Abstract:

In order to maintain safe and security among themselves, overcome the problems they face in nomadic life, and regulate their relations with other tribes and the state, the tribes have generally adopted some oral rules without contradicting the shar’i law and the written laws established by the central administration. These oral rules, also called “moral laws”, derive their source from the customs and traditions of the tribes. Moral laws include many regulations in administrative, economic, legal and social fields. In this study, issues such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, debt, looting and highjack will be emphasised on the oral and written rules applied by the tribes in Urfa sanjak in the 19th century. In the research, the historical research method, sampling method and document-content analysis technique from qualitative research methods have been used. In the qualitative research method, it is necessary to elaborately collect documents, carefully analyse and interpret to provide for reliable and concrete solutions to the problems identified about the researched subject. Accordingly, the sections related to the customs and traditions of the tribes in Ottoman archive documents, court records, annuals and research-study works have been looked over, and these sections have been analysed carefully to present to the service of the science world. Although, in the literature some theses and studies have been conducted on the tribes in Urfa, it has been detected that some important archival documents have not been used in those studies. These archieve documents have been believed to contribute to the field.