Search

, the fifteenth Ottoman sultan (1026-7/1617-18 and 1031-2/1622-3), was born in the year 1000/1591 as son of Meḥemmed III [ q.v.]. He owed his life to the relaxation of the ḳānūn authorising the killing of all the brothers of a new sultan, and was called to succeed his brother Aḥmed I [ q.v.] at the latter’s death on 23 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 1026/22 November 1617. But his weakmindedness —which is said to have him made escape death on account of superstitious fear of Aḥmed— made him absolutely incapable of ruling. Aḥmed’s son ʿOt̲h̲mān, who felt himself e…

, S̲h̲ūs̲h̲tar , Arabie form Tustar , a town of southwestern Persia in the mediaeval Islamic province of Ahwāz [ q.v.] and the modern one ( ustān ) of K̲h̲ūzistān (lat. 32° 03’ N., long. 48° 51’ E.). It stands on a cliff to the west of which runs the river Kārūn [ q.v.], the middle course of which begins a few miles north of the town. This position gives the town considerable commercial and strategic importance and has made possible the construction of various waterworks for which the town has long been famous. The main features of these construct…

(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 …

, the name given to two kinds of Ottoman daily-wage irregular militia, one sea-going ( deñiz ), the other land-based ( ḳarā ), both existing from early times. The word may derive in its maritime sense from the Italian levantino (S̲h̲. Sāmī, Ḳāmūs-i Türkī ), used originally by Venetians for soldiers recruited from their Levantine possessions, and then passing into ¶ Ottoman Turkish as a term for mercenaries recruited from the Mediterranean regions, especially the eastern lands and islands of Greece, Dalmatia and western Anatolia. Som…

is the arabicised form of the Persian name Kūhistān meaning a mountainous country (derived from kūh , “mountain” with the sufix -istān ) and corresponds to the Arabic designation al-D̲j̲ibāl. As the Iranian plateau is very mountainous, we find many more or less extensive areas in it to which the name Ḳūhistān has been given, as Yāḳūt has already remarked (iv, 204). Many of these names have disappeared in course of time. Thus Ḳazwīnī (ed. Wüstenfeld, 228) says that the term Ḳūhistān is used for Media, which other geographers always call al-D̲j̲ibāl. In the S̲h̲āh-nāma …

(t.), the name of a corps of guards, who were especially attached to the person of the sultan at the Ottoman Turkish court. The name is also applied to a member of the guard. Their occupations were similar to those of the Čawus̲h̲ [ q.v.], not of military character, nor for court service only, but they were used for more or less important public or political missions. Like the Čawus̲h̲, the Müteferriḳa were a mounted guard. The name appears early, e.g., in a waḳfiyya of 847/1443, one Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāḳ is mentioned as being one. In later times there were ¶ two classes, the gedikli or ziʿāmetli …

, the twenty-ninth sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1222-3/1807-8), was a son of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd I and was born on 26 S̲h̲aʿbān 1193/19 September 1778 (Meḥmed T̲h̲üreyyā, Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī , i, 81). When the anti-reform party, headed by the ḳāʾim-maḳām Mūsā Pas̲h̲a and the muftī, and supported by the Janissaries and the auxiliary troops of the Yamaḳs, had dethroned Selīm III [ q.v.] on 21 Rabīʿ I 1222/29 May 1807, Muṣṭafā was proclaimed sultan. Immediately afterwards, the niẓām-i d̲j̲edīd ¶ [ q.v.] corps was dissolved and Ḳabaḳd̲j̲i-og̲h̲lu, the leader of the Yamaḳs, was mad…

, famous Ottoman commander of the 10th/16th century, d. 988/1580. The date of his birth is not given. He was a native of Soḳol, and began his service in the imperial palace. He rose in rank under the grand vizier Aḥmed (960-2/1553-5), but was not in favour with the latter’s successor Rüstem Pas̲h̲a, who made him in 963/1556 lālā to prince Selīm with the object of ruining him. The outcome of this nomination was the contrary of what was expected; Muṣṭafā became the chief originator of the intrigues by which Selīm came into conflict …

or maḥalla kabīr is the modern name of an important town in the Delta of the Nile at some distance to the west of the Damietta arm, north-east of Ṭanṭa. It ¶ lies on the Turʿat al-Milāḥ canal, a branch of the Baḥr S̲h̲ībīn. In view of the large number of Egyptian geographical names compounded with Maḥalla (see these listed in Muḥammad Ramzī, al-Ḳāmūs al-d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfī li ’l-bilād al-Miṣriyya , Cairo 1953-68, i, 404-9), the identification of the town with the names mentioned by earlier Arabic writers is a matter of some difficulty. Maspero an…

