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, in Persian ‘outside’, the name given to the outer departments and services of the Ottoman Imperial Household, in contrast to the inner departments known as the Enderūn [ q.v.]. The Bīrūn was thus the meeting-point of the court and the state, and besides palace functionaries included a number of high officers and dignitaries concerned with the administrative, military, and religious affairs of the Empire. (B. Lewis) Bibliography D’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman, vii, Paris 1824, 1-33 Ismail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Saray Teşkilâtı, Ankara 1945, 358 ff. Gib…

, the laḳab of Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn, a S̲h̲īʿī traditionist of the 3rd/9th century. His father was a reliable authority who related traditions of the Imāms ʿAlī al-Riḍā, Muḥammad al-D̲j̲awād, and ʿAlī al-Hādī; originally from Kūfa, he lived for a while in Ahwāz, where Dindān was born. Dindān also related traditions on the authority of his father’s masters, but was regarded as a g̲h̲ālī , extremist, and his reliability as a relator was impugned. He wrote several books, among them Kitāb al-iḥtid̲j̲ād̲j̲ , K. al-anbiyāʾ , K. al-mat̲h̲ālib , and K. al-muk̲h̲taṣar fi ’l-daʿwāt …

, Ottoman scholar and physician, grandson of the Grand Vezir Ḵh̲ayrullah Efendi and son of Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Meḥmed Emīn S̲h̲ukūhī. Born in 1188/1774, he entered upon the ladder of the religious institution, becoming a mudarris in 1206/1791-2. Specialising in medicine, he rose rapidly, and in 1218/1803 became chief physician to the Sultan (Ḥekīmbas̲h̲ǐ or, more formally, Reʾīs-i Eṭibbā-i Sulṭānī ). In 1222/1807 he was dismissed from this office, but was reappointed in 1232/1817. In 1237/1821 he was disgraced and banished, but was reinsta…

, in Turkish zabit , an Ottoman term for certain functionaries and officers, later specialized to describe officers in the armed forces. In earlier Ottoman usage Ḍābiṭ seems to indicate a person in charge or in control of a matter or of ( ? the revenues of) a place ( e.g. Ewḳāf ḍābiṭi , Wilāyet ḍābiṭi etc.; examples, some with place-names, in Halit Ongan, Ankara’nın I Numaralı Şer’iye Sicili , Ankara 1958, index, and L. Fekete, Die Siyāqat-Schrift , i, Budapest 1955, 493 ff.; cf. the Persian usage in the sense of collector — Minorsky, Tad̲h̲kirat al-Mulūk , index). The…

, a term commonly applied in the 2nd-3rd/8th-9th centuries to members of the ʿAbbāsid house and occasionally to their followers and supporters. From early ʿAbbāsid times it was understood to denote the descendants of Hās̲h̲im b. ʿAbd Manāf [ q.v.], the common ancestor of the Prophet, ʿAlī, and al-ʿAbbās; its use by the ʿAbbāsids was thus interpreted as expressing a claim to the Caliphate based on kinship with the Prophet in the male line. Van Vloten, followed by other scholars, showed that the name had in fact a different origin. Fro…

, the mighty one of Egypt. In the Kurʾān (xii, 30, 51) the title al-ʿAzīz is given to the unnamed Egyptian who buys Yūsuf. In later legend and commentary he is called Kiṭfīr [ q.v.], from the Biblical Potiphar. The title al-ʿAzīz seems to connote the office of chief minister under Pharoah, as the same title is applied to Yūsuf himself when he reaches that position (Kurʾān, xii, 78, 88). In some of the Arabic dictionaries the term is defined as meaning the ruler of Egypt (Miṣr) and Alexandria (Lane, s.v.). In Ottoman texts the epithet ʿAzīz Miṣr is sometimes applied to the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt ( e.g…

