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Islamic women in the Ottoman Empire were governed by the Sharia. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, everyday etiquette and fasting.

There are two primary sources of sharia law: the precepts set forth in the Quranic verses (ayahs), and the Hadith, the application of Islam practiced by prophet Muhammad and his companions. The human attempt to apply Sharia is fiqh, or the collection of Islamic Jurisprudence. The fiqh is expressed in four major Sunni schools of law, of which the Ottomans favored the Hanafi school, which is considered to be the most flexible and liberal application of sharia.

Islamic judges (qadis) presided over the interpretation of sharia in Islamic courts during the Ottoman Empire. The Qadi could offer binding decisions in the Sharia courts, resting their interpretations on the prescribed school of law. The muftis provided opinions (fatwas) on the questions regarding the pursuit of Shariah.

Lay women possessed a great deal of agency for the time period. Muslim women in the early modern empire “bought and sold property, inherited and bequeathed wealth, established waqfs [endowments], borrowed and lent money, and at times even served as holders of timar [prebends] and usufruct rights on miri [state] land, as tax farmers and in business partnerships.” Because of their leverage in shari’ah courts, and the importance of these courts in the empire, non-Muslim women often saw conversion as a way to attain greater autonomy. They also had access to the justice system and could access a judge, as well as be taken to court themselves. By comparison, many married European women did not have this right, nor could they own property until the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Because women had access to the legal system, much of the information about women in Ottoman society comes from court records.

The status of women in regional courts can be observed in preserved court records from 1541 in the Aintab court. Although women were capable of bringing cases in front of the court, "legal codes and procedural rules drew sharp distinctions between women and men". The law limited women’s abilities to testify for themselves, which kept them at a disadvantage.

Divorces were fairly frequent and could be initiated by either party. However, men did not have to provide a reason and could expect to be compensated and to compensate his wife, whereas women had to provide a reason, such as “there is a lack of good understanding between us.” Upon divorce, women would lose any financial benefit brought to her by the marriage and would sometimes have to pay her husband.