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(a.), the title of governors of the provinces of Egypt, called mudīriyya . The use of the word mudīr in this meaning is no doubt of Turkish origin. The office was created by Muḥammad ʿAlī, when, shortly after 1813, he reorganised the administrative structure of Egypt, instituting seven mudīriyyas; this number has been changed several times. The chief task of the mudīr is the controlling of the industrial and agricultural administration and of the irrigation, as executed by his subordinates, viz. the maʾmūr , who administers a markaz , and the nāẓir who controls the ḳism …

, also written Sifri Ḥiṣār , i.e. strong fortress (see Aḥmed Wefīḳ, Lehd̲j̲e-yi ʿOt̲h̲mānī , 459), the early Turkish and Ottoman name of two small towns in northwestern and western Anatolia respectively. 1. The more important one is the modern Turkish Sivrihisar, in the modern il or province of Eskişehir. It lies on the Eskişehir-Ankara road roughly equidistant from each, south of the course of the Porsuk river and north of the upper course of the Saḳarya [ q.v.] (lat. 39° 29′ N., long. 31° 32′ E., altitude 1,050 m/3,440 feet). …

, modern Turkish Muş, a town and a province of eastern Anatolia lying to the west of Lake Van and Ak̲h̲lāṭ [ q.v.] or K̲h̲ilāṭ (modern Ahlat). The town lies in lat. 38° 44′ N. and long. 41° 30′ E. at an altitude of 1290 m/4,200 feet in the foothills of the valley which carries the Murad Su river—a fertile plain on which wheat, tobacco and vines have long been grown—and which in recent years has borne the railway branch from Elâziğ [see maʿmūrat al-ʿazīz ] eastwards to Tatvan on the shores of Lake Van. In the pre-Islamic period, it was the principal town of the Armenian district of Taraun (Hübschmann, ¶ Id…

b. Āḳā K̲h̲ān , Persian anthologist and poet, who is also known by his penname Ād̲h̲ar which he adopted after having used the names Wālih and Nak̲h̲at previously. He was descended from a prominent Turcoman family belonging to the Begdīlī tribe of Syria (Begdīlī-i S̲h̲āmlū) which had joined the Ḳi̊zi̊lbās̲h̲ movement [ q.v.] in the 9th/15th century. Afterwards, the family settled down in Iṣfahān. Many of his relatives served the later Ṣafawids and Nādir S̲h̲āh as administrators and diplomats. Luṭf ʿAlī Beg was born on Saturday 20 Rabīʿ II 1134/7 F…

, the name of a Turkish dynasty, ultimately of Og̲h̲uz origin [see g̲h̲uzz ], whose name appears in European sources as ottomans (Eng.), ottomanes (Fr.), osmanen (Ger.), etc. I. political and dynastic history 1. General survey and chronology of the dynasty The Ottoman empire was the territorially most extensive and most enduring Islamic state since the break-up of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate and the greatest one to be founded by Turkish-speaking peoples. It arose in the Islamic world after the devastations over much of the eastern and central lands of the Dār al-Islām …

, Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḥasan , a Persian poet of the second half of the 4th/10th century. In some later sources his kunya is given as Abū Isḥāḳ, but the form given above can be found already in an early source like the Čahār makāla . The Dumyat al-ḳaṣr by al-Bāk̲h̲arzī contains a reference to the “solitary ascetic” ( al-mud̲j̲tahid al-muḳīm bi-nafsihi ) Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Kisāʾī of Marw who might very well be identical with this poet (cf. A. Ates, giriş to his edition of Kitāb Tarcumān al-balāġa , 97 f.). The pen name Kisāʾī would, according to ʿAw…

, Arabised form Marzubān , “warden of the march”, “markgrave”, from Av. marəza and M. Parth. mrz “frontier”, plus pat “protector”. The MP form marzpān suggests a north Iranian origin. It began to be used as the title of a military governor of a frontier province in the Sāsānid empire in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. when marz , marzpan , and marzpanutʿin (marzpānate) appear as loan words in Armenian, and marzbanā as a loan word in Syriac. The NP form marzbān , marzvān or marzabān was Arabised as marzubān (pl. marāziba , marāzib ), possibly as early as the 6th century A.D. Arabic also formed a verb marz…

