Grand vizier in the context of "Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire"

The Battle of Mohács (Hungarian: [ˈmohaːt͡ʃ]; Hungarian: mohácsi csata, Turkish: Mohaç Muharebesi) took place on 29 August 1526 near Mohács, in the Kingdom of Hungary. It was fought between the forces of Hungary, led by King Louis II, and the invading Ottoman Empire, commanded by Suleiman the Magnificent and his grand vizier, Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha. The Ottomans achieved a decisive victory through superior planning, firepower, and a well-executed encirclement that overwhelmed the Hungarian forces.

The Hungarian army, encouraged by the nobility to engage prematurely, launched a frontal assault that collapsed under coordinated Ottoman counterattacks. King Louis and much of the Hungarian aristocracy were killed, resulting in the destruction of the royal army and the end of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Hungary and Bohemia. The aftermath saw the partition of Hungary between the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom in 1541.

Mustafa Reşid Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: مصطفی رشید پاشا; literally Mustafa Reshid Pasha; 13 March 1800 – 7 January 1858) was an Ottoman Turkish statesman and diplomat, known best as the chief architect behind the imperial Ottoman government reforms known as Tanzimat.

Born in Constantinople in 1800, Mustafa Reşid entered public service at an early age and rose rapidly, becoming ambassador to France (1834) and to the United Kingdom (1836), minister for foreign affairs (1837), and once again ambassador to the United Kingdom (1838) and to France (1841). In the settlement of the Oriental Crisis of 1840, and during the Crimean War and the ensuing peace negotiations, he rendered important diplomatic services to the Ottoman state. He returned a third time as ambassador to France in 1843. Between 1845 and 1857, he held the office of Grand Vizier six times.

Khedive (/kəˈdiːv/ kə-DEEV; Ottoman Turkish: خدیو, romanized: hidiv; borrowed from Persian: خدیو, romanized: xædīv) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.

It is attested in Persian poetry from the 10th century and was used as an Ottoman honorific from the 16th. It was borrowed into Ottoman Turkish directly from Persian. It was first used in Egypt, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ethnically Albanian governor of Ottoman Egypt and Turco-Egyptian Sudan from 1805 to 1848. The initially self-declared title was officially recognized by the Ottoman government in 1867 and used subsequently by Isma'il Pasha of Egypt and his dynastic successors until 1914. The term entered Arabic in Egypt in the 1850s.

The prime minister of Azad Kashmir (Urdu: وزِیرِ اعظم آزاد کشمیر, romanized: Wazīr ē Aʿẓam lit. 'Grand Vizier', Urdu pronunciation: [ʋəˈziːr-ˌeː ˈɑː.zəm]) is the chief executive of Azad Jammu and Kashmir region of Pakistan. The title of Prime Minister symbolizes the nominal independence of Azad Kashmir. The prime minister heads the Council of Ministers, who are appointed from amongst the members of the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly. The premier too is elected by the AJK Legislative Assembly which is directly elected by the people.

The current prime minister is Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, a member of the Pakistan People's Party who took office on 17 November 2025 following the ousting of Chaudhry Anwarul-Haq through a motion of no-confidence.

Devshirme (Ottoman Turkish: دوشیرمه, romanized: devşirme, lit. 'collecting', usually translated as "child levy" or "blood tax") was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and raising them in the religion of Islam. Those coming from the Balkans came primarily from noble Balkan families and rayah classes. It is first mentioned in written records in 1438, but probably started earlier. It created a faction of soldiers and officials loyal to the Sultan. It counterbalanced the Turkish nobility, who sometimes opposed the Sultan.

The system produced a considerable number of grand viziers from the 15th century to the 17th century. This was the second most powerful position in the Ottoman Empire, after the sultan. Initially, the grand viziers were exclusively of Turk origin, but after there were troubles between Sultan Mehmed II and the Turkish grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Younger, who was the first grand vizier to be executed, there was a rise of slave administrators (devshirme). They were much easier for the sultans to control, compared to free administrators of Turkish aristocratic extraction. The devshirme also produced many of the Ottoman Empire's provincial governors, military commanders, and divans from the 15th to the 17th century. Sometimes, the devshirme recruits were castrated and became eunuchs. Although often destined for the harem, many eunuchs of devshirme origin went on to hold important positions in the military and the government, such as grand viziers Hadım Ali Pasha, Sinan Borovinić, and Hadım Hasan Pasha.

The grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Vezir-i Azam or Sadr-ı Azam (Sadrazam); Ottoman Turkish: صدر اعظم or وزیر اعظم) was the de facto prime minister of the sultan, with the absolute power of attorney and, in principle, removable only by the sultan himself in the classical period, before the Tanzimat reforms, or until the 1908 Revolution. He held the imperial seal and could summon all other viziers to attend to affairs of the state in the Imperial Council; the viziers in conference were called "kubbe viziers" in reference to their meeting place, the Kubbealtı ('under-the-dome') in Topkapı Palace. His offices were located at the Sublime Porte.

Eyalets (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت, pronounced [ejaːˈlet], lit. 'province'), also known as beylerbeyliks or pashaliks, were the primary administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire.

From 1453 to the beginning of the nineteenth century the Ottoman local government was loosely structured. The empire was at first divided into states called eyalets, presided over by a beylerbey (title equivalent to duke in English and Amir al Umara in Arabic) of three tails (feathers borne on a state officer's ceremonial staff). The grand vizier was responsible for nominating all the high officers of state, both in the capital and the states. Between 1861 and 1866, these eyalets were abolished, and the territory was divided for administrative purposes into vilayets (provinces).

Hatt-i humayun (Ottoman Turkish: خط همايون ḫaṭṭ-ı hümayun, plural خط همايونلر, ḫaṭṭ-ı hümayunlar), also known as hatt-i sharif (خط شریف ḫaṭṭ-ı şerîf, plural خط شریفلر, ḫaṭṭ-ı şerîfler), was the diplomatics term for a document or handwritten note of an official nature composed and personally signed by an Ottoman sultan. These notes were commonly written by the sultan personally, although they could also be transcribed by a palace scribe. They were written usually in response to, and directly on, a document submitted to the sultan by the grand vizier or another officer of the Ottoman government. Thus, they could be approvals or denials of a letter of petition, acknowledgements of a report, grants of permission for a request, an annotation to a decree, or other government documents. Hatt-i humayuns could also be composed from scratch, rather than as a response to an existing document.

After the Tanzimat era (1839–1876), aimed at modernizing the Ottoman Empire, hatt-i humayuns of the routine kind, as well as fermans, were supplanted by the practice of irade-i seniyye, or irade (Ottoman Turkish: اراده سنیه irâde-i seniyye; French: iradé or less standardly iradèh, meaning 'ordinance'), in which the sultan's spoken response to his Grand Vizier's recommendations was recorded on the document by his scribe.