The essence of adat
In the legal realm, adat are the customary laws, rules, prohibitions and instructions of the leadership regarding the behavior of an individual as a member of the Muslim community and the sanctions for their violation. Also, these are forms of appeal to various segments of the population for which these norms and rules have been drawn up. They are quite conservative and strict. Adat also includes a set of local and traditional laws, systems of dispute settlement by which society has existed for centuries.
Adat in the North Caucasus and CentralAsia
Before the advent of Islam, the peoples of the North Caucasus and Central Asia had long established norms of criminal and civil law, which in the Islamic period became known as "adat". In the traditional societies of Central Asia, it is established and supervised by authoritative members of the community, as a rule, by the council of aksakals. It is based on a tribal code of conduct and centuries of experience in resolving conflicts between individuals, communities and tribes. In the North Caucasus, with regards to traditional values, the adat code ruled that the teip (clan) is the main guideline for loy alty, honor, shame and collective responsibility.
The colonial administration of the Russian Empire did not interfere with legal practice and delegated management at the level of local communities to the Councils of aksakals and teips. The Bolsheviks did the same in the first years of the 1917 revolution. Adat was practiced among Central Asians and Caucasians until the early 1930s, when the Soviet government banned its use and replaced it with civil law.
Adat in Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, the concept of "adat" and its meaning were first formulated in the Islamized Malay-speaking world. Apparently, this was done to distinguish between traditional and Muslim norms. In the 15th century, the Malacca Sultanate developed a code of international maritime law, as well as civil and commercial codes, which had a distinct influence of a law called"sharia". Adat also had a very strong impact on these legal documents. These codes later spread throughout the region and became full sources of law for local jurisprudence in major regional sultanates such as Brunei, Johor, Pattani and Aceh.
Adat in the East Indies and its study
In the early decades of the 20th century in the Dutch East Indies, the study of adat emerged as a specialized field of study. Although this is related to the needs of the colonial administration, the study nevertheless generated an active scientific discipline that touched on the various systems of comparison of adat in different countries. Prominent adat scientists include the Dutchman Van Wallenhoven, Ter Haar, and Snoke Hungronhe. Several key concepts that are still in use today under customary law exist in contemporary Indonesia. These include "law of adat", "law of circles of adat", "communal right to or use of land", and "law of communities". Adat law was used by the colonial government as a legal term for normative law, which was presented as a legal branch in its own right, apart from canon law. Local laws and customs of all ethnic groups, including non-Muslims, began to be collectively designated by the concept of "adat" - a word that had a broad legal meaning. Its norms and provisions were encoded in the legal documents of these countries, in accordance with which legal pluralism was introduced interritory of the East Indies. According to this scheme, based on the classification of adat systems as a cultural-geographical unit, the Dutch divided the entire East Indies into at least nineteen legal zones.
Modern adat influence
Adat is still used in the courts of Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia (countries where Islam is the state religion) as a civil law in some respects. In Malaysia, in the Constitution of each state there are authorized Malay state representatives, such as the Head of Islam and Malay Customs. The councils of the states, known as the Majlis Agama Islam dan Adat (Council of Islam and Malay Customs), are responsible for advising the leaders of the states and for regulating Islamic and adat affairs.
Judicial regulation of disputes using customary law
Litigation on issues related to Islamic and adat affairs (for example, cases of division of joint property of spouses and their common children) are carried out in the Sharia court. Adat law is what governs civil and family relations in most cases in the Muslim part of Southeast Asia. In the states of Sarawak and Sabah, the adat codes of the non-Malay indigenous community of Malaysia were legitimized through the creation of special courts known as Mahkamaha Bumiputra and Mahkamah Anak Negeri. There is also a parallel system for ethnic Malays called Mahkamah sam, but it has very limited jurisdiction.
In Indonesia, the adat law still has great legal significance insome areas, especially in most Hindu villages in Bali, in the Tengger region and in the Yogyakarta and Surakarta sultanates.
Adat in the post-Soviet space
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the practice of adat in Central Asia began to revive in the 1990s among Muslim communities in rural areas. This happened largely due to the collapse of legal and law enforcement institutions in most areas of the Central Asian region. The emergence of new constitutions in the republics also contributed to this process, as it expanded the capabilities of some traditional institutions, such as councils of elders (aksakals). Some administrative bodies are also often guided by adat norms.
Caucasian and Chechen adats
In the North Caucasus, for centuries, there was a traditional clan system of community self-government. Chechen adats arose under Shamil. The word "adat", the definition and translation of which means the concept of "custom or habit", plays a colossal role for the North Caucasian peoples. After Stalin's times, he again began to operate underground (since the 1950s of the twentieth century). For Chechens, adat is an unshakable rule of conduct in the family and society. Any decent Chechen family shows respect and care for the older generation, especially for the parents. Elderly parents live with one of their sons. Due to the repression of Islamic scholars during the Stalin years, adat, whichexisted in Chechnya and Dagestan, practically did not contain elements of Islamic law. However, there is now a growing number of Muslim scholars publishing in adat collections, the materials of which are used in making important decisions in village councils and district administrations.
