Islamic Sacred Law

[Nikephoros]

I put this thread in this forum since it seems it fits best. It gives a good concise introduction into how Ottoman Christians lived under Islamic law. You should check out this author he has been writing on the Armenian genocide since the 1970s knows modern Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and many other languages. He is like an Ottoman historian that is not a Kemalist fascist, which is rare since most of even the non-Turkish historians writing works on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire adhere to this unique brand of fascism.

From:
Dadrian , Vahakn N., The History of the Armenian Genocide. Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. (Providence/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997/second revision) p. 3-6.

Chapter 1
Islamic Sacred Law as a Matrix of Ottoman Legal Order
and Nationality Conflicts
As a first step toward a full analysis of the nationality conflicts, it is necessary to examine Islam as a major determinant in the genesis and escalation of these conflicts. The precepts and infallible dogmas of Islam, as interpreted and applied within the framework of a theocratic Ottoman state organization, encompassing a congeries of non-Islamic nationalities, proved to be enduring sources of division in the relationship between the dominant Muslims and the latter. In many ways that conflict was a replica and an extension of conflicts plaguing the relationships of the various nationalities in the Balkans with the Turks who, as conquerors, played the role of overlords towards these subjects over a long period of time. In this sense, it may be observed that Islam not only functioned as a source of unending nationality conflicts both in the Balkans and Turkish Armenia, but it also functioned as a nexus of the correlative Eastern and Armenian questions, through the explosion of which the issues of creed and religious affiliation for decades were catapulted into the forefront of international conflicts.
Although Islam is a religious creed, it is also a way of life for its followers, transcending the boundaries of faith to permeate the social and political fabric of a nation. Islam's bent for divisiveness, exclusivity, and superiority, which overwhelms its nominal tolerance of other religions, is therefore vital to an understanding of a Muslim-dominated, multi-ethnic system such as Ottoman Turkey.
The Islamic character of Ottoman theocracy was a fundamental factor in the Ottoman state's legal organization. The Sultan, who exercised supreme political power, also carried the title of Khalif (meaning Successor to Mohammed, and a vicar of supreme authority) and thereby served as the supreme protector of Islam. Thus, the Sultan-Khalif was entrusted with the duty of protecting the canon law of Islam, called the Seriat, meaning revelation (of the laws of God as articulated by the prophet Mohammed). The Seriat comprised not only religious precepts, but a fixed and infallible doctrine of duties, including regulations of a juridical and political nature whose prescriptions and proscriptions were restricted to the territorial jurisdiction of the State.
These Islamic doctrines embraced by the Ottoman state circumscribed the status of non-Muslims within its jurisdiction. The Ottoman system was not merely a theocracy but a subjugative political organization based on the principle of fixed superordination and subordination governing the legal relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, and entailing social and political disabilities for the latter.1 The Koran, the centerpiece of the Seriat, embodies some 260 verses, most of them uttered by Mohammed in Mecca, enjoining the faithful to wage cihad, holy war, against the "disbelievers," e.g, those who do not profess the "true faith" (hakk din), and to "massacre" (fatal) them.2 Moreover, the verse "Let there be no coercion in religion"3 is superseded and thus cancelled (mensuh) by Mohammed's command to "wage war against the unbelievers and be severe unto them."4 The verse that has specific relevance for the religious determination of the legal and political status of non-Muslims whose lands have been conquered by the invading Islamic warriors has this command: "Fight against them who do not follow the religion of truth until they pay tribute [ciziye] by right of subjection, and they be reduced low."5 This stipulation is the fundamental prerequisite to ending warfare and introducing terms of clemency.
The Ottoman Empire's Islamic doctrines and traditions, reinforced by the martial institutions of the State, resulted in the emergence of principles of common law which held sway throughout the history of the Ottoman socio-political system. The Sultan-Khalif's newly incorporated non-Muslim subjects were required to enter into a quasi-legal contract, the Akdi Zimmet, whereby the ruler guaranteed the "safeguard" (ismet) of their persons, their civil and religious liberties, and, conditionally, their properties, in exchange for the payment of poll and land taxes, and acquiescence to a set of social and legal disabilities. These contracts marked the initiation of a customary law in the Ottoman system that regulated the unequal relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Ottoman common law thus created the status of "tolerated infidels [relegated to] a caste inferior to that of their fellow Moslem subjects."6 The Turkish scholar N. Berkes further pointed out that the intractability of this status was a condition of the Seriat, which "could not admit of [non-Muslim] equality in matters over which it ruled. [Even the subsequent secular laws based on] the concept of Kanun (law) did not imply legal equality among Muslims and non-Muslims."7
This principle of Ottoman common law created a political dichotomy of superordinate and subordinate status. The Muslims, belonging to the umma the politically organized community of believers, were entitled to remain the nation of overlords. Non-Muslims were relegated to the status of tolerated infidels. These twin categories helped perpetuate the divisions between the two religious communities, thereby embedding conflict into the societal structure. Moreover, the split transcended the political power struggle occurring in Ottoman Turkey during this time period. Even when the Young Turk Ittihadists succeeded Sultan Abdul Hamit into power in 1908, they reaffirmed the principle of the ruling nation (milleti hakime). While promising liberty, justice, and equality for all Ottoman subjects, they vowed to preserve the superordinate-subordi-nate dichotomy. That vow was publicly proclaimed through Tanin, the quasi-official publication of the Ittihad party. Huseyin Cahid, its editor, declared in an editorial that irrespective of the final outcome of the nationality conflict in Turkey, "the Turkish nation is and will remain the ruling nation."8
The Ittihad's adherence to the ruling nation principle is particularly noteworthy because the Ittihad were not followers of the tenets of Islam. While the Ittihad continued to run the State largely as a theocracy, its leaders were personally atheists and agnostics. Mardin described this irreligiousness as follows: "Distrust added to disgust was their attitude toward institutional Islam ... [yet they saw fit to develop a manipulative instrumental attitude toward religion."9 Moreover, British Ambassador Lowther in a report of June 7, 1909, expressed the opinion that the Young Turk Ittihadist leaders' deprecation of the Koran bordered on "contempt" for it and for what it stood.10 Morgenthau confirms this view from his personal contacts with these leaders. "I can personally testify that he [Talat] cared nothing for Mohammedanism for, like most of the leaders of his party, he scoffed at all religions, I hate all priests, rabbis and hod-jas" he once told me.... Practically all of them were atheists."11 'These leaders, however, recognized the pervasive influence of Islam in the country and resolved to exploit it in their plans to eliminate the sources of domestic nationality conflicts. A Turkish sociologist added, "Religion was used [by Ittihad) as a basis of agitation to secure popularity."12 And the late dean of Turkish political scientists declared that "the Ittihadists had to embrace Islamism as an official and obligatory element of [their] ideology."13 The Ittihad's actions reveal a central truth of the use of political power within Ottoman Turkey: actual power or influence within the Ottoman Empire could only exist to the extent that it recognized and incorporated the tenets of Islam. The following summary conclusion of the late dean of Turkish historians provides a plausible explanation for this phenomenon: "The Ottomans were unable to separate religion from state affairs, as has been the case in the Western world. Up to its very last years, the Ottoman Empire used religion as a leverage to control state affairs through the medium of fetvas" (religious decisions based on the canon law of Islam).14 These tenets embodied an inherent resistance to change, rendering the specter of innovation threatening, and thus unacceptable, to Muslim subjects.15

