A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FUNCTION OF THE DEEDS AND THEIR ‎EVIDENTIARY VALUE IN ISLAMIC LAW ‎

Deeds and their evidentiary role are of great importance today in judicial process as well as in other social relations. While they used to have a lesser role in the past centuries, this role was not totally marginal either. Most Imami jurists reject deeds as evidence and have questioned their validity on various bases including the exclusivity of the valid types of evidence specified in the Sources, the possibility of frauds and impossibility of the intentions being embodied in writings. A glance at the history of deeds reveals however that they were used for specific purposes in any particular era. They were often produced by the parties to transactions and were often accepted by the courts. There were official jobs associated with scribing and preparing deeds. Moreover, Quran has commanded Muslims to write down their contracts. This study aims to renounce the notion that the deeds were regarded invalid as evidence, and to demonstrate that it was only the lifestyle of the past generations that made their employment difficult and that from the legal point of view, there is no caveat to the validity of the deeds.