the empire with the establishment of a more uni-
form and extensive network of Islamic courts.
£anafìjudges, trained in the madrasas of Istanbul
and appointed by the central government, presided
over the courts in the major provincial cities,
assisted by local ≠ulamà±who served as deputy
judges, clerks, and intermediaries between the judge
and the local population.
By the end of the sixteenth century Sharì≠a courts
were found in all the major cities and towns through-
out the empire. The larger cities of the empire had
several courts to better serve the needs of the local
population; for example seventeenth-century Cairo,
the second largest city in the empire, had 15 (Hanna
1998, 11). The physical proximity of the Sharì≠a
courts to the urban population facilitated their use.
Women as well as men took advantage of the serv-
ices the courts provided. The surviving records of
these courts provide the single most direct evidence
of women’s access to the legal system. In the first
study of women’s use of the courts, Ronald Jen-
nings noted that the women of seventeenth-century
Kayseri, “came to court regularly, freely, and
openly. Manifestly the court was accessible to them
and relevant to their lives” (1975, 65). Much of the
social and economic history of the Ottoman
Empire written in the last 30 years is based on
Sharì≠a court archives from all parts of the empire.
This scholarship confirms the striking visibility of
women in these sources; this visibility is itself evi-
dence of women’s participation in the social and
economic life of the empire. Some evidence suggests
that the number of women using the courts in-
creased in the later centuries of Ottoman rule, a
reflection that this participation of women was
growing (Zarinebaf-Shahr 1998, 308).
The circumstances under which women utilized
the courts were linked to the functions of the Sharì≠a
courts, and women went to court for the same rea-
sons that men did. First, the courts were similar to
the notary offices of Europe – a place to register
transactions that fell under the jurisdiction of the
Sharì≠a, such as a property sale, a marriage con-
tract, or the establishment of a religious endowment
(waqf). The vast majority of the entries in the reg-
isters of the Sharì≠a court archives fall into this cat-
egory. There is no requirement in Islamic law that
these transactions be registered with the qà∂ì, but
registration provided a written record that might
be useful evidence in the future. In other words the
courts served as “communal witnesses” (Peirce 1998,
296). Women as well as men used the courts for this
purpose. Having a written record might have been
particularly important for women since their rights
to property were more likely to be challenged.376 law: access to the legal system
The second function of the court was to resolve
conflicts. If a dispute went to court, it usually meant
that other means of mediation and resolution had
failed. Most people did not want to take disputes to
court, especially family conflicts, and women were
under particular pressure not to do so. Neverthe-
less, some women sued their husbands, brothers, or
fathers when they thought their rights had been vio-
lated and often these rights were upheld. The courts
served as intermediary institutions that mediated
family disputes and provided recourse where there
were grievances
Women’s access to the courts appears to have
been facilitated by several factors, in addition to the
physical proximity of the courts. One, the qà∂ì’s
court was seen as a “legitimate destination,” a pub-
lic space in which it was acceptable for women to
appear (Seng 1998, 247). While some women were
represented by wakìls (agents) and did not appear,
many others did attend court. Second, cases were
handled expeditiously and court procedures, based
primarily on oral testimony, were simple. Third,
women expected that their legal rights would be
upheld. Historians are generally in agreement that
women were aware of their rights and used the
norms, laws, and institutions available to them to
defend those rights. “That so many women were
capable of understanding and managing their
own legal problems bespeaks a degree of sophisti-
cation on their part” (Jennings 1975, 65). The
knowledge of their rights and how to use the system
came from formal education, from access to courts
and judges who were relatively close by, and/or
from the exchange of information in female net-
works within extended families and urban neigh-
borhoods. They went to court with the expectation
that the qà∂ìs would protect these rights when they
were violated.
Despite the accessibility of the system to women,
obstacles restricted access to the legal system for
many women. Both class and place of residence
played a large role in whether they had access to the
courts. For all practical purposes the jurisdiction of
the Sharì≠a courts did not extend into the rural
areas, where customary law (≠urf) remained in
effect. Women in rural areas therefore rarely had
access to the formal legal system and to whatever
protection this system could provide. Class also
played a role. Poor urban women, like their rural
counterparts, did not usually have the opportunity
or the means to seek protection from the courts.
Most of the women who used the courts were
women of the propertied classes, women of the
social and political elites, though the records do
include women of modest means. Women primarily