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(Hüseyin Ḥilmi Paşa), twice Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, was born in Mitylene (Midilli) in 1855. He came from a modest background, being the son of Kütahyali̊zāde Muṣṭafā Efendi, an ordinary merchant. After receiving a traditional education—first in a medrese , then in a rüs̲h̲diye (secondary school), and learning fiḳh (Islamic jurisprudence) and French from private tutors—Ḥilmī entered the local bureaucracy in 1874. He remained in Mitylene for a further nine years and then saw service in Aydi̊n (1883), Syria (1885) and Bag̲h̲dād (1892); he became governor ( wālī …

G̲h̲āzī Aḥmed , Ottoman Turkish general and statesman, was born in Bursa on 30 November/1 December 1839, the son of a local notable prominent in the silk trade. On his father’s death, his uncle enrolled him in the local military school from where he advanced to the War College ( Mekteb-i Ḥarbiyye ) in Istanbul. He graduated in March 1860, then trained as a staff officer and emerged in 1861 as staff captain. He distinguished himself during campaigns in Herzogevina and Montenegro (1861-3) and was appointed instructor in the “a…

, generally translated as the “Muhammadan Union”, was a politico-religious organization which acquired notoriety as the instigator of the insurrection in Istanbul on 13 April 1909. Its formation was announced publicly on 5 April 1909 (= 23 Mart 1325, by the Turkish “financial” calendar), though Ḥāfi̊ẓ Dervīs̲h̲ Waḥdetī, its leading spirit and editor of the daily newspaper Volkan (“Volcano”), claimed that the Muhammadan Union had in fact been founded on 6 February 1909 ( = 24 Ḳānūn II 1324) (see T. Z. Tunaya, Türkiyede Siyasi Partiler 1854-1952, Istanbul 1952, 261 ff.). It seems t…

, Rizâ Nur (1879-8 September 1942), Turkish medical doctor, politician, diplomat, man of letters and nationalist ideologue, born in the Black Sea town of Sinop in 1879. After graduating from the military medical college he taught at the Faculty of Medicine, but abandoned medicine for politics after the constitution was restored in July 1908. Elected to the parliament from Sinop, Ri̊ḍā Nūr joined the opposition Liberal party ( Aḥrār Fi̊rḳasi̊ ) against the Ittiḥād ve Teraḳḳī D̲j̲emʿiyyeti [ q.v.], the CUP. Suspected of playing a role in the abortive counter-revolution of A…

, better known in Europe as the Committee of Union and Progress (C.U.P.), was the political movement responsible for the destinies of the Ottoman Empire from the revolution of 1908 to its destruction in 1918. The Committee had its immediate origins in a group called the “Ottoman Freedom Society” ( ʿOt̲h̲mānli̊ Ḥürriyet Ḏj̲emʿiyyeti ), founded in Salonika in August-September 1906. Spiritually, however, its antecedents ¶ went back to the conspiratorial activities of the Young Ottomans and their successors, both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire. (See T. Z. Tunaya, Türkiye’de siyas…

, meḥmed sālim (1868-1914), a Turkish political journalist of the late Ḥamīdian and early constitutional period. Better known by his nom de plume ʿAwn Allāh Kāẓimī, he was born in Istanbul in 1868. He was the son of Ḥüseyn Ḥüsnī Beg, who was private secretary ( mabeyin kātibi ) to the sultan. His family came from Erzurum in eastern Anatolia where al-Kāẓimī’s grandfather, ʿAlī Beg, had been a derebey [ q.v.]. He was given a traditional education, though he learned French as well as Arabic and Persian. Finding no suitable position in the stratified bureaucracy of th…

(1856-1913), Ottoman general, war minister and Grand-Vizier (1913), was born in Bag̲h̲dād. He came from a Georgian family long settled in ʿIrāḳ and thoroughly Arabised, so much so that he was known as ʿArab Maḥmūd at the War Academy. His father Ketk̲h̲udāzāde Süleymān was a former mutaṣarrif of Baṣra, and his mother an Arab lady of the ancient house of al-Farūk̲h̲ī. After completing his early education in Bag̲h̲dād he entered the War Academy in Istanbul, graduating in 1882 at the head of his class. He was appointed to …

(1863-1918), Ottoman statesman, diplomat, and Grand Vizier (1910-11), was born in Bes̲h̲ikṭās̲h̲. He was the son of Remzī Efendi, who had been mutaṣarri̊f of Saḳi̊z (Chios) and President of the Bes̲h̲ikṭās̲h̲ municipal council. Ibrāhīm Ḥaḳḳī began his secondary education in a local school and then went to the Civil Service Training School ( Mekteb-i Mülkiyye ) where he completed his higher education. At the same time he had been learning French and English from private tutors. He graduated in 1882 and joined the secretariat of …

(“Freedom and Accord Party”), also known as Entente Libérale (“Liberal Union”), Ottoman political party, formed on 21 November 1911. It succeeded a number of other liberal-conservative political parties formed after the 1908 revolution in opposition to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) [see ittiḥād we teraḳḳī d̲j̲emʿiyeti ], including the ʿOt̲h̲mānli̊ Aḥrār Fi̊rḳasi̊ (1908), the Muʿtedil Ḥürriyetperverān Fi̊rḳasi̊ (1909), the Ahālī Fi̊rḳasi̊ (1910), and the Ḥizb-i D̲j̲edīd (1911). It advocated a policy of administrative decentraliz…

, in modern Arabic “government”. Like many political neologisms in Islamic languages, the word seems to have been first used in its modern sense in 19th century Turkey, and to have passed from Turkish into Arabic and other languages. Ḥukūma comes from the Arabic root ḥ.k.m , with the meaning “to judge, adjudicate” (cf. the related meaning, dominant in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, of wisdom. See ḥikma ). In classical usage the verbal noun ḥukūma means the act or office of adjudication, of dispensing justice, whether by a sovereign, a judge, …