(Arabic dīwan), among the Arabs, Persians, and Turks, is a word that bears very various significations. It primarily denoted a book of accounts, a muster-roll of troops, &c.; and hence came to be applied to a collection of lyric poems (called gazelles) arranged in a kind of alphabetical order. Thus we have the Dīwan of Sadi, the Dīwan of Hafiz, &c.; a practice which has been imitated by Goethe in his Westöstlicher Dīwan—a collection of poems in the Oriental style. The word among the Orientals denotes also a council-chamber, a tribunal of justice, and in like manner is applied to the general council of state. Under the khalifas of Baghdad, the diwan was a court of justice over which the khalifa presided in person. At Constantinople in the present day the term is used to denote the great council of the empire. It is also a common appellation among the Turks for a saloon or chamber of reception, or in which business is transacted, or used as a place of occasional repose. The diwan more properly is a kind of stage, raised about a foot above the floor of the saloon, covered with rich tapestry, and furnished with a number of embroidered cushions leaning against the wall; and on this the master of the house is seated when he receives visitors. Hence the word is frequently applied by other nations to a kind of public coffee-room, furnished in a manner somewhat similar.