Beylerbey ( Ottoman Turkish : بكلربكی , romanized : beylerbeyi , lit. ' bey of beys', meaning the 'commander of commanders' or 'lord of lords’, sometimes rendered governor-general ) was a high rank in the western Islamic world in the late Middle Ages and early modern period , from the Anatolian Seljuks and the Ilkhanids to Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire . Initially designating a commander-in-chief , it eventually came to be held by senior provincial governors. In Ottoman usage, where the rank survived the longest, it designated the governors-general of some of the largest and most important provinces, although in later centuries it became devalued into a mere honorific title. The title is originally Turkic and its equivalents in Arabic were amir al-umara , and in Persian , mir-i miran .
48-701: The title originated with the Seljuqs , and was used in the Sultanate of Rum initially as an alternative for the Arabic title of malik al-umara ("chief of the commanders"), designating the army's commander-in-chief. Among the Mongol Ilkhanids , the title was used to designate the chief amir al-ulus ("emir of the state")—also known by the Turkic title ulusbegi and the Arabic amir al-umara –while in
96-412: A 'principal elder brother' or 'prince's elder son' in the pre-Ottoman period. According to etymologist Sevan Nişanyan , the word is derived from Turkish beşe ( بچّه 'boy, prince'), which is cognate with Persian bačče ( بچّه ). Some earlier Turkish lexicographers, such as Ahmed Vefik Paşa and Mehmed Salahi, argued it was most likely derived from Turkish başa or Turkish beşe ,
144-654: A Pasha, such as the Pasha or Bashaw of Tripoli . Ottoman and Egyptian authorities conferred the title upon both Muslims and Christians without distinction. They also frequently gave it to foreigners in the service of the Ottoman Empire, or of the Egyptian Khedivate (later Sultanate , and Kingdom in turn), e.g. Hobart Pasha . In an Egyptian context, the Abaza Family is known as "the family of
192-590: A strong level of influence in the region, such as the Eldiguzids . In 1194, Toghrul III was killed in battle with the Khwarezm Shah , who annexed Hamadan. Kerman was a province in southern Persia. Between 1053 and 1154, the territory also included Umman . or 1074 (before Sultan Shah) Muhammad abandoned Kerman, which fell into the hands of the Oghuz chief Malik Dinar . Kerman was eventually annexed by
240-460: A virtual viceroy of the Sultan : he had full authority over matters of war, justice and administration, except in so far as they were limited by the authority of other officials also appointed by the central government, chiefly the various fiscal secretaries under the mal defterdari , and the kadı , who could appeal directly to the imperial government. In addition, as a further check to their power,
288-514: Is of Turkish origin, meaning " beg of begs" (commander of commanders). Under the Safavids, it meant governor-general. The title first appears in 1543/44, when the Safavid ruler Tahmasp I ( r. 1524–1576 ) issued a decree that referred the governor of Herat as beglerbegi . The title was created to distinguish more important governors from less important ones. As a result, starting in
336-460: The firman ( patent of nobility ) issued by the Sultan carrying the tughra (imperial seal). The title did not bestow rank or title to the wife nor was any religious leader elevated to the title. In contrast to western nobility titles, where the title normally is added before the given name, Ottoman titles followed the given name. In contacts with foreign emissaries and representatives, holders of
384-421: The salyane system, i.e. their revenue was sent to the imperial treasury, and the officials and soldiers were paid salaries from it. The size of these new provinces varied enormously: some containing as many as twenty sanjak s, and others as few as two, including the beylerbey ' s own residence (or pasha -sanjakı ). Among themselves, the various beylerbey s had an order of precedence based on
432-482: The Golden Horde it was applied to all the holders of the rank of amir al-ulus . The Mamluks of Egypt possibly used it as an alternative title for the atabak al-asakir , the commander-in-chief of the army. The Ottomans used the title beylerbey from the late 14th until the mid-19th century, with varying meanings and degrees of importance. The early Ottoman state continued to use the term beylerbey in
480-557: The Janissary contingents stationed in the province's cities were outside his authority, and beylerbey s were even forbidden from entering the fortresses garrisoned by the Janissaries. The beylerbey also had his own court and government council ( divan ) and could freely grant fiefs ( timar s and ziamet s) without prior approval by the Sultan, although this right was curtailed after 1530, when beylerbey authority
528-632: The Khwarezmid Empire in 1196. To the Artuqids Sultans / Emirs of Damascus : Damascus seized by the Burid Toghtekin The Seljuk line, already having been deprived of any significant power, effectively ended in the early 14th century. ( Tokhara Yabghus , Turk Shahis ) Pasha Pasha ( Ottoman Turkish : پاشا ; Turkish : paşa ; Arabic : باشا , romanized : basha )
