The Perception of Women in Trabzon Sharīʿa Court Records

Being a woman in Muslim or other religious societies does not include a process in which only religious rules are in effect. Instead, the experiences of women are determined by political, social, and economic conditions, and reflect the cultural precedents created by past societies, whether Muslim or not. Hence, the way women are described in a society they belong in emerges as a cultural reflection that bears each and every element in that particular society. Therefore, it is not possible to consider apart from this circumstance the descriptions of women in Ottoman Trabzon Sharīʿa court records. In this study, the definitions of women who lived in Ottoman Trabzon over their gender and, occasionally, their sexuality, reflected in the discourses of Sharīʿa courts are discussed, and the social and legal status of such women is examined. This investigation is placed within the framework of religious and cultural conditions which impacted such definitions and descriptions. This study has been based on evidence available in early seventeenth-century Ottoman Trabzon Sharīʿa court records.