Abstract
Conflict and Reconciliation in Ottoman Criminal Law: Example of Larceny in the Modernization Period (1839-1908)
Until the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire adopted both the Islamic law (shari'a) and the imperial orders (kānunnāmes) as two isochronous sources in the field of criminology. Thus, the divine law of Islam (fiqh) and secular rules that had been implemented by the sultans were in effect together, so as to regulate the common order and watch the safeness of the society out. Ottoman judicial system, which had developed under the intensive influence of the Islamic law for centuries, considered the social crimes as a ‘willful deed’ and hence set the penalties accordingly by bearing in mind the spesific cases as archetypes for its own use. On the other hand, the Ottoman penal mentality apprehended the crimes as the consequences of societal circumstances at some points. And they were treated with regard to the secular law of the time. Therefore, the Ottoman penal system routinely worked in a dichotomous and conflicted structure. In this paper, I shall argue over how the crime of larceny has been struggled by the interfering methods of Ottoman judiciary, as a crime of intention against individual and public properties in the light of Ottoman archival documents and between the years of 1839 and 1908 as a time-scale.
Keywords
Ottoman Law System, Islamic Criminal Law, Public Goods, Individual Property, Larceny/Theft.
