Country Profile: The Ottoman Empire

By Gizem Orbey

Background summary: Legal history survey

Demographics. The Ottoman Empire was a sprawling and powerful multinational, multicultural state founded by Oghuz Turks in 1299 in Anatolia and dissolved in the wake of World War I to create Turkey, the modern Balkans, and other Middle Eastern states.[1] The first Ottoman census, taken in the middle of the 19th century, reported a population of 35 million, which dwindled to around 24 million at the Empire’s dissolution.[2]

Schools of Islamic Law. Though operating under the aegis of Sunnī Islamic law, with caliphate Sultans at the helm and a Ḥanafī jurisprudential heritage, the Empire remained both politically and religiously diverse throughout its turbulent 500-year history, accommodating numerous provinces and states with varying degrees of religious and political autonomy.[3]

Constitutional Status of Islamic Law. As discussed further below, it wasn’t until the last 50 years of the empire that a more rigorous system with a central Constitution was attempted.[4] This constitution confirmed the Sultan as the “person of the Sovereign the Supreme Caliphate of Islam,” and established that “Islam [was] the state religion.”[5] However, it also guaranteed the state would protect “the free exercise of faiths professed in the Empire . . . on condition of public order and morality not being interfered with.”[6]

Legal History Summary. The fragmented judicial system—the primary source of sharīʿa for much of the Empire’s history—promised jurisprudential consistency primarily through the parallel training of judges in mosque-affiliated colleges.[7] Secular laws codified from custom coexisted with sharīʿa informally during this time, and were mostly applied in sharīʿa courts as a matter of course, or directly enforced by military police collecting taxes and criminal fines.[8]

Court System. As mentioned above, from the founding of the Empire until the reform and Constitutional Eras that dawned in its final century around 1840, the primary form of law was judicial.[9] Local judges (qāḍīs or mollas if they also served as the chief judge in a primary metropolitan district) were primarily appointed centrally by the Sultan and his Imperial Council and then dispatched to diverse sancaks, or local administrative districts.[10] Judges offered binding but non-precedential edicts, or fiqh decisions, to resolve disputes, relying on the parties’ own efforts for enforcement.[11] Many of the judges were Ḥanafī, but Ḥanafī judges could appoint non-Ḥanafī judges to diverse localities.[12] The Islamic courts were open to non-Muslims, and Muslim judges could apply other laws when dealing with disputes among non-Muslims, but any case with a Muslim as a party had to be tried by a Muslim judge under Islamic law.[13] The judges also played a central role in local communities and courts were often open around the clock to deal with all classes of conflicts.[14]

In addition to judges, who were subservient to the Sultan and merely applied law and supplied informal continuity for the Sultan’s authority in far-off provinces, jurists referred to as muftīs were also dispatched locally to issue precedential fatwās interpreting Islamic law as applied to recurring categories of factual situations.[15] Muftīs would be called to consult and issue fatwās in certain cases brought before the court; the most important muftis were often also the qāḍīs of important cities.[16]

The fatwās were issued piecemeal based on circumstances, and did not attempt to derive a larger, cohesive unit of religious or legal philosophy.[17] Often, they were simple yes/no answers to questions posed to the court given a certain conflict situation.[18] However, fatwās were quite powerful—they were not only precedential but also binding on everyone, including the Sultan, and accordingly the Chief muftī, known as the Sheikh ul-Islām, had tremendous political power despite holding no formal executive position.[19]

Ottoman Islamic jurisprudence recognized three main methods of dispute resolution: adjudication or “judge-ship” (kaza), amicable and/or negotiated settlement (sulh), and arbitration (tahkim).[20] There is evidence that settlement was encouraged before trial, with the aim of reconciling family, friend, and neighbor relationships, and that it occurred quite frequently.[21] Jurists considered settlements to be contracts consisting of offers of settlement terms (ijab) and their acceptance (kabul).[22]

Law/Case Reporting System. In the 16th century the government started drafting, printing and compiling fatwās but they did not distribute them to the public. The great 16th-century Sheikh ul-Islām Ebussu‘ud (1545-74) established a Fatwā Office that survived until the end of the empire, where fatwās were compiled and ordered into groups and subgroups with headings such a “Sale,” “Marriage,” or “Evidence.” Permanent staff at the office received original fatwā questions from the public, from members of the legal profession, and from the government, and presented them to the Sheikh ul-Islām for answering. The final answers were organized into records and made available to legal scholars, serving as valuable legal references considered to be more relevant to daily life and easier to read (in Turkish) than the classical Arabic fiqh.[23]

