c

/IT/HAD-I tSLAM

OR

OTTOMAN PAN-ISLAMISM, 1839-1908

Elrashid H. Kheir

Institute of Islamic Studies

McGill University, Montreal, August, 1995

11 A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies

and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements

of the degree of Master of Arts 11

© E.H. Kheir, 1995 0 ABSTRACT

The aim of this thesis is to trace back the idea of Pan-Islamism within the Ottoman

empire, as it developed in reaction to the gradual introduction of Western reforms, and

later Western threats to its own integrity.

The study discusses the development of the ideology of Pan-Islamism within the

Ottoman context. Emphasis is made on the influence of international diplomacy, economic

forces, and social change on the development of the ideology in the empire.

Expression of the ideology, as well as its agents and proponents in the Ottoman

empire is also discussed in the thesis.

0 c

RESUME

L' objectife de cette these est de retracer le developement de 1' idee du Pan­

Islamisme a 1 I interieur 1I empire Ottoman, en reaction a 1I introduction progressive des

reformes puis des traites de l'Ouest dans sa propre integrite.

Cette etude tente de debattre de l'ideologie du Pan-Islamisme dans le contexte

Ottoman 1' accent est porte sur 1' influence de la diplomatie internationale, des forces

economiques et des changements sociaux sur le development de l'idee du Pan-islamisme

dans !'empire.

L'expression de l'ideologie comme celle de ses partisans dans l'empire Ottoman

est aussi discutee dans cette these.

c 0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped in any way and

contributed towards the final production of this thesis.

Special thanks are due to my academic supervisor Dr. A. U. Turgay, for his kind

support, academic and otherwise that he continued to exhibit throughout the period that

I have taken to bring this thesis to its fmal form. Despite all the difficulties, his kind

support and patience provided the incentive for me to complete this thesis.

Thanks are also due to the Institute of Islamic Studies for the assistant it has given

me that greatly helped in the completion of this thesis. My many thanks to the staff of the

Institute of Islamic Studies, as well as to the helpful staff of the Library of the Institute of

Islamic Studies, Salwa Ferahian, Steve Milliere, and Wayne Thomas for their ever-ready

help and assistance.

I would also like to express deep gratitude to my wife for all the support and

encouragement, my family, and to the many friends, and colleagues who always extended

their support and encouragement. c TABLE OF CQNTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 2

I. THE POLITICAL FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE RISE

OTTOMAN PAN-ISLAMISM

A. European Policies Toward the Ottoman Empire ...... 7

B. European Influence and the Ottoman Reforms ...... 20

11. SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS

A. Economic Problems

1. European Economic Penetration ...... 34

2. Financial Indebtedness and the Loss

of Ottoman Monopolies ...... 39

B. Social Upheavals and New Social Realities.

1. Reorganization of the Millets ...... 44

2. Population Changes ...... 52

Ill. EXPRESSION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF PAN-ISLAMISM

IN THE EMPIRE ...... 59

IV. AGENTS OF PAN-ISLAMIC IDEAS

A. Early Political Groups ...... 72

B. Hamidian Pan-Islamism ...... 84

CONCLUSION ...... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... c 98 0 INTRODUCTION

Pan-Islamism, as a common Muslim front, was an ideological reaction of the

Muslims to the impact and influence of the Christian West. It emerged in the Ottoman

Empire during the second half of the nineteenth century and assumed a religious as well

as a political character, affecting and mobilizing both the conservative and the liberal

elements of the Ottoman society.

The ideology of Pan-Islamism, and the call for the unity of all Muslims within the

Ottoman Empire, could be traced to the Tanzimat period. It appeared as an early

expression of reaction to the encroachment of Western powers that had severely

undermined the traditional institutions, and indeed the sovereignty of the Ottoman state.

The economic plight of the people and the growing bankruptcy of the state, partly resulting

from Western economic penetration and financial control, and the policies of the European

governments, particularly that of the czars', led the Ottoman Muslims to question the

whole issue of Westernization. They gradually came to reckon to their Islamic heritage

as the only basis for the unity that was deemed necessary to prevent the decline of the

Empire.

During this time, the growing concern within the Ottoman Empire, represented in

the reaction and resentment to European interference in the affairs of the state and at the

weakness of the empire itself, was expressed by liberals and some westernizers, as well

as by Islamists. Though differed in emphasis, they all agreed, however, in the context of

2 Ittihad-i fslam or the importance and the need for the unity of all Muslims. The new c emphasis on the Caliphal aspect of the Ottoman Sultan, on the other hand, provided a

focus for those who were opposed to Westernization and to the introduction of reforms.

Moreover, European successes which resulted in the loss of Ottoman European

lands and the influx of the Muslims of these regions into the Ottoman heartland in

Anatolia, changed considerably the composition of the Ottoman population, culminating

in the predominance of the Muslims in the empire. It was during this period that Ottoman

Pan-Islamism found a general expression and later intensified under Sultan Abdiilhamid

11 who was able to perceive the importance of religious unity in a country dominated by

Muslims. He came to lay an increasing emphasis on the significance· of his position as the

caliph.

The aim of this thesis is to examine and analyse the factors that had contributed to

the development of the idea of Pan-Islamism within the Ottoman Empire, and to present

the channels through which the ideology was expressed.

Although Ottoman Pan-Islamism failed to elicit evidence of any considerable

organization with a practical scheme of operation, it nevertheless appears to have

important programs to keep the Ottoman Empire together prior to the First World War,

and to drive some loyal attitudes from a large portion of the Arab population and other

Ottoman subjects.

In the thesis, emphasis will be laid on the influence of economic forces, social

changes, and international diplomacy on the nurturing of the idea of Pan-Islamism. In

addition, the conflicting economic interests, the differences in Eastern and Western social

3 structure and values, as well as political rivalries will be examined in order to identify the

0 significance in the contribution of these factors to the emergence of Pan-Islamic principles

and aspirations in the Ottoman Empire. These will be analysed and discussed in the light

of the main themes of the nineteenth century Ottoman history, including the Empire's

foreign relations, and the social and economic developments within the Empire.

The first chapter will trace and examine the political factors and causes that led to

the evolution of the idea in the Ottoman context. This could be explained in terms of the

continuous European encroachment at Ottoman internal affairs, and the undermining of

Ottoman sovereignty, either by war or through appealing to the sentiments of the Christian

minorities.

The second chapter will examine the social and economic factors that contributed

to the rise of Pan-Islamic ideology in the Empire in the light of the political and economic

pressures and penetration that appeared in various forms; and the subsequent social

changes that created new ideologies and political forces in the Ottoman society.

In the third chapter, the manner in which the ideology of Pan-Islamism was viewed

and presented in response to the new developments will be discussed. The intellectual and

institutional channels through which this ideology was expressed will also be taken into

account and analysed.

The fourth chapter will examine the different responses of the major groups, and

the reasons for these responses, as well as those individual agents who advocated cultural

Pan-Islamism and those who supported the political aspect of Ottoman Pan-Islamism,

particularly the use of the idea by Sultan Abdiilhamid. The limits set on this thesis

0 4 c necessitated that this last point is to be treated only within the scope of events that set the momentum for the idea of Pan-Islamism during Abdiilhamid's time, for the study of

Abdiilhamid' s use of Pan-Islam deserves an entire thesis on this subject.

The conclusion will present a general assessment of the factors which contributed

to Ottoman Pan-lslamism and the different channels through which this ideology found

expression in the Empire.

Although there are a number of works dealing with Pan-Islamism in general,

discussion of the ideology within the Ottoman context, however, has been neglected.

Again most of the general themes deal with Pan-lslamism as a political phenomenon, but

fail, however, to elicit the social roots of the ideology. It is hoped that this thesis will

partially help fill this gap.

0 5 c

CHAPTER I

THE POLITICAL FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED

TO THE RISE OF OTTOMAN PAN-ISLAMISM c A- European Policies Toward The Ottoman Empire

When Sultan Mahmut 11 died in 1839, the Ottoman empire was left in complete

exhaustion and humiliation following the dictated treaty of Adrianopole the Greek

independence (1831), and the repercussions of the treaty of Hunkar lskelesi. This was

further exacerbated by the humiliating defeat of the Ottoman army by the forces of

Mehmet Ali of Egypt at Nezib in 1839.