, the river Nile. The Nile is one of the large rivers (length ca. 6,648 km./4,132 miles) which from the beginning have belonged to the territory of Islam, and the valleys and deltas of which have favoured the development of an autonomous cultural centre in Islamic civilisation. In the case of the Nile, this centre has influenced at different times the cultural and political events in the Islamic world. Thus the Nile has, during the Islamic period, continued to play the same part as it did during the centuries that preceded the coming of Islam. The name al-Nīl or, very often, Nīl Miṣr, goe…

, the biggest town of the region of Mesopotamia (44° 25′ E., 35° 25′ N.,) bounded by the Little Zab in the north-west, the D̲j̲abal Ḥamrīn in the south-west, the Diyālā in the south-east and the mountain chains of the Zagros in the north-east. It is identified by some (e.g. C. J. Gadd in Rev. d’Assyr. et d’Arch . Or., xxiii (1926), 64, and by Sidney Smith) as the site of the ancient city of Arrapḫa, and so Kirkūk participated in the revolt of the son of Shalmaneser II (850-824 B.C.) against his ageing father; again it rose up in the reign of Ashur Dan I…

, a small town in southern ʿIrāḳ, on the right bank of the Euphrates (lat. 30° 53′ N., long. 46° 28′ E.). It lies some 40 km/25 miles to the south-east of al-Nāṣiriyya [ q.v.] and at the western end of the K̲h̲awr al-Ḥammār lake and marshlands region, about 160 km/100 miles as the crow flies from Baṣra. The town is surrounded by date-groves extending along the river bank, but the marshy country, that extends into Baṣra, makes the air very unhealthy. Sūḳ al-S̲h̲uyūk̲h̲ was founded in the first half of the 18th century as a market-place ( sūḳ) of the confederation of the Muntafiḳ [ q.v.] Arabs; 4 hour…

, grand vizier under Aḥmad I. He was a Bosnian by origin and a relation of Meḥmed Soḳollu Pas̲h̲a. The year of this birth is not given. After having had higher education ¶ in the palace, he was mīr-āk̲h̲ūr , and became in 1003/1595 ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries. In the next year he took part in the Austrian wars as beglerbegi of Rūmili and was commander of Esztergom (Gran, Turkish: Usturg̲h̲on) when this town capitulated to the Austrian army in Muḥarram 1004/September 1595. During the following years, Lala Meḥmed was several times ser-ʿasker in Hungary and when, in Ṣa…

(Ottoman orthography Saḳārya or Ṣaḳārya, modern Turkish Sakarya), a river in Turkey. It rises near Bayāt in the northeast of Āfyūn Ḳara Hiṣār. In its eastward course it enters the wilāyet or il of Ankara, through which it runs to a point above Čaḳmaḳ after receiving on its left bank the Sayyid G̲h̲āzī Ṣū and several other tributaries on the same side. It then turns northwards describing a curve round Siwri Ḥiṣār. Here it receives on the right bank the Engürü Sūyu from Ankara and near this confluence the Porsuk on the opposite …

, twenty-fifth sultan of the Ottoman empire (regn. 1168-71/1754-7) and son of Muṣṭafā II, succeeded his brother Maḥmūd I on 14 December 1754. He was born on 2 January 1699 ( Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī, i, 56) and had therefore reached an advanced age when he was called to the throne. No events of political importance took place in his reign. The period of peace which had begun with the peace of Belgrade in 1739 continued; at home only a series of seditious outbreaks in the frontier provinces indicated the weakness of the empire. In the absence of any outstanding personality, the sultan was able to ¶ r…

