A kadı was an official in the Ottoman empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. Based on the Islamic concept of a judge

Qadi

Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...

, the Ottoman official also had extra duties; they performed local administrative tasks, and they were involved in taxation and conscription. They might even appeal matters of taxation to central authority; around 1718 the kadi of Janjevo complained to Istanbul that the local lord had set the ispence

İspençe

İspençe was a tax in the Ottoman Empire.İspençe was a land-tax on non-Muslims in parts of the ottoman empire; its counterpart, for Muslim taxpayers, was the resm-i çift - which was set at slightly lower rate...

 (a tax) at 80 akçe

Akçe

thumb|250px|AkçeA silver coin, the akçe was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word "akçe" is derived from the Greek "" , the name of a Byzantine silver or billon coin, current in the region that eventually became the Ottoman Empire. The akçe is hence often called asper in English...

s, rather than official rate of 32.

A kadı's territory was called a kadiluk

Kadiluk

A Kadiluk, in some cases equivalent to a Kaza, was a local administrative subdivision of the Ottoman empire, which was the territory of a Kadı, or judge.There could be several kadiluks in a sanjak...

; there could be several kadiluks in a sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

. Each kaza

Qadaa

Kaza or caza , meaning "jurisdiction" and often translated "district," is a term for a second-level administrative division in Iraq and Lebanon and for a third-level administrative division in Jordan and the former Ottoman Empire....

, governed by a Kaymakam

Kaymakam

Qaim Maqam or Qaimaqam or Kaymakam is the title used for the governor of a provincial district in the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and in Lebanon; additionally, it was a title used for roughly the same official position in the Ottoman...

, had a kadı (though not every kadı was assigned to one kaza, and the boundaries would shift over time).