated 27 ShaÊ¿bÄn 1264 AH/29 July 1848, and notarized on yet another separate piece of paper (Document 4). The deed stated that MahdÄ« KhÄn had passed away without repayment and the house now belonged to Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla. However, MahdÄ«âs brother HÄdÄ« KhÄn, his two sisters and mother claimed that they owned one-tenth of the house. Both parties asked a specialist to estimate the value of the house. Finally, Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla paid 60 tumÄns to HÄdÄ« KhÄn and his family acquired full ownership of the house.
Here we know two things. First, although the transactions between Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla and MahdÄ« KhÄn appear to have been no problem legally, nevertheless Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla needed to pay 60 tumÄns to his heirs. Evidently, relatives could easily challenge the transaction of bayÊ¿-i shará¹. Secondly, since one-tenth of the house was worth 60 tumÄns, the total value of the house should have been 600 tumÄns. Since Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla paid first 160 tumÄns and then 60 tumÄns, he acquired a house of more than twice the value of his investment.
A statement by IbrÄhÄ«m KhÄn b. Muá¹£á¹afÄ KhÄn AfshÄr dated Rajab 1268 AH/April-May 1852 was the last document related to the house (Document 5). The document states that IbrÄhÄ«m KhÄn purchased the former house of Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn from Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla and received the related documents from the prince. However, Ê¿Aáºud al-Dawla still owned a piece of land adjacent to the house on the east side, and he did not have any documents proving his ownership over the land. The document was prepared to prove Aáºud al-Dawlaâs ownership, and Aáºud al-Dawla finally sold the house to IbrÄhÄ«m KhÄn three years after the previous transaction.
4 Contextualizing the bayÊ¿-i shará¹
All three cases examined here contained six or more transactions with complex elements. Although the legal framework of the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ was common to all these cases, there were many differences in detail. For example, the transactions with MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m were quite friendly to the debtor: the loan amount and interest did not change throughout the transactions. However, in the other two cases, the debts increased considerably due to the high interest rate over the course of time, and finally the debtor lost their property to the lender.
Even the term used for the interest differed. Interest was usually called mÄl al-ijÄra or mÄl al-muá¹£Älaḥa, but the transactions with Naáºar Ê¿AlÄ« KhÄn used the term bÄqÄ« al-áºimma. Only Iskandar MÄ«rzÄâs third document stipulated the radd-i maáºÄlim. The transactions with Naáºar KhÄn prepared for the delay of repayment with a special clause. These facts indicate that the borrower and the lender needed to negotiate every detail of the transactions.
We can compare these documents with those in the sharÄ«Ê¿a court records. The court records are registers of issued documents at sharÄ«Ê¿a courts. The form of the records varies by the registers. For example, Shaykh Fażl AllÄhâs register is simple for bayÊ¿-i shará¹ records as follows:
A royal confidant, ÄqÄ MÄ«rzÄ Sayyid IbrÄhÄ«m MustawfÄ« TafrishÄ« acknowledged that he sold a half of his residence where his son lived to ḤÄjjÄ« MÄ«rzÄ YÅ«suf KhÄn b. MushÄ«r-i Lashkar by bayÊ¿-i shará¹ and received the price, 100 tumÄns. He also rented the property (from the buyer) at 20 tumÄns of the agreement fee (mÄl al-muá¹£Älaḥa) for one year. The date of the acknowledgement was 22 JumÄdÄ I, 1303. One year is the optional period for the sale.34
In this case, Sayyid IbrÄhÄ«m borrowed 100 tumÄns with 20 tumÄns for one year. It is clear that these documents contain every detail of each transaction that the shariÊ¿a court records omitted. On the other hand, the shariÊ¿a court records provide statistical information.
The court records from nineteenth century Tehran contained 832 bayÊ¿-i shará¹ contracts with a lease (i.e., security and interest). Most transactions cost less than 400 tumÄns, and the interest rates were usually between 10 and 30 percent per annum. The normal loan period was less than two years. Also, there are 75 records of foreclosure and 37 records of repayment in the court registers.35 Most transactions described above were in the normal range found in the shariÊ¿a court records.
Conditional sales were prevalent not only in cities but also in rural areas. The collection of Az AstÄrÄ tÄ IstarabÄd documents included 15 such deeds from 1708 to 1881. The oldest document, dated 1119 AH/1708, concerns a transaction, which interest was not cash but 1 kharvÄr and 10 man36 of unhulled rice.37 Most transactions were conducted over less than a year, just like the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ transactions in Tehran.38 However, two transactions were made for a longer period; nine years and ten years respectively.39 In rural areas, therefore, a longer contract of conditional sale was possible, perhaps because people did not move to other places in as a short period of time as they did in cities.
