The following curious anecdote is told, in the Negoristan, of a famous
lawyer of Baghdad, called Abu Joseph. It marks several peculiarities in
the Mohammedan law, and displays some casuistical ingenuity adapting
them to the views of his clients. The Khalif Haran Alrashid had taken a
fancy for a female slave belonging to his brother Ibrahim. He offered to
purchase her; but Ibrahim, though willing to oblige his sovereign, had
sworn, that he would neither sell nor give her away. As all parties
wished to remove this difficulty, Abu Joseph was consulted; who advised
Ibrahim to give his brother one half of the slave, and to sell him the
other. Happy to be relieved from this embarrassment the Khalif ordered
300,000 dinars for the moiety of the slave; which Ibrahim, as a mark of
his acknowledgment, immediately presented so the lawyer. But a second
difficulty now arose. The Moslem law prohibits all commerce between a
man and the wife or concubine of his brother, till she has been
remarried and divorced by a third person. Abu Joseph advised the Khalif
to marry her to one of his slaves; who, for a proper consideration,
would be easily induced to repudiate her on the spot. The ceremony was
instantly performed: but the slave, falling in love with his handsome
spouse, could not be prevailed upon to consent to a separation.
Here was a strange and unexpected dilemma; for, all despotic as the
Khalif was, he durst not compel him. But Abu Joseph soon discovered an
expedient. He desired the Khalif to make a present to the lady of her
new husband, which virtually desolved the marriage; as no woman, by the
Mohammedan law, can be the wife of her own slave.
Overjoyed that the Gordian knot was thus so ingeniously unloosed, the
Khalif gave him 10,000 dinars; and the fair slave receiving a
considerable present from her royal lover, presented him with 10,000
more; so that Abu Joseph, in a few hours, found his fees amount to
50,000 dinars, or nearly 15000l.
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