Family law in the last century of the Ottoman Empire was not the sole creation of the Ottoman state. It was the result of a processs that began in the seventh century as legal scholars drew on the fundamental texts of Islam (Sharīʿa) to formulate the laws that would apply in the area of personal status. Eventually, out of this period of intense intellectual activity four canonical schools of Islamic law developed in Sunnī Islam (Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, and Ḥanbalī). All these schools were repres…