In the discussion of the legal status of non-Muslims in an Islamic state so much emphasis is given in the literature to the far-reaching legal autonomy enjoyed by dhimmis in the resolution of disputes with fellow coreligionists that they almost appear as living completely separate lives from their Muslim neighbors. Non-Muslims in 17th century Istanbul had their own legal tribunals operated by the Greek and Armenian patriarchates and the rabbis of the Jewish community. The geographical sphere of jurisdiction varied by community in accordance with the internal organization of a particular religious group. It could encompass large areas comprising of several towns and neighborhoods, or, be limited to just a fraction of a neighborhood in which the members of a religious community lived. The geographical jurisdiction of the Muslim courts in a court district or that of a sub-district (nahiye) in larger towns, on the other hand, usually coincided with the borders of a residential neighborhood. Adjudication in the neighborhood with the mahalle as the basic unit of geographical jurisdiction was the norm in the Islamic court system. My study of the late 17th century court records of Galata and Hasköy, two Istanbul neighborhoods with a significant non-Muslim population, reveals that they occasionally preferred to forfeit their own independent jurisdiction and chose to portray themselves first as residents of the mahalle, which they communally shared with adherents of other faiths. In my paper I will attempt to elucidate this strategic preference of identity as part of the overall society of the neighborhood by analyzing exemplary cases found in the sharia court records of Hasköy and Galata in which the plaintiffs adduced concerns for the wellbeing of the mahalle as the reason behind their complaint to the Muslim judge. Under what circumstances did non-Muslims find it advantageous to present themselves as residents of the mahalle – in the same way as their Muslim neighbors – when seeking the resolution of a legal dispute? How does this behavior tie in with the understanding of the mahalle as the key unit of solidarity, which fulfills the crucial function of managing conviviality on the local level? This paper further aims to question the exclusiveness of autonomous legal jurisdiction among non-Muslims by throwing light not only on the choice of a mahalle-defined identity and conflict resolution as an important legal avenue but also on the identification of many non-Muslims with the overall population of mahalles in Istanbul.