За правните компетенции на кадийския съд през XVII век
The Judicial Powers of the Kadi Court in the 17th c.

Summary/Abstract: The author has outlined the judicial prerogatives of the kadi court and the legal procedures followed as revealed in kadi sicills mainly from Ruse, Sofia and Vidin, preserved in the Oriental Department in the Sts Cyril and Methodius National Library. The first part of the article is devoted to a presentation of the variety of legal cases brought to the kadi court, roughly divided in three big groups: “notary”, “civil” and “criminal” cases, this division introduced because of differences in the legal procedures. Particular attention is paid to the family law cases and the role of the kadi court in them. An attempt is also made, in the second part of the article, to outline the functions and role of some of the officers attached to the kadi court: naibs, muhtesibs and particularly the institution of the “muslihun” (mediators), as well as those of the assistants and personnel of the court: ka.ibs and muhzirs. The legal procedures applied in the Ottoman kadi courts not only made possible, but required a wide participation of the local population in their work – through the institutions of the şuhud ul-hal (witnesses to a case), of the ehl-i vukuf, ehl-i habere, ehl-i huruf (experts). Some data have been provided concerning the question of how far this participation was really wide, the role of these institutions in a lawsuit and the religious affiliation of the people acting as such in terms of the attitude of Orthodox Christians to the kadi court. In conclusion, the author points out that the kadi court appears to have been the most important judicial institution in the provinces for the reaya, for Muslims and, to some extent, for Orthodox Christians, the latter having also other options for solving their legal disputes – the Church courts and the community bodies.

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