kaza

thumb|right | alt=Kaaza districts in the late Ottoman Empire. |Kazas of Macedonia (region)|Macedonia and Novi Pazar, late Ottoman Empire A kaza (, "judgment" or "jurisdiction") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. It is also discussed in English under the names district, subdistrict, and juridical district. Kazas continued to be used by some of the empire's successor states. At present, they are used by Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and in Arabic discussion of Israel. In these contexts, they are also known by the Arabic name qada, qadā, or qadaa (, ).

==Former use== ===Ottoman Empire=== In the Ottoman Empire, a kaza was originally equivalent to the kadiluk, the district subject to the legal and administrative jurisdiction of a kadi or judge of Islamic law. This usually corresponded to a major city of the empire with its surrounding villages. A small number of kazas made up each sanjak ("banner") under a sanjakbey. Each kaza was in turn made up of one or more nahiyes ("districts") under müdürs and mütesellims and several karyes ("villages") under muhtars.