The Ottoman empire appealed to European powers in order to gain their support

against Mehmet Ali. Mustafa Re~id P~a, a former ambassador to London and Paris, went

on a mission to London and other European capitals in order to win a favourable end to

the rising Eastern Question, as well as to gain the support of European countries for his

intended reforms. He was able to convince the young sultan AbdUlmecid that the

European powers could save the country and end the crisis in favour of the Ottoman

empire. This was the atmosphere that witnessed the inauguration of the period of reforms

(1839-1876) in Ottoman history which came to be known collectively as the Tanzimat, or

the reorganization of state affairs on the basis of new administrative, financial, legal, and

educational principles. 1

Such a diplomatic shift enabled the European Powers to terminate the privileges

gained by Russia in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of Hunkar lskelesi. Thus,

Russian influence over the Ottoman empire was now replaced by the influence of other

European countries who, thereafter, continued to intervene in the internal affairs of the c 7 c Ottoman state until the end of the century. 2 This was consistent with the pattern and rules of the Eastern Question, from its beginning to the disappearance of the Ottoman empire

in 1923, whereby the weakening Ottoman empire was at the mercy of Europe. The

Ottomans were able to manoeuvre, however, only when they benefitted from the checks

and balances of intra-European rivalry. 3

The beginning of the Eastern Question4 was marked by a persistent change in the

power balance, to the disadvantage of the Ottomans, in facing Europe. Europeans were

able to venture well behind the conventional lines of Ottoman-European military

confrontation as early as the advent of Napoleon in Egypt in 1789, when Britain, prompted

by his actions, also appeared onto the scene. The Eastern Mediterranean was, thereby,

transformed into an arena of multi-polar great power confrontation. Thereafter, the

several different European powers would be provoked into action by any political upheaval

from the Middle East, often in pursuit of their own interests, while at the same time,

recognizing the European state system as the legitimate and final arbiter. 5 Throughout the

nineteenth century, for instance, limiting Russian expansion into Ottoman territories

constituted a perennial theme in British and other European powers' diplomacy.

The Ottoman empire, on the other hand, was just that- an empire. It attempted

to hold together peoples of different languages, religions, and races who had lived, for

centuries, in different territorial and climatic conditions. 6 Starting from the late eighteenth

century, however, Western ideas of romanticism, populism, and radicalism in arts,

literature and politics - that characterized the age of the enlightenment and the French

0 8 c revolution - gradually began to permeate into the multinational Ottoman empire. Western nationalism, perhaps more than any other idea, inspired the drive towards national

liberation movements within the empire; and doomed Ottoman efforts to keep alive its

multinational empire.

National liberation movements came first and were most numerous in Ottoman

Europe, largely because it was an area not just of great religious, ethnic, and linguistic

diversity, but also of Christian- not Muslim- majorities. These Christians had religious

bonds (and most of them also had linguistic ties) with the adjacent European powers. Not

only they could appeal to their powerful coreligionists, but they could also identify with

their religious or secular ideologies. Moreover, geographic proximity in peripheral

regions also provided convenient sanctuaries outside Ottoman control. Consequently, this

accorded the leaders of national liberation movements in the Balkans with greater

motivation, opportunity, logistics, and chances of success than other national liberation

movements throughout the rest of the empire.

As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Serbs, under their proto­

nationalist leader Kara George (1760-1817), began moving toward a demand for national

independence. They insisted that any settlement to their cause must be guaranteed by the

foreign powers. This insistence for internationalization - advanced by the non-Muslim

subjects- proved, later on, to be consequential for the beleaguered Ottoman Empire. With

the Serbs winning their autonomy in 1817, the Serbian-inspired tentative toward

"internationalization" blossomed, henceforth, unhindered. 7

The Greek War of independence also represented the idea of Western nationalism,

0 9 as absorbed into the peoples of the Middle East. During the Serbian revolt, the 0 ' Napoleonic years monopolized public attention in Europe, but the Greek revolt that began

in 1821 aroused the whole of Europe, and set the pattern thereafter, for national liberation

movements to become the trend of the future in the Ottoman empire. The Hetairia Philike

(or society of friends}, a revolutionary liberation organization, was established in 1814,

by the Wealthy Greek merchants of Odessa. 8 The organization sought national liberation

with the support of a foreign patron. Russian, whose people shared with the Greeks an

Orthodox Christian and Byzantine heritage, appeared as the natural choice. After

declaring a revolt, the Greeks also started the massacres of defenceless Turks, and

Ottoman reprisals started the internationalization of the conflict. Russia appeared into the

scene and issued an ultimatum against the Ottomans. In 1821, Mehmet Ali' s troops, called

in by the Sultan, were able to suppress the Greek rebellion, but the powers of Europe, who

feared unilateral Russian intervention, posed as the real arbiters in the conflict.

Eventually, however, Britain and France allied with Russia, and their combined fleets

were able to destroy the Ottoman and Egyptian fleets at the Battle of Navarino. 9

The Ottoman defeat was so devastating but the Sultan was pressed by his advisors

to hold firm. He called upon all Muslims to raise their arms and resist the Russians and

the Greeks, and ordered the closing of the strait before all foreign ships.

The Greeks had, in fact, played a minor role in the unfolding story since

Navarino. Russia declared war on the Ottoman state, and when the Russian strength

prevailed, Istanbul and the empire was only to be saved by diplomacy, not by arms.

British fears of Russian supremacy in the new autonomous Greek state resulted,

0 10 c eventually, in a full fledged European support for an independent Greece in 1830, and later helped in the establishment of two more islands (Samos and Cycalde) as autonomous

principalities under Greek rule in 1832. 10 The settlement finally reached left a small

Kingdom of some eighty thousand Greeks while over two million Greeks continued to live

under Ottoman rule.

The pattern of national liberation movements within the operating climate of the

Eastern Question was, hence, fixed by the end of the Greek War of independence.

Resistance leaders would seek outside support in advance, or else would provoke outside

intervention by taking up arms, but the final consensus decision reached by the European

powers usually made up the determining factor, not positions won by force of arms. Once

entered the scene, international action would hardly be confmed to the issues that initiated

hostilities. The nationalist leaders who did their best trying to get the others involved,

would assume little control over the course of events afterwards .U The impact of

European public opinion also figured prominently. During the Greek War of

independence, for instance, widespread acts of cruelty and even massacres were on both

sides since the outbreak of hostilities, but it was the story from one side - that of Ottoman

atrocities against Greeks -that reached and stirred Europe. Also at the time, a series of

private loans were raised in Europe, and particulary in the city of London which, in effect,

made her "the financier of the [Greek] revolution" .12

Ottoman weakness, on the other hand, stirred ambitious European appetite for the

attractive spoils. Equally significant is the fact that the same weakness produced claimants

0 11 c from within the Ottoman domain itself. The most prominent and most successful was Mehmet Ali of Egypt, whose armies, twice, threatened the very existence of the empire.

When sultan Mahmut failed to turn the governorship of the province of Syria, which he

has promised to Mehmet Ali for his services during the Greek War, the Egyptian governor

decided to realize that promise by the use of his own army. Mehmet Ali' s actions made

him the only individual responsible the most for accelerating the pace of direct European

involvement in the Middle East. His early victories prompted the Ottoman sultan to sign

the humiliating treaty of Hunkar lskelesi with the Russians in 1833. The treaty established

an alliance between Istanbul and St. Petersburg, which obligated the former, at the latter's

request, to close the strait to the warships of third powers. In effect, this constituted a de

facto Russian protectorate over the Ottomans, and evoked inevitable protests from other

European capitals. Britain and the other European powers were, in fact, galvanized into

action only after the Ottomans appealed to Russia, suspecting Russian machinations and

contribution to the regional troubles. Lord Palmerstone noted darkly, soon after the

Russo-Ottoman treaty was signed, that the obligation to consult meant, in effect, that "the

Russian ambassador becomes the chief Cabinet Minister of the Sultan. "13

When the European powers intervened to mediate a solution, however, Mehmet

Ali was, not only denied the fruits of his military victories, but was also simply forced to

retreat. His later demands for independence from Ottoman rule were, therefore, met by

categorical warnings (naval preparations) from both Britain and Russia, and a veritable

concert of Europe's position. 14 In mid-1841, however, the issue was finally settled and

Mehmet Ali emerged with a "diplomatic defeat as crushing as his earlier military

12 c victory" 15 , and was left only with a hereditary governorship of Egypt. This illustrates the fact that, though the major initiatives came from within the region, the whole episode,

however, clearly demonstrated the intrusive nature of European politics in Middle Eastern

affairs.

