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Forms and institutions of justice

The Ottoman political community in the process of justice making in the 18th-century Adana

Işık Tamdoğan

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Introduction: A sodomy case on trial

  • 1 Adana Court Registers (Herafter ACR) n 28/129-2.

1Sometime in the spring of 1712, a woman named Raziye made her way to the qadi court of the city of Adana in order to file a lawsuit against five men inhabiting her neighborhood Kuruköprü. She stated that previously the defendants had been summoned by the governor of Adana to the local court. In the presence of the judge and on the governor’s demand they testified that Raziye’s son Halil and his friend Ebubekir had sexual relationship.1 According to the declaration of Raziye, following their testimony in the court, the governor of Adana had executed Halil and Ebubekir. In her accusation Raziye demanded the blood money (i.e. diyet) of her son since she believed that Halil’s execution was unjust.

  • 2 Haim Gerber, (1994). State, Society and Law in Islam, New York, State University of New York Press; (...)

2Raziye’s case brings us to the question of the “plurality of actors and institutions” involved in the processes of justice making in the early modern Ottoman context. Similar to the plurality of the normative sources of justice –such as kanun, sharia and custom2– the institutions that interfered in the process of conflict resolution were multiple as well. These sources were in a complex relationship with one another just like the institutions responsible for reconciliation, sentencing or execution.

  • 3 R. Jennings, (1979). “Limitations of the judicial powers of the Kadi in the 17th century Ottoman Ka (...)
  • 4 For the studies on non-Muslims cf. R. Jennings, (1978). “Zımmis in early 17th century Ottoman judic (...)

3The qadi courts were certainly one of the central institutions acting in this field. However, in the process of reconciliation and sentencing, other actors and institutions –such as the Imperial or governors’ Divan–had also an important place in the process of justice making.3 Needless to say that the Ottoman juridical system was not solely Islamic. Non- Muslim subjects of the empire also addressed their conflicts to the qadi court or other institutions operative in this field. In other words, non-Muslim subjects also took part in the processes of justice making as users of these institutions. Moreover, beside the Islamic institutions other ones, such as the churches for instance, had their impact in the process of sentencing.4 What is more, as shall be discussed towards the end of this article, executions without any official judgement in the form of lynching existed as well.

  • 5 The impact of the Ottoman governors in the process of justice making was studied by Yavuz Aykan, cf (...)

4Raziye’s complaint patently shows the governor’s intervention into a sexual relationship between two young men. As a military authority and an official responsible for the public order, he had the power of arresting people but technically needed the verdict of the qadi in order to go onto execution.5 However, more than that, this case brings another important actor into the picture: The intervention of the community in the process justice making.

5In this article, I will focus on the role of the ordinary people and groups in the process of conflict resolution. I aim at demonstrating how the community is considered as a legal entity and become, in this way, a political actor in the processes of justice making. I will attempt to highlight the reasons which lay behind this fact. While doing this, the notion of collective responsibility will be at the heart of my analysis.

Community in Action

6Now, I would like to turn back to Raziye’s case in order to show the ways in which the community took part in the process of justice making. Raziye’s defense before the judge runs in following words:

  • 6 Raziye utters the following formula in the court: “kendi halinde iken” which is a stereotyped formu (...)

Although he (i.e. Halil, her son) kept to himself6, four months before the present hearing, following the denunciation and witnessing of these men, he was executed by the governor of the province of Adana.

7Following this, the accused men defended themselves:

  • 7 ACR n 28/129-2.

As rumors spread around about the sinful acts and obscenities of Halil and his friend Ebubekir, the governor arrested them. Then called us to the sharia court where we stated, with the consent of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, that their conduct was immoral and that they were not innocent. Our statements were registered and after that the governor executed them.7

8After their testimony, the five accused men were released by the judge but the case was not closed. The following day the same five men came to the court and complained about their neighbors. The reason for their complaint was as follows:

  • 8 The harç-ı bâb and mübaşiriyye, are terms which designate the obligatory payments to the court for (...)

