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Since the 1980s, written documents generated by the Ottoman law courts constitute the single most frequently used primary source by historians of Ottoman Bilad al-Sam. The result is a large number of studies using many of these documents, usually from several different registers. Rarely, however, do the historians invite readers to share in a critical and focused discussion of a select few of these documentary sources. The contributors to this volume reveal the difficulties and questions they face in reading and interpreting handwritten documents, often carelessly recorded in a formulaic and elliptical language. The diverse studies collected here present a wide range of documents issued in legal practice, disclose the process of deciphering manuscripts, and set forth the differing readings and informal usages of this kind of source.

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