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SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES

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Volume I April 1965 No.3

The Ottoman Empire in theMid-Nineteenth Century: A Review

BERNARD LEWIS

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The Ottoman EmPire

in the Mid-Nineieenth Century: A Review*

Bernard Lewis

The 19th century has hitherto fared badly- ut tl" lTt^'Thistorians of the fr{iAOfl-g*i' ihe Orientalists have' in the marn'

shown little interest it^" p"tita -'o:"lt 1: * own' when the dis-

tinctive and alien qoufiiiJ' which first attracted them to study Is-

lamic society u," u""oi'"ui"A u"J"o"tu-i"ated by contact with our

own Western civitizatiH ":J-ift"- loge llreir

attraction' Western

historians have snowi";;;;-i;;"st in didomatic' political and'

latterly, economic *rr'"oli* n"y:;*4i been ignorant of the

languages of the MidJi" East' and have worked exclusively from

sources in European;;;; tt* l*" tl"t been debarred from

access to the -u,"'iJ"Jit"f; -*"* ""i: lM couto w1avl {lrnarratives of externalltfiti""f and econornic action into the texture

of the internal hrstory of the region-even, it might be said, from

an adequate o"u*"it; ;" niriti""r *o'e"ooomi" events which

are their primary """""'"o-

ii"i" rt"t long been a kind of diplomatic

convention in the W;;-'h"t th" Turks took no active part in the

p"u*"rstrussle"fdr'lk"l";'ry:*",':r":h::}Jf;[:""ffi :I* i" history-with parallel conventrons rr

Middle East. rt * ""iJ*"tio" i;;9t"-e1"' that' leaving aside the

archives, the gteat;;Jilti p"uttu"a Turkish documents a1d

memoirs nu' pu""Jt-r'olti *"ti'i""d '1'1h" uut' literature on the

Eastem Question' Thelesult has been a vjgw of history in which the

Middle East was "";;;;A;u "ug"' with the Ottoman Empire as

*.1#illi,*r,Ti"?l#':er?,ffJ;'{"{'!'!x3:##::*"#!:::t jl"fi'i'jtot:

UniversitY Press' l) )s' Zg3

backdrop, where European actors performed the rnain roles in thedrama. Other writers -(quoru*

poi *ini*o fui) have erred in theopposite direction. Reacting against the'exclusiv"ry^'w"rr"-approach of the historians of the

-Eastern euestion, tf,ey nave con-centrated so heavily on oriental sources as to neglect not only theevidence.of European documentation Uut also the effects of Euro_pean action-without which, ultimately, the history

"r il" rriior"East in the 19th century is not intetUgitte.

_ The emergence of a new grn"ruttn of historians of MiddleFastern origin, trained in the rn-ethods and devoted to the standardsof modern critical scholarship, migt t huv" been expected to carrythese studies an important step forward. rn fact the results, for 19th::ntury history, have so far been rather disappointing. Most of thesehistorians have been attracted by the times of ancient grory andmodern revival in the rristories of tn"ir-f"opres, and have turnedaway from a period which, in the main ani in ttreir "y"i*u. """ "fweakness and degradation. There fruu", however, been some*recently increasing in number-who have taken trr"isih

".J,io ",their field. N{uch could be expecteJ oi ,fr"r". Able to use bothEastern and western sources, trained as historians and familiar withthe language, culture, traditions and attitudes of their own countries,they might have achieved that .y"trr"ti, *nich in the west hadeluded both the historian and th! orientalist. rn the main it haseluded them too. There have" of.ourr",-b"en distinguished excep-tions-obvious names will come to mind_but they are few, andhave for the most part concentrated on the early and rate parts of thecentury. A good deal of recent work has been devoted ,oifr" frirroryof ideas-some of it using the arts of ,rr"-*ic".-"*"irr", ,n#"tthe historian. This is a _comparatively new field of interest forhistorians of the modern Middle East. bome of these writings havebeen works of scholarship of great uutor", ifrro*ing a flood of lightinto hitherto obscure cornefs of intellectual and indeed generalhistory; others have been affected uy u uuilty of poremic or aporo-getic ourposes-to provide u purt f* ,o-"

"u.r"nt ideological nost_rum, to project an attractive image, or to assuage wounded pride.rndeed' of late the study ot ttre poiiticuiry r*ritiu" Igth century hasin a larger sense been menaced by new ideologies, which regard thepast as another region to be ..Iiberated,,

by assault, urra ,"n"oUrririfas another industry ripe for nationalization.

