This thesis assesses the mitigating impact of repentance upon the fixed punishments for brigandage (hiraba), theft, and the accusation of fornication (qadhf) under Islamic law, focusing on classical sources of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), law (fiqh), and legal theory (usul al-fiqh). It examines and compares the opinions of jurists and exegetes who are not affiliated with a school of law as well as jurists who belong to any of the eight legal schools--namely the Hanafis, Malikis, Shafi`is, Hanbalis, Zahiris, Zaydis, Imamis, and Ibadis. This thesis demonstrates that the mitigating impact of repentance upon the fixed punishments for brigandage, theft, and qadhf constitutes a case of casuistry as jurists do not assign legal significance to the concept of repentance in all of these three cases. Furthermore, the legal tradition on the mitigating impact of repentance upon fixed punishments shows a high degree of commonality that transcends school affiliation and theological orientation.

L’objectif général de la thèse est de reconstruire et de périodiser les processus de représentation du brigandage italien à l’époque du Risorgimento, en croisant l’analyse avec le vaste panorama de l’imaginaire social relatif aux identités criminelles du XIXe siècle. La thèse possède une structure de type chronologique, bien que j’aie identifié trois noyaux thématiques fondamentaux, évoqués dans le sous-titre : crime, littérature et politique. Mon hypothèse est que la chronologie relative à l’histoire de l’imaginaire du brigandage italien (et en particulier méridional : Rome et Naples), est dictée par l’interaction entre la construction socio-culturelle de l’identité criminelle, le discours de nature littéraire et les dynamiques du conflit politique lié au processus de l’unification italienne. De telles interactions mettent continuellement en contact les représentations du brigand avec le débat public plus général sur les mécanismes de formation et d’enracinement du crime. L’étude du banditisme rural, en ce sens, ne peut pas être séparée des dynamiques de développement du concept de « classes dangereuses », du crime organisé et de la profession de criminel. Dans le même temps, le développement de modes littéraires détermine des étapes culturelles qui façonnent la sensibilité collective sur le brigandage en Europe et en Italie. Enfin, mettre en relation l’imaginaire du crime avec le thème du Risorgimento permet d’observer à quel point le discours sur le brigandage présente des pics d’intérêt politique, ou, à l’inverse, de relative folklorisation. Ceux-ci sont intimement liés aux luttes entre révolution et contre-révolution, et entre des projets nationaux opposés. Le titre de la thèse, en rappelant l’incipit de l’hymne national italien (« Frères d’Italie »), souhaite souligner l’ambiguïté et le chevauchement entre discours national et discours criminel qui, pour tout le XIXe siècle, accompagne l’imaginaire culturel, social et politique du brigandage. / The main aim of the thesis is to retrace and historicize the processes of representation of Italian brigands during the Risorgimento. The research situates the brigands within the general framework of construction of political and cultural models regarding criminal identities during the 19th century. My dissertation has a chronological structure, even though I identified three fundamental subjects, evoked in the subtitle: crime, literature and politics. The figure of the bandit has played a central role especially in the history and identity of Southern Italy (Rome and Naples). I assume that the chronology related to the imaginary of Italian brigands is the flourishing result of the interaction between the social and cultural construction of criminal identity, the literary discourse and the dynamics of political conflict related to the process of Italian unification. Such interactions constantly merge the representations of brigandage with the public debate about the mechanism at the origin and the embedding of crime. Therefore, the study of rural banditry cannot be separated from the concepts of “dangerous classes”, organized crime and criminal profession, and their dynamics and evolution. At the same time, the development of different literary genres determines the cultural phases shaping society’s sensitivity about brigands in Europe and Italy. Thus, putting into relation the social imaginary of crime with the theme of Risorgimento, the reader will notice to which point the representations of brigands offers insights of political interest, or, on the contrary, of folklorization. These dynamics are intimately linked at the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution, in a wider frame of opposite nation-building projects. The title of the thesis, recalling the beginning of Italian hymn (“Brothers of Italy”), highlights the ambiguity and the overlap of national and criminal discourses, which accompany the cultural, social and political imaginary of brigands and brigandage during the 19th century.

The Yugoslav wars of the 1990s - namely Croatia/ Bosnia (1991-1995) and Kosovo (1998-1999) - were the focus of unprecedented, and uninformed, international attention. This attention accepted at face value an ethnic rationale for the conflict that was often peddled by the combatants themselves; such rationales served to mask the economic and political aspirations of engaged state- and non-state actors. The wars allowed organised crime to take root and proliferate exponentially across geographical, political, and economic spheres. It became a tool of states, militaries and militias; states co-opted criminals, and vice-versa. The Serbian state became a criminal entity (as did, to a lesser extent, surrounding states) in partial control of a thoroughly criminalised regional combat economy, often in collusion with supposed ethnic `enemies.¿ Reconstruction, development, and governance interventions conducted by international actors in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia remain stifled by an absence of understanding of both the systematic infrastructural presence of organised crime, and a lack of acknowledgement of the economic rationales underlying the wars themselves.

This dissertation is concerned with the formation of the Qazaqs in the context of the custom of political vagabondage known as qazaqlïq in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. More specifically, my study addressed the process whereby the Uzbek nomads inhabiting the eastern Dasht-i Qipchāq bifurcated into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century in consequence of the qazaqlïq activities led by two rival Chinggisid families: the Urusids and the Abū al-Khairids. Qazaqlïq, or the qazaq way of life, was a form of political vagabondage that involved escaping from one’s state or tribe, usually from a difficult social or political situation, and living the life of a freebooter in a frontier or other remote region. The custom of political vagabondage was by no means an exclusively post-Mongol Central Eurasian phenomenon. It existed in other places and at other times. However, it was in post-Mongol Central Eurasia that it became a widespread socio-political phenomenon that it came to be perceived by contemporaries as a custom to which they attached the specific term, qazaqlïq. During the post-Mongol period, the qazaq way of life developed into a well-established political custom whereby political fugitives, produced by the internecine struggles within the Chinggisid states, customarily fled to frontier or other remote regions and became freebooters, who came to be called qazaqs. Such Chinggisid and Timurid leaders as Muḥammad Shībānī and Temür became qazaqs before coming to power. The Qazaqs came into being as a result of the qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg and Girāy, two great-grandsons of Urus Khan (r. ca. 1368–78), and of Muḥammad Shībānī, the grandson of Abū al-Khair Khan (r. ca. 1450–70) that resulted in the division of the Uzbek Ulus into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century. The Tatar and Slavic cossacks (Russian kazak, Ukrainian kozak) who appeared in the Black Sea steppe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the products of the qazaqlïq, or cossack phenomenon. Significantly, Ukrainian cossackdom led to the formation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate, which eventually contributed to the consolidation of a separate Ukrainian identity.

This dissertation is concerned with the formation of the Qazaqs in the context of the custom of political vagabondage known as qazaqlïq in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. More specifically, my study addressed the process whereby the Uzbek nomads inhabiting the eastern Dasht-i Qipchāq bifurcated into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century in consequence of the qazaqlïq activities led by two rival Chinggisid families: the Urusids and the Abū al-Khairids. Qazaqlïq, or the qazaq way of life, was a form of political vagabondage that involved escaping from one’s state or tribe, usually from a difficult social or political situation, and living the life of a freebooter in a frontier or other remote region. The custom of political vagabondage was by no means an exclusively post-Mongol Central Eurasian phenomenon. It existed in other places and at other times. However, it was in post-Mongol Central Eurasia that it became a widespread socio-political phenomenon that it came to be perceived by contemporaries as a custom to which they attached the specific term, qazaqlïq. During the post-Mongol period, the qazaq way of life developed into a well-established political custom whereby political fugitives, produced by the internecine struggles within the Chinggisid states, customarily fled to frontier or other remote regions and became freebooters, who came to be called qazaqs. Such Chinggisid and Timurid leaders as Muḥammad Shībānī and Temür became qazaqs before coming to power. The Qazaqs came into being as a result of the qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg and Girāy, two great-grandsons of Urus Khan (r. ca. 1368–78), and of Muḥammad Shībānī, the grandson of Abū al-Khair Khan (r. ca. 1450–70) that resulted in the division of the Uzbek Ulus into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century. The Tatar and Slavic cossacks (Russian kazak, Ukrainian kozak) who appeared in the Black Sea steppe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the products of the qazaqlïq, or cossack phenomenon. Significantly, Ukrainian cossackdom led to the formation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate, which eventually contributed to the consolidation of a separate Ukrainian identity.