(For the trial of Halil and Ebubekir) we paid some fee as harc-ı bâb or mübaşiriyye8 to the court. While we asked our neighbors to contribute to the payment of the fee they opposed. We ask that the neighbors shall be interrogated, their declarations shall be registered and what is necessary shall be done according to the Sharia.

9The neighbors answered this as follows:

In her trial Raziye sued only you and stated that ‘you were those who denounced the bad behaviors of the executed’. She underlined that she would not complain against anyone else. It is not legitimate that we contribute to the payment of the fees that only the denouncers have to pay. We will not give a single grain of wheat for that.

10The qadi’s verdict was registered as follows:

  • 9 ACR n 28/130-2.

the plaintiffs Seydi Alemdar, Ibrahim, Hüseyin Alemdar, molla Ahmet and Veli beşe were forbidden to claim anything from their neighbors.9

  • 10 For a study on expulsion from the communities due to moral misconduct in Ottoman society cf. Başak (...)

11Denunciation by the community of the immoral conduct of some members was a frequent practice in Ottoman societies. This, in general, resulted in the expulsion of the people who were identified as being “immoral” or unwanted.10 However, at times the community could render its own justice even by inflicting punishment without recourse to the court or to the legal opinion of the local mufti. In such cases the community could apply a punishment in form of lynching. This was the case for the son of Ayşe, a local resident of Adana who aimed at bringing her grievance to the ears of the Sultan by writing the following petition to the imperial center in the year 1777. The petition left its traces in the archives of the qadi court of Adana:

  • 11 Here the word Şeyh designates the head of the shoemaker’s guild.
  • 12 The name was not intelligible.
  • 13 ACR n 46/148.

My Lord, the powerful adored Sultan, the merciful one towards his poor servants, may his life have longevity through the strength of his State. The reason for the request of your servant is that my Lord, in this world I had an only son who was the light of my eyes and piece of my heart. [One day] the men named Hacı Hasan, the şeyh11 of the guild of shoemakers form the Eski çarşı neighborhood, Sisli Kara Haliloğlu, Hacı Mustafa the levend, the son of Adülgani from the newly created neighborhood, Seyyid Hasan from the Çukurmescid neighborhood, [X]12 from the Gençoğlu madrasa and the woman named Raziye raised up saying “your son has sodomized our sons” and without a verdict from the qadi, nor a fetva from the mufti, without any witness or proof, they strangled my fourteen year-old son. By so doing, they committed a great injustice to your slave. I request from your highness that an usher (mübaşir) be charged in order to follow the case and render justice. This would be a great reward and favor on your part. This is the reason why we dared to submit to you a request, the beautiful imperial order and the gift of [your] kindness remains to my Lord, the almighty, merciful and adored Sultan. Signed by Ayşe.13

  • 14 Lynching is still a widespread practice in today’s Turkey, cf. Tanıl Bora, (2008). Türkiye’nin linç (...)

12We do not know whether Ayşe’s request of justice was met. However, the tragic killing of Ayşe’s son reveals how lynching for moral reasons was practiced.14 Ayşe’s son was executed by some community members without recourse to a judicial or administrative authority. The question which we have to ask here is from what source did the ordinary people get the sense of legitimacy for executing another person? How did they suddenly become the embodiment of an executive authority? I believe that the legitimacy for such practices did not simply stem from the conviction of defending “social values” or “good morality”. It was neatly linked to the issue of collective responsibility in Ottoman society. How this collective responsibility was built up and, in turn, shaped the community in question into a political one will be the topic of the following lines.

