"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎٢‎٦‎٣] (٨٦٢/٥٢٩)

402 ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC LIFE
special law for Tribal Disputes. Punishments are the same as those
inflicted by the ordinary courts, but the tribal judges and arbitrators
reach their verdicts in accordance with tribal custom and their native
habits of thought. There is no appeal from the Majlis, but sentences
are confirmed or revised by the mutasarrifs. By this system a great
amount of tribal jurisdiction affecting the whole rural population is
entirely withdrawn from the orbit of the Ministry of Justice.
Law and Lawyers
The Civil Courts administer a body of legislation consisting mainly
of the former Ottoman codes called the Majalla, modified by later
proclamations, regulations, and enactments of the pre-mandatory
and mandatory period and by recent legislation. Certain Indian Acts,
such as the Indian Companies Act, were introduced to fill gaps in
the Ottoman system. The Ottoman criminal code has been replaced
by recent enactments and legislation (p. 387). As a whole the body of
law needs considerable modernization and simplification, a task which
has been taken in hand by a Legal Commission but apparently not
yet completed.
The Religious Courts apply the law of their communities, the
Koranic law according to the various rites (p. 252) for the Moslems,
and the appropriate communal law and customs for the Christians,
Jews, and other communities.
In Iraq, as in most countries, the professions of barrister and soli
citor are merged. The bar is controlled by an association of judges,
and procedure in the courts is controlled, in the civil courts by the
Ottoman Code, and in the criminal courts by a Code of Criminal
Procedure enacted after the British occupation.
Waqf
This is a form of charitable endowment peculiar to Moslem lands.
A man may make over property as a trust in perpetuity for the benefit
either of a religious institution such as a mosque, madrasa, or school,
or of particular persons including his own relatives for a certain period
with eventual reversion to a religious foundation. The object was to
secure property from seizure or forfeiture through the caprice of the
temporal sovereigns and governors. For example, in 1930 the de
scendants of the slaves of the last Mamluk Vali of Baghdad, Daud
Pasha, were still being maintained by funds from a waqf endowment
made by their master. Waqf (plural awqaf) endowments are adminis
tered by boards of trustees, but the great number and the remote