1The author presents an edition (p. 81-90) and facsimiles (p. 90-94) of five šarīʻa court documents from the port of Būšehr on the Persian Gulf coast of south-western Iran. The documents, all sale contracts, dated 1308/1891, 1330/1912, 1332/1914, 1345/1926 and 1350/1932 respectively, belong to the private collection of the Davvānī merchant family of Būšehr. They are significant because they each bear a registration remark. Reḍāʼī speculates that the registration practice of the Būšehrī clerics (ʻolamāʼ) might have been influenced by the šarīʻa courts of Šīrāz (p. 79-81), where the earliest evidence of registration discovered so far dates to the beginning of the 19th century. On the basis of the Būšehrī documents, we can conclude that no less than five clerics registered legal documents in Būšehr during the late 19th and early 20th-century.

2The five clerics are: (1) Seyyed (Sd.) Mahdī ʻAlam-al-Hodā Būšehrī (d. 1316/1898) – son of Sd. ʻAbdollāh Mojtahed-e Behbahānī; (2) Sd. Morteḍā Mūsavī Najafī Behbahānī; (3) Ḥājj Šeyḫ Moḥammad ʻAlī Emām-jomʻe Āl-ʻAṣfūr (d. 1351/1932); (4) Šeyḫ Moḥammad b. Moḥammad ʻAlī Behbahānī; and (5) Sd. Hāšem b. ʻAlavī al-Mūsavī Āl-ʻAṣfūr. Each operated their own šarīʻa court, had separate recording procedures, and used a different formula to mark a registered document: (1) « ṯabt-e daftar-e maḥkame-ye moḥkame-ye ʻadliyye-ye šarʻiyye-ye eslāmiyye gardīd »; (2) « maḍmūn-e matn dar daftar-e qabālejāt-e šarʻiyye ṯabt šod »; (3) « ṯabt-e daftar-e šarʻ-e moṭāʻ gardīd »; (4) « maḍmūn-e varaqe dar daftar-e maḥkame ṯabt gardīd ṣafḥe-ye 225 nomre-ye 1127 fī 15 j. 2 (Jomādā II) 1345 »; and (5) « ṯabt-e daftar-e maḥkame-ye šarʻiyye šod nomre-ye 14, ṣafḥe-ye 3 ».

3It is difficult, however, to determine whether the Būšehrī clerics involved in registering these legal documents acted privately or on behalf of the Qājār/Pahlavī authorities, that is, in response to the centralizing registration policy of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Šāh (r. 1848-1896) contained in the decree (farmān) of Ordībehešt 1290 A.H./1873 (also known as qānūn-e ṯabt-e asnād) and in subsequent laws on registration (qānūn-e ṯabt-e asnād va amlāk) passed in Iran from 1302/1923-1924 onwards.