13Let me for a while go back to the case of the Kuruköprü neighborhood. The members of the neighborhood brought to our attention another noticeable fact: From their own point of view, the case of Halil and Ebubekir was not a matter of immorality that had to be denounced. According to the court record, except the five men against whom Raziye filed a lawsuit, the inhabitants of the neighborhood were not concerned about denouncing the two young men on moral grounds. The reason why the neighborhood is involved in the case is rather related to the fact that according to the Ottoman Law, members of a given community were bound to one another on the basis of collective responsibility. However, in case of the murder of Ayşe’s son, there was a level of moral concern that was involved. The crux of the matter is that in both cases a sense of collective responsibility was central and it had an intimate link with the Ottoman financial and judicial structure.

  • 15 Uriel Heyd, (1973).Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, Oxford, Clarendon, p. 235.

14This notion of collective responsibility is mentioned in the criminal codes (i.e. kanunname) of the 16th and 17th centuries. According to this, “in case when a corpse was found in a neighborhood and the murderer was not identified, the members of the neighborhood had to collectively pay the blood money (i.e. diyet) to the victim’s next of kin”.15 This was the fundamental reason behind the claim of the five men who had made a testimony against Ebubekir and Halil. They claimed that the whole neighborhood must participate in the payment of the court expenses because as a community they were collectively responsible for the payment of the fines or taxes which were imposed by the administration. However, the inhabitants of Kuruköpru argued that they had no involvement in the case in question which made it possible for them to escape the payment of the fees spent for Halil and Ebubekir’s trial.

The collective responsibility and its link to the taxation system

  • 16 Hülya Canbakal, (2004). “Some questions on the legal identity of Neighborhoods in the Ottoman Empir (...)
  • 17 Nurit Tsafrir, (2011). “The ‘Âqila in Hanafi Law: Preliminary notes”, in A. Q. Ahmed, B. Sadeghi an (...)

15The evolution of the notion of collective responsibility in Ottoman jurisprudence has a long history. According to Hülya Canbakal, the basis of this liability has its roots in the Islamic Law of compensation (i.e. diyet or diya/blood money) where the group of people responsible for the payment of the diya were called the aqila. The notion of aqila/akile which included extended family or tribal members who were bound to one another by penal liability was transformed throughout centuries. It evolved into a collective liability between members of a community based on spatial proximity (such as the case with the ties between the inhabitants of a neighborhood or village).16 This evolution and transformation of the collective responsibility from akile to the neighborhood falls in the domain of Islamic law.17 However, in the Ottoman period, the consolidation of the notion of collective responsibility was not limited to the domain of Islamic law. It was an important key-stone for the application of different principals of the Sultanic law (kanun) as well.

16From the dissolution of the timar structures at the end of the 17th century onwards, the Ottoman administration witnessed several financial crises and problems of tax collecting. Throughout the 18th century, critical transformations took place in the empire’s taxation system that reinforced the weight of the notion of collective responsibility. In search of new taxable resources and revenues, the Ottoman administration applied a series of new taxes under the rubric of imdadiyye.

  • 18 Yavuz Cezzar, (1986). Osmanlı Maliyesinde bunalım ve değişim dönemi, XVIII.yy’dan Tanzimat’a mali t (...)
  • 19 Gilles Veinstein, (1989). “Les Provinces balkaniques 1606-1774”, in R. Mantran (dir.), Histoire de (...)

17The imdadiyye-s were extraordinary taxes meant to sustain war expenses.18 Through a regulation in the year of 1718, the imdadiyye taxes were fashioned according to the model of the already existing avarız taxes which were common since the 15th century. A specific type named avarız-ı divaniyye, these taxes were collected in order to sustain expenses in times of the mobilization of the Army.19 The new imdadiyye taxes introduced in the 18th century had to be collected locally, under the responsibility of the provincial governors. The taxes collected in war times were called imdad-ı seferiyye, while the ones collected in ordinary periods in order to sustain (in kind as well as in cash) the military forces under the orders of the governors were called imdad-ı hazarriyye.

  • 20 Özer Ergenç, (1984). “Osmanlı şehrindeki mahallenin işlev ve nitelikleri üzerine”, Osmanlı Araştırm (...)

