RELATIONS OF NON-MUSLIMS WITH SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ACCORDING TO CORUM KADI REGISTERS (1839-1909)

Abstract

Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed a wide variety of rights such as the safety of their lives, property, honor and freedom of thought, religion and worship as required by the nation system. They were able to maintain their own culture and to adapt to the system through the rights granted to them in the fields of administrative and private law in accordance with the non-Muslim law. However, despite these wide range of rights granted to them in penal-law cases concerning the public, non-Muslims were still able to apply to the kadi courts in matters that fall under private law cases such as inheritance, custody and proxy. When the cases concerning daily-life relations between non-Muslims and Muslims became common in addition to the types of court cases mentioned above, the kadi registers turned into a really important argument in revealing the nature of the aforementioned relations. The purpose of this study is to address the kadi registers, which are mostly analyzed on their judicial or legal aspects, from a different perspective to reveal the nature of the relations of non-Muslims with their environment. The reason for selecting the kadi registers of Corum is the significant variety of examples provided by the city, because by the mid-19th century Armenians started arriving particularly from Talas and Germir districts of Kayseri, and in addition to them there were also Greeks, Catholic and Protestants settled in the area and established relations with the local community. The idea is that the change and transformation that Corum went through from a homogeneous Muslim Turkish city to a heterogeneous imperial city would provide essential data in terms of understanding and making sense of similar historical developments. Following the Industrial Revolution, Europe's need for food and provisions increased and this played a major role in the development of Corum as it is located on the transport route between central areas of Turkey and the northern port town of Samsun. By the late 19th century the rate of non-Muslims, mostly merchants, settling in the area increased rapidly and they started living in different parts of the city. Due to the reason that the non-Muslims chose settling in the existing neighborhoods rather than gathering in certain places or establishing a new neighborhood, their relations with the Muslim community diversified and deepened. As such, non-Muslims formed various types of relations with the Muslim communities during this period as a reflection of the coexistence culture throughout the empire. These relations were mostly reconciliation-centered but there were some disputes in some cases. The relations were also multi-dimensional and had administrative, legal, judiciary, social and cultural aspects, concerning various matters such as charitable institutions, religious conversion, finding and constructing worship places. In addition, there were very strong relations formed with Muslim communities in social and economic life, ranging from livestock farming, land, garden and business partnership, home and shop ownership to tenancy, among other daily matters. In this study, the mentioned relationship network is explained in four parts. In the first part, the social and demographic change process during which Corum evolved into a cosmopolitan imperial city in the 19th century is explained. In the second part, as the number of non-Muslims, their influence and political impact in the city increased over the time, their increasingly diverse relations with the Muslim community are emphasized. In the third part, the legal and judicial issues between non-Muslims and the Muslim community are explained. Ottoman court records contain essential data regarding the legal and judicial relations of non-Muslims with both the Muslim community and the public sphere. In the fourth and last chapter, the multifaceted economic ties of non-Muslims with Muslims are discussed.