Image: Wikimedia Commons

bey

Turkish title of noblety and courtesy, Ottoman style for military officers below pasha (general) and over captain

Entitynoble title style honorificQ181217

Instance of: noble title
, style
, honorific
+1 more
Subclass of: monarch
Country: Turkey
, Ottoman Empire

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, Beg, or Beğ, is a Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of variously sized areas in the numerous Turkic kingdoms, emirates, sultanates and empires in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Europe, and the Middle East, such as the Seljuks, Ottomans, Timurids or the various khanates and emirates in Central Asia and the Eurasian Steppe. The feminine equivalent title was begum. The regions or provinces where "beys" ruled or which they administered were called beylik, roughly meaning "governorate" or "region". However, the exact scope of power handed to the beys varied with each country; thus, there was no clear-cut system rigidly applied to all countries defining the power and prestige that came along with the title.

Overview

All data

30 statements · 13% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Language: Turkish
Said to be the same as: Baig
Native label: Bey

On other databases

19 identifiers linking bey across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

13%

externally sourced

Source last edited August 30, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). bey (Q181217). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/bey-Q181217