House and shop sales in Ayntâb city center between 1641-1651

One of the document types among the Ottoman Şer'iyye Registries, which is also called the court registration book is the sales contract. The sales contract registered with the application of the parties to the court are important for the person holding the sales contract in order to avoid possible disputes that may arise later. For example the person's complaint from the other party by claiming that he did not sell his house and that the woman claimed that the property shared with her husband was sold by her husband without her permission are quite common situations in sales proceedings. Moreover the titles of the people involved in property sales, their professions, the location of the house, the parts of the house gives us very important information about the socio-economic life of Ayntâb in that period. In this thesis, totally seven (16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (two books) and 27) şer'iyye registers of Ayntâb were investigated and trying to clarify the socio economic situation in 17th century Ayntâb by sales contracts. As a consequence of this research 527 house sales and 59 shops were detected in Ayntâb city center. In addition, the heterogeneous structure of the neighborhoods shows that there was no class segregation in the 17th century Ottoman society. The sales documents in the registries also give an idea about the popular neighborhoods of the period.