18The common feature between the avarız taxes and the imdadiyye was that both were lump sum taxes imposed on the inhabitants of any given administrative locality. Once the amount of the imdadiye tax which would fall on a province (eyalet) was fixed, this amount was divided between the lower administrative divisions of the province such as the sancak and kaza. The sum which was owed by a kaza or town was divided among the neighborhoods of the kaza in question. At the end, on the smallest scale, the inhabitants of a given neighborhood were collectively responsible to render to the administration the sum for which they were responsible. In other words, according to this procedure of tax collecting, the inhabitants of a neighborhood or village collectively constituted the smallest fiscal units.20

  • 21 Here I refer to the study I conducted on the imdadiyye taxes in my unpublished master thesis, cf. I (...)

19This brings into the picture the impact of the notion of collective responsibility in the domain of the Sultanic Law (i.e. kanun), the principal regulator of the Ottoman taxation system. The qadi was an important agent in the process of tax collection. The governors received the sultanic orders (i.e. ferman) from the capital but on the ground, the qadi had to work side by side with the governor during the tax collection and kept the financial records of the amounts collected in the court archives (i.e. sidjil-s). The records which illustrated in detail the amount that each fiscal unit was due to pay were called tevzi’ defteri.21

20This fiscal and penal organization led to an enforcement of collective responsibility between community members – as in the neighborhoods, or villages. That is why the penal and fiscal liability between community members caused them to become an important actor within the field of judicial processes. Once fiscally interdependent, the inhabitants of neighborhoods formed common budgets, in the form of neighborhood pools (i.e. mahalle vakfı) whose revenue contributed to the payment of their taxes. As far as tax collection was concerned, when one member of the community did not pay his/her share, other members of the community denounced them in order to avoid more payment. The less some members would pay, the more the share of the others would increase.

  • 22 Masaracı dükkanı: a shop where oil was extracted from olive or sesame.

21Such a case of denunciation came before the qadi of Adana in February 1778. Four men from the Kantaran neighborhood come to the court complaining about a certain Abdullah Efendi who did not contribute to the payment of the taxes of the neighborhood, although he had a masaracı22 shop located there. Abdullah Efendi did not appear before the court in person but was represented by a certain Mehmet Efendi who did not accept the accusations of the neighbors:

It is an ancient custom (i.e. ‘örf) that artisans who pay their taxes once within their guild do not have to contribute for a second time to the taxes of the neighborhood where their shops are located. Making someone pay twice would be oppression and contrary to the custom. I demand that the knowledgeable ones (i.e. ehl-i vukuf) be consulted and justice be rendered.

  • 23 ACR n 46/24.

22Following the statement of Mehmed Efendi the majority of the people assisting to the audience claimed that Mehmed Efendi was right. According to the opinion and statements of the individuals present in the court, the judge decided that it would be contrary to the custom to make Abdullah Efendi pay twice. At the end of the judgement, the inhabitants of the neighborhood were prevented to have further claims on Abdullah Efendi.23

23Abdullah Efendi’s case enlightens the complexity of the judicial process related to tax collection, a domain where several actors and judicial apparatuses interacted. Although the collection of taxes fell within the domain of the Sultanic Law (i.e. kanun), the case of artisan Abdullah Efendi patently reveals that at a micro scale customary law could be operative. On the other hand, the case reveals how the notion of “collective responsibility” could be an indispensable element in this process as well. Finally, the inhabitants of the neighborhood would complain about Abdullah Efendi because of his failure in paying the common taxes. This was a way to invite him to participate into this collective task governed by Sultanic Law.

  • 24 This can be compared with what Betül Başaran called the mutual suretyship (zincirleme kefalet). See (...)

