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.
Territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire
Selim carried the empire to the leadership of the Sunni branch of Islam by his conquest of the Middle East. He represents a sudden change in the expansion policy of the empire, which was working mostly against the West and the Beyliks before his reign. On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman empire spanned almost (trebling during Selim's reign). These included few dependent, vassal states as like Walachia from 1396, Crimea Khanate from 1475, Moldavia from 1501
and Algeria from 1520.