Legal Aspects from a Cairo Geniza Responsum on the Islamic Law of the Sea: Practice and Theory

The Cairo Geniza continues to bring to light an ever more comprehensive picture of the social, political and economic life of medieval Muslims and Jews. Though the document under discussion — Bodl. MS Heb. a3 (Cat. 2873), f. 9 — has been published three times, many aspects of it treated in this paper have been largely if not entirely overlooked. Albeit the subject matter of the responsum focuses on the testimonial oath as established by Jewish law and an individual's right to collect his own portion of the goods, the responsum contains various aspects on the Islamic law of the sea namely commercial transactions, taxation, funeral practices, the captain's jurisdiction, adjudication processes, relationships between dhimmis and Muslims, and the legal status of cargoes owned by a dhimmi juvenile. The article proves that the legal issues addressed in Islamic jurisprudential sources were not theoretical, as a segment of contemporary scholars assumes. The scope of legal inquiries cited in Islamic jurisprudence was far more diverse than believed and the issues jurists treated and decided represented actual incidents.