, the form of the name in Ottoman Turkish of the small village in Lydia in Asia Minor, the ancient Sardes (αἱ Σάρδεις of the classical authors, which makes Sāmī Bey write Sārd), capital of the Lydian kingdom, situated on the eastern bank of the Sart Çay (Paktōlos) a little southward to the spot where this river joins the Gediz Çay (Hermos). Although in the later Byzantine period Sardes had lost much of its former importance (as a metropolitan see) and been outflanked by Magnesia (Turkish Mag̲h̲nīsa [ q.v.]) and Philadelphia (Ala S̲h̲ehir [ q.v.]), it still was one of the larger towns, wh…

, Grand Vizier under the Ottoman Sulṭān Aḥmad III. He was an Albanian from Elbaṣān born ca. 1655. At the time his elder brother Sinān Āg̲h̲ā was Bostand̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊ [ q.v.], he entered the Bostand̲j̲i̊ corps. After the latter’s death ca. 1105/1649, he became attached to Ḳalayli̊ḳoz Aḥmad Pas̲h̲a and served under him in Bag̲h̲dād, where his protector was beglerbegi . On his return to Istanbul, K̲h̲alīl became K̲h̲āṣṣaki [ q.v.] and in 1123/1711, Bostand̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊. On 16 Muḥarram 1128/11 January 1716, having been appointed beglerbegi of Erzurum, he was sent by the Grand Vizi…

, the name of a region lying to the west of Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in mediaeval Islamic Transoxania, now falling in the region where the eastern part of the Uzbekistan Republic, the northernmost part of the Tajikistan Republic and the easternmost part of the Kirghiz Republic meet. The form Usrūs̲h̲ana is the best known, although Yāḳūt (i, 245) says that Us̲h̲rūsana is preferable. In the Persian versions of the text of al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and in the Persian text of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam we find more often Surūs̲h̲ana, while Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih sometimes has S̲h̲ur…

, nineteenth sultan of the Ottoman dynasty in Turkey, known as awd̲j̲i̊ "the hunter" from his excessive passion for the chase, reigned 1058-99/1648-87. Born on 30 Ramadan 1051/2 January 1642, he was the son of Sultan Ibrāhīm [ q.v.] and Ḵh̲adīd̲j̲a Turk̲h̲ān Sulṭān. He was placed on the throne in Istanbul at the age of seven after the deposition in 18 Rad̲j̲ab 1058/8 August 1648 of the sensualist and possibly mentally deranged “Deli” Ibrāhīm, at a moment when Ibrāhīm was the sole surviving adult male of the house of ʿOt̲h̲mān, but i…

(761-91/1360-89), according to the common tradition the third ruler of the Ottoman state, was a son of Ork̲h̲ān and the Byzantine lady Nīlūfer. Although some Ottoman sources profess to know the year of his birth ( Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī , i, 74, gives the year 726/1326), this date, like all dates given by Turkish sources relating to this period, is far from certain. The name Murād (Greek sources such as Phrantzes have ’Αμουράτης, from which later Latin sources make Amurath, while contemporary Latin sources from…

, sixteenth sultan of the Ottoman empire (regn. 1027-31/1618-22), was born on 19 D̲j̲umādā II 1012/15 November 1603; cf. Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī , i, 56), the son of Sultan Aḥmed I. After the death of his father in November 1617, the brother of the latter had been proclaimed sultan as Muṣṭafā I [ q.v.] but ʿOt̲h̲mān, taking advantage of the weak character of his uncle and supported by the Muftī Esʿad Efendi and the Ḳi̊zlar Ag̲h̲asi̊ . Muṣṭafā, seized the throne on 26 February 1618 by a coup d’état. The youth of the new sultan at first assured the promoters of the coup d’état of cons…

