Istibdāl in Ottoman law of waqf (Between 16th and 18th centuries)

The term "istibdāl", which means to change in dictionary, is used as a term in waqf law to change waqf against property or to sell waqf for the purpose of purchasing a property to be convert as a waqf. Istibdāl is a very important practice for the eternity of awqāf in terms of providing change waqf to get more valuable or change useless waqf with a new one in disaster situations such as fire, earthquake, flood or long time use. As a result of scanning the Arabic, Turkish and English literature, it is understood that a study of the istibdāl-i waqf in the Ottoman waqf law has not been written. In our thesis, the issue of istibdāl which mentioned in studies that was abused in the historical process will be tried to be explained with refe-rence to fatwā collections as the primary source and the informations in the rasāil of the istibdāl-i waqf will be compared with the fatwās. On the other hand, the mentioned examples of the istibdāl practice in the court records, ahkām registers and waqf census documents will give an idea of the harmony between theory and practice. In the first part of the thesis in which the conceptual framework and historical process are examined, the texts in which the concept of istibdāl and synonyms expressions used are classified and the texts with or without the meaning of istibdāl are determined by taking into account also context of the texts in which words are mentioned. In the second chapter mentioned after the historical process section in which studied how istibdāl was explained in the pre-Ottoman Hanafi waqf law, basic issues such as the nature of the istibdāl, its legitimacy, its conditions and the its ways of making through the Ottoman fiqh studies. Thus the subjects recorded about the istibdāl-i waqf in general from the beginning of the Hanafi sect to the establishment of the Ottoman Empire and specially until the 19th century of the Ottoman Empire are stuied in detail. In the last chapter, some issues such as legal consequences of istibdāl and cancel of istibdāl are studied.