Sanjak (Ottoman Empire)
A sanjak ( Ottoman سنجاق Sancak , German 'flag, banner' ; Serbo-Croatian Санџак / Sandžak , Albanian Sanxhaku , in French Sandjak , English Sanjak ) was a subdivision in the provincial administration in the Ottoman Empire . The sanjak takes its name from the standard of the leaders of the Turkish tribal associations, the tugh (' horse 's tail '). The term was synonymous with the Arabic liwâ ' , which also referred to an administrative unit in the successor states of the Ottoman Empire .
From the 14th to the 16th century sandjaks were the subdivisions of a Beylerbeylik , then an Eyâlet and, since 1867, a Vilâyet (each term of a province or a governorate). In the feudal period there was a bey or a sandjakbey at the head of every sandjak , in the late period a mütesarrıf . Under the vilayet constitution, there were also sanjaks who did not belong to a vilayet but were directly subordinate to the central government for strategic or religious reasons; they were called independent sanjaks . After the First World War , the sanjaks that remained with Turkey were all independent, then referred to as vilayets until they were given the real Turkish name İl .
The Sanjak were further divided into Kazas (. Turk kaza , arab. Qaḍā' [pl. Aqḍiya ] jurisdiction ') - which European top offices, districts or counties met - this according to sub-offices, municipalities or districts in Nahies Turk (. Nahiye , Arabic . nāḥiya [pl. nawāḥī ]), these in turn into several karye ('localities, villages') or mahalle ('districts').
For example, sanjaks were:
- Sanjak Alexandrette , on the Mediterranean Sea in what is now Turkey
- Sanjak Lazistan , on the Black Sea in the border area of today's Turkey and Georgia
- Sanjak Novi Pazar , in the border area between today's Serbia and Montenegro
- Sanjak Ohrid , in what is now Macedonia and Albania
- Sandschak Pljevlja , roughly today's Montenegro and partly adjacent areas
- Sanjak Serfije , in the Macedonia region of modern-day Greece
- Sanjak Smederevo , in today's Serbia
- Sanjak Zor , in Turkey on the border with today's Iraq
literature
- J. Deny, M. Kunt: San dj ak In: Encyclopaedia of Islam , Volume 9. Brill, Leiden 1997, pp. 11-13.
- Andreas Birken : The provinces of the Ottoman Empire (= supplements to the Tübingen Atlas of the Middle East. Series B: Humanities. No. 13). Reichert, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-920153-56-1 .