Search

, 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…

, a small town in Syria in the district east of the Orontes, about twenty-five miles S. E. of Ḥamā and thirty-five (a day’s journey) N. E. of Ḥimṣ (for the exact situation cf. Kiepert’s map in Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf, i. and part ii. 401). It lies in a fertile plain 1500 feet above sea level, south of the Ḏj̲abal al-Aʿlā and on the margin of the Syrian steppe. The older and more correct pronunciation was Salamya (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, B. G. A., i. 61; Ibn al-Faḳīh, B. G. A., v. 110) but the form Salamīya is also found very early (al-Muḳaddasī, B.G.A., iii 190; Ibn Ḵh̲ordād̲h̲beh, B.G.A.…

, title of the governors of the Egyptian provinces, called mudīrīya. 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 division of Egypt, instituting seven mudīrīyas; this number has been changed several times [s. k̲h̲edive]. At the present day there are 14 mudīrīyas. The chief task of the mudīr is the controlling of the agricultural administration and of the irrigation, as executed by his subordinates, viz. the maʾmūr, who administers a markaz and the nāẓir who cont…