Wfrat is still lacking is good solid research on 19th century history,conducted by the tried and tested methods of critical historical

284

scholarship, using both Western and Middle Eastern sources, andnot governed by the desire to prove the virtue or villainy of persons,parties, sects or nations. There are such works, produced both in theMiddle East and elsewhere, but their numbers are still lamentablyfew.

There will, therefore, be a warm welcome for this scholarly histori-cal monograph by Professor Roderic H. Davison, of George Wash-ington University, on reform in the Ottoman Empire in the criticaltwenty years between 1856 and 1876. Unlike most Western otto-manists, Dr. Davison is authentically an historian; unlike mostWestern historians, Dr. Davison uses Turkish-and this combinationof qualities has enabled him to make a uniquely important'contri-bution to the neglected history of mid-l9th century Turkey. Withhis historian's eye, Dr. Davison sees events in context and process-and with an appreciation enriched by a knowledge of both contem-porary Ottoman sources and rnodern Turkish scholarship. It is truethat the book still rests, in the main, on Western sources-on a vastrange of published material, and on American, Austrian, British,French and Swedish archive documents, which have been examinedand utilized with meticulous care. Dr. Davison has not used theTurkish archives, which offer for this period and subject a mass ofmaterial of daunting immensity. An exhaustive use of it would havebeen physically impossible; sampling might have been worse thanuseless. Dr. Davison has therefore preferred to leave the Turkishrecords to their future monographers, and has, instead, made use ofsome of the Turkish sources that have, by a sort of natural selection,appeared and become known in published form. These include someof the memorunda (Tezdkir) of Cevdet Pasha, prepared for the im-perial historiographer L0tfi (vol. 1, containing numbers l-I2, ed.Cavid Baysun, appeared in 1953; vol.2, with numbers l3-20, cover.ing the years 1856-64, appeared in 1960, apparently too late to beused; vol. 3, with numbers 2l-39, to about 1867, was published in1963; Cevdet's Maruzal, pubtished in Tilrk Tarihi EncilmeniMecmuasi QTEIIO, have for some reason only been used indirectly);the memoirs of Memduh Pasha, published in L3281 1910, but writtenin 1876; the biography and defence of Siileyman Pasha by his sonSami, and others. He has also made use of modern Turkish scholar-ship, such as the work of Mithat Cemal Kuntay on Namik Kemal,of Ibntilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal on the biographies of the GrandViziers, of Ebiil'ulA Mardin on Cevdet Pasha, of Enver Ziya Kal:,lon Ottoman history from 1789 to 1876, and many other books and

285

articles. The coverage of published rurkish sourc€s and literatureis by no means complete, and more information could no doubt havebeen gathered from the Turkish press at home and in exite, irompublished documents, memoirs uo- *ooogruphs. This, ho*"u"., *u*not Dr. Davison's aim. His Turkish ,our.., are not the main objectof his researches, but serve as a supprement, or rather complemen"t-to control' correct and inform findings derived from predtminunttywestern sources' A fu'er study of the Turkish sources w'l in time,no doubt, make possible a revision of many of the finding, unOi;._mulations in Dr. Davison's book-as in every other book on 19thcentury Turkey; but this does not diminish the value of his wort<, orthe validity of his method. In the present state of our knowledge,bibliography and documentation, urrd fo, this kind or .tuaf, it ir- ulegitimate' indeed a necessary method. In the hands or u .o*f"t"ntprofessional historian like Dr. Davison, it has carried our siudiesan important step forward, and immensely facilitated tt

" turt, ,tittto be undertaken, of exploring the mass of published ""J;p"b_lished Turkish material for this period.

