FAMILY, KINSHIP AND LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE KHIVA KHANATE: MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, PROPERTY, CHILD WELFARE AND DYNASTIC CONTINUITY, LATE 18TH–EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
R.A.Axmedov
Abu Rayhon Beruniy Urgench State University, Uzbekistan Independent Researcher
Keywords: Khiva Khanate; family history; kinship; marriage; Firdaws al-Iqbal; qadi courts; mahr; bride-price; divorce; inheritance; guardianship; child welfare; Sharia; Qungrat dynasty.
Abstract
This article examines family relations in the Khiva Khanate from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century by bringing together two complementary bodies of historical evidence: the narrative and genealogical information contained in Firdaws al-Iqbal by Sher Muhammad Munis and Muhammad Riza Agahi, and judicial documents reflecting the practical regulation of family disputes in Khiva. Previous scholarship has generally examined the political history of the Khiva Khanate, the development of Islamic legal institutions, or the literary and historiographical characteristics of Firdaws al-Iqbal separately. This article instead approaches the family as an integrated social and legal institution connecting marriage, kinship, reproduction, property, inheritance, child protection, community relations, cultural transmission, and dynastic continuity.
The study employs historical-critical, comparative-historical, source-critical, and microhistorical methods. Firdaws al-Iqbal provides evidence concerning genealogy, childbirth, kinship, marriage, family rituals, education, and dynastic succession, while judicial documents reveal how family relations became concrete legal claims involving bride-price, mahr, divorce, marital conflict, domestic violence, inheritance, guardianship, and property. The evidence demonstrates that family relations in Khiva operated within a plural legal environment in which Islamic law, local custom, qadi practice, administrative authorities, and community representatives interacted. Particular attention is given to cases involving the return of bride-price, divorce following the failure to consummate a marriage, violence against women, and the protection of inherited property belonging to a woman and her minor child.
The article argues that the family in the Khiva Khanate cannot be understood merely as a private domestic unit or through normative Islamic law alone. It constituted a multifunctional social institution in which biological reproduction, kinship, economic exchange, legal claims, social protection, cultural continuity, and political legitimacy intersected. The study also demonstrates the methodological limitations of applying modern legal categories such as “alimony” retrospectively to Khivan society.
