A form of the word is known already from
Middle Persian, or Pahlavi language, as pātaxšā(h) or pādixšā(y).[3][4][5][6] Middle Persian pād may stem from
Avestanpaiti,[7] and is akin to
Pati (title). Xšāy, "to rule", and xšāyaθiya, "king", are from
Old Persian.
It was adopted by several
monarchs claiming the highest rank, roughly equivalent to the ancient
Persian notion of "
Great King", and later adopted by post-
Achaemenid and the
Mughal emperors of India. However, in some periods it was used more generally for autonomous Muslim rulers, as in the Hudud al-'Alam of the 10th century, where even some petty princes of Afghanistan are called pādshā(h)/pādshāʼi/pādshāy.[8]
The rulers on the following thrones – the first two effectively commanding major
West Asian empires – were styled Padishah:
Some Seljuk rulers, like
Grand SeljukAhmad Sanjar (as padishah-i sharq-u gharb, a translation of the Arabic malik al-mashriq wa al-maghrib [King of the East and the West]),
Sultan of RumKaykhusraw I (as Padishah of Islam), and Sultan of Rum
Kayqubad I (as pādshāh).[9]
Mongol
IlkhanGhazan took the title Padshah-i Islam after he converted to Islam in 1295, possibly in order to undermine the religious prestige of the
Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.[10] The title Ilkhan, that came into use
c. 1259–1265, may be an equivalent of Padishah, if it is taken to mean "sovereign khan" (and not "subordinate khan" as often posited).[11]
Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded the
Durrani Empire in 1747 with the title Pādshah-i Afghanistan in Persian and Badcha Da Afghanistan in the
Pashto language. The
Sadduzai were overthrown in 1823 but there was a brief restoration by
Shah Shujah in 1839 with the help of
British India &
Ranjit Singh and the
Sikh Empire. The title became dormant from his assassination in 1842 until 1926 when
Amanullah Khan resurrected it (official from 1937) and was finally laid to rest with the abdication of
Mohammed Zahir Shah in 1973 following a coup; at other times the Afghan monarchy used the style Emir (Amir al-Momenin) or
Malik ("King").[12]
Rustam-i-Dauran, Aristu-i-Zaman,
Asaf Jah IV, Muzaffar ul-Mamaluk, Nizam ul-Mulk, Nizam ud-Daula, Nawab Mir Farkhunda 'Ali Khan Bahadur [Gufran Manzil], Sipah Salar, Fath Jang, Ayn waffadar Fidvi-i-Senliena, Iqtidar-i-Kishwarsitan Muhammad Akbar Shah Padshah-i-Ghazi,
Nizam of Hyderabad (
r. 1829–1857)
Like many
titles, the word Padishah was also often used as a name, either by
nobles with other (in this case always lower) styles, or even by
commoners.
Padshah Begum is the title of consorts of padishahs.
In the Ottoman Empire the title padishah was exclusively reserved for the Ottoman emperor, as the Ottoman chancery rarely and unwillingly addressed foreign monarchs as padishahs. The
Habsburg emperors were consequently denied this title and addressed merely as the "kings of Vienna" (beç kıralı).[15] With the
Peace of Zsitvatorok in 1606, it was the first time that the
Sublime Porte recognized
Rudolf II as equal of the padishah.[16] The
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, gave similar concessions to the
Russian Empire.[17]
^Korobeĭnikov, Dimitri (2014). Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century. Oxford, United Kingdom. pp. 99–101, 290, 157.
ISBN978-0-19-870826-1.
OCLC884743514.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^Peter Fibiger Bang; Dariusz Kolodziejczyk (2012). Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History. Cambridge University Press. p. 178.
^Kenneth Meyer Setton (1991). Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century. p. 22.
^Bernard Lewis (2002). What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. p. 164.