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; 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 ( r

, 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 afte…

, 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. …

(a.…

, 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 missi…

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, 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 …

, 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 child…

( 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 ( …

, 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 K…

, (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.], th…

, S̲h̲īʿite heretic, flourished in the second century A.H. He lived in Kūfa and earned his living by selling barley ( s̲h̲aʿīr ), whence his name. According to the Minhād̲j̲ and the Muntahā , he was sometimes mistakenly referred to as al-As̲h̲ʿarī, instead of the correct al-S̲h̲aʿīrī. According to traditions related by al-Kas̲h̲s̲h̲ī, he was repudiated and disowned by the Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ ( Rid̲j̲āl 252-4; cf. 197, where ʿAbū Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār al-As̲h̲ʿarīʾ is denounced as a liar, together with such notorious heretics as al-Mug̲h̲īra …

, Ottoman jurist and theologian. Born in Istanbul in 1004/1595-6, he was the son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Efendi, a Ḳāḍīʿasker of Rumelia, and the grandson of the historian Saʿd al-Dīn. Entering upon the cursus honorum of the religious institution, he became mudarris and molla and was appointed ḳāḍī first in Salonica and then, in 1043/1633-4, in Aleppo. A heavy smoker, he was reported by the Beylerbey Aḥmed Pas̲h̲a, with whom he was on bad ternis, and in 1044/1634-5 was dismissed and exiied to Cyprus as a punishment for w…

, known as ṣāḥib al-zand̲j̲ , was the leader of the Zand̲j̲ [ q.v.], the rebel negro slaves who for fifteen years (255-270/868-83) terrorised southern ʿIrāḳ and the adjoining territories. He was born in Warzanīn, a village near Rayy, and is said by some authorities to have been of Arab origin, being descended from ʿAbd al-Ḳays on his father’s side and from Asad on his mother’s. His name is generally given as ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. According to Ibn al-Ḏj̲awzī ( al-Muntaẓam , Hyderabad 1357, v, 2, 69) his real name was ¶ Bihbūd̲h̲. Al-Bīrūnī ( Chronology , 332;…

, a Turkish dervish who acquired some celebrity in the time of the Il-Ḵh̲āns. He is said to have been a disciple of the famous Sarǐ Saltuk [ q.v.], and is mentioned in connexion with the Bābāʾī, Bektās̲h̲ī, …

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…

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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…