2012/01/01 by James Baldwin · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Islamic Studies and History #Marriage and Sexual Relationships
paper · doi:10.1163/156852012x628518
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract This article examines the treatment of prostitution in several genres of Ottoman legal writing—manuals and commentaries of Islamic jurisprudence, fatwās (legal opinions) and ḳānūnnāmes (Sultanic legislation)—and looks at how prostitution was dealt with in practice by the empire’s sharīʿa courts and by its provincial executive authorities. The article uses prostitution as a case study to investigate the relationships between the different genres of legal writing and between normative law and legal practice. It also throws light on various manifestations of prostitution in the Ottoman provinces of Egypt and Syria between the mid-sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries.