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Sultan Mahmud II

Sultan Mahmud II

Mahmud II (in Arabic محمودالثانى ) (July 20, 1785–July 1, 1839) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death. In 1808, Mahmud's brother and predecessor, Mustafa IV ordered his execution along with that of his brother, the deposed Sultan Selim III, in order to defuse a rebellion. Selim was killed, but Mahmud safely hid and was placed on the throne after the rebels deposed Mustafa. The leader of this rebellion, Mustafa Bayrakdar, then became Mahmud's vizier and took the initiative in resuming reforms that had been terminated by the conservative coup of 1807 that had brought Mustafa IV to power. It was not long before the vezir was killed by rebellious Janissaries in a fire, however, and Mahmud was forced to temporarily abandon the reforms. Later in his reign, Mahmud's efforts at reform were more successful. His most notable achievement was the massacre of the Janissary corps in 1826.

Reforms

the main points of the more momentous measures may be advantageously surveyed together; and among the first in value as well as date next to the all-important army reforms, which will be seperately considered), are the edicts, by which Sultan Mahmud, soon after he was emancipated from the military tyranny of the janisseries, closed the Court of Confiscations, and took away the power of the life and death from the Pachas. Previously to the first of these Firmans at the property of all persons banished or condemned to death was forfeited to the crown; and a sordid motive for acts of cruelty was thus kept in perpetual operation, besides the encouragement of a host of Delators of the vilest kind. By the second, it was rendered no longer in the power of a Turkish governor to doom men to instant death by a mere wave of his hand; but the Pachas, the Agas, and other officers, were enjoined that “they should net presume to inflict themselves the punishment of death on any man, whether Raya or Turk, unless authorized by a legal sentence pronounced by the Kadi, and regularly signed by the judge.” Even then an appeal was allowed to the criminal to one of the Kadiaskers of Asia or Europe, and finally to the Sultan himself, if the criminal chose to persist in his appeal. About the same time that Mehmed ordained these just arid humane changes, he set personally an example of reform by regularly attending the Divan, instead of secluding himself from the labors of state, according to the evil practice, which had been introduced so long ago as the reign of Selyman Kanuni, and which had been assigned as one of the causes of the decline of the empire by a Turkish historian nearly two centuries before Mahmud’s time. Mahmoud redressed some of the worst abuses connected with the Vakif’s, by placing the revenues under the administration of the state; but he did net venture, to apply this vast mass of property to the general purposes of’ flue goverment. With the military fiefs, the Timars and the Ziamets, he dealt more boldly. These had long ceased to furnish the old effective military force, for the purpose of which they worn instituted and by attaching them to the public domains, Mahmud metarially strengthened the resources of the state, and put and end of host of corruptions. One of the most resolute acts of his rulling was suppression of the Dereh Beys, the hereditary local chiefs (with power to nominate their successors in default of male heirs), win, by one of the worst abuses of the Ottoman feudal system, had made themselves petty princes in almost every province of the empire. The reduction of these insubordinate feudatories was not effected at once, or without severe struggles and frequent insurections. But Mahmoud steadily persevered in this great measures and ultimately the island of Cyprus became the only part of empire in which power, not emanating from the Sultan, allowed to be retained by Dere Beys. In dealing with the complicated questions caused by the embarrassed finances empire, of his empire, and by the oppression and vexatious ness with which certain imposts pressed upon particular classes, Mahmoud showed the best spirit of the best of the Kiuprilis. A Firman of February 22, 1834, abolished the vexatious charges which public functionaries, when traversing the provinces, bad long been accustomed to make on the inhabitants. By the same edict all collection of money, except at the two regular half-yearly periods, we denounced as abuses. “No one is ignorant,” said Sultan Mahmud in this document, “that I am bound to afford support to all my subjects against vexatious proceedings; to endeavour unceasingly to lighten, instead of increasing their burdens, and to ensure peace and tranquillity. Therefore, those acts of oppression are at once contrary to the will of God, and to my imperial orders.” The kharatch, or capitation-tax, though moderate in and exempting those who paid it from military service, had long been made an engine of gross tyranny, through the insolence and misconduct of the government collectors. The Firman of 1834 abolished the old mode of levying it, and ordained that in it should be raised by a commission composed of the Cadi the Musluman governors, and the Ayans, or municipal chiefs Rayas of each district. Many other financial improvements were effected, the narration of which would be too long for introdi here. By another important series of measures, the administrative government was simplified and strengthen large mass of sinecure offices was abolished, and the Sultan valuable personal example of good sense, and economy, organising the imperial household, and mercilessly suppressing all titles without duties, and all salaried officials without functions.

Last Years

When he died from tuberculosis in 1839, his funeral was crowded by throngs of people who came to bid the sultan farewell. Mahmud appears to have been unable to effect the reforms he desired in the mode of educating his children, so that his son received no better education than that given to Ottoman princes in the harem. His son Abd-ul-Mejid succeeded him.

Referance


- Incorporates text from "History of Ottoman Turks" (1878) Mahmud II Mahmud II ja:マフムト2世

Arabic language

The Arabic language (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It is spoken throughout the Arab world and is widely studied and known throughout the Islamic world. Arabic has been a literary language since at least the 6th century and is the liturgical language of Islam.

Literary and Modern Standard Arabic

The term "Arabic" may refer either to literary Arabic, which no Arab speaks as a mother tongue, or Modern Standard Arabic or to the many spoken varieties of Arabic commonly called "colloquial Arabic." Arabs consider literary Arabic as the standard language and tend to view everything else as mere dialects. Literary Arabic, (Literally: "the most eloquent Arabic language" — ) refers both to the language of present-day media across North Africa and the Middle East and to the more archaic language of the Qur'an. (The expression media here includes most television and radio, and all written matter, including all books, newspapers, magazines, documents of every kind, and reading primers for small children.) "Colloquial" or "dialectal" Arabic refers to the many national or regional dialects/languages derived from Classical Arabic, spoken daily across North Africa and the Middle East, which constitute the everyday spoken language. These sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible. These dialects are not typically written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry) exists in many of them. They are often used to varying degrees in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic, is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of Diglossia -the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of whatever nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic (to an equal or lesser degree). This diglossic situation facilitates code switching in which a speaker switches back and forth unaware between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation only to find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), both should be able to code switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication. Since the written Arabic of today differs from the written Arabic of the Qur'anic era, it has become customary in western scholarship and among non-Arab scholars of Arabic to refer to the language of the Qur'an as Classical Arabic and the modern language of the media and of formal speeches as Modern Standard Arabic. Arabs, on the other hand, often use the term to refer to both forms, thus placing greater emphasis on the similarities between the two. The difference between Arabic of the Qur'anic era and today's Classical Arabic is only in the degree of eloquance. The vocabulary, the syntatic and grammatical rules are the same. Quite a few English words are ultimately derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish, among them every-day vocabulary like sugar (sukkar), cotton (qutn) or magazine (). More recognizable are words like algorithm, algebra, alchemy, alcohol, azimuth, nadir, and zenith (see List of English words of Arabic origin). The Maltese language spoken on the Mediterranean island of Malta is the only surviving European language to derive primarily from Arabic (a North African dialect), though it contains a large number of Italian and English borrowings.

Arabic and Islam

It is sometimes difficult to translate Islamic concepts, and concepts specific to Arab culture, without using the original Arabic terminology. The Qur'an is expressed in Arabic and traditionally Muslims deem it impossible to translate in a way that would adequately reflect its exact meaning—indeed, until recently, some schools of thought maintained that it should not be translated at all. A list of Islamic terms in Arabic covers those terms which are too specific to translate in one phrase. While Arabic is strongly associated with Islam (and is the language of salah), it is also spoken by Arab Christians, Oriental (Sephardic) Jews, and smaller sects such as Iraqi Mandaeans. Even so, a majority of the world's Muslims do not actually speak Arabic, but only know some fixed phrases of Arabic, such as those used in Islamic prayer. However, to counteract this, there is great encouragement for non-Arabic-speaking Muslims to learn the language.

Dialects

See Varieties of Arabic for a fuller overview. "Colloquial Arabic" is a collective term for the spoken languages or dialects of people throughout the Arab world, which, as mentioned, differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the Maghreb dialects and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary dialects and the much more conservative Bedouin dialects. Maltese, though descended from Arabic, is considered a separate language. Speakers of some of these dialects are unable to converse with speakers of another dialect of Arabic; in particular, while Middle Easterners can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding Maghrebis (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern—especially Egyptian—films and other media). One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words, and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fiih, and North African kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but now sound very different. The major groups are:
- Egyptian Arabic (Egypt) Considered the most widely understood and used "second dialect"
- Maghreb Arabic (Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Tunisian Arabic and western Libyan)
- Levantine Arabic (Western Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and western Jordanian, Cypriot Maronite Arabic)
- Iraqi Arabic or Gulf Arabic (Iraqi, Eastern Syrian, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, Persian Gulf coast from Iraq to Oman including much of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and minorities on the other side) Other varieties include:
- (in Mauritania and Western Sahara)
- Andalusi Arabic (extinct, but important role in literary history)
- Maltese
- Sudanese Arabic (with a dialect continuum into Chad)
- Hijazi Arabic (West Cost of Saudi Arabia, Northern Saudi Arabia, eastern Jordan, Western Iraq)
- Najdi Arabic (Najd region of central Saudi Arabia)
- Yemeni Arabic (Yemen to southern Saudi Arabia)

Phonology

The consonant phonemes below reflect the pronunciation of Standard Arabic, which has only three vowels, in short and long variants, namely and . Naturally, considerable allophony occurs.

Consonants

Standard Arabic has 28 consonants: See Arabic alphabet for explanations on the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart. # is pronounced as by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as . # is pronounced only in , the name of God, i.e. Allah. # is usually a phonetic approximant. # In many varieties (if not most), are actually epiglottal (despite what is reported in many earlier works).

Emphatic Consonants

The consonants traditionally known as "emphatic" are either velarised or pharyngealised . In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter e.g. is written ‹D›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹ḍ›.

Long Consonants

Vowels and consonants can be (phonologically) short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark shaddah, which marks lengthened consonants. Such consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive: e.g. qabala "he received" and qabbala "he kissed".

Syllable Shape

Arabic has two kinds of syllable: open syllables (CV) and (CVV) - and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). Every syllable begins with a consonant - or else a consonant is borrowed from a previous word through elision – especially in the case of the definite article THE, al (used when starting an utterance) or _l (when following a word), e.g. baytu –l mudiir “house (of) the director”, which becomes bay-tul-mu-diir when divided syllabically. By itself, definite mudiir would be pronounced .

Word Stress

Although word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic, it does bear a strong relationship to vowel length and syllable shape, and correct word stress aids intelligibility. In general, "heavy" syllables attract stress (i.e. syllables of longer duration - a closed syllable or a syllable with a long vowel). In a word with a syllable with one long vowel, the long vowel attracts the stress (e.g. ki-'taab and ‘kaa-tib). In a word with two long vowels, the second long vowel attracts stress (e.g.ma-kaa-'tiib). In a word with a "heavy" syllable where two consonants occur together or the same consonant is doubled, the (last) heavy syllable attracts stress (e.g. ya-ma-’niyy, ka-'tabt, ka-‘tab-na, ma-‘jal-lah, ‘mad-ra-sah, yur-‘sil-na). This last rule trumps the first two: ja-zaa-i-‘riyy. Otherwise, word stress typically falls on the first syllable: ‘ya-man, ‘ka-ta-bat, etc. The Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect, however, has some idiosyncrasies in that a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, so that mad-‘ra-sah carries the stress on the second-to-last syllable, as does qaa-‘hi-rah.