(popular pronunciation Tikrīt , cf. Yāḳūt), a town of ʿIrāḳ on the right bank of the Tigris to the north of Sāmarrāʾ 100 miles from Bag̲h̲dād divertly, and 143 by river, and at the foot of the range of the D̲j̲abal Ḥamrīn (lat. 34° 36′ N., long. 43° 41′ E., altitude 110 m/375 feet). Geographically, this is the northern frontier district of ʿIrāḳ. The land is still somewhat undulating; the old town was built on a group of hills, on on…

(a.), a word which is originally an abstract noun meaning “power, authority”, but which by the 4th/10th century often passes to the meaning “holder of power, authority”. It could then be used for provincial and even quite petty rulers who had assumed de facto power alongside the caliph, but in the 5th/11th century was especially used by the dominant power in the central lands of the former caliphate, the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs [see sald̲j̲ūḳids. II, III.l], who initially overshadowed the ʿAbbāsids of Bag̲h̲dād. In the Perso-Turkish and Indo-Muslim worlds especially, the feminine form sulṭāna…

, the name of a group of Kākāʾīs or Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.] living in northern ʿIrāḳ, in a group of six villages, four on the right bank of the Great Zab and two on its left one, not far from its confluence with the Tigris and 45 km/28 miles to the south-southeast of Mawṣil. The principal village, where the chief lives, is called Wardak, and lies on the right bank; the largest village on the left bank is Sufayya. The Ṣārlīs, like the other sects found in northern ʿIrāḳ (Yazīdīs, S̲h̲abaks, Bād̲j̲ūrān), are very uncommunicative with regard to their belief and religious practices,…

, the name of part of the sultan’s bodyguard in the old Ottoman military organisation. It comprised four infantry companies or ortas of the Janissaries [see yeñi čeri ], and these were originally ¶ archers ( ṣolaḳ “left-handed”, presumably because they carried their bows in the left hand); they comprised ortas 60-63. Each orta had 100 men and was commanded by a ṣolaḳ bas̲h̲i̊ , assisted by two lieutenants ( rikāb ṣolag̲h̲i̊ ). The ṣolaḳs were used exclusively as bodyguards, together with the smaller (150 men) od̲j̲aḳ of the peyks (“messengers”) under the peyk bas̲h̲i̊ …

Derwīs̲h̲ Aḥmed Dede b. Luṭf Allāh (?-1113/?-1702), Turkish scholar, Ṣūfī poet and, above all, historian, being the author of a celebrated and important general history in Arabic, the D̲j̲āmiʿ al-duwal . His father Luṭf Allāh was a native of Eregli near Ḳonya. He was born in Selānik, in the first half of the 12th/18th century, received a scholarly education and served in his youth for fifteen years in the Mewlewī-k̲h̲āne of Ḳāsi̊m Pas̲h̲a under S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ K̲h̲alīl Dede ( Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī , ii, 287). Afterwards he studied astronomy and astrology and became court astrologer ( müned̲j…

or ʿAlemdār , Ottoman Turkish grand vizier in 1808, was the son of a wealthy Janissary at Rusčuḳ, born about 1750. He distinguished himself in the war with Russia under Muṣṭafā III, and acquired in these years the surname of bayraḳdār “standard-bearer”. After the war he lived on his estates near Rusčuḳ, and acquired the semi-official position of aʿyān [ q.v.] of Hezārgrād and later of Rusčuḳ. With other aʿyans he took part in an action against the government at Edirne, but became finally a reliable supporter of the government. Having already received the honorary offices of ḳapi̊d̲j̲i̊ bas̲…

(a.), an honorific title in use in the Islamic world up to the early 20th century, applied essentially to religious dignitaries. 1. Early history of the term. The tide first appears in K̲h̲urāsān towards the end of the 4th/10th century. While honorific tides compounded with Islām (like ʿIzz-, D̲j̲alāl-, and Sayf al-Islām) were borne by persons exercising secular power (notably the viziers of the Fatimids, cf. M. van Berchem, in ZDPV, xvi [1893], 101), the tide of Shaykh al-Islām has always been reserved for ʿulamaʾ and mystics, like other titles of honour whose first part is S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ …