Beginning in the latter half of the 19th century, the Nizamiye Courts (also written Nizami) were a secular court system introduced within the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat era. This court system was administered under the Ottoman Ministry of Justice. Although secular, the Mecelle (the Ottoman version of codified Sharia) was eventually applied to the courts. This court system drew much influence from French models at the time. These courts enabled the further growth of legal pluralism within Ottoman jurisprudence.
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👉 Ottoman Nizamiye Courts in the context of Tanzimat
The Tanzimat (Ottoman Turkish: تنظيمات, Turkish: Tanzimât, lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pasha, Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha, and Fuad Pasha, under Sultans Abdul Mejid and Abdul Aziz, the reforms sought to reverse the empire's decline by modernizing legal, military, and administrative systems while promoting Ottomanism (equality for all subjects). Though secular courts, modern education, and infrastructure like railways, were introduced, the reforms faced resistance from conservative clerics, exacerbated ethnic tensions in the Balkans, and saddled the empire with crippling foreign debt. The Tanzimat’s legacy remains contested: some historians credit it with establishing a powerful national government, while others argue it accelerated imperial fragmentation.
Different functions of government received reform, were completely reorganized, or started from scratch. Among institutions that received significant attention throughout this period included legislative functions, trade policy, secularization and codification of the legal system, crackdowns on the slave trade, education, property law, law enforcement, and the military. Ottoman statesmen also worked with reformers of the many confessional communities of the empire, millets, to codify — and in some cases democratize — their confessional governments.