Dialectical Phonologies

In some dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example, non-Arabic is used in the Maghreb dialects as well in the written language mostly for foreign names. Semitic became extremely early on in Arabic before it was written down; a few modern Arabic dialects, such as Iraqi (influenced by Persian) distinguish between and . Interdental fricatives ( and ) are rendered as stops and in some dialects (principally Levantine and Egyptian) and as and in "learned" words from the Standard language. Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes and coallesced into a single phoneme, becoming one or the other. Predictably, dialects without interdental fricatives use exclusively, while those with such fricatives use . Again, in "learned" words from the Standard language, is rendered as in dialects without interdental fricatives. Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render Standard (a voiceless uvular stop): it retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen and Morocco (and among the Druze), while it is rendered in Gulf Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Upper Egypt and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan) and as a glottal stop in many prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. Thus, Arabs instantly give away their geographical (and class) origin by their pronunciation of a word such as qamar "moon": , or .

Grammar

See Arabic grammar

Alphabet

Arabic alphabet

Main article: Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic script (which variety - Nabataean or Syriac - is a matter of scholarly dispute), to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (Maghrebi) and Eastern version of the alphabet—in particular, the fa and qaf had a dot underneath and a single dot above respectively in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals). However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like other Semitic languages, is written from right to left.

Calligraphy

See Arabic calligraphy for a fuller overview. After the definitive fixing of the Arabic script around 786, by Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Qur'an and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration.
Kufic font
Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin alphabet, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Qur'an, a Hadith, or simply a proverb, in a spectacular composition. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. Two of the current masters of the genre are Hassan Massoudy and [http://arabworld.nitle.org/gallery.php?module_id=7 Khaled Al Saa’i].

Arabic using the Latin alphabet

See Arabic transliteration and Arabic Chat Alphabet for more information. There are a number of different standards of Arabic transliteration: methods of accurately and efficently representing Arabic with the Latin alphabet. The more scientific standards allow the reader to recreate the exact word using the Arabic alphabet. However, these systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks, which may be difficult to pronounce at first sight. Other, less scientific, systems often use digraphs (like sh and kh), which are usually more simple to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems. During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, Bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin alphabet only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic alphabet as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script. To handle those Arabic letters that do not have an approximate equivalent in the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. E.g., the Latin numeral "3" is used to represent the Arabic letter "ع" ("ayn"). There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet.

See also


- Learn Standard Arabic WikiBook
- Arabist
- Arabic alphabet
- Arabic calligraphy
- Semitic languages
- Arabic literature
- The Maltese language is closely related to Arabic
- altahmam -- One of the ten non-English words that were voted hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company
- Common phrases in various languages
- Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

External links


- [http://arabic-media.com/ Arabic-Media] on-line access to Arabic newspapers, radio, and television
- [http://st-takla.org/Learn_Languages/01_Learn_Arabic-ta3leem-3araby/Learn-Arabic_00-index_El-Fehres.html Learn Arabic language online with audio pronunciation] from [http://St-Takla.org St. Takla Egyptian Church]
- [http://www.nicoweb.com/sirpus/learn%20arabic%20course%20mp3.htm Arabic Writing and Reading with MP3]. Arabic Writing and Reading Course Online with MP3 audio.
- [http://pince31.free.fr/lang/arabic/liens.htm Links to learn Arabic language with online course]
- [http://www.madinaharabic.com Arabic language learning course with audio]
- [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=6173 "Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon" by Tamim al-Barghouti]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/audiovisual.php?module_id=1&selected_feed=118 Wellesley College Professor of Arabic on the forms and dialects of the language]
- [http://www.uga.edu/islam/arabic_windows.html Multilingual Computing in Arabic with Windows, major word processors, web browsers, Arabic keyboards, and Arabic transliteration fonts]
- [http://www.gomideast.com/arabic/index.htm gomideast - Learning to Speak Arabic phrases]
- [http://language-directory.50webs.com/languages/arabic.htm List of online Arabic-related resources] Web references and examples:
- [http://transliteration.org/quran/Pronunciation/Letters/TashP.htm Arabic language pronunciation applet] with audio samples
- [http://www.sunna.info/teaching/ Learn Arabic]
- [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1289272 E2 article]
- [http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/english/ar.htm Sprachprofi]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Arabic-english/ Arabic - English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arb SIL's Ethnologue]
- [http://www.nitle.org/arabworld/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=113 Dialects of Arabic]
- [http://www.muftah-alhuruf.com Muftah-Alhuruf.com]: Write and send Arabic emails without having an Arabic keyboard or operating system. Arabic languages samples:
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic.php Arabic]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-chadian-spoken.php Arabic Chadian Spoken]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-judeo-iraqi.php Arabic Judeo Iraqi]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-north-levantine-spoken.php Arabic North Levantine Spoken]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- Category:Arab ko:아랍어 ms:Bahasa Arab ja:アラビア語 simple:Arabic language th:ภาษาอาหรับ

1785

1785 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events


- January 1 The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.
- January 7 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.
- January 27 The University of Georgia founded
- July 6 - The dollar is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States. This is the first time a nation has adopted a decimal coinage system.
- August 1 - Fleet of French explorer Jean Francois de Galoup, count la Përouse leaves Paris for circumnavigation
- August 15 - Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris - the necklace affair comes into open
- November – Drought in Haiti
- University of New Brunswick founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
- Coal gas first used for illumination
- Louis XVI of France signs to a law that a handkerchief must be square
- British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados

Births


- January 4 - Jakob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863)
- January 4 - Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831)
- February 10 - Claude-Louis Navier, French engineer and physicist (d. 1836)
- March 27 - Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)
- April 4 - Bettina von Arnim, German poet (d. 1859)
- April 26 - John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (d. 1851)
- May 18 - John Wilson, Scottish writer (d. 1854)
- July 6 - William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)
- August 15 - Thomas de Quincey, English writer (d. 1859)
- August 23 - Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)
- November 18 - David Wilkie, Scottish artist (d. 1841)

Deaths


- January 3 - Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (b. 1706)
- January 19 - Jonathan Toup, English classical scholar and critic (b. 1713)
- January 23 - Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)
- April 14 - William Whitehead, English writer (b. 1715)
- May 8 - Etienne Francois, Duke of Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)
- June 2 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)
- June 30 - James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (b. 1696)
- August 17 - Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)
- August 26 - George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (b. 1716)
- August 28 - Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (b. 1714)
- October 4 - David Brearly, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)
- November 18 - Louis Philip I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier and writer (b. 1725)
- November 19 - Bernard de Bury, French composer (b. 1720)
- November 25 - Richard Glover, English poet (b. 1712)
- December 29 - Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian author (b. 1742) Category:1785 ko:1785년 ms:1785 simple:1785

July 1

July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 183 days remaining.

