Justice of the Peace Courts in the Adjudication of Property Disputes in the Ottoman Countryside (1839–1914)

Abstract

This article examines the institutionalization of justice of the peace courts in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire on the one hand, and on the other investigates the adjudication of property disputes in the lowest administrative units (villages and communes), within the context of establishing a regime of individual and exclusive property rights. Such an analysis historicizes the transformation that justice of the peace courts underwent in the 19th century. It therefore seeks to free these courts from being regarded as an ahistorical extrajudicial and/or judicial dispute settlement mechanism (sulh).