Continuity and Transformation in Islamic Law

Ottoman History Podcast
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Continuity and Transformation in Islamic Law

Law is a powerful lens for the study of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world. Bringing together diverse sources and new perspectives for legal history, this series explores law in and around the Ottoman Empire as a complex and capacious system underpinning the exercise of power inherent in all human relationships. Our presenters study the law to gain entry into the Ottoman household, exploring the relationships between husbands and wives, masters and slaves. Others use the legal system to understand the logic of the modernizing state, and the competing logics of its citizens, in shaping new forms of governance. Many of these podcasts explore the limits of Ottoman law, both externally at the borders of empire, and internally, at the margins of governable society. The underlying theme of this series is negotiation and compromise: between lawmakers and law-users, between theory and practice, between social body and individual experience. Individually and especially taken together, these podcasts take us far beyond the normative strictures of Shari’a to understand the role of law in diverse societies in the Ottoman Empire and beyond.

  1. 12/12/2019

    Language, Power, and Law in the Ottoman Empire

    Episode 441 with Heather Ferguson hosted by Zoe Griffith Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, historian Heather Ferguson takes us behind the scenes of early modern Ottoman state-making with a discussion of her recent book The Proper Order of Things. We discuss how the architecture of Topkapı palace, the emergence of new bureaucratic practices, and the administration of space from Hungary to Lebanon projected early modern discourses of “order” that were crucial to imperial legitimacy, governance, and dissent. Heather also offers rare insights into the challenges, vulnerabilities, and victories of transforming a dissertation into a prize-winning book manuscript. « Click for More »

  2. 29/11/2019

    Osmanlı İstanbul'unda Evlilik ve Boşanma

    Bölüm 437 Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik Sunucu Can Gümüş Podcast'i indir Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Osmanlı'da çiftler nasıl evlenir, nasıl boşanırdı? Bu podcast'te Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik ile İstanbul Bab, Davud Paşa ve Ahi Çelebi mahkemelerinin 1755-1840 yıllarındaki kayıtlarını inceleyerek tamamladığı doktora araştırması odağında, Osmanlı İstanbul'unda evlilik ve boşanma davaları üzerine sohbet ediyoruz. Elbirlik'in araştırması, kadınların evlilik, boşanma ve mülkiyetle ilişkili konularda mahkemeleri aktif olarak kullandıklarını gösterirken, Osmanlı ailesinde ve toplumunda kadının rolüne dair yaygın kanıları da yeniden değerlendiriyor. « Click for More »

  3. 08/10/2019

    Islamic Law and Arab Diaspora in Southeast Asia

    Episode 430 with Nurfadzilah Yahaya hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud During the 19th century, Southeast Asia came under British and Dutch colonial rule. Yet despite the imposition of foreign institutions and legal codes, Islamic law remained an important part of daily life. In fact, as our guest Fadzilah Yahaya argues, Islamic law in the region underwent significant transformation as a result of British and Dutch policies. But rather than merely a top-down transformation, Yahaya highlights the role of the small and largely mercantile Arab diaspora as a major factor in European policy towards Islamic law in Southeast Asia. In our conversation, we  discuss Islamic law and the Arab diaspora in Southeast Asia during the colonial period as well as some of the more unusual court cases arising from this period and the implications of this history for Southeast Asia today. « Click for More »

  4. 09/02/2018

    Nationality and Cosmopolitanism in Alexandria

    Episode 345 with Will Hanley hosted by Taylor M. Moore Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, Will Hanley transports us to the gritty, stranger-filled streets of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, as we discuss his book, Identifying with Nationality: Europeans, Ottomans, and Egyptians in Alexandria. We explore how nationality—an abstract tool in the pages of international legal codes—became a new social and legal category that tangibly impacted the lives of natives and newcomers to Alexandria at the turn of the twentieth century. We consider how nationality brought together the previously impersonal, stranger networks using an array of paper technologies, vocabularies, and legal practices that forged bonds of affiliations between the individuals and groups that inhabited the city. Finally, we discuss how Egyptians and non-European foreigners, such as Algerians, Tunisians, and Maltese, benefited or were disenfranchised from a legal hierarchy that privileged white, male Europeans. « Click for More »

