The aim of this article is to introduce the Commercial Court Registers of Damascus in the Ottoman period, which are kept in the Center of Historical Documents in Damascus (Markaz al-watha'iq al-ta'rikhiya bi-Dimashq) on the basis of my experience in this Center. I worked there from July 1999 to July 2001 as an archivist, with the aids of JICA, and was responsible for setting up of a database of the documents in this Center. In this time I dealt with the registers of the Commercial Court, which had little been used for historical studies. The "comercial court" registers are numbered from 1 to 156 but they are muddled up with registers of other courts (28 volumes of Courts of First Instance, 10volumes of Courts of Arbitration, etc.). I found that 99 of those 156 volumes were really registers of the Commercial Court of Damascus. They can be classified as the below: 1, daftar al-istid'a': 8 vols. 2, daftar al-jalab: 3 vols. 3, daftar al-sanadat: 7vols. 4, jarida al-dabt: 44 vols. 5, daftar al-qararat: 12 vols. 6, sijill al-i'lamat: 20 vols. 7, daftar al-hasilat: 3 vols. 8, Others: 2 vols. General information Age: These registers cover a period of about 30 years from 1885 to 1918 when Syria became independent of the Ottoman rule. Calendar: Dates used in those registers are basically on the Rumi calendar, although the Hijri calendar and rarely the Christian calendar are used too. Each case in registers is numbered consecutively and updated every Rumi New Year. Language: The page headings of almost all registers are printed in Ottoman-Turkish. While descriptions are usually written in Arabic but some types of registers are written in Ottoman-Turkish (see the below). The Civil Court Law issued in 1879 prescribes various types of registers of commercial courts according to the judicial process as the below. At first when a plaintiff send in his bill of complaint to the court, the date and counts are entered in the daftar al-istid'a' [art. 15-22]. This bill of complaint is copied and sent to a defendant. Next, The date of first instance is fixed according to the order in the daftar al-istid'a' and summonses are sent to both parties. In this time contents of the summons are written down in the daftar al-jalab [art. 23-34]. Then, the trial begin in the fixed date. The protocols (dabt) are kept with the president of the court during the trial, then they are fair-copied and bound as a book. This is the jarida al-dabt. All documents and certificates submitted to the court during the trial are entered in the daftar al-sanadat. The adjudication is written down in the daftar al-qararat when the judgment comes out, and the judgement paper (i'lam) issued to the parties is recorded on the sijill al-i'lamat. The Civil Court Law prescribes how to deal with the court registers. All registers are bound, then the president's seal is put on the top edge of each page and the page number is written below it. These registers are used after that the president and the scribe ascertain the total number of pages, write down it on the top and end of pages, and put their signatures and seals there [art. 6]. Detailed accounts of each type of registers are given below. 1, daftar al-istid'a': vol. 13, 23, 27, 35, 41, 48, 49, 55. Bills of complaint and their contents (the date, names of a plaintiff and a defendant, their nationalities and addresses, cause of action, name of the official who accept it) are recorded with numbering [Civil Court Law art. 6]. These registers actually contain this information in addition to numbers of sheets, signature of the scribe (katib al-dabt) and the result of suit. The space for a result of suit is filled with the date of judgment or that of registration on sijill al-i'lamat and registration number on it. If a case is called off, this space is blank. The registration number on this register is the basic number of the case used on the other registers too. 2, daftar al-jalab: vol. 4, 30, 57. This register is to entry a summons that makes notice of the date of appearance to the court and the cause of action to both parties [art. 6]. The register in this Center contains information about a judgment and its date that are written later when the case is decided, in addition to the information about the number (same number in daftar al-istid'a'), the date of action, names of both parties, names of the scribe and the official who accepted it. 3, daftar al-sanadat: vol. 3, 16, 25, 34, 42, 53, 93. This register is to entry all documents and certificates that were presented to the court for a trial. Their kinds, numbers and dates are registered on it [art. 6, 8]. The court issued their copies on the basis of this register when the parties applied for it [art. 9]. But we can find that documents were not entered in every case and they were entered several days after the judgment. The provision of the law might not have been observed strictly. 4, jarida al-dabt: vol. 2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 31, 32, 36, 38, 43, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 54, 54-1, 58, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 69, 73, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 87, 89, 91, 99, 100, 131, 155. The Civil Court Law prescribed that the protocols (dabt) of the trial are fair copied on the regular-printed sheets and bound every six months. This bound-book was called "jarida al-dabt" [art. 7]. There are three spaces on a sheet for recording the date, the number and signatures of the president of the court and a clerk. The date on this space is a date of the first trial, not of the judgment. Numbers in some books are consecutive-numbers in the book but those in some books are same with the numbers in daftar al-istid'a'. These protocol sheets are bound every six months as the law specifies. Those sheets are arranged in order according to the date of the first trial at the beginning (vol. 2-11), and then according to the date of judgment (vol. 19-. The arrangement rule in vol. 14 and 17 is a mixture of them). The adjudication at the end of each protocol came to be written in Ottoman-Turkish from vol.62 (1317/1901/2), and then in Arabic again from vol. 87 (1327/1911/2). We can find that documents in another types of registers also come to be written in Ottoman-Turkish in the same time, but the reason is not clear. 5, daftar al-qararat: vol. 7, 15, 26, 31-1, 37, 49-1, 56, 64, 74, 88, 94, 101. The adjudication of the judgment is written down in this register with signatures of the president and the court members [art. 6]. The spaces for recording the number, the action-number (same number in daftar al-istid'a'), a complainant's name, a defendant's name, and the contents of judgment are arranged on a page of this register. Since the adjudication come to be written in Ottoman-Turkish after 1317/1901/2 as mentioned above, the descriptions in this register are also written in Ottoman-Turkish. 6, sijill al-i'lamat: vol. 1, 8, 12, 18, 28, 33, 40, 46, 59, 63, 66, 70, 84, 116, 117, 122, 135, 143, 148,154. All judgement papers issued from the court are written down in this register. The methods of registration are strictly regulated in the law for preventing any alterations [art. 6]. In the register, the date of registration is written at the end of the document and the president and the court members' seals are put on there. The registration date is a few days after from the date of judgment, but these documents are not always arranged in order according to the date of judgment. Therefore we should regard that the judgment paper was registered and issued to parties several days after from the judgment, but not in order of judgement. There are some documents about the accounts of the court in the registers (kinds of coin and numbers of each kept in the court, salaries to the officials, etc.). Documents are generally written in Arabic but those in some registers are written in Ottoman-Turkish. 7, daftar al-hasilat: vol.9, 52, 124. This is an account book to record all incomes paid to the court as commissions according to the law [art. 6]. All types of commission (action, issue of a judement paper, copy of a judgment paper, registration of an agent, etc.)are listed and incomes are written down item by item. The president and the accountant check them and put their seal every day. 8, Others There are two registers differ from 7 types above that were prescribed in the Civil Court Law. Vol. 39 is a very detailed note about the lawsuit between two Russian merchants and two Ottoman subjects. Vol.72 is a register for recording the names of agents (wakil). I believe that these registers are useful historical sources to make clear the secular courts system in the Tanzimat period as well as the registers of courts of first instance and courts of appeals kept in the Center. I hope that this note helps researchers who aim to study those registers.