Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Islam Tetkikleri Dergisi, cilt.13, sa.1, ss.115-142, 2023 (Scopus)
One of the critical points in Ottoman modernization involved the Commercial Code of Berriye of 1850, because this code formed the first of the texts the authorized board adopted as an exemplary source of foreign law and indigenized within the context of its own terms and needs. The number of independent studies on the Commercial Code is not high. In most of them, the sharī ground of the Law was not sufficiently revealed, and it was claimed that the ulamā were dissidents because of the acceptance of the law as the product of external pressure. The articles containing interest have been used as one of the grounds for the argument of opposition to the ulamā without adequate examination. However, the ulamā always existed at a certain level in the assemblies that planned and implemented the Tanzīmāt reforms. Commercial law is the key to the Western theory of interest in Ottoman law. This article will first refer to the role of the codification procedure in ensuring legislative compliance with the Sharīa and then evaluate the archival material regarding the enactment procedures of commercial law in the context of the ulamā's contributions. In addition, the article will connect the paradigm of legitimacy, which had taken on legal official language through the ulamā's contributions, with the legal commercial conditions of the period. Finally, the study will briefly touch upon the theoretical background of how the concepts of interest and guzishta occurred in commercial law despite the ban on ribā that had been applied in Ottoman law as one of the basic principles of Sharīa law. The study will also determine how the legitimacy problem had been overcome in the context of the ulamā's contributions.