| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact of Russian legislation on the notary activity of sharica courts with regard to transactions involving landed property. The hypothesis is that incorrect assumptions made by Russian lawmakers as to the 'tradition' of Muslims' land rights caused a substantial loophole in the application of colonial substantive laws. On the one hand, the Russian state attempted to retain land ownership for itself by introducing regulations that formally restricted Muslims' land rights to possession and usufruct; on the other hand, the colonial administration never established regulations that ensured that these laws would be enforced by sharica courts and failed to integrate them into the application of Islamic law. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight how the colonial definition of Muslims' land rights was largely disregarded when the Muslim judiciary notarized transactions on land in accordance with sharica. This will lead to the conclusion that the limited effectiveness of the colonial legislation with regard to land in Turkestan stemmed from the failure to reform Islamic procedural law, a process that would have entailed codifying it.
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