Events


- 251 – The battle of Abrittus is won by Goths against Romans. Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus are killed.
- 1097 - Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders under Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Turkish army under Qilich Arslan I.
- 1690 - Battle of the Boyne as reckoned under Julian calendar.
- 1782 - American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
- 1858 - The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
- 1862 - Russian State Library is founded
- 1863 - American Civil War: the Battle of Gettysburg begins.
- 1867 - The British North America Act takes effect as the constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation; John A. Macdonald sworn as first Prime Minister.
- 1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.
- 1873 - Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation.
- 1878 - Canada joins the Universal Postal Union.
- 1881 - World's first international telephone call takes place between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, USA.
- 1881 - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, came into effect.
- 1885 - United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada.
- 1890 - Canada and Bermuda linked by telegraph cable.
- 1904 - Games of the III Olympiad open in Saint Louis, Missouri.
- 1916 - First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 20,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.
- 1931 - Official opening of Milan Central Station.
- 1923 - Canadian Parliament suspends all Chinese immigration.
- 1935 - Regina, Saskatchewan police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambush strikers participating in On-to-Ottawa-Trek.
- 1947 - The Australian real estate franchise L. J. Hooker lists on the Australian Stock Exchange
- 1948 - Official opening of New York International Airport (now known as John F. Kennedy International Airport) at Idlewild.
- 1957 - The International Geophysical Year begins (until December 31, 1958).
- 1958 - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.
- 1958 - Flooding of the St. Lawrence Seaway begins.
- 1959 - The Party of the African Federation (PFA) holds its constitutive conference.
- 1960 - Independence of Somalia.
- 1962 - Independence of Rwanda.
- 1962 - Independence of Burundi.
- 1963 - ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.
- 1963 - The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.
- 1963 - U.S President John F. Kennedy arrives in Rome
- 1966 - First colour television transmission in Canada, from Toronto.
- 1967 - The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission.
- 1968 - The CIA's Phoenix Program is officially established.
- 1968 - The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed by about sixty countries in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1968 - Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.
- 1969 - Rock group The Band release their influential debut Music From Big Pink.
- 1972 - Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins of the Red Army Faction are captured in Frankfurt after a shootout with the police.
- 1979 - Sony introduces the Walkman.
- 1980 - O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.
- 1983 - A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.
- 1986 - In an interview with Playboy magazine, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke comes out as a bisexual.
- 1987 - Excavation begins on the Channel Tunnel.
- 1988 - Bologna, Italy: Quartetto Cetra's last concert after over forty years' musical career.
- 1990 - East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany.
- 1991 - The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved.
- 1992 - Silicon Graphics releases OpenGL 1.0.
- 1997 - The United Kingdom hands sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
- 1999 - The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.
- 2000 - Vermont's civil unions law goes into effect.
- 2002 - A Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev TU-154 and a DHL (German cargo) Boeing 757 collide in mid-air over southern Germany, killing 71.
- 2003 - In Hong Kong, 500,000 people march to protest a new anti-subversion law.
- 2004 - In Hong Kong, 530,000 people march to urge a faster pace of democratisation and universal suffrage.
- 2004 - Saturn Orbit Insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UT and ends at 02:48 UT.
- 2005 - Microsoft plans to end official support of Windows 2000
- 2005 - Make Poverty History's White Band Day.
- 2005 - United Kingdom takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
- 2005 - Revaluation of the Romanian Leu

Births


- 1481 - King Christian II of Denmark, Sweden and Norway (d. 1559)
- 1506 - King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (d. 1526)
- 1534 - King Frederick II of Denmark (d. 1588)
- 1574 - Joseph Hall, English bishop and writer (d. 1656)
- 1586 - Claudio Saracini, Italian composer (d. 1630)
- 1633 - Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss theologian (d. 1698)
- 1646 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German mathematician and philosopher (d. 1716)
- 1723 - Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes, Spanish statesman and writer (d. 1802)
- 1725 - Comte de Rochambeau, French soldier (d. 1807)
- 1742 - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist (d. 1799)
- 1804 - George Sand, French writer (d. 1876)
- 1818 - Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian-Austrian physician (d. 1865)
- 1863 - William Stairs, Canadian explorer (d. 1892)
- 1869 - William Strunk Jr., American grammarian (d. 1946)
- 1872 - Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (d. 1936)
- 1879 - Léon Jouhaux, French labor leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1954)
- 1899 - Thomas A. Dorsey, American father of gospel music (d. 1993)
- 1899 - Charles Laughton, English actor (d. 1962)
- 1902 - William Wyler, French-born film director (d. 1981)
- 1903 - Amy Johnson, English pilot (d. 1941)
- 1906 - Estée Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur (d. 2004)
- 1908 - Peg Entwistle, Welsh actress (d. 1932)
- 1909 - Bill Stern, American sportscaster (d. 1971)
- 1912 - David R. Brower, American environmentalist (d. 2000)
- 1916 - Olivia de Havilland, British actress
- 1917 - Humphry Osmond, British psychiatrist
- 1921 - Seretse Khama, first President of Botswana
- 1925 - Farley Granger, American actor
- 1926 - Robert Fogel, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1926 - Hans Werner Henze, German composer
- 1929 - Gerald Edelman, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1930 - Bobby Day, American singer (d. 1990)
- 1931 - Leslie Caron, French actress
- 1934 - Jamie Farr, American actor
- 1934 - Jean Marsh, English actress
- 1934 - Sydney Pollack, American film director, producer, and actor
- 1941 - Alfred G. Gilman, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1941 - Myron Scholes, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1941 - Twyla Tharp, American choreographer
- 1942 - Karen Black, American actress
- 1942 - Geneviève Bujold, Canadian actress
- 1942 - Andraé Crouch, American singer, conductor, and actor
- 1945 - Deborah Harry, American musician, (Blondie)
- 1946 - June Montiero, American singer (Toys)
- 1949 - John Farnham, Australian singer
- 1951 - Fred Schneider, American keyboardist (The B-52's)
- 1952 - Dan Aykroyd, Canadian actor
- 1960 - Evelyn King, American singer
- 1961 - Kalpana Chawla, astronaut and engineer (d. 2003)
- 1961 - Diana, Princess of Wales, (d. 1997)
- 1961 - Carl Lewis, American athlete
- 1961 - Michelle Wright, Canadian singer, songwriter, and musician
- 1961 - Malcolm Elliott, British cyclist
- 1963 - Roddy Bottum, American musician (Faith No More and Imperial Teen)
- 1965 - Harald Zwart, Norwegian film director
- 1967 - Pamela Anderson, Canadian model and actress
- 1971 - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, American singer
- 1971 - Julianne Nicholson, American actress
- 1972 - Claire Forlani, American actress
- 1975 - Sufjan Stevens, American musician
- 1976 - Patrick Kluivert, Dutch footballer
- 1976 - Ruud van Nistelrooy, Dutch footballer
- 1977 - Jarome Iginla, Canadian hockey player
- 1977 - Liv Tyler, American actress
- 1981 - Tadhg Kennelly, Australian footballer
- 1982 - Adrian Ward, American football player
- 1982 - Carmella DeCesare, American model
- 1982 - Hilarie Burton, American actress

