Talk:Beylerbeylik (Safavid Persia)

Spelling of the term

Beylerbeylik is not an appropriate translation or transliteration of this term, as it is the Ottoman Turkish pronunciation of بكلربكلك, and is not used in English-language sources discussing the Safavid Empire. The only source this article currently has is in fact about the Ottoman Empire, and is one I do not have access to and cannot read.

In the Safavid Empire, the Turkic term Beglarbegi (بیگلربیگی, also romanised as Beiglarbeigi and Beyglarbeygi) was used for some provincial governors. Provinces governed by them were not called Beylerbeyliks, rather Beglarbegliks (بیگلربیگلک) or Baylarbayliks.

Regarding the term Beglarbegi's usage in Iran, Encyclopaedia of Ismailism states:

The title beglarbegi means "Governor General", a term derived from Turkish beylerbeyi, means chief of the chief. In Iran, the Beglarbegi governed three sub-ordinate governors of a province, including deputy governor and lesser officials.

Encyclopædia Iranica also states:

BEGLERBEGĪ (Pers. also -beygī), a Turkish title meaning “beg of begs,” “commander of commanders.” In the Il-khanid period it is sometimes employed in chronicles to designate the leading amir in the state, e.g., of Taḡačar (Ṭaḡājār) in 694/1295; and according to the Mamluk geographer ʿOmarī, this was the regular usage. In this case the term would have been synonymous with ulusbegī “amir of the ulus (state),” and equivalent to the Arabic-Persian amīr al-omarāʾ. Under the Safavids the title came to be applied to governors of the more important provinces. At first governors of all ranks were called merely ḥākem, but beglerbegī appears in an edict of Ṭahmāsb I in 950/1543-44 referring to the governor of Herat. During the succeeding decades the title is used for the governors of numerous provinces, including those of Azerbaijan, Qarabāḡ, Šīrvān, Fārs, ʿErāq-e ʿArab, and Astarābād. At the same time, however, a few provinces—those, it seems, regarded as strategically more important—were administered by a wālī, and by the end of the Safavid period this term had superseded beglerbegī also.

Samiollah1357 (talk) 22:47, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi Samiollah1357. Yavuz and Gunter are political scientists. They don't have any expertise in this area either, so they're not really WP:RS. However, The Safavid World briefly makes mention of it, though it's not really much; "The cities, where gold coins were minted, were concentrated primarily in the khāssa domain – Hamadan, Isfahan, Kashan, Mazandaran, Qazvin, Shiraz, Yazd53 and in the neighboring beglerbekates of Mashhad (Mashhad, Sabzavar), Khorasan (Herat) and Azerbaijan (Ardabil, Tabriz)." - page 291. I have tried in the past to find more info about these beglerbekates (or beglerbekats, also used in the source), but to no avail. I think that this article should either get redirected to a Safavid article named "Beglerbeg" that is not part of Beylerbey. Or perhaps even better, an article named "Administrative divisions of Safavid Iran" (cf. Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire), since hakem, vali and beglerbeg were all used, and I don't think we have enough info warranting that they have their own stand-alone articles. EDIT: The Iranica source you mentioned (and which my comment was also directed at) was great, I don't get why you removed it. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello @HistoryofIran,

The removal was a mistake made while I was trying to add a second quote.

I agree that this article should be either renamed or reduced to a part of another article, and should certainly not use the Ottoman Turkish form of the name. Samiollah1357 (talk) 23:37, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Just looked into Willem Floors Titles and Emoluments in Safavid Iran: A Third Manual of Safavid Administration, by Mirza Naqi Nasiri to find some more info. Though unfortunately the source doesn't really have noteworthy info about it, the author instead suggests reading his other book for stuff like that, which I don't possess: "For a detailed discussion of this administrative organization and changes therein over times as well as of the various titles to indicate a governor (hakem, vali, beygler-beygi) I refer the reader to my book Safavid Government Institutions, also as to all other related questions such as the difference between a hakem and a vizier in governing a jurisdiction." - page 124. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:39, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll see if I can get my hands on Willem Floors Safavid Government Institutions. It gets more and more complicated: "For Safavid Iran was divided into about fifty to seventy jurisdictions, which were governed by a varying number of vālis (vice-roys), begler-begis (governor-generals), hākems (senior-governors), soltāns or qol-begis (junior-governors), dārughas (superintendents) and royal viziers (administrators)." - page 218, The Safavid World. --HistoryofIran (talk) 00:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

That would certainly be a useful source, with a significant number of details relevant to this topic. If you do manage to find a copy of the book, please send some relevant excerpts here. Samiollah1357 (talk) 01:50, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Will do! I've requested it here [1]. Worst case scenario, I can try to loan the book from a library nearby. --HistoryofIran (talk) 03:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@Samiollah1357: You can borrow the book for one hour here [2]. I think you can keep borrowing it? Guess we'll see. Unfortunately you can't download it. --HistoryofIran (talk) 11:20, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

It appears to be currently unavailable, but I'll check back later and see if I can find anything useful. Samiollah1357 (talk) 02:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

References