In this excerpt from Quḍāt Qurṭuba, Khushanī (d. 361/971) describes a scene in which the humorous scholar and potential judgeal-Aʿshā encounters a drunkard during a walk with the judge Muḥammad b. Ziyād (d. after 240/854). The judge orders his assistants to capture and punish the drunkard, but once al-Aʿshā, the joker, finds himself alone with the assistants, he tells them that the judge has decided to spare the drunkard’s life and has ordered that they release him, which the assistants promptly do. Instead of expressing anger at this behavior, the judge is not displeased, indicating either approval of al-Aʿshā’s lightheartedness or sympathy for the drunkard. In her chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, MaribelFierro uses this source to show that some judges at the time did like humorous and lighthearted scholars; this report thus contrasts with a source cited earlier, which demonstrated that certain other judges did not approve of joking among the learned. The report thus illustrates the range of expectations that judges themselves had for an ideal judge.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.