How much still remains to be done is made clear by Dr. Davisonhimself' "rt is a commentary on the nature of materiars for ottomanhistory",. he remarks, .,that

there is no f.ll_scale biography of a manas prominent as Ali, whose public "ur"r,

upproaches those of Bis_marck, Thiers, or Disraeli in importancei there is neither anauthorized life and letters nor a later scholarly volume,, (p. gg n. ZZ).Much the same may be said of most of the other figuies of 19tircentury Ottoman history-stiil more so of the topics and problems.

Dr' Davison, as his titre indicates, is concerned with the reform-that is to say, in the flrst instance, with political and administrativehistory' After an introductory chapter on the earlier histor;

-of

ottoman reform, he begins with a detailed examination of the edictof 1856-its_origins, promulgation and application. Th" foll";;;;chapters deal with the poriticar events oi ih" y"u.s rg56-6r, the re-organization of the non-Muslin millets, lg60_65, Midhat pasha and,1":"T system of provincial goyemment, the opposition moyementof the Young ottomans, the "final achievemenisl, of Afi

"ro r""i

Pashas, 1867-71, the chaos of the early seventies, the two Arp"ri-tions of 1876, and finally, the preparatitn and promutgutlo., oi ifr"constitution in that year.

The interest of the book is by no means limited to mid_l9th cen_tury Turkish affairs. The account of earry Turkish pan-tsta-rsm wiitbe of value to all students of modern Isiam; that of Khedivial intri-

gues in Istanbul to both specialists in Khedivial history and amateursof intrigue in general. The larger problems of the reform and

modernization of an oriental state by careful reformers and im-patient radicals, all subject to the conflicting pressures, "aid" and"advice" of rival great powers, have not lost their relevance in ourown day, and there is much to be learnt from Dr. Davison's accountof European stimuli and Turkish responses. The trouble was, as

Fuad Pasha explained to the French ambassador in 1867 "theFrench will never be satisfied with giving friendly advice in anunassuming way; . . . whatever good thing was done must be adver-tised as a benefit conferred by France" (cited p. 7L). Mutatis mutan-dis...

Dr. Davison's book may be read with pleasure as well as profit.It is well-organized, well-arranged, and written in a style that isclear, efiective and appropriate-without either the flamboyance thatthe Middle East provokes in some authors, or the limp dreariness

that scholarship seems to require in others. It is a model of its kind.The following observations deal with a few points of detail: -

p.3. The force of this story could be much increased by com-pleting the preacher's prayer, as cited by Cevdet: "... O God,preserve the people of Muhammad, O God, crush the enemies oft he p e o p I e ol M u hammad ;' (Cev det, T e zd kir, i, 69).

p.33. Cevdet ofters some useful information and comment onsocial westernization. Thus, for example, by 1859 Muslimopinion was shocked by the conduct of ladies desirous of followingthe fashion (moda meraklisi olan hanimlar), who wore satinshawls and very thin veils. Ali Pasha, the Grand Yizier, proposedrigorous legal action against this breach of public morals, but theSultan was displeased. "Is this enforceable? Will they apply thesemeasures against my people?" he asked. Ali Pasha was dismissedshortly after, but his successor Kibrisli Mehmet Pasha took up theproposal in a modified form (Tezdkrr, ii, 87-8). The visit of thePrince of Wales to Istanbul in 1862 provided the occasion foranother innovation, when the Sultan invited the Grand VizierFuad Pasha, At Pasha, Kdmil Pasha, and the Kapudan and Ser-asker Pashas, to dine with the Prince, the British Ambassador,and their party. According to Cevdet, this was the first time thatthe Sultan invited his ministers to join him at table. (Tezdkir, ii,246; cf.. Maruzat, n TTEM 93116,233.)

p. 44. The charge of republicanism was allegedly broughtagainst Reshid Pasha by the Serasker Damad Said Pasha, and is

28628'.1

quoted by Baysun from Ali Fuad, Rical_i miihimme_i siyasiye(p. l1-"Bu adam il6n-i ciimhuriyet edecek,,)_a *ort oi u-u"'rymuch later date. Even if the words were actually ,pot*, tt "iprobably meant no more than a move in the directitn;i;;;il;;1tative government. Cf. ,E/, s.v. Djumhuriyya, and the observationsof Namik Kemal and orhe_rs on repuUiicanism, clteO

-;; il;;

