(Book) Antecedents of Raqqosian Law

The *Antecedents of Raqqosian Law* is a book by the consul, lawyer and explorer Qadish'al'Sulieman (commonly known simply by his first name Sulieman). It is a seminal text on the the history and cultural impact of the Raqqosian legal system, from its origins in Ankhos to the present day. It is considered an essential text for all Raqqosian law students, as well as being a surprise bestseller in both Rubellium and Pem due to its affable tone and easy readability.

It was written on Sulieman's journey into the heart of Ankh in search of the Great Ziggurat. Famously, the manuscript was nearly lost during a sandstorm, only surviving because Sulieman resorted to burying himself with it in the sand of the dune for six hours, breathing through a stick of bamboo.

It is currently in its revised second edition, and is published by the Raqqos Academy Press.

## Frontispiece

**Antecedents of Raqqosian Law**

By Cn. Qadish'al'Sulieman', RA

422nd Sun (53 G.E.)

2nd Edition (Revised)

Raqqos Academy Press

## I-Origins of the Court

   Our noble ancestors the Ankhari understood the importance of the notion of justice to the stability of their society. The ancient scholar Manothep, in his *Commentaries on the Nature of Divine Rule,* states that "the People demand justice, and the Gods provide it".

This is perhaps the single most important element when understanding the nature of ancient Ankhari courts of justice. It may seem improbable to the modern, typically anti-theistic Raqqosian, but our ancestors were possessed of the intense belief in the divine order's role in the definition of "justice".

Being a theocracy, in which the Emperor was seen as directly selected by the god Pazamath or Paramac (with conceivably some truth to that notion in the case of the Red Lord), the influence of the Red God was seen as an ever-present guiding force, instrumental to society's natural order. To that end, the modern Raqqosian understanding of a "legal system" comprised of "equally applied, clearly defined laws" did not exist in Ankh.

In lieu of formal court sessions, law was carried out through a series of opposing speeches made by, or on the behalf of, the prosecution and defence. These speeches would be made from balconies on opposite sides of the regional palace's large ceremonial courtyard. A crowd of citizenry would stand below them in the courtyard and cheer on the most effective rhetorician. The final judgement would then be weighted according to the crowd's favour by a magistrate known as an 'Arbiter' or 'Priest of Law'. Such an Arbiter would typically be a Solar Priest of Paramac, who were said to be attuned to the will of their god.

Again, though the modern citizen of Raqqos may balk at the notion of such an obviously manipulable system, ancient Ankhari philosophers believed in the notion of a "trial by ordeal"- that is to say, they believed that the god Paramac would conceive of and influence events in such a way that no innocent person would ever come to harm. Citing that the emperor's own authority was derived from the Red God himself (sometimes in quite a visible fashion as in the legends of the Red Lord), and that the law of the land was enforced through the Emperor's own authority, then justice must flow directly from Paramac via the emperor himself unto his chosen people. Thus, the justice of Paramac was assured so long as there remained an emperor upon the Gold Throne.

## II-The Cataclysm

After the Cataclysm in which the divine fire of Yvir destroyed the Empire of Ankh in a single night, faith in the justice of Paramac was quickly abandoned on the island of Raqq. Ankh's patron god had seemingly forsaken the covenant to protect his people. The emperor, Paramac's temporal symbol of his divine law, was dead. The Gold Throne lost to the scorched wastelands and endless storms of fire and sand. For the surviving Ankhari in Raqqos the abandonment of their god meant an end of justice as they had known it.

For the twelve years that historians call the Gomsode or "Lost Times', the people of Raqqos struggled in a state of disarray. Yet with the emergence of a new philosophy of rational humanism around the 182nd Olympiad under Grand Consul Husojar, a new system of law emerged.

## III-The Dawn of a New System

Husojar, though a man of vision, was brutal in execution of his opposition. In the 183rd Silkworm, judgements made under the old system of Divine Law were made illegal by consular edict. The sigils of Paramac and the emperor were torn down from every wall, and those still loyal to the Throne were imprisoned in the palace dungeons. Those remaining Solar Priests who still continued to make judgements were put to death in the very courtyard where they had once made judgements. And a new code of laws was inscribed upon several stone pillars, or *stele*, and placed around Raqqos. One example of these pillars still survives in the Consular Museum. Thus began the great Raqqosian tradition of firm, egalitarian and precise law- derived from the early codes created by Husojar and his consulate.

Despite so little of the original system of law surviving the fall of Ankhos, a few hints of that ancient world still remain with us today. The term for a place of law, a "court", harks back those old days of open-air legal courtyards in which the affairs of the day were a spectator sport. More tangibly, the Star Chamber of the Palace of the Consulate is built upon the site of the old legal courtyard, and the modern Consulate is the highest court of law in the land to this day! What stories could those paving slabs tell? And of course, literary fans would of course recall the works of the Hashaab, the author born in the 139th Olympiad whose stories of the Arbiter *Ruma-poldep of the Baali* remain ever-popular to the present day.