Mecelle

[1][2] The Ottoman Turkish name of the code is Mecelle-ʾi Aḥkām-ı ʿAdlīye, which derives from the Arabic مجلة الأحكام العدلية, Majallah el-Ahkam-i-Adliya.

The code was prepared by a commission headed by Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, including a large team of scholars, issued in sixteen volumes (containing 1,851 articles) from 1869 to 1876 and entered into force in the year 1877.

[3] It has been praised as the first successful rendition of Hanafi fiqh into legal civil code comprehensible to the layperson belonging to any religious ideology and not just to Islamic scholars.

[4] The substance of the code was based on the Hanafi legal tradition that enjoyed official status in the Empire, put into European code-form.

However, using the method of preference (Istihsan), it also incorporated other legal opinions that were considered more appropriate to the time, including from non-Hanafis.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the Mecelle remained a lasting influence in most of its successor states (except Egypt, where it was never in force).

This section includes general conditions of trusteeship, as well as stipulations for depositing for safe keeping and loaning for use A gift consists of bestowing the ownership of property upon some other person without receiving anything in return.

This book defines matters relating to the interdiction of minors, lunatics, and imbeciles, as well as prodigals and debtors.

The third part consists of a settlement by the silence of the defendant consequent upon the absence of any admission or denial.

This final book of the Mecelle is based on the legal administration of justice including codification of judges, judgement, retrial, and arbitration.

[7] According to Johann Strauss, author of "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," these two volumes "seem to have been edited solely by Demetrius Nicolaides".

[8] G. Sinapian, a scholar of Turkish studies and a jurist of Armenian descent, translated the eight chapters of the Mecelle in volume 7.

L. Rota, a lawyer of Constantinople (now Istanbul), translated other parts, assisted by Alexander Adamides.

[9] A Greek version, Nomikoi kanones ētoi Astykos Kōdēx (Νομικοί κανόνες ήτοι Αστυκός Κώδηξ), was translated by Konstantinos Photiadis,[10] and Ioannis Vithynos,[11] and was released from 1873 to 1881.