Returning to the court records from Tehran, one can find two somewhat similar but different types of contracts. The first type was a simple loan with interest. One example from SangilajÄ«âs register was dated 7 ShavvÄl 1284 AH/ 1 February 1868.40 The creditor (dÄʾin) was ÄqÄ Shaykh Ḥusayn, and the debtor (madyÅ«n) was MÄ«rzÄ Buzurg Shaykh al-IslÄm, both of whom were probably of the âulama class. The debt was 310 tumÄns, and the loan period was one year. At first glance, the transaction appears normal. However, when we examine the debt details, we find reference to an aá¹£l of 250 tumÄns and a farÊ¿ of 60 tumÄns (both rendered in siyÄq numerals). There is no clear explanation as to the meaning of aá¹£l and farÊ¿, but context suggests that the former term denotes the original debt and the latter the per-annum interest, which means 24 percent interest per year, a normal rate for loans in Qajar Tehran.
This type of transaction varied in the registers. For example, a record in Shaykh Fażl AllÄh NurÄ«âs register refers to the interest as the vajh-i muá¹£Älaḥa. According to this record, MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿AlÄ« Aá¹£ghar KujÅ«rÄ« borrowed 100 tumÄns from MÄ«rzÄ Muḥammad BÄqir YÅ«zbÄshÄ« for one year in 1304 AH/1886. The interest was 24 tumÄns, which represented 24 percent interest per annum. In this case, Ê¿AlÄ« Aá¹£ghar offered a one-sixth share of his house to Muḥammad BÄqir as security for the loan.41 In practice, this transaction was effectively the same as a bayÊ¿-i shará¹ because it was a loan with security and interest, but the legal device it employed was very different from the bayÊ¿-i shará¹.
The difference between a simple loan with interest and a conditional sale might be the formerâs simplicity and flexibility. A simple loan could be arranged with or without interest, and with or without a pawn (rahn), while a conditional sale could not be made without property for security. According to the shariÊ¿ court records, 70 to 80 percent of simple loans did not include security and interest, while 16 to 17 percent of simple loans included interest but did not include security. Moreover, simple loans with both interest and security, which were similar to conditional sales, constituted less than 6 percent of all simple loans.42 In fact, a simple loan with a pawn was different from a conditional sale, because the pawn would be in the hands of creditors until debtors repaid their debts. Conditional sales were easier because debtors could keep their property in their hands throughout the loan period.
Moreover, one can find another type of transaction, which used the bayʿ-i sharṠcontract without a lease contract. For example,
Seller: MÄ«rzÄ KhÄn Beg, major of the royal artillery originally from Hamadan, living in Tehran. Buyer: ÄqÄ Sayyid Naá¹£r AllÄh, merchant from Tabriz. The seller should deliver all of 1 Tabriz kharvÄr of sheep oil with excellent, perfect, and praised quality to the buyer three months later in Tehran (dÄr al-khilÄfa). The price, 20 tumÄns and 2 riyÄls43 with PanÄh-ÄbÄd silver coins with 13 nukhuds44 weight, was received. The option period is the three days after three months passed by repaying all the price to the buyer or his legal representative. Date: The night of 10th Ramadan, 1284 AH.45
The buyer paid the price for the sheep oil but could receive the oil later. The seller could recover the oil if he repaid the price within the three days after three months passed. For the seller, the transaction was beneficial because he could borrow the cash quickly. On the other hand, the buyer could receive the sheep oil at what price three months before, which was expected to be cheaper than the current market price.
This transaction was called sallam, i.e. a contract for delivery with prepayment in Islamic law.46 The fiqh texts after the ninth century considered it a kind of loan. In such cases, the buyer purchased the goods at a lower price than that in the market. The seller endured a loss at first, but he could regain some of it by using the cash he borrowed. In Qajar Tehran, this transaction was not as popular as the typical conditional sale: 56 cases compared to 832 cases of typical conditional sales in the court records. The buyerâs profits only came from the margin of the oil prices, and this transaction might not be as profitable as the typical conditional sales.
Conclusion
Unlike Islamic banking today, Qajar mujtahids allowed loans with interest using conditional sales or simple loans. After analyzing three groups of the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ documents, one finds that there was a great variety of transactions in terms of not only the type of contract, loan periods, interest rates, and collateral, but also existence or non-existence of the indemnity or the radd-i maáºÄlim clauses. The documents indicate that most instances of loans at interest could not be resolved with a single transaction. Instead, both parties renewed their contracts several times, although the final results of these transactions i.e. repayment or foreclosure was different according to the case. The varieties of contracts undertaken in urban areas was broad in comparison to that from rural areas. This paper has also revealed that there were two types of transactions resembling the bayÊ¿-i shará¹: a simple loan with interest and a contract for delivery with prepayment.47 These were alternative ways for people in Qajar Tehran to borrow money. The variety made loan transactions more complicated.
