Re-thinking Mecelle-i Ahkam-ı Adliyye: legal transformation in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire

Abstract

The object of this thesis is to provide a re-evaluation of the legal transformation in the nineteenth centuryOttoman Empire with a focus on the formation of Mecelle-i Ahkam-ı Adliyye, an Islamic civil code ahich was developed in the second half of the nineteenth century and consisted of sixteen books regulating civil transactions. In this study, I aim at understanding and analyzing the debatebetween those promoting the idea of a direct adoption of the Frenc Civil Code and those in return advocating that figh (Islamic Jurisprudence) could be adjusted to the requirements of a market economy provided that it was codified. I make a particular effort to trace the specific ways in which the transactionability of private property was institutionalized within the language of fiqh in a historical context characterized by growing commercial activity. The first part is a brief discussion on the issue of codification and aims to underline the inherent problems of codifying law as an attempt to cerate a general reference point within the legal system. In the second part, a detailed discussion on nineteenth century legal transformation in the Ottoman Empire is provided through an anonymous reform proposal, which provide substantial on legal reforms in general and the drafting of the Mecelle-i Ahkam-ı Adliyye in particular. In the following chapter, the code is analyzed with the draft notes of the Mecelle commision in order to understand how the means of transations were specified and standardizd and to what extent issues reiating to price, speculation and profit were defined in civil transactions. This study aims to re-think the formation of the Mecelle as part of a universal process, closely related to political centralization and the rise of capatalist economic relations in the ninetennth century and traces the specific ways in which the needs of a market economy is formulated within the language of fiqh.