Law and Justice in Mughal South Asia

Between the empire’s founding in 1526 and its formal end in 1857, Mughal justice could involve a qadi’s court, a provincial official, an emperor’s order or local arbitrators. Seventeenth-century records from Malwa, in present-day central India, show how these authorities handled water, village boundaries, loans and inheritance through written orders, witnesses and seals.

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Qadis, muftis and written rulings

A qadi was an Islamic judge who received claims, recorded statements and testimony, and examined documents. A mufti, a jurist trained in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), could answer a legal question with a fatwa, an expert opinion. The qadi could use that opinion when deciding a case. This was one part of a larger process: officials also issued orders, while local witnesses and officeholders supplied evidence about rights and custom.

In the late seventeenth century, Emperor Aurangzeb commissioned a board of jurists to compile the Fatawa-i Alamgiri, a reference work of authoritative rulings from the Hanafi school, one of the Sunni traditions of Islamic law. It organized existing jurisprudence and included guidance on legal procedure. It stood alongside other sources of authority in Mughal disputes, including imperial orders and testimony assembled in local cases.

Loans, receipts and qadi seals

A 1660 repayment recorded at Dhar shows how a qadi’s court documented commercial obligations. Mohan Das had borrowed money from Nayak Khandha, a banjara, a mobile trader who carried grain over long distances. Mohan’s son, the landholder Purshottam Das, repaid the outstanding debt to Khandha’s brother and nephews. A written release, called a fārigh-khaṭṭī, recorded that the dues had been cleared except for a remaining debt bond of twenty-five rupees.

The district qadi, Sheikh Ilyas, sealed the record, which was witnessed by revenue officials, associates of the parties and Muslim scholars. The document joined their testimony to the repayment account, giving creditors and debtors a record of which obligations remained. A related form, the tamassuk, stated a debt and its terms. These records show why traders, landholders and officials used a qadi’s documentation even when a transaction concerned business rather than religious practice.

Water and village boundaries in Malwa

In 1653, villagers from Tornod began drawing water for their fields from a pond beside Navgaon and Khilchipur. A jāgīrdār, an official holding assigned revenue rights in the region, issued a parvāna, or written order, telling them not to claim the pond as shared property. The order referred to long-standing possession. It addressed a local agricultural dispute by recognizing older water rights while using the authority of a Mughal official.

Five years later, a boundary quarrel between Gondri and Bahram Kot was settled through arbitration. Each village sent headmen to the local noble, who appointed Purshottam Das, a revenue headman, Paras Ram, a recordkeeper, and three other village headmen as arbitrators. The noble administered an oath; the group then met at the boundary and defined where the villages met. The written settlement named the parties in Nagri, an Indian script, beneath its Persian text and included a plough mark. If the headmen reopened the dispute, the order said, the government could hold them guilty.

An inheritance claim tested in 1710

In 1710, Muhammad Asad claimed the hereditary office of chaudhrī, a local revenue headship at Dhar held by Hamir Chand. Asad secured an imperial sanad, a written order, directing Murhamat Khan, the faujdar (provincial military officer) at Mandu, to secure the post for him. The officer appointed his deputy Abu al-Khair to investigate. Hamir Chand was allowed to inspect the order and asked local people to give evidence about the family’s inheritance.

Muslim and Hindu witnesses stated in writing that Hamir Chand held the office by inheritance and that Asad was not Suraj Bhan’s son. The record, a maḥẓar or written statement of testimony, was sealed by qadis, revenue officers and local religious figures. It was evidence gathered during the dispute, not a final judgment. The sequence shows how an imperial order could prompt an inquiry whose outcome depended on local testimony and the records assembled by several authorities.

A later employment claim in Dhar

An early eighteenth-century dispute in the Dhar family archive concerned Jagannath, who claimed payments on documents inherited from his deceased in-laws. The papers included an employment deed promising eight rupees a month and a separate debt bond. Jagannath said the employment deed had been lost. In a settlement dated 1735 by Chatterjee, Hira Chand and Shaikh Ghulam Muhammad, the town’s kotwāl (police chief), arbitrated the claim. Jagannath received one hundred rupees to clear all dues and agreed that if the missing deeds or bonds later appeared, they would be void; he also declared no further claim against Hamir Chand and Nihal Chand. The release was recorded without the qadi’s participation.