"Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo.

• Author: Zeevi, Dror
• Position: Book review

"Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo. By ELYSE SEMERDJIAN. Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East. Syracuse: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008. Pp. xxxviii + 247. $29.95.

[A] group from among the people of Altunbogha quarter in Aleppo ... appeared before the shari'a court. With them Sayyid Bakri ibn Hajj Muhammad known [by the nickname] "Abi Ras" and his mother, Khanum bint Hajj bint Hajj 'Ali ibn Hajj Muhammad, appeared; all of them are residents in the same quarter. They said in their report against them that [Sayyid Bakri and Khanuml perpetrated a crime with strange men in their home of residence in the aforementioned quarter. And they perpetrated it also with strange women. They commit acts that merit Almighty God's wrath, and several times we tried to prevent them [from committing] these despicable acts. (p. 125) This is a good example of the type of documents that Elyse Semerdjian found in the protocols of Aleppo's Shari`a court while combing them for evidence concerning sexual crimes and prostitution. This document never clearly mentions sexual transgression, and to the extent that any such document reflects the ambience at court, the proceedings seem to have been matter-of-fact, with the group of plaintiffs, or "informants," raising their issues and presenting evidence of past transgressions and the defendants arguing but finally conceding the claims and accepting the verdict.

Semerdjian found 120 of what she calls "zinc-related" documents of this sort in thirty-three ledgers, representing roughly twenty percent over three and a half centuries (from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the court reform period in the mid-nineteenth century), taking a sample ledger for every decade. Thus, an estimate of 600 cases during the entire period, or fewer than two cases per year, would not be wide of the mark. Remarkably, these documents seem to have kept the same form and very similar content throughout the period.

Like many of the other documents, the one quoted here goes on to say that the distinguished group of quarter residents that came to court requested that the two defendants be expelled from their neighborhood. After hearing their plea and reviewing the facts, which included a former court case, the judge accepted their request, punished the defendants for their crimes by ta'zir (a discretionary punishment, in this case probably flogging), and expelled them from the quarter.

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