Deaths


- 251 – Decius, Roman Emperor (b. 207)
- 251 – Herennius Etruscus, Roman Emperor (b. ca. 227)
- 868 - Ali al-Hadi, Shia Imam (b. 828)
- 1109 - King Alfonso VI of Castile (b. 1040)
- 1277 - Baibars, Mameluk sultan of Egypt (b. 1223)
- 1566 - Nostradamus, French astrologer (b. 1503)
- 1592 - Marc Antonio Ingegneri, Italian composer
- 1614 - Isaac Casaubon, French-born classical scholar (b. 1559)
- 1622 - William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, British politician (b. 1575)
- 1681 - Oliver Plunkett, Irish saint (b. 1629)
- 1708 - Emperor Tekle Haymanot I of Ethiopia (b. 1706)
- 1774 - Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, English statesman (b. 1705)
- 1782 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1730)
- 1784 - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (b. 1710)
- 1819 - Jemima Wilkinson, American preacher (b. 1752)
- 1894 - Allan Pinkerton, American private detective (b. 1819)
- 1896 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (b. 1811)
- 1925 - Erik Satie, French composer (b. 1866)
- 1944 - Tanya Savicheva, Russian diarist (b. 1930)
- 1950 - Eliel Saarinen, Finnish architect (b. 1873)
- 1961 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (b. 1894)
- 1964 - Pierre Monteux, French conductor (b. 1875)
- 1965 - Wally Hammond, English cricketer (b. 1903)
- 1971 - William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1890)
- 1974 - Juan Perón, President of Argentina (b. 1895)
- 1981 - Carlos de Oliveira, Portuguese writer (b. 1921)
- 1983 - R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect and philosopher (b. 1903)
- 1984 - Moshe Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born educator (b. 1904)
- 1991 - Michael Landon, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1936)
- 1995 - Wolfman Jack, radio personality (b. 1939)
- 1996 - William T. Cahill, Governor of New Jersey (b. 1904)
- 1997 - Robert Mitchum, American actor (b. 1917)
- 1999 - Edward Dmytryk, Canadian-born film director (b. 1908)
- 1999 - Forrest Mars Sr., American candy magnate (b. 1904)
- 1999 - Sylvia Sidney, American actress (b. 1910)
- 2000 - Walter Matthau, American actor (b. 1920)
- 2001 - Nikolay Basov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
- 2003 - Herbie Mann, American jazz flutist (b. 1930)
- 2003 - Wesley Mouzon, American boxer (b. 1927)
- 2003 - N!xau, Namibian actor (b. 1944)
- 2004 - Peter Barnes, English writer (b. 1931)
- 2004 - Marlon Brando, American actor (b. 1924)
- 2005 - Luther Vandross, American singer (b. 1951)

Holidays and observances


- Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day) - national holiday of Canada
  - Moving Day in the province of Québec
  - Memorial Day in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador
- Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day
- World Architecture Day

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/1 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.tnl.net/when/7/1 Today in History: July 1] ---- June 30 - July 2 - June 1 - August 1 -- listing of all days ko:7월 1일 ja:7月1日 th:1 กรกฎาคม

Sultan

A sultan (Arabic: سلطان) is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings.

Muslim monarch ruling under the terms of shariah

The title carries moral weight and religious authority, as the ruler's role was defined in the Qur'an. The sultan however was not a religious teacher himself. In the Byzantine Empire and the traditional spheres of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a comparable unity of church and state in the person of the ruler is termed Caesaropapism. The last Western ruler with comparable authority was Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, though formally (if not in practice) the British monarch represents a similar union of church and state, being both the head of state and the Supreme Governor of the Church of England; in practice, the Queen is merely the titular leader of church and state; this status is also under question as Charles, Prince of Wales has indicated he intends to rule as 'defender of the faiths' rather than 'defender of the faith'. The first to carry the title of 'Sultan' was the Turkmen chief Mahmud of Ghazni (ruled 998 - 1030). Later, 'Sultan' became the usual title of rulers of Seljuk and Ottoman Turks and Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers in Egypt. The spiritual validation of the title was well illustrated by the fact that it was the shadow caliph in Cairo that bestowed the title "sultan" on Murad I, the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire in 1383. The earlier leaders had been beys. At later stages, lesser rulers assumed the styling "sultan", as was the case for the earlier leaders of today's royal family of Morocco. Today, only the Sultan of Oman, the Sultan of Brunei, and some titular sultans in the southern Philippines, Java, and in the former Malay States which are now part of Malaysia still use the title. The sultan's domain is properly called a sultanate. A feminine form, used by Westerners, is Sultana or Sultanah; the very styling misconstrues the roles of wives of sultans. In a similar usage, the wife of a German Field-Marshal might be styled Feldmarschallin. Among those modern hereditary rulers who wish to emphasize their secular authority under the rule of law, the term is gradually being replaced by 'king'.