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#1732776718650576-744: The Kinik branch of the Oghuz Turks , who in the 8th century lived on the periphery of the Muslim world; north of the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea in their Oghuz Yabgu State in the Kazakh Steppe of Turkestan . During the 10th century, Oghuz had come into close contact with Muslim cities. When Seljuk , the leader of the Seljuk clan, had a falling out with Yabghu , the supreme chieftain of
624-636: The Osman Dynasty in Constantinople (now Istanbul ), and sought to style his Egyptian realm as a successor sultanate to the Ottoman Empire. As such, he bore the title of Pasha , in addition to the official title of Wāli , and the self-declared title of Khedive . His successors to the Egyptian and Sudanese throne , Ibrahim , Abbas , Sa'id , and Isma'il also inherited these titles, with Pasha , and Wāli ceasing to be used in 1867, when
672-537: The Ottoman Sultan , Abdülaziz officially recognised Isma'il as Khedive. The title Pasha appears originally to have applied exclusively to military commanders and only high ranking family of the sultans, but subsequently it could distinguish any high official, and also unofficial persons whom the court desired to honour. It was also part of the official style of the Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral of
720-674: The Saljuqids , was an Oghuz Turkic , Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persian culture in West Asia and Central Asia . The Seljuks established the Seljuk Empire (1037–1194), the Sultanate of Kermân (1041–1186) and the Sultanate of Rum (1074–1308), which stretched from Iran to Anatolia and were the prime targets of the First Crusade . The Seljuks originated from
768-410: The beglerbegi . The beglerbegis had complete command over the soldiers and khans under their command. According to the early 18th-century Dastur al-Moluk , a beglerbegi was superior to a khan in rank, and the soltans were subordinate to the khan. The beglerbegi , who was also an emir, was also known as the emir al-omara of the province that he oversaw. There were eleven beglerbegis towards
816-498: The viziers ; both viziers and beylerbey s were titled pashas , with the viziers sporting three horse-tails and the beylerbey s two. From the 16th century on, however, viziers could be appointed as provincial beylerbey s, enjoying precedence and authority over the ordinary beylerbey s of the neighbouring provinces. Towards the end of the 17th century, the title of ' beylerbey of Rumelia' (' Rumeli beylerbeysi ) also began to be awarded as an honorific rank, alongside
864-433: The 1540s, governor-general ( beglerbegi ), senior-governor ( hakem-khan ), and junior-governor ( hakem-soltan ) were one of the titles that would be given to a emir governing a province or smaller administration. Other beglerbegis soon appear in records, such as the beglerbegi of Astarabad in 1548, and the beglerbegi of Kerman in 1565. According to Willem Floor : "This, and the fact that beglerbegis also were at
912-684: The Oghuz, he split his clan from the bulk of the Oghuz Turks and set up camp on the west bank of the lower Syr Darya . Around 985, Seljuk converted to Islam. In the 11th century, the Seljuks migrated from their ancestral homelands into mainland Persia , in the province of Khurasan , where they encountered the Ghaznavids . The Seljuks defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Nasa Plains in 1035. Seljuk's grandsons, Tughril and Chaghri, received
960-557: The Ottoman fleet). Pashas ranked above Beys and Aghas , but below Khedives and Viziers . Three grades of Pasha existed, distinguished by the number of horse tails (three, two, and one respectively; a symbol of Turco-Mongol tradition) or peacock tails that the bearers were entitled to display on their standard as a symbol of military authority when on campaign. Only the sultan himself was entitled to four tails, as sovereign commander in chief . The following military ranks entitled
1008-471: The Persian mir-i miran or mirmiran , which had been used as equivalents of the beylerbey , now increasingly came to refer only to the honorary rank, which in turn was increasingly devalued. The process culminated with the vilayet reform of 1864, after which wali became the only official designation for the governor-general of a province, while the title of beylerbey survived only in
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#17327767186501056-609: The Persian word shah , شاه . According to Oxford Dictionaries, the Turkish word from which it was borrowed was formed as a result of the combination of the Pahlavi words pati- 'lord', and shah ( 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠 ). According to Josef W. Meri and Jere L. Bacharach , the word is "more than likely derived from the Persian Padishah " ( پادشاه ). The same view is held by Nicholas Ostler , who mentions that
1104-522: The Seljuks adopted the Persian culture and used the Persian language as the official language of the government, and played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition which features "Persian culture patronized by Turkic rulers". Today, they are remembered as great patrons of Persian culture , art , literature , and language . The "Great Seljuks" were heads of
