Woman in the role of heiress in the ottoman period

An example of Muslim woman in the central Balkans (17-18th century)

Dragana, Amedoski

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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325

338

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08611902325A

2019-2020/03/24/17:39:02

The objective of this paper is inheritence right which was guaranteed to Muslim woman according to Ottoman legal system. Implementation of this law was represented with a lot of examples, primarily from the Central Balkans. Most of the used sources belongs to Record Book of Complaints (Şikâyet Defterleri) and the timeline is the 17th and 18th Century. Besides, we used judicial records of the Ottoman court (Sicils) but for the territory of Istanbul, due to the fact that sicils for today’s Serbia are all lost, and some decisions from the meetings of the Imperial Council (Mühimme defterleri). All of the sources are preserved in Prime Minister’s Archive in Istanbul. Most of them are completely new, so far not processed. Our paper presents that women who inherited and who were property holders were nearly as numerous as men. Heiresses represented themselves in front of the court of law and proceed formalities independently. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177030: Od univerzalnih carstava ka nacionalnim državama. Društvene i političke promene u Srbiji i na Balkanu]

Ottoman Empire, Balkans, woman, inheritance right, Sheria court