Romanization of Ottoman Turkish

The Ottoman Caliphate (Ottoman Turkish: خلافت مقامى, romanized: hilâfet makamı, lit. 'office of the caliphate') was the claim of the heads of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty, rulers of the Ottoman Empire, to be the caliphs of Islam during the late medieval and early modern era.

Ottoman rulers first assumed the style of caliph in the 14th century, though did at that point not claim religious authority beyond their own borders. After the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by Sultan Selim I in 1517 and the abolition of the Mamluk-controlled Abbasid Caliphate, Selim and his successors ruled one of the strongest states in the world and gained control of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the religious and cultural centers of Islam. The claim to be caliphs transitioned into a claim to universal caliphal authority, similar to that held by the Abbasid Caliphate prior to the sack of Baghdad in 1258. Further Ottoman victories, the dynasty's geopolitical dominance in the 16th–17th centuries, and the lack of rival claimants strengthened the Ottoman claim to be the leaders of the Muslim world.

The Oghuz Turks (Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, romanized: Oγuz) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. Today, much of the populations of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks. The term Oghuz was gradually supplanted by the terms Turkmen and Turcoman (Ottoman Turkish: تركمن, romanized: Türkmen or Türkmân) by the 13th century.

The Oghuz confederation migrated westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with the Karluk allies of the Uyghurs. In the 9th century, the Oghuz from the Aral steppes drove Pechenegs westward from the Emba and Ural River region. In the 10th century, the Oghuz inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai and Emba north of Lake Balkhash in modern-day Kazakhstan.

The Ottoman dynasty (Turkish: Osmanlı Hanedanı) consisted of the members of the imperial House of Osman (Ottoman Turkish: خاندان آل عثمان, romanized: Ḫānedān-ı Āl-i ʿOsmān), also known as the Ottomans (Turkish: Osmanlılar). According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, under the leadership of Osman I in northwestern Anatolia in the district of Bilecik, Söğüt. The Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c. 1299 to 1922.

During much of the Empire's history, the sultan was the absolute regent, head of state, and head of government, though much of the power often shifted to other officials such as the Grand Vizier. During the First (1876–78) and Second Constitutional Eras (1908–20) of the late Empire, a shift to a constitutional monarchy was enacted, with the Grand Vizier taking on a prime ministerial role as head of government and heading an elected General Assembly.

John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János; Romanian: Ioan de Hunedoara; Croatian: Janko Hunjadi; Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко, romanized: Sibinjanin Janko; Ottoman Turkish: حونیادی یانوش, romanized: Hünyadi Yanoş; c. 1406 – 11 August 1456) was a leading Hungarian military and political figure during the 15th century, who served as regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1446 to 1453, under the minor Ladislaus V.

According to most contemporary sources, he was the member of a noble family of Wallachian ancestry. Through his struggles against the Ottoman Empire, he earned for himself the nickname "Turk-buster" from his contemporaries. Due to his merits, he quickly received substantial land grants. By the time of his death, he was the owner of immense land areas, totaling approximately four million cadastral acres, which had no precedent before or after in the Kingdom of Hungary. His enormous wealth and his military and political weight were primarily directed towards the purposes of the Ottoman wars.

Mehmed II (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى, romanized: Meḥemmed-i s̱ānī; Turkish: II. Mehmed, pronounced [icinˈdʒi ˈmehmet]; 30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (Ottoman Turkish: ابو الفتح, romanized: Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit. 'the Father of Conquest'; Turkish: Fâtih Sultan Mehmed), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.

In Mehmed II's first reign, he defeated the crusade led by John Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce per the Treaties of Edirne and Szeged. When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451, he strengthened the Ottoman Navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. After the conquest, Mehmed claimed the title caesar of Rome (Ottoman Turkish: قیصر روم, romanized: qayṣar-i rūm), based on the fact that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire since its consecration in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine I. The claim was soon recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, albeit not by most European monarchs.

Abdul Mejid I (Ottoman Turkish: عبد المجید اول, romanized: ʿAbdü'l-Mecîd, Turkish: I. Abdülmecid; 25 April 1823 – 25 June 1861) was the 31st sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He succeeded his father Mahmud II on 2 July 1839.

Abdulmejid's greatest achievement was the announcement of the Tanzimat Edict upon his accession, prepared by his then Foreign Minister Mustafa Reshid Pasha, which effectively began the Tanzimat era, or era of reorganization, in the Ottoman Empire. He was a mild-mannered monarch, giving the Sublime Porte the autonomy needed for its reform projects. One of the main goals of the Tanzimat was to encourage Ottomanism among the millets to stop rising nationalist movements within the empire, but despite new laws and reforms to integrate non-Muslims and non-Turks more thoroughly into Ottoman society, in the long term, the movement failed.

Abdulaziz (Ottoman Turkish: عبد العزيز, romanized: ʿAbdü'l-ʿAzîz; Turkish: Abdülaziz; 8 February 1830 – 4 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother Abdulmejid I in 1861.

Abdulaziz's reign began during the Ottoman Empire's resurgence following the Crimean War and two decades of the Tanzimat reforms, though it was now reliant on European capital. The decade after his ascension was dominated by the duo of Fuad Pasha and Aali Pasha, who accelerated reorganization of the Empire. The Vilayet Law was promulgated, Western codes were applied to more aspects of Ottoman law, and the millets were restructured. The issue of Tanzimat dualism continued to plague the empire, however.

The Nizam-i Cedid (Ottoman Turkish: نظام جديد, romanized: Niẓām-ı Cedīd, lit. 'new order') was a series of reforms carried out by Ottoman Sultan Selim III during the late 18th and the early 19th centuries in a drive to catch up militarily and politically with the Western powers. The New Order regime was launched by Selim III and a coalition of reformers. Its central objectives were the creation of a professional army along European lines, a private treasury to finance military spending, and other administrative reforms. The age of the New Order can be generally said to have lasted from 1789 to 1807, when Selim III was deposed by a Janissary coup.

While the term "New Order" eventually came to encompass all of Selim III's reforms, the name was used contemporaneously to refer only to the reform's central innovation: the New Order Army. That army was largely a failure in its own time but reflected an important step in the stages of Ottoman attempts at reform.

Selim III (Ottoman Turkish: سليم ثالث, romanized: Selim-i sâlis; Turkish: III. Selim; 24 December 1761 – 28 July 1808) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. Regarded as an enlightened ruler, he was eventually deposed and imprisoned by the Janissaries, who placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV (r. 1807–1808). A group of assassins subsequently killed Selim.

The Vilayet of Syria (Arabic: ولاية سوريا; Ottoman Turkish: ولايت سوريه, romanized: Vilâyet-i Sûriye), also known as Vilayet of Damascus, was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it reportedly had an area of 62,180 square kilometres (24,009 sq mi), while the preliminary results of the first Ottoman census of 1885 (published in 1908) gave the population as 1,000,000. The accuracy of the population figures ranges from "approximate" to "merely conjectural" depending on the region from which they were gathered.