Architectural Reading of the Ottoman's Sijills of the Ll-Shar'yah Court in Nablus City betueen (1655-1807)

This research focuses on studying the architectural content of the Othman religious (Shari’a) court’s archive records(sijils) in the City of Nablus, Such study is carried out by analyzing the architectural material of the legal and waqf court’s archive records. This study is explained through symbolic descriptions, legal vocabularies, building changes references and preservation's that had occurred in the discourse of the court’s archive records. Accordingly, it reflected the three main themes of analysis of the architectural material of the court records and waqf. Considering the fact that the analyzed discourse was not the direct sole subject of the court’s archive records, an inductive analysis approach has been adopted in dealing with the symbols, vocabularies, and building changes references. The analysis has also been in two main dimensions. The first is related to the general content and structure of the records, and the second is related to the functional content of the analyzed records. The outcomes of this religious (Shari’a) archival analytical study has made such records alive with their rich and condensed material that embodied such extremely important and flexible legal, architectural, and planning material. This study proves that the archival court’s records are more than only old documents.