Codified Norm

With the rise of the modern era, a different chapter in the story of the ‘aqd started: a chapter in which the rules of ‘verbalism’ were replaced by those embedded in ‘codified norms,’ according to a semantics and a visual logic that replicated the corpus iuris of Western law.

4.3.1. The invention of a corpus for Islamic law and the ‘aqd: Western transplants and the codification process in Muslim countries

The image of the corpus has been widely employed in this book to refer to the deep assumptions underpinning Western visual rationality as well as their implications in the construction of the ‘legal body’ (corpus iuris) of Lady Jus­tice (see Introduction). In modern times, the assumptions of systematisation, uniformity, continuity, and interconnection, which connote the visual space of Western modernity (see McLuhan, section 1.3.3), have found their most notable expression in the process of codification of law. Representing the law through codified texts does not constitute a neutral operation; on the con­trary, texts of law (as highlighted in section 3.2) are themselves maps that nar­rate who people are though the normativity to which they subscribe. In other words, legal documents (and codes do represent the most peculiar manifesta­tion of normativity in modern states) are not neutral media but are ‘maps’ that tell us a great deal about their makers, their recipients, and their function.

In fact, any medium of knowledge, as a system of representation, embodies a certain perspective, fixes a frame, and shapes similarities as well as contrasts; in brief, as stressed by McLuhan, the medium itself is the message, since it defines the content of the message (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967; see Chapter 1, endnote 14). If any mediated knowledge selects certain qualities of the refer­ent while marginalising others, the transplant of legal codes from Western to Muslim countries during the period of colonisation, and later, through autonomous reception by the latter, has radically changed the ‘referent’ itself, which has been ‘clothed’ according to Western legal fashion.

Thus, it was through the codification process that the ‘improper body’ of the Islamic ‘aqd (the Almeh represented through an Orientalistic bias) ‘has been dressed’ in Western legal clothes (see section 3.1), acquiring a corpus that did not exist in fiqh classical times (section 2.4.5). As the Conclusion of this book will further remark, the substitution of the original acoustic rationality of Islam with the visual space of Western modernity dis-located the ‘aqd outside the Orient, reducing it to another stage of the Occident, ‘a closed field, a the­atrical stage affixed to Europe’ (Said, 1978, p. 63). This new conceptual map moved the ‘aqd outside the nomos of Muslim jurisprudence, and the ‘urban­ity’ of its city was profoundly reshaped according to Western coordinates (see later, section 4.5).¹⁷

The semantic transformation was so radical that Buskens and Dupret (2015) can rightly argue in their article that this ‘invention of Islamic law’¹⁸ entailed a ‘process of knowledge formation’ that moved the Muslim world towards ‘alternative understandings of normativity and social order’ (p. 31).¹⁹ Although I subscribe to the perspective advanced by Buskens and Dupret, I believe that the concept of ‘invention’ (which certainly highlights a trau­matic change in the nature of legal normativity in Muslim countries) can shed further light on the transformative praxis of the ‘aqd when inserted in the dialectical non-identity between Western and Islamic legal traditions (hence, when locating its understanding of the Bridge of Babel in-time). Moreover, the process of sematic ‘re-clothing’ of the ‘aqd finds in Messick’s notion of ‘textual polity’ a useful tool to uncover the relation between textual forms and legal norms that nurtured the passage from classical fiqh (a sacred law without corpus: section 2.4.5) to what Buskens and Dupret describe as an ‘invention of Islamic law’ by the assimilation of the form (the ‘medium’) of the Western corpus iuris.

[The] innovative and contradictory character [of the Majalla] centered on the fact that it was “Islamic in content, but... European in form” [Liebesny, 1975, p. 65].... Among Ottoman reformers, many of whom were astute observers of European society, the shari‘a was considered archaic and unsuited for modern purposes. If “order” was the leitmotif of the reforms advocated, the shari‘a had come to represent precisely the opposite: “disorder”.... The authors of the Majalla, which was con­structed exclusively of shari‘a materials, likewise described these original texts as extremely difficult to work with. Their metaphor, again, was a boundless “ocean” “on whose bottom one has to search, at the price of very great efforts, for the pearls which are hidden there. A person has to possess great experience as well as great learning in order to find in the sacred law the proper solutions for all questions which present them­selves” [Majalla, p.

