Divan

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Audience in the Diwan-i-Khas granted to the French ambassador, the vicomte d'Andrezel by Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, 10 October 1724, in a contemporary painting by Jean-Baptiste van Mour.

A divan or diwan (Persian: دیوان, dīvān; from Sumerian dub, clay tablet)[1] was a high government ministry in various Islamic states, or its chief official (see dewan).

Etymology

The winter Diwan of a Mughal Nawab (painting from 1812)

The word, recorded in English since 1586, meaning "Oriental council of a state", comes from Turkish divan, from Arabic diwan.

It is first attested in

Tajiki Persian.[1]

In Arabic, the term was first used for the army registers, then generalized to any register, and by metonymy applied to specific government departments.[2] The sense of the word evolved to "custom house" and "council chamber", then to "long, cushioned seat", such as are found along the walls in Middle-Eastern council chambers. The latter is the sense that entered European languages as divan (furniture).

The modern French, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian words douane, aduana, and dogana, respectively (meaning "

customs house"), also come from diwan.[3]

Creation and development under the early Caliphates

Establishment and Umayyad period

The first dīwān was created under Caliph

Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, a statesman from the Thaqif tribe who was versed in Persian, is credited with establishing Basra's dīwān during his governorship (636–638), and the dīwān of the Caliphate's other garrison centers followed its organization.[5]

With the advent of the

Byzantine institution; the dīwān al-ṣadaqa was a new foundation with the task of estimating the zakāt and ʿushr levies; the dīwān al-mustaghallāt administered state property in cities; the dīwān al-ṭirāz controlled the government workshops that made official banners, costumes and some furniture.[6][7] Aside from the central government, there was a local branch of the dīwān al-kharāj, the dīwān al-jund and the dīwān al-rasāʾil in every province.[8]

Under Caliph

Egypt, Persian in the former Sasanian lands) and the traditional practices of book-keeping, seals and time-keeping, only Arabic and the Islamic calendar were to be used henceforth. The process of Arabization was gradual: in Iraq, the transition was carried out by Salih ibn Abd al-Rahman under the auspices of the governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in 697, in Syria by Sulayman ibn Sa'd al-Khushani in 700, in Egypt under Caliph al-Walid I's governor Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik in 706, and in Khurasan by Ishaq ibn Tulayq al-Nahshali on the orders of Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, governor of Iraq, in 741/42.[8][9]

Abbasid period

Under the

Iranian culture, became more elaborate and complex.[6] As part of this process, the dīwāns increased in number and sophistication, reaching their apogee in the 9th–10th centuries.[8] At the same time, the office of vizier (wazīr) was also created to coordinate government.[8] The administrative history of the Abbasid dīwāns is complex, since many were short-lived, temporary establishments for specific needs, while at times the sections of larger dīwān might also be termed dīwāns, and often a single individual was placed in charge of more than one department.[10]

Caliph

al-maẓālim was created, staffed by judges, to hear complaints against government officials.[8] The remit of the dīwān al-kharāj now included all land taxes (kharāj, zakāt, and jizya, both in money and in kind), while another department, the dīwān al-ṣadaqa, dealt with assessing the zakāt of cattle. The correspondence of the dīwān al-kharāj was checked by another department, the dīwān al-khātam.[11] As in Umayyad times, miniature copies of the dīwān al-kharāj, the dīwān al-jund and the dīwān al-rasāʾil existed in every province, but by the mid-9th century each province also maintained a branch of its dīwān al-kharāj in the capital.[8]

The treasury department (bayt al-māl or dīwān al-sāmī) kept the records of revenue and expenditure, both in money and in kind, with specialized dīwāns for each category of the latter (e.g. cereals, cloth, etc.). Its secretary had to mark all orders of payment to make them valid, and it drew up monthly and yearly balance sheets.[10] The dīwān al-jahbad̲ha, responsible for the treasury's balance sheets, was eventually branched off from it, while the treasury domains were placed under the dīwān al-ḍiyāʿ, of which there appear at times to have been several.[10] In addition, a department of confiscated property (dīwān al-musādarīn) and confiscated estates (dīwān al-ḍiyāʿ al-maqbūḍa) existed.[10]

Caliph

Ali ibn Isa established a new department for charitable endowments (dīwān al-birr), whose revenue went to the upkeep of holy places, the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and on volunteers fighting in the holy war against the Byzantine Empire.[10]

Under Caliph

al-mawālī wa ’l-ghilmān), possibly an evolution of the dīwān al-aḥshām, existed for the huge number of slaves and other attendants of the palace.[8] In addition, the dīwān al-khātam, now also known as the dīwān al-sirr (bureau of confidential affairs) grew in importance.[8] Miskawayh also mentions the existence of a dīwān al-ḥaram, which supervised the women's quarters of the palace.[10]