Notes to Chapter 1
1 .Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, 48,49, 62, 67, 70, 76, 84, 89, 108. 140-41, 143, 154-56; Doc. No. 52, The Armenians, 281-88; Doc No. 53, Obstacles to Christian Emancipation 289-90, Jacques Ellul's Preface 26-33. D. Maisel, P. Fenon, D. Littman trans. (London, 1985) (Bat Ye'or is the pseudonym of Y. Masriya). 2. Koran ch. 47, verse 4; ch. 9, verse 125; ch, 2, verse 211; ch. 3, verses 10, 13,14,131; ch. 8, verse 12; ch 9, verses 29, 38, and 41.
3. Ibid., ch. 2, verse 256.
4. Ibid., Ch. 9, verse 73.
5. Ibid., ch. 9, verse 29. See also C.E. Bosworth. "The concept of Dhimma in early Islam." In Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, edited by B. Braude and B. Lewis, vol. 1 (New York, 1982), 41.
6. H. Gibb & H. Bowen, Islamic Society and the West vol. 1:2 (Oxford, 1962), 208.
7. N. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964), 94. Nelidof, Russian Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey and a contemporary of the episode of the 1895-96 Armenian massacres, on December 24, 1896 diplomatically confided to German ambassador Saurma that "real reforms" for which the Powers were pressuring the Turks, and which fact in no small way had contributed to these massacres, "were simply not feasible." His rationale for this assertion was that, as seen from a Muslim religious point of view, no Christian or Jew could be granted a status equal to that of a Muslim, "even when the former submits to the latter. All references to equality are but appearance intended to deceive the European Powers." Die Crosse Politik der EuropaYschen Kabinette 1871-1914, vol. 12, Part 1, p. 245.
8. Tanin (Istanbul), October 25, 1908.
9. S. A. Mardin, "Ideology and Religion in the Turkish Revolution," International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 207-08.
10. F0371/761/22020, folio /83.
11. H. Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, (Garden City, N.Y., 1918), 20, 323.
12. A. Yalman, The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by its Press (New York, 1914), 100.
13. T. Z. Tunaya, Tiirkiyede Siyasal Partiler (Political Parties in Turkey) vol. 3 (Istanbul. 1989), 144.
14. Yusuf H. Bayur, Turk Inkilabi Tarihi (History of the Turkish Revolution ) vol. 3, Part 3 (Ankara, 1957), 481.
15. As Leon Festinger stated in his general theory of cognitive dissonance, the existence of an opposing set of beliefs makes the individual less certain of his own beliefs. That individual then acts on his own beliefs more strongly in order to compensate for his uncertainty. L. Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, California 1957), 263-66.