This book presents a comparative analysis of the judiciary in the Islamic, Jewish and Zoroastrian legal systems. It compares postulations of legal theory to legal practice in order to show that social practice can diverge significantly from religious and legal principles. It thus provides a greater understanding of the real functions of religion in these legal systems, regardless of the dogmatic positions of the religions. The judiciary is the focus of the study as it is the judge who is obliged to administer to legal texts yet at the same time to consider social realities being sometimes at variance with religious ethics and legal rules deriving from them.