• Vita

    Eugenia Kermeli is a Professor of Ottoman Law at the Turkish Studies Institute of Hacettepe University, Ankara. She studied History and Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and she earned a Ph.D. Degree at the Middle Eastern Studies Department of Victoria University of Manchester. Before joining Hacettepe University, she was an Associate Professor at Bilkent University, Ankara and she taught at the Theology Department of Liverpool University. In 2010, she was a visiting fellow at the Islamic Legal Studies, Harvard Law School. She was a member of the Executive Board of ISILS (International Society of Islamic Legal Studies) and served as its president from 2019-2022. She participated in a number of research projects and most recently, she was a senior researcher in the OttoLegal: The Making of Ottoman Law (ERC funded project). She specializes in Ottoman Law and Muslim and non-Muslim relations in the Ottoman Empire.

  • Research Project

    Unity and Plurality in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: The Compilation of Non-Muslim Custom and its Use in Multiple Legal Spaces

    Current scholarship on non-Muslim agency and its reception by the Ottoman administration either adheres to legal autonomy or recognize limited agency. This research project focusing on the compilation of ecclesiastical and Christian lay custom and its use in Christian courts in the Ottoman Empire will attempt to explore non-Muslim agency and its reception by the administration while discussing instances of pluralism. The aim of the research is twofold. On the one hand, as custom is recalled and reconstructed -occasionally invented- to address local societal needs, the agency of actors can be revealing on the interaction of multiple legal spaces interpretive of intercommunal relations. Yet, the orthodox lay and ecclesiastical leadership’s efforts to shape, manipulate and standardize custom is not a linear process, unaffected by state prerogatives. As custom was a constituent element of ottoman state law, the harmonization and standardization of ecclesiastical and Christian custom was in line with imperial legal culture. Thus, the interplay between standardization and legal pluralism in an early modern imperial context does not always function antagonistically to legal pluralities.

  • Selected Publications

    Evgenia Kermeli, “Ecclesiastical and Communal Justice in Ottoman Greece”, The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead, Routledge, Oxford, 347-362, 2012.

    Evgenia Kermeli, “Christian Communities under the Ottomans in the 17th century”, Christian- Muslim relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 10. Ottoman and Safavid Empires (1600-1700), eds. D. Thomas and J. Chesworth et als, Brill 2017, Leiden, 35-42.

    Evgenia Kermeli, “Kyrillos Loucaris’ Legacy: Reformation as a catalyst in the 17th century Ottoman Society”, The Muslim World, 107/4, 2017, 737-753.

    Evgenia Kermeli, “An Example of Polemic/Apologetic Literature in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire”, Bilig, 82, Summer 2017, 153-173.

    Evgenia Kermeli, “Marriage and Divorce of Christians and New Muslims in Early Modern Ottoman Empire: Crete 1645-1670”, Oriente Moderno, 527-546.

    Evgenia Kermeli, "Ebu's Su`ud's definitions on church vakfs: Theory and Practice in Ottoman Law", Islamic Law Theory and Practice, R. Gleave, E. Kermeli (eds.), I. B. Tauris, London, 1997.