Until the second half of the 15th century, legal scholars, qāḍīs and muftīs had been rather informally organized and trained at colleges attached to mosques and supported by trusts.[24] Although the mosques were mostly Sunni and followed Ḥanafī interpretations, there was a significant degree of diversity including other Sunni schools and little oversight from the central government.[25] Gradually, the Sultans sought to control the progression of students and teachers, formalizing a hierarchy of colleges, which culminated with the 8 Colleges of Mehmet II (1451-1481).[26] In these colleges, students trained to become muftīs, qāḍīs and mollas, or professors. Who was to become a muftī, a qadi, or both—and who could ultimately rise to the rank of the Sheikh ul-Islām—had more to do with politics and family relations than anything else, and both important judges and professors could later become muftis through such ties.[27] Regardless, the increasing formalization of the college system and the Fatwā Office supplied some stability, consistency, and centrality to the judicial system.[28]

Another formalization of the late 15th century was the central legislation of secular laws dealing with land, criminal penalties, and taxation.[29] The sharīʿa judicial system as previously described had coexisted with informal kanunnameler, or secular laws derived from customs, with judges applying both in a given conflict depending on the situation at hand.[30] Though customs were codified only informally and locally in the 13th and 14th centuries, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Sultans began formally enacting and modifying kanuns as a matter of course.[31] Sultans essentially became legislators, issuing yasakname (rules of the forbidden), adaletnames (decrees requiring administrative issues to act within a realm of sharīʿa) and other decrees for implementation by the qāḍīs.[32]

Over the next two centuries, as central codification led to increasing homogeneity of certain laws, so grew tensions between the local and central foci of Empire power.[33] Resentment brewed in the localities over the politicization and nepotism in important judicial appointments, as well as in reaction to trade regulations that required, for example, sales of grain or animals to the central government at fixed prices.[34] The mélange of cultures and interests attempting to grapple with one another—with the central government acting as a sort of arbitrator of trade interests between foreign neighbors and diverse localities—stirred the pot with diplomatic maneuvers and bargains.[35] These troubles coupled with wars and increasing debt to foreign powers, which eroded the Empire’s tax base, resulted in instability that precipitated major reform efforts in the Empire’s final century.[36]

Constitutional Status of Islamic Law

The Constitution. In 1839, Sultan Abdulmecid issued the imperial Rose Chamber Edict announcing major reforms and heralding what would come to be known as the “Tanzimat,” or reorganization era of the Empire.[37] Following a preamble that attributed the Empire’s failings in recent centuries to its neglect of the Qur’ān and sharīʿa, the edict promised new, morally rigorous laws to, among other things, protect property, outlaw capital punishment without trial, and do away with bribery, tax farming, and other political corruption.[38] The laws would be drafted by a Supreme Council of Judges and the Military Council, and crucially would apply to all Ottoman subjects, both Muslim and non-Muslim, alike.[39] Indeed, the edict was implemented through several statutes and had far-reaching effect on the empire; however, since it never replaced the authority of the Sultan, it cannot be considered a constitution.[40]

The Tanzimat culminated in the drawing up of a true constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî in 1876 (full text available in Turkish and in English from the Boğaziçi University Atatürk Institute of Modern Turkish History). The document was drafted primarily by Midhat Pasha, a leading Tanzimat statesman, and implemented a constitutional monarchy with a single-party parliamentary system for two years (known as the “First Constitutional Era”).[41]

Relevant Clauses. The Constitution implemented Islamic law in two clauses: Article 3, which confirmed the Sultan as the “person of the Sovereign the Supreme Caliphate of Islam,” and Article 11, which established that “Islam [was] the state religion,” but that the state would protect “the free exercise of faiths professed in the Empire, and uphold the religious privileges granted to various bodies, on condition of public order and morality not being interfered with.”[42]

The Constitution described the Sovereign Rights of the Sultan and the Public Rights of Ottomans, covering topics such as property, education, schools, and taxes. For example, Article 21 guaranteed property rights, stating that “[p]roperty, real and personal, of lawful title, is guaranteed.” Echoing the U.S. Constitution’s 5th Amendment Takings Clause, this article further provided that “[t]here can be no dispossession [of property], except on good public cause shown, and subject to the previous payment, according to law, of the value of the property. . . .” The Constitution also established and elaborated on the administrative structure of the government, including the General Assembly, Senate, Tribunals, Courts, and Deputies.[43]

Its existence was short-lived, as Sultan Abdulhamid II reverted the Empire back to absolute monarchy in 1878. The text enjoyed a brief revival in 1908 as the Empire was falling apart before World War I, in a period known as the “Second Constitutional Era.”[44]

Primary Sources of Law: Notable legislation, cases, and fatwās related to Islamic law

Kanuname. As mentioned above, the 15th century saw the rise of Sultan-made secular laws, called kanunameleri, dealing with land, criminal penalties, and taxation. These included yasakname (rules of the forbidden), adaletname (decrees requiring administrative issues to act within a realm of sharīʿa) and other decrees for implementation by the qāḍīs.

