Dictionary:
vi·zier (vĭ-zîr', vĭz'yər)  |
[Turkish vezir, from Arabic wazīr, burdened, minister, from 'āzara, to help, derived form of 'azara, to surround or from wazara, to carry a burden.]
vizierate vi·zier'ate (vĭ-zîr'ĭt, -āt', vĭz'yər-ĭt, -yə-rāt') n.| 5min Related Video: vizier |
| Wordsmith Words: vizier |
(vi-ZEER, VIZ-yuhr)
noun
A high official.
Etymology
From Turkish vezir, from Arabic wazir (minister)
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: vizier |
For more information on vizier, visit Britannica.com.
| Archaeology Dictionary: vizier |
In ancient Egypt, the prime minister or right-hand man to the king or pharaoh.
| Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Vizier |
Type of government official; "minister." Under the Ottomans, the vizier (Arabic: wazir; Turkish: vezir) served as a government minister. The vezir-i azam, or grand vizier, was the functional equivalent of a prime minister under the sultan. The Ottomans replaced the term with vekil (Arabic: wakil) in the 1830s, although wazir is still in use to denote a government minister in the Arab world.
| History 1450-1789: Vizier |
Vizier, 'helper' or 'deputy', a term first employed in the Koran, evolved to mean 'chief minister' in early Islamic history, possibly becoming an office of Arab administration with the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi (775–785). The title vizier was applied widely as an honorific for representatives of the caliph or sultan. The term "grand vizier" denoted those chief, or prime, ministers who served the Ottoman sultans from 1300 to 1923.
Origins of the Institution
The Perso-Turkish word vizier (also "vezir," or "vizier") originates in the Arabic wazīr, and appears in the Koranic verse "We gave Moses the book and made his brother Aaron his wazīr," (Koran, chapter XXV: 35), denoting a helper. Viziers quickly assumed the role of second-in-command in early Islamic history, the most famous among the Abbasids being the Barmakid family of advisers and secretaries under Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786–809). By the eleventh century, the power and obligations of the vizier were delineated in Muslim administrative manuals, which frequently described the office as subordinate only to the caliph or sultan. Vizierial households, in imitation of those of caliph or sultan, became centers of tremendous wealth, ostentation, and intellectual and artistic patronage. The tension between the two most powerful figures of Muslim courts, the ruler and his vizier, is one of the most common struggles represented in early histories and transmitted into western literature, as Shakespeare's Othello attests.
The title of vizier could be differentiated, as it was under the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt (969–1171), and was sometimes carried by military officials, who developed an independence of action in the latter years of that dynasty. In Muslim Spain (Andalusia), where the term hājib was the equivalent of vizier, multiple viziers abounded, with as few as ten or as many as twenty-nine in place at one time
In Persia, viziers were perceived as servants of the ruler rather than the state, and often they were charged with overseeing financial affairs. Mahmud, founder of the Ghaznavids (998–1030), had six viziers, of whom three were dismissed and died violently, two were dismissed and stripped of their wealth, and the sixth executed; such treatment was testimony to the hazards of the position. Inheritors of Ghaznavid court practices, both the Seljuk and the Ottoman dynasties maintained the office as a well-defined and extremely powerful position. Of special note is Nizam al-Mulk (vizier 1063–1092), who served two Seljuk sultans and exercised the greatest of powers of any vizier up to that time. Beyond tending to the general affairs of the sultan, Nizam al-Mulk was also responsible for religious affairs and for diplomatic relations with foreign rulers. He also on occasion led the army on campaign. Nizam al-Mulk amassed legendary wealth and armies of slaves, founded an educational system known as the Nizamiya, and compiled one of the best-known pre-Ottoman manuals on administrative practice, Siyasetname (The Book of government).