Princely and aristocratic titles

In the Ottoman dynastic system, every close relative, male and female, of the ruling Padishah (in the west also known as Great Sultan), was styled Sultan, either before or after the name, so equivalent to a western prince of the blood. In certain muslim states, Sultan was also an aristocratic title, as in the Tartar Astrakhan Khanate

Military rank

In a number of post-caliphal states under Mongol of Turkic rule, there was a feudal type of military hierarchy, often decimal (mainly in larger empires), using originally princely titles (Khan, Malik, Amir) as mere rank denominations. In the Persian empire, the rank of Sultan was roughly equivalent to a western Captain, socially in the fifth rank class, styled 'Ali Jah

Former sultans and sultanates

Middle East & Central Asia


- Ghaznavid Sultanate
- Sultans of Great Seljuk
- Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm
- Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, the Osmanli
- Ayyubid Sultans of Damascus
- Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt
- Mamluk Sultans of Egypt
- Qu'aiti and Kathiri sultans in Hadhramaut (Yemen)
- Sultans of Nejd in Arabia
- Sultans of the Hejaz in Arabia

Hami

This was the authentical style, commonly rendered as sultan, of the Islmaic monarchs of the ruling house of Oman, in both its realms:
- Oman — Sultan of Oman, on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula, still an independent sultanate, since 1784, two years before the imamate lost temporal power in 1786 (assumed the formal style of Sultan in 1861)
- Sultanate of Zanzibar two incumbents (from the Omani dynasty) since the de faco separation from Oman in 1806, the last assumed the style Sultan in 1861 at the formal separation under British auspices; since 1964 union with Tanganyika part of Tanzania)

East Africa


- Comoros sultanates
- in Kenya
- Northern Somali sultanates

Southeast Asia


- Sultanate of Malacca, Malaysia
- Sultanate of Aceh, Indonesia
- Sultanate of Maguindanao, Philippines
- Sultanate of Ternate, Indonesia
- Sultanate of Tidore, Indonesia
- Sultanate of Mataram, Java, Indonesia
- Sultanate of Sulu, Philippines

India


- Bahmani Sultanate
- Sultanate of Bengal
- Deccan sultanates: Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar
- Sultanate of Delhi
- Sultanate of Gujarat
- Sultanate of Jaunpur
- Sultanate of Kandesh
- Maldives Sultanate
- Sultanate of Malwa
- Sultanate of Mysore

Contemporary sultanates


- Brunei
- Indonesia — Sultan of Yogyakarta is governor of that province
- Malaysia
  - Note: Sultan is the title of seven (Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Selangor and Terengganu) of the nine rulers of the Malay states. The head of state for all Malaysia, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, is selected from among the Rulers, but is usually styled "King" in foreign countries. Political power, however, lies with Prime Minister. See also: Malay titles
- Philippines — Sultanate of Sulu

See also


- Emir (Amir)
- Atabeg
- Bey
- Caliph
- Datu
- Ilkhan, Khan
- Malik
- Padishah
- Shah
- Sultan of Sultans

Sources and References


- [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Persia/persia-glossary.htm| RoyalArk - here the Persian Empire]
- [ WorldStatesmen] Category:Arabic words Category:Heads of state Category:Islam Category:Military ranks Category:Monarchy Category:Noble titles Category:Positions of authority Category:Titles ko:술탄 ja:スルターン

1808

1808 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events


- January 1 - Importation of slaves into the United States is banned
- February - Russia issues an ultimatum to Sweden, to join France, Denmark and Russia and attacks Finland.
- 26 January - Rum Rebellion: On the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of the colony of New South Wales, disgruntled military officers of the New South Wales Corps (the "Rum Corps") overthrow and imprison Governor William Bligh and seize control of the colony.
- February 2 - French troops occupy Papal States (Vatican)
- February 11 - Anthracite coal first burned as fuel, experimentally.
- February 21 - Russian troops cross border to Finland without declaration of war - the Finnish War begins
- March 2 - Russian troops occupy Helsinki and threaten Sveaborg
- March 11 - Russian troops occupy Tampere
- March 22 - Russian troops occupy Turku
- March 26 - Charles IV of Spain abdicates in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII
- April 6 - John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company.
- April 16 - Troops under colonel Carl von Döbeln clash with Russian troops in Pyhäjoki, Finland
- May 2 - Peninsular War: The people of Madrid uprise against the French troops.
- May 3:
  - The fortress of Sveaborg is lost by Sweden to Russia, during the Finnish War.
  - Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who uprose on May 2 are fired near Príncipe Pío hill.
- June 12 - Landing of Swedish troops to Ala-Lemu fails
- June 19 - Second landing of Swedish troops fails in Ala-Lemu
- July 5 - Battle of Buenos Aires - locals repel the British troops
- July 14 - Troops under colonel Adlercreutz force Russians to withdraw in Lapua
- August 10 - Troops under Carl von Döbeln defeat Russian attack in Kauhajoki
- August 21 - Battle of Vimiero - British troops under Duke of Wellington defeat French under general Junot
- September 29-October 19 - Truce between Swedish and Russian troops in Finland
- November 19 - New truce ends fighting in Finland
- November - Swedish troops evacuate Finland. Tsar Alexander I of Russia proclaims Finland a part of Russia.
- November - James Madison defeats Charles C. Pinckney in U.S. presidential election
- December - Napoleon invades Spain
- December 9 - At 20:34 UTC Mercury occults Saturn. There are no observation records.
- Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mustafa IV (1807-1808) to Mahmud II (1808-1839)
- Academy of Fine Arts, Munich founded