(Messick, 1993, pp. 54-55)

The rise of the codification process in Muslim countries in the 19th and 20th centuries (for a detailed account of this process of circulation of Western law see both Anderson, 1976; Castro, 1985) determined a dramatic departure from the original conceptualisation of rules in classical Islam: rules that were aimed at fostering the performance of Islamic din by the believer shifted into the stage of political control by the state. In other terms, while originally located in context-specific space, with Muslim scholars acting in close contact with the recipients of the norms, contractual rules became the object of a process of centralisation through their insertion in state codes as well as of pro­cedures of bureaucratisation for their daily employment. The hermeneutical change of their meaning (within a transformative praxis where both the theory and the practice of these rules were radically affected by the rise of the mod­ern state) went far beyond the ‘contents’ of normativity, touching deep ele­ments of ‘social power;’ this core aspect legitimises the use of the notion of the ‘invention of Islamic law’ by Buskens and Dupret as the result of the process of Western transplants in the legal culture of the Muslim world. Within this radi­cal change, with the acoustic space of Islam replaced by the visual space of state codification, the content of contractual rules moved from the original version of the ‘aqd in the manuals of Muslim fiqh to a style of formulation (within civil codes) and to contents that were clearly the outcome of Western influence; in summary, what was an ‘acoustic Islamic law’ (fiqh) became a ‘visual Islamic law’ through the form (the medium) of Western corpus iuris.

As remarked by Messick and already mentioned previously, the first and most significant example of this transformation (both of content and con­text) can be found in the Majalla, the Ottoman Civil Code (1877). Signifi­cantly, although intended as a compilation of the Hanafi school, the Majalla describes the contract as ‘the contracting parties obligating themselves with regard [to] a given matter and binding themselves together with the same as a result of connecting an offer with an acceptance’ (Art.

In the same way, the Egyptian Civil Code of 1949 defines the mechanism of contracting as follows: ‘A contract is concluded, subject to any special formali­ties that may be required by law for its conclusion, merely from the moment that two persons have exchanged two concordant wills’ (Art. 89; transla­tion by Saleh, 1990, p. 105). The influence of the French-educated scholar al-Sanhuri in the drafting of the Egyptian Code (which we will examine more closely in the next section) is undeniable in this provision.

The influence of the Western definition of contract on the process of codi­fication in Muslim countries can also be seen, alongside the idea of agree­ment as source of obligation, in the specific elements of the contract itself. For instance, the word maqsud assumes a remarkable role in the modern recon­struction of the original Hanafi doctrine on the role of niyya for the validity of the contract in the Majalla. Differently from classical Islamic law, where it was used only with regard to liberal acts (see Chapter 3, endnote 16), the ‘deter­mining motive’ becomes a significant aspect of bilateral exchanges; accord­ingly, the text of the Prophetic hadith ‘innama al-a‘mdl hi'l-mydt’ (‘acts are judged according to their intent’) is replaced in Art. 2 of the Ottoman Majalla with the text ‘al-umur hi-maqdsidihd' (‘actions are judged by their aims’); that is to say, in the version given by the Safi‘i jurist al-SuyuG (d. 911/1505; on this point, Arabi, 1997, p. 211 note 29) in order to justify the hadith. The term reappears in Art. 3 (‘in contractual matters, intent and meaning take precedence over wording and syntax;’ that is to say, ‘the criteria for contract rest on intent not on expression,’ al-‘ihra fil-‘uqud lil-maqasid wa-l-ma‘dni la hi-l-alfaz wa-l-mahdni). In these passages, there is a clear transformation from the objective perspective of the Safi‘i and Hanafi schools on niyya (and the marginal importance of maqsud) to its emergence as a cornerstone of the theory of contracts in the Majalla.

A certain ambivalence can be found in the modern codifications of Arab countries, influenced by Western legal languages, also with regard to the notion of the ohjet of the contract, which becomes the ‘object of the obli­gation’ - mimicking the language of the French legal tradition. So, Arts. 127-130 of the Iraqi Civil Code adopt the notion of ‘subject-matter of the obligation’;²¹ Art. 167 of the Kuwaiti Civil Code requires that the ‘object of obligation’ should be something possible at the moment of the conclu­sion of the contract, failing which the contract is to be considered hatil; Art. 187 of the Yemeni Civil Code states that the ‘object of the obligation’ should satisfy the following conditions: 1) it should respect the legal Sari‘ah conditions of the contract; 2) it should exist at the time; 3) it should be concrete; 4) it should be possible to exchange or sell it (for other examples, see Comair-Obeid, 1996, pp. 344-349).