24To come back to the collection process of the imdadiyye taxes: the main registers were kept in the imperial capital. When the lump sum for each province was fixed, orders were addressed from Istanbul to the governors of each province, specifying the amount to be collected. The governors, in turn, would send commandments (i.e. buyuruldu) to the qadis in order to remind them their responsibilities during the tax levy process. At the level of the smallest fiscal units, the representative of the villagers or in the urban context, the responsible (i.e. mütevelli) of the neighborhood leg (mahalle vakıfı) had to ensure the levy of the taxes. It was on this smallest scale where the corporation of the community was indispensable. Bounded together through collective responsibility to the tax authorities, the community members did not fail to control each other mutually, in order to avoid excessive payment falling on themselves.24 Not only the case of Kantaran neighborhood but also that of Raziye strikingly reveal this aspect in the process of tax-collection and payment of fees. They had the same underlying cause; being obliged to pay for the others which motivated the five men to sue the inhabitants of their neighborhood after the execution of Halil and Ebubekir.

The community in the process of justice making

  • 25 This informative aspect of the Ottoman Neighborhood/mahalle continued to be exploited by the admini (...)

25Up to now we followed how the notion of collective responsibility evolved in the Ottoman judicial system and transformed the communities into collective actors. This process seems to have strengthened the mutual control among the community members. This also encouraged the cases of denunciation among people to the authorities. However, the enforcement of mutual control made the community an “informative network”25 and in this respect, it made them indispensable in the process of justice making.

  • 26 A case study from the 18th century Adana court records on this procedure was the main topic of an e (...)

26In a period where the subjects did not have identity cards and much of the information about people remained in the sphere of oral knowledge, recourse to “proximity ties” was essential for the administration and the judicial system in order to collect information.26 As such, in the process of justice making, the Ottoman legal courts relied on this informative aspect of the communities in several ways.

27 The first step of each hearing before the judge required the identification of the individuals present in the court. In this context, the officials relied upon the knowledge of the community members in order to identify the plaintiffs or defendants. At times, this procedure of identification is mentioned in the first lines of the court records as: “X person identified by the law came to the court”– lit. zatı şer’ ile muarife olan – which was followed by the name of the person in question. This suggests that the person was identified by close acquaintances who were also the members of his neighborhood and in some cases his/her family members. The process of identification was crucial also in case when the court aimed at attesting one’s legal status (whether she/he is a slave or a free person) or their birthplace etc.

  • 27 Abdülaziz Bayındır, (1986). İslam Muhakeme Hukuku, Istanbul, İslam İlimleri Araştırma Vakfı, pp. 18 (...)

28Inquiries of honesty had to be carried out about the witnesses (i.e. şahid) as well. This procedure, called “ta’dil ve tezkiye”, was carried out among the close acquaintances of the person in question, most often within the community to which the person belonged (professional or residentially).27

  • 28 Uriel Heyd, op. cit., p. 210; Amy Singer, (1996). “Marriage and Misdemeanors: a record of resm-i ar (...)

29The dependence of the judicial system on the community as an informative network made the latter an important actor in the process of justice making. The mechanism of justice had to rely on this informative network in order to establish and confirm the reliability of the witnesses. The treasury as well needed the cooperation of the community members in order to guarantee the efficiency of the process of tax collection. Furthermore, the penal law, often supervised by the governors, relied on the communities, which were bound together by common penal responsibility, for ensuring the collection of criminal fines (i.e. cerime). According to the Sultanic law, beside the blood money (i.e. diyet) payed to the victim’s next of kin, the perpetrator of a crime also had to pay a fine (i.e. cerime)28 to the military head of his/her district (i.e. the governor/vali or Sancakbeyi). When a criminal could not be identified, community members had to collectively pay this fine to the military authority. To sum up, the enforcement of collective responsibility enabled the administrative, fiscal and judicial systems to guarantee the collection of information, taxes and fines from the Ottoman subjects.

30This system of collective responsibility was not binding only to the Muslim population but also to the non-Muslim subjects of the empire. The case of a Christian monk (i.e. keşiş) living in Adana in the 18th century can shed light on this. The monk Mirâd was living in the neighborhood called Eski Hamam in the year 1750. He declared the following before the judge:

  • 29 ACR n 48/100-2.

