The Sijill in Perspective: Mapping Similarities and Differences Across the Empire

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The Sijill in Perspective: Mapping Similarities and Differences Across the Empire

Organizer
Convenors: Nora Lafi Center for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO) Christian Sassmannshausen Free University Berlin (Institute for Islamic Studies)
Venue
Location
Berlin
Country
Germany
From - Until
17.10.2008 - 19.10.2008
Website
http://www.zmo.de
By
Lafi, Nora

Islamic Court Records (sijillat ma?akim shar´iyya) are some of the most important sources for writing the social, economic, and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. Especially within the framework of urban history, sijills have contributed to a better understanding of various groups and institutions, opening up new channels for analyzing moral, legal, and family discourses in Ottoman society. Moreover, by integrating the methodology, questions, and approaches of cultural studies and drawing upon the research of other regions, scholars have begun to challenge a set of inherited assumptions about state and society in the Ottoman Empire. Whereas earlier methods had used normative sources to weave a narrative of institutional decline from an idealized norm, new approaches emphasize the dynamism of social practice on a micro-historical level. More recently still, provincial cities have become major research interests, shedding new light on peripheral regions and marginalized groups of the empire.However, while the use of the court as a socio-legal arena has helped display local agency and the plurality of urban experience, these innovative studies have too long existed in isolation from one another. This workshop aims to bridge this gap, bringing together scholars of the sijill working on different periods and regions in the Ottoman Empire. Through collective reflection on the use of the sijill, it hopes to compare diverse research experiences, consolidating them into a broader frame of reference and
pointing out future directions of the study of Court Records. Mapping sijills' form and content will allow for discussions of similarities and differences across time and space.

The workshop is financially supported by Freie Universität Berlin (Free University Berlin) Interdisciplinary Center "Social and Cultural History of the Middle East" (Interdisziplinäres Zentrum "Bausteine zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte des Vorderen Orients") and Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) (Center for Modern Oriental Studies).

Programm

Friday, October 17, 2008

9.30 - 10.30 Introduction: Nora Lafi and Christian Sassmannshausen

10.30 - 11.00 Panel Discussion:

The Sijill in Perspective: A Framework for Discussion

11.00 - 11.15 break

11.15 - 12.45 Representativeness, Authenticity, and Use of the Court

James Reilly (University of Toronto): Selective Vision in the Hama Sijills

Stefan Knost (Orient Institute Beirut): Who Went to Court in Late 18th century Aleppo? The Ottoman mahkama and the Application of Law

12.45 - 14.15 lunch

14.15 - 15.45 Constructing Social Hierarchies: The Labeling and
(Self-)Representation of Individuals

Claudia Gazzini (University of Oxford): Away from Court but in the Registers:
How Emancipated Slaves and Libyan Women are Represented in the Sijillat of Tripoli, Libya.

Will Hanley (Florida State University): Personal Identification and its
Communication in Late Nineteenth Century Egyptian Legal Records

15.45 - 16.00 break

16.00 - 17.00 Round Table Discussion:

Social Markers and Hierarchies in Perspective: Opportunities and Limitations tations of the Sijills

Chair: Hassan Mwakimako (ZMO)

Saturday, October 18, 2008

9.30 - 11.00 Legal Practice, Record Keeping, and

Translating Judicial Proceedings Bogac Ergene (University of Vermont): Why did Ummu Gulsum Go to Court? Ottoman Legal Practice Between History and Anthropology

Iris Agmon (Ben-Gurion University): Practicing New Recording Methods, Jaffa,1876

11.00 - 11.15 break

11.15 - 12.45 Integrating Social Groups and the Formation of Power Relations

Abdul-Karim Rafeq (The College of William & Mary): Religious Integration in the Syrian Guilds. Revealed in the Court Records (16th - 19th Centuries)

Richard van Leeuwen (University of Amsterdam): Court Records, Waqfs, and the Formation of Power

12.45 - 14.15 lunch

14.15 - 15.15 Round Table Discussion:

Transmission of Popular Legal Knowledge, Judicial Consultation and Strategy

Chair: Gudrun Krämer (Free University Berlin)

15.15 - 15.30 break

15.30 - 17.00 Being a non-Muslim at Court: Negotiating Legal Autonomy

Richard Wittmann (Orient Institute Istanbul): The Qadi, the Chief Rabbi, and the Wife of the Jewish Notable: Social and Judicial Complexities in Late 17th Century Istanbul

Rossitsa Gradeva (American University in Bulgaria): The Qadi Court Records on Restoration of non-Muslim Houses of Worship: Sofia, Vidin and Ruscuk (late 17th-early 18th centuries)

Sunday, October 19, 2008

10.00 - 10.45 Approaching the Sijill from the Edge of the Empire

Selma Zecevic (York University): '/Hogetto fatto da Ahmet Efendi Kadi di Mostaro/...': Archiving Ottoman Court Documents in the Turkish Chancellery of the Republic of Dubrovnik

10.45 - 11.30 Round Table Discussion:

The Challenge of Legal Fiction

Chair: Astrid Meier (University of Zurich)

11.30.11.45 break

11.45 - 12.45 Round Table and Final Discussion:

Transregional Comparison and Future Research Avenues

Venues:

Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)
(Center for Modern Oriental Studes)
Kirchweg 33
14129 Berlin

and

Freie Universität Berlin / Institut für Islamwissenschaft
(Free University Berlin / Institute for Islamic Studies)
Altensteinstraße. 40
14195 Berlin

Contact (announcement)

Dr. Nora Lafi (Researcher, BMBF)
Zentrum Moderner Orient,
Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin, Germany

E-mail: nora.lafi@rz.hu-berlin.de
Telefon (+49) (0) 30 80307- 0

http://www.zmo.de
Editors Information
Published on
17.10.2008
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