These kinds of transactions required longer negotiations than usual contracts such as simple sales, and the professional help of the ShariÊ¿a court. The prohibition of ribÄ made the transactions more complex, and the complex transactions may have somehow obstructed the flow of economic transactions. However, these complex transactions would have benefited the âulama class who controlled ShariÊ¿a courts. Because they stood to benefit, the presiders of the courts, the mujtahids, permitted these transactions in spite of doubts about their legality.
Although the bayÊ¿-i shará¹ necessitated complex procedures and negotiations, this transaction was essential for the economy at that time. As mentioned above the Qajar government once prohibited the foreclosure on property of borrowers who could not repay debts by bayÊ¿-i shará¹ before 1864. However, this prohibition caused borrowers not to repay debts and, consequently, the lenders not to lend money. As a result, the economy was disrupted, and âthe gates of transactions were closed.â Therefore, in 1864, NÄá¹£ir al-DÄ«n Shah issued the royal order to permit the foreclosure after a one-year moratorium.48 It appears that this was not so effective, and the government issued the same order again in 1867.49
As Mary Sheil, who stayed in Iran as the wife of British envoy to Iran, Justin Shiel (office, 1844-54), remarked, âThe entire nation seems in debt, commencing with the Shah, who is in debt to the Emperor of Russia, and ending with the humblest muleteers.â50 Debts were so prevalent in Qajar society that she could not ignore them. The bayÊ¿-i shará¹ was one of the major measures to borrow money at that time. This form of documentation was indispensable to the flow of economic transactions at the time, and jurists permitted such transactions during the period prior to the establishment of modern banks. In Qajar Iran, legal practice fulfilled two objectives: to observe the principles of Islamic law with the complex procedures and to keep the economy alive.
Appendix
Deed of bayÊ¿-i shará¹ dated 7 áºÄ«á¸¥ijja 1258 AH/9 January 1843
The National Archives of Iran no. 296002579
Citation: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 64, 5-6 (2021) ; 10.1163/15685209-12341548
©The National Library and Archives of IranTranscription
Translation
The purpose in drafting these legal documents with proofs is that MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m, a Jew originally from Isfahan, the son of Daʾūd originally from Isfahan, willingly has sold three whole shops by conditional sale with options (mubÄyaÊ¿a-i shará¹iyya-i khiyÄriyya) to His highness prince Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ, May God extend his fortune. The border of the three shops is mentioned below and included all the suitable attachments by law: A baker, a goldsmith, and a sandal (gÄ«vih) shop. included all the suitable attachments by law.
They included everything that MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m owned possessed. IbrÄhÄ«m delivered them to the prince at the price of 100 Tabrizi tumÄns with ashrafÄ« silver coins, each of which has 18 nukhud weight and one tumÄn value in the city of Tehran. IbrÄhÄ«m received all the prices. The legal stipulation is that the sale contract will be canceled if the seller or his legal deputy returns the money mentioned above to the buyer or his legal deputy in six days after six lunar months from the date. If not, the sale contract is binding and the seller becomes liable for the default in ownership.
Consequently, the seller accepted the profits of the shops for the period by lawful amicable agreement (muá¹£Älaḥa-i sharÊ¿iyya). The price for the agreement is 12 Tabrizi tumÄns and 5,000 dÄ«nÄrs by the riyÄl silver coins of Muḥammad Shah, each of which has 28 nukhud weight and 1,000 dÄ«nÄr value in the city of Tehran. The price must be paid at the end of the term, and do not expect that he will be exempted from the payment. The contract has been concluded and becomes effective. This occurred on 7 sacred áºÄ«á¸¥ijja 1258 AH.
Margin:
The (one who is) obedient of Islam, IbrÄhÄ«m, the Jew, and his brother, Isḥaq, have a legal obligation to prepare the explanation and to pay the 200 tumÄns mentioned (in the text) if a fraud has been found in the sale transaction and the property legally belongs to the third party.
Endorsement:
-
What is written here occurred in front of me like this. As it is written in the margin, it has occurred.
Seal: His servant, Sayyid Muḥammad MahdÄ« b. MurtaáºÄ al-ḤasanÄ« al-ḤusaynÄ«
-
What is written here occurred in front of me. As it is written in the margin, it has occurred.
