"Kazâyâ" procedure in the Ottoman bureaucratic tradition- Kaziyye Registers in the reign of Bayezid II

This thesis examines the essence of the "kazâyâ" procedure in Ottoman Empire, which was still in devolopment stage in the formative period of the Ottoman bureaucracy. When this issue, a subject of the research for the first time, is adressed primary sources are directly referred to. To this end, the kazıyye registers which is prepared as a kind of report to be presented to Divân-ı Hümâyûn (The Imperial Council) that had also characteristics of a supreme court constitutes main source of the study. In the light of these registers the earliest examples of which appeared in the time of Bayezid II, the key role played by kadis who were representatives of central bureaucracy in the provinces in ensuring the contact between centre and provinces as investigators was highlighted on the one hand, and the approach of the mechanism of the statecraft to legal, administrative, social and economic events had been evaluated on the other hand. The analysis of the records including the inspection their colleaugues and ehl-i örf (executive officials) by kadis appointed by the central administration formed the basis of this research. While these records are being examined, the corruptions and abuses of kadis and other officials had also been indicated. Furthermore, it was determined that Ottoman Empire effectively made use of complaint mechanism to gather information about all kinds of problems even in remote areas from the state centre, then investigated the accuracy of complaint related information by activating the investigation mechanism, and eventually took steps in the direction of solutions to these problems. As a result, the systematics of the administrative process has been tried to be understood in this study.