Wilayah
Administrative division approximating a state or province / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Walayah.
For the subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire, see Vilayet. For the Spanish movie, see Wilaya (film).
A wilayah (Arabic: وَلاية, romanized: walāya or wilāya, plural wilāyat, wilayat; Urdu and Persian: ولایت, velâyat; Turkish: vilayet) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes from the Arabic root "w-l-y", "to govern": a wāli—"governor"—governs a wālāya (or wilāya), "that which is governed". Under the Caliphate, the term referred to any constituent near-sovereign state.
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