1152-493: The actual holder of the provincial post, even to officials unrelated to the provincial administration, such as the chief treasurer ( defterdar ). Beginning in the 18th century, the Arabic-origin title of wali began to be increasingly used for provincial governors-general at the expense of beylerbey , except for the two original beylerbey s of Rumelia and Anatolia; the Arabic title amir al-umara , and
1200-528: The birth of the first two, and by far the most important, beylerbeylik s: those of Rumelia and Anatolia , while the third beylerbeylik , that of Rûm , followed soon after. The beylerbey was in charge of a province—termed a beylerbeylik or generically vilayet , "province", while after 1591 the term eyalet was used and beylerbeylik came to mean the office of beylerbey . Territorial beylerbeylik s were subdivided into sanjak s or liwa s under sanjakbey s. With
1248-537: The continuous growth of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries, new provinces were established, and the ranks of the beylerbey s swelled to a peak of 44 by the end of the 16th century. A list of eyalet s in 1609 mentions 32 in total: 23 of them regular eyalet s where revenue was distributed among the military fief-holders, while the rest (in North Africa and the Middle East ) were under
1296-541: The date of conquest or formation of their provinces. The beylerbey of Rumelia , however, retained his pre-eminence, ranking first among the other provincial governors-general, and being accorded a seat in the Imperial Council ( divan ) after 1536. In addition, the post was occasionally held by the Sultan's chief minister, the Grand Vizier himself. In his province, the beylerbey operated as
1344-401: The end of the reign of Shah Abbas II ( r. 1588–1629 ); five gholams ( Fars , Karabakh , Baghdad , Astarabad, Shirvan ), two valis of some sort ( Lorestan and Kurdistan ) and four Qizilbash emirs ( Khorasan , Chokhur-e Sa'd (Erivan) , Azerbaijan , Qandahar ). Herat and Kerman, which were among the first provinces to be administered by a beglerbegi , are not included in
1392-532: The family; in theory their authority extended over all the other Seljuk lines, although in practice this often was not the case. Turkic custom called for the senior member of the family to be the Great Seljuk, although usually the position was associated with the ruler of western Persia. The rulers of western Persia, who maintained a very loose grip on the Abbasids of Baghdad . Several Turkic emirs gained
1440-516: The holder to the style Pasha (lower ranks were styled Bey or merely Effendi ): If a Pasha governed a provincial territory , it could be called a pashaluk after his military title, besides the administrative term for the type of jurisdiction, e.g. eyalet , vilayet/walayah . Both beylerbeys (governors-general) and valis/wālis (the most common type of Governor) were entitled to the style of Pasha (typically with two tails). The word pashalik designated any province or other jurisdiction of
1488-437: The honorary rank of Rumeli beylerbeysi , which continued in use alongside its Perso-Arabic equivalents. Under the Safavid dynasty of Iran , the title ( beglerbegi ) was used from ca. 1543/44 on for governors (generically styled hakim ) of the more important provinces. The title was thus used for the governors of Herat , Azerbaijan , Ganja , Karabakh , Shirvan , Fars , Iraq , and Astarabad . The Safavids also used
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1536-589: The insignias of governor, grants of land, and were given the title of dehqan . At the Battle of Dandanaqan , they defeated a Ghaznavid army, and after a successful siege of Isfahan by Tughril in 1050/51, established the Great Seljuk Empire . The Seljuks mixed with the local population and adopted the Persian culture and Persian language in the following decades. After arriving in Persia ,
1584-459: The latter meaning 'elder brother' and being a title given to some Ottoman provincial officials and janissaries . As first used in western Europe, the title appeared in writing with an initial b . The English forms bashaw , bassaw , bucha , etc., general in the 16th and 17th century, derive through the medieval Latin and Italian word bassa . Due to the Ottoman presence in the Arab world ,
1632-734: The list. This is due to not all of these administrations would continue to be governed by a beglerbegi after the 1630s. After the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, the Safavids lost Baghdad to the Ottoman Empire . Between 1632 and 1722, a vizier oversaw the administration of Fars. Seljuqs Great Seljuk : 1194 – Toghrul III was killed in battle with Tekish The Seljuk dynasty , or Seljukids ( / ˈ s ɛ l dʒ ʊ k / SEL -juuk ; Persian : سلجوقیان Saljuqian , alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), Seljuqs , also known as Seljuk Turks , Seljuk Turkomans or
1680-468: The meaning of commander-in-chief, held by princes of the Ottoman dynasty : under the Ottoman Empire's founder, Osman I (ruled 1299–1326), his son Orhan held the post, and during Orhan's reign (1324–1362), his brother Alaeddin Pasha and Orhan's son Süleyman Pasha . The first step towards the transformation of the office into a gubernatorial title occurred when Murad I ( r. 1362–1389 ) gave
1728-520: The origin of the English borrowing to the mid-17th century. The etymology of the Turkish word itself has been a matter of debate. Contrary to titles like emir ( amīr ) and bey ( beg ), which were established in usage much earlier, the title pasha came into Ottoman usage right after the reign of Osman I (d. 1324), though it had been used before the Ottomans by some Anatolian Turkish rulers of
