A kadı was an official in the Ottoman Empire. Based on the Islamic concept of a judge (Arabic: قاضي qāḍī), the Ottoman official also had extra duties; they performed local administrative tasks, and they were involved in taxation and conscription.[1] They might even appeal matters of taxation to central authority; around 1718 the kadı of Janjevo complained to Istanbul that the local lord had set the ispence tax at 80 akçes, rather than official rate of 32.[2]
A kadı's territory was called a kadiluk; there could be several kadiluks in a province (sanjak). Each sub-province or kaza, governed by a kaymakam, had a kadı (though not every kadı was assigned to one kaza, and the boundaries would shift over time).
References
- ^ Jennings, Ronald (1979). "Limitations of the Judicial Powers of the Kadi in 17th C. Ottoman Kayseri". Studia Islamica (50): pp. 151–184. JSTOR 1595562.
{{cite journal}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Malcolm, Noel (1999). Kosovo: A Short History. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-097775-7.