page_title: Firman
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Firman / Organization
caption_attribution_description: The Church of the St. Mary of the Mongols in Istanbul: The firmans which granted the church to the Greek community
context_page_description: A firman, or ferman, at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state, namely the Ottoman Empire. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman comes from Persian فرمان meaning "decree" or "order".
  On a more practical level, a firman was, and may still be, any written permission granted by the appropriate Islamic official at any level of government. Westerners are perhaps most familiar with the permission to travel in a country, which typically could be purchased beforehand, or the permission to conduct scholarly investigation in the country, such as archaeological excavation. Firmans may or may not be combined with various sorts of passports.
context_section_description: Firmans were gathered in codes called "kanun" (from the Hellenic word kanon (κανών) meaning rule or rules, as well as the Arabic word qanun (قانون) also meaning rule or law). The kanun were "a form of secular and administrative law considered to be a valid extension of religious law as a result of the ruler's right to exercise legal judgement on behalf of the community."
  When issued by the sultan in the Ottoman Empire, firmans' importance was often displayed by the layout of the document; the more blank space at the top of the document, the more important the firman was.
caption: Firmans of Mehmed II and Bayazid II – kept at the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols in Istanbul – which granted the ownership of the building to the Greek community
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