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(a.) or Mas̲h̲ūra , a common term for consultation, in particular by the ruler of his advisers, the latter being various defined. The term sometimes also appears to mean some kind of deliberative gathering or assembly. The practice of consultative decision was known in pre-Islamic Arabia [see mad̲j̲lis , and malaʾ in Suppl). Two passages in the Ḳurʾān (III, 153/159, was̲h̲āwirhum fi ’l-amr and XLII, 36/38, wa-amruhum s̲h̲ūrā baynahum) are commonly cited as imposing a duty of consultation on rulers. The merits of consultation ( mus̲h̲āwara and mas̲h̲wara) and the corresponding defe…

, the three towns, a term employed in Ottoman legal and administrative usage for Eyyūb, Galata, and Üsküdar, i.e., the three separate urban areas attached to Istanbul. Each had its own ḳāḍī, independent of the ḳādī of Istanbul, though of lower rank. Every Wednesday the ḳāḍīs of the ‘three towns’ joined the ḳāḍī of Istanbul in attending the Grand Vezir. This judicial autonomy of the three towns goes back to early Ottoman times, probably even to the conquest. The three towns also enjoyed some autonomy in police mat…

, in Turkish zabtiyye , a late Ottoman term for the police and gendarmerie. Police duties, formerly under the control of various janissary officers, were placed under the jurisdiction of the Serʿasker ([ q.v.] see also bāb-i serʿaskerī ) in 1241/ 1826, and in 1262/1846 became a separate administration, the Ḍabṭiyee Mus̲h̲īriyyeti (Ḷutfī iii 27-8). At about the same time a council of police ( med̲j̲lis-i ḍabṭiyye ) was established, which was later abolished and replaced by two quasi-judicial bodies, the dīwān-i ḍabṭiyye and med̲j̲lis-i taḥḳīḳ- After several further changes the mus̲h̲īr…

, 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…

; from ʿaskar , soldier; in Ottoman technical usage a member of the ruling military caste, as distinct from the reʿāyā —the subject population of peasants and townspeople ( reʿāyā sometimes means the subjects generally, sometimes only the peasants). The term ‘askarī denoted caste rather than function; it included retired or unemployed ʿaskarīs, the wives and children of ʿaskarīs, manumitted slaves of the Sultan and of the ʿaskarīs, and also the families of the holders of religious public offices in attendance ( mulāzemet ) on the Sultan. The Ottoman ʿaskarī class comprised both th…

, formerly also başbakanlik arşivi , the Archives of the Prime Minister’s office, the name now given to the central state archives of Turkey and of the Ottoman Empire. The formation of the Ottoman archives begins with the rise of the Ottoman state, but the present collection, though containing a number of individual documents and registers from earlier times, dates substantially from after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The archives became really full from about the middle of the 16th century, and continue to the end of the Empire. The organisation of the Ottoman reco…

, an Ottoman title of Greek origin, from αὐθέντης, Lord, Master, (cf. authentic), probably via a Byzantine colloquial vocative form, afendi (G. Meyer, Türkische Studien , i, in SBAk . Wien (1893), 37; K. Foy in MSOS, i/2 (1898), 44 n. 3; Psichari, 408). The term was already in use in Turkish Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries. Eflākī indicates that the daughter of Ḏj̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī was known as Efendipoulo—the master’s daughter (Cl. Huart, Les saints des derviches tourneurs , Paris 1922, ii, 429; on the later Karaite family name Afendopoulo or Efendipoulo see Z. Ankori, Karaites in Byza…

(a.), “servant of the two holy places” (sc. Mecca and Medina), a title used by a number of Muslim monarchs. Adopted by the Ottoman Sultan Selīm I after the conquest of Egypt in 922/1517 and used by some of his successors, it was regarded in late Ottoman times as a Caliphal title, and was said to have been taken over by Selīm from the last ʿAbbāsid caliph in Cairo. This does not correspond with the evidence, and appears to be part of the mythology of the Ottoman caliphate. As far as can be ascert…

, i.e., holder of a berāt, a name given in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to certain non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire, who held berāts conferring upon them important commercial and fiscal privileges. These berāts were distributed by the European diplomatic missions, in abusive extension of their rights under the capitulations. Originally intended for locally recruited consular officers and agents, they were sold or granted to growing numbers of local merchants, who were thus able to acquire a privileged and protect…

