SHARIAsource

This Country Profile provides a basic overview of the legal history and institutional structures of the Republic of Turkey (Turkiye Cumhuriyeti), based on research produced by GlobaLex at NYU Law School and the Library of Congress. Under Turkey's Constitution, Islamic law (sharīʿa or fiqh) has no legal status. 

This document is a beyānnāme, or declaration, sent by the Ottoman reʾīsül-kuttāb (chief scribe) to Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, justifying the Ottoman declaration of war on Russia by explaining Russia's violation of treaty obligations. The document gives insight into eighteenth-century Ottoman attitudes to international law and its relationship with Islamic law. Its use of the phrase naḳż-ı ʿahd (breaking the treaty), which has its origins in a specifically Qurʾānic context illustrates one way in which war was legitimized within the Ottoman Empire. Other phrases used in the beyānnāme demonstrate how Ottoman legal plurality functioned within a martial context. 

A petition sent to the Ottoman Sultan from Egypt in 1155 AH (1742-3), concerning a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian in the town of Zifta. The Muslim petitioner attempts to enforce the regulation of the Pact of 'Umar that forbids non-Muslims from having houses taller than those of Muslims. Baldwin's commentary on the petition focuses on how the petitioning process relates to the sharīʿa court system in the Ottoman Empire.

This document is a beyānnāme, or declaration, sent by Recāī Efendi, the Ottoman reʾīsül-kuttāb (chief scribe), to Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. It justifies the Ottoman declaration of war on Russia by explaining Russia's violation of treaty obligations, and gives insight into eighteenth-century Ottoman attitudes to international law and its relationship with Islamic law.

In its decision, the Turkish Council of State (the highest administrative court in Turkey) has decided that the cabinet decision dated 1934 that converted the Kariye Mosque into a museum was void, as it contravened the waqf deed which had dedicated the building as a mosque open to public use.

This presidential decision signed by Turkey's founding president Kemal Ataturk and his cabinet members converted the Hagia Sophia from a mosque into a museum. The decision cites a letter from the Ministry of Education of the time arguing that said conversion would "make the entire Orient happy" and "gift humanity a new site of knowledge."  The Ministry of Education's letter proposing the conversion into a museum, which the presidential decision cites and upon which it is based, also argues that the mosque has no waqf status–despite being used by Ottoman sultans–due to its status as "an artifact from the Byzantines."  

Following the administrative court decision that annulled the Cabinet Decision of 1945 that converted the Kariye Mosque into a museum, President Erdogan made the decision to transfer the management of the site to the Presidency of Religious Affairs and restore it as a mosque open to worship.

English translation of the 1876 Ottoman Constitution.

English translation of the 1909 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire (1876 Ottoman Constitution, as amended to 1909).

English translation of 1923 amendments to the 1921 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.

English translation of the 1921 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.

English translation of the 1924 Constitutional Law of the Turkish Republic.

English translation of the 1928 Constitution of Turkey (1924 Constitutional Law of the Turkish Republic, as amended to 1928).

English translation of 1931 Law Modifying the (1924) Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.

English translation of 1937 Law Modifying the (1924) Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.

English translation of the 1945 Constitution of the Turkish Republic.

English translation of the 1961 Constitution of the Turkish Republic.

English translation of the 1982 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.

English translation of the 1987 Constitution of Turkey (1982 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, as amended to 1987).

English translation of the 2008 Constitution of Turkey (1982 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, as amended to Law No. 5375 of 9 February 2008).