Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/39

 A KAZI OF BAEEILLY. (118)

HE title of Kazi, or Kadi, will be familiar to the general reader as that of a Mahomedan law officer, attached to all Mahomedan states and communities. In the Arabian Nights he is always represented as a general judge, or dispenser of justice; but though this may have been his peculiar function in Arabia and Egypt, his offices in India extended more particularly to social questions, and the Kazi was in turn censor of public morals, director of local religious rites and festivals, and administrator of ecclesiastical law. Under the Mahomedan government of India, Kazis were appointed to all districts according to their size and the amount of Mahomedan population. Their duties were to direct ceremonials, to see that periods of festivals and fasts were properly observed: to perform marriages, of which the Kazi was the registrar, as well as of deaths: to officiate at the ceremonies connected with the birth of children and purification of women: at all curcumcisions, either in person or by deputy, and thus generally at all household as well as public ceremonials. It may be said, indeed, that from the birth to the grave, the Kazi's offices are perpetual in every Mahomedan family, and cannot be dispensed with. In some cases, when the rank and learning of the Kazi fitted him for the office, he acted as judge for his district, both in civil and criminal cases; but such instances were comparatively rare under the Imperial Moghul government, the judicial establishments for the most part, being kept separate from those of the Kazis.

The Kazi, in many cases, was the registrar of landed properties, particularly when held by Mahomedans. In cases of sale, mortgage of land, jewels, or any other property, the seal of the Kazi was indispensable as witness to the transaction. When grants of land, patents of nobility, or other formal deeds were issued by the Mahomedan government, the Kazis were among the persons addressed, and they had to certify the taking possession or assumption of title. On changes of district management, the appointment of new executive officers, and the like, the Imperial orders were addressed to Kazis among other hercditaiy district officials, and at