In the collection of Ottoman documents of the Visovac monastery (Croatia) 26 fatwas issued by a local mufti are preserved. Most of the fatwas date from the late seventeenth century and contain responses on the issue of the Monastery’s right of usufruct over several land plots in a nearby village. The dispute between the Monastery and several Christian and Muslim residents of the village over these rights arose following the end of the Candian war, when the region was restored to Ottomans. Franciscans, who spent more than a decade in the nearby city of Šibenik returned to the monastery in 1672 after the sultan Mehmet IV issued them a ferman that allowed them to return and granted them their pre-war properties and rights. In the meantime, several villagers assumed the rights over the lands previously held by the monastery. The collection of fatwas regarding the dispute represents the practice of Christians seeking fatwas, which is virtually unknown to the scholars of Islamic law. Furthermore, the textual context of these fatwas can also be reconstructed by examining the court documents (hüccets), and correspondence between the monastery and local and central Ottoman authorities, which are preserved in the archive of the Monastery as well. This paper is structured in two parts. In the first part, I will examine the relationship between legal and political authority, the law and law enforcement, and the function of fatwa within juridical, and practical legal Ottoman context. Through a case study of the texts (court-issued documents, petitions to the local and central authorities, decrees issued by the local and central documents, and fatwas) documenting a specific legal dispute I will reconstruct the distinctive features of political and legal authorities and the boundaries between them. In the second part, I will try to determine the position and function of fatwa with respect to both the specific Ottoman contexts, and the existing scholarship.