From fikh to fascism: The Turkish Republican adoption of Mussolini's criminal code in the context of late Ottoman legal reform (Benito Mussolini)

In 1926, the newly founded Turkish Republican government adopted the first of many European codes of law in an attempt to distance itself from its Ottoman and Islamic past. Among these legal adoptions was the 1889 Royal Italian criminal code, a law known for its liberal and democratic nature. Between 1926 and 1938, however, nearly half of the articles of this code were eliminated and replaced by passages that bear more than a passing resemblance to Mussolini's fascist code of criminal law, promulgated in 1930. The question which this study attempts to answer is therefore the following: why by 1938 had the Turkish government chosen to replace half of the code that it had adopted from liberal Italy with large sections of fascist Italy's quite distinct new law? The proposed answer, elaborated over five chapters, is that the way in which the traditional Ottoman and Islamic legal infrastructure was incorporated into the legal framework developed by modernizing reformers throughout the late 19th century created an environment conducive to the adoption of a fascist code of criminal law. By arguing in favor of such an explanation, this study will challenge the popular “dual system” thesis, which maintains that the secular legal system grew up alongside of and apart from the religious system in the Ottoman Empire, made inroads into the latter's jurisdiction, and eventually replaced the Islamic legal system completely. Instead it will be argued that it was precisely the way in which conservative and religious elements were incorporated into the modernizing Ottoman system that led to a situation in which the Turkish Republican government saw fascism as a solution to systemic contradictions in its own political and legal structure.