Edited excerpt, Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History (Random House, 2002)

 

(p. 54) Separate but parallel religious institutions were fundamental, to the Ottoman governing machine. The Sultan's subjects were divided into communities on the basis of belief and ruled largely by their own ecclesiastical hierarchy, with rabbis, bishops and cadis {Muslims Judges, also Qadi] presiding over courts, supervising civil affairs and assuming responsibility for collecting taxes front their own flock as well as other economic matters. But while religion thus acted to demarcate communities and individuals from one another, and even to divide them, it also constituted a shared outlook upon life's problems and dilemmas. This was especially true under a system of rule that, compared with those current elsewhere in Europe, offered an unparalleled degree of religious tolerance.

(p. 59) In this shared world, devotional practice cut across theological divides not only in the realm of the supernatural but in the daily, mundane life of the Ottoman world. Islamic courts and Turkish administration, for instance, were available for non-Muslims as well as for Muslims. The former could use them as a court of appeal, but also on occasions as a means of by-passing their own religious authorities or customary courts. Thus Muslim officials helped Christians and Jews settle tax, commercial and land affairs in accordance with Islamic law. Local Ottoman governors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sometimes even intervened to settle local disputes over Episcopal appointments within their Christian communities. Muslims, Christians and Jews were members of the guilds that borrowed from the Byzantine practice of putting them selves under the protection of a protecting saint, sheik or holy man. Orthodox men and women sometimes used the sharia [Islamic Law]
(p. 60) courts even when no Muslims were involved. "I sold my son a cow," ran the complaint of one Christian peasant from Cyprus before an Islamic judge. "I want the money. He is stalling. I want it in accordance with the sharia."

The most intimate areas of personal life were shaped by this coexistence of religions. Christian church attitudes toward marriage, for instance, faced unexpected competition. Under Islam, both polygamy and forms of temporary marriage contracts were available, divorce was easier to obtain (especially for women), and sex was neither confined to marriage nor validated solely by procreation. There was little question which religion possessed the more intrinsic attractive possibilities. The church hierarchy appears to have held the line on polygamy (which was, in any event, not common among Balkan Muslims); but temporary marriages were a different matter. The practice of contracting a liaison with a woman for a specified sum over a limited period, noted as early as 1600 by William Biddulph, had a natural appeal to Christians as well as Muslims. Eventually the church was forced to acquiesce in this practice, which became fairly widespread during the eighteenth century. In some areas, it turned into a means of earning a dowry, a kind of legitimized prostitution: "If a stranger should wish to enjoy anyone of the young unmarried women," noted a bemused Lord Charlemont in the Cyclades,


he addresses himself immediately to her parents, and demands the girl in marriage. The bargain is presently struck, and the couple brought before a magistrate, where they swear mutual fidelity during the man's residence on the island, the bridegroom engaging to pay at his departure a great sum of money, as well as a present advance...This money is set apart in the girl's portion and with this upon the departure of her consort, she soon procures herself a real husband among her countrymen, who esteem (p. 61) her not a whit the less for this previous connection, deeming her a widow to all intents and purposes

This was the adaptation of Islamic practice by Christian islanders for their own convenience, ratified by Turkish officials and tolerated by village priests....

Conversion offered Christian women trapped in unhappy marriages particular advantages. By converting to Islam, they automatically obtained an annulment of their marriage, unless their Christian spouse converted too. There was a special formula for this. "Cako was honored with Islam in the presence of Muslims," a cadi court heard, "and she took the name Fatma. Her husband was offered a chance to go to Islam but he declined." In a similar case, a woman named Fatma hint Abdullah registered her conversion to Islam, and it was noted that "my husband Yanno bin Manolya was invited to submit to Islam but he did not become a Muslim. He acknowledges that he has no claim against Fatma."