Kaziasker

in the Ottoman Empire after the middle of the 14th century, an official who was the supreme judge of the army, the head of the military judicial class, and a member of the sultan’s divan. As a result of the reforms of Sultan Mahmud II (1808–39), the kaziaskers lost their real power, but they existed nominally as the highest religious rank until the sultanate wasabolished in 1922.