A commentary on Suleimanian legislation in the Ottoman Empire
The rapid development of the Ottoman state from a small tribe to an empire was inseparable from the foreign conquests of the sultans in the early days, but most of them only focused on expanding their territory, did not implement a management policy for the territories they conquered, and did not attach importance to the establishment of relevant codes to consolidate internal power.
This partly led to the hegemony formed by the Ottoman Empire with an element of vulnerability.
01. The growth history of Suleiman I
Suleiman I was born in 1494 in Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast, his father was Shelim I, who attached great importance to Suleiman I's education.
In his childhood, Suleiman invited professional teachers to study books such as the Quran, and at the same time actively studied music, crafts, arithmetic, Arabic and other subjects, which allowed him to receive more comprehensive knowledge in the process of growing up, laying the foundation for his future legislation.
When Suleiman was 15 years old, he began his journey of local experience, like his heirs, and in the process, he served in Kalasisa, Istanbul, Manisa and other places, allowing Suleiman to understand the actual situation in various places and accumulate rich experience in governance.
At the same time, during the Manisa period, Suleiman made certain improvements in the social system according to the local situation.
By 1520, the 26-year-old Suleiman I successfully became the new sultan, because of the efforts of previous sultans, the Ottoman Empire at this time had a relatively complete bureaucratic system, and a steady stream of high-quality officials was sent to Suleiman, so that Suleiman could concentrate on the development and construction of the country.
Although the expansion of the empire was extremely successful before Suleiman I, it initially began to expand from regions such as Asia Minor, and the ethnic group was mainly concentrated among the Muslim community.
However, as the territory continued to expand, more and more ethnic minorities were conquered and became subjects of the empire, bringing not only differences in language, but also ideological and cultural conflicts, which made the administration of the Ottoman Empire new challenges.
Suleiman I keenly discovered that the administrative work done in the country at this time could not meet the needs of the rapid expansion of the empire.
Due to the gap between the two, many of the internal systems of the provisional administration were extremely chaotic, and the phenomena of favoritism, fraud, and corruption were endless, and Suleiman knew that it was time to introduce new legislation to meet the needs of the Ottoman Empire's external conquests and internal consolidation and development.
02. Suleiman legislative content
In order to make the content of the legislation really meet the development of the empire and the needs of the people, a large number of public discussions, debates and practices began to be held within the empire to provide theoretical basis and practical cases for the formulation of laws.
As a result, numerous legislative documents began to pour out, the most representative of which are the "Convergence of the Rivers", the Suleimanite Penal Code, the Book of Laws and so on.
The Convergence of the Rivers is a compilation of laws compiled by the famous jurist Hallaibi during the early reign of Suleiman I. There are 57 chapters, divided by theme, covering civil, criminal, religious, military and other fields.
Prior to its codification, Hallaibi spent a great deal of investigative time trying to get the code to correct the chaotic legal situation in the country. And the birth of this code not only became the basis for judges' trials, but also became a teaching material for schools.
The Suleiman Penal Code was a late code of law during Suleiman's reign and was compiled on the basis of the revision and improvement of the previous codes used in Sudan.
However, although there are blueprints, in the classification of many crimes, the division is more detailed, and some crimes that were not previously identified have been determined, and some very severe forms of torture have been deleted in this code, which has the meaning of human care.
In terms of structure, the code has been greatly improved, because before that, they mainly arranged in penal terms, that is, all the crimes subject to that punishment were arranged together.
However, the Suleiman's Penal Code adopts the same type of crime, and then appropriately sentences according to the circumstances and the severity of the conduct, which provides a new scheme for the arrangement of later codes.
Although the Book of Laws was also a decree covering laws, it was mainly applied to ethnic minorities in the Ottoman Empire.
In terms of content, it relies more on the culture and code of conduct of these ethnic minorities, which is a necessary code to meet the rule of the empire over these special groups, and compared with the previous law, there are many detailed and necessary modifications in content, and moderate amendments have been made according to the situation.
In addition to the above three codes, there are also the Sanjak Code, the Egyptian Code, the Ottoman Royal Code, etc., which together support the legal system of the entire Ottoman Empire and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the people.
03. Impact of Suleiman's legislation
Suleiman's legislative activities continued from the beginning of his reign until his death, breaking the previous situation in which the sultan did not attach importance to the consolidation of domestic power, and his legislative activities brought positive significance to the development of the Ottoman Empire.
First of all, the successive promulgation of these decrees allowed the Ottoman Empire's external expansion and internal governance policy to achieve a certain level of balance, so that Suleiman I could safely fight abroad and contribute to the strength of the Ottoman Empire.
Secondly, the implementation of these laws greatly alleviated the class and ethnic contradictions that existed at that time, not only safeguarded the rights and interests of the original people in the empire, but also allowed the ethnic minorities to develop well, and they then jointly safeguarded the rule of the Sultan.
Finally, Suleiman's legislative acts, as well as the content revision and codification structure in the legislative process, provided new ideas for future generations of legislative activities and promoted the development of the legal profession.
However, it should be noted that the implementation of Suleiman's legislation has not been smooth sailing, although Suleiman has given great support and attention to legislative work compared to the previous Sudan.
However, he himself is still in the process of long-term conquest, and his understanding of the implementation of the law is relatively slow, which has caused a certain degree of inefficiency and corruption within the law, affecting the process of implementing the law.
Resources:
History of the Middle East
The Ottoman Empire
#历史开讲 #
