The Ottoman legal system accepted the religious law over its subjects. At the same time the Qanun (or Kanun), a secular legal system, co-existed with religious law or Sharia. The Ottoman Empire was always organized around a system of local jurisprudence. Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority. Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority to develop the needs of the local millet. The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups. The Ottoman system had three court systems: one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims, involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the "trade court". The entire system was regulated from above by means of the administrative Qanun, i.e. laws, a system based upon the Turkic Yassa and Töre, which were developed in the pre-Islamic era.[citation needed]
What did the Ottoman Empire attempt to balance in its legal policies?
central and local authority