A town in Eastern Thrace, situated twenty-four miles to the east of Adrianople, ¶ on the southern slope of the Istrand̲j̲a mountains, which run parallel to the coast of the Black Sea from the north-west to the Southeast. It was conquered from Byzantium during the reign of Murād I, a few years after the capture of Adrianople and after the great defeat of the Serbians near this town (766). The chronology of the conquest is very uncertain, for neither the early Turkish chroniclers nor the Byzantine mention it. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa ( Chronologia historica, Venice 1697, p. 116) and Saʾd al-Dīn ( Tād…

, the Turkish form of the name of the town of Trebizond, in Greek ΤραπεζοῦΣ. Situated at the southeast cerner of the Black Sea on a very hilly coast which is separated from the rest of Asia Minor and Armenia by a high range of mountains, this town, like the population of the country immediately around it, has always led a more or less isolated existence, from which it only emerged in those periods when ¶ its geographical position made it become an important point on the great trade-routes. Trebizond is mentioned for the first time by Xenophon ( Anabasis, iv. 8) and is said to have been a very…

, vice-regent of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ empire in Asia Minor after the Mongol invasion of that territory. His father Muhad̲h̲d̲h̲ib al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Dailamī (in some sources, such as the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Guzīda, Muʿīn al-Dīn is called “al-Kās̲h̲ī”, which implies origin from Kās̲h̲ān) had been a minister during the reign of Kaik̲h̲usraw II and had been able, after the battle of Köse Dag̲h̲ (1243), to secure for a time the continuation of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ dynasty in Asia Minor, by his intercession with the Mongol general Baid̲j̲ū (Ibn Bībī, p. …

, or rather tanhẓīmāt-i k̲h̲airīye (“beneficent legislation” from the expression: ḳānūn tanẓīm etmek = “to draft a law”) is the term used to denote the reforms introduced into the government and administration of the Ottoman empire from the beginning of the reign of Sulṭān ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd and inaugurated by the charter generally called the k̲h̲aṭṭ-i s̲h̲erīf of Gülk̲h̲āne. The expression tanẓīmāt k̲h̲airīye is first found in the latter years of the reign of Maḥmūd II. The other end of the period of the tanẓīmāt is put about 1880, when the absolute rule of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II began. The tanẓīmā…

, 1) the name of the founder of a Turkoman dynasty in Asia Minor in the viith century a. h. (thirteenth a. d.), the dynasty which was the first to succumb to the Ottomans; 2) the name of the territory ruled by this dynasty, I now a sand̲j̲aḳ of Turkey. ¶ 1. Ḳarasī is said to be a contraction of Ḳara ʿĪsā or Ḳara Ese, the name of a Turkoman chief, a vassal of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sulṭān G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Masʿūd, who conquered the province of Mysia for him from the Byzantines in the reign of Andronicos II Palaiologos (Ducas, p. 13). The name of the father of Ḳarasī …

, the desert region that lies west of Kūfa along the alluvial plain of the Euphrates. It is higher than the low-lying ground by the river and forms the transition to the central Arabian plateau. According to the authorities quoted by Yāḳūt (iii. 359), al-ṭaff means an area raised above the surrounding country; the name is not found after the xiiith century. The district contains a number of springs, the waters of which run southwest (cf. Ibn al-Faḳīh, p. 187). The best known of these wells was al-ʿUd̲h̲air. From its geographical position al-Ṭaff was the …

, the Turkish word for black or dark colour in general. It is commonly used with this meaning as the first component of geographical names, for example Ḳara Āmīd (on account of the black basalt of which this fortress is built), Ḳara Dag̲h̲ (on account of its dark forests), etc. Beside Ḳara we find in place-names the form Karad̲j̲a. In personal names it refers to the black or dark brown colour of hair or to a dark complexion. It has, however, at the same time also the meaning “strong, powerful” and has ¶ to be interpreted in this sense in the name Ḳara Osmān or in names like Ḳara Arslān…

