Çeteci_Abdullah_Pasha
Çeteci Abdullah Pasha
Kurdish statesman in the Ottoman Empire
Çeteci Abdullah Pasha ibn Ibrahim al-Husayni al-Jarmaki (also known as Abdullah Pasha al-Jatahji) was an Ottoman statesman of Kurdish origin. He served terms as the governor of Sivas, Diyarbekir, Rakka, Adana, Van, Erzurum, Kütahya, Aleppo and Damascus.[1] Çeteci was born in 1703 in the village of Çermik (also spelled Jarmak), hence his surname "al-Jarmaki".[2]
Prior to his political career, Çeteci was a "distinguished field commander" according to Alexis de Tocqueville. He fought in the Ottoman campaigns in the Caucasus in the 1720s and in the war against the Safavid Empire. During those campaigns he served as a levend başağasi (commander of a mercenary battalion). He was promoted to beylerbey of Sivas in 1739.[3] He founded the Çeteci Abdullah Pasha Medresesi, an Islamic school in his hometown of Çermik in 1756–57.[4]