Journal of Islamic Studies Advance Access published online on July 3, 2009
Journal of Islamic Studies, doi:10.1093/jis/etp053
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The Ottoman Mevali as ‘Lords of the Law’
University of California, Davis
E-mail: btezcan{at}ucdavis.edu
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Abstract |
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This article argues that in the late-sixteenth and the early-seventeenth centuries the high-ranking Ottoman judges and professors of law, the mevali (sing. mevla, lord), came to constitute a privileged social group, a nobility of sorts, whose members could pass on their social status to their sons. It discusses briefly the legitimizing and legal-administrative functions of the ulema, or scholar-jurists, which provided them with invaluable leverage vis-à-vis the Ottoman administrative apparatus and thus secured them certain privileges, and then summarizes the main rules that governed ulema careers and brought about the development of a quite exclusive social group, the mevali, at the summit of the ulema hierarchy. Thereafter, the evidence that demonstrates the exclusivity of the mevali nobility in the period 1550–1650 is presented in some detail. The last part of the article introduces one of the most important mevali families of the seventeenth century, the Sa’deddinzades.