Şer'iyye Registers are the notebooks recorded in the courts of the Ottoman period. These registers, which contain the legal proceedings of the society in the center and provinces of the Ottoman Empire, are an important source for research in the social, economic, legal, demographic and architectural fields of Ottoman history. They are considered to be primary sources for understanding the functions of local administration, the structure of cities and social order. Today, these registers provide researchers with the opportunity to go deeper into Ottoman history and conduct micro-level studies.
The content of the registers includes all kinds of records related to civil law such as legal disputes, inheritances, inheritance divisions, marriage and divorce, notarial procedures (purchase-sale, lease, donation, debt exchange, loan transactions), criminal cases, municipal activities and the price regulations, documents related to the disposal, construction and repair of foundations and/or public buildings, copies of provisions and edicts from the center, and social and economic issues of the society.
The earliest examples of Shar'iyye Registers in the Ottoman Empire belong to the court of Bursa. The first examples of the registers, dated 1455, were kept regularly until the beginning of the twentieth century, even though they have been become narrower in terms of the subjects they covered due to the establishment of new courts in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The ISAM Library Archive is the most comprehensive collection of qadi registers in the world, including those of Istanbul, Anatolia, the Balkans and some cities in the Middle East. They can be searched digitally at the İSAM Library.