Grand Viziers Under the Ottoman Empire
Historians have made much of the Seljuk and Ottoman practice of staffing the administration from non-Turkish stock, as was the case with Nizam al-Mulk. The Ottomans, especially after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, were also inclined to choose the grand vizier from its officials who had been conscripted and converted from the Christian populations of the Balkans (called kul kapikulu, 'slaves of the court'); these were mainly Albanian or Serbian peoples. After the 1550s, when the Ottomans colonized Hungary, Croatians and Hungarians populated the kul ranks. Similarly, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sultans Selim III (ruled 1789–1807) and Mahmud II (ruled 1808–1839) preferred Georgians or Circassians for their grand viziers, since the trans-Caucasus region was then a ready source of slaves. Ethnic preferences may have influenced the sultans' choice of servants, but at least in the early days of the empire, the administrative experience of the non-Turkic populations was especially valued. In any case, unquestioning loyalty was seen as more forthcoming from slave converts than from freeborn Muslims.
Under the Ottomans, as elsewhere, the title of vizier distinguished lesser officers of the empire, often in hierarchical order (as part of the erkân-i devlet, 'pillars of the state', of the divan-i hümayun, 'imperial council'), but grand vizier or sadrazam (also vizier-i azam) was the most powerful officer after the sultan. Before 1453, the grand vizier was appointed from among the religious class and was often a judge (kadi or kazi). Between 1385 and 1453, the Candarli family held the office, and all were judges. After 1453, the kul, military rather than religious men with expertise in financial and chancery affairs, dominated the office (Inalcik, p. 195). Palace factions of new sultans tended to influence the appointments of the grand vizier, and there was frequently a complete restaffing of the bureaucracy after a new accession. In the second half of the seventeenth century, a severe crisis led the sultan to grant Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü extraordinary powers, and a separate administrative office, the Babiali (the Sublime Porte), was created to restore the stability of the empire. For half a century, the Köprülü family dominated the office, reorganized the economy, restored order throughout Ottoman territories, and dealt increasingly with foreign affairs. Grand viziers in the eighteenth century were often appointed after serving as reisülküttab (head of the chancery, later foreign affairs minister). Especially notable was Koca Ragib Pasha (ruled 1757–1763), who served two sultans after negotiating earlier treaties with Nadir Shah of Persia and the Habsburgs at Belgrade in 1739. Koca Ragib associated with a large circle of intellectuals and built his personal library, which was opened to the public and still operates in Istanbul.
The grand vizier led all military campaigns after 1700 and served as head of the imperial council, where he and the other viziers, as the primary representatives of the sultan's authority, discussed state affairs. Many viziers married daughters and sisters of the sultan and were subsequently called damad, 'bridegroom', acquired rights to revenues of vast estates, and were granted stature matched only by that of the royal house. Some, such as the famous Damad Ibrahim Pasha, who was grand vizier to Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520–1566) from 1523 to 1536, lost their lives when they over-stepped their bounds in emulating the sultan. The office was always precariously secured and held and very often ended with confiscation of wealth, exile, and/or death. By the mid-nineteenth century, the power and prestige of the vizier had declined; the office had assumed the proportions of a modern-day minister.
Bibliography
Dankoff, Robert. The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588–1662), as Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi's Book of Travels (Seyahat-name). Albany, N.Y., 1991. A wonderfully evocative view of the trials and tribulations of Grand Vizier Melek Ahmed.
Imber, Colin. "Khalil Pasha, Djandarli," in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. CD-ROM edition. One of numerous individual entries for well-known Ottoman grand viziers.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300– 1600. London, 1973.
Sourdel, Dominique. Le vizierat abbaside de 749 à 936. 2 vols. Damascus, 1960.
Stavrides, Theoharis. The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474). Leiden, 2001. Includes a comprehensive introduction to the history of the office.
"Wazīr," in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 11. Leiden, 2001. Articles for several dynasties with individual authors, including Halil Inalcik on the Ottomans.
—VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
| Wikipedia: Vizier |
A vizier (Persian: وزير) (sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir[1] and usually pronounced /vɪˈzɪər/ in English, though also sometimes pronounced /ˈvɪzjər/[2]) is a high-ranking political (and sometimes religious) advisor or minister, often to a Persian Empire's monarchs such as Shah and Shahenshah. It sometimes refers to ministers and advisors of the Muslim's caliph, or sultan. In modern usage, the term has been used in Western Asia for certain important officials. It is also used anachronistically in a modern Islamic republic's cabinet, and to describe pre-Islamic offices. The term literally means "burden-bearer" or "helper".
