Glossary • 485Midhat (mit-HOT): Ottoman liberal reformer (d. 1884)
millet (mil-LET): Ottoman political-social community based on religious mem¬
bership and whose leaders were named by the sultan
Milner, Lord: British statesman who headed 1919 commission of inquiry to Egypt
and later negotiated unsuccessfully with Sa'd Zaghlul
minaret: Turkish name for the mosque tower from which a muezzin calls Mus¬
lims to worship five times daily
Mithraism: Ancient Persian religion involving various mystery rites limited to
men; popular among Roman soldiers and competing in the empire against
Christianity in the third century
Mitla Pass: Strategic point in the western Sinai, captured by Israel in 1956 and
1967 and ceded to a UN buffer force in 1975
Mixed Courts: Egyptian tribunals for civil cases involving foreign nationals
(1876-1949)
Mizrachim (miz-ra-KHEEM): Jews whose ancestors came from Spain, Portugal,
or the Muslim world; sometimes called Sephardim
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (moe-HAHM-mad REH-za shah pah-luh-VEE):
Iran's shah (1941-1979)
mollah (MUL-la): Persian Muslim teacher
Mongol: Nomadic horseman from northeastern Asia; member of a tribal coali¬
tion that under Jenghiz Khan and his descendants overran most of Asia in the
thirteenth century
Monophysite (muh-NAW-fiz-ite): Pertaining to (mainly Middle Eastern) Chris¬
tians who believe that Christ had only one nature, wholly divine; view con¬
demned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451
Monotheistic: Pertaining to belief in one god, as in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Morea (mo-REE-a): The Peloponnesus, or southern Greece
Mosaddiq, Mohammad (mos-sa-DEGH): Iranian nationalist prime minister
(1951-1953), who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and was later
ousted in a coup engineered by the shah, the British, and the CIA (d. 1967)
mosque: Place of communal worship for Muslims
mostaz'afan (mos-TAZ-a-FAWN): People who have been dispossessed as a result
of westernizing policies
Mosul (MOE-sel): City in northern Iraq
Mu'awiya (moo-AWE-wee-ya): Umayyad caliph (661-680)
Mubarak, Husni (moo-BAH-rak, HOOS-nee): Egypt's president (1981—)
Mudros: Aegean island on which the Ottoman Empire surrendered to World War I
Allies in 1918
muezzin (moo-EZ-zin): Man who calls other Muslims to communal worship,
usually from a mosque roof or minaret balcony
mufti (MOOF-tee): (1) Sunni Muslim legal consultant; (2) in modern times,
leader of the ulama in a Sunni Muslim state