Justice et injustice du Tanfîl. La part du légal et du conventionnel dans la construction sociale du sens ordinaire du juste

In this article, we propose, from a socio-anthropological point of view, a comparative approach of the ordinary sense of justice through the analysis of a paradigmatic case of sharing according to the mode of tanfîl. We begin with the examination of the two principal meanings, religious and customary, of this institution as to the different modalities of its implementation. Then, from this detailed analysis of the forms of justifications and judgments displayed by the Tunisians and the French concerning this case of sharing, we pointed out how the positions, of the ones and others, waver between two conceptions of justice: according to the first one, there is an adequacy between the legal and the just, whereas, according to the second, there is an inadequacy between the two. In the first case, there is a systematic recourse to the law as a referent of justification at the prejudice of the conventional norms, in the second, it’s the opposite that happens. Lastly, we will see, through the exigency of compromise, that finally the sense of justice situates between the two.