, a town in Mesopotamia, in 44° 25′ E. Long, and 35° 25′ N. Lat., the largest town in the district bounded by the Little Zāb in the north-west, the Ḏj̲abal Ḥamrīn to the southwest, the Diyālā to the south-east, and the chain of the Zagros to the north-east. This territory, which even in the days of the ancient Babylonian empire and later in the Assyrian empire was much exposed to the raids of the hill-peoples of the north-east, was called under the Sāsānids, Gamarkān (Moses of Ḵh̲urene) and in Syriac sources Bēth Garmē; the town of Kirkūk is called in these sources Kark̲h̲ā de Bēth Selōk̲h̲. The pro…

is the name by which the author of the most important general historical work written in Turkey is known. His real name was Aḥmad Efendi, son of Luṭf Allāh, a native of Eregli near Ḳonya. He was born in Selānik, in the first half of the xvith century, received a scholarly education and served in his youth for fifteen years in the Mewlewī-k̲h̲āne of Ḳāsim Pas̲h̲a under S̲h̲aik̲h̲ Ḵh̲alīl Dede ( Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī, ii. 287). Afterwards he studied astronomy and astrology and became court astrologer ( munad̲j̲d̲j̲im bas̲h̲i̊) in 1078 (1667—1668). In 1086 (1675—1676) he was admitte…

, also written Sifri Ḥiṣār, i.e. strong castle (cf. Aḥmed Wefīḳ, Lehče-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī, p. 459), the name of two places in Asia Minor. 1. A little town lying in the centre of the plateau bounded on south and east by the upper course of the Saḳariya and in the north by the Pursāḳ, c. 85 miles southwest of Angora. Siwri Ḥiṣār is on the northern slope of the Günes̲h̲ Dag̲h̲; the citadel of the town was built on this mountain. The town does not date beyond the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period and has no remains of archaeological interest. But it was already known as a strong place to Ḳazwīnī ( Geography, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. …

, a town on the right bank of the Sīr Daryā (Saiḥūn), a little south of its ¶ tributary the Aris. The name is found as a geographical term for the first time in Yāḳūt (i. 310) as Uṭrār but Ṭabarī (iii. 815—816) already knows of a prince called Utrār-banda as a rebel vassal of the Caliph al-Maʾmūn. The place that Maḳdisī calls Tarār Zarāk̲h̲ ( B G A, iii. 263, 274) in the district of Isbīd̲j̲āb must be quite a different place. Otrār may perhaps be the same as the capital of the district of Fārāb [q. v.], a town which replaced the older one of Kadar (mentioned by …

(sometimes Ṣaḳārya), a river in Asia Minor. It rises near Bayāt in the northeast of Āfiyūn Ḳara Hiṣār. In its eastward course it enters the wilāyet of Angora through which it runs to a point above Čaḥmaḳ after receiving on its left bank the Saiyid G̲h̲āzī Ṣū and several other tributaries on the same side. It then turns northwards describing a curve round Siwri Hiṣār. Here it receives on the right bank the Engürü Sūyu from Angora and near this confluence the Pursaḳ on the opposite bank. A little to the south of this point is the bridge of the Eski-S̲h̲ehir-Angora railway. ¶ Farther on, towards th…

Christians, more especially the adherents of the Oriental churches living under Muslim rule (differentiated from Rūm “Greek Christians”, Ifrand̲j̲ “Western Christians”). The word is derived from the Syriac Naṣrāyā (Horovitz, Koran. Untersuchungen, p. 144 sqq.); the Arabic singular is Naṣrānī. A. Before Islām. A complete investigation of the materials for the history of Christianity in Arabia and among the Arabs before the rise of Islām has not yet been made, and only the principal facts can be summarily given here. Christianity naturally spread into Arabia from Syria and al…

, grand vizier, was born about 1660 in the town of ʿOt̲h̲mānd̲j̲i̊ḳ and, after an education in the imperial palace, entered the corps of the balṭad̲j̲i̊s,. On account of his beautiful voice he acted for some time as müʾed̲h̲d̲h̲in: later on he became a scribe and rose rapidly in this career. In 1703, at Aḥmad III’s accession, he became mīr-āk̲h̲or and was made Ḳapudan Pas̲h̲a in November 1704. In December of the same year he obtained the grand vizierate as successor of Ḳalayli̊ Aḥmad Pas̲h̲a, against whom, although he had been at one time his fellow balṭad̲j̲i̊, he had used all his power o…