Ongoing events


- Napoleonic Wars

Births


- January 19 - Lysander Spooner, American philosopher (d. 1887)
- January 27 - David Strauss, German theologian (d. 1874)
- February 5 - Carl Spitzweg, German painter (d. 1885)
- February 26 - Honoré Daumier, French painter, illustrator, and sculptor (d. 1879)
- May 22 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (d. 1855)
- June 3 - Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States (d. 1889)
- June 17 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian author (d. 1845)
- June 20 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi (d. 1888)
- July 9 - Alexander William Doniphan, American lawyer and military leader (d. 1887)
- September 13 - Saverio Bettinelli, Italian writer (b. 1718)
- October 6 - King Frederick VII of Denmark (d. 1863)
- October 20 - Karl Andree, German geographer (d. 1875)
- November 1 - John Taylor, American religious leader (d. 1887)
- November 2 - Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, French writer (d. 1889)
- December 29 - Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)

Deaths


- February 14 - John Dickinson, American lawyer and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1732)
- March 13 - King Christian VII of Denmark (b. 1749)
- May 18 - Elijah Craig, American minister and inventor
- May 28 - Richard Hurd, English bishop and writer (b. 1720)
- September 3 - John Montgomery, American delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1722)
- September 5 - John Home, Scottish writer (b. 1722)
- September 6 - Louis-Pierre Anquetil, French historian (b. 1723)
- September 17 - Benjamin Bourne, American politician (b. 1755)
- November 10 - Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, British soldier and Governor of Quebec (b. 1724)
- November 17 - David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary (b. 1721) Category:1808 ko:1808년 ms:1808 simple:1808

Selim III

Selim III (December 24, 1761 – July 28/29, 1808) was a sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1789–1807). He was a son of Mustafa III and succeeded his uncle Abd-ul-Hamid I. The talents and energy with which he was endowed had endeared him to the people, and great hopes were founded on his accession. He had associated much with foreigners, and was thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of reforming his state. But Austria and Russia gave him no time for anything but defence, and it was not until the peace of Jassy (1792) that a breathing space was allowed him in Europe, while Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria soon called for Turkey's strongest efforts and for the time shattered the old-standing French alliance. Selim profited by the respite to abolish the military tenure of fiefs; he introduced salutary reforms into the administration, especially in the fiscal department, sought by well-considered plans to extend the spread of education, and engaged foreign officers as instructors, by whom a small corps of new troops called nizam-i-jedid were collected and drilled. So well were these troops organized that they were able to hold their own against rebellious Janissaries in the European provinces, where disaffected governors made no scruple of attempting to make use of them against the reforming sultan. Emboldened by this success, Selim issued an order that in future picked men should be taken annually from the Janissaries to serve in their ranks. Hereupon the Janissaries and other enemies of progress rose at Adrianople, and in view of their number, exceeding 10,000, and the violence of their opposition, it was decided that the reforms must be given up for the present. Serbia, Egypt and the principalities were successively the scene of hostilities in which Turkey gained no successes, and in 1807 a British fleet appeared at Constantinople, strange to say, to insist on Turkey's yielding to Russia's demands besides dismissing the ambassador of Napoleon I (see Dardanelles Operation). Selim was, however, thoroughly under the influence of this ambassador, Sebastiani, and the fleet was compelled to retire without effecting its purpose. But the anarchy, manifest or latent, existing throughout the provinces proved too great for Selim to cope with. The Janissaries rose once more in revolt, induced the Sheikh-ul-Islam to grant a fetva against the reforms, dethroned and imprisoned Selim, and placed his nephew Mustafa on the throne. The pasha of Rustchuk, Mustafa Bayrakdar, a strong partisan of the reforms, collected an army of 40,000 men and marched on Constantinople with the purpose of reinstating Selim. But he came too late; the ill-fated reforming sultan had been strangled in the seraglio, and Bairakdar's only resource was to wreak his vengeance on Mustafa and to place on the throne Mahmud II, the sole surviving member of the house of Osman.

See also


- Ottoman Reform Efforts under Selim III and Mahmoud II Selim III Selim III ja:セリム3世

Mustafa Bayrakdar

Mustafa Bayrakdar (1775-1808) was an Ottoman provincial notable from Rustchuk, Bulgaria who became grand Vizier under Mahmud II. The deposition of the reformer Sultan Selim III in 1807, and his replacement with the reactionary Mustafa IV by the Janissaries and other opponents of reform, provoked Mustafa Bayrakdar to lead his army of Albanians and Bosnians to Constantinople in an attempt to reinstate Selim and restore his reforms. He was too late, however, as Selim had been murdered. Bayrakdar and his forces removed Mustafa and placed Selim's cousin, Mahmud, on the throne. As vizier, Bayrakdar purged the soldiers who had rebelled against Selim, removed conservatives from governmental positions and replaced them with men sympathetic to reform. Bayrakdar modernized the army and navy and attempted to reform the Janissaries, but Mahmud, fearing a political backlash of the elite corps, halted such change. Bayrakdar's power and influence and his arrogance wielding it caused a rebellion against his position. In November 1808, the Janissairies attacked the Porte and laid siege to the stone powder magazine where he and his personal guard had taken refuge. As the Janissaries were about to break in the powder barrels exploded, killing Bayrakdar, his guard, and several hundred Janissaries. It is uncertain if the explosion was an accident or intentionally set off by Bayrakdar.

References


- Shaw, S. J. and Shaw, E. Z. 1997. History of the Ottoman Empire, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Category:Grand Viziers of the Ottoman Empire

Vizier

A Vizier (وزير, sometimes also spelled Vizir, Wasir, Wazir, Wesir, Wezir - grammatical vowel changes are common in many oriental languages) is an oriental, originally Persian, term for a high-ranking political (and sometimes religious) advisor or Minister, often to a Muslim monarch such as a Caliph, Amir, Malik (king) or Sultan. Also used anachronistically or in a modern Islamic republic's cabinet.

