wilaya

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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