The first centrally written law book appeared as a preface to a 1487 land and tax survey, and the first official compilation of kanun was created by Sultan Bayezit II in 1499.[45] The basis for this Ottoman law was a sort of collage of kanun and fatwā, and primarily dealt with the legal and fiscal relationship of two dominant social classes: the askeri, who included the military, professors, judges, and muftis, who provided service to and collected salaries directly from the government, and the ra’iyyet, or peasants, who farmed land and generally owed the government taxes.[46] This was the first instance of what can be referred to as Ottoman Law, and thereafter, local sancak codes began referring to and incorporating Ottoman Laws as shorthand. Sultan Suleyman al-Kanuni codified a final version of this central Ottoman code around 1550.[47]

Examples. One interesting tax kanun provides that on agricultural products, tax is not to be taken in coin, but in kind, and only on the kind that is specified by the nature of the agricultural good (such that a tax on wheat cannot be replaced by another kind of produce, and such that farmers need not sell their crops to pay taxes).[48]

The Ottoman Criminal kanunameleri (available in English from archive.org) include, inter alia, an interesting categorization of crimes based on theories of punishment.[49] Art. 2.1 of the Criminal Code states that offences punished by law are of three kinds: Jinayet, Junha, and Qabahat.[50] Jinayet are “acts which call for deterrent punishment.”[51] Junha are “acts which call for corrective punishment,” defined as “imprisonment for more than one week; temporary exile; dismissal from office; and fine.”[52] Qabahat are “acts and conduct which call for admonitory punishment.”[53]

Fatwās. As discussed above, fatwā are precedential, binding, and piecemeal judicial-style opinions given as simple yes/no answers by a muftī in response to questions about religious and family life.[54] In the 16th century the great Ottoman Sheikh ul-Islām Ebussu‘ud established a Fatwā Office where fatwās were compiled and organized around simple legal problems for ease of reference by scholars.[55]

Examples. For example, one subgroup of fatwā from the era of Sheikh ul-Islām ‘Abdurrahim (1715-1716) asks about the legal status of mother and child when a man produces offspring by his wife’s female slave.[56] Eleven fatwās are included in the group with the heading “Chapter on Affiliation and the Status of the umm walad.” The group is further divided into subgroups of eight and three, the former “[c]oncerning a wife’s permitting her husband to have intercourse with her female slave” and the latter “[c]oncerning intercourse with the female slave of a wife, father, son, etc., with and without permission.” The first fatwā asks about affiliation: “(I) Hind grants her husband Zeyd permission to have intercourse with her female slave, Zeyneb. Zeyd has intercourse with Zeyneb and impregnates her, and she gives birth to a child. Zeyd claims: “This child is by me.” Hind confirms that she granted permission and that the child is by Zeyd. Is the child affiliation to Zeyd? Answer: Yes.”[57]

The Mecelle (available in English from the International Islamic University of Malaysia).  During the Tanzimat, the Ottomans also made major attempts to codify the Ḥanafī- and custom-based civil law, particularly the commercial law (exempting purely sharīʿa -based family law) of the empire.[58] Led by Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, jurists and statesmen gathered around 1,800 articles of commercial law to form the Mecelle, a process that began in 1869 and which produced a document that entered into force in 1877.[59] In addition to incorporating mostly Ḥanafī fiqh rulings and fatwās, the drafters of the Mecelle used the method of preference or tahayyur (Ar. takhayyur) to incorporate other, more updated legal opinions, including from non-Hanafi judges.[60] The Mecelle was applied in regular sharīʿa courts as well as in the new secular nizamiye courts established during this era, and for the first time subjected all Ottomans (regardless of religion) to a primarily Islamic commercial code.[61]