Seven months before the present hearing, while I was in the hamam, I had an epilepsy crisis. Since then, my reason is leaving me from time to time and twice in a day I cannot control myself anymore. Because of this my daughters and sons, as well as my neighbors all present here, were frightened and did not want to take care of me anymore. What is more, my neighbors expelled me from my house. Presently, I don’t have a home where I can sleep. Therefore, I declare that I am caught by the harm of epilepsy. I demand that the case shall be registered so that nobody can sue my children or anyone else in case I lose my reason and kill myself. I demand that they again take care of me and I will be able to go back to my house.29

31According to the Ottoman criminal law, Mirâd was a threat and burden not only for his children but also for his neighbors. The possibility that Mirâd would kill himself was alarming for his immediate vicinity. In case something might happen to Mirâd, his family and community members were concerned about being accused of a crime for which they would be obliged to pay. The penal liability between community members was not only operative after a disaster but it made persons, as is the case with Mirâd, even anticipate it. Thus, collective responsibility and penal liability was not motivated solely by Islamic law that could to be applied uniquely to the Muslim communities. It was a concern of guaranteeing public order and social conduct of every subject in the Empire.

Conclusion: Bıçakçı Fatma’s case

32A last case which I will mention here in order to show the political community in action is the case of a woman named Bıçakçı Fatma who appeared before the judge of Adana in the year 1777. One Osman Ağa who was her neighbor from Eski Çarşı neighborhood filed a lawsuit against Fatma. His accusation before the judge runs as follows:

  • 30 ACR n 46/46-47.

Actually I lodged some levend-s in my mansion which is located in the Eski Çarşı neighborhood. Under the flooring of my cellar some clothes and jewelry such as a gold chain, a precious belt, a pair of earrings with emeralds, a knife and a dagger in silver were hidden. The aforementioned Fatma, day and night, had a relationship with those levend-s and informed them about the place of these objects. Thus, they stole those objects. Meanwhile Fatma was seen several times publically by the women of our neighborhood, wearing those jewelry. She could not even deny having them. I ask that those items, as well as other items that the levend-s took following her instructions, be taken back from her. What is more, because of her relationship with the levend-s, there has been jealousy (between them) and one of them was killed at night. Although the inhabitants of our neighborhood were innocent, the governor of the province, the adored Süleyman Paşa, imposed a fine of 5000 guruş to the inhabitants of the aforementioned neighborhood. As such, the aforementioned Fatma, caused many damages to our neighborhood. Since the disgusting behavior and bad customs of Fatma are well known for a long time through several denunciations registered by the court, as the mandatory of the neighborhood I ask her expulsion from our quarter.30

33The accusation of Osman Ağa brings into the picture many aspects of the justice mechanism as well as the actors involved in this process. First, a theft is done in the cellar of Osman Ağa, most probably by the levend-s that he lodged. According to his testimony, the levend-s were instructed by Fatma. Why and how Fatma was informed about the fact that Osman Ağa hid some precious items in his cellar is another subject that should be left aside. What is clearly underlined here is that –according to the neighbors– Fatma maintained a “suspect” relationship with those levend-s. Interestingly, this matter of public morality was not a big deal to the neighborhood until she was the cause of a murder for which the neighborhood had to pay a fine to the governor.

34At this point, the case of Bıçakçı Fatma brings together several elements and actors operating in the process of justice making which we already encountered in the cases above: qadi court, vali and the community. The governor was involved in this case of theft and murder directly because he had to extract the fine. The community is indispensable for informing the court about the case as witnesses but also as a source of information about the reputation of Fatma.

35Fatma defended herself in the following words:

After they took out and gave me the aforementioned chain, belt, earrings, the knife and the dagger, one of the levend-s was killed during the night. Since I was afraid, I escaped to the yayla called Gülek on horseback. Because of my own fear and emotion, I could not keep the entrusted items and lost them by an accident caused by Allah.