Hence, the looming threat of the Egyptians to Ottoman integrity, and the

diplomatic situation, no doubt, justified the sense of urgency with which the reform edict

of the Hatt-1 ~erif of 1839 was proclaimed and carried out. Inside the empire, its speedy

application stirred further opposition and became even more open and active when the

Egyptian threat was averted through international pressure. Yet, and despite the

difficulties, some progress in reform was made between 1840 and the beginning of the

Crimean War. 16

In the diplomatic wrangling that led to the Crimean War, most of the initiatives,

however, came from the great powers, which epitomizes the overwhelmingly European

dimension of the diplomatic crisis. 17 Russia continued to pressure the Ottoman empire

after 1840, and resumed its traditional policy of undermining the Ottoman empire, either

through exerting direct military pressures or by inciting rebellions in the Balkans through

the dissemination of its Pan-Slavic propaganda.

In the early 1850s a growing rivalry over the holy places in Palestine created a new

crisis. Russia claimed the right to protect the Sultan's Orthodox subjects, and France

asserted the same responsibilities for Roman Catholics. As the Ottomans rejected Russian

0 13 c demands on this issue, the Russians proposed to Britain that "the sick man of Europe is dying" and should be partitioned. Misperception of the British stance, eventually, led the

Czar's forces to invade the Ottoman principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) in 1853.

Another Ottoman army penetrated Eastern Anatolia. This prompted the British and the

French to move their fleets close to the Dardanelles. A conference of ambassadors was

arranged in Vienna to fmd a settlement. But the Ottomans were not even invited, and the

Russian ambassador refused to attend. Meanwhile, the Ottomans' proposal for significant

changes, which conceded Russia's professed concerns about the Ottoman Orthodox

Christians, was presented as between the Sultan and his subjects, not the empire and

Russia. Russia, on the other hand, rejected the Ottoman proposal, and interpreted the

Vienna Note as clearly giving her the right to intervene on behalf of the Ottoman Orthodox

subjects. The Porte- surrounded by continued anti-Russian demonstrations in the streets

of Istanbul, and a strong support of public opinion with thousands rushed to enlist in the

army - sent an ultimatum demanding Russian evacuation of the principalities.

In November 1953, the Ottomans sent a naval squadron into the Black Sea only to

be annihilated by the vastly superior Russian fleet at Sinope. To the French and British

public opinion this became "the massacre of Sinope" when Russian ships also bombarded

Muslim quarters in Sinope without prior notice. This incident also provided the second

cause required to start a general war. The major theatre of battle, however, came to be

the Crimea, and incorporated an European alliance of Britain and France who fought

alongside the Ottomans. Eventually, Russia was defeated and asked for peace.

The Crimean War was, actually, the only general European armed struggle that

14 grew out of the Eastern Question. Great power mutual misperceptions, no doubt, set the c stage for the war. The real stake appeared to be central Europe rather than the Ottoman

state itself, as one historian archly notes "war having been declared, the question was to

fmd a battleground for it. "18 The culminating peace of Paris promised the preservation of

the territorial integrity of the Ottoman empire, and expressed support for the new reform

efforts in the empire. The European powers also pledged not to intervene in the conduct

of Ottoman reform.

The reform movement in the early 1850s was characterized by having a relative

respite from Western diplomatic interference. This was overshadowed, however, with a

new wave of Western influences, particularly from Britain and France following the

Crimean War. Both countries used their status as allies of the Ottoman Empire, during

and after the Crimean War, to pursue the Ottoman government into introducing new

reform measures. Their pressure stemmed principally from their supposed concern with

regards to the situation of the empire's non-Muslims. The Ottoman government finally

yielded by introducing - what was considered to be by the public at this time of political

crisis - a new concessional edict; the Hatt-1 Hiimayun of 1856.

Shortly before the proclamation of the new edict, the British ambassador Stratford

Canning, now became Lord Stratford de Redcliff, met regularly with his French

counterpart Thouvenel, and the Austrian internuncio to the Porte Prokesch. The grand

Vezier Ali P~a. and the foreign minister Fuad P~a met with the three ambassadors to

discuss their reform project. The three powers were eventually successful in persuading

the Ottoman government into mustering a new decree before the opening of the Paris

15 Conference. The move was tactfully designed to obstruct Russia, the defeated party, from c contributing to the new decree, and hence presenting her with a fait accompli.

The Turks were generally resentful of the essentially foreign dictation of the reform

program. This happened despite the fact that the hat was proclaimed as an unpretentious

act of the sultan, and despite the inclusion of a provision, in the Treaty of Paris, that

repealed the right of foreign nations to intervene in Ottoman internal affairs on the basis

of the hat. 19

After the treaty of Paris, the Ottoman government often vehemently resisted

attempts at internationalization of its provincial troubles. Instead, the Porte followed the

practice of sending commissioners with extraordinary powers to settle down provincial

unrest. These special missions, therefore, were usually carried out to fend off foreign

intervention, as well as to send out an authoritarian message to other provinces that were

plagued with troubles and unrest. Russia would come back and refute any mission's report

as failing to admit the true extent of misgovernment and oppression, and as thoroughly

inaccurate. The sending of regular mufetti~s (or inspectors), particularly to the Balkans,

reveal the serious level of inter-faith unrest in those provinces. The Ottoman government

tried similar policies with regard to the Lebanese Question (1860-61), as well as the Crete

rebellion (1866-68), but failed, however, to prevent international intervention in the

conduct of reforms. 20 In fact, during the 1860s, the Ottoman empire was plagued by a

series of regional rebellions and insurrections in Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina

(19861-1866), Serbia (1862-1867), and Crete, often with foreign instigation and

interventions continuing unabated.

16 The Treaty of Paris also, effectively, curbed Russia's ambitious claims at the c expense of the Ottoman empire. The Russians strived to annul the harsh provisions of the

treaty that affected her the most, but in the meantime, Russia's efforts were turned towards

internal reform, conquering more lands in the East, and the dissemination of Pan-Slavic

ideas in the West. The Russians were finally able to reverse some of the provisions, in

the Treaty of Paris, to their advantage in 1871, during the London Conference. After

1871 , the Russians also sought to draw closer relations with the Ottoman government,

largely through the efforts of Count Nicholas lgnatiev, the Russian ambassador and an

ardent Pan-Slavist, who ironically helped in keeping alive Pan-Slavic activities in the

Ottoman empire during this time. 21

The three years of turmoil, during the Eastern Crisis (1875-1878), was triggered

by insurrection within the Ottoman Balkans. With the help of Austria and Russia, the

rebels in Bosnia-Herzegovina were able to turn the conflict into a Muslim-Christian one,

hence paving the way for European interference. A plan for reforms that would lead to

autonomous rule in the region, prepared by the Austrian premier Andrassy, was rejected

by the insurgents in December 1875. In the meantime, the Porte was forced to announce

the fmancial bankruptcy of the State following a series of defaults (and later suspension)

of interest payments on the state public loans. This stirred a huge anti-Ottoman feelings

among the British and French bondholders. After the economic and military bankruptcy,

the Ottoman state was faced, this time, by a financial bankruptcy that put the empire's

independence at a real stake.

17 c The next year (1876) brought a Bulgarian insurrection, which followed a series of uprisings in 1841, 1849, and 1867 against the Muslim landowners (and later against Tatar

and Circassian immigrants). Thousands of Muslims were massacred; and harsher

measures were taken by irregular Ottoman troops against the Christian rebels. 22

Within this context, the Selanik (Salonica) incident (May 1876) further exacerbated

the situation. A Bulgarian girl who came to the city to convert to Islam was believed to

have been abducted by the American Consul (who happened to be of Greek origin) .