, a Turkish word meaning cameleer, the name given to certain regiments of the corps of janissaries [see yeni čeri ], forming part of the D̲j̲emāʿat , and performing escort duties with the supply columns. They were also called by the Persian term s̲h̲uturbān . The Deved̲j̲is originally formed the first five ortas of the Ḏj̲emaʿat (four according to D’Ohsson), and were later augmented to include many others. They wore heron’s feathers in their crests (see sorguč ); when attending the dīwān they wore velvet trimmed with sable and lynx fur. Deved̲j̲i officers enjoyed high precedence among the or…

the Ottoman Scientific Society, was founded in Istanbul in 1861 by Munīf Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. Modelled on the Royal Society of England, and perhaps inspired by the reopening of the Institut d’Egypte [ q.v.] in Alexandria in 1859, it consisted of a group of Turkish officials, dignitaries and scholars, some of them educated in Europe. It was the third such learned society to appear in 19th century Turkey, having been preceded by the End̲j̲umen-i Dānis̲h̲ in 1851 (see and̲j̲uman ), and by the ‘learned society of Bes̲h̲iktas̲h̲’ in the time of Maḥmūd II (see D̲j̲ewdet, Taʾrīk̲h̲ 2 …

, Turkish writer and politician. Born in Eskid̲j̲uma in 1863, he became involved in illegal political activities while still a medical student. After serving a brief term of imprisonment, he fled to Europe in 1895, and joined the Young Turk group in Geneva, where in 1896 he founded, with others, the Ottoman Revolutionary Party ( ʿOt̲h̲mānli̊ Ik̲h̲tilāl Fi̊rḳasi̊ ); he was particularly effective as a writer and propagandist with a simple and direct popular appeal. In 1900, together with ʿAbd Allāh D̲j̲ewdet and Isḥāḳ Sükūtī [ qq.v.], he made his peace with the Sultan and was appoi…

, in Turkish defterdār , keeper of the daftar [ q.v.], an Ottoman term for the chief finance officer, corresponding to the Mustawfī [ q.v.] in the eastern Islamic world. According to Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī ( Ṣubḥ , iii, 485, 494, 525, 526), the title Ṣāḥib al-Daftar already existed in the Fāṭimid administration, for the official in charge of the Daftar al-Mad̲j̲lis , that is, of accounts and audits. The title Daftark̲h̲ w ān — Daftar -reader—appears in the time of Saladin (B. Lewis, Three Biographies from Kamāl ad-Dīn , in Fuad Köprülü Armağanı , Istanbul 1953, 343), and r…

, the Ottoman public debt, more particularly the debt administration set up in 1881. The Ottoman government had made its first attempts to raise money by internal loans in ¶ the late 18th and early 19th centuries (see ashām and ḳāʾime ). The needs and opportunities of the Crimean War brought a new type of loan, floated on the money markets of Europe. The first such foreign loan was raised in London in 1854, the second in the following year. They were for £ 3,000,000 at 6% and £ 5,000,000 at 4% respectively. Betwee…

, in Turkish tongueless, the name given to the deaf mutes employed in the inside service ¶ ( enderūn ) of the Ottoman palace, and for a while also at the Sublime Porte. They were also called by the Persian term bīzabārī , with the same meaning. They were established in the palace from the time of Meḥemmed II to the end of the Sultanate. Information about their numbers varies. According to ʿAṭāʾ, three to five of them were attached to each chamber ( Kog̲h̲us̲h̲ ); Rycaut speaks of ‘about forty’. A document of the time of Muṣṭafā II (d. 1115/1703), cited by U…

, an Arabic word meaning lover, frequently in the mystical sense. Among the Anatolian and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ānī Turks, from the late 9th/15th or 10th/16th century, it is used of a class of wandering poet-minstrels, who sang and recited at public gatherings. Their repertoire included religious and erotic songs, elegies and heroic narratives. At first they followed the syllabic prosody of the popular poets, but later were subjected to Persian influence, both directly and through the Persian-influenced…

, a stitched or bound booklet, or register, more especially an account or letter-book used in administrative offices. The word derives ultimately from the Greek διφθέρα “hide”, and hence prepared hide for writing. It was already used in ancient Greek in the sense of parchment or, more generally, writing materials. In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus (v, 58) remarks that the lonians, like certain Barbarians of his own day, had formerly written on skins, and still applied the term diphthera to papyrus rolls; in the 4th Ctesias ( in Diodorus Siculus ii, 32; cf. A. Christensen, Heltedigtning og …