Later Islamic dynasties

As the Abbasid Caliphate began to fragment in the mid 9th century, its administrative machinery was copied by the emergent successor dynasties, with the already extant local dīwān branches likely providing the base on which the new administrations were formed.[6]

Saffarids, Ziyarid, Sajids, Buyids and Samanids

The administrative machinery of the

Zarang. Under his successor Amr ibn al-Layth (r. 879–901) there were two further treasuries, the māl-e khāṣṣa, and an unnamed bureau under the chief secretary corresponding to a chancery (dīwān al-rasāʾil or dīwān al-inshāʾ).[6]

The

Adud al-Dawla (r. 978–983), however, the dīwān al-sawād, which oversaw the rich lands of lower Iraq, was moved from Baghdad to Shiraz. In addition, a dīwān al-khilāfa was established to oversee the affairs of the Abbasid caliphs, who continued to reside in Baghdad as puppets of the Buyid emirs.[12]

Seljuks

The

Great Seljuks tended to cherish their nomadic origins, with their sultans leading a peripatetic court to their various capitals. Coupled with their frequent absence on campaign, the vizier assumed an even greater prominence, concentrating the direction of civil, military and religious affairs in his own bureau, the "supreme dīwān" (dīwān al-aʿlā).[12] The dīwān al-aʿlā was further subdivided into a chancery (dīwān al-inshāʾ wa’l-ṭughrā, also called dīwān al-rasāʾil) under the ṭughrāʾī or munshī al-mamālik, an accounting department (dīwān al-zimām wa’l-istīfāʾ) under the mustawfī al-mamālik, a fiscal oversight office (dīwān al-ishrāf or dīwān al-muʿāmalāt) under the mushrif al-mamālik, and the army department (dīwān al-ʿarḍ or dīwān al-jaysh) under the ʿariḍ (further divided into the recruitment and supply bureau, dīwān al-rawātib, and the salary and land grants bureau, dīwān al-iqṭāʾ).[13][14] A number of lesser departments is also attested, although they may not have existed at the same time: the office charged with the redress of grievances (dīwān al-maẓālim), the state treasury (bayt al-māl) and the sultan's private treasury (bayt al-māl al-khaṣṣ), confiscations (dīwān al-muṣādara), the land tax office (dīwān al-kharāj) and the department of religious endowments or waqfs (dīwān al-awqāf). A postal department (dīwān al-barīd) also existed but fell into disuse.[14][15] The system was apparently partly copied in provincial centres as well.[15]

Ottoman Tripolitania

Following the Ottoman conquest of North Africa, the

Janissaries, which was in turn divided into a number of companies under the command of a junior officer or Bey
. The Janissaries quickly became the dominant force in Ottoman Libya. As a self-governing military guild answerable only to their own laws and protected by a Divan (in this context, a council of senior officers who advised the Pasha), the Janissaries soon reduced the Pasha to a largely ceremonial role.

Government councils

The

defterdars
.

The Assemblies of the

ad hoc Divan
).

In

Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat
or Chamber of People's Representatives.

Ministerial departments

In the

, several portfolio Ministries had a title based on Diwan:

References

  1. ^ a b c de Blois 1995, p. 432.
  2. ^ a b c Duri 1991, p. 323.
  3. ^ Holt, Lambton & Lewis 1977, p. 533.
  4. ^ Bosworth 1995, pp. 432–433.
  5. ^ Wellhausen 1927, pp. 115–116.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth 1995, p. 433.
  7. ^ Duri 1991, pp. 323–324.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Duri 1991, p. 324.
  9. ^ Sprengling 1939, pp. 211–214.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Duri 1991, p. 325.
  11. ^ Duri 1991, pp. 324, 325.
  12. ^ a b c d e Bosworth 1995, p. 434.
  13. ^ Lambton 1988, pp. 28–29.
  14. ^ a b Korobeinikov 2014, p. 84.
  15. ^ a b Bosworth 1995, p. 435.

Sources

  • Bosworth, C. E. (1995). "DĪVĀN – ii. GOVERNMENT OFFICE"
    . In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. VII. pp. 432–438.
  • de Blois, François (1995). "DĪVĀN – i. THE TERM". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. VII. p. 432.
  • Duri, A. A. (1991). "Dīwān i.—The caliphate". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume II: C–G. Leiden and New York: BRILL. pp. 323–327. .
  • .
  • Korobeinikov, Dimitri (2014). Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
  • Lambton, Ann K. S. (1988). Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. .
  • Sprengling, M. (April 1939). "From Persian to Arabic". The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 56 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 175–224. .
  • .
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