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The Middle Persian ancestor of this word in Pahlavi is vichir, which in turn originated from Avestan vichira, meaning decreer or arbitrator.[3] Linguistically, it is related to the Latin word vicarius. The word entered English in 1562, from the Turkish vezir ("counsellor"), from the Arabic wazir, literally "one who bears (the burden of office)", whose root word is wazara "he carried", and itself a derivation from the Persian vazier.
The Muslim office of vizier, which spread from the Persians to the Arabs, Turks, Mongols and neighbouring peoples (regardless of the style of the ruler), arose under the first Abbasid caliphs and took shape during its tenure by the Barmecides as the chief minister or representative of the caliph. The vizier stood between sovereign and subjects, representing the former in all matters touching the latter. This withdrawal of the head of the state from direct contact with his people was unknown to the Omayyads, and was certainly an imitation of Persian usage. It has even been plausibly conjectured that the name is simply the Arabic adaptation of a pre-Islamic Persian title, vichir (Middle Persian for Vizier), who was a minister to the Shah. According to Klein, the Arabic word wazir is derived from Avestan vicira "arbitrator, judge" and replaced the Arabic kātib, "writer" in the sense of "secretary of state". On account of Egypt's later association with Arab civilization, the term "vizier" is also retronymically applied to advisors and ministers of the Pharaoh.
However, the term has been used in two very different ways: either for a unique position, the prime minister at the head of the monarch's government (the term Grand Vizier always refers to such a post), or as a shared 'cabinet rank', rather like a British secretary of state. If one such vizier is the prime minister, he may hold the title of Grand Vizier or another title.
In some Muslim societies, unsuccessful viziers were commonly eliminated — justifiably 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 not deposed but merely demoted; and some even returned to office.
In Pakistan, the Prime Minister (de facto ruling politician, formally under the President) is called Vazīr-e Azam (Persian for Grand vizier), other Ministers are styled vazirs. In Iran the term Vazīr is equivalent to minister, e.g. foreign/health Vazīr.
Furthermore, wazīr is the standard Arabic word for a minister (itself a Latin word for 'servant', originally of the monarch, later of the state eitherway); Prime Ministers are usually termed Ra'īs al-Wuzara (literally, President of the Ministers) or al-Wazīr al-'Awwal (Prime "First" Minister). Thus, for example, the Prime Minister of Egypt is in Arabic a wazīr.
In the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan is sometimes given the honorific title of Wazir.
It is common, even among historians, to apply 'modern' terms to cultures whose own authentic titles are (or were when the habit took root) insufficiently known, in this case to pre-Islamic Antiquity.
Thus in modern language-translations of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 41, Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, is called Vizier to Pharaoh. In this same chapter of Genesis, Pharaoh changed his newly appointed Vizier's name to Zaphenath-paneah.
In the rare case of the Indian princely state of Jafarabad (Jafrabad, founded c.1650), ruled by Thanadars, in 1702 a state called Janjira was founded, with rulers (six incumbents) styled wazir; when, in 1762, Jafarabad and Janjira states entered into personal union, both titles were maintained until (after 1825) the higher style of Nawab was assumed.
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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 animated film 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 Zigzag from The Thief and the Cobbler (the original inspiration for the character of Jafar in Disney's Aladdin), the comic book character Iznogoud, Prince Sinbad's advisor Yusuf in the DC Vertigo series Fables, 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. This stereotype is frequently mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, as for example in both Sourcery and Interesting Times.
in Shatranj, from which modern chess developed, the piece corresponding to the modern chess "queen" (though far weaker) was often called Wazīr. Up to the present, the word for the queen piece is still vezér in Hungarian and "vazīr" in Persian.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Translations: Vizier |
Nederlands (Dutch)
hoge functionaris in bepaalde Islamitische landen
Português (Portuguese)
n. - vizir (m)
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
高官, 元老
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 高官, 元老
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) وزير
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - יועץ, שר (ערבית), בעבר: פקיד גבוה במדינות מוסלמיות
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| History 1450-1789. Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Vizier". Read more |
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