Examples. The Mecelle is organized into sixteen “books” by topic, such as Sale, Hire, Transfer of Debt, Wrongful Appropriations and Destructions, and Joint Ownership.[62] Each book begins with an introduction used to define terms.[63] For example, Book 10 defines joint ownership as “consist[ing] of a thing itself belonging absolutely to more than one person, so that such persons enjoys a special position in relation to such thing. It is also customary to apply this expression to the contract whereby the state of joint ownership is brought about, and it is used in this sense in technical legal phraseology.”[64] Subsequent articles in the chapter proscribe certain rules regarding joint ownership, such as that “[o]ne of the joint owners of property held in absolute ownership may deal with such property alone, with the permission of the other. He may not, however, deal with it in such way as to cause injury to the other joint owner.”[65]

Court records (available in Ottoman Turkish from the European Capital of Culture Turkish Religious Foundation Centre for Islamic Studies). Court records (sicillât; sing. sicil)[66] “may be the most extensively used documents in Ottoman historiography.”[67] As summaries of daily legal proceedings, these registers contain much information about the inhabitants, officials, customs, and institutions of sancak throughout the Empire.[68] The court records typically give detailed information about each case filed, including the identities of litigants and whether they ultimately settled without a trial.[69]

Example. One sample of court records comes from Kastamonu, a small town of about 12,000 inhabitants and 3,500 households in northern Anatolia in from the late 17th to the late 18th centuries.[70] The town was predominantly Muslim, and its main economic activities were agricultural production, animal husbandry, and copper-ware production.[71] The town had only one court, and many of its cases appear to have settled, with one study showing a rate of 2.4 litigations and 1.2 settlements per month.[72] The following is an excerpt from an exemplary property dispute in 1742 that ultimately went to trial:

“[…]

The legal representative of Mehmed bin (son of) Ahmed Dede, Mütevellizade Hafız Mehmed Ağa bin Elhac Mehmed, sued Ebu Bekir bin Abdullah, stating the following: ‘Ebu Bekir refuses to transfer to Mehmed the shares that he inherited from his father and sisters in the goods and equipment in a tannery workshop located in Yukarı Debbağlar quarter. […] We want him to be questioned and Mehmed’s shares be transferred to him.’

Upon questioning, Ebu Bekir denied Hafız Mehmed Ağa’s allegation, claiming the following: ‘I purchased the materials in question from Mestçioğlu Ustad Mustafa for a certain amount of money. I do not know that Mehmed owns any share of these goods and equipment.’ Afterwards, the representative was asked to prove his claim. He presented as witnesses Mustafa bin Ismail of the Kibbeli quarter and Hüseyin bin Mustafa of the Ibn Sancar quarter, who both testified as follows: ‘The late Ahmed Dede [Mehmed’s father] owned a fourth of the goods and material in the workshop located in Yukarı Debbağlar. After his death, these assets were transferred to his heirs and were ultimately inherited by his son. We are witnesses to the fact that a fourth of this material was owned by Mehmed and we testify as such.’

After the testimonies of witnesses were accepted, the court invited Mehmed to take an oath that neither he nor other heirs of the late Ahmed Dede had sold their shares in the materials that they had inherited to anyone. When Mehmed took this oath, the court ordered Ebu Bekir to hand over or pay the value of the materials that belong to Mehmed.

[…]”[73]

Treaties. The Ottoman Empire made frequent bilateral treaties known as “capitulations,” or ahdnames, with European powers.[74] Typically, capitulations were a sort of contract between a Sultan and the leader of a nearby Christian nation, wherein the Sultan would grant general and specific rights and privileges, including exemptions from local prosecution and taxation, to Christian citizens living in or trading with the Ottoman Empire, in return for trade benefits or reciprocal protections of some kind.[75] There is evidence that in the 18th and 19th centuries, capitulations became increasingly and explicitly concerned with trade and less so with pure politics or religions, such that capitulations began to resemble treaties or conventions familiar in today’s international law.[76]

Examples. For example, a 1604 capitulation involving Sultan Ahmad I and King Henry IV of France secured Henry IV of France protections for pilgrims and religious leaders in charge of the church of the Holy Sepulchre: “Article IV . . . We also desire and command that the subjects of the said Emperor [sic] of France, and those of the princes who are his friends and allies, may be free to visit the Holy Places of Jerusalem, and no one shall attempt to prevent them nor do them injury.”[77]A later convention, the 1838 Balta Lima convention, was a free-trade treaty with Great Britain. Implemented in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29), the Convention ended Ottoman monopolies, established fixed import and export duties, and confirmed “now and for ever” all “rights, privileges, and immunities which have been conferred on the subjects or ships of Great Britain by the existing Capitulations and Treaties” with the Ottoman Empire.[78]