Sungu in his article on the young Ottomans in Tanzimat, i, i;i;;:bul 1940,853 ff.

p. 94 f. on the question of military service for christians,reference might also be made to the very signif,cant comments oiCevdet intis Maruzat (TTEM, no. g7li0,134i A.H., 272 ftj --

pp. 104-3 It may be of some significance that the Kureli con-spirators called thems erves fida' r, as-for example in tt

" pu"t wiri"tr

they swore-in Arabic-with their leader Sheyir anmea oiStf"V,Tu"1yg (Ulug Igdemir, Kuteti Vak,asi, Ankaia 1937, 44: Cevdet,lezdkir, ii, 83). In classical literature this term is c*efly used oithe armed emissaries of the ord Man of the Mountain, betterknown in Europe as the Assassins.

Further evidence ofthe religious inspiration of the conspiracyis.provid-ed by placards whici appear.d on medreses and else_where calling on the "peopre of Munammad" to go and free theirbrothers who had striven for the faith and the"Holy L;;,';;;who were imprisoned and about to be execut"a o, punirn"O. eletter "sealed with an unknown seal" was sent to the paracesecretariat, demanding the dismissar of Ati and Fuad pashas. Letit no-t be thought, said the letter-writer, that the gou.rn-"ni

"out,lnot be carried on without them. Kibrisri Mehmld pasha, Rii;iliPasha, Vefik Efendi and Riza Bey were well able t" g*";(Tezdkir, ii, 84).

p. 108. Cevdet's mission to Ishkodra is discussed at someIength in Tezdkir, ii,157-226.

pp. lII-3 On the financial crisis of |g6l_2 and the consoli_{atio1 of the kaime, detailed informarion is given Uy C"uJ"t,T'ezdkir, ii, 226 ff. prof. Baysun adds the text of the iecree, asgiven in the Takvim-i Vekdyi of 19 Dhu,l_Uiiiu tZlZ.

,-r_-1J0. D,ulh_g this period the Armenians gained considerablym power and influence, at the expense of the Greeks and Jews.The position of the Greeks in tLe ottom;n service in"vitaurychanged for the worse after the creation of the Greek li"ga"#,and despite some recovery by the great phanariot familii, tfre

Ottoman Greeks as a whole never regained the trust and oppor'tunities they had previously enjoyed. (It is however worth noting,

as an example of Ottoman realism and Phanariot loyalty, that an

Ottoman diplomatic mission was opened in Athens in 1840, and

that the firsi resident envoy was the Phanariot Kostaki Musurus

-later ambassador in London.) The Ottoman Jews had experi-

enced no intellectual revival or educational upsurge comparable

with those of the Greeks and Armenians, nor could they count in

the same way on the favour of European merchants and the pro-

tection of European governments. Their economic and politicalposition, already much weakened during the 18th century,

iuffered further blows during the reign of Mahmud II, especially

after the destruction of the corps of janissaries, with whichseveral prominent Jews had close relations. After the execution ofthe Sariaf-bashi Yehezkel Gabbay, the proteg6 of Halet Efendi,and of the Shapci-bashi, Qelebi Behor Carmona and Ocqk bazir-ganilsaiah Ajiman in 1826, no Ottoman Jews play any role ofreal importance. Their place was taken by such figures as Kazaz

Artin, who demonstrated his Ottornan loyalty by trying to buildup the authority of the see of Sis as against that of Echmiadzin,which had fallen under Russian rule (Cevdet, Tezdkir, iii' 236 t).The Armenians, better trusted than the Greeks and better edu-

cated than the Jews, move into many positions previously held bymembers of the other dhimmi communities.

pp. 129-31. An article on the upheaval in the Jewish milletwas published by Shinasi inTasvir-i Efkar no.52 of 4 Rajab:12Decernber O.S., 26 December N.S. 1862, and reprinted in hisKiilliyat, iv, Makaleler, Ankara 1960, 43-6.

p. 136 ff. Cevdet has much to say in his Mqruzat and Tezdkiron provincial matters in both European and Asiatic Turkey,especially on his own work in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in thepacification and resettlement of Qukurova.

