Western Merchants and Ottoman Law. The Legal Section of the Manuscript Turc 130 from the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris (original) (raw)
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Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes, Académie Roumaine, Institut d’Études Sud-Est Européennes, Bucarest, XLVI, 1-4, 2008, pp. 253-268
After 1569, in Islamic-Ottoman legal and diplomatic view, the Frenchmen were considered 'beneficiaries of temporary protection' (müste'min) during their stay in the Ottoman dominions. According to certain legal opinion (fetvâ) from the Manuscrit Turc 130 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), one can distinguish more situations in which they were abusively made captives and their merchandise were robbed: a) When the Frenchmen were navigating on their own vessels into and from Ottoman dominions; b) When the Frenchmen were engaged with their ships in a carrying trade of 'enemy' merchandise (harbî metâ'); c) When the Frenchmen were navigating on a ship (harbî gemisi) belonging to a Western power, which was enemy to the Ottoman empire; d) When the Frenchmen were implied in carrying on provisions, forbidden or not, to an enemy country.
Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern law, 2013
Co-Founding Editor of the Journal of Comparative Law. This article shares a research base with Foster, N.H.D. (2012) ' "Змішані правові системи" арабського Близького Сходу ('The "Mixed Systems" of the Arab Middle East')' (3-4) Порівняльне Правознавство (Comparative Jurisprudence) 283 (in Ukrainian), and the acknowledgements expressed there are repeated here. In addition, the author is very grateful to: Aharon Layish and Ron Shaham for their organisation of the International Workshop entitled 'Islamic Law Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century' , 19-21 October 2009 at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, for their comments on a previous draft (subsequently expanded to the set of articles mentioned below) and for their kind, patient and erudite support; the discussant at the Workshop, Haim Gerber; colleagues attending the Workshop for their comments; an anonymous reader; Avi Rubin for sight of his draft work and several references; Omar Cheta for sight of his draft work and permission to cite correspondence; and Olivia Foster Vander Elst for her review of readability and detail. The author is solely responsible for any faults which remain. Some terms in the academic disciplines touched upon are controversial in academic circles. Those chosen for use in this article have been chosen for the sake of convenience, and no preference on the author's part for a particular term should be implied from that use. A simplified system of transliteration from Arabic to Roman script has been used. Dates are AD. All internet sources were last accessed on
Shari‘ah Law and Capitulations Governing the Non-Muslim Foreign Merchants in the Ottoman Empire
Sociology of Islam, 2017
Muslim-non-Muslim relations have a long and checkered history. The concept of Siyar (Muslim code governing international-interfaith relations) developed by early Muslim jurists, provided the legal basis for coexistence with ‘foreignness’ and ‘foreigners. Yet, the classical norms of Siyar were seldom strictly implemented by Muslim rulers. Thus, Capitulations, governing the presence and movement of foreign merchants and diplomats in the Ottoman empire, increasingly broke with the classical norms of Siyar in their successive incarnations. However, there have been few investigations of how the religious establishment’s stance vis-à-vis Capitulations evolved over time. The present study is a modest attempt to fill this gap. The paper departs from essentialist conceptions of Shariah Law, and examines how successive Ottoman jurists interpreted Siyar and accommodated it to the changing political and economic realities. Our investigation bears out the non-essentialist position that Islamic l...
Turcica, 2015
Despite the numerous studies on the Ottoman capitulations in the past few decades, few of them focused on their role in regulating the trade of Ottoman subjects with Western Europe during the early modern era. Thus we know very little about the legal regime which enabled numerous merchants from the sultan’s realm to go to a Western European state and trade there without hindrance. The present paper aims at shedding some light on this legal regime by analyzing two important disputes between some Ottoman merchants and some Venetian subjects and authorities which took place during the 1580s. The Republic of Venice, given its large Ottoman mercantile community, represents an excellent context for this topic. The disputes discussed in this study show us that the aggrieved merchants, in their request of redress, followed precise legal procedures and managed to enlist the backing of many high-ranking Ottomans. Furthermore, the resolution of these cases, which entailed long and complicated negotiations between the Ottoman and the Venetian authorities over the contents of the capitulations, shows that the latter constituted only a set of general rules for the conduction of trade and that the application on the ground of their provisions always involved a great deal of diplomacy.
