History The first sanjaks appear to have been created by
Orhan or earlier. These were Sultan-öyügü (later Sultan-önü), Hudavendigar-eli, Koca-eli and Karasi-eli. The districts which made up an eyalet were known as sanjaks, each under the command of a
sanjak-bey. The number of sanjaks in each eyalet varied considerably. In 1609,
Ayn Ali noted that
Rumelia Eyalet had 24 sanjaks, but that six of these in the
Peloponnesos had been detached to form the separate
Morea Eyalet. Anatolia had 14 sanjaks and the
Damascus Eyalet had 11. There were, in addition, several eyalets where there was no formal division into sanjaks. These, in Ayn Ali's list were
Basra and part of the
Baghdad,
Al-Hasa,
Egypt,
Tripoli,
Tunis and
Algiers. He adds to the list
Yemen, with the note that ‘at the moment the Imams have usurped control’. These eyalets were, however, exceptional: the typical pattern was the eyalet subdivided into sanjaks. By the 16th century, these presented a rational administrative pattern of territories, based usually around the town or settlement from which the sanjak took its name, and with a population of perhaps 100,000. However, this had not always been the case. It seems more likely that before the mid-15th century, the most important factor in determining the pattern of sanjaks was the existence of former lordships and principalities, and of areas where marcher lords had acquired territories for themselves and their followers. Some sanjaks in fact preserved the names of the dynasties that had ruled there before the Ottoman conquest.
Government The sanjak was governed as a vilayet, just on a smaller scale. Most of the sanjaks throughout the Empire were under the rule of non-hereditary appointees, who had no permanent family of territorial connections with the area. A sanjak was typically divided into
kazas, each overseeing a major city and its surrounding hinterland. Initially, the civil administration was headed by an
Islamic judge (
kadi) and the area equivalent to his jurisdiction (
kadiluk). During the
Tanzimat reforms, the kadis were eventually restricted to judicial functions and administration ceded to a
kaymakam and treasurer. The kazas were further divided into subdistricts (
nahiye) and villages, each overseen by an appointed official or local council. ==Legacy==