Seal: His servant, AbÅ« al-QÄsim b. Muḥammad Muḥsin al-ḤasanÄ« al-ḤusaynÄ«
-
What is written here occurred.
Seal: His servant, who hopes. AbÅ« al-QÄsim.
Acknowledgements
I thank the European Research Commission and the Lawforms project for providing funds to publish this article, and the entire issue, in Open Access format.
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áºabīḥī, Masīḥ and ManÅ«chihr SutÅ«dih. 1976. Az AstÄrÄ tÄ IstÄrabÄd, vols. 6-7. Tehran: Anjuman-i Äs̱Är-i MillÄ«.
For legal outlines of prohibit of ribÄ, see, J. Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982): 145-6; H. Yanagihashi,
M. Rodinson, Islam et Capitalisme (Paris: Demopolis, 2014): 52-4.
N. Kondo, Islamic Law and Society in Iran: A Social History of Qajar Tehran (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017): 79-85.
Ibid.: 45.
Muḥammad Ḥasan KhÄn IÊ¿timÄd al-Salá¹ana, al-MaʾÄs̱ir al-Äs̱Är, ed. Ī. AfshÄr (Tehran, AsÄtÄ«r, 1984-5), 176-77.
Kondo, Islamic Law and Society in Iran: 89.
Yanagihashi, Zaisanhô: 286-7. Cf. Schacht, An Introduction: 152-3.
Muḥaqqiq ḤillÄ«, Tarjuma-i FÄrsÄ«-i SharÄyiÊ¿ al-IslÄm, trans. AbÅ« al-QÄsim b. Aḥmad YazdÄ«, ed. M.T. DÄnishpazhÅ«h (Tehran: DÄnishgÄh-i TihrÄn, 1996): 155-6; M.Ḥ. BanÄ« HÄshimÄ«, Tawżīḥ al-MasÄʾil-i MarÄjiÊ¿ 2 (Tehran: IslÄmÄ«, 2011): 246-7. Without agreement on the period, the sale contract is validated in three days (ḤillÄ«, SharÄyiÊ¿: 155-6).
S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, vol. 4 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983): 87.
A. Bayındır, âBeyâ biâlvefâ.â In Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Ä°slâm Ansiklopedisi 6 (Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1998): 20-2; A. Rafeq, âOwnership of Real Property by Foreigners in Syria, 1869 to 1873.â In New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East, ed. Roger Owen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2000): 216-7.
K. Isogai
MawlÄnÄ Shaykh NiáºÄm et. al. FatÄwÄ al-Hindiyya maÊ¿rÅ«fa biâl-FatÄwÄ al-Ê¿ÄlamkÄ«riyya, ed. Ê¿A. Ê¿Abd al-Raḥman (Beirut: Ê¿Ilmiyya, 2000): 3: 209.
J.S. Grewal, In the By-Lanes of History: Some Persian Documents from a Punjabi Town (Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1975): 47-8, 163-8.
L. Boxberger, âAvoiding RibÄ: Credit and Custodianship in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth Century Ḥaá¸ramawt.â Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998): 200-1, 204-6.
F.A. Bishara, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017): 90-100. Bishara did not say explicitly that there is an Ibadi connection to khiyÄr transactions but at least, according to him, an Ibadi scholar, SaÊ¿Ä«d bin KhalfÄn al-KhalÄ«lÄ«, discussed it.
M. áºabīḥ and M. SutÅ«dih, Az AstÄrÄ tÄ IstarabÄd (Tehran: Anjuman-i Äs̱Är-i MillÄ«, 1976): 7: 15-7.
U. RiżÄyÄ«, JustÄrhÄyÄ« dar Sanad-shinÄsÄ«-i FÄrsÄ« (Tehran: BunyÄd-i PazhÅ«hish wa Tawá¹£iÊ¿a-i Farhang-i Waqf, 2006), 86-9. Two of the examples are titled as âa specimen of bond (ṣūrat-i tamassuk),â which means that the compiler considers the transaction as a loan.
For the form of usual sale deeds from Qajar Iran, see C. Werner, âFormal Aspects of Qajar Deeds of Sale.â In N. Kondo, ed. Persian Documents: Social History of Iran and Turan in the Fifteenth-Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 13-49. The forms of usual saled deeds and bayÊ¿-i shará¹ deed are also explained in U. RiżÄʾī, Dar-ÄmadÄ« bar AsnÄd-i SharÊ¿Ä«-i Dawla-i QÄjÄr (Fuchu, Tokyo: ILCAA, 2008), 72-79.
For example, in the document in the appendix, the buyerâs name Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ came before to show respect to the Qajar prince while the sellerâs name MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m came after the main formula.