, grand vizier, was born about 1660 in a village near Sīnūb as son of a ship’s captain. After having been attached to the service of the Pas̲h̲a of Tripolis, he was educated in the k̲h̲aṣṣ oda of the palace and became in 1687 silaḥdār; soon afterwards he became nis̲h̲ānd̲j̲ī and obtained the rank of vizier. In Aḥmad II’s reign he was Pas̲h̲a in Bosnia, but did not yet play a prominent part, though he is said to have been one of that sulṭān’s favourites. After Muṣṭafā II’s accession he was appointed ḳāʾim-maḳām of the imperial stirrup and, when a revolt of the Janissaries had cost the g…

, a small town in Macedonia, situated about 40 miles to the S. W. of Selānīk, on the Ana Dere, a tributary of the Ind̲j̲e Ḳara Ṣu, in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Salonica. The ancient Greek name is Βέροια, in modern Greek Vérria (Slav. Ber), to which form the Turks have added the adjective Ḳara. According to the Byzantine authors the town was sacked as early as 1331 by Turkish pirates belonging to the country of Ḳarasī. They landed with 70 ships and laid waste the region of Vérria and Traja…

, the river Nile. The Nile is one of the large rivers which from the beginning have belonged to the territory of Islām, and the valleys and deltas of which have favoured the development of an autonomous cultural centre in Islāmic civilisation. In the case of the Nile this centre has influenced at different times the cultural and political events in the Muḥammadan world. Thus the Nile has, during the Islāmic period, continued to play the same part as it did during the centuries that preceded the coming of Islām. The name al-Nīl or, very often, Nīl Miṣr, goes back to the Greek name Νεĩ…

, sixteenth sulṭān of the Ottoman empire, was born on the 19th Ḏj̲umādā II 1012 (Nov. 15, 1603; cf. Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī, i. 56), the son of Sulṭān Aḥmad I. After the death of his father in Nov. 1617, the brother of the latter had been proclaimed sulṭān as Muṣṭafā I [q. v.] but ʿOt̲h̲mān, taking advantage of the weak character of his uncle and supported by the mufti Esʿad Efendi and the Ḳi̊zlar Ag̲h̲a Muṣṭafā, seized the throne on Feb. 26, 1618 by a coup d’état. The youth of the new sulṭān at first assured the pr…

(a. mad̲j̲alla). Under this name the Civil Law Code of Turkey; is generally known it is an abbreviation of Med̲j̲elle-i aḥkām-i ʿadlīye. The elaboration of this Civil Code took place between 1869 and 1876 and was a part of the legislative programme of the Tanẓīmāt [q. v.]. It had been preceded by a Penal Code (1858) and a Commercial Code (1861), but, while these two codifications had been based in a large measure on the laws of European countries, the Med̲j̲elle was a codification of that part of Ḥanafite fiḳh, which treats of obligations ( muʿāmalāt). The codification was done by a commi…

, twelfth ruler of the Ottoman Empire, was born on the 5th Ḏj̲umādā I 953 (4th July 1546; Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿot̲h̲mānī, i. 76) as son of the later sulṭān Selīm II and the k̲h̲āṣṣekī Nūr Bānū. He arrived at Constantinople on Dec. 21st, 1574, after Selīm II’s death and reigned until his death on January 16, 1595 or a few days later. His reign is not characterized by great conquests in Europe. The peaceful relations with Austria were officially maintained; peace was several times confirmed (in 1575 and 1584) by a new treaty and by extraordinary…

, a town in Turkish Armenia, built on a rock to the north of a great plain in the area bounded by the west and south by the Euphrates, in the north by the Murād Ṣu and in the east by the chain of the Armenian Taurus; the site of the town itself lies in the Antitaurus. From the time of Diocletian this territory formed part of the Armenian districts incorporated in the Roman Empire and from the time of Justinian to the Roman province of „Fourth Armenia” which occupied the banks of the Arsanias (Murād Ṣu) and which the earliest Arab geographers still ¶ knew under this name. This district is often rec…

