A Sociolegal History of Judging Non-Muslim Communal Affairs in Early Seventeenth-Century Greater Istanbul

This dissertation examines disputes over non-Muslim communal spaces in greaterIstanbul in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In Chapter 1, a historical background is drawn to illustrate the transformation of the western Bosphorus villages, such as Istinye and Yeniköy, into suburbs, the absorption of migrants in these suburban villages, and the state's imposition of uniform tax regulations in Istanbul's hinterland. Chapter 2 brings up a legal debate between the judge of Galata Taşköprüzāde Kemāleddīn Efendi (d. 1621) and the chief jurisconsult Ḫocazāde Meḥmed Efendi (d. 1615) over a Christian religious parade in the streets of Yeniköy. This debate is analyzed with respect to the standardization of Ottoman document formulation and the emergence of a prohibitive and restrictive legal language in dealing with non-Muslim communal affairs. Chapter 3 evaluates a legal procedure in the early modern Ottoman judicial administration that subjected public law issues to a process of imperial ratification. Chapter 4 deals with a protracted legal dispute over the Jewish cemetery of Kasımpaşa in the late sixteenth century and demonstrates interactions between various clashing interests at the individual, local, communal, and imperial levels in the processing of public issues concerning non-Muslim communal affairs.