36Following the statement of Fatma the court took her words as a confession and decided to give her a legal deadline of eleven days during which she would have to leave the neighborhood. At the end of the trial, Fatma promised to leave the neighborhood in a delay of eleven days. If not she would sell her house and shop located in the Karasoku neighborhood, in order to pay a fine of 1000 guruş to the governor.

  • 31 Baber Johansen, (2004). “The Relationship between the Constitution, the Sharî’a and the Fiqh: The J (...)

37In this article, I have tried to unravel the reasons which laid the basis for why the community could appear as a political actor in their encounter with law and legal practices. Different cases from Adana court records have revealed the ways in which the sense of being a political community would link the individuals to one another through the notion of collective responsibility -imposed both by the kanun and the sharia. What is more, this notion of collective responsibility became a central element in the normative structure with reference to the customary law. I term this community a political one because it was not formed exclusively by Muslims.31 As such, in this article the community has appeared as an informative network due to their role in identifying individuals, their intervention into the legal process as witnesses or as denunciators or even as executors in form of lynching.

Notes

1 Adana Court Registers (Herafter ACR) n 28/129-2.

2 Haim Gerber, (1994). State, Society and Law in Islam, New York, State University of New York Press; H. Gerber, (1981). “Sharia, kanun and custom in the Ottoman law: the court records of the 17th century Bursa”, International Journal of Turkish Studies II:1, pp. 131-147; I. Shahar, (2008). “Legal Pluralism and the Study of Shari’a Courts”, in Islamic Law and Society 15:1, p. 112-141. DOI: 10.1163/156851908X287280.

3 R. Jennings, (1979). “Limitations of the judicial powers of the Kadi in the 17th century Ottoman Kayseri”, in Studia Islamica; Michael Ursinus, (2003). Grievance administration, (şikâyet) in Ottoman province. The Kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints” of 1781-1783, London, Routledge Curzon; I. Tamdoğan, (2011). “Qadi, Governor and Grand Vizier, Sharing of Legal Authority in the 18th Century Ottoman Society”, AJAMES 27-1, pp. 237-257; for the governor’s assembly (eyalet divanı or medjlis) cf. Nil Tekgül and Zouhair Ghazzal's contributions in this volume.

4 For the studies on non-Muslims cf. R. Jennings, (1978). “Zımmis in early 17th century Ottoman judicial records: the Sharia court of Anatolian Kayseri”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient XXI, pp. 225-293, DOI: 10.1163/156852078X00143 and Panagiotis Krokidas in this volume.

5 The impact of the Ottoman governors in the process of justice making was studied by Yavuz Aykan, cf. Yavuz Aykan, (2016). Rendre la justice à Amid. Procédures, acteurs et doctrines dans le contexte ottoman du XVIIIe siècle, Leiden, Brill. Particularly the first chapter.

6 Raziye utters the following formula in the court: “kendi halinde iken” which is a stereotyped formula for underlining the innocence of a person.

7 ACR n 28/129-2.

8 The harç-ı bâb and mübaşiriyye, are terms which designate the obligatory payments to the court for hearings.

9 ACR n 28/130-2.

10 For a study on expulsion from the communities due to moral misconduct in Ottoman society cf. Başak Tuğ, (2017). Politics of Honor in Ottoman Anatolia, Leiden, Brill.

11 Here the word Şeyh designates the head of the shoemaker’s guild.

12 The name was not intelligible.

13 ACR n 46/148.

14 Lynching is still a widespread practice in today’s Turkey, cf. Tanıl Bora, (2008). Türkiye’nin linç rejimi, Istanbul, Iletişim.

15 Uriel Heyd, (1973).Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, Oxford, Clarendon, p. 235.

16 Hülya Canbakal, (2004). “Some questions on the legal identity of Neighborhoods in the Ottoman Empire”, Anatolia Moderna X, Paris/Istanbul, Maisonneuve Adrien/IFEA, pp. 131-138.

