Living Islamic Law: Women and Legal Culture in Marinid Morocco

Historical studies of Islamic legal systems have focused primarily on courts and prominent muftīs. My research shifts the focus to the community level, with particular attention to women and their relationships with male family members, drawing on cases from Fez and its environs under the Marinid dynasty from the mid-seventh/thirteenth to the mid-ninth/fifteenth century. I argue that people actively engaged with Islamic law in their daily lives and relationships, and that women had access to informal legal spaces that allowed them to influence the legal process, making interpretive decisions on issues where the Mālikī school accepted multiple opinions. Through an analysis of fatwās issued by Marinid jurists, I explore how communities and legal officials resolved contentious disputes, and how women used legal knowledge to participate in the legal process.