List of lingua francas
Turkish is still in use and widely spoken in several areas formerly part of the Ottoman Empire and may be understood by older people in other parts of the Middle East.
Lala (title)
The practice of lala was even older than the Ottoman Empire. During the Seljuk Empire, the experienced statesmen accompanying the princes were called Atabeg or Atabey ( a Turkish composite title meaning ancestor-lord). However, Seljuk Empire was highly feudalistic and atabeys frequently used their power for separatist policies whenever they felt a weakness in the central authority. (like Eldiguzids in Azerbaijan and Zengids) 
The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand was more centralist and almost no lala tried to follow a separatist policy.