Muktar

[W]e took leave, escorted to the gate by our two young friends, and thence by a nearer way through the ruins to our pinnace, by an elderly man, who said he was the Raja's "Muktar," or chamberlain, and whose obsequious courtesy, high reverence for his master's family, and numerous apologies for the unprepared state in which we had found "the court," reminded me of old Caleb Balderstone [from Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819)].

Having done our initial assessments of community institutions, we began meeting with local leaders to gain their support of the US effort. In Iraq, we met with secular community leaders (called Muktars), local religious leaders, academic leaders from the university and city leaders from the newly selected Mosul City Council.