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Beylerbey (, meaning the 'commander of commanders' or 'lord of lords’, sometimes rendered governor-general) was a high rank in the western Islamic world in the late Middle Ages and early modern period, from the Anatolian Seljuks and the Ilkhanids to Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Initially designating a commander-in-chief, it eventually came to be held by senior provincial governors. In Ottoman usage, where the rank survived the longest, it designated the governors-general of some of the largest and most important provinces, although in later centuries it became devalued into a mere honorific title. The title is originally Turkic languages and its equivalents in Arabic were amir al-umara, and in Farsi, mir-i miran.
The first step towards the transformation of the office into a gubernatorial title occurred when Murad I () gave the title to Lala Shahin Pasha as a reward for his capture of Adrianople (modern Edirne) in the 1360s. In addition, Lala Shahin was given military authority over the Ottoman territories in Europe (Rumelia). This marked the effectively as the viceroy of the European territories, as the Ottoman Sultan still resided in Anatolia, and as the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which connected the two parts of the Ottoman state, continued to escape full Ottoman control until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Lala Shahin died after 1388. Sometime in 1385–87 Çandarlı Kara Halil Hayreddin Pasha succeeded him in the position of commander-in-chief in Rumelia. In 1393 Sultan Bayezid I () appointed Kara Timurtash as and viceroy in Anatolia, when Bayezid himself crossed over into Europe to campaign against Mircea I of Wallachia. This process marked the birth of the first two, and by far the most important, s: those of Rumelia Eyalet and Anatolia Eyalet, while the third , that of Rûm, followed soon after.
The was in charge of a province—termed a or generically , "province", while after 1591 the term was used and came to mean the office of . Territorial s were subdivided into s or s under s. With the continuous growth of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries, new provinces were established, and the ranks of the s swelled to a peak of 44 by the end of the 16th century. A list of s in 1609 mentions 32 in total: 23 of them regular s where revenue was distributed among the military fief-holders, while the rest (in North Africa and the Middle East) were under the salyane system, i.e. their revenue was sent to the imperial treasury, and the officials and soldiers were paid salaries from it. The size of these new provinces varied enormously: some containing as many as twenty s, and others as few as two, including the s own residence (or ). Among themselves, the various s had an order of precedence based on the date of conquest or formation of their provinces. The of Rumelia, however, retained his pre-eminence, ranking first among the other provincial governors-general, and being accorded a seat in the Imperial Council () after 1536. In addition, the post was occasionally held by the Sultan's chief minister, the Grand Vizier himself.
In his province, the operated as a virtual viceroy of the Ottoman Sultan: he had full authority over matters of war, justice and administration, except in so far as they were limited by the authority of other officials also appointed by the central government, chiefly the various fiscal secretaries under the mal defterdari, and the kadı, who could appeal directly to the imperial government. In addition, as a further check to their power, the Janissary contingents stationed in the province's cities were outside his authority, and s were even forbidden from entering the fortresses garrisoned by the Janissaries. The also had his own court and government council () and could freely grant fiefs (s and s) without prior approval by the Sultan, although this right was curtailed after 1530, when beylerbey authority was restricted to the smaller s only. Reflecting the office's origin in the military, the primary responsibility of the s and their s was the maintenance of the cavalry, formed by holders of the military fiefs, whom they led in person on campaign.
From the reign of Mehmed II () onwards, the title of also became an honorary court rank, coming after the ; both viziers and s were titled , with the viziers sporting three tugh and the s two. From the 16th century on, however, viziers could be appointed as provincial s, enjoying precedence and authority over the ordinary s of the neighbouring provinces. Towards the end of the 17th century, the title of ' of Rumelia' (') also began to be awarded as an honorific rank, alongside the actual holder of the provincial post, even to officials unrelated to the provincial administration, such as the chief treasurer ().
Beginning in the 18th century, the Arabic-origin title of began to be increasingly used for provincial governors-general at the expense of , except for the two original s of Rumelia and Anatolia; the Arabic title , and the Persian or , which had been used as equivalents of the , now increasingly came to refer only to the honorary rank, which in turn was increasingly devalued. The process culminated with the reform of 1864, after which became the only official designation for the governor-general of a province, while the title of survived only in the honorary rank of , which continued in use alongside its Perso-Arabic equivalents.
Beglerbegi () was a title generally held by governors of provinces of higher importance in Safavid Iran.
The title is of Turkish origin, meaning "Baig of begs" (commander of commanders). Under the Safavids, it meant governor-general.
The title first appears in 1543/44, when the Safavid dynasty ruler Tahmasp I () issued a decree that referred the governor of Herat as beglerbegi. The title was created to distinguish more important governors from less important ones. As a result, starting in the 1540s, governor-general ( beglerbegi), senior-governor ( hakem-khan), and junior-governor ( hakem-soltan) were one of the titles that would be given to a emir governing a province or smaller administration.
Other beglerbegis soon appear in records, such as the beglerbegi of Astarabad in 1548, and the beglerbegi of Kerman in 1565. According to Willem Floor: "This, and the fact that beglerbegis also were at the same time Amir al-umara of their jurisdiction, contradicts the view that the term beglerbegi was simply a Turkish translation of the title emir al-omara." Beglerbegi was only applied to governors of large administrations in the second half of the 16th century. The title was more commonly employed in the latter part of the 17th century, even for lesser administrations. Several khans and soltans were subject to the beglerbegi.
The beglerbegis had complete command over the soldiers and khans under their command. According to the early 18th-century Dastur al-Moluk, a beglerbegi was superior to a khan in rank, and the soltans were subordinate to the khan. The beglerbegi, who was also an emir, was also known as the emir al-omara of the province that he oversaw. There were eleven beglerbegis towards the end of the reign of Shah Abbas II (); five gholams (Fars province, Safavid Karabakh, Baghdad, Astarabad, Safavid Shirvan), two valis of some sort (Safavid Lorestan and Kurdistan) and four Qizilbash emirs (Greater Khorasan, Chokhur-e Sa'd (Erivan), Azerbaijan, Safavid Qandahar).
Herat and Kerman, which were among the first provinces to be administered by a beglerbegi, are not included in the list. This is due to not all of these administrations would continue to be governed by a beglerbegi after the 1630s. After the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, the Safavids lost Baghdad to the Ottoman Empire. Between 1632 and 1722, a vizier oversaw the administration of Fars.
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