Kadi in Ottoman Urban Management

Western Civilization explains local governments and local democracy in the literature. It is emphasized that Eastern Civilization cannot produce a local government, local democracy. There is no emphasis on how local governments are shaped in the Ottoman/Eastern regions. Liberal history thesis; It is based in the West, and reads the relationship between the modern state and the local state. It is not his job to define pre-modernization. It evaluates the other parts of the world according to whether it fits the west. The material ground is the relations of production. According to this approach, there is no Islamic city or Eastern city. In this article, the traces of pre-modernization of the city administration in the Ottoman Empire, which is both Islam and the East, are examined and the invalidity of this thesis is examined. In this study, the Kadi Institution will be examined in order to trace the local government and local democracy in the Ottoman Empire. In this study, firstly, Kadi as an institution of Islam will be dealt with, and then the Ottoman State, Kadi Institution, Kadi appointment procedures and the hierarchy of the Kadi Institution, the duties of the Kadi and their role in the city will be emphasized. Finally, the changes in the Kadi institution and local government/local democracy with the modernization process will be evaluated by considering Tanzimat Edict and Islahat Edict.