Treating outlaws and registering miscreants in early modern Ottoman society: a study on the legal diagnosis of deviance in Şeyhülislam fatwas

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1150168 (Table of Contents)

This work investigates the forms of deviance rampant in early modern Ottoman society and their legal treatment, according to the fatwas issued by the Ottoman şeyhülislams in the 17th and 18th centuries. One of the aims of this thesis is to present different behavioural forms found in the şeyhülislam fatwas that ranged from simple social malevolencies to acts which were regarded as heresy. In the end of our analysis, the significance of the fatwa literature for Ottoman social history will once more be emphasized. On the other hand, it will be argued that as a legal forum, the fetvahane was not merely a consultative and ancillary office, but a centre that fabricated the legal and moral devices/discourses employed to direct and stem the social tendencies in the Ottoman society. The primary sources that form the basis of this study are Fetava-yı Feyziye me'an-nukul, Fetava-yı Ali Efendi, Behçetü'-l fetava, Fetava-yı Abdurrahim, and Neticetü'l-fetava me'an-nukul, which are the compilations of the şeyhülislam fatwas.