[We were interpreted to see the following posting on H-Turk from Amir Toft, Research Scholar in Law and Islamic Law and Civilization Research Fellow at the Yale Law School.]
Dear Ottomanist Colleagues,
I would like to put together a panel on Ottoman law for one or more of the 2018 conferences listed [here.]. Depending on interest and feasibility, we can decide to submit versions to each one to fit the thematic or disciplinary focus. I will not say here exactly what I would like this panel to look like because that depends on the panel's composition. I will just mention my and a few possible thematic lines along which to run.
My research is generally interested in understanding how classical Islamic jurisprudence was received by Ottoman jurists and expressed through Ottoman legal institutions—in other words, how the law turns into legal system. My dissertation focuses on homicide in post-Süleymanic Istanbul. I look at court registers (and other archival material) but aso heavily at works of substantive and procedural Islamic law written by Ottoman (or Ottoman-era) jurists. Much of what I study, then, is less how Ottoman jurists practiced law so much as as what they said about their practice of law.
Possible themes for a panel include: 1) Ottoman criminal law; 2) Ottoman treatises on judicial practice, political sovereignty, and other legal matters; 3) comparative judicial practice between capital and provinces, between cities, between city and country, etc.; 4) state-employed versus state-independent jurists.
If you have something to present and are interested in putting a panel together, please write me at amir.toft@yale.edu. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Amir Toft
