The Ottoman Turkishvilayet (ولایت) was a loanwordborrowed from Arabicwilāya (وِلَايَة), an abstract noun formed from the verbwaliya (وَلِيَ, 'to administer'). In Arabic, it had meant 'province', 'region', or 'administration' as general ideas, but following the Tanzimat reforms the Ottoman term formalized it in reference to specific areas in a defined hierarchy. It was borrowed into Albanianvilajet, Bulgarianvilaet (вилает), Judaeo-Spanishvilayet, and Frenchvilaïet and vilayet, which was used as a lingua franca among the educated Jews and Christians. It was also translated into Armenian as gawaŕ (գաւառ), Bulgarian as oblast (област), Judaeo-Spanish as provinsiya, and Greek as eparchía (επαρχία) and nomarchía (νομαρχία).
The early Republic of Turkey continued to use the term vilayet until it renamed them il in the late 1920s.[when?]
Organization
The Ottoman Empire had already begun to modernize its administration and regularize its eyalets in the 1840s, but the Vilayet Law extended this throughout the empire, regulating the hierarchy of administrative units.
Each vilayet or province was governed by a vali appointed by the sultan. Acting as the sultan's representative, he was notionally the supreme head of administration in his province, subject to various caveats. Military administration was entirely separate, although the vali controlled local police. His council comprised a secretary (mektupçu), a comptroller (defterdar), a chief justice (müfettiş-i hükkâm-ı şeriyye), and directors of foreign affairs, public works, and agriculture and commerce, each nominated by the respective ministers in Istanbul. The defterdar in particular answered directly to the finance minister rather than the vali. A separate vilayet council was composed of four elected members, comprising two Muslims and two non-Muslims.
If the vali fell ill or was absent from the capital, he was variously replaced by the governor of the chief sanjak (merkez sancak) near the capital, the muavin, and the defterdar. A similar structure was replicated in the lower hierarchical levels, with executive and advisory councils drawn from the local administrators and—following long-established practice—the heads of the millets, the various local religious communities.
The Vilayet Law (1864) saw a general reorganization, with the hierarchy vilayet—sanjak—kaza—nahiye, the vilayet administrated by the Vali under whose authority was the mutasarrif of the sanjak appointed by the Sultan, the kaymakam of the kaza appointed by the Interior Ministry, the mudür of the nahiye, the muhtar of the village.
Lists
1870s
Vilayets, sanjaks and autonomies in the mid-1870s:
By 1905, the Ottoman Empire had lost administrative control over Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, Crete and Cyprus, even though these were all still under nominal Ottoman sovereignty, as was Egypt. In this list, the numbering and place names are indicated as in the French-language source, with present-day names in parentheses where different:
Eastern Rumelia (Rumeli-i Şarkî): autonomous province (Vilayet in Turkish) (1878–1885); unified with Bulgaria in 1885
Sanjak of Benghazi (Bingazi Sancağı): autonomous sanjak. Formerly in the vilayet of Tripoli, but after 1875 dependent directly on the ministry of the interior at Constantinople.
Sanjak of Biga (Biga Sancağı) (also called Kale-i Sultaniye) (autonomous sanjak, not a vilayet)
Sanjak of Çatalca (Çatalca Sancağı) (autonomous sanjak, not a vilayet)
Cyprus (Kıbrıs) (island with special status) (Kıbrıs Adası)
Sanjak of Izmit (İzmid Sancağı) (autonomous sanjak, not a vilayet)
Mutasarrifyya/Sanjak of Jerusalem (Kudüs-i Şerif Mutasarrıflığı): independent and directly linked to the Minister of the Interior in view of its importance to the three major monotheistic religions.
123Birken, Andreas (1976). Die Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches. Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (in German). Vol.13. Reichert. p.22. ISBN9783920153568.
↑One or more of the preceding sentencesincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Caillard, Vincent Henry Penalver (1911). "Turkey". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.27 (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. p.428.
↑Birken, Andreas (1976). Die Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches. Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (in German). Vol.13. Reichert. pp.19–20. ISBN9783920153568.
↑One or more of the preceding sentencesincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Hogarth, David George (1911). "Bengazi". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.3 (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. p.736.
↑One or more of the preceding sentencesincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Socin, Albert; Hogarth, David George (1911). "Lebanon". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.16 (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. p.348.
Further reading
Sublime Porte (1867). Sur la nouvelle division de l'Empire en gouvernements généraux formés sous le nom de Vilayets. Constantinople.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - About the Law of the Vilayets
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