Abstract :
The legal phenomenon of qasāma, as covered by Islamic Law and Ottoman Law, is a legal process which, under some conditions, requires the damage caused by a crime with unidentified assailants to be compensated collectively. As this process appears as an exception to the principle of individual criminal responsibility, it also points out some important social functions. In this sense, the qasāma provides data about the modes of socialisation among the culture and society in which this process had been practiced. This data becomes accesible by the clues gathered from this practice through analysing substructure governing the interpretation modes of the principle of distribution of damages, dispute resolution process and social control practices within the given culture. For that reason, even qasāma is fundamentally against the founding principles of modern society and modern law, it arises as an important legal phenomenon by virtue of the historical and contemporary importance of the social interrelation modes it points out and finds itself under the scope of legal history and legal sociology.
NaturalLanguageKeyword :
Qasāma , Islamic law , Ottoman law , individuality of crimes and punishments , social control , dispute resolution , principle of distribution of the damages
