| Abstract: | Criminal justice in the Middle East conjures up images of severed hands, religious police, and qadi justice. Yet those seeking a more accurate picture find few sources. Conventional treatments of the region focus on Islamic law, although few Middle Eastern states actually base their legal systems on Islamic law. This article argues that in the Middle East as elsewhere, rulers use criminal justice to achieve two related ends: to maintain order generally, and to maintain a particular order — to preserve the regime in power and the interests and values of those who support it. A comparative historical analysis of the emergence of the police and judiciary links these two ends, and these two institutions. |
