The economics of Ottoman justice : settlement and trial in the Sharia courts

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire endured long periods of warfare, facing intense financial pressures and new international mercantile and monetary trends. The Empire also experienced major political-administrative restructuring and socioeconomic transformations. In the context of this tumultuous change, The Economics of Ottoman Justice examines Ottoman legal practices and the sharia court's operations to reflect on the judicial system and provincial relationships. Metin Coşgel and Boğaç Ergene provide a systematic depiction of socio-legal interactions, identifying how different social, economic, gender and religious groups used the court, how they settled their disputes, and which factors contributed to their success at trial. Using an economic approach, Coşgel and Ergene offer rare insights into the role of power differences in judicial interactions, and into the reproduction of communal hierarchies in court, and demonstrate how court use patterns changed over time. Cover Half-title page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Maps Acknowledgments Introduction Part One Methodology and Background 1 Quantitative Approaches in Research on Ottoman Legal Practice 2 Kastamonu: The Town and Its People Part Two The Court and Court Clients 3 The Court, Its Actors, and Its Archive 4 Court Use: Disputes versus Agreements Part Three To Settle or Not to Settle 5 Dispute Resolution in Ottoman Courts of Law 6 Trial versus Settlement: An Economic Approach 7 Which Disputes Went to Trial? Case-type- and Period-based AnalysesPart Four Litigations 8 Rules and Tools of Litigation 9 Economics of Litigation: What Affects Success at Trial? 10 Who Won? Case-type- and Period-based Analyses Conclusion Bibliography Index