p. 1B1. The popularity of Tdl4maque in Turkey is paralleledelsewhere. An Arabic version by Shaykh Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawiwas published-in Beirut-in 1867, but had been completed inmanuscript some sixteen years earlier. It is worth noting that thefirst Turkish translator, Yusuf KAmil Pasha, served in Egypt forsome years under Muhammad Ali Pasha, and married hisdaughter Zaynab, whose palace was near Shaykh Rifa'a's Schoolof Languages, housed in the Elfi palace in Ezbekiyya (SayyidSalih Majdi, Hilyat al-zaman, ed Jamal al-Din al-Shayyal, Cairo

289288

1958,36-7- on the Arabic transration of r1rdmaque ibid 3g-9).on yusuf Kdmil's Turkish transrarion see Inal, soi soaiiiroitor,248 ff.

p. 188. The simple ,translation lttifak_i Hantiyet_patrioticAlliance would seem to beg.several qu"uiioor. niti ir*ir)'^"apatriotic are words of varying content, witi, fonJ-anJ ffi#;histories.

p. 194 n.86. The term vatanis used in the Reform Edict of1839, and even occurs in a Turkish despatch f.o_ puri, uiiir"end of the 18th century.

., p._718:. For important new material on Ziya,s dealings withthe Khedive, see rhe letrers publisfreO UV AOaUituai, K";;h";^i;Yeni Sabah, 14-23 May 196i.

p. 227. The young Ottomans are here echoing the classicaiIslamic dictum that prosperity dependson yustice inJ il;";;;-ernment. what is new is the identification oi justice *rtfi ri..Eo*-and this is already to be found in the eighteen thirti;s;;;forties, in the writing-s of the Egyptian- Shuyfn nitu.u R;fi.;Jultq*i (Takhris at-Ibriz, puoriiiliJ in Arabic in 1834 and inTurkish rranslarion in 1g39; cf. tfr"

""*"Aiiion by Allam, B;;;;iand Luqa, Cairo n.d. [? 193g], 14g) ana, itrougtr i.r, ".pli;6, ;fthe Turk Sadik Rifat pasha.

p. 235. Abdilazizhad already been on a trip to Egypt in 1g63,accompanied by Fuad pasha. This trial run, to a somewhatwesternized court in an autonomous province of his Empir;, ;;;;in many ways have prepared. tt " *uy io. ft, hter journey toEurope (cf. Cevdet, Maruzat, in ffniw,-iAtL SZ trr"i;;;;ir,;i,263 t.).

p. 242 The structure, membership, and staff of the Council ofstate (shura-yi Devlet),as of other dipurt.*ntr, offices and insti_tutions, can be seen in the official Otto-un^V"urbooks (Salname).!hy9, _the yearbook for 1288/1871_t;;;*, the Council asdivided in f,ve sections (daire),'*"f, *ltn-iis own sub_chairman(reis-i sani) and a number ot'u*irtuntr-lm"uavin) under a chiefassistant (bashmuavin). The five sections'are: luOicial (muhake-mat,7 members, 5 asiistants, Z lnt".-gutJrr), finuo"" (maliye,6members, 6 assistants) inrernal

"narri dii,iliye, g *;mb;;, ;assistants); public works (nafia, s ;;;;;;;, s ussirtants); legai(adliye, 9 members, 5 assistants)- f" tii. Irffowing i"^r,'d1jii290

1872-3, there are only three sections-ldt?zimat, dahiliye andmuhakemat; in I29l 11874 there are again three, this time tanzi'mat, dahiliye and nafia; in L294 11877 there are four, muhakemat,tanzimqt, nafia, and millkiye-civil affairs, repiacing dahiliye.Themissing sections are reallocated rather than suppressed, reappear-ing under other headings. Greek and Armenian names appear inall sections.

p.260. On the question of the acquisition of land by foreign-ers; two British documents, a letter from Lord Stanley to SirHenry Elliot (30 Sept. 1867) and the latter's reply (13 Dec. 1867)

have just been published by N. Katzburg in the Joseph RivlinMemorial Volume, Ramat Gan 1964, 151-9. They are part of aseries in the Public Record Office dealing with this matter.