Demonstrations and meetings were held, and the angry public later killed the French and

German consuls who came to appease them. The Great Powers sent their fleets to the city,

and the Porte was only able to forfeit an occupation by dismissing the vali, and abruptly

hanging six people. 23 Amid the rising tension and general discontent, the government

seemed to have lost control over the furious populace when the softas or medrese students

rioted in the streets of the capital in protest. They were appeased only by a change in

ministers, but the general disregard for the unpredictable sultan Abdiilaziz continued and

later led to his dethronement in May 30, 1876. 24

Thus, the unsympathetic state of the British public opinion, following the Porte' s

decision to default and suspend interest payments on its public loans; as well as

Gladstone' s campaign against the Ottoman state created an atmosphere that rendered the

Ottoman empire an easy prey to the Russians. Ironically, this happened at the time when

Russia's aims, as manifested by its Pan-Slavic tendencies and designs, were clear. Russian

men and money, for example, were rushed to the assistance of Serbia when it declared war

on the Ottoman empire in July 1876.

18 c British policy and public opinion did shift, however, violently to the other end, when Russia declared war on the Ottoman empire. The British sent their fleet to the

Dardanelles, and 7,000 British Indian troops were summoned to Malta in support of the

Ottomans. The issue was turned from Ottoman misgovernment into, as Queen Victoria

and Disraeli insisted "whether there was to be a British or a Russian supremacy in the

world. "25

Another international conference convened in Istanbul - at the time when internal

troubles brought yet another sultan (Abdiilhamid) to the throne - and came out with certain

reforms for the Balkan provinces which greatly favoured the Christian inhabitants against

their Muslim counterparts. It also called for an international committee and 5000 Belgian

troops to supervise the conduct of reforms. Upon the sultan's refusal to this final measure,

Russia acted unilaterally and thus began the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78, in which the

Ottoman empire was forced to fight, this time, unallied. Despite some of early Ottoman

success, the Russians eventually pushed through the Balkans to the vicinity of Istanbul,

where the British fleet appeared again. 26 Another Russian force occupied much of

Southeast Anatolia. The harsh peace of San Stefano followed, in which Russian gains

were consolidated and the sultan was forced to accept independence for Serbia and

Montenegro and an autonomy for an extremely large Bulgaria.

Alarmed by Russia's big gains, the great powers met in Berlin (1878) to force a

revised peace. In addition to Serbia and Montenegro, Rumania also became independent.

Bosnia and Herzegovina were assigned to Austrian administration while technically

remained Ottoman territories. Britain occupied Cyprus on a similar legal basis, in return

19 c for a general British commitment to help maintain the integrity of Ottoman territories in Asia. 27

The Great Power rivalry was dealt with without war in the culminating Treaty of

Berlin, where clearly separate and occasionally contradictory efforts were made to arrange

for a common European policy to be imposed on the Sublime Porte. One important effect

following the Congress of Berlin, also, was the fact that the Ottoman empire and the lesser

powers were given little attention, and were often deemed even expendable.

Henceforth, European intervention began to assume an aspect of direct military

occupation at the expense of the Ottoman empire. Russia occupied the Caucasus, Kars and

Batum in Eastern Anatolia; Austria took Bosnia-Herzegovina; France occupied Tunis; and

finally Britain took over Egypt in 1881. The Ottoman Empire protested strongly, but in

vain. Outside the empire, territories inhabited by Muslims in Asia and Africa also came

under direct occupation of the imperial powers. These developments led to the rise of a

number of insurrections amongst the Algerians, the Mahdi of Sudan, in Afghanistan,

Central Asia, Java, and elsewhere.

B- European Powers And The Ottoman Reform Movement

Diplomatic pressures exerted by the great powers played a significant role during

the Tanzimat. Although the powers consistently appeared to be prompting and pushing

for reforms (mainly in areas regarded of concern to the Christian population), their

20 c constant interference, however, often hampered the process of reform, and at times even rendered it ineffectual. Religion was often used as a cover for power politics throughout

the conflict over the so-called Eastern Question, and on several occasions, great power

diplomacy and intervention led to the territorial diminution of the empire.28

France and Great Britain as friends, and Russia as a foe often based their policies

on claims to the right of protection over the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox

communities of the Ottoman empire. The diversity of the demands for reform policies,

undoubtedly, led to diverse interpretations, and further confusion and complications in the

execution of these reforms.

Reforms were undertaken in the Ottoman empire when the world was becoming

increasingly ordered by (the whims of) European powers and civilization. Ottoman

statesmen, therefore, worked towards revitalizing and preserving the empire during this

crucial period. They believed in the existence and integrity of the heterogeneous empire

and strived to prevent the loss of more provinces and territories whether as a result of

rebellion or through the diplomatic or military intervention of the European powers.

The Tanzimat, in part, represented efforts made to satisfy European demands and

prevent their further intervention for which abuses provided a rationalization.

Consequently, the promulgation of two important documents, the Noble Rescript of

Giilhane in 1839 and the Imperial Rescript of 1856, declaring an end to arbitrary practices,

appeared at the time of great international crises, and when the fate of the Empire was at

the mercy of the European powers.

21 c After the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty in 1838, however, the Ottoman

empire became actively involved in the European economic and political network.

Previously, the West acted only as a source for providing new ideas and methods (mainly

in practical areas and most specifically in the military field). European powers began to

exert their political impact during the Tanzimat period, mainly in the form of diplomatic

intervention. The Ottoman Empire assumed the role of a reluctant player when the scene

of European power politics used religion as the instrument and the Ottoman Empire as the

playground to settle their own conflicts.

The formation of a new British Near Eastern policy and the change in its relations

with Russia, led Britain to assume a leading role (previously played by France) in Ottoman

affairs. This new British policy was translated in 1838 into a new commercial treaty with

the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of abolishing all restrictive economic and commercial

practices and consequently the establishment of a free trade policy in the empire. To the

Ottomans, the treaty was a way of lining up British diplomatic support during the crisis

created by Mehmet Ali. This unsettling period coincided with a period that witnessed a

change in relations between the Ottoman empire and European powers. Economic interest

caused the latter to press for secularization while their "political-cum-religious" interests

indirectly perpetuated the communal legal, political and educational differences within the

empire. 29

Often, all foreign embassies continued to exert their influences and interfered,

using money and political pressure, to the advantage of certain politicians in order to

0 22 c guarantee their special interests. Pressure was often used to approve or disapprove of certain Ottoman statesmen or simply reinstate others who might fall into disfavour by the

sultan. Britain and France, for instance, continued to support the Sublime Porte in

designing Ottoman internal and external policies, while Austria and Russia stood beside

the palace and the military for opposite reasons.

Following the promulgation of the GUlhane Hatt-1 Serif, Britain began to play a

significant role in pushing for reforms, particularly at times of political crises. The British

ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Stratford Canning was a very influential diplomat who

made his presence felt in the Ottoman capital. He began to form friendly relations with

the Tanzimat statesmen - of whom the most important was Mustafa Re~id P~a- and often

used his influence to keep (or reinstate) them in power.

Stratford Canning's activities in Istanbul amounted to missionary rather than

strictly diplomatic behaviour. Being a zealot Protestant, he managed to obtain recognition

of a full millet status for Protestants (mostly proselytized Armenians) in the empire, in a

move that upset the Austrian, Russian, and French governments in 1850. This, no doubt,

also provided the British with a much needed religious tool for interference in Ottoman

internal affairs.

A new pattern of international diplomacy, concerning the millet system in the

Ottoman Empire, emerged whereby non-Muslims were seen as "nationalities" whose rights

are guaranteed by the protection of the Christian powers of Europe. This was in contrast

to the original idea of the millet system which entailed a special status and set of privileges

23 c granted unilaterally, to non-Muslim communities, by a ruling Muslim government. Any attempts to deny the European powers of their "assumed right of protection" over the

Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant millets would evoke an unrelented resistance from these

powers. This had turned the issue of the millet system into a barrier, and often an

impediment to attempts at secular reform. 30

Foreign intervention and the emergence of nationalism among the millets,

combined to exacerbate efforts at reform. The issue of the millet ceased to be a traditional

institution, within the combined Islamic and Christian medieval conceptions, when it no

longer became an internal policy. Western powers, and particularly Russia, became

intensely involved in this issue, both in respect to their relations with the Ottoman Empire,

as well as in regard to their relations with each other on every front. In the intricate game

of international diplomacy, both religion (Orthodoxy and Catholicism) and race or

nationality (Russian pan-Slavism and the aftermath of the French Revolution) became

inextricably intertwined. To these, a third element was introduced when British

diplomacy, with its Protestant predilection entered into the Near Eastern diplomatic

scene. 31

As early as the second part of the eighteenth century, the West represented by

France and Russia began to show aspirations of establishing themselves in the Levant or

the Balkans. Russian diplomacy aimed at undermining Ottoman power either by war or

through appealing to the religious sentiments of the empire's Orthodox Christian subjects.

