The effect of deception on contracts in the 17th century Ottoman law

Declaration of intent is essential in the establishment of a contract, the fundamental subject of Islamic law of obligations. This declaration have to comply with the consent, which can also referred as the inner will. The mutual consent of the parties is significant in terms of validity of the declaration of intent and is the prerequisite of the bindingness of contracts. Therefore, in the cases that damage the consent such as coercion, error and deception, bindingness of the contracts is faulty because the declaration of intent is considered defective. This study addresses the definition of deception, which is considered as one of the defects of will, as a fiqh term in Hanafi doctrine along with its types and effects on contracts. Thus, by referring to different views within the madhab (school of law), it aims to draw a theoretical framework of the concept of deception. After discussing the theoretical aspect of deception, the data on 17th century is evaluated in order to observe what kind of results it has in practice and whether the theory corresponds the practice in the Ottoman Empire where Hanafi school of law is accepted as the official madhab. The fatwa collections and Sharia court registers of the relevant era made a great contribution in this sense.