Giaour

Terminology

The terms "kafir", "gawur", and "rûm" (the last meaning "Rum millet") were commonly used in defters (tax registries) for Orthodox Christians, usually without ethnic distinction. Christian ethnic groups in the Balkan lands of the Ottoman Empire included Greeks (rûm), Bulgarians (bulgar), Serbs (sırp), Albanians (arnavut) and Vlachs (eflak), among others.^[2]

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described the term as follows:

Giaour (a Turkish adaptation of the Persian gâwr or gōr, an infidel), a word used by the Turks to describe all who are not Mohammedans, with especial reference to Christians. The word, first employed as a term of contempt and reproach, has become so general that in most cases no insult is intended in its use; for example in parts of China, the term foreign devil has become void of offence. A strict analogy to giaour is found in the Arabic kafir, or unbeliever, which is so commonly in use as to have become the proper name of peoples and countries.

During the Tanzimat (1839–1876) era, a hatt-i humayun prohibited the use of the term by Muslims with reference to non-Muslims^[3] to prevent problems occurring in social relationships.^[4]^{[need quotation to verify]}

European cultural references

Giaour is the name given to the evil monster of a man in the tale Vathek, written by William Beckford in French in 1782 and translated into English soon after. The spelling Giaour appears in the French as well as in the English translation.^[5]
In 1813 Lord Byron published his poem The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale, whose themes revolve around the ideas of love, death, and afterlife in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
Le Giaour, an 1832 painting by Ary Scheffer, oil on canvas, "Musée de la Vie romantique", Hôtel Scheffer-Renan, Paris.
Sonnet XL of Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning contains these lines:

Musselmans and Giaours
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping.

Terminology

European cultural references

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

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