As is known, the mediaeval Ottoman education system relied upon scholars committing vast areas of knowledge to memory. Books were often merely a physical record of knowledge which was firmly held in the mind of the scholar. Gradually cupboards in mosques and colleges acquired more and more volumes, but these were seen as adjuncts to education and not as its basic. As the Ottoman court moved from Bursa to Edirne the State could still be considered nomadic to a certain extent; essentially it lacked a sense of permanent occupation which would have encouraged the educational infrastructure which we associate with the later period.

The various words and terms used in the Ottoman archival documents most of the times have connotations that differ from their actual meaning. One, therefore, should use such words and terms that are vital for making research on the social life in the Ottoman Empire carefully. Otherwise grave mistakes can not be avoided in carrying out such researches. The words of this type such as Türk and its plural Etrak and Kürd and its plural Ekrad used in various figurative meanings in the Ottoman documents. One often comes across the words mentioned above in the Ottoman archival documents, in particular in the Tahrir Defters that have very important statistical information, and in the kanunnames.

One of the oldest, most persistent and important problems in European History and İnternational Law is the "Question of the Straits". More than twenty treaties in modern times mention the Turkish Straits. Five of these treaties were made exclusively to regulate passage through these waters: The London Agreement, 1841; Paris Straits Convention, 1856; London Convention, 1871; Lausanne Straits Convention, 1923; and the Treaty of Montreux, 1936. Phillipson and Buxton affirm that one of the causes of the First World War was the Straits problem.

Turkey did contribute to the development of international law. "To a great extent, much of our modern intemational law originated and developed from the competition of the great powers and their desire to expand at the expense of other countries. Turkey was a great power. Its peculiar geographical position and the ideas it stood for involved Turkey in all major wars and all postwar settlements. In this way the Turks influenced the development of international law".

Between 1821 and 1885 most of the area constituting the present Sudan came under Turko-Egyptian rule. The annexation of the Sudan to Egypt was undertaken in 1820-1 by Muhammad 'Ali, the Ottoman Wali of Egypt, and was completed under his grandson, the Khedive Isma'il, who extended this rule to the Great Lakes in the south and to Bahr al-Ghazal and Darfur in the west. In the history of the Sudan, this period became known as the (first) Turkiyya. The term Turkiyya is not really arbitrary since Egypt was itself an Ottoman province, ruled by an Ottoman (Albanian) dynasty. Moreover, most of the high officials and army officers serving in the Sudan were of Ottoman rather than Egyptian origin.

Born in Mecca on April 20, 571 AD Prophet Muhammad had already determined the general framework of an Islamic social and economic order by the time He died on June 8, 632 AD at Medina. As the religion of Islam deals with all activities of the individual including his overall relations with Allah and society, legal and social rules are entwined in an order we call canonical jurisprudence or Shari'a. To put it otherwise, Islamic law is a very large system accomodating rules related to both social life and public administration as the Prophet was both the founder of the Religion and the Head of the State of Medina. We are not to dwell here on all chapters of the Islamic law, since this is not possible in view of the limited place available. Further, it will not be called for as all the distinguished scholars are well versed in them. Therefore, I will consider here certain characteristics of this law and will limite my expose to a few illustrations as to how the Ottoman caliph-sultans had made use of and applied some legal rules emanating and drawn from this complexe and amazing system of canonical legislature by modifying them to such degree that sometimes their practices happened to contradict Shari'a.

In the present study we dwell upon the circumstances under which Thessaloniki and Ioannina came under Ottoman sovereignty. These two towns were conquered by Murad II within an interval of seven months. This study is based upon Byzantine, Ottoman and Latin sources; we have also studied the information gleaned from Byzantine sources about Ottoman policies of conquest. As Thessaloniki became part of the Ottoman realm by conquest, while Ioannina did so by conforming to the Sultan to surrender, different policies were applied to the two cities. The conquests of Murad II have been studied not with the present value judgements in mind, but considering the conditions and necessities of the fifteenh century. The conquest is viewed within the framework of Ottoman conquest policies based upon on Fıkıh (the Muslim religious and legal Code).