The Anatomy of Justice: Forensic Medicine and Criminal Law In Nineteenth-century Egypt

Abstract

The reform of the Egyptian criminal justice system in the nineteenth century traditionally has been viewed as forming an important step in the establishment of a liberal and just rule of law. By studying how forensic medicine was introduced into nineteenth-century Egypt, I argue that the need to exercise better control over the population and to monitor crime lay behind the reform process as much as liberal ideas borrowed from Europe did. Drawing on a wide range of archival material, both legal and medical, I analyze the role played by autopsy in the criminal system and argue that the practice of autopsy was viewed differentially by 'ulamā', by Arabic-speaking, French-educated doctors and by the mostly illiterate masses. And contrary to the common wisdom, I conclude that the "modernization" of the Egyptian legal system was intended not to displace the sharīa but to support it.

Lost and found, then lost again? The social history of workers and peasants in the modern Middle East

“…Colonizing Egypt was a pioneering study in the nascent field of “colonial discourse analysis,” which—inspired by Foucault and Said's analysis of the relationship between representation, knowledge, and power—critiqued a variety of cultural forms and codified knowledge produced by colonial and indigenous elites about “non‐metropolitan” areas and cultures (Lockman, [2004], p. 207). Examples of colonial discourse analysis have proliferated since the 1990s (Deringil, ; El‐Shakry, ; Esmeir, ; Fahmy, ; Gasper, ; Kozma, ; Kuehn, ; Massad, , ; Messick, ). Mitchell's second phase of work would eventually be collected and published in Rule of Experts , in which he developed a critique of political economy from what he called a “postcolonial” perspective, which he defined as “forms of critical practice that address the significance of colonialism in the formations and practice of social theory” (Mitchell, ).…”

The judge as tragic hero: Judicial ethics in Lebanon's shari'a courts

“…In academic circles too, while many scholars of an earlier generation, along with indigenous liberal reformers, saw “secularization” and “modernization” as progress (see, e.g., Anderson 1959:22–23; see also Asad 1992:341 and Fahmy 1999a:224), this romantic narrative—like those of such so‐called colonial enlightenment elsewhere (Scott 2004)—has been widely displaced. Wael Hallaq, for instance, one of the most influential academic scholars of the shari'a currently writing, is at pains in his recent monumental introduction to the subject both to refute “Orientalist” misconceptions and denigrations of historical shari'a‐legitimated polities as autocratic and arbitrary and to question the pretensions of modernity in this regard.…”

“…Indeed, at the very grassroots level, shari'a‐based litigation was sometimes seen as overly procedure bound. As Khaled Fahmy (1999a:236, 1999b:361– 362) has shown, the 19th‐century Egyptian authorities developed alternative judicial institutions to bypass the shari'a courts because of their restrictive criteria for evidence, which excluded, for example, autopsy reports, and people enthusiastically embraced those alternative forums, not through a will to modernity but to best achieve their shari'a rights (see also Peters 1997:71, 79). And this is not just a 19th‐century phenomenon: James Baldwin (2010:260–269) has found a similar popular desire to circumvent the demands of shari'a court procedure by recourse to local strongmen in late 17th‐ and early 18th‐century Cairo.…”

History from Six‐feet Below: Death Studies and the Field of Modern Middle East History

“… Abugideiri, Gender and the Making of Modern Medicine ; Amster, ‘The Many Deaths of Dr Emile Mauchamp’; Burman, ‘Public Space and Private Spheres’; Fahmy, ‘The Anatomy of Justice’; Low, ‘Empire and the Hajj’; Martin, ‘Imperialism and Evangelisation’; Paul, ‘Medicine and Imperialism’. Beyond the Middle East: Arnold, Colonizing the Body ; Butchart, ‘The ‘Bantu Clinic’ ’; Crozier, Practising Colonial Medicine ; Deacon, ‘Racial Segregation and Medical Discourse’; Hokkanen, ‘Quests for Health and Contests for Meaning’; Mahone, ‘The Psychology of Rebellion’.…”

“… Fahmy, ‘Women, Medicine and Power’; Fahmy ‘The Anatomy of Justice’; Fahmy, ‘Medicine and Power’; Fahmy, ‘Modernizing Cairo’.…”