Nazir (title)
{{redirect|Nazirate|the ancient Jewish devotee|Nazirite}}
{{wiktionary|ناظر|nazir}}
The Arabic title nāẓir (ناظر, {{langx|tr|nazır}}For Ottoman usage, see Amy Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural Administration Around Sixteenth-century Jerusalem (Cambridge University Press, 1994).) refers to an overseer in a general sense. In Islam, it is the normal term for the administrator of a waqf (charitable endowment).Majid Khadduri and Herbert J. Liebesny (eds.), Law in the Middle East, Vol. 1: Origin and Development of Islamic Law (Middle East Institute, 1955), p. 204. The office or territory of a nāẓir is a nazirate.E.g., Abd al-Ghaffar Muhammad Ahmad, Shaykhs and Followers: Political Struggle in the Rufaʿa al-Hoi Nazirate in the Sudan (Khartoum University Press, 1974).
According to al-Qābisī, writing in the tenth century, the pagan ruler of Tadmakka appointed a superintendent, which al-Qābisī calls a nāẓir, from among the Muslims living in his land to oversee them. This was probably a common arrangement in the Sahara and Sahel regions.Michael Brett (1983), "Islam and Trade in the Bilād al-Sūdān, Tenth–Eleventh Century A.D.", The Journal of African History, 24 (4), 431–40 {{doi|10.1017/S0021853700027985}}.
The title was used in Egypt for the heads of government departments and agencies before it adopted a modern cabinet system. It was synonymous with inspector, supervisor or controller.See Maya Shatzmiller, Labour in the Medieval Islamic World (Brill, 1994), pp. 155–57, for a list of such positions in the 15th century. In Egypt it may also be used for the directors or managers of commercial enterprises.Richard Hill, A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan (Frank Cass, 1967), p. xiii.
In the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the title nāẓir al-khuṭṭ was used for the official in charge of a subdivision of a district. Usually he was a tribal head. Nāẓir ʿumūm was a traditional and usually hereditary Sudanese title for the head of a tribal confederation. It was only infrequently recognised by the Anglo-Egyptian government, but it was used for lower-level salaried officials in the Jazīra. As a traditional Sudanese title, nāẓir may be an Arabic rendering of the originally Funj titles mānjil and manfona. One of the nāẓir