A meticulously researched and provocative re-assessment of the concepts of law, religion, the state, criminality and authority within the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, between 1840 and 1940. By the turn of the twentieth century, the book argues, criminality had become a political rather than a moral threat, with 'the state' more in need of protection than the individual, God, or even society. These key themes are set against an international backdrop, highlighting the global forces at work and connecting the Ottoman and Turkish experience with the broader legal and political context of the modern period. Using wide-ranging archival and legal sources, Miller challenges conventional wisdom about the role of religion, authoritarian ideologies and law in the formation of modern Middle Eastern identity, and presents a wealth of translated and previously unpublished documentary material as well as a thought-provoking reinterpretation of traditional hypotheses.