The legal status of Ottoman middlemen in the Levant (16th Century)

An academic division still persists between Ottoman and Islamic legal studies. In the past, the former very rarely set Ottoman law in a general Islamic context; the latter often viewed Ottoman legal reasoning as having no pertinence to Islamic law in general. In fact, each of the two fields has a very strong tradition of isolated internal discussion. Over the past few decades, however, there has been a marked increase in interest in the relationship between the Islamic jurisprudence and legal practice and the reconciliation of the two. Ottoman law provides a timely demonstration of the flexibility and contextual sensitivity of Islamic law, contrasting with commonly held conceptions of the fikih as a fixed canon. Hence, a flourishing theme in Ottoman studies is currently the relationship between legal theory and practical jurisprudence. Historians of Islamic legal discourse have begun to exploit Ottoman legal records as a source for the study of Islamic legal history.