France managed to gain formal Ottoman recognition of her protectorate over all Catholic

24 c orders, and churches, as well as the right for her missionary endeavours to proselytize within the Orthodox Christians in an attempt to establish Catholic supremacy in the East -

particularly in the Holy Land. 32

During the Tanzimat period, European powers also continued to make overtures

to guarantee and control the implementation of reform measures concerning the situation

of the Non-Muslim millets. Consistently, however, Canning led other European diplomats

in continuously and persistently pressuring the Ottoman government (especially at

international gathering events crucial to the fate of the empire) to further extend the

privileges of its Christian subjects. He campaigned for the prohibition of apostasy, a

measure that was opposed by the Ulema, as well as by the Greek and Armenian churches

following incidents of large scale conversions through the activities of Protestant

missionary groups after 1831. Canning demanded complete freedom for missionary

groups to proselytize among both Muslims and Christians. 33

Due to the sensitivity and religious nature of the issue, the Seyhulislam and the

Ulema found themselves at the centre of the controversy. Their staunch resistance brought

them anew to the political arena following an extended interval since the time of Mahmut

11. The controversy also helped spread the wrong impression, throughout Europe, that

Christians in the East were being persecuted by "Mohammadan fanaticism." Nonetheless,

these incidents manifested the nature of nineteenth-century European diplomacy with

regard to the Ottoman empire, namely using religion to justify diplomatic intervention.34

Nevertheless, the meagre fruits of reforms achieved prior to the outbreak of the

25 Crimean War seemed to have disappointed the leading reformers, including Re~id P~a himself. On the public level, however, the popular anti-Russian spirit, that followed the broad Russian demands for protection of the Orthodox subjects in the empire, seemed also to have incorporated a mixture of an increased Muslim resentment against the principle of equality, and against reforms in general.

The Tanzimat edict of hatt-l Humayun in 1856 represented the second and crucial phase of the empire's attempts at reorganization and modernization in the mid-nineteenth century. The Ottoman government seemed to ruive taken advantage of the respite accorded to her when events in Europe, following the Crimean War, kept Western powers preoccupied. Russia, on the other hand, was busy trying to overcome her Crimean wounds, while undertaking extensive internal reforms at home. Nevertheless, the powers did not honour their pledge of non-intervention- promised in article 9 in the treaty of Paris

-when they declared they have no right to intervene in the internal affairs of the empire.

The fact that the hatt-1 Humayun sprang from foreign dictation was self-evident in the lack of the split personality that characterized the previous edict of 1839. Significantly enough, it contained no mention of the Sacred Law; the Koran; or the empire's glorious past. Furthermore, considerable emphasis was given, in the edict, to the principle of equality, with the implications of Osmanl1llk ushered in with some detail. Muslims and non-Muslims were to be equal in all matters related to the administration (including the extension of the principle of representation in all levels of government), military service, and even in social respect. The use of derogatory epithet, against people of other religions or races, was prohibited by a special anti-defamation clause. In general, the edict implied

26 c that millet barriers would be removed and replaced by a system of common citizenship for all peoples of the empire. 35

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the major threat to the Ottoman

State came from its northern dreadful neighbour. Russia consistently posed as the

instigator of the empire's Orthodox and Slavic population. It persistently pressed for the

autonomy and even independence of the Christian millets, wherever they constituted the

majority in certain peripheral regions -especially the Balkans.

Following the Crimean War, Pan-Slavic propaganda began to influence Russian

statesmen and was later turned, from a scientific and a literary movement, into a political

doctrine that formed an important part in Russian diplomacy. State autocracy,

nationalism, and Orthodoxy formed the main components of this doctrine, which amounted

to become almost a second religion in Russia. 36

Russian Pan-Slavists worked very hard to bring all Slavs under Russian rule. Their

main concern was to save all Slavic peoples living in the Ottoman empire. This

overshadowed Russia's previous policy of supporting and protecting the Orthodox

Christians of the empire. Pan-Slavic activists and politicians believed that Russian

government support for autonomy and independence for the Ottoman Slavs would be the

first step before annexing their regions to Greater Russia. After 1870 Slavic committees,

formed in major Russian cities, were able to mobilize the Russian people for their cause.

When Serbia declared war on the Ottoman empire in 1876, for instance, a Russian general

was appointed commander of the Serbian army. Hundreds of Pan-Slav Russians

0 27 c volunteered with the Serbs; and some three million rubles were raised for the causeY During times of troubles within the Balkans, Pan-Slavic activists seemed to have worked

closely with the rebels towards eliminating Muslim presence from the regions as clearly

manifested by the massacres that were carried out, particularly against Muslim

landowners.

On the official level, Russia's efforts to ease some of the harsh provisions, made

against her in the Treaty of Paris, induced her to draw closer relations with the Ottoman

government. Shortly before Ali Pa§a's death and afterward, Count Nicholas lgnatiev, an

ardent Pan-Slavist who served as the Russian ambassador to the Porte, was so instrumental

in formulating his country's design and diplomacy. He had become so enmeshed in efforts

to manipulate Ottoman policy, by working with Sultan Abdiilaziz and his grand vezier

Mahmut Nedim, that the latter was sarcastically referred to by the populace as

"Nedimoff". The Russian ambassador himself was dubbed "Sultan Ignatiev" .38

Russia also worked closely with Austria, which turned its policies towards the

Balkan peoples in order to compensate for her losses in Central Europe. Both countries

sought to undermine Ottoman rule in Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and

Austria, in particular, worked to establish its hegemony over these regions. 39

The war with Russia in 1877-1878 revealed the lack of a dynamic and an

ideologically motivated military leadership within the Ottoman empire. To the profound

shock of the sultan; the army; and the Ottoman people; Russian troops were able to

advance to the outskirts of Istanbul. Another Russian army was circumventing the empire

from its Eastern borders. The Ottoman leaders began to realize that the empire was no

0 28 longer a powerful state, but a "shrinking conglomeration of territories and conflicting c ethnic-religious groups" .40 The war and the Treatyof Berlin (1878) necessitated the

reorganization of the military and civil bureaucracy, and precipitated the ideological

developments that took place under Abdiilhamid 11.

Thus, the whole history of Ottoman transformation came to be closely associated

with a religiously oriented anti-Western and anti-Russian movement. Reaction to the

process of reform and Westernization, therefore, assumed a form of religious activism that

was epitomized in the second half of the nineteenth century in the ideology of Pan­

Islamism.

29 c CHAPTER I : ENDNOTES 1. Roderic H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire: 1856-1876, (New York, 1973), p. 53.

2. The reform period started with the promulgation of the GiUhane Hatt-1 ~erif in November 1839, which was the flrst of the great nineteenth-century Ottoman constitutional documents to be forged in the heat of international crisis. See Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, (Oxford, 1968), p. 107; L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Games, (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 221.

3. L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 31.

4. The term, Eastern Question, came into use at the time of the Greek War of independence, even though some scholars would trace its periodization back to 1774. Cf. L.C. Brown, op. cit, pp. 28-30.

5. European rivalries were often fought out in the Middle East, which served as an arena with little risks. The Ottoman empire was often blamed as being inefficient or unjust. In fact, the Middle East (represented by the Ottoman state), with the complexities of its social make up, presented a challenge to the new European ideas of nationalism and romanticism. This belief coincided with the region's power system being "in an unfortunate situation of facing a much stronger, and often hostile, neighbouring power system. [In effect] it had been taken over by, but not actually absorbed into, Europe." See L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 32.

6. This was in contrast to the case of Egypt and Tunisia whose geographic and demographic consistency facilitated the emergence of a nation-state. L. C. Brown, op. cit., p. 75.

