Search

, a petty dynasty in Anatolia. The princes of Mentes̲h̲e first appear in history after the break up of the Seld̲j̲ūk empire. The founder of the family is said to have been a certain Mentes̲h̲e Beg b. Behāʾ al-Dīn Kurdī. He had his court at Mīlās (Mylasa) in the ancient Caria, and not far from it his stronghold Paičīn (Petsona). His descendants also lived in Mīlās until they moved their court to Miletus. The son of Mentes̲h̲e was Urk̲h̲ān Beg, who is known from an inscription on a building in Mīlās and from Ibn Baṭṭūṭa who visited him in 1334 in Mīlās (cf. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Voyages, ed. Defrémery, Paris …

, an old Ottoman noble family. This family traces its descent to the feudal lord Köse Mīk̲h̲āl ʿAbd Allāh, originally a Greek (cf. F.-A. Geuffroy in Ch. Schefer, Petit t…

, daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent. Mihr-i Māh (sometimes also written Mihr-u-māh: cf. Ḳaračelebizāde, Rawḍat ul-Ebrār, p. 458) was the only daughter of Suleimān the Magnificent [q. v., as well as F. Babinger, in Meister der Politik, ii.2, Berlin 1923, p. 39—63]. While still quite young she was married to the grand vizier Rustem Pas̲h̲a (cf. F. Babinger, …

, an Ottoman Grand Admiral whose real name was Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḥusein Pas̲h̲a. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḥusein Pas̲h̲a, known as Mezzomorto, i. e. “half-dead” because he was severely wounded in a naval battle, came from the Balearic Islands, if A. de la Motraye’s statement ( Voyages, The Hague 1727, i. 206) that he was born in Mallorca is right. He probably spent his youth sailing with corsairs on the seas off the North African coast. He first appears as a desperate pirate in the summer of 1682 in the Barbary States. When France was preparing to deal a …

…

…

, also called Mārsiwān, a town in the Anatolian wilāyet of Siwas [q. v.] and in the sand̲j̲aḳ of Amasia [q. v.] at the beginning of the fertile plain of Ṣulu Owa, with 11,334 inhabitants (in 1927), of whom the Armenians have had to migrate, which produces a good deal of wine and makes some cotton. Merzifūn before the World War was the centre of activity of the Protestant missions in this region and contained the Anatolia College. The town most probably occupies the site of the ancient Phazemon (Φαζημών) in the district of Phazemonitis; the name is probably a development of Φαζημών. Ibn Bībī (cf. Recueil de textes relatifs à l’histoire des Seldjoucides, ed. M. Th. Houtsma, iv., Leyden 1902, p. 292, 12) also gives the form . Little is known of the early history of the town in the Muslim period. It belonged to the kingdom of the Dānis̲h̲mandids [q. v.] and when in 1393 Bāyazīd I drove the ruler of Siwas, Mīr Aḥmad, out of the country, the land of “Marsvani”, as the Bavarian traveller Hans Schiltberger (cf. Hans Schiltbergers Reisebuch, ed. V. Langmantel, Tübingen 1885, p. 12) called it, passed to the Ottoman empire. Merzifūn plays a notable part in the history of O…

, an Anatolian sea-port on the south coast of Asia Minor. Mersīna, the port and capital of the former sand̲j̲aḳ of the same name (with an area of 1,780 sq. m.) in the wilāyet of Adana [q. v.] on the south coast of Anatolia, is 40 miles from Adana, to which a railway runs. The name Mersīna comes from the Greek myrsíni (μυρσίνη), myrtle, because this tree grows in large numbers in this region. The regularly built town, founded only in 1832, with about 21,171 inhabitants (1927) is only of importance as a port for the export of silk, corn and cotton. The climate is very unhealthy in summer. The old …

, also called Dimotiḳa , a town in the former Ottoman Rumeli. Dimetoḳa lies in western Thrace, in a side valley of the Maritsa, and at times played a significant role in Ottoman history. The territory has belonged to Greece since the treaty of Neuilly (27 November 1919), again bears its pre-Ottoman name of Didymóteikhon, and lies within the administrative district (Nomos) of Ebros. It has a population of about 10,000, and is the seat of a bishop of the Greek church as well as o…

, an old Ottoman noble family. This family traced its descent to the feudal lord Köse Mīk̲h̲āl ʿAbd Allāh, originally a Greek (cf. F.-A. Geuffroy, in Ch. Schefer, Petit traicte de l’origine des Turcqz par Th. Spandouyn Cantacasin , Paris 1696, 267: L’ung desdictz Grecz estoit nommé Michaeli … Dudict Michali sont descenduz les Michalogli ), who appears in the reign of ʿOt̲h̲mān I as lord of Chirmenkia (K̲h̲irmend̲j̲ik) at the foot of Mount Olympus near Edrenos, and later as an ally of the first Ottoman ruler earned great merit for his share in aiding the latter’s expansion (cf. J. von Hammer, in G…

(p.), the name for Muslim rulers, especially emperors. The Persian term pād-i s̲h̲āh , i.e. (according to M. Bittner, in E. Oberhummer, Die Türken und das Osmanische Reich , Leipzig 1917, 105) “lord who is a royalty” in which the root pad is connected with Sanskrit patis , lord, husband, fern, patni , Greek πότνια and δεσ-πότης, Lat. potens (G. Curtius, Griech . Etymol ., 377), was originally a title reserved exclusively for the sovereign, which in course of time and as a result of the long intercourse of the Ottomans with the states of…

