Signs of status and social hierarchy in ottoman legal culture, 16th-18th centuries

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1500493 (Table of Contents)

This study tries to identify signs of status in fatwas of Ottoman şeyhülislams from 16th to 18th centuries. The main issue problematized in this study is the varying legal status of Ottoman individuals according to their moral and socioeconomic status. In order to show the link in this respect, various status signs ranging from occupation, to lineage, to piety, to knowledge, and to economic status are analyzed throughout the study. In this regard, the present study has two broad and interrelated questions on its agenda: how and to what extent socioeconomic status was at issue in determining individuals' legal status, and at what points this relationship between socioeconomic status and legal status intermeshed with concerns about the preservation of the social order. The primary sources that form the basis of this study are Fetava-yı Ali Efendi, Fetava-yı Feyziye me'an-nukul, Fetava-yı Abdurrahim, Behçetü'l-fetava, and Neticetü'l-fetava me'an-nukul. Apart from that, a group of fatwas belonging to the two 16th-century Ottoman şeyhülislams, namely, Zenbilli Ali Efendi and Ebussuud Efendi are also consulted.