Crime in the Ottoman society of the Tanzimat era

Crime, which is as old as the history of humanity, has been affected by the belief, culture, education and mentality of every era. When the Anatolian society, which was shaped by Islamic law, its understanding and culture, tried to adapt to the change in the historical process, a new era was stepped into. No longer the Ottoman State has entered a new formation with the Tanzimat period. Thus, changes and developments have been experienced in many fields such as law, administration, economy, education. This change has had a certain effect on the crime and criminal. While the legal structure of the Ottoman State was shaped within the sharia and customary law system the separation/differentiation from Islamic law began during the Tanzimat period. With the enactment movement, the first steps of the transition to the secular legal system have been taken. With this study, the effect of the change experienced in the Tanzimat period on crime and criminals, as well as the effect of crime and criminals on innovations were examined. As a result of the causes and consequences of the crime were tried to be revealed. In this context, the point of emphasis was on criminal documents the period, such as court records and archival documents belonging to the crime cased examined by the Meclis-i Vâlâ-yı Ahkâm-ı Adliyye. In this way, the life of the Tanzimat period in Anatolia was tried to be revealed more vividly through crime. The place, time, persons (victim, criminal, suspect, accomplice) and the ages and occupations of the persons mentioned in the documents was specified the effect of these elements on the offence and the offender.KEYWORDS: Ottoman State, Tanzimat, Anatolia, Crime, Penal Code.