Modernity as a Code: The Ottoman Empire and the Global Movement of Codification

Abstract

Codification was a founding feature of Ottoman legal reform from the 1840s until the demise of the empire. This article seeks to situate the Ottoman project of codification in the context of the global codification momentum, which set the ground for a transnational common imagination of the law during the “long nineteenth century”. When analyzed from the perspective of glocalization , Ottoman codes, much like codes elsewhere, stand out as essential signifiers of modernity in the socio-legal sphere.