Osmanlı Aracılarının Doğudaki Hukuki Statüsü, 16. Yüzyıl

Melis, Nicola

2010-01-01

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Abstract

Ottoman conduct of government and international relations was based on several legal models, on several sets of customs and on pragmatism. Strictly speaking, Hanafi law did not represent on the whole the legal basis the Ottoman state, either inside its territory or outside of it. The Ottoman legal system was a complex combination of several parallel institutions. Relations between the Ottoman Empire and European countries were guided not only by Hanafi law on the conduct of government (siyar), but also by international peace treaties and trade agreements, by secular law (the kanun), and by the rules of international custom, which began to take shape well before Ottoman times. In a broad variety of zones in the 16th century, customary law was essential to the organisation of international relations in the Eastern Mediterranean1. The concept of siyar undoubtedly occupies a central position in Hanafi theory, but it unlikely that Hanafi scholars ever insisted that the specific definitions of their texts be taken literally2. Jurists' aim was to bring the everyday life within the ambit of the şeriat by means of the fiqh (in Turkish, fikih)3. Despite the strong influence of Hanafi siyar on Ottoman law, realities were very different from theory. Though terminology and the Sultanic ideology are Hanafi in their inspiration and essence, in many cases Hanafi notions do not provide a grasp of Ottoman realities without recourse to other Ottoman normative sources.