4.3.2. Embodying the West: Sanhnri’s reformulation of sabab and ghalat

in the Egyptian Civil Code

The embodiment of Western law through the process of codification in Mus­lim countries, with the consequent ‘invention’ of a new textual polity in the form of ‘Islamic law’ (a label which suits the modern era of visual rationality, while fiqh relates better to ‘Islamic law’ in the acoustic space of Islam), can find a paradigmatic example in the Egyptian Civil Code of 1949.

The conceptual distance between the civilian doctrine of the autonomie de la volonte and the Islamic notions of ‘illa (divina voluntas in the qualification of the action) and sabab (efficient cause) has already been highlighted in sec­tion 3.4.1. In particular, we have seen how the notion of cause in French law as the ‘purpose of the action’ (‘the sum of all external and internal motives which induce a party to conclude a legal act as well as the aim which is intended to be achieved through the legal act:’ Saleh, 1992, p. 116) is absent in classical fiqh: ‘the word cause (sabab), understood as inducing motive, is seldom employed in the classical law treatises. What is found instead is niyya or qasd, that is, the intention of the contracting parties in bilateral contracts and of the one party in unilateral undertakings’ (ibidem, p. 121). In Chapter 3 we have also noticed how the vice of mistake, ghalat, ‘is given the least consideration among the impediments to consent... [t]he principles ofghalat are certainly not to be found in any systematically theoretical exegesis among the Shari‘ah authori­ties’ (Rayner, 1991, pp. 175-176) (see section 3.4.4).

The intention of the present section is to re-analyse the problems of the ‘cause’ and the conception of ‘error’ in classical fiqh by focusing on their civil­ian re-interpretation by one of the most influential Arab jurists of the last century, the great scholar ‘Abd al-Razzaq Ahmad al-Sanhuri (1895-1971). Sanhuri played a fundamental role in drafting the Egyptian Civil Code of 1949,²² whose provisions, under his coordination, were reproduced in the Syrian Civil Code of the same year (1949). Moreover, he also contributed to the new Iraqi Code promulgated in 1951 and effective in 1953 (for a recon­struction of the reception of Western legal models in Arab countries, see Cas­tro, 1985). His work, as a lawmaker, comparatist, and reformer, was animated by the purpose of modernising Islamic classical law, thanks to the application of Western categories, after a doctorate in French civil law at the Univer­sity of Lyon (1921-1927) (for an interpretation of this approach in the light of al-Sanhuffs theory of state, see recently Ayoub, 2022).²³ The purposive approach of al-Sanhuri clearly emerges in his magnum opus, the scrupulous analysis of the provisions of the Egyptian Civil Code held in the al-Wastt (The Intermediary, 1952-1970, 10 volumes). Moreover, it is explicitly declared as methodological tool in the Preface of his Masadir al-Haqq f l-Fiqh al-Isldmi (The Bases of Right in Islamic Law, 1954-1959, 6 volumes).²⁴

The distinction between personal rights and material rights is essential in Western law; this distinction is the spinal column of Western laws as they derive from Roman law....................................................... We are therefore dealing with one of

the most important and most critical subjects of Western law, attempt­ing to treat it in Islamic law. In doing this, we place Islamic law side by side with Western law in what is essentially important and in what is critical though hidden. We treat Islamic law using the methods of Western law, investigating whether there is in Islamic law personal rights and material rights as these are understood in Western laws derived from Roman law.

(quoted in Arabi, 1995, p. 155, note 6; italics added)

Sanhurl’s aim of treating Islamic law through Western methods can be clearly seen in his re-formulation of the categories of error (ghalat) and cause (sabab) (on this topic, both Arabi, 1995, 1997) by the incorporation of foreign civil law elements, directly drawn from his doctoral education in France.²⁵ The French backbone of al-Sanhuffs legal approach is testified to in his reference to the doctrine of the autonomie de la volonte in al-Waslt to the Egyptian Civil Code:

The draft does not sacrifice the collective interests of society for the interest of individual freedom, nor does it consecrate autonomie de la volonte as the locus of all contractual relations. By contrast, the draft code attempts to achieve a balance between the interests of the indi­vidual and the collective. By the same token, the draft code does not allow the strong party in a contractual relation to injure the interests of the weaker party under the guise of individual freedom; the code does not licence individuals, regardless of their economic and social power, to abuse weak parties.......................................... In this manner our draft code has come to cham­

pion social justice and embody the latest achievements of the twentieth century, the refinements of our times, and the civilisation of our age.