  5. 06/09/2016

    Religious Sentiment and Political Liberties in Colonial South Asia

    with Julie Stephens hosted by Chris Gratien and Tyler Conklin Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud During the 1920s, a publisher in Lahore published a satire on the domestic life of the Prophet Muhammad during a period of religious polemics and communal tension between Muslims and Hindus under British rule. The inflammatory text soon became a legal matter, first when the publisher was brought to trial and acquitted for "attempts to promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes" and again when he was murdered a few years later in retaliation for the publication. In this episode, Julie Stephens explores how this case highlights debates over the meaning of religious and political liberties, secularism, and legal transformation during British colonial rule in South Asia. In doing so, she challenges the binary juxtaposition between secular reason and religious sentiment, instead pointing to their mutual entanglement in histories of law and empire. « Click for More »

  6. 04/09/2016

    Gendered Politics of Conversion in Early Modern Aleppo

    with Elyse Semerdjian hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The changing of one's religion may be viewed today as a matter of personal spirituality or identity, but as the historiography of the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere increasingly shows, conversion was often a public act with political, socioeconomic, and gendered components. In this episode, Elyse Semerdjian returns to the podcast to discuss her research on conversion in early modern Aleppo and how women sometimes utilized the act of conversion (or non-conversion) and the legal structures of the Ottoman Empire to gain the upper hand in familial and economic matters. « Click for More »

  7. 31/08/2016

    Capitalism and the Courts in 19th Century Egypt

    with Omar Cheta hosted by Zoe Griffith Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The Capitulations are regarded as one of the most obvious and humiliating signs of European dominance over Ottoman markets and diplomatic relations in the 19th century, granting European merchants and their Ottoman protégés extensive extraterritorial privileges within the empire. In this podcast, Professor Omar Cheta probes the limits of the Capitulations in the Ottoman province of Egypt, where the power of the local Khedives intersected and overlapped with the sovereignty of the sultan and the capitulatory authority of the British consulate. Commercial disputes involving European merchants and their protected agents on Ottoman-Egyptian soil reveal the ambiguous and negotiable nature of jurisdiction and legal identities in the mid-19th century. These ambiguous boundaries provided spaces for merchants and officials to contest the terms of extraterritorial privileges. The creation of new legal forums such as the mixed Merchants' Courts gave rise to new norms and procedures, while reliance on Shari'a traditions continued to appear in unexpected places.  « Click for More »

  8. 05/12/2015

    The Ottoman Tanzimat in Practice

    with Cengiz Kırlı hosted by Chris Gratien Within Anglophone historiography, the Tanzimat period is conventionally represented as an era of centralizing reforms emanating from the imperial center that represent a trend often labeled as "modernization" or "Westernization." Less attention has been given to what these administrative changes meant in practice and how they were carried out in the different provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In this episode, Cengiz Kırlı discusses his work on various facets of the Tanzimat and its implementation, offering a preview of his new Turkish-language monograph on the "invention of corruption" in the Ottoman Empire and examining the interplay of local and imperial power during an the early Tanzimat period in the Balkans. a:hover { cursor:pointer; } with Cengiz Kırlı hosted by Chris Gratien Download the episode Podcast Feed | iTunes | Soundcloud Within Anglophone historiography, the Tanzimat period is conventionally represented as an era of centralizing reforms emanating from the imperial center that represent a trend often labeled as "modernization" or "Westernization." Less attention has been given to what these administrative changes meant in practice and how they were carried out in the different provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In this episode, Cengiz Kırlı discusses his work on various facets of the Tanzimat and its implementation, offering a preview of his new Turkish-language monograph on the "invention of corruption" in the Ottoman Empire and examining the interplay of local and imperial power during an the early Tanzimat period in the Balkans. (This podcast refers to visuals available below) « Click for More »

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About

Law is a powerful lens for the study of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world. Bringing together diverse sources and new perspectives for legal history, this series explores law in and around the Ottoman Empire as a complex and capacious system underpinning the exercise of power inherent in all human relationships. Our presenters study the law to gain entry into the Ottoman household, exploring the relationships between husbands and wives, masters and slaves. Others use the legal system to understand the logic of the modernizing state, and the competing logics of its citizens, in shaping new forms of governance. Many of these podcasts explore the limits of Ottoman law, both externally at the borders of empire, and internally, at the margins of governable society. The underlying theme of this series is negotiation and compromise: between lawmakers and law-users, between theory and practice, between social body and individual experience. Individually and especially taken together, these podcasts take us far beyond the normative strictures of Shari’a to understand the role of law in diverse societies in the Ottoman Empire and beyond.

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