Historical titles

In pre-Islamic Persia the vichir (Middle-Persian for Vizier), was a minister to the Shah. This word has been borrowed from Persian into Arabic, Turkish and almost all other languages of the Muslim nations. However it has been used in two very different ways : either for a unique position, in western terms the prime minister at the head of the monarch's government (the term Grand Vizier always refers to such post) or as a shared 'cabinet rank', rather like a British Secretary of state (if one of them is the prime minister, he may hold the title of Grand vizier or another style). In some Muslim societies, unsuccessful viziers were commonly eliminated (justifiedly or as scapegoats). This was particularly common during much of Ottoman history; for example, one of the most brutal sultans, Selim I, had seven viziers executed during his eight-year rule; others were deposed but merely demoted, some even returned in office.

In Islam's Core Area


- in Al-Andalus (the Iberian peninsula under the Arabo-Barbaresque Moors) appointed by the Caliph of Cordoba
  - similarly in many of the emirates and sultanates of the taifa which the caliphate was broken up into (for example the Abbadids in Seville)
- in Muslim Egypt, the most populous Arab country, under the Fatimid Caliphs
- During the days of the Ottoman Empire the Grand Vizier was the -often de facto ruling- prime minister, second only to the Sultan (many of whom left politics to him, indulging in court pleasures) and was the leader of the Divan, the Imperial Council.
- In Muslim Iran (Persian empire) the Prime Minister under the poitical authority of the Shahanshah was commonly styled Vazir i-Azam ('Supreme -, i.e. Grand Vizier'; alternative titles include Atabag i-Azam and Sardar i-Azam), and various Ministers held cabinet rank as vazir, including a Vazir-i-Daftar (minister for finance) and a Vazir-i-Lashkar (war portfolio).
- In the Sherifan kingdom of Morocco (historically a sultanate till the incumbent assumed the higher royal style of Malik on 14 Aug 1957, shortly after the end of the simultaneous French and Spanish protectorates; the additional Islamic title Amir al-Mu´minin "Commander of the Faithful" stayed in use), a Sadr al-A'zam (Grand Vizier) was in office untill 22 Nov 1955, replaced since 7 Dec 1955 a (part-political) Prime Minister; Vizier was the style of a minister of state (other titles for various portfolios).
- In the 'regency' of Tunisia, under the Husainid dynasty, various ministers of the Bey, including
  - Wazir al-Akbar (or El Ouzir El Kébir): 'Great Minister', i.e. Grand Vizier, Chief Minister or Prime Minister.
  - Wazir al-'Amala (or El Ouzir El Amala): Minister for the Interior.
  - Wazir al-Bahr (or El Ouzir El Bahr): Minister 'of the Sea', i.e. for the Navy/ Marine.
  - Wazir al-Harb (or El Ouzir El Harb): Minister for the Army or Minister for War.
  - Wazir al-Istishara (or El Ouzir El Istichara): Minister-Counsellor.
  - Wazir al-Qalam: Minister of the Pen.
  - Wazir ud-Daula (or El Ouzir El Dawla): Minister of State.
  - Wazir us-Shura (or El Ouzir Ech Choura): Privy Counsellor.
- In Afghanistan, under the Duranni dynasty, the wazir al-durbar was the ('House') Minister of the Royal Court.

In Black Africa


- Viziers to the Sultans of Zanzibar; since 1890 filled by British, also known as First ministers, even systematically 1 July 1913 - 23 Feb 1961 the British Resident (Minister)s, an extremely direct form of indirect rule (before and after Chief - or Prime Ministers, generally native)

In the Far East (East Indies etc)


- In India many rulers, even quite some hindu princes, had a vizir – compare Diwan, Nawab wasir, Pradhan, etcetera.
- In the (former) sultanate of the Maldives (Divehi language), the Prime Minister was styled Bodu Vizier, and various Ministers held cabinet rank as vazierin (plural), including Hakura'a (portfolio of Public Works), Shahbandar (Navy portfolio, also Admiral in chief), Vela'ana'a (Foreign Affairs).

Modern Islamic republic

In Pakistan, the Prime Minister (de facto ruling politician, formally under the President) is called Vazir e Azam (Persian for Grand vizier), other Ministers are styled vazirs.

Anachronistic historical use

It is common, even among historians, to apply 'modern' terms to cultures whose own authentic titles are (or were when the habit took root) unsufficiantly known, in this case to pre-islamic Antiquity.
- In ancient Egypt the highest ranking government official, after the pharaoh, acting as his chancellor (Egyptian: tjaty), is called by modern researchers vizier, (and also a vizier for the North, Lower Egypt, the Nile Delta, and a vizier for the South, Upper Egypt). However at times the viceroy of Nubia (a military governor general, sometimes a prince of the Pharaoh's blood) and/or the High Priest of Amun (the temple complex at Thebes gradually amassed sufficient possessions and income to rival the crown) rose to equal or even superior power; some pharaohs are even believed to have lost real political preeminence to the 'kingmakers'.
- Among the Huns, the 'vizier' (Attila the Hun's was called Onegesius) was the second officer in rank after the great king; no formal status is known, just a class of royal councilors, representatives etc. known by the Greek term logades.

Art

In contemporary literature and pantomime, the "Grand Vizier" is a character stereotype and is usually portrayed as a scheming backroom plotter and the clear power behind the throne of a usually bumbling or incompetent monarch. A well-known example of this is the sinister character of Jafar in the Disney movie Aladdin who plots and uses magic to take over the entire Kingdom of Agrabah under the nose of the nation's naïve sultan, just as Jaffar in the 1940 movie The Thief of Bagdad dethroned his master, caliph Ahmad. Others include the comic book character Iznogoud and the villains of the video games Prince of Persia and King's Quest VI. Perhaps the origin of this character archetype is the biblical account of Esther. The book details the rise of a Jewish woman to Queen of Persia, and her role in stopping the plot of Haman, chief advisor to the Persian king, to wipe out all Jews living in Persia. Throughout history the notion of the sinister Grand Vizier has often been invoked when a political leader appears to be developing a cozy relationship with a spiritual advisor of questionable scruples or talents.

Some famous viziers in history


- Amir Kabir of the Qajar dynasty.
-