Gazi Yasargil

A ''ghazi'' ( ar, غازي, , plural ''ġuzāt'') is an individual who participated in ''ghazw'' (, '' ''), meaning military expeditions or raiding. The latter term was applied in early Islamic literature to expeditions led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and later taken up by Turkic military leaders to describe their wars of conquest.

In the context of the wars between Russia and the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, starting as early as the late 18th century's Sheikh Mansur's resistance to Russian expansion, the word usually appears in the form ''gazavat'' ().

In English-language literature, the ''ghazw'' often appears as '' razzia'', a borrowing through French from Maghrebi Arabic.

In modern Turkish, ''gazi'' is used to refer to veterans, and also as a title for Turkic Muslim champions such as Ertuğrul and Osman I.

Ghazw as raid—razzia

In pre-Islamic Bedouin culture, ghazw was a form of limited warfare verging on brigandage that avoided head-on confrontations and instead emphasized raiding and looting, usually of livestock (see cattle raiding). The Umayyad-period Bedouin poet al-Kutami wrote the oft-quoted verses: "Our business is to make raids on the enemy, on our neighbor and our own brother, in the event we find none to raid but a brother." William Montgomery Watt hypothesized that Muhammad found it useful to divert this continuous internecine warfare toward his enemies, making it the basis of his war strategy; according to Watt, the celebrated battle of Badr started as one such razzia. As a form of warfare, the '' razzia'' was then mimicked by the Christian states of Iberia in their relations with the taifa states; rough synonyms and similar tactics are the Iberian ''cavalgada'' and the Anglo-French '' chevauchée''.

The word '' razzia'' was used in French colonial context particularly for raids to plunder and capture slaves from among the people of Western and Central Africa, also known as ''rezzou'' when practiced by the Tuareg. The word was adopted from ''ġaziya'' of Algerian Arabic vernacular and later became a figurative name for any act of pillage, with its verb form ''razzier''.

Historical development

''Ghazi'' ( ar, غازي, ') is an Arabic word, the active participle of the verb ''ġazā'', meaning 'to carry out a military expedition or raid'; the same verb can also mean 'to strive for' and ''Ghazi'' can thus share a similar meaning to Mujahid or "one who struggles". The verbal noun of ''ġazā'' is ''ġazw'' or ''ġazawān'', with the meaning 'raiding'. A derived singulative in ''ġazwah'' refers to a single battle or raid. The term ''ghāzī'' dates to at least the Samanid period, where he appears as a mercenary and frontier fighter in Khorasan and Transoxiana. Later, up to 20,000 of them took part in the Indian campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni.

''Ghāzī'' warriors depended upon plunder for their livelihood, and were prone to brigandage and sedition in times of peace. The corporations into which they organized themselves attracted adventurers, zealots and religious and political dissidents of all ethnicities. In time, though, soldiers of Turkic ethnicity predominated, mirroring the acquisition of Mamluks, Turkic slaves in the Mamluk retinues and guard corps of the caliphs and emirs and in the ranks of the ''ghazi'' corporation, some of whom would ultimately rise to military and later political dominance in various Muslim states.

In the west, Turkic ''ghāzīs'' made continual incursions along the Byzantine frontier zone, finding in the akritai (akritoi) their Greek counterparts. After the Battle of Manzikert these incursions intensified, and the region's people would see the ''ghāzī'' corporations coalesce into semi-chivalric fraternities, with the white cap and the club as their emblems. The height of the organizations would come during the Mongol conquest when many of them fled from Persia and Turkistan into Anatolia.

As organizations, the ''ghazi'' corporations were fluid, reflecting their popular character, and individual ''ghāzī'' warriors would jump between them depending upon the prestige and success of a particular emir, rather like the mercenary bands around western condottiere. It was from these Anatolian territories conquered during the ''ghazw'' that the Ottoman Empire emerged, and in its legendary traditions it is said that its founder, Osman I, came forward as a ''ghāzī'' thanks to the inspiration of Shaikh Ede Bali.

In later periods of Islamic history the honorific title of ''ghāzī'' was assumed by those Muslim rulers who showed conspicuous success in extending the domains of Islam, and eventually the honorific became exclusive to them, much as the Roman title imperator became the exclusive property of the supreme ruler of the Roman state and his family.

The Ottomans were probably the first to adopt this practice, and in any case the institution of ''ghazw'' reaches back to the beginnings of their state:

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