Journal of Kocatepe Islamic Sciences

Abstract

This study deals with the relations between non-Muslims and Muslims, who lived in Istanbul neighborhoods in the 18th century, on the axis of neighborhoodness. The determination of these relations was carried out through the Istanbul Ahkâm Registers and the Istanbul Court Registers. It is estimated that 500 thousand people lived in Istanbul in the 18th century. The estimated rate of non-Muslims in this population is around 42%, according to the census of the taxpayer papers in 1740. According to the tribute income of 1776, this rate is 28%. Factors such as religious and ethnic affiliation or being subject to the same industry and a certain group have contributed to the formation of Istanbul neighborhoods. Muslims and non-Muslims continued their lives within the framework of this affiliation. Thus, the concept of neighborhood and community intersect with each other. As a result, neighborhoods that were described as Armenian, Greek, Latin or Christian and Jewish were formed in Istanbul. While the Ottoman city developed by gaining its own characteristics over time, the 17th and 18th centuries were the periods when these features were most evident. This situation, which is also reflected in the Ottoman neighborhoods, is important in terms of exemplifying inter-communal relations. In this period, there were many places where mixed life was seen in Istanbul neighborhoods. However, there were some limits to the residence of non-Muslims in Muslim quarters. While these borders emerged as a result of cultural and religious differences, they also determined the boundaries of the neighborhoods physically. Studies on the sense of responsibility and the social control function of the inhabitants in the Ottoman neighborhoods were mostly examined by Muslims. In this study, while discussing the neighborhood relations of non-Muslims, the issue of their expulsion from Muslim neighborhoods is also addressed. Thus, it was examined how the rules in the neighborhoods affected the Muslim-non-Muslim relations in Istanbul. The attitudes of the neighbors in these relations, the understanding they adopted and the reflection of this understanding on non-Muslims are explained with examples from archive sources. As a matter of fact, the good behavior of the people and whether they were reliable or not could be equated with being under the roof of the same temple. For this reason, the position of non-Muslims living in Muslim neighborhoods or around or near a mosque/masjid has been considered as a border both to ensure social order and to decrease the mosque community. The surety system between neighbors in order to ensure the social order of the neighborhoods in Ottoman cities prompted them to act together against all kinds of immoral and security threats. The awareness of responsibility in the neighborhood has been formed with the authority taken from the law. Those who went out of this system were expelled from the neighborhood or the place to which they belonged, on the grounds that they harmed the awareness of responsibility and the security of the neighborhood. For the residents of the neighborhood as the smallest administrative unit, this need for solidarity, which develops around the same place of worship, is necessary to preserve social life. This situation was shaped by people's desire to live with their co-religionists or community. In addition, in Ottoman cities, non-Muslims and Muslims have similar behaviors as neighborhood residents. There was even solidarity between the neighborhoods against who disrupted the neighborhood order. Under the leadership of the neighborhood or community leader, it was possible to determine whether people were in weal or misdemeanor by ensuring the social order among the neighborhood people. There were many aspects of being in misdemeanor for local residents and rulers. The punishment of this could be demanded by the neighborhood as expulsion from the neighborhood. Thus, the law makes the people living in the neighborhood jointly and severally guarantors for each other and ensures that the misdemeanants are expelled from the neighborhood and punished. As a result, this study examines the misdemeanors in the neighborhoods from various perspectives while questioning the position of non-Muslims in the Muslim neighborhood.