âMuá¹£Älaḥa-i sharÊ¿iyya qabÅ«l namÅ«d manÄfaÊ¿a-i mabÄ«Ê¿ mazbÅ«r rÄ (He accepted to receive the profit from the above mentioned property by the á¹£ulḥ contract).â This is the muá¹£Älaḥa version of qabÅ«l-i ijÄra contract. In this case, the subject of the sentence is the lessee, not the lessor.
The archives was renamed as the National Library and Archives of Iran in 2002.
The National Archive of Iran no. 296002579. For a previous reference to this document, see N. Kondo, âNon-Muslims at the ShariÊ¿a Court in Qajar Tehran.â In Human Mobility and Multi-ethnic Coexistence in Middle Eastern Urban Societies 2, ed. H. Kuroki (Fuchu, Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2018): 9.
Sulá¹Än Aḥmad MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿Ażud al-Dawla, TÄrÄ«kh-i Ê¿AżudÄ«, ed. Ê¿Abd al-Ḥusayn NavÄʾī (Tehran: BÄbak, 1977); M.M. Eskandari-Qajar, âÊ¿Ażod-al-Dawla, Solá¹Än-Aḥmad MirzÄ.â Encyclopædia Iranica, 2018 (
Two persons named MullÄ IbrÄhÄ«m appear in the building survey of Tehran city of 1853; one is a jeweler and the other is a peddler. S. SaÊ¿dvandiyÄn and M. IttiḥÄdiyya, ÄmÄr-i DÄr al-KhilÄfa-i TihrÄn (Tehran: Nashr-i TÄrÄ«kh-i ĪrÄn, 1989-90): 108-9.
See appendix.
MÄ«rzÄ Fażl AllÄh ShÄ«rÄzÄ« KhÄvarÄ«, TÄrÄ«kh-i áºÅ« al-Qarnayn (Tehran: VizÄrat-i Farhang-i IrshÄd-i IslÄmÄ«, 2001): 1079. He married the daughter of Ê¿AlÄ« ShÄh áºill al-Sulá¹Än, who rebelled against Muḥammad ShÄh.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004631.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004630.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004630.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004630.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004652.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296004652.
The National Archives of Iran no. 296003210.
M. IttiḥÄdiyya and S. Rūḥī, Dar Maḥżar-i Shaykh Fażl AllÄh NÅ«rÄ« (Tehran: Nashr-i TÄrÄ«kh-i ĪrÄn, 2006-07): 53.
Kondo, Islamic Law: 85-9.
1 kharvÄr=297 kilogram=100 man.
M. áºabīḥ and M. SutÅ«dih, Az AstÄrÄ tÄ IstarabÄd (Tehran: Anjuman-i Äs̱Är-i Milli, 1976): 7: 15-7.
See, áºabīḥ and SutÅ«dih, Az AstÄrÄ, 6: 591-3; M. SutÅ«dih, Az AstÄrÄ tÄ IstarabÄd, (Tehran: Anjuman-i Äs̱Är va MafÄkhir-i FarhangÄ«, 2010-12): 9: 83-4, 10: 85-6, 89-90.
SutÅ«dih, Az AstÄrÄ 8: 284-7, 290-4.
U. RiżÄyÄ«, AsnÄd-i Maḥkama-i Sayyid á¹¢Ädiq ṬabÄá¹abÄyÄ« (Tehran: Nashr-i ÄbÄ«, 2008-9): 29.
IttiḥÄdiyya and Rūḥī, Dar Maḥżar: 128.
Kondo, Islamic Law: 87.
1 riyÄl=0.125 tumÄns.
1 nukhud=192 milligram.
RiżÄyÄ«, AsnÄd: 38.
Schacht, Introduction: 153; Yanagihashi, Isurâmu Zaisanhô: 396-413. According to Yanagihashi (396), the Hanafi and Malik schools called it sallam but the ShafiÊ¿i and Hanbal school called it salaf. A ShiÊ¿i fiqh book called it sallam. See ḤillÄ«, SharÄyiÊ¿: 202-4.
The moneychangers (á¹£arrÄfs) used promissory notes for lending money but I did not mention here because they were not related to the shariÊ¿a courts. For the details, see Kondo, Islamic Law: 83-4.
RÅ«znÄma-i Dawlat-i Ê¿Aliyya-i ĪrÄn, no.562 (30 á¹¢afar 1281): 5-6.
RÅ«znÄma-i Dawlat-i Ê¿Aliyya-i ĪrÄn, no. 611 (10 Rajab 1284 AH): 3.
M. Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (London: John Murray, 1856): 141.