, grand vizier under Aḥmad I. He was a Bosnian by origin and a relation of Muḥammad Soḳolli Pas̲h̲a. The year of his birth is not given. After having had his education in the palace, he was mīr-ak̲h̲or and became in 1595 ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries. Two years later he took part in the Austrian wars as beylerbey of Rūm-ili and was commander of Esztergom (Gran; Turkish: Usturg̲h̲on) when this town capitulated to the Austrian army in September 1595. During the following years Lala Muḥammad was several times ser-ʿasker in Hungary and when, in July 1604, the grand vizier Yawuz ʿAlī had di…

, the name of a district in Transoxania. The form Osrūs̲h̲ana is the best known although Yāḳūt (i. 245) says that Os̲h̲rūsana is preferable. In the Persian versions of the text of al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and in the Persian text of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (ed. Barthold) we find more often Surūs̲h̲ana while Ibn Ḵh̲urdād̲h̲bih sometimes has S̲h̲urūsana; the original form may have been Srōs̲h̲ana. This district lies to the northeast of Samarḳand between this tow D and Ḵh̲od̲j̲and, to the south of the Sīr Daryā (Saiḥūn) so that it forms the approach to th…

, an Arab author and poet who flourished at the end of the second and beginning of the third century a. h. (= beginning of the ninth century a. d.). According to the Fihrist, he was of Persian descent and born in Dastmaisān, between Baṣra and Wāṣiṭ. Al-Ḥuṣrī makes him come from Maisān, which is quite near it, and gives him also the kunya Abū ʿAmr (on the margin of the ʿIḳd, ii. 190). The name of his grandfather is variously given: Rāmnūy, Rāhyūn (both in the Fihrist) or Rāhīyūnī (al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Bayān, i. 24; cf. also van Vloten’s note to p. 10 of his edition of al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ’ Kitāb al-Buk̲h̲alāʾ). S…

, a town in Upper Egypt on the east bank of the Nile. The form Ḳūṣ (Ḳūs in al-Farg̲h̲ānī and Ibn Rusta) comes from the Coptic Kōs (or Kōs Berbir) which a popular etymology later connected with the Coptic verb meaning “to bury”. In the Roman period the town was ¶ called Apollinopolis Parva and sometimes Diocletianopolis. In the early centuries of Islām, Ḳūṣ seems to have been of much less importance than the adjoining town of Ḳifṭ [q.v.]. Some of the early geographers like Ibn Ḵh̲urdād̲h̲bih do not mention it although it is found in the tables of al-Ḵh̲wārizmī (ed. by von Mžik, p. 9) and al-Fa…

, 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 bairaḳdār. After the war he lived on his estates near Rusčuḳ, and acquired the semiofficial position of aʿyān of Hezārgrād and later of Rusčuḳ. With other aʿyāns he took part in an action against the government at Adrianople, but became finally a reliable supporter of the government. ¶ Having already received the honorary offices of ḳapi̊d̲j̲i̊ bas̲h̲i̊ and of mīr ak̲h̲or, he was, in 1806,…

was the name, in the old military organisation of the Ottoman Empire, of the archers of the Sulṭān’s bodyguard. The word ṣolaḳ is an old Turkish word meaning “left-handed”. The relation of this meaning to that of archer is not quite clear. The solaks belonged to the Janissaries, of which they formed four orta’s (60th -63rd), each of 100 men under the command of a Ṣolaḳ Bas̲h̲i̊, and two lieutenants ( rekiab ṣolag̲h̲i̊). They were, however, used exclusively as bodyguards, a duty they shared with the peik’s [q. v.]. They had the same uniform as the Janissaries, except that they wore a cap ( uskiuf) …

, a place in al-ʿIrāḳ (lat. 32° 30′ N., long 45° 50′ E.), on the left bank of the Tigris, between Bag̲h̲dād and ʿAmāra, 100 miles south-east of Bag̲h̲dād as the crow flies. Kūt is the Hindustānī word kōt meaning “fortress” [see kōt́wāl ] found in other place-names in al-ʿIrāḳ, like Kūt al-Muʿammir; Kūt al-ʿAmāra is often simply called Kūt. Kūt lies opposite the mouth of the S̲h̲aṭṭ al-Ḥayy, also called al-G̲h̲arrāf, the old canal connecting the Tigris with the Euphrates, which has several junctions with the Euphrate…

