I shake the Lawyer’s hand, and I’m twenty pounds in debt! What kind of world am I in?
3.11
ʿĪsā ibn Hishām said: I noticed signs of anger on the Pāshā’s face and was afraid there would be another disaster, this time with the Agent. I rushed over. After reprimanding the Agent for his trickery, I proceeded to threaten him, saying that I would raise the matter with the Public Attorney. He went away and left us alone.
The usher who was supervising plaintiffs gave a shout. We went inside and found the Attorney still chatting merrily with his two visitors. They indicated that we should go to talk to his secretary, so I went along and began to explain the case on my companion’s behalf. I told him about the bad treatment we had received from the police and the shocking way they had trumped up the charges. The Attorney turned to his secretary and told him not to allow any statement against the police; he should accept their statements and investigation. With that, he looked at his watch, found that it was the time for his appointment, grabbed his stick, put on his tarboosh, and left in a hurry with his two colleagues.
I must go now, I told my companion, and look for one of my friends who is an honest lawyer.
3.12
PĀSHĀ Tell me, what’s a lawyer in this system of yours?
ʿĪSĀ He’s the one who speaks on your behalf on matters in which you have no competence. He will defend you in areas you know nothing about, and testify for you about things which normally would not occur to you. His is a noble profession practiced today by many excellent people. However, certain other people have entered the profession who aren’t worthy of it and who use deceit and trickery as a means of making a profit, like this lawyer and his agent. It is people like them whom ʿAlāʾ al-dīn ʿAlī ibn Muẓaffar al-Kindī has in mind when he says:
Whenever they litigate, legal attorneys
are simply all-powerful Satans.
They are a people who find they have evil to spare,
so they sell it off to mankind.
Miṣbāḥ al-sharq 35, December 15, 1898
4.1
ʿĪsā ibn Hishām said: When the day of the court session arrived, I went to the court with my friend. In the courtyard outside I found people who looked pale; their expressions were grim. They breathed heavily and lifted their hands towards the heavens in despair. We watched in amazement as falsehood was passed off as truth and truths were denied. In all the commotion, we noticed some people complaining and making menacing remarks, a criminal currying favor, and a witness hesitating. A policeman kept uttering threats. Elsewhere, an orderly was taking matters into his own hands, and a lawyer was making his preparations. A mother was wailing, a baby crying, a girl fretting, and an old man grumbling. I heard people making incompatible and contradictory statements, and saw the lawyers who were about to defend the two parties sharpening their tongues and rousing their spirits, as they prepared to enter the arena of verbal combat and conduct the defense in cases of dispute, so that both of them could take away as their spoils from the legal battlefield an acquittal and the removal of suspicion and guilt.
With my friend I withdrew to a corner. At my side, the lawyer kept talking about the requisite principles, subsidiary issues, various other points and circumstances, and also mentioning the various phrases, articles, and sections dealing with misdemeanors and infractions. Then he thumbed through his notes, turned his files over, and gave us a solemn promise that the Pāshā need have no worries about being acquitted of the charge. Meanwhile, I was answering all my companion’s questions as the situation demanded. When he asked me questions about this particular slaughterhouse, I informed him that it was actually the court itself.
4.2
PĀSHĀ The memories I have of the Shariah Court and the judge’s residence are certainly different from what I see now. Has Time included it among the things on which it has wrought such a major transformation and upheaval?
ʿĪSĀ This is the Native Court, not the Shariah Court.
PĀSHĀ Is there some other form of jurisdiction besides the Shariah Court?
ʿĪSĀ In this country you can take your pick! The judiciary operates through numerous courts and a variety of committees. These include Shariah Courts, Native Courts, Mixed Courts, Disciplinary Tribunals, and Consular Courts, not to mention the Special Courts.
PĀSHĀ What is this utter confusion? Have Egyptians divided into different sects and parties, tribes, and family groups? Have they turned into people of different species who live in discordant groups and divided classes, so that they’ve had to establish a special court for each one? This isn’t how I remember them in days of old, even though dynasties may have changed. Is the noble Shariah extinct? Have the centers of judicial authority been eradicated?Oh God, forgive me and curse the devil!
ʿĪSĀ Things are not the way you think or surmise. Egyptians are not split into groups; they are a single people and a single government. It is the organization of things that demands this kind of arrangement. I’ll explain it to you as I always do:
4.3
The role of the Shariah Court is now restricted to matters of personal status: marriage, divorce, and things like that.
PĀSHĀ By God, things really have decayed; all semblance of organization has vanished! How can people live in stable surroundings without God’s holy law? Are we really living in an age which the poet meant when he said:
In their time the holy law was abrogated.
If only they had been abrogated like their holy law!34
ʿĪSĀ The noble Shariah has not been abrogated; on the contrary, it lasts for ever, as long as there is any justice in the world and honesty exists among peoples. But it is a treasure ignored by its own folk, a jewel neglected by its own merchants,
Or a precious pearl, no sooner did a diver see it
than he rejoiced and sank in prayer.35
4.4
Nowadays people pay no attention to the various aspects of its structure and formulation. Instead they prefer to adhere to the branches at the expense of the roots and to dispense with the kernel for the husks. They argue about regulations, concentrate assiduously on insignificant matters, and devote themselves to paltry and worthless matters. Their greatest aspiration and goal is to obscure the clear truth and complicate our liberal faith. They’ve never grasped what the laws of time demand. Every era has an order of its own which requires that the provisions of the Shariah be adjusted. Instead they are preoccupied with insignificant issues, in the apparent belief that that’s the way of the world; Destiny and Time follow their course for a while and then come to a stop. As a result, they’re a primary reason for the charge that’s leveled against the noble Shariah—may it be purified and sanctified!—namely that its legal authority is deficient, its obligations are weakened, and it lacks fairness. They are all entirely happy with this appalling situation. Instead of upholding the law, they fool around with it. The kind of thing that they bother about now is: “During the ritual ablutions, is it legitimate to wipe
