Land and Legal Texts in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Malissa Taylor is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. Her published articles have appeared in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient and The Journal of Ottoman Studies.

This book’s analysis of legal texts, harmonization of Islamic and Ottoman laws, and the sultan’s sovereignty surely contributes to our deep understanding of Islamic finance and land systems in the modern era.

• IntroductionSourcesHarmonization and SovereigntyProperty: Bundles and Layers1. Lifelong tasarruf, Land Tenure Practices, and Law over the longue duréeOttoman territories and varieties of tenure for the military classCultivator Tenure and its legal Systemization Military fiscal change and land tenureLand tenure rights trickle upThe Old and the New2. Conquering a New Terrain: Establishing the Sultan’s Legislative AuthorityTexts and Contexts “Preserved in the Bayt al-Mal”: Acquiring Land for the Treasury “Neither Tithe nor Kharaji”: The Status of the Land for Transaction and TaxBuilding a coherent lawConclusion3. Canonical Voices: Discretion and analogy in the formation of the harmony tradition of land tenureContexts of the TextPir Mehmed and Sultanic LatitudeThe Formation of a Tradition: Deferential and not so Deferential InterpretationConclusion4. “The Books of Fiqh”: The Kanunname of Candia and the Consolidation of a New Doctrine in Hanafi Academic TextsHarmony at a crossroadsThe Kanunname of Candia as critique: Reinstituting the Hanafism of the “books”The Sultan as Legislator: texts, commentaries and fatwasThe Change in Doctrine: the sultan has a choiceConclusion5. The Age of the Mutasarrifs: Diffusion, Rights, and Discretion in the Eighteenth CenturyBackgroundConvergenceExpansive Transactions: Permission and AnalogismConclusion6. From Harmony to Uniformity: Defensive Sovereignty and the Ottoman Nineteenth-Century ReformsMiri Tasarruf: Stability in a sea of changeCreating a Normal SubjectCodifying Islamic LawDefending Islam: From “built on the kanun” to “built on the fiqh”ConclusionConclusionBibliography