Abstract

In the 16th century Ottoman judicial system, there is a type of kadi which is mentioned as a land judge in both Rumelia and Anatolian provinces. The territorial judgeship, which is subject to different evaluations in terms of its nature, has been handled as a mobile kadi in charge of inspection by Ottoman historians since İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı. Recently, some legal historians have put forward the idea that the land judge is a local judge. For this reason, first of all, current discussions in the literature are discussed. It is focused on when and how the term land kadı was used in Ottoman records. Based on the documents, the different characteristics of these kadis were examined. Evaluation was made about the duties and responsibilities of the edicts sent from the center and it was determined how much this issue overlaps with the duty of the district/town kadis. It has been examined within the framework of archive records, fatwa books, kadi registries and the laws issued in the relevant periods over a period of about two centuries. As a result of the examinations made, it was concluded that the term land judge is not an independent kadi, but rather the kadi of the place where the events took place.