p. 271. For his account of Jamal al-Din Afghani's activities inTurkey in 187G-71, Professor Davison cites no Turkish source, butonly the usual outside sources, whose information derives in themain from Jamal al-Din himself. It would be interesting to pursuethis subject further, and in particular to explore the possibility ofrelations between Jamal al-Din and the Young Ottomans, whosewritings anticipate and may well have influenced several of hischaracteristic ideas. His knowledge of Turkish is well attested. Heis said to have spoken it as a child, and told Ahmed Agaoglu thathe was born near Hamadan, in an Azerbayjan Turkish familyoriginally from Maragha (Osman Keskioglu, Cemaleddin EfgAni,I lahiy at F akilltesi D er gisi, 19 62, 9 I t.).

p. 274. The history of Ottoman political pan-Islamism maybe dated from the treaty of KiiEi.ik Kaynarca, 1774,when for thefirst time the Ottoman Sultan put forward a claim to religiousjurisdiction over Muslims outside his dominions. This was partlya face-saving counter-claim to the Tsar's right of intervention forOttoman Christians, partly an attempt to preserve some link withthe Crimean Tatars, whose political ailegiance the Sultan formallyrenounced. A few years later the legend of the transfer of theCaliphate by the last Abbasid Caiiph in Cairo to Selim I made itsfirst appearance-obviously to provide support for this new claim.In the late 18th and early 19th century this claim was still re-garded as new and controversial-as for example in that illumin-ating picture of the Ottoman Empire in the seventeen eighties andnineties, Thomas Hope's Anastasius (London 1819, repr. Paris1831). Of some tactless German tourists, with a gift for askingawkward and dangerous questions, Anastasius remarks that "theywould scarce have neglected the opportunity, had it offered, of

29t

exquiring of the sultan himself whether he was regitimate heir tothe caliphate, as he asserted', (paris ed. i, 110). fo aiotfr"io;;";an Egypfian commenting on rhe universat dlrh;;;it;i;ffiLi;:remarks that eyen the Sultan ,,cheated Allah himself,-;il; h.assumed the ritte of Kaliph of the Faithful,, (ibia, i, 2SZi

^'-Nevertheless the claim was made and repeated, a, to, e"umpt.

* ,1" interesting conversation between -Akif pasha ;il:i;;Russian-chief dragoman, recorded by Cevdet. Wfr"" ifr"^f".ir,fearing the growth of Russian inRuenfeLong ottoman Armen_ians, stopped the despatc.! of ofierings io E"t *]u.rir, ih; i;;;;;chief dragoman told-Akif pasha thit it. furm ;fAr"ipr"p"rf,appreciate the Echmiadzin question. The more Ioyar a milet wasto its faith and church,.the rnore toyal ii would be io tfre stad ariJArmenian_loyalty to the Ottoman state ioutO th;, ;;;;;th:ened bv their rink with Echmiaorin.-ro which Akif iliffi,"Yes, yes, now f understanO tt

" i*portl"ce of the question. Butit is

-up to you to set us-a_gooO e"ampte in this matter, which wewould naturally follow." He then *.it on to speak of the manyMuslims in the provinces of l(urun-u"J nstrakhan whose reii-gious life would benefit f1ory a rt."nJtrr"nlng of their rinks withthe.Islamic Caliphate, and the ,uU-iirion^of their Ulema to thejurisdiction of the sheyh iil-Isram i" iri""u"r. ..when we see how

1|ii lqdr :ir"lc1h and cohesion ,, ilr.i, ,Lfigious affairs and thusT,:1?::r their toyalry to rhe Russian ,tui", *" shail naturailvrd^tr r'rle necessarv sfeps to strengthen the links of the ArmenianswithEchmiaozini'1civa"t,i/i7iir,"rri','\i'i_tl.