Sources / Further Reading

  • Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (2009) (surveying the realms and limits of the Sultanate’s power in the early Ottoman Empire).
  • Leslie P. Pierce, Morality TALES: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (2003) (analyzing one year’s worth of legal proceedings in the sixteenth-century Ottoman community of Aintab).
  • John Robert Barnes, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (1986) (summarizing the religious sources of law and government in the Ottoman Empire).
  • Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (2010) (examining the imperial Sultanate’s struggle to centralize power in the late Ottoman Empire).
  • Umut Ozsu, The Ottoman Empire, in 18 The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law 430 (Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, eds., 2003) (recounting the history of the Ottoman Empire with a focus on treaties and capitulations).
  • Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley Messick & David Powers, Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and their Fatwās (1996) (examining the intersection between religious jurisprudence and legal interpretation from the early to the late Ottoman Empire).
  • Metin M. Coşgel and Boğaç A. Ergenet, The Selection Bias in Ottoman Court Records: Settlement and Trial in Eighteenth Century Kastamonu, 67 Hist. Rev 517 (2014) (analyzing both the trial and settlement records from the court of an eighteenth-century Ottoman community named Kastamonu).

Notes:

[1] See, e.g., Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power 1–75 (2009) (surveying the realms and limits of the Sultanate’s power in the early Ottoman Empire); M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire 42–109 (2010) (examining the imperial Sultanate’s struggle to centralize power in the late Ottoman Empire).

[2] Hanioğlu, supra note 1, at 62–63.

[3] Thus, crucial to an understanding of Ottoman legal structures is a recognition of the fact that the Empire was marked by constant geographic expansion and recession, leading to tensile tolerance of the diversity absorbed from conquered groups, and constant sociopolitical conflict with unconquered neighbors in all geographic directions. See Umut Ozsu, The Ottoman Empire, in 18 The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law 430, 430–48 (Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, eds., 2003) (recounting the history of the Ottoman Empire with a focus on treaties and capitulations).

[4] See Hanioğlu, supra note 1, at 55–109.

[5] The Ottoman Constitution of 1876, arts. 3, 11, available at http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/1876constitution.htm.

[6] The Ottoman Constitution of 1876, art. 11, available at http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/1876constitution.htm.

[7] See Imber, supra note 1, at 204–30.

[8] See id.

[9] See id.

[10] See id.

[11] See id.

[12] In the central lands; the judges were more diverse in provinces such as Egypt and Syria. See id.

[13] See id.

[14] A separate judicial system existed for the Military, or askeri class of citizens, defined by those who received salary from the central government to generally keep the peace, deal with international conflicts, and collect taxes. Military courts were used both for basic resolution of conflict and to address legal questions with a large political scope, such as questions related to treaties. Two military judges sat on the Imperial Council, at the highest level of government, and held political as well as legal power. Id.

[15] Id. See also Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley Messick & David Powers, Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and their Fatwās 141–49 (1996) (examining the intersection between religious jurisprudence and legal interpretation from the early to the late Ottoman Empire).

[16] Masud, Messick & Powers, supra note 15, at 141–49.

[17] See id.

[18] Id.

[19] Id. See also Imber, supra note 1, at 204–30.

[20] See Metin M. Coşgel and Boğaç A. Ergenet, The Selection Bias in Ottoman Court Records: Settlement and Trial in Eighteenth Century Kastamonu, 67 Econ. Hist. Rev 517, 518–45 (2014) (analyzing both the trial and settlement records from the court of an eighteenth-century Ottoman community named Kastamonu).

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Masud, Messick & Powers, supra note 15, at 141-43.

[24] See Imber, supra note 1, at 204–30.

[25] Id.

[26] Id.

[27] Id.

[28] Id.

[29] See Leslie P. Pierce, Morality Tales : Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab 106–25 (2003) (analyzing one year’s worth of legal proceedings in the sixteenth-century Ottoman community of Aintab).

[30] Id.

[31] Id.

[32] Id.

[33] See generally Hanioğlu, supra note 1, at 42–72.

[34] Id.

[35] In 1790, some localities petitioned the central government for the right to elect their own leaders according to local customs, resulting in the New Law of 1792, which made a failed attempt to regulate the balance of power between the two foci. Id.

[36] See id. at 72–150.

[37] See id. at 55–109.

[38] See id. at 72–109.

[39] See id. at 72–109.

[40] See id at 109–50.

