Vilayet

The Ottoman Turkish vilayet (ولایت‎) was a loanword borrowed from Arabic wilāya (وِلَايَة), an abstract noun formed from the verb waliya (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.^[3] It was borrowed into Albanian vilajet, Bulgarian vilaet (вилает),^[4] Judaeo-Spanish vilayet, and French vilaïet 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).^[5]

The early Republic of Turkey continued to use the term vilayet until it renamed them il in the late 1920s.^[when?]

The Ottoman Empire had already begun to modernize its administration and regularize its eyalets in the 1840s,^[6] but the Vilayet Law extended this throughout the empire, regulating the hierarchy of administrative units.^[1][7]

Each vilayet or province was governed by a vali appointed by the sultan.^[7] Acting as the sultan's representative, he was notionally the supreme head of administration in his province,^[8] subject to various caveats. Military administration was entirely separate,^[7] although the vali controlled local police.^[7] 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,^[8] each nominated by the respective ministers^[8] in Istanbul.^[7] The defterdar in particular answered directly to the finance minister rather than the vali.^[7] A separate vilayet council was composed of four elected members, comprising two Muslims and two non-Muslims.^[8]

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,^[8] the muavin, and the defterdar.^[7] 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.^[8]

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.^[9]

• 
  Vilayets of Europe in 1870
• 
  Vilayets in 1877
• 
  Vilayets of Europe in 1893
• 
  Vilayets of Asia in 1897
• 
  Vilayets of Asia in 1909
• 
  Vilayets of Europe in 1910
• 
  Vilayets of Asia in 1911

• Provinces of Turkey
• Six Vilayets, the Armenian vilayets of the empire
• Vilayet Law