Implementing Imperial Justice: The Court of Ibn Tulun and the Development of the Ottoman Courts of Egypt 1530-1580

FAIN: FT-59209-11

Shauna Huffaker
University of Windsor (Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4 Canada)

Local and imperial forces combined to create a distinct Ottoman legal culture and institutions in Egypt after its incorporation into the empire. This project will be the first step in producing a microhistorical study of the notaries of a single court in suburban Cairo over its first half century. The creative process mediated and nurtured by the notaries working at the court of Ibn Tulun wove together ongoing legislation and bureaucratic initiatives imposed from Istanbul with the constant efforts of the patrons to remake, alter and reinterpret legal rules and practices to suit their own needs. This stipend would allow the reading of all surviving documents produced by the early Ottoman courts of Egypt in order to construct a basic outline of legal change over time. In addition to filling a lacunae in Egyptian legal history, this study will contribute to scholarship on Islamic law and society, Imperial studies and the anthropology of the law.