7.Metin Kunt, Sina ~m et al., Turkiye Tarihi: Osmanl1 devleti, 1600-1908, vol. 3 (1stanbul, Cem Yaymevi, 1987), pp. 97-98.

8. Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II, Reform, Revolution and Republic: The Rise ofModern Turkey, 1808-1975, (Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 28.

9. The Battle of Navarino not only guaranteed the ultimate victory for the Greek rebels, but, more importantly, it also created the situation for a number of European interferences in Ottoman affairs that made the Ottoman state look as if it was falling under the total control of the European imperialistic powers by the end of the nineteenth century. /bid, p. 29.

30 c 10. /bid, pp. 31-33. 11. L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 58.

12. Barbara Jelavich, Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914, (New York, 1964), p. 68.

13. Cited in Jelavich, /bid, p. 86.

14. M. Kunt and S. Ak§m et al., op. cit, pp. 123-124; L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 220.

15. L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 221.

16. R. Davison, Reform ... , p. 43-44.

17. The Crimean War presents an interesting setting of international politics and the impact of public opinion on war and vice versa, see J. Kunt and S. Ak§m et al., op. cit., pp. 128-130; L.C. Brown, op. cit., pp. 221-225, Shaw and Shaw, op. cit., 136-137, R. Davison, Reform ... , p. 52.

18. Rene Albrecht-Carre, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, (New York, 1958), p. 89.

19. R. Davison, op. cit., pp.52-54.

20. Ibid., pp. 107-108.

21. /bid, p. 238; Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanl1 Tarihi, vol. VII, islahat Fermani Devri, 1861-1876, Baskl, (Ankara, T.T.K., 1983), pp. 67-68.

22. This provoked Gladstone's pamphlet on: The Bulgarian Horrors and the East, L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 227.

23. E.Z. Karal, op. cit., pp. 98-99. M. Kuntetal., op. cit., p. 150.

24. Ibid.

25. L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 228.

26. During the war, the Bulgars with Russian instigation, engaged into a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Turks, inducing thousands of angry Turks to enlist in the army. K. Kunt et al., op. cit. , p. 162. Sultan Abdulhamid himself carried the flag of the Prophet

31 stirring public support in the army, while Muslims from India fought alongside the c Ottomans. E. Z. Karal, Osmanll Tarihi, VIII Cilt. 3. Baski, (Ankara, Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1983), p.

27. Anglo-Russian rivalry grew less virulent when the Suez Canal began to occupy British strategic thinking, and the fate of the Ottoman empire appeared to be less crucial. L.C. Brown, op. cit., p. 230.

28. R. Davison, Reform ... p. 9.

29. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, (Montreal, McGill University Press, 1964), p. 147.

30. This transformation of an originally medieval institution into a question of nationalities, whose cause was passionately espoused by European powers' diplomacy, led to most of the difficulties to be confronted when the new Tanzimat conception of justice and equality was being tried. Ibid.p. 96.

31. Ibid.

32. Meanwhile, an anti-lslamic feeling had arisen in Europe, and particularly in France, which later led to the edging of the francophile Ottoman reformists in resentment, and casted a religious disposition to the anti-reform movement. !bid, pp." 51-52.

33. !bid, p. 147.

34. Ibid. pp. 148-152.

35. R. Davison, op. cit., p. 54-56.

36. Shaw and Shaw, op. cit, p. 165; E.Z. Karal, op. cit., pp. 57-58.

37. L.C. Brown, op. cit, p. 227-228;

38. R. Davison, op. cit., p. 238.

39. E. Z. Karal, op. cit, p. 77.

40. Kemal H. Karpat, "The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789-1908" in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), p. 278-279.

0 32 0

CHAPTERII

SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS c A- Economic Problems 1. European Economic Penetration

After the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Western economic power began to

further the decline of the lagging economy of the Ottoman empire. European merchants

became increasingly more active, and their products began to undermine local

manufactures and put artisans out of work. The decline, though, did reach the serious

proportions only in the nineteenth century. Trade and shipping became entirely in the

hands of the Europeans, whose merchants were also active in trade between different

Ottoman posts.

European economic penetration was enhanced by agreements known as the

capitulations. 1 Islamic states had always not only allowed religious minorities to live

under their own law but also granted non-Muslim outsiders (harbfs, "people of the land

of war") special permission to enter Islamic territory in security. In general, the

agreements provided for trading privileges, including low custom duties, and exempted

merchants from local jurisdictions (i.e. provided extra-territoriality). Even in cases

involving Ottoman subjects, the foreign merchant was granted certain privileges; such as

trial on criminal charges only in special courts outside the regular judicial system. A new

agreement with France in 1740 extended the traditional, and added new, extra-territorial

privileges for foreign traders to an increasing number of nations.

0 34 The system of the capitulation constituted one of the most formidable impediments c to Ottoman reforms, when it came to provide the bases for all European economic treaties

and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman empire throughout the nineteenth century, and

well into the twentieth century. The Ottoman reformists were unable to realize the

implications of a new phase of European economic development. 2

Following the treaties of Kii<;iik Kynarca and Jassi in 1774 and 1792, which called

for the opening of the Black Sea to the Russian trade, the Ottoman state lost its major trade

base. Previously, the Black Sea compensated for European domination of the

Mediterranean commerce, and had been an exclusive Ottoman trade area. Furthermore,

the Black Sea merchant class was commercially related to Istanbul and Anatolia, and

managed to establish a productive trading system that linked East, West and beyond. 3

Meanwhile, the industrial revolution in the West drastically changed the pattern of

trade. The Ottoman state gradually became an importer. Moreover, the Ottoman state

economy almost collapsed when the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty of 1838, (which

was a way of lining up British diplomatic support against Mehmet Ali), accorded Great

Britain competitive superiority over domestic manufactured products. By the second half

of the nineteenth century, the empire's exports gradually shrank to agricultural

commodities. New imported items, including clothing- which also symbolized wealth and

social status - began to replace the locally manufactured goods. In 1829, after the Greek

War of Independence, the total European trade with the Ottoman empire fell to 2.9

million, but rose to 12.2 in 1845, to 54 in 1876, and to 64.9 million in 1911. Import

gradually exceeded export from about 1850 to 1914.4

35 c Following the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty of 1838, other European states tried to dissuade the Ottoman government from moving towards closing; and further

protecting its national economy. Britain and France led other European governments and

merchants, in their efforts to persuade the Ottoman government to rescind all restrictive

trading practices, to clear the way for an exceedingly stronger Western economy.

Protective economic barriers, including the tolls, prohibitions against export, trade

monopolies spurred protests from foreign traders and statesmen alike. Foreign traders can

only exploit Ottoman resources when they become Ottoman subjects (thereby, annulling

the extraterritorial privileges granted to them under the capitulations). Many of them had

to rely on Ottoman non-Muslim traders, who were already gaining control of several

sectors of internal and external trade monopolies.

Eventually, however, all barriers to the importation of goods into Ottoman lands

were removed, and foreign merchants were able to retain earlier privileges while other

nations gained the right to duplicate the provision of the treaty. This effected a new

economic liberalism that placed the Ottoman economy at the disadvantaged side, and

eventually produced a number of economic, demographic, and occupational changes to the

people of the Empire.5

Inspite of the tremendous changes that have been introduced throughout the

Tanzimat period, reform initiatives, however, were faced by major difficulties in the

economic field, partly due to the legacy of the traditional society, and partly to the

repercussions created by external crises. Foreign intervention often stimulated internal

revolts, economic development was very slow and was complicated by no major upsurge

0 36 in agricultural production. There was no state policy in the field of agricultural production c and supervision, other than the maintenance of public work by constructing bridges, roads,

and railways.

The government sought to increase its revenues by introducing tax to finance

reforms. Census and surveys were introduced in an effort to improve methods of tax

collections. More taxes and excises were introduced, and state monopoly over certain

lucrative trades - such as tobacco and salt - was maintained. 6

Following the Crimean War the Ottoman government faced a series of economic

problems that resulted from disordered fmancial practices, general economic

underdevelopment, and an unfavourable balance of trade. The expense of military

expeditions to rebellious provinces further added to the burden of the treasury, which was

already strained by the aftermath of the Crimean War. Sultan AbdUlmecid's newly

developed habit for heavy spending, during his last days, also led to the growth of the

overburdened deficit.

