Qāḍī
قاضيDefinition
Islamic judge — the role Ibn Battuta held in several of the lands he visited, including Delhi, the Maldives, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. His training in Maliki fiqh from Morocco gave him professional standing in courts from West Africa to Southeast Asia, reflecting the remarkable universality of the Islamic legal tradition: a judge trained in one corner of the Muslim world could practise across its entire extent. Being a qadi gave Ibn Battuta not just income and status but a position of genuine social power — he could settle disputes, perform marriages, and enforce contracts — making him both observer of the societies he visited and participant in their governance, often with memorable results.
As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Battuta and the scholars of his school.
How the scholars use Qāḍī.
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"this is a crime the sultan cannot forgive any of his people for, and it must be punished by death, save for excusing him for being a stranger. The Qadi, Kamal al-Din, was present in the council. The sultan ordered King Tatar to stand by the Qadi with them. Tatar was a Hajj pilgrim residing nearby, fluent in Arabic. He attended with them and said to the prince, Did you hit him or not?"
— Ibn Battuta, Volume Two: From India to the Lands of the West
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"the 16th of Rajab in the year 660. I saw a woman reputed to have memorized the Noble Qur'an in 70 days. I also heard our Shaykh, Qadi al-Islam Kamal al-Din Salar, may God be pleased with him, say I memorized al-Tanbih in 4 months. Our Shaykh al-Batlisi, may God preserve him, often said, I calculated the works of al-Ghazali, may God have mercy on him. Realizing every day an average of 4 notebooks, this is the bounty of Allah to whom he wills. Among those recognized for extensive compilations are our Imam Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idrees al-Shafi'i and Imam Abu al-Hassan al-Ash'ari, may God be pleased with them. Imam Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi, may God have mercy"
— Imam al-Nawawī, The Garden of the Gnostics
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"accompanied by a group from my hometown, Tangier, may God preserve it, including the Jurist Abu Abdullah Muhammad, the son of the Judge Abu al-Abbas ibn al-Qadi al-Khatib, Abu al-Qasim al-Jarawi, the Jurist Abu Abdullah Allah, the Jurist Abu Abdullah al-Hadhari, the Jurist Abu Abdullah al-Mursi, Abu al-Abbas ibn al-Faqi, Abu Ali al-Balansi, Abu Muhammad ibn al-Kabila, Abu al-Hassan al-Biyari, Abu al-Abbas ibn Tafut, Abu al-Sabr Ayub al-Fakhar, and Ahmed ibn Hakama. From Qasr al-Majaz, the Jurist Abu Zayd Abd al-Rahman, the son of the Judge Abu al-Abbas ibn Khluf, and from Qasr al-Kabir, the Jurist Abu Muhammad ibn Muslim and Abu"
— Ibn Battuta, Volume One: From Tangier to the Lands of the East
Appears in
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