page_title: Sipahi
hierarchical_section_title: Sipahi
context_page_description: Sipahi were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuks, and later two types of Ottoman cavalry corps, including the fief-holding provincial timarli sipahi, which constituted most of the army, and the regular kapikulu sipahi, palace troops. Other types of cavalry which were not regarded sipahi were the irregular akıncı. The sipahi formed their own distinctive social classes, and were notably in rivalry with the Janissaries, the elite corps of the Sultan.
  It was also the title given to several cavalry units serving in the French and Italian colonial armies during the 19th and 20th centuries.
context_section_description: Sipahi (Ottoman Turkish: سپاهی‎, romanized: sipâhi, [sipaːhi]) were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuks, and later two types of Ottoman cavalry corps, including the fief-holding provincial timarli sipahi, which constituted most of the army, and the regular kapikulu sipahi, palace troops. Other types of cavalry which were not regarded sipahi were the irregular akıncı ("raiders"). The sipahi formed their own distinctive social classes, and were notably in rivalry with the Janissaries, the elite corps of the Sultan.
  It was also the title given to several cavalry units serving in the French and Italian colonial armies during the 19th and 20th centuries (see Spahi).
caption: A Sipahi, from a 17th-century Western engraving
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