Society
The state was governed by the khan. His actions were based on decisions and consultations of a cabinet council, or Diwan. The nobility comprised the ranks of bäk (beg), ämir (emir), and morza. Military estates consisted of the uğlan (ulan), bahadir, içki (ichki). Muslim clergy also played a major role. They were divided into säyet (seid), şäyex (sheikh), qazí (qazi), and imams. The ulema or clergy played a judicial role, and maintained the madrassas and maktabs (schools).
The majority of the population were qara xalıq (black people): a free Muslim population, who lived on state land. The feudal lands were mostly settled by çura (serfs). Prisoners of war were usually sold to Turkey or Central Asia. Occasionally they were sold within the Khanate as slaves (qol) and sometimes were settled on feudal lands to become çura later. The non-Muslim population of the Khanate were required to pay the yasaq.
Read more about this topic: Khanate Of Kazan
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it’s only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“There is a city myth that country life was isolated and lonely; the truth is that farmers and their families then had a richer social life than they have now. They enjoyed a society organic, satisfying and whole, not mixed and thinned with the life of town, city and nation as it now is.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1965)