ABSTRACT
The image one gains of the women of early-sixteenth-century Uskiidar, Istanbul, through the law registers of the district goes against the commonly held and slowly disintegrating stereotype of Ottoman women as closeted and powerless victims of law and custom. 1 It is true that by the process of Islamic law itself, the testimony of a female, like that of a non-Muslim, was assigned a fraction of the weight of that of a Muslim male. But this restriction did not mean that the courts were closed to women, that women could not seek redress, or that they were denied recourse according to Islamic law or shariah. To the contrary, the court was considered the protector of women and as cases recorded in the court registers show, the women of Uskiidar both were conscious of their access to the court and used it. Moreover, whereas the literature of the period inscribed either the imperial focus of Ottoman chroniclers or the random glances of European observers, thereby glazing over the subject of women and adding to their mystery and invisibility, my analysis of court records provides evidence that women were actively and openly engaged in the everyday life of their communities.
