Why Did Ümmü Gülsüm Go to Court? Ottoman Legal Practice between History and Anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID12192549
AuthorsBoğaç A Ergene (0000-0002-3873-5729, 1History Department, University of Vermont, 133 South Prospect Street, Bington, VT 05405;, Email: [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume17
Issue2
Pages215-244
Publication date2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIslamic Law and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0928-9380 • E-ISSN: 1568-5195
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/092893809x12519895111144
OpenAlexW2066795795
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This article offers a critical assessment of the existing literature on Ottoman courts of law, which characterizes the court's operations as single-mindedly legalistic and socially disinterested. There is a conceptual discrepancy between this literature and recent legal and anthropological studies of modern Islamic courts, which highlight the influence on the court's actions of communal considerations, such as the desire to make peace among disputants. With reference to a specific rape incident in eighteenth-century Anatolia, I propose in this article a characterization of Ottoman legal practice that acknowledges the contextual and socially-bounded nature of the court's actions

Archaeology · Islam · Legal history · Legal practice · Political science · Sharia · Sociology · Families in Therapy and Culture · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Ottoman and Turkish Studies

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