.The, claim gained force as th" ;th;;:;nni sovereigns whomight have contested it were ,uU;ugurJ or"threateneJd-L.;;;;conquest. It found svmbolic- expreision in the *ril"ry^;i-;i;girding of rhe sword (taqlid_i ;;yit^;; ih" u".rrrion of a newSultan. In the past, a uuii"ty

"f !*".ir^preserved among thesacred reljcs jn the nalace, hid been ;;; io. this ceremony. In1808 Mahmud II, like many of tis predecessors, was girded withthe swords of the prophei uoO oi-Orrnln f, ,y*Uolizing thereligious and dynastic aspects of his office. In 1g3g Abdiilrnecidwas girded with onlv oneiword, that of the Caliph Omar, and thehistoriographer L0tfi makes rh" ;tCrtfi*;;"uo'O A"*onrtrably faisestatement that this was ancient Otto*u' practice (de,b-i dirin-isahanat-i seniye. Li;tfi, Tarih, vi, 5l; cf. Iimail Hakki Uzungar-sili, Osmanli devletinin saray teskildti, Ankara 1945, l94,and J.u; HUTT"-r, Staatsverfassung und Sto"rcr"riottung des osmanis_chen Reichs. Vienna lgl5, i, 4g4 tr.). er rt" accession of Abdii-lanz in 1861 the sword of Omu. ru, uguin iseO, and the point ismade clear by Cevdet: ,.This sword wJs tn" Ut"rr"O sword of the

292

Caliph Omar . . . which was in the possession of that Abbasid whofled to Egypt at the time when Hulagu occupied Baghdad. It was

used to consecrate the Abbasid Caliphs in Egypt. When Sultan

Selim the Grim conquered Egypt and brought the AbbasidCaliph to Istanbul, the Abbasid Caliph girded Sultan Selim withthis sword and thus transferred the Islamic Caliphate to the house

of Osman" (Tezdkir, ii, I52). The sword of Omar was again used

at the girding of Abdiilhamid, and the Ottoman claim to the"supreme Islamic Caliphate" (Khilafet-i Kubra'yi Islamiye) fot'mally asserted in clause 3 of the constitution in 1876.

The first ideologists of Ottoman pan-Islamism seem to have

been the Young Ottomans, who speak often in their writings ofa union of Islam under Ottoman leadership. The idea was not,however, confined to opposition groups. In 1870 and 1871 pan-Islamic views of a kind are expressed in the semi-official LzTurquie, as well as in other publications in the capital. The widelycirculated and influential Arabic newspaper Al-Jawa'ib, publishedin Istanbul with official support from 186l onwards, in a sense

also served a pan-Islamic purpose. According to Vambery:"Quite lately, thanks to the adoption of the European associationsystem, pan-Islamism has given some signs of vitality. The firstinstigation came from Stamboul. As far as I remember, it was atthe house of Aali Pasha at Kanlidjia, on the Bosporus that Iheard for the first time of the expediency of an association of theentire Islamic world, and it was at the same place that I met oneof the missionaries from the interior of Moslem Asia. It was thetask of these rnessengers, belonging for the greater part to theMolla world, to maintain the spiritual connection between theKhaliph and the other Princes of Islam, to proclaim far and widethe greatness and the power of the Sultan" (Western cutrture inEastern lands, London 1906, 35 1).

Two developments, coming together, seem to have greatiy sti-mulated the growth of these ideas ancl aspirations. In the eighteensixties and seventies the Russians subjugated the Khanates ofCentral Asia-old Muslim, and indeed Turkish lands, includingsuch ancient centres of Muslim civilization as Samarqand andBukhara. The extension of Russian domination over these lands,and the inability of the Ottomans to respond to the appeals oftheir rulers for help, caused shock and distress. At the same time,the rulers of Prussia and Savoy were setting their differentexamples of how to unite a scattered and divided people. Therewere some who drew the inference that the Ottoman state shouldplay a similar role, and take the lead in creating a greater unity-of Muslims. This movement was a very different thing from

293

i1

ilri

European-type nationalism, the dangers of which to the ottomanEmpire were described with remark"able prescience uy ari p"rr*in a le*er which he wrore. while Foreign Minirt".,-toitrOtr",n""ambassador in paris, Mehmed c"mit-Furna Th;-i#;;rffial8th September 1962...I_,ltalie qui

