or Cadhi, a judge of the civil affairs in the Turkish empire. It is generally taken for the judge of a town; judges of provinces being distinguished by the appellation of molas.

We find numerous complaints of the avarice, iniquity, and extortion, of the Turkish cadis; all justice is here venal; the people bribe the cadis, the cadis bribe the molas, the molas the cadilechers, and the cadilechers the mufti. Each cadi has his ferjeants, who are to summon persons to appear and answer complaints. If the party summoned fails to appear at the hour appointed, sentence is passed in favour of his adversary. It is usually vain to appeal from the sentences of the cadi, since the affair is never heard anew, but judgment is passed on the case as stated by the cadi. But the cadis are often cashiered and punished for crying injustice with the baflinado and mulcts; the law, however, does not allow them to be put to death. Constantinople had cadis ever since the year 1390, when Bajazet I. obliged John Paleologus, emperor of the Greeks, to receive cadis into the city to judge all controversies happening between the Greeks and the Turks settled there. In some countries of Africa, the cadis are also judges of religious matters. Among the Moors, cadis is the denomination of their higher order of priests or doctors, answering to the rabbins among the Jews.