Criminal Law applications in the Ottoman Society of the 18th Century (The example of Uskudar)

Court records are one of the important sources in archival documents which constitute the extant records of the application field of the Ottoman law. The 18th century is considered as the century inwhich Ottoman Law practiced Islamic Law. An analyse of the crimes and the respective punishments related to the matters where the Ottoman Empire practiced Islamic Law give evidence to the Islamic aspect of the Ottoman Law. Besides, this analyse would allow us to see the balance between crimes and punishments and the justice. In this research, firstly, we will give some information about the nature of the punishments including had, qisas, diyat, and ta'zir according to the criminal law sections of the Hanafi School, adopted by the Ottoman Empire. Then, we will analyse the applications of criminal law recorded in the registry books, which constitute extant historical data. Based on these records, the relationship of harmony and conflict between classical fiqh theory and practice is discussed. Seven court records (number 335, 346, 347, 352, 415, 420, and 466) of the Uskudar court between the years 1118 and 1179 form the primary sources of this research. The had, qisas, diyat, and ta'zir crimes and punishments recorded in these books have been analysed. In that way, the Islamic nature and applications of Islamic Law in the 18th Century Ottoman Society have been evaluated with examples taken from kadi registrations belonging to the Uskudar court.