( ar, رئیس), plural , is an Arabic title meaning 'chief' or 'leader'. It comes from the word for head, . The corresponding word for leadership or chieftaincy is . It is often translated as 'president' in Arabic, and as 'boss' in Persian.

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

speakers may also use it for president. The

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...

form of the title is reis, which denoted a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

(a term with identical etymology, being from Latin , 'head'). The term is of pre-Islamic origin. It may function as an honorific '' laqab'' in a person's name. In the central Arab world, the term originally meant village headman.

British India

In British India the landed nobility in Muslim societies often used the word to describe their aristocratic position held in society. The term was also often used by Muslims when making deed of endowments in their community. Although the word meant 'chief' or 'leader', legal documents used it in the context of 'landlords' or landowners. Other terms such as or '' zamindar'' also appeared as 'landlords', ‘landowners, or 'taxers', even though these titles implied that the individual who bore them was more ruler than proprietor.Muslim Endowments and Society in British India, By: Gregory C. Kozlowski. pp 47-48. Cambridge University Press, 1985. However, when describing any aspect of the management of their holdings, ' or ''zamindars''' employed regal terminology. The sat upon a throne (''masand or gaddi''). ''Riayat'', whom British preferred to call tenants or cultivators were literally subjects. When a met with his ''riayat'' he described himself as holding court (''darbar''). The money which ''riayat'' paid his lord was tribute (''nazrana'') not rent. The place where he paid the tribute was called a ''kachari'', just as a government revenue office was, and the clerks who collected, kept accounts and ensured tributes kept coming on time were known by their Mughal courtly styles of (''dewans'') and (''sipahis'' – a horse trooper).

Urdu

From Arabic, via Persian, this word came into Urdu as , which means a person belonging to the

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

of noble distinction. In Urdu, the word is also used similarly to the English term "

old money Old money is "the inherited wealth of established upper-class families (i.e. gentry, patriciate)" or "a person, family, or lineage possessing inherited wealth". The term typically describes a social class of the rich who have been able to ma ...

," as the opposite or antonym of nouveau riche, a person who has accumulated considerable wealth within his or her generation. When the book "The Pleasure of Philosophy" by Will Durant was translated into Urdu, by Syed

Abid Ali Abid Abid Ali Abid (Urdu/Persian: سید عابد علی عابد) was a Pakistani Urdu and Persian poet and educator who was born on 17 September 1906 in Dera Ismail Khan, British India and died in Lahore, Pakistan on 20 January 1971. Life He wrot ...

, he translated the word aristocracy with the Urdu word ().

Palestine

The Arabic adjective ''

' '' The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

'(meaning 'great'), is also added to mean 'the great '. This term, as well as the Hebrew term (

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

), are used by Israeli media to refer to the President of the Palestinian National Authority, as opposed to (president). In a New York Times op-ed, commentator Bret Stephens referred to late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat as "the rais."

References

{{Reflist Arabic honorifics Swahili words and phrases Heads of state Islamic honorifics Military ranks Royal titles Noble titles Positions of authority Titles of national or ethnic leadership Titles in India Titles in Afghanistan Titles in Pakistan Ottoman titles Turkish titles Titles in Iran