Ottoman Ayan
The Ottoman ayan (singlular: ayn) were local notables or dynasts that maintained different extents of administrative control over swaths of land in the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to the early 19th centuries. These dynasts held significant autonomy from the central Ottoman government but did not challenge the state. Though the title could only be earned by Muslims, their leadership was secular. This elite class consisted of, “Wealthy merchants, heads of Janissary garrisons, leaders of important craft guilds, those who had bought the right to collect taxes for the government in Istanbul, and those who supervised the distributions of wealth generated by, and the maintenance of, pious endowments.” Ultimately, their presence was a part of a greater decentralizing trend experienced in the Ottoman Empire beginning in the 16th century, one which would come to define the Empire’s structure until its fall in the early 20th century.
Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Ottoman military reforms resulted in the Ottoman Army engaging in the Italo-Turkish War (1911–12), the Balkan Wars (1912–13), and the continuous unrest caused by the Ottoman counter-coup of 1909, which preceded the 31 March Incident (Restoration, 1909) and 1912 Ottoman coup d'état ("Saviours") and the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état in the Empire up to World War I. The Ottoman entry into World War I in the Middle Eastern theatre ended with the partition of the Ottoman Empire under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. This treaty, as designed in the conference of London, gave a nominal land and permitted the title Ottoman Caliphate (compared with Vatican; a sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Catholic Pope), not to be a further threat but just powerful enough to protect Britain from the Khilafat Movement.