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for the application of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). The office originated under the rule of the first Umayyad caliphs (AH 40-85/661-705 CE), when the provincial governors of the newly created Islamic empire, unable to adjudicate the many disputes that arose among Muslims living within their territories, began to delegate this function to others. In this early period of Islamic history, no body of Islamic positive law had yet come into existence, and the first qadis therefore decided cases on the basis of the only

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