(Sanhuri, 1952-1970, Al-Wasit, Vol. I, pp. 184-186, quoted in Shalakany, 2001, p. 219; see also pp. 220-221)

As noted by Shalakany, the Arabic terminology to render the phrase autonomie de la volonte (mabda’sultan al-iradah) is derived from French jurisprudence, and Sanhurl’s socialist approach to the principle builds on a long tradition of critique by progressive jurists, already incorporated by the Egyptian jurist in his first doctoral thesis (Shalakany, 2001, p. 219, note 56). The idea of social justice as naturally embedded in the Sari‘ah, paired with the purpose of mod­ernising the new Egyptian Civil Code, constitute the main interpretative ele­ments to understand Sanhurl’s work as lawmaker.

Within this frame, we can better understand, first, Sanhurl’s modernist reformulation of subjective error (ghalat) in Islamic contract law. As recog­nised by Schacht and shown in the present work (section 3.4.4), ‘[a]mong the defects of declarations, error is taken into a limited account............................... As regards

fraud, there is little inclination to protect the victim.... The doctrine of duress (ikrah) is more developed’ (Schacht, 1964, p. 117). The position is expressly subscribed by al-Sanhurl too.

Islamic jurisprudence recognizes all three kinds of defects, but in an inverse order. Most prominent of all is its treatment of duress (ikrah), which is accorded a separate and explicit analysis. Fraud (tadlis) comes in the second place, after duress; fraud is recognized as a source of defec­tive transactions in its own right, and some schools identify it by this very term. On the other hand, error (ghalat) is the least prominent of contract defects in Islamic law, as it is the most subjective type of defect.

(Sanhuri, 1954-1959, Masadir..., Vol. 2, p. 112, quoted in Arabi, 1995, p. 156) The narrow importance of the category of mistake has already been inter­preted within the logic of Islamic law, where ‘a defect in the contract is con­sidered as enjoying greater legal significance the more objectively it is induced’ (Arabi, 1995, p. 156; see back, Chapter 3). But, departing from this logic, Sanhuri’s ‘modernist reading presents [the concept of mistake] under a new light, allowing for the opposition between error and real intent to be the cornerstone of a rejuvenated Islamic theory’ (ibidem), supposedly more suit­able for the economic and social conditions of the 20th century. In order to achieve his purpose, al-Sanhuri re-interpreted the original Islamic doctrine of the right of choice (khiydr) as a sophisticated theory of subjective intent versus error, with reference, in particular, to the (legal options of) khiydr al-wasf (the choice due to the absence of a desired quality in the object), the khiydr al-ru'ya (the choice upon seeing the object), and the khiydr al-‘ayb (the choice due to a defect in the object).

As already seen in section 3.4.4, it is undeniable that a certain correspond­ence exists between the Islamic theory of khiydr and the Western doctrine of error, but, while the latter is focused on subjective intent - i.e. on internal perception as deceived by something - the former is related in the classical treatises to the objective qualities of the subject matter. In a revealing passage, Sanhuri admits this problematic divergence and, implicitly, the challenge of reconciling civil law and Islamic law.

Islamic law... has a clear objective tendency. Hence error, which is psychological and subjective, is not accorded a unified treatment [as in the civil law/French tradition]. The theory of error in Islamic law is fragmentary, being dispersed over its different categories. Here appears the right of choice due to the absence of a stipulated quality from the object, and there the right of choice due a defect in the object, both preceded by the right of choice upon seeing the object. At first it seems as if these notions are mutually independent, with no link between them. Yet, they all are closely related to the theory of error, as will be shown. In all these classifications, the main concern of the jurists is to safeguard the stability of the transaction and its property, in so far as it expresses the true intent of the contracting parties. For, its fragmentary character not­withstanding, the theory of error in Islamic jurisprudence is governed by two conflicting demands: the stability of the transaction and the respect for the true intent, with the latter finding its way amidst predominantly objective standards.

