The Ottoman neighborhood members acting as Witnesses or Informants in front of the qadi courts (18th century Üsküdar) The Ottoman urban neighborhood (mahalle) corresponded to a multiplicity of functions, senses and practices. The term mahalle designated an administrative and fiscal part of the towns as well as a particular social bond, linking city dwellers the ones to the others in a specific way, implicating often collective responsibility between them. The members of a neighborhood shared juridical collective responsibility and acted as a legal entity in ottoman courts. In this paper we will focus on the inhabitants of Ottoman neighborhoods when appearing on Ottoman courts as witnesses. There were several procedures for which the neighbors were called to the qadi courts as witnesses or informants. The procedure of identification of the individuals appearing in the qadi court (ta’rif) was one of them. In the early modern period, where identification papers were not available, their function was crucial. On the other side, when an individual was accused of misconduct, the ottoman courts addressed to his neighbors in order to be informed on his conduct (su-i hal). In both of these procedures, one can observe how the neighborhood could function as an informative network. We aim to explore the proceeding of both of those procedures in order to get a better understanding of the juridical status and function that the neighborhood could gain in front of the qadi courts as an informative network. For this inquiry we will focus on the court procedures of the 18th century qadi court of Üsküdar.