17 Nurit Tsafrir, (2011). “The ‘Âqila in Hanafi Law: Preliminary notes”, in A. Q. Ahmed, B. Sadeghi and M. Bonner (eds.) The Islamic Scholarly Tradition, Studies in honor of Professor Michael Cook, Leiden, Brill, pp. 221-238. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004194359.i-386.55.

18 Yavuz Cezzar, (1986). Osmanlı Maliyesinde bunalım ve değişim dönemi, XVIII.yy’dan Tanzimat’a mali tarih, [Ankara], Alan, p. 54.

19 Gilles Veinstein, (1989). “Les Provinces balkaniques 1606-1774”, in R. Mantran (dir.), Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris, Fayard, p. 329.

20 Özer Ergenç, (1984). “Osmanlı şehrindeki mahallenin işlev ve nitelikleri üzerine”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları IV, p. 79-88. URL: http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/oa/article/download/5000116825/5000108754.

21 Here I refer to the study I conducted on the imdadiyye taxes in my unpublished master thesis, cf. I. Tamdoğan, (1990). Le Prélevement des impôts imdad-ı hazariyye et imdad-ı seferiyye, unpublished DEA dissertation, Paris, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

22 Masaracı dükkanı: a shop where oil was extracted from olive or sesame.

23 ACR n 46/24.

24 This can be compared with what Betül Başaran called the mutual suretyship (zincirleme kefalet). See Betül Başaran, (2014). Selim III, Social Control and Policing in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth Century, Leiden, Brill, chapter 5.

25 This informative aspect of the Ottoman Neighborhood/mahalle continued to be exploited by the administration until the republican period. Not only in the Ottoman period but also beyond, as in Turkey today, the communities have representatives and security agents (imam, mütevelli) as the muhtar and bekçi, who serve as an important informative link between the communities and the administration (cf. Noémi Lévy-Aksu, (2013). Ordre et désordres dans l’Istanbul ottomane (1879-1909). De l’État au quartier, Paris, Karthala; É. Massicard, (2010). “Le fonctionnaire inachevé ? La figure du maire de quartier (muhtar)”, in M. Aymes, B. Gourisse and É. Massicard (eds.), LArt de lÉtat en Turquie: Arrangements de laction publique, de la fin de lEmpire ottoman à nos jours, Paris, Karthala, pp. 259-292; I. Tamdoğan, (2002). “Osmanlı Döneminden günümüz Türkiye’sine ‘bizim mahalle’”, Istanbul Dergisi 40, pp. 66-70.

26 A case study from the 18th century Adana court records on this procedure was the main topic of an earlier study, cf. I. Tamdoğan, (2010). « La fille du meunier et l’épouse du gouverneur d’Adana ou l’histoire d’un cas d’imposture au début du XVIIIe siècle », REMMM 127, pp. 143–155. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/6692.

27 Abdülaziz Bayındır, (1986). İslam Muhakeme Hukuku, Istanbul, İslam İlimleri Araştırma Vakfı, pp. 181-188; I. Tamdoğan, (2003). “La réputation comme richesse dans la ville ottomane d’Adana au XVIIIe siècle”, in J.P. Pascual (dir.), Pauvreté et Richesse dans le Monde Méditerranéen, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, p. 41.

28 Uriel Heyd, op. cit., p. 210; Amy Singer, (1996). “Marriage and Misdemeanors: a record of resm-i arûs and bad-ı hava”, Princeton Papers - Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies IV.

29 ACR n 48/100-2.

30 ACR n 46/46-47.

31 Baber Johansen, (2004). “The Relationship between the Constitution, the Sharî’a and the Fiqh: The Jurisprudence of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court”, Zeitschrift für Auslaendisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 64, pp. 881-896. URL: http://www.zaoerv.de/64_2004/64_2004_4_a_881_896.pdf.

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