, Muṣṭafā Ras̲h̲īd , Ottoman historian and poet, one of a family of ʿulamāʾ founded by the Ḳāḍīʿasker of Rumelia, Čes̲h̲mī Meḥmed Efendi (d. 1044/1634) A grandson of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām Meḥmed Ṣāliḥ Efendi, and the son of a ḳāḍī in the Ḥid̲j̲āz, he entered the ʿIlmiyye profession, and held various legal and teaching posts. After the resignation of the Imperial historiographer Meḥmed Ḥākim Efendi [ q.v.], he was appointed to this office, which he held for a year and a half. He then returned to his teaching career, which culminated in his appointment as müderris at…

or serʿasker kapi̊si̊ , the name of the War Department in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. After the destruction of the Janissaries in 1241/1826, the Ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries was replaced by a new commanding officer, the Serʿasker [ q.v.]. The title was an old one, given to army commanders in former times. As applied by Maḥmūd II, it came to connote an officer who combined the functions of commander in-chief and minister of war, with special responsibility for the new style army. In addition, he inherited from the Ag̲h̲a of…

Efendi , 19th century Turkish translator. Born in Üsküdar, he was trained in the language chamber [see terd̲j̲üme odasi̊ ] of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and subsequently held a number of official appointments. He is mentioned as having been Ottoman Consul in Tabrīz and a member of the Embassy in Tehrān, and in 1876 was elected a deputy in the first Ottoman parliament. He died in 1878 of typhus, contracted while caring for refugees from the Russo-Turkish war, and was buried at the Karacaahmet cemetery in Üsküdar. Aḥmed Ḥilmī played a pioneer role as a tra…

efendi, known as Aḳs̲h̲ehirli, an Ottoman S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ al-Islām. The son of ʿOt̲h̲mān Efendi of Ilgin, he was born in 1210/1795-6, and held various appointments in the teaching branch of the ʿIlmiyye [ q.v.] profession. In 1275/1858-9, on the death of Yaḥyā Efendi [ q.v.], he was appointed to the office of Ders Wekīli , with the duty of teaching and preaching on behalf of the S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ al-Islām. Ḏj̲ewdet, who had reason to be hostile to Ḥasan Fehmī, indicates that the appointment was made for want of any one better, and says that he was known among the students as kad̲h̲ūbī —the liar ( Tezâkir 13-…

, Kamāl al-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿUmar b. Aḥmad b. Hibat Allāh , historian of Aleppo, born there in 588/1192, died in Cairo in 660/1262. A wealthy and prominent family of ʿIrāḳī Arab origin, the Banu ’l-ʿAdīm acquired property in and around Aleppo, and a number of them rose to eminence or office under the successive dynasties that ruled in that city. For five generations they held the office of ḳāḍī; the historian’s father was a chief ḳāḍī under Zangid and then Ayyūbid rule. He himself, after studies in Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Bag̲h̲dād and the Ḥid̲j̲āz, served in Aleppo as a secretary, as a ḳāḍī…

, abu ’l-futūḥ , a slave who was for a while ruler of Egypt during the reign of al-Ḥākim. He was brought up at the court of al-ʿAzīz, where he held the post of intendant ( Ḵh̲iṭaṭ ii, 3; Ibn Tag̲h̲ribirdī, Cairo, iv, 48; Ibn Ḵh̲allikān. ii, 201). He was a eunuch, and was known by the title Ustād̲h̲ [ q.v.]. His ethnie origin is uncertain—Ibn Ḵh̲allikān calls him a negro, Ibn al-Ḳalānisī simply a white ( abyaḍ al-lawn ), al-Maḳrīzī either a Slav or a Sicilian, the readings Saḳlabī and Siḳillī both occurring in the MSS. of the Ḵh̲iṭaṭ (cf. S. de Sacy, Chrestomothie , i, 130). Bard̲j̲awān was appointed g…