(Sanhuri, 1954-1959, Masddir..., Vol. 2, p. 111, quoted in Arabi, 1995, p. 158)

Sanhuri’s modernist reading, while recognising the objective tendency of fiqh, radically re-formulates the doctrine of khiydr in the light of the subjective nature of error in French law, linked to the ‘true intent of the contracting par­ties,’ as explicitly mentioned in the foregoing extract. A contradictory result in this reading, however, can be found in Sanhurl’s admission that in Islamic law ‘[i]f the terms of the sale - the actual words exchanged between the two par­ties - provide no evidence of a mistake, the contract of sale is considered valid, with no right of rescission. Thus if someone were to sell a ruby unknowingly, thinking that it is just a non-precious red stone, then the sale is legally viable’ (Arabi, 1995, p. 161).

In fact, there might be a passage in classical fiqh favourable to Sanhurl’s mod­ernist reading of ghalat in the light of French civil law, taken from al-KasanFs explanation of the khiyar al-ru'ya, the choice upon visual inspection.

The sale of an item which the buyer has not seen is not binding... because the ignorance about the qualities of the item affects the consent (rida) of the buyer, rendering it unstable. The instability of the consent (rida) of the buyer calls for the right ofchoice. For the buyer’s objection to the sale due to the remorse upon seeing the object is permissible, allow­ing him to retract. The right of choice allows the possibility of retraction due to remorse upon visual perception of the object.

(Arabi, 1995, p. 163; italics not in the original text)

As Arabi comments, ‘this statement by al-Kasani is particularly significant as it lends support to al-Sanhuri’s claim that the subjective states of erroneous con­sent are accorded some weight by Muslim legists’ (ibidem, p. 163, note 24); but, as immediately noted by Arabi, Linant de Bellefonds strongly rejects the interpretation of the passage as grounds for a general subjective theory of the mistake, since the error ‘as legal cause for contract dissolution is mentioned by al-Kasani only in the discussion of lease and testament and not mentioned at all for the basic sale contract’ (ibidem, pp. 163-4, note 24).

[I]n the two thousand pages in 4° of the Badai this conception of error as vice of the consent, doesn’t seem to be repeated by al-Kasani; it is not found any longer in authoritative authors, regardless of the school they belong to, and it appears only in modern legal literature. It is incumbent then to bring things back to their right measure, namely that jurists as vigilant as the great doctors of Islam had evidently taken notice of the repercussions that error, in certain circumstances, might have on the consent of the contracting parties, but that, due to the particular struc­ture of Islamic law, the issue did not seem to them of considerable practi­cal importance and, in any case, not to warrant a solution which brings into prominence the notion of defective consent.

(Linant de Bellefonds, 1965, p. 383; my translation)

In summary, if in drafting the Egyptian Civil Code of 1949, as well as the Iraqi Civil Code of 1951, Sanhuri was able to incorporate ‘the modern theory of error, reconciling it with Islamic law’ (Arabi, 1995, p. 167), at the same time, ‘al-Sanhuri’s construction, which transforms the peripheral consideration given to error by the classical Muslim authors into a full-fledged theory of error as a formal source of legal right, is a partial deformation of Muslim legal thought’ (ibidem, p. 171; italics in the original text).

From the perspective of his activity as lawmaker, one should consider, in any case, that the faithful rendering of the original Islamic law was not Sanhuri’s objective: his main attempt, as noted previously, was to modernise the substance of Islamic law in the light of Western legal forms. In this regard, Sanhuri’s purposive re-interpretation of Islamic contract law can also be seen in the re-formulation of the Hanbali doctrine of intention (niyya) as the coun­terpart of the French theory of cause as the ‘subjective determining motive’ for the contract, which finally results in rendering the Hanbali meaning of niyya with the Islamic concept of sabab. As already shown (section 3.4.1), the two notions are radically distant from each other; in fact, sabab is never used in a subjective sense in the classical texts, since it indicates the divine ‘immediate cause’ behind the action. Thus, ‘occasional causes of legal institutions’ (asbdb ash-shard'f) are e.g. the contingent nature of the universe for religion; the schedule for prayer; the ownership of legal alms (zakdt) (Brunschvig, 1976, pp. 43-44); according to the Maliki jurist al-Qarafi (d. 684/1285), ‘the mar­riage contract is the legal cause (sabab) of procreation’ (quoted in Arabi, 1997, p. 203 note 8); and, in general, asbdb ash-shard? are ‘the objects or the cir­cumstances to whose existence or appearance the legal institutions, the duties created or sanctioned by the Law, are linked’ (Brunschvig, 1976, p. 44).

In his purposive approach, Sanhuri’s translates sabab into the (French) theory of the cause as the subjective determining motive for the contract.²⁶ More precisely, in accordance with his aim of combining Islamic and Western law in a unique framework, al-Sanhuri equates the subjective approach of the Hanbalis and the Malikis to the modern French jurisprudence of the cause as the motif determinant of the contract, making no mention of the objectivism of the Safi‘is and the Hanafis, where ‘motive is so little taken into considera­tion that the sale of an object is clearly considered to be valid even if the ends it serves are illegal’ (Chehata, 1969, p. 70, my translation; on the opposition objectivism/subjectivism in Muslim fiqh, see Chapter 3). Thus, the technical meaning of sabab as the ‘subjective determining motive’ or ‘cause’ for con­tract, a sense completely unknown to the classical jurists, was introduced by al-Sanhuri in his project for the Egyptian Code of 1949 and clearly emerges in Arts. 136 and 137.

Article 136. If the obligation has no cause (idhd lam yakun li’l-iltizdm sabab) or if its cause violates public order or mores, the contract is invalid.

Article 137. 1) Every obligation for which the contract mentions no cause (sabab) is presumed to have a legal cause unless there is evidence otherwise; 2) the cause mentioned in the contract is considered to be the true cause (al-sabab al-haqiqi) until there is evidence to the contrary: when there is evidence of the falsity of the mentioned cause, the party claiming that the obligation has another cause which is legal must prove its claim.

(Arabi, 1997, p. 201)

In relation to these articles of the Egyptian Civil Code, Sanhuri explains that ‘The cause, according to the New Law, is then the driving motive for [con­cluding] the contract (al-ba‘ith al-dafi‘ ila al-ta‘aqud)' (Sanhuri, 1954-1959, Masadir..., Vol. 4, p. 28, quoted in Arabi, 1997, p. 201), a passage that testi­fies, again, to French legal doctrine as the backbone for Sanhuri’s education.²⁷ It is worth noting that Sanhuri himself recognizes explicitly that

Islamic law is subject to two conflicting trends in relation to the cause [ulterior motive]: First it is a law with a marked objective tendency, giving weight to the expression of the will and not to the will as such, i.e. prefer­ring the apparent, not the latent, will... [Safi‘is and Hanafis]; on the other hand, Islamic law is a law in which ethical, moral and religious factors predominate, implying the significance of motivation, as the latter is the measure of the honesty and purity of intentions [Hanbalis and Malikis].

(Sanhuri, 1954-1959, Masadir..., Vol. 4, p. 52, quoted in Arabi, 1997, p. 210)

Despite this, only the ‘Hanbalis are taken by Sanhuri to represent the close association between pietist ethical and properly legal considerations in Islamic law’ (Arabi, 1997, p. 221). In the end, by carefully selecting Muslim classical sources to modernise Islamic law, Sanhuri acted in a very similar way to Otto­man reformers (see previous section), who dealt with the ‘boundless ocean’ offiqh tradition animated by the ‘search, at the price of very great efforts, for the pearls which are hidden there... [using] great experience as well as great learning in order to find in the sacred law the proper solutions’ (Messick, 1993, p. 55) for their own Muslim contemporary societies. But, in doing so, ‘the old “pearls” were fixed in the structural grid of numbered code articles, re-presented in an innovative abstract format that rendered the shari‘a into something resembling the familiar form of “law” ’ (ibidem, p. 55). In the end, by re-locating the pearls from their own original habitat into a new one, not only was their substance but also their form radically transformed into a new textual polity for the Muslim world (paraphrasing McLuhan, ‘the medium [of legal codification] shaped the message [of state power]:’ see the start of sec­tion 4.3.1): a world animated by standards of state efficiency that imitate those of modern Western society.

If this conclusion can summarise the story of the Islamic contract in the state-centred world of Western modernity, the process of globalisation of investments from the second half of the last century has opened another chap­ter in the evolution of its city, where the realm of the Codified Norm has been replaced by the economic power of a global Typewritten Market.

4.4.