, wife of the Ottoman sultan Ork̲h̲an and mother of Murād I [ q.vv.], apparently the Greek Nenuphar (i.e. Lotus-flower) (cf. J. von Hammer, GOR, i, 59), was the daughter of the lord of Yārḥiṣār (Anatolia, near Bursa; cf. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, D̲j̲ihān-numā . 659) and according to one story was betrothed to the lord of Belokoma (Biled̲j̲ik). ʿOt̲h̲mān [ q.v.], the founder of the dynasty which bears his name, is said to have kidnapped and carried her off in 699/1299 and to have destined her to be the wife of his son Ork̲h̲an [ q.v.], then only 12 years old. Idrīs Bitlīsī, and following hi…

, K̲h̲od̲j̲a Meḥmed (1111-76/1699-1763), Ottoman Grand Vizier and littérateur. He was born in Istanbul, the son of the kātib Meḥmed S̲h̲ewḳī. and was soon on account of his unusual ability employed in the dīwān . He then acted as secretary and deputy-chamberlain to the governors of Van, ʿArifī Aḥmed Pas̲h̲a, and Köprülü-zāde ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aḥmed Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], and, lastly, to Ḥekīm-zāde ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a. In 1141/1728 he returned to ¶ the capital and in the following year went back to Bag̲h̲dād as deputy to the reʾīs efendi . Soon after the conquest of Bag̲h̲dād in 1146/1733 he was appointed def…

, Ottoman statesman and historian. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm, known as Resmi came from Rethymno (Turk. Resmo; hence his epithet?) in Crete and was of Greek descent (cf. Hammer-Purgstall, viii, 202). He was born in 1112/1700 and came in 1146/1733 to Istanbul, where he was educated, married a daughter of the Reʾīs Efendi Taʾūḳd̲j̲i Muṣṭafā and entered the service of the Porte. He held a number of offices in various towns (cf. Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī , ii, 380 f.). In Ṣafar 1171/Oct. 1757 he went as Ottoman envoy to Vienna and on his return made a written re…

, chef-lieu of a ḳadaʾ in Anatolia, 15 miles south-east of Mik̲h̲alid̲j̲ (cf. J. H. Mordtmann, in ZDMG, lxv [1911], 101) and 40 miles S.W. of Bursa with about 16,900 inhabitants (1960). The town lies on both banks of the Edrenos Čay (Rhyndacus), now called the Mustafa Kemal Paşa Çay. The origin of the name, often wrongly written Kirmāsli̊, which points to a Greek *Κερμαστὴ or *Κρεμαστὴ, is uncertain, nor is it known what ancient town was here. Perhaps the Kremastis in the Troas (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, ii, 743) mentioned in Xenophon, Hist , iv, 8, is to be connected wi…

, the mediaeval Arabic form of the name of the Dalmatian city of Ragusa , until the advent of Bonaparte a free state, the modern Dubrovnik in Croatia (see 2. below), situated in lat. 42° 40ʹ N., long. 18° 07ʹ E. 1. History up to the beginning of the 19th century. Ragusa, the Roman Ragusium (see PW, 2. Reihe, 1.A. 1, col. 130), is situated on the south side of a peninsula which runs out into the Adriatic, picturesquely situated (50 feet) at the foot and on the slopes of Mount Sergius, and was founded in the 7th century by Romance fugitives from Epidau…

, an Ottoman biographer of poets. Meḥmed Riḍā b. Meḥmed, called Zehir Mār-zāde, was born into a family living in Edirne. Of his life we know only that he was for a time, respectively, müderris with a salary of 40 aḳčes , nāʾib and müfti —he held this latter function at Uzun Köprü near Edirne—and that he died in his native town in 1082/1671-2. Besides a collection of poems ( Dīwān ) and a work with the title Ḳawāʿid-i fārisiyye (no manuscript of these works has yet been found), Riḍā wrote a Tad̲h̲kirat al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ , a biographical collection in which he dealt in al…

, the name of two Ottoman statesmen. I. Pertew Meḥmed Pas̲h̲a , Ottoman admiral and wezīr , started his career on the staff of the imperial harem, became ḳapud̲j̲i̊ bas̲h̲i̊ [see Ḳapi̊d̲j̲i̊ ], later Ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries, and in 962/1555 he was advanced to the rank of wezīr; in 968/1561 he was appointed third wezīr, in 982/1574 second wezīr and finally commander ( serdār ) of the imperial fleet under the ḳapudan pas̲h̲a Muʾed̲h̲d̲h̲in-zāde ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a. He had fought at the Battle of Lepanto [see aynabak̲h̲ti̊ ]. He later fell into disgrace and died in I…

, modern Turkish Osmancık, the administrative centre of an ilçe or district of the same name in the il or province of Çorum [see čorum ] in northern Anatolia, in the southern part of classical Paphlagonia. It lies on the Halys or Ḳi̊zi̊l I̊rmaḳ [ q.v.] at an important crossing-point of that river by the Tosya-Merzifun road (lat. 40°58′ N., long. 34°50′ E., altitude 430 m/1,310 ft.). ¶ The town is situated in a picturesque position at the foot of a volcanic hill which rises straight out of the plain and is crowned by a castle which formerly commanded the celebrat…