[41] Id. at 86.

[42] The Ottoman Constitution of 1876, arts. 3, 11, available at http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/1876constitution.htm.

[43] The Ottoman Constitution of 1876, arts. 27–112, available at http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/1876constitution.htm.

[44] Revisions to the Constitution’s provisions on succession and the powers of the Sultan, Viziers, Ministers, and Parliament were made at this time. See The Ottoman Constitution of 1876, Amendments, available at http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/1876constitution.htm.

[45] See Pierce, supra note 23, at 106–25.

[46] See id.

[47] Id. at 108.

[48] Rifaʻat Ali Abou-El-Ha, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 133 (2005) (quoting Basbakanlik Arsivi (Government Archive), Tapu ve Tahrir Defteri Number 308, page 5 as translated and analyzed by Rifaʻat Ali Abou-El-Ha in La Vie Sociale Dans les Provinces Arabes a L’Epoque Ottomane 17–39 (Tunis Zaghouan ed., Centres d’Etudes et de Recherches Ottomanes 1988)).

[49] John A. Strachey Bucknill and S. Utidjian, The Imperial Ottoman Penal Code: A Translation From The Turkish Text (1913) [hereinafter “Ottoman Penal Code”] available at https://ia802704.us.archive.org/7/items/TheImperialOttomanPenalCode/OttomanPenalCode_text.pdf.

[50] Ottoman Penal Code, art. 2.1, available at https://ia802704.us.archive.org/7/items/TheImperialOttomanPenalCode/OttomanPenalCode_text.pdf.

[51] Ottoman Penal Code, art. 3, available at https://ia802704.us.archive.org/7/items/TheImperialOttomanPenalCode/OttomanPenalCode_text.pdf.

[52] Ottoman Penal Code, art. 4, available at https://ia802704.us.archive.org/7/items/TheImperialOttomanPenalCode/OttomanPenalCode_text.pdf.

[53] Ottoman Penal Code, art. 5, available at https://ia802704.us.archive.org/7/items/TheImperialOttomanPenalCode/OttomanPenalCode_text.pdf.

[54] See Masud, Messick & Powers, supra note 15, at 141–43; see also Imber, supra note 1, at 204–30.

[55] See Masud, Messick & Powers, supra note 15, at 141–43.

[56] Id.

[57] Id.

[58] See Hanioğlu, supra note 1, at 42–109.

[59] See id.

[60] See id.

[61] See id.

[62] Book 1: Sale; Book 2: Hire; Book 3: Guarantee; Book 4: Transfer of Debt; Book 5: Pledges; Book 6: Trust and trusteeship; Book 7: Gift; Book 8: Wrongful Appropriation and Destructions; Book 9: Interdiction, Constraint and Pre-emption; Book 10: Joint Ownership; Book 11: Agency; Book 12: Settlement and Release; Book 13: Admissions; Book 14: Actions; Book 15: Evidence and Administration of an Oath and Book 16: Administration of Justice by the Courts. See Al-Majalla Al Ahkam Al Adaliyyah (The Ottoman Courts Manual (Hanafi)) [hereinafter “Mecelle”] available at http://www.iium.edu.my/deed/lawbase/al_majalle/al_majalle.html (last visited Apr. 25, 2015).

[63] See id.

[64] Mecelle, art. 1045, available at http://www.iium.edu.my/deed/lawbase/al_majalle/al_majalle.html.

[65] Mecelle, art. 1071, available at http://www.iium.edu.my/deed/lawbase/al_majalle/al_majalleb10.html.

[66] An extensive Ottoman Turkish archive of such court records can be found at İstanbul 2010 Avrupa Kültür Başkenti Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi İslâm Araştirmalari Merkezi, Kadi Sicilleri, http://www.kadisicilleri.org/ (last visited Apr. 24, 2015).

[67] See Coşgel & Ergenet, supra note 19, at 517–29.

[68] See id.

[69] See id.

[70] See id.

[71] See id.

[72] See id.

[73] Id. at 531.

[74] See Ozsu, supra note 3, at 430–44.

[75] See id.

[76] See id. at 434–38.

[77] No. 4–Capitulations, Constantinople, May 20, 1604 in Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers Compiled by the Librarian and Keeper of the Papers, Foreign Office 1535-1855 (1855), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=bmoDAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PA185&ots=_3GOfNx-_R&dq=may%201604%20capitulations%20france&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false

[78] Ozsu, supra note 3, at 437 (quoting the Convention of Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and Turkey (signed16 August 1838)).

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