, a town of mediaeval ʿIrāḳ situated in the Euphrates-Tigris delta region at the head of the Persian Gulf and famed as the terminal for commerce from India and further east. It lay to the east of al-Baṣra [ q.v.] on the right bank of the Tigris and on the north side of the large canal called Nahr al-Ubulla, which was the main waterway from al-Baṣra in a southeastern direction to ¶ the Tigris and further to ʿAbbādān and the sea. The length of this canal is generally given as four farsak̲h̲ s or two barīd s (al-Muḳaddasī). Al-Ubulla can be identified with ’Απολόγου ’Εμπόριον, mentioned in the Periplus m…

(also known in the Arabicised form Marzubān-nāma ), a work in Persian prose containing a variety of short stories used as moral examples and bound together by one major and several minor framework stories. It is essentially extant in two versions written in elegant Persian with many verses and phrases in Arabic. They were made from a lost original in the Ṭabarī dialect independently of each other in the early 13th century. The oldest version, entitled Rawḍat al-ʿuḳūl , was completed in 598/1202 by Muḥammad b. G̲h̲āzī al-Malaṭyawī (or Malaṭī) and was …

, the twenty-ninth sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigned from 1808 until 1839. He was the son of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd I and was born on the 20th July 1784 (13th Ramaḍān 1199, cf. Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī, i. 73). He succeeded to Muṣṭafā IV on July 28, 1808, directly after the tragic events, which had led to the assassination of Salīm III [q. v.]. Maḥmūd himself had a narrow escape from the fate of Salīm. Until his coming to the throne he had lived in seclusion and during the preceding year his intercourse with the ¶ dethroned sultan had undoubtedly exercised a great influence on Maḥmūd’s ideas, …

is the name — derived from the Turkoman dynasty of the Ḳaramān-Og̲h̲lu [q.v.] — 1) of a district in Asia Minor, 2) of a town in Turkey, capital of a Ḳaḍā of the same name. The boundaries of the district of Ḳaramān (Ḳaramān-ili, Caramania) have varied. All the lands which were permanently under the Ḳaramānids are occasionally so called, that is Lycaonia, the Cilician Taurus and the whole southern Anatolian coast territory as far as Adalia. When the Ḳaramānids were finally overthrown, their lands became one Ottoman province (wilāye…

, the name of the members of an irregular militia, which formed part of armed forces of the Ottoman empire during the early centuries of its existence; they were chiefly ¶ employed as soldiers on the fleet in the period when the Turkish navy consisted mainly of the corsair vessels, which the Sulṭāns employed for their naval expeditions. The word lewendi seems to have been borrowed like many other naval terms from the Italian. The Italian word would have been levantino (Sāmī, Ḳāmūs-i Türki) or levanti (Ḏj̲awdat Pas̲h̲a) and was originally used by the Venetians for the soldiers wh…

, with the surname Abū ’l-Fatḥ, or, more popularly, Fātiḥ, seventh ruler of the Ottoman Empire, reigned from 1451 until his death in 1481. He was born, according to Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī, i. 67, in Rad̲j̲ab 832 (April 1429) and resided during his father Murād II’s lifetime as governor in Mag̲h̲nisa; after the death of his brother ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn in 1444 he became heir to the throne. Before his final enthronement Muḥammad had twice resided in Adrianople as sulṭān, on account of the abdication of Murād II; the first time in June…

or Maḥalla Kabīr is the modern name of an important town in the Delta of the Nile at some distance to the west of the Damietta arm, north-east of Tanta. It lies on the Turʿat al-Milāḥ canal, a branch of the Baḥr S̲h̲ībīn. In view of the large number of Egyptian geographical names compounded with Maḥalla, the identification of the town with the names mentioned by earlier Arabic writers is a matter of some difficulty. Maspero and Wiet indentify it with the Coptic Tis̲h̲airi (Amélinau, La géographie de l’Egypte à l’époque copte, Paris 1893, p. 262), but this identification is rendered do…