The underdeveloped state of agriculture and industry, and the backward condition

of means of communication and transport was partly responsible for the low level of

taxable land and produce. Another important reason was the massive legal (or illegal)

transformation of the empire's arable lands (three-fourth) into the partially tax-exempt

valaf property. Ottoman trade treaties with European nations stipulated a fixed import

duty of five percent, leaving the Porte with no means of indispensable revenues except to

impose an export duty of twelve percent on domestic products. Such practices, no doubt,

discouraged native industry, and rendered national products more expensive than imported

0 37 c manufactured goods. 7

Nevertheless, the rising expenses of the ever-growing central government led the

Porte to resort to a number of expedients in order to compensate for the lack of sufficient

revenues. Among the measures taken was the resumption of the practice of borrowing

from local bankers and from Europe, as well as the issuing of the kaime, the Ottoman

paper money, in large unnumbered quantities. Needless to say, these measures proved to

be ruinous in the long run, and further led to the total collapse of the kaime in December

1861. 8

Moreover, most European investment was in raw materials, or in communications

(most of all railroads), and generated no substantial revenues to the state. The Ottoman

government even sometimes provided subsidies for these investment projects, exactly the

way it subsidized, through her creditors, wars among other powers. European bank loans,

raised at exorbitant interest rates during and after the Crimean War, often covered current

expenses rather than development projects. Consequently, the Ottoman state was driven

to ultimate bankruptcy and foreign financial control. 9

Thus did the impact of Western economic tide devastate the Ottoman empire in

ways that may be deemed more fundamental than the more obvious political subordination.

0 38 2. Financial Indebtedness And The Loss Of c Ottoman Monopolies

The Ottomans' military dependence on the great powers was matched by a new

financial dependence. Beginning with the need to finance the Crimean War, the foreign

debt increasingly got out of hand. The first European loan was contracted in August 1854.

Five million gold sterling, at an interest rate of four per cent and one per cent

amortization, were loaned from Britain and France (guaranteed by the assets of Egypt's

tribute and custom duties of the provinces of Izmir and Syria). This pleased the Ottoman

sultan and his statesmen who continued the trend and contracted more loans in 1855,

1858, and 1860, at a rate of a loan every 2-3 years. 10

Contracted loans were often used to cover unproductive practices such as defensive

wars, quashing rebellions, armament, building palaces, or simply to pay for civil servants'

salaries. Well aware of these practices, European financial institutions continued to place

heavy conditions on newly contracted loans. Europeans and local investors also rushed

to purchase Ottoman state bonds that promised profitable returns.

In the meantime, the government's wasteful expenditure continued to rise, with the

palace taking the biggest share. High government officials also pocketed proportionately

higher salaries (the Grand Vezier's salary, for instance, amounted to 2500 golden pieces

in 1862). Another reason for the increase in expenditure included the introduction of

alafranga habits of clothing, living and architecture. This was influenced by the arrival

of many Europeans, during and after the Crimean War, to the empire, as well as by a

number of wealthy Egyptian dignitaries who lived in Istanbul - particularly during the

39 c governorship of Abbas Hilmi. 11 The Ottoman state increasingly grew unable to repay its debts. Confiscation was

prohibited since 1826, and the capitulation made it difficult to meddle with customs or

duties. The iltizam system provided little or inadequate revenues. The Porte issued a

number of new taxes, but was met by fierce resistance. Collection for the emlak vergisi

which was introduced in 1861, for instance, started only in 1874. The easiest way to

acquire funds was to contract new loans; or else to increase the quantity of the kaime (or

paper money) in circulation.

After 1860 the Ottoman state became increasingly dependent on European fmancial

institutions, which began to place excessive conditions on its loaned money. In 1860, a

French businessman agreed to lend the Ottoman government 400 million Francs at six per

cent interest, but the government was to receive only 53.75% of the full amount loaned.

Even with such conditions, demand on Ottoman state bonds was very low and the earlier

retired paper money was reinstated. 12 Fuad' s swift action to support the kaime produced

momentary relief but failed, however, to win confidence in the government's ability to

repay heavy advances made by local Galata bankers, or to restore public trust for the paper

money.

To overcome these difficulties, the government introduced plans for increasing

revenues, cutting expenses, and eventually retiring the kaime altogether. The Porte also

established a permanent financial council that included an advisor from each Britain,

France, and Austria. The credit for the first Ottoman budget, for 1863-1864, went to this

council, which also proposed changes in the tax system. Finally, and with help from

0 40 Britain and France, and the support of some of the largest European financial 0 establishments, the Porte succeeded in creating the Imperial Ottoman Bank, and in paying

off the over-due Galata loans. A new negotiated loan for the Porte in 1862 was used to

retire the paper money, and new commercial treaties provided for a raise of three percent

of the import and a reduction of only one percent in the export duties.

Eventhough these measures provided a temporary respite, the empire's fmancial

structure, however, remained fundamentally frail. In the subsequent decade, more internal

and external debts were incurred, budgets were ignored, corruption continued, and palace

expenditure increased profoundly. Top government officials, such as Ali and Fuad P~as,

also contributed to this as they worked to satisfy the sultan's wishes in order to win his

favour. However, the gradual economic deterioration did not lead to yet another acute

crisis only until 1873. 13

General discontent surged considerably in the years 1873, 1874, and 1975 because

of the economic distress among a large section of the population. Already in 1872 Central

Anatolia was hit by draught, followed by a hard winter and floods by 1874. Villagers

migrated in large numbers, which led to the depopulation of some districts by a third or

more.

This put the government's finances in a dire situation, and led the government to

attempt to collect heavier taxes form the impoverished peasantry. Economic misery was

coupled by the government recruitment of Anatolian peasants to quell the Balkan rebellion

in 1875 and 1876. However, the financial crisis of the treasury in 1875 affected public

opinion even more than did the famine.

41 By 1875 financial disasters confronted the Porte with imminent bankruptcy. The 0 government lacked enough funds to pay the over-due Ottoman bond coupons in October,

and service on the public debt amoul)ted to over forty per cent of the annual budget. The

deficit in the mid-financial year was eight and a half million Pounds Sterling.

The irade of October 6, 1875, informed the government creditors that they would

be payed only one half of the interest due them for a period of five years. The other half

was to be paid off in the form of new bonds carrying five per cent interest. Payments

were later suspended completely from April to December 1876, and the money incurred

from State bonds was devalued fifty per cent more as a result. 14

Therefore, the financial bankruptcy of the State, which followed economic and

military ones, paved the way for the increasing dependency of the empire on others and

rendered it more vulnerable. A storm of protest ensued. Already Islamic feeling against

the Balkan rebels aroused many Turks against the government and the sultan. Blrqml

as well as Ottoman bondholders were naturally irritated at the government, which

precipitated protest and an anti-Turkish campaign across Western Europe. All these

combined to have a profound effect on the internal affairs of the empire so as to bring the

downfall of the Grand Vezier Mahmut Nedim as well as sultan Abdiilaziz himself in

1876. 15

The European powers, who had shown little concern when these debts were piling

up, now moved in to ensure that the Ottoman empire paid for its folly. Initially, the

powers agreed to a major reduction of the debts from 252 to 106 million liras, with the

0 42 c condition that the return of certain taxes be directly transferred to the creditors. In 1879, it was agreed that the taxes and excises of salt, tobacco, stamps, spirits, fishing, and silk

tithes were to be monopolized towards this end. Eventually, however, an European­

directed debt liquidation commission was imposed upon the empire in 1881. Following

the famous Muharrem Decree (December, 1881), the finances of the Ottoman empire were

handed over to European investors by the establishment of the Administration of the

Ottoman Public Debts (Diiyun-i Umumiye idaresi). The Administration Board consisted

of a representative from a number of European countries, as well as an Ottoman

commissioner with only a consultative vote. 16

Following the establishment of the Public Debt, the revenues of the State increased

annually, which meant a portion of the wealth of the country was reaped outside of the

empire. Important advances in the exploitation of the natural resources of the empire were

made, prompting an influx of foreign investment capital, particularly in the construction

of railways. With time, however, the Public Debt Administration managed to expand

extensively covering all aspects of Ottoman economic spheres. By 1911, for instance, the

Public Debt employed more than nine thousand workers (most of whom were Greeks and

Armenians), while the Ottoman Ministry of Finance had about five thousand employees. 17

The Ottoman sovereign rights over natural resources, customs, and taxation were

restrained by Western economic penetration as manifested by the capitulation and the

administration of the public debt. This was psychologically very difficult for all sectors

of the Ottoman society, and created immense anti-Western feelings that set the momentum

for Pan-Islamic sentiments to develop during the reign of Abdiilhamid II.

