Şeyhülislamlık Arşivi Evrakı ve Binalarının Serencâmı
Authors: Yıldız Esra 
Published: September 2023

The Ottoman Empire made the Shaykh al-Islam an institution, inherited from the previous Islamic states. The institution, which had existed since the foundation of the state, was moved to a fixed and detached place with the abolition of the Janissary Corps in 1826. With its transfer to the Aga Gate in 1827, the fatwa service was also carried out in this place, and in 1836 it was moved to the Bab al-Meshihat, where the kazasker (military judge) and the Istanbul Qadi (judge) Fatwahana (fatwa office) were located. This institution, which formed the Ottoman Ilmiye class and the religious bureaucracy, in the historical process it has been called by various names such as "Shaykh al-Islam," "Bab al-Mashihat," "Bab al-Fatwa," "Ilmiye Department," "Mashihat," "Mashihat Department," Mashihat Office,” “Mashihat al-Islamiyyah,” “Fatwahana” and “Fatwahana al-Ali.” After the Tanzimat, the Shaykh al-Islam Institution, along with others, took its place in the bureaucratic structure of the state and was organized systematically. The institution, which had been operating with its religious, legal, and educational units in the historical process, had carried out the duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of National Education. Then it transferred some of its obligations, authorities, and responsibilities to the newly established ministries due to the changes in the state structure in 1900-1924. The Meshihat Archive, which contains the scientific heritage of Shayk al-Islam Institution, is the most valuable resource that carries the bureaucratic structure, organizational system, and official correspondence, namely the diplomacy of the institution. The architectural structure of the institutional buildings, the bureaucratic structure of the institution, and its functioning have survived to the present thanks to these documents. In this study, the spatial adventure witnessed by the Bab al-Meshihat during the transition from Shayk al-Islam to the Istanbul Mufti and the fate of 5,454 registers and over one million documents in the Shayk al-Islam Archive were discussed in detail. Methodologically, the study was based on the microhistory approach. With the microhistory approach, which means clarifying the lived events based on the details, the journey of the Meshihat Authority and the archive documents to the present has been revealed, particularly the records of the Shayk al-Islam archive. As a result, it has been determined that the archive registers and documents have not reached the present due to the fire, repair, renovation, and restorations of the Meshihat Authority, which had a vast organizational structure, including committee of fatwas, religious edicts, the council of juridical investigations, office of student affairs and student welfare council, council for the examination of manuscripts and religious texts, the council of religious scholars, correspondence department, academic affairs department, orphan funds, and treasury directorate, personnel directorate, civil registry directorate, archives directorate, supreme medical bureau for issuing fatwas, sharia courts,  various committees, and madrasahs. Additionally, it has been explained that most of the archive resources were destroyed due to the overthrow of some of the Shayk al-Islam buildings and the burning of some after 1924.