The question of the probative value of written evidence in Islamic law has been a long-standing discussion. Muslim jurists have historically been skeptical of recognizing writing as a form of proof, which was well illustrated in doctrinal books penned in premodern Islamic legal history. While previous studies have explored this skepticism or argued for a different approach, many of them lack evidence from actual legal practice. In this article, I provide a fresh perspective on the evidentiary value of written evidence in Islamic law by examining Ottoman court records from the eighteenth century. Instead of focusing on theoretical discussions, I examine how courts and central administration responded to cases of forgery. I argue that the Ottoman legal system was indifferent to forgery of documents, unless committed by state officials, for, in alignment with the doctrinal skepticism toward writing in Islamic law, they did not attribute any evidentiary value to documents. Thus, I conclude that the Ottoman legal practice closely reflected the reluctance of Muslim jurists to recognize the probative value of written evidence in the eighteenth century, showcasing the harmony between the theory and application of Islamic law.

This article reconstructs the system of storage, organization and presentation of written evidence in Athenian courts of the Classical period, with wider implications for the discussion about oral and written culture in Classical Greece and legal professionalism in Athenian democracy. It explores court speakers’ references to an assumed order of documents, their storage in containers called echinoi, and verbal presentation by the court secretary. It is the first systematic analysis of all remarks on storing, organizing and reading documents in the corpus of Athenian oratory, supplemented by other literary and epigraphic sources. Based on the surviving evidence, this article argues for the existence of a developed legal culture that made attempts to facilitate the handling of documents in courtrooms through practical organizational measures, including the speakers’ interactions with court aids, notably the grammateis and hypogrammateis.