AN ANALYSIS ON THE OPERATIONS AND FUNCTIONS OF A SHARIAH COURT: THE CASE OF OTTOMAN USKUDAR (1547-1551)
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Abstract
Through a close reading of a single register found in the sixteenth-century court record series of Uskudar, this article introduces the reader to the operations of the Shariah court of Uskudar and its records from 1547 to 1551. By approaching the court records as both text and document, it explores the functions of the court, identifies the court officials, defines their roles, and delineates the role played by the qadi, his court and the local community in the administration of justice. This article can be read as a contribution to the newly emerging literature on variations in the Shariah courts in the Ottoman Empire in terms of their operations. As the recent literature including this present study demonstrates, the duties of the local Shariah court in the Ottoman Empire are neither singular nor monolithic. While some of the courts provided notarial and administrative services primarily, others acted as significant sites for dispute resolution. Hence their operations were primarily judicial. What emerges from this study is that the court of Uskudar in the very middle of the sixteenth century primarily functioned as a public registry.