1776-529: The pashas" for having produced the largest number of nobles holding this title under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and was noted in Egyptian media in 2014 as one of the main "families that rule Egypt" to this day, and as "deeply rooted in Egyptian society and… in the history of the country." As an honorific, the title pasha was an aristocratic title and could be hereditary or non-hereditary, stipulated in
1824-405: The same era. Old Turkish had no fixed distinction between /b/ and /p/, and the word was spelled başa still in the 15th century. According to Online Etymology Dictionary , the Turkish pasha or basha was itself from Turkish baş / bash ( باش 'head, chief'), itself from Old Persian pati- ('master', from Proto-Indo-European * poti ) and the root of
1872-430: The same time emir al-omara of their jurisdiction, contradicts the view that the term beglerbegi was simply a Turkish translation of the title emir al-omara ." Beglerbegi was only applied to governors of large administrations in the second half of the 16th-century. The title was more commonly employed in the latter part of the 17th century, even for lesser administrations. Several khans and soltans were subject to
1920-529: The title ( Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [ˈbæːʃæ] ) came to be used in Egypt, which was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517. The rise to power in Egypt in 1805 by Muhammad Ali , an Albanian military commander, effectively established Egypt as a de facto independent state , however, it still owed technical fealty to the Ottoman Sultan. Moreover, Muhammad Ali harboured ambitions of supplanting
1968-545: The title Pasha were often referred to as "Your Excellency". The sons of a Pasha were styled Pashazada or Pashazade . In modern Egyptian and (to a lesser extent) Levantine Arabic , it is used as an honorific closer to "Sir" than "Lord", especially by older people. Among Egyptians born since the Revolution of 1952 and the abolition of aristocratic titles, it is considered a highly formal way of addressing one's male peers. The Republican Turkish authorities abolished
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2016-522: The title became used frequently in Arabic , though pronounced basha due to the absence of the /p/ sound in Arabic. Within the Ottoman Empire , the Sultan had the right to bestow the title of Pasha . Lucy Mary Jane Garnett wrote in the 1904 work Turkish Life in Town and Country that it was the sole "Turkish title which carries with it any definite rank and precedence". It was through this custom that
2064-515: The title of wali for provinces even more important than those of the beglerbegi . Towards the end of the Safavid period, the title of beglerbegi had been eclipsed by that of wali , most notably being the wali's of the shah's their Georgian areas. Beglerbegi ( Persian : بیگلربیگی ) was a title generally held by governors of provinces of higher importance in Safavid Iran . The title
2112-757: The title to Lala Shahin Pasha as a reward for his capture of Adrianople (modern Edirne ) in the 1360s. In addition, Lala Shahin was given military authority over the Ottoman territories in Europe ( Rumelia ). This marked the beylerbey effectively as the viceroy of the European territories, as the Sultans still resided in Anatolia , and as the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles , which connected
2160-668: The two parts of the Ottoman state, continued to escape full Ottoman control until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Lala Shahin died after 1388. Sometime in 1385–87 Çandarlı Kara Halil Hayreddin Pasha succeeded him in the position of commander-in-chief in Rumelia. In 1393 Sultan Bayezid I ( r. 1389–1402 ) appointed Kara Timurtash as beylerbey and viceroy in Anatolia, when Bayezid himself crossed over into Europe to campaign against Mircea I of Wallachia . This process marked
2208-411: The word was formed as a shortening of the Persian word padishah . Jean Deny also attributed its origin to padishah , while repeating a suggestion by Gerhard Doerfer that it was influenced by Turkic baskak ( bāsqāq ), meaning 'agent, tax collector'. Some theories have posited a Turkish or Turkic origin of the word, claiming it derived from başağa ( bāş āghā ), which denoted
2256-541: Was a high rank in the Ottoman political and military system, typically granted to governors , generals , dignitaries , and others. Pasha was also one of the highest titles in the 20th-century Kingdom of Egypt and it was also used in Morocco in the 20th century, where it denoted a regional official or governor of a district. The English word pasha comes from Turkish pasha ( pāşā ; also basha ( bāşā )). The Oxford English Dictionary attributes
2304-443: Was restricted to the smaller timar s only. Reflecting the office's origin in the military, the primary responsibility of the beylerbey s and their sanjakbey s was the maintenance of the sipahi cavalry, formed by holders of the military fiefs, whom they led in person on campaign. From the reign of Mehmed II ( r. 1451–1481 ) onwards, the title of beylerbey also became an honorary court rank, coming after
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