"This essay aims at investigating the role that business patterns played in the Western traders’ perception of their Ottoman counterparts in the 18th century. It is based on a close reading of a wide portion of the commercial literature available at this time, including business treatises and handbooks, memoirs and correspondences of traders, and public records from Western port-cities (with special reference to Marseilles, Venice and Leghorn). What emerges through these readings is a twofold picture. On the one hand, the classical image of the Levantine trader, whose features epitomize both the specificity of Ottoman business practices, and the permanence of a European orientalism. On the other hand, a more fragmented and subtle perception that derives from a more practical experience of the commerce with the Ottoman Empire and its subjects. The basic assumption of this essay is that far from being opposed one to the other, these two representations are the two faces of the same coin, and they make the picture of the 18th-century Ottoman trader both a stereotypical and a multifaceted one. It is this picture that I intend to study, and ultimately deconstruct. My paper thus consists in a brief overview of the Levantine trade and of its importance for the European market and commercial balance, followed by two main points. First, a study of the way the construction of discourses on Ottoman otherness takes into account a certain number of “Oriental” business practices – whether real or assumed. Second, an analysis of how patterns of trade were instrumental in Europe’s acknowledgement of the different ethno-national components that formed the Ottoman Empire."
Maria Pia Pedani, Maritime insurances and the Ottoman merchants’ network in Venice (16th-17th c.).
The aim of this paper is to study the presence of Muslim merchants in Venice in the Modern Age with a special focus on the maritime insurances they made to protect their goods. First of all we must stress the fact that, in the 16th and 17th c., the Ottomans who traded in Venice were not alone but could make reference to a real commercial network. Moreover, to regulate their business they could go to kadıs, before leaving their country, but also, later, to Venetian notaries. Notarial deeds give us information on shipping partnerships, family companies, grandees involved in international trade and on companies of merchants both in Istanbul and Venice. The oldest witness of an insurance made by an Ottoman Muslim dates back to 1559: it was made by the agent of the great admiral Piyale pasha, the money was paid in Ancona but it was made by Venetian insurers. Other documents dating back to the following period show that Ottoman merchants were more and more involved in insurances and that, in the 18th c., to ensure goods became quite common when they decided to go to Venice. In his book about business partnership Murat Çizakça (A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnership. The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives, Brill, Leiden, 1996) states: “In the Ottoman case, it can be presumed that an effective maritime insurance did not exist. Certainly, not a single document has been found to indicate the contrary.” Documents still kept in the Venetian State Archives tell us that Ottomans could use Venetian insurers and also agree to make insurances in front of a kadı. Ancient historiographical theories say that in the Modern Age Ottoman Muslims were not interested in international trade and that they left it completely in Christian and Jewish hands, but documents tell us a completely different story, a story of contacts, exchanges, and even confidence and friendship. (paper presented to EBHA - Ancona 2018 but not delivered because I could not attend to the conference)
Law in the Marketplace, 1730‐1840
CTIAPIER TEN LAW IN THE MARKETPLACE: ISTANBUL, 1730-1840* Engin Deniz Akarh Brown Universiw Selim Ilkin agabeye studies on Islamic jurisprudence and its history have reached a high level of sophistication.r This development, however, is rargely based on sources of a theoretical nature. we still know little about how the Islamic legal tradition influenced judicial practice and reasoning in specific historical settings. The present articre add¡esses thir gup with the aid of the most detailed sources available to us on Islamic legal practice, namely, the legat documents preserved in the ottoman archives.