Breaching the Bronze Wall: Franks at Mamluk and Ottoman Courts and Markets

Description

Breaching the Bronze Wall deals with the idea that the words of honorable Muslims constitute proof and that written documents and the words of non-Muslims are of inferior value. Thus, foreign merchants in cities such as Istanbul, Damascus or Alexandria could barely prove any claim, as neither their contracts nor their words were of any value if countered by Muslims. Francisco Apellániz explores how both groups labored to overcome the 'biases against non-Muslims' in Mamluk Egypt’s and Syria’s courts and markets (14th–15th c.) and how the Ottoman conquest (1517) imposed a new, orthodox view on the problem. The book slips into the Middle Eastern archive and the Ottoman , and scrutinizes sharia’s intricacies and their handling by consuls, dragomans, qadis and other legal actors. Readership: Readers of Ottoman and Mamlūk history, Islamic law and justice and anyone interested in the history of Venice and the East and Christian-Muslim relations, as well as cross-cultural relations more broadly. Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Structure of the Book Chapter 2 Producing, Handling and Archiving Evidence in Mediterranean Societies 2.1 The ‘Archival Divide’ 2.1.1 A Threefold Problem a) Justice b) Textuality c) Notarization 2.1.2 Materialist Explanations 2.1.3 Non-Materialist Explanations 2.2 Islamic Notions and Doctrines on Proof and Evidence 2.2.1 Archive Transmission 2.2.2 Was the qimaṭr an Archive? 2.2.3 The Sijill: from Scroll to Codex 2.3 Notaries in the Cross-Confessional Middle Ages 2.3.1 Mediterranean Notarial Traditions 2.3.2 Legal Fiction and Roman Ancestry 2.4 The Case of the Outremer Notaries 2.4.1 Merchants and Notaries in the Eastern Mediterranean 2.5 New Attitudes towards the Written 2.5.1 New Attitudes and Archives 2.5.2 Legal Reform and the Written 2.5.3 Judicializing the Written, Writing Judicially, and Handling Orality Chapter 3 ‘Men Like the Franks’: Dealing with Diversity in Medieval Norms and Courts 3.1 An Introduction to Siyāsa 3.2 The Crusader Marketplace 3.2.1 Muslims and Crusader Courts 3.2.2 Jurors and Witnesses 3.2.3 Courts and Bans 3.2.4 Writing Down Transactions 3.2.5 Crusader Cyprus 3.3 The actor sequitur forum rei Principle 3.4 Empowering One Consul over the Others 3.5 An Iberian Epilogue 3.6 Siyāsa Justice in Theory and Practice 3.6.1 Persians in Cairo, Franks in Acre 3.7 Conflict Resolution in and out of the Courtroom 3.8 Merchants at the Islamic Courts: a Lender of Last Resort? 3.9 Mixed Cases at the Qadi Court 3.10 Mixed Cases before Siyāsa Courts 3.11 Siyāsa among the Franks Chapter 4 Ottoman Legal Attitudes towards Diversity 4.0 The ‘Witness System’: a Bronze Wall? 4.0.1 The Early Ottoman Adjudication System 4.1 The Legal Grounds of the Ottoman Witness System 4.1.1 Vector One: the ‘Ḥanafī Exception’ 4.1.2 Vector Two: Mustāʾmins Cannot Testify 4.1.3 Foreign Unbelievers: Between Mistrust and Accommodation 4.2 The Ban on Muslim Witnesses 4.3 Dhimmī Claims on Communal Exclusivity: the Carazari Clause 4.4 False Witnessing 4.5 Proving Enslavement 4.6 Legal Truth and the Governance of Frontier Zones 4.7 The Aleppo Ferman 4.8 A Death in Damascus 4.8.1 The Priuli Case in Court Chapter 5 Conclusions Bibliography a) Manuscripts b) Arabic and Islamic Sources c) Latin and Christian Sources d) Works Cited Index