, the name given to the Ottoman imperial council, until the mid 11th/17th century the central organ of the government of the Empire. Evidence on the dīwān under the early Sultans is scanty. According to ʿĀs̲h̲iḳpas̲h̲azāde (ch. 31; ed. N. Atsız, Osmanlı tarihlerı , Istanbul 1949, 118; German trans. R. Kreutel, Vom Hirtenzeit zur hohen Pforte , Graz 1959, 66), the practice of wearing a twisted turban ( burma dülbend ) when attending the dīwān was introduced during the reign of Ork̲h̲ān. Probably a kind of public audience is meant. The Egyptian physician S̲h̲ams al-Dīn …

(Turkish eshām ), plural of Arabic sahm (Turkish sehim), share. In Turkey the word was used to designate certain treasury issues, variously described as bonds, assignats, and annuities. The es̲h̲ām are called annuities by Hammer ( Leibrenten ) and also in the Ottoman budget of 1862-3, where they are mentioned as rentes viagčres . The description is not strictly accurate, as although the eshām reverted to the state on the death of the holder, they could be sold, the state claiming a duty ¶ of one year’s income on each such transfer. According to Muṣṭafā Nūrī Pasha, the eshām …

, a name given in mediaeval times to the followers in Syria of the Nizārī branch of the Ismāʿīlī sect. The name was carried from Syria to Europe by the Crusaders, and occurs in a variety of forms in the Western literature of the Crusades, as well as in Greek and Hebrew texts. In the form ‘assassin’ it eventually found its way into French and English usage, with corresponding forms in Italian, Spanish and other languages. Af first the word seems to have been used in the sense of devotee ¶ or zealot, thus corresponding to fidāʿī [ q.v.]. As early as the 12th century Provençal poets compare the…

, Ottoman Turkish writer, was born in Istanbul in 1260/1844, the son of a poor draper called Sulaymān Ag̲h̲a and a Circassian ¶ mother. He lost his father in early childhood, and was for a while apprenticed to a shopkeeper. When he was 10 years old the family moved to Vidin, where his half-brother Ḥāfiẓ Ag̲h̲a was the mudïr of a kaḍā . Ḥāfiẓ, however, fell into disgrace, and in 1859 Aḥmed returned to Istanbul, where he began his schooling. In 1277/1861 Ḥāfiẓ Ag̲h̲a, having won the favour of Midḥat Pas̲h̲a, was reinstated and given an …

( Banu ’l-ʿAbbās ), the dynasty of the Caliphs from 132/750 to 656/1258. The dynasty takes its name from its ancestor, al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hās̲h̲im, the uncle of the Prophet. The story of the origins and nature of the movement that overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and established the ʿAbbāsid dynasty in its place was for long known only in the much-revised version put about when the dynasty had already attained power, and, with it, respectability. A more critical version was proposed by G. van Vloten ( De opkomst der Abbasiden in Chorasan , Leiden 1890, and Recherches …

, Deryā-beyi , sea-lord, a title given in the Ottoman Empire to certain officers of the fleet. In the 9th/15th century the term deryā-beyi or deñiz-beyi is sometimes used of the commandant of Gallipoli [see gelibolu ], who had the rank of Sand̲j̲aḳ-beyi, and was the naval commander-inchief until the emergence of the Kapudan Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. In the 10th/16th century the Kapudan Pas̲h̲a became, as well as an admiral, the governor of an eyālet , which consisted of a group of ports and islands [see d̲j̲azā’ir-i baḥr-i safīd ]. This province, like others, was divide…

, (also s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-islām kapi̊si̊ , bāb-i fetwā and fetwāk̲h̲āne ), a name which became common in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century for the office or department of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām [ q.v.], the Chief Muftī of Istanbul. Until 1241/1826 the Chief Muftīs had functioned and issued their rulings from their own residences or, if these were too distant, from rented quarters. In that year, after the destruction of the Janissaries, Sulṭān Maḥmūd II gave the former ¶ residence of the Ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries, near the Süleymāniyye Mosque, to the Chief Muftī, who …