Port cities and their transnational trade networks have recently been the subject of great attention and scholarship ( Goffman, Frangakis- Syrett, Greene, Mazower, Clancy- Smith). But there is still a division of labor between scholars who work on port cities in North Africa, the Western and the Eastern Mediterranean world. My paper will first examine the legal framework created by Capitulations first granted to the Genoese community in Galata ( Istanbul) in 1453 and Western European countries later from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, that led to the creation of free trade zones ( with lower tariffs), multiple legal jurisdictions and transnational trading communities across the Mediterranean ( Levantines), and the Eurasian networks of trade ( Armenians). I will examine the commercial possibilities (expansion of trade) as well as co-existence, competition and conflicts that resulted from an expansion in commercial life, multiple legal jurisdictions and the movement of traders and goods across these boundaries and between port cities. For a long time, it has been assumed that Muslims were absent from these networks. My study will revise this paradigm and will shed light on the cross-confessional commercial networks as well as conversion as a way of joining these transnational networks and benefitting from the privileges spelled out in the Capitulations. My study will be based on European consular reports available in the Basbakanlik archives, narrative accounts as well as Galata court records.