Abstract

Court (Shar’iyya) recordings are at the forefront of primary written sources, which contain important documents related to Turkish history, sociology and culture. The court records shed light on city history of the period concerned with rich information and documents. These records are important books in which the documents related to the judicial, administrative, economic, architectural and social structure of a city as well as diplomatic correspondence between the center and the province were recorded. The purpose of this study is to prepare a detailed catalog in addition to the catalog which was made in 1963 and contained only 119 books specifying only the dates covered by the book number. As we have seen in this study, all of the 119 notebooks in the records do not consist of the court registers in the known form. They are the books that include the records of court proceedings, which are different from those of the court, especially after the Tanzimat e.g. Qassam, Enkiha, Zabt al-Da’wa, Permission and so on. The microfilms of the books were presented to the service of researchers in Sivas Ziya Bey Library of Ancient Works. The originals of the books are in the Prime Ministry State Archives.SummaryShar’iyyaregisters are one of the primary written sources about Turkish history, sociology, and culture relevant to our life. Registry records shed light on the history of city in the relevant period by containing rich information and documents. They are important notebooks, which are related to the judicial, administrative, economic, architectural and social structure of a city, and also in the form of diplomatic correspondence between the central and provincial posts.After the Anatolian Selçuk (Saljūq) State, which collapsed under the pressure and domination of the Iranian Mongols in the last half of the XIIIth century, a state was established in the Selçuk-Byzantine border in the north-west of Anatolia in XIVth century, which did not even lasted a hundred years and had a reign in three continents. In the Bursa inscription, which dated to 1337/8, the second Ottoman Sultan (Sulṭān) Orhan was titled as the mujahedeen (warrior), the sultan of the veterans, son of veteran of veteran. The fact that Orhan carring these titles shows that since the earliest times, the Ottoman sultans considered themselves as the leader of the religious war against the infidels. Since the first years of the establishment of the Ottoman State, the Sharīʿa ruled on the establishment of administration and for this reason, they established institution of the Shaykh al-Islām(the chief juristconsult). Firstly, by appointing a subaşı(subashi, an Ottoman gubernatorial title) to the conquered places, then it gradually began to establish judicial courts from the smallest areas.In the XVth century, the number of qāḍī increased in parallel with the increase in their jurisdiction as a result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and the proliferation of the administrative units called sancak, (sanjaq, division of a province) and so the failure of oneqāḍīto satisfy court affairs of an entire sanjaq. New districts arose from some of the former large districts. As a result of this in the XVIth century, the administrative system of the sanjaq's Tımar system and at the same time a geographical integrity of the districts/provinces to see the legal work of a qāḍī to pass by the districts and sub-district as a legal caused to occur two legal definitions that is legal and military administrative. Records of qāḍīs, which is called as sicilemerged because it was their duty to record their works and orders issued to them and the answers and the provisions given to them.The courts of Shar’iyyaserved as primary general courts (maḥākim-i ʿumūmiye) until the declaration of the Tanẓīmāt in the Ottoman Empire and heard the suit at legal, criminal, administrative, military, financial and all kinds of cases. Tanẓīmāt period, or rather Maḥmūd II and the period following him, the judicial organs in terms of reorganization was a circuit that was on the scene.In this way, which was occurred in the judicial system, records which were kept in the Meşihat (Mashīkhat) began to diversify depending on this change. Since in the registry books, which we call classical, all correspondence between the central and provincial offices were recorded. Records such as pleas, letters of patent, verdicts, order of the high, bonds etc. could be found in these documents.These records, which are one of the most important sources of an Ottoman city history, were kept in the museums and libraries of the cities until recently. A few years ago, these records, with a correct decision, were collected in the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives and it was preserved and presented to the use of researchers by transferring them into digital. The Sivas Court building as it is known in history is now in the Pāshābeg quarter and known as the Court Bazaar in these days. There is no clear information about when the court was built in Sivas. In time, changes have occurred in cities and we are losing the historical side of them. In addition, the fact that people acted in an unconscious manner that would harm the historical texture was the biggest factor in disappearance of material remains. With the remaining physical materials available, we can only access crumb information and we can only make predictions. In this evaluation, the biggest materials are the documents and notebooks, which are the memory of city dates. However, it is understood from the records that there is a foundation belonging to this court and some of the court's repair and maintenance works were carried out by this foundation. As it is understood from a document dated 14 August 1798, one of the repairs was sponsored by Ḥüseyin Efendī. In an inscription dated 1906, which was found during the renovation of the basement of an apartment building owned by the General Directorate of Foundations in May 2018, the location of the building was previously known as the Sivas Muftī 's Office.In this study, a total of 240 registry books belonging to Sivas were prepared as in a catalog system. In this study, we have seen that a great deal of records have been lost, burnt or destroyed in a certain way through history. The burn marks in the records of 79 is a striking example in this regard. The book number 139, which is not shown in Osman Ersoy's work, is a record book in classical form. An important case in this study is that the register number 206, which is registered to Sivas, belongs to the province of Burdur and it is also a registry book in classical form. This book covers the dates of 18 M. 1248/23 N.1250 - 1832-1835.