The Ottoman Empire was a multi-religious empire. Yet Ottoman non-Muslims, who made up half or more of the empire’s population for most of its history, rarely appeared as agents in imperial discourse. This asymmetry is reflected in the way historians understand non-Muslims’ position in Ottoman society, which they have traditionally viewed through the lens of either sharia or the millet system. According to the former, Ottoman non-Muslims were subject to a scripturally based and timeless set of rules imposed upon them from above. According to the latter, they maintained a parallel existence in closed-off enclaves, conducting their affairs within their own communities, separate from and subordinate to the rest of the realm. In both cases, non-Muslims are seen as objects of Ottoman rule but not as active agents in it—subjects of a system that governed their lives but in whose construction and perpetuation they played no part.

Recent research has challenged these traditional understandings. In the legal field in particular, empirical work on the diverse ways Ottoman non-Muslims pressed claims for justice has cast fresh light on the many avenues through which Ottoman subjects pursued agendas and sought redress, while also raising new questions about how state and society reflected upon, responded to, and engaged with these efforts. It has also highlighted the historically contingent nature of sharia as a system of law. Far from a static and inflexible set of rules, sharia was produced and reproduced through the interactions of the state apparatus, Muslim scholars, and different social groups, including non-Muslims. It served as a system of legal norms, but also as a space in which Muslims and non-Muslims could contribute to the development of these norms, thus smoothing the integration of different political groups into the society and the imperial political and legal system.

This conference intends to contribute to the growing body of research on non-Muslims as integral parts of Ottoman society and on the various and evolving roles they played as agents in the legal system across the empire (in Anatolia, Arab lands, the Balkans, Istanbul, the Mediterranean, etc.). Focusing on the period from the early modern to the modern era, we invite participants to engage with questions such as the following: How can we reveal non-Muslims’ agency in the Ottoman legal context? What notions and practices of institutionalization, authority, and coercion did non-Muslims have? How do these diverge from the static models that have traditionally dominated scholarship on the subject? And what new, dynamic models can we develop in their place to better understand the varying ways non-Muslims participated in Ottoman society? We are especially keen to invite contributions from scholars who pursue socio-legal approaches and those who are interested in how social conditions and processes (demographics, economic features, geographies, neighborhood structures, professional solidarities, gender, etc.) influenced and were affected by legal norms, processes, and practices.

We are also interested in non-Muslims’ own perceptions of Ottoman justice at both the communal and the individual levels, and in how other actors perceived and responded to their ideas of justice. In addition, we welcome papers investigating the participation of individual and institutional actors (e.g., the Divan, non-Muslim religious and communal courts, qadi courts, guilds) in legal processes; the mechanisms by which different kinds of jurisprudence and norms (e.g., canon law, local custom, sharia, kanun) were employed in the pursuit of justice; and the role of different forms of coercion (e.g., state, ecclesiastical, professional, social) in the implementation of justice, the instruments through which these forms of coercion were exerted, and the actors who wielded them.