Int. J. Middle East Stud. 45 (2013), 111–125 doi:10.1017/S0020743812001286 Guy Burak DYNASTY, LAW, AND THE IMPERIAL PROVINCIAL MADRASA: THE CASE OF AL-MADRASA AL- UTHMANIYYA IN OTTOMAN JERUSALEM Abstract This study looks at the history of two madrasas in Jerusalem, al-Madrasa al-Uthmaniyya and al-Madrasa al-Fanariyya from the 15th to the 18th centuries, in order to examine an understudied Ottoman institution: the imperial provincial madrasa. The imperial madrasas were assigned to the state-appointed Hanafi muftis of different localities across the empire. This essay argues that these learning institutions helped to consolidate the connection between the Ottoman dynasty, its appointed jurisconsults, and its broader imperial learned hierarchy. Beyond revealing some of its important institutional aspects, examining the imperial provincial madrasa casts light on the doctrinal role the Ottoman dynasty assumed in regulating the content of Hanafi jurisprudence that members of the imperial learned hierarchy were to apply. This role and the connections between the dynasty and its appointed jurisconsults had important effects within the diverse legal landscape of the empire, where multiple Sunni (especially Hanafi) legal and scholarly traditions coexisted. In further analyzing the identity of the endowers of these imperial madrasas, the article opens up new avenues for exploring how the Ottoman dynasty was defined in different contexts. This study explores some aspects of the connection between the Ottoman dynasty and Islamic law by examining an understudied institution, the imperial provincial madrasa. These madrasas, which were endowed in urban centers throughout the empire, usually by members or servants of the Ottoman dynasty, were assigned to the state-appointed jurisconsults (muftis) of different localities and provinces. Physically, the madrasas inscribed into the Ottoman urban fabric the connection between the Ottoman dynasty and its appointed jurisconsults; exploring this imperial practice reveals much about the articulation of Islamic law in the Ottoman context. The emergence of the imperial provincial madrasas along with the practice of appoint- ing jurisconsults was part of the Ottoman dynasty’s development of an imperial learned hierarchy. Starting in the second third of the 15th century, Ottoman sultans, through a series of imperial edicts and regulations, organized and regulated a learned hierarchy (or a religious-judicial establishment) with clearly defined career and training tracks. The graduates of these tracks served as bureaucrats, judges, madrasa professors, and Guy Burak is a fellow in the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass.; e-mail: guy.burak@gmail.com © Cambridge University Press 2013 0020-7438/13 $15.00