© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/�5685�09- � �34�4�5 Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 59 (�0 �6) 8 �8-856 brill.com/jesh Modernity as a Code: The Ottoman Empire and the Global Movement of Codification Avi Rubin Ben-Gurion University of the Negev rubin.2005@gmail.com 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 codifica- tion 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. Keywords Ottoman Empire – Codification – Modernity – Legal formalism – Mecelle – Ottoman legal culture Introduction In recent years, the study of Ottoman socio-legal change in the nineteenth century has benefitted from a series of contributions dealing with issues of judicial practice, legal reform, legislation, and legal culture. Whereas older descriptions of Ottoman legal change were limited to a schematic sketching of Ottoman “imitation” of “western” institutions in the legal and the admin- istrative domains, the picture emerging from recent scholarship is more * I am grateful to the anonymous readers and the editor of JESHO for their thoughtful com- ments. I am also indebted to Huricihan İslamoğlu and M. Safa Saraçoğlu for comments on early drafts. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 17/14).