Ghazi (
Arabic: غازى,
ġāzī) 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
ghāzīdates 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.