43 c B- Social Upheavals And New Social Realities

1. Reorganization of the Millets

The Ottoman empire, was a pre-modem bureaucratic imperial system that ruled,

for centuries, over diverse religious, linguistic, and ethnic groupings. The overwhelming

majority of the Ottoman subjects, however, were Muslims and identified with the Ottoman

empire, essentially, as an Islamic state. Indeed, it was the only great Muslim state that

stood against European advancement which was already attempting to encircle most of the

areas (inhabited mostly by Muslims) in the Eastern hemisphere by the beginning of the

nineteenth century.

The liberal-humanitarian writers of nineteenth-century Europe campaigned for the

need to meet the desires and satisfaction of the minorities in the empire. They frequently

pointed out that the treatment of Christians in the empire (Jews were barely mentioned

here) was the key to reform. By so doing they failed, however, to acknowledge the

intertwined and multi-faceted nature of the requirements for change, rather than touching

upon an isolate and a single requirement of reform as the sole key to progress. 18

The principle of equality, nevertheless, continued to occupy a prominent place in

Tanzimat decrees. This was a radical idea that contradicted the concept of dhimmis as

protected peoples, subject to certain disabilities, notwithstanding the relative tolerance of

Islamic practice. Full application was perhaps too much to be expected at once. Indeed,

and at times, opposition came from within the dhimmis themselves. Church leaders, for

instance, were wary of losing their special position as millet leaders. However, there 0 44 arose the difficulty of reconciling statute laws with practices derived from the $eriat. c With regards to the millet system, for example, complete "legal" equality, probably

stemming from the need to create a modern political and economic system, was a totally

new concept. As a new legal conception the idea was initiated by Sultan Mahmut 11. At

the time, it stirred no "marked" opposition due to Mahmut's strong personal rule and his

success at curbing down active opposition following the destruction of the Janissary and

its implication on marginalizing active (traditional) opposition factions. 19

The difficulties became apparent, however, with the promulgation of the Giilhane

Hatt-1 $erif, when attempts were made to regularize and institutionalize the principle of

equality. The intervention of the European powers on behalf of the non-Muslim millets

provided the main impetus towards this direction.

As promised in the hat of 1839, its main purpose was to grant equality to

Christians. But the implementation of the concept of equality proved to be not an easy

task largely due to the lack of institutions and a legal framework through which this

concept could attain true meaning. In fact, the kind of equality that the Ottoman

government sought to implement was hardly even known anywhere at that time, not even

in Europe or America. Therefore the implementation of equality in military service

(which pleased nobody), justice, schools (Christian schools were already advanced), and

equality of employment in the government was very limited. The affirmation of the

principle of equality, and the extension of these "imperial concessions" to all subjects,

regardless of religion or sect, constituted the most remarkable promise of the hat. This

implied, in effect, dismantling the millet barriers, and the ultimate goal of creating an

0 45 c empire based on the modem concept of state and citizenship. 20 In general, however, administrative institutions reflecting the concept of equality

of all subjects; and of the representative principle, both in the local and national levels,

have witnessed a gradual yet impressive development with lasting accomplishments. This,

of course, was no easy task, considering the dauntless opposition of the more conservative

ministers and other officials (on the government level) toward the principle of equality and

secularization. The initial reaction among the Turkish population was somewhat

favourable to other promises made in the hat, but was also followed by an opposite

reaction against the principle of equality which was deemed as subverting to the sacred

laws of Islam. Opposition assumed various forms ranging from public disturbances in

some Anatolian provinces, to hopes that the forces of Mehmet Ali P~a would save the

government from "European influence and the control of the gavur pa'§a Re'§id. '121

Other groups who had a vested interest in the status quo also opposed the

application of the hat. These included, among others, provincial governors, tax farmers,

and even the Greek clergy who feared that the ne~ doctrine of equality would threaten the

traditional position of the Greek millet as first among the other non-Muslim subjects of the

empire.

Nevertheless, the European governments continued to pressure the Ottoman

government to improve the conditions of the non-Muslims. In 1844, for instance, the

Porte finally bowed to the great pressure exerted by Stratford Canning, the British

ambassador at Istanbul, on the extremely sensitive issue of apostasy. Canning was able

to extract an imperial irade which promised that the death penalty would not be applied

0 46 to Muslim converts who wish to return to their original faith. This stirred the opposition c of the conservative elements in the empire, who came to view with suspicion the whole

idea of reforms.

Nevertheless, the rising strength of the central government, enabled the Porte to

continue the process of reform and revised, in 1840, the penal code, which reaffirmed the

equality of all Ottoman subjects. Mixed tribunals, that accept Christian testimony against

Muslims, were also established to deal with commercial cases involving foreigners. The

Commercial Code, largely copied from the French Commercial Code, was introduced in

1850. 22

Non-Muslims, however, seemed to have met the new principle of equality with

mixed attitudes and grew increasingly selective on what it has to offer. Despite the fact

that some Christians were admitted to the military medical school after 1839, they

generally seemed, somewhat, reluctant to serve in the armed forces. Christians preferred,

instead, to pay the traditional exemption tax. This also suggests that the application of the

principle of equality in this matter at least, though accepted, was, however, continued to

be deferred.

In 1856, the second Tanzimat edict of Hatt-1 Hiimayun was promulgated, yet again

in the heat of international crisis, following the Crimean War. The new edict laid

particular emphasis on the principle of equality of all Muslims, Christians, and Jews of the

empire. It also specified the number of ways to ensure the guaranteeing of equal rights

to the non-Muslims.

The proclamation of the Hatt-1 Hiimayun was met by yet another mixed reaction.

47 c It aroused opposition among the Muslim Turks, many of whom were resentful of the fact that only foreign pressures were accounted for, indeed propelled the proclamation of the

new edict. The Seyhiilislam pointed to the fact that the British and French fleets as well

as their land armies were in the vicinity of istanbul. Even Re~id P~a himself criticized

the hat, in a lengthy memorandum, calling it "the ferman of concession. "23 Giving

political privileges to Christians, he argued, must be gradual and free from foreign

interference. Re~id also contested the mere mentioning of the hat in the Treaty of Paris

as undermining the independence and honour of the state and the sultan.

Many Turks reiterated Res id's criticism and were particularly resentful of the

emphasis made, in the hat, on equality. Others declared the occasion as "the day of

weeping for the people of Islam," and considered those who sent it from Paris as ignorant

about the institutions of the state. 24

Though reaction among the Christian subjects was more favourable, it could,

nevertheless, still be characterized as a mixed one. The general emphasis on equality was

similarly disfavoured in matters ranging from military service to the onslaught made on

traditional prerogatives. The Greek hierarchy, for instance, feared the loss of their

traditional primacy among the non-Muslims. Some even went as far as expressing their

content with living under the superiority of Islam, instead of being equated with the Jews.

In general, however, and despite the opposition it has generated, the Hatt-1

Hiimayun prevailed as one of the important documents of the Tanzimat era. By

promulgating the hat at the appropriate time, the Porte managed to keep the initiative in

its own hand, while at the same time staving off foreign intervention. On the other hand,

48 the foreign origin of the hat induced the Christian minorities to cease to look to an c Ottoman government, and turned instead to seek Europe's support in securing the

promised equality.

The Hatt-1 Hiimayun, it was hoped, was designed to please everyone; European

powers and non-Muslim subjects for the concessions it made; as well as the Muslim

subjects when they were told that the hat was made to raise the prestige and strengthen the

empire. Instead, it did none of that, but rather incurred the wrath of the Muslims and laid

the basis for their complaints about these concessions. The Christians and Europeans, on

the other hand, continued to express their dissatisfaction with the non-fