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Alessandra Vianello and Mohamed M. Kassim, eds. Servants of the Sharia: The Civil Register of the Qadis' Court ofBrava, 1893-1900. 2 volumes. Leiden: Brill, 2006. xviii + 2185 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendixes. Glossary. Bibliography. General Index. Index of Personal Names. $99.00. Paper.
These two volumes present the contents of a huge register of court decisions that the editors found in Brava, one of the "Benadir" towns in southern Somalia. These towns were important entrepots both economically and culturally for East Africa and the Indian Ocean, and Brava was populated half by Swahili speakers of local or Arab origin, half by local Somali speakers. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century it had been under the sultan in Zanzibar, but in the last decade of the century the sultan "rented" the region out to Italy. The administration was left to commercial companies and was fairly thin on the ground. Thus the existing Shari'a court system remained in place, but under Italian overall control.
The register includes the...