"trifruUit6e que d,une seulerace parlant la m6me langue .t prof.rsant l" ;a;"'r"f*i""dprouve rant de difficultes; .tr;d;,;n unificarion. pour Iemoment Elle n'a oagnd de son Etat u"tu"t que ilr".ni." ", i"ddsordre. lugez ce"qi'ir a.ri""r"lt .i* T;;;"* si on donnait librecours b toutes les differentes urprruJon, nationales que lesrevolutjonnaires et avec e.ux cerlain gouvernement (src) cherchenth y developper. II faudrait ," ,iJ"ir?lJ, ,o.."nr, de sang pourdrablir un Etat de choses qu.tqr. p.u rtu ji",,,Oub,,rn.d

bv CaviclBaysun, ..AIi pasa'nin rrunri].u [i. "r.trru",,. in Tarilt Dersisi.v/8 0e53), r44). rhe,;;;.;;; ;;iJ;;# during rhe years lhatfollowed in unirins u"rr,,rr. lrulirrr'""iirr" Germans suggesredro ottoman statesiren and ottrers th"r'ihi, might after arl be anexample to follow-but on a *Gl"* ""Jnot a national basis. Inaccordance with the-.conceptioni u"O ioyufti"s of the time, theresponse of the Muslims und of tne iealing Muslim state to thestimulus of pan_Germanism anJ-r;;:firurki s m o, p; ; -A;r;;_-,bii; j,,if ilr'iJi'il,ilJi" [?:j;l;pan-rsramism' The ottoman cariphaie #, un obvious instrumentfor such a policv. and it *r;;;:;;; i^."'"n, effecr by SulranAbdi.ithamid una- ty the young i;t, "f,i, nirrr.

p. 35A. The financial crisis of Ig76 and its background arediscussed by cevdet, u r*iii,i""iiii,6l t r r.p. 351. As asainst th-e very cautious hopes expressed in Dr.Leidesdorf's r.p&t on rvrr.aa V, .l,J"iy'L.ungarsili, lhere is aclear statement of Sadullaf, purfru, *f,i iruJUu.uO,, chief secrer_arv from his accession tc his dep;iil,';;;, Dr. Leidesdorf had.after examination, dectared the' S;i;;;'inJuraUte (gayr-i kabit_itedavi). Sadullah pasha

"u"r, ,"nt-u?..""o,o' to a newspaperobituary notice on Dr. T,eides4o.f, ;;il; the doctor was saidto have pronounced the Sultan "r.;;i" ir;;h_ed Gaiib, SadultahPasha veya Mezarctan nida,

,rstanh;i i;d; rc24). This diver-fffi: il:l

be due to a second report_or a verbal interpretation

p. J69 ff. 37 Turkish documents relating to the first Ottomanconstitution were ouhtisheO Oy lroterr*'E.ti, Sitki Baykal inBetteten, xxiv 196 ircoo;, oor'_:?. -ir,"J"

iruur, severat points294

relating to the formation and composition of the drafting com-

missioi, on which there was some conflict of evidence. The firstdocument is a letter from the Palace Secretariat to the Grand

Vizierate, dated 3 Ramazan 1293 l:22 Sept. 1876 N.S.l, convey-

ing the Sultan's wish to take up this matter. The second is a letterfrom the Grand Yizierate to the Falace Secretariat, dated 19

Ramazan [:8 October], reporting that a meeting of the Councilof Ministers had been held that same day at the Sublime Porte toconsider the urgent question of the constitutional commission. Asa result a list of names was submitted, with a request for theSultan's orders on the membership and chairmanship of the com-mission. The third is a reply of the same date, appointing all thepersons named on an enclosed list-presumably the same list-to membership of the commission, and naming the President ofthe Council of State Midhat Pasha as Chairman. The fourth docu-ment is a list of 22 names, headed by that of the Minister ofWorks Server Pasha. The fifth is a note from the Palace to theGrand Yizierate, adding another name to the Commission. Thisbrings the total, including the chairman, to 24. Numbers 12 and13 arc an exchange of notes, both dated 14 Shevval 1293 l:4Nov. 18761, suggesting and approving the addition of four moremembers to the Commission. The remaining documents of thecollection illustrate various aspects of the preparation and func-tioning of the constitution. The last is a communication from thePalace Secretariat to the Grand Yizierate, dated 10 Safar 1295

[:13 Feb. 1878], concerning the dissolution of Parliament by theexercise of the Imperial Prerogative.

29s