Kadi and court in the second half of the XVIIIth century Ottoman Anatolia (1760-1770)

The Ottomans attached great importance to the concept of justice and made an effort to bring justice to every community living within its borders. For this purpose, they established judicial units as well as military-administrative units to solve the legal problems of the people in every corner of the country. They appointed kadis whose most important task was to solve the legal problems of the people as the head of this judicial units. Howewer, kadi courts wasn't the only authority that people could apply for ensuring justice. Divân-ı Humayûn, which was the most important governing body of the state, was another authority that people from every corner of the state could apply for their legal problems. In this case, it's seen that there were two main authorities to which people from the every corner of the state could apply for the solution of their legal problems. In this study, the structure and functioning of the Ottoman kadi courts have been discussed in the sample of Kastamonu, Manisa, Ayıntab and Adana kazas located in the Ottoman Anatolia during the ten-year period between 1760-1770. In addition, the spatial distribution of the court applicants, which types of cases they brought to the courts more intensely, by what means of proof they won these cases and which officials contributed to the resolution of these cases have been tried to reveal. Besides, the numbers and types of complaints from the relevant districts to the Divân-ı Humayûn has been tried to be compared with the number and types of cases brought to the kadi courts. Thus, the complaint authority preferences of the people of the relevant kazas and the factors affecting them have been tried to be evaluated. In addition, the relationship between the Divân-ı Hümayûn and the kadi courts, to what extent did the officials assigned to solve the problem contribute to the solution of the problem in the kadi courts, the problem-solving skills of both kadi courts and the Divan-ı Hümayun over the compliants submitted to these institutions more than once, to what extent did the Divan-ı Hümayûn, which served as an appeal institution, examine the cases heard in the kadi courts and what kind of decision it made are the other issues that are tried to be revealed in this study.