Bey


"Bey" is a Turkish title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders or rulers of various sized areas in the Ottoman Empire. The feminine equivalent title was Begum. The regions or provinces where "beys" ruled or which they administered were called beylik, roughly meaning "khanate", "emirate" or "principality" in the first case and "province" or "governorate" in the second.
Today, the word is still used formally as a social title for men. It follows the name and is used generally with first names and not with last names.

Etymology

The word entered English from Turkish bey, itself derived from Old Turkic beg, which – in the form bäg – has been mentioned as early as in the Orkhon inscriptions and is usually translated as "tribal leader". The actual origin of the word is still disputed, though it is mostly agreed that it was a loan-word, in Old Turkic. This Turkic word is usually considered a borrowing from an Iranian language. However, German Turkologist Gerhard Doerfer assessed the derivation from Iranian as superficially attractive but quite uncertain, and pointed out the possibility that the word may be genuinely Turkic. Two principal etymologies have been proposed by scholars:
  1. the Middle Persian title bag meaning "lord" and "master". Peter Golden derives the word via Sogdian bġy from the same Iranian root. All Middle Iranian languages retain forms derived from baga- in the sense "god": Middle Persian bay, Parthian baγ, Bactrian bago, Sogdian βγ-, and were used as honorific titles of kings and other men of high rank in the meaning of "lord". The Iranian bāy gave Turkish word bai, whence Mongol name Bayan.
  2. the Chinese title pö, meaning older brother and feudal lord, often lower members of the aristocracy. 伯 is the Chinese noble title equivalent to count.
What is certain is that the word has no connections to Turkish berk, "strong", or Turkish bögü, "shaman".

Turkish and Azerbaijani beys

The first three rulers of the Ottoman realm were titled Bey. The chief sovereign of the Ottoman Empire came to be called sultan starting in 1383 when Murad I was granted this title by the shadow caliph in Cairo.
The Ottoman state had started out as one of a dozen Turkish Ghazi Beyliks, roughly comparable to western European duchies, into which Anatolia had been divided after the break-up of the Seljuk Sultanate of Ikonion and the military demise of the Byzantine Empire. Its capital was Bursa. By 1336, it had annexed the Beylik of Karasy, its western neighbour on the coast of the Sea of Marmara, and it began to expand quite rapidly thereafter.
As the Ottoman realm grew from a Beylik into an imperial sultanate, the title "Bey" came to be applied to subordinate military and administrative officers, such as a district administrator and lower-level minor military governors. The latter were usually titled sanjakbey. Beys were lower in rank than pashas and provincial governors, who governed most of the Ottoman vilayets, but higher than effendis.
Eventually, the chiefs of the former Ottoman capitals Bursa and Edirne in Turkish Thrace both were designated "Bey".
Over time, the title became somewhat devalued, as Bey was used as a courtesy title for a pasha's son. It also came to be attached to officers and dignitaries below those entitled to be pashas, notably the following military officer ranks :
Oddly, the compound Beyefendi was part of the title of the husband and sons of an Imperial Princess, and their sons in turn were entitled to the courtesy title Beyzade, "Son of a Bey". For the grandsons of an imperial princess, the official style was simply Bey after the name.
By the late 19th century, "Bey" had been reduced in the Ottoman Empire to an honorary title. While in Qazaq and other Central Asian Turkic languages, бай remains a rather honorific title, in modern Turkish, and in Azerbaijan, the word "bey" simply means "mister" or "sir" and is used in the meaning of "chieftain" only in historical context. Bay is also used in Turkish in combined form for certain military ranks, e.g. albay, meaning colonel, from alay "regiment" and -bay, and yarbay, meaning lieutenant colonel, from yardim "assistance" and -bay.
Lucy Mary Jane Garnett wrote in the 1904 work Turkish Life in Town and Country that "distinguished persons and their sons" as well as "high government officials" could become bey, which was one of two "merely conventional designations as indefinite as our "Esquire" has come to be.".
The Republican Turkish authorities abolished the title circa the 1930s.
As with most Turkish titles, it follows the name rather than precedes it, e.g. "Ahmet Bey" for "Mr. Ahmet". When one speaks of Mr. Ahmet, the title has to be written with a capital, but when one addresses him directly it is simply written without capital. Bey may combine with efendi to give a common form of address, to which the possessive suffix -m is usually added: beyefendim, efendim.
Beyefendi has its feminine counterpart: hanımefendi, used alone, to address a woman without her first name. And with the first name: Ayşe Hanım or Ayşe hanım, for example, according to the rule given above about the use of the capital letter.

Beys elsewhere

The title Bey could be maintained as a similar office within Arab states that broke away from the High Porte, such as Egypt and Sudan under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, where it was a rank below pasha, and a title of courtesy for a pasha's son.
Even much earlier, the virtual sovereign's title in Barbaresque North African 'regency' states was "Bey".
Notably in Tunis, the Husainid Dynasty used a whole series of title and styles including Bey:
Bey was also the title that was awarded by the Sultan of Turkey in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire to Oloye Mohammed Shitta, an African merchant prince of the Yoruba people who served as a ranking leader of the Muslim community in the kingdom of Lagos. Subsequently, he and his children became known in Nigeria by the double-barrelled surname Shitta-Bey, a tradition which has survived to the present day through their lineal descendants.
In the Ottoman period, the lords of the semi-autonomous Mani Peninsula used the title of beis ; for example, Petros Mavromichalis was known as Petrobey.
Other Beys saw their own Beylik promoted to statehood, e.g.:
Bey or a variation has also been used as an aristocratic title in various Turkic states, such as Bäk in the Tatar Khanate of Kazan, in charge of a Beylik called Bäklek. The Balkar princes in the North Caucasus highlands were known as taubiy, meaning the "mountainous chief".
Sometimes a Bey was a territorial vassal within a khanate, as in each of the three zuzes under the Khan of the Kazakhs.
The variation Beg, Baig or Bai, is still used as a family name or a part of a name in South and Central Asia as well as the Balkans. In Slavic-influenced names, it can be seen in conjunction with the Slavic -ov/-ović/ev suffixes meaning "son of", such as in Kurbegović, Izetbegović, Abai Kunanbaev.
The title is also used as an honorific by members of the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Moorish Orthodox Church.
'Bey' is also used in colloquially in Urdu-speaking parts of India and its usage is similar to "chap" or "man". When used aggressively, it is an offensive term.