This project (OTTOLEGAL) investigates the formation of law in the Ottoman Empire between 1450 and 1650. Examining the religio-legal opinions (fetva) of scholars and decrees of sultans (kanun), it aims to expose the hybridity of Ottoman law by revealing the agency and interaction of diverse groups in the lawmaking process, moving beyond the well-known role of such actors as the government (the sultan and his representatives) and scholars to better understand the role of other, lesser-known actors like local groups with entrenched interests, non-Muslim communities, common people, founders of endowments, guilds, merchants, and others.
OTTOLEGAL proposes to intervene in the field of Ottoman legal history by introducing a fresh way of reading kanun and fetva sources to reveal the agency of non-governmental and non-scholarly actors in the process of lawmaking in the early-modern Ottoman Empire. The successful completion of this project has the potential to offer a number of benefits beyond the merely academic. By undermining the notion of the “sovereignty” of the government and scholars in lawmaking, OTTOLEGAL will invite people to reconsider dogmatic understandings of law and lawmaking in both the past and the present. By exposing the diversity in Ottoman lawmaking during the 1450–1650 period—an era many in the Middle East and Europe still consider a legal golden age—OTTOLEGAL will also contribute to conversations about the nature of law and lawmaking in Europe and beyond. Moreover, through the example of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-linguistic society in which a range of groups participated and had a say in lawmaking, OTTOLEGAL will invite Europeans of diverse backgrounds to foster a legal culture open to dialogue and participation.
The digital platform of the project, Sources of Ottoman Legal History (SOLEH), will be open and free to all users. Everyone will have the chance to consult the sources of the project to confirm or criticize its findings and interpretations, as well as to develop their own.
The strategic objective of OTTOLEGAL is to introduce an innovative approach to the study of Ottoman legal history. To achieve this overall goal, the project pursues the following three specific objectives:
(1) To examine the particular fetva and kanun sources that provide evidence for the participation and interaction of diverse groups in lawmaking
(2) To transliterate, translate, and analyze a sample of fetva and kanun sources that indicate the agency and interaction of multiple actors in lawmaking
(3) To synthesize the findings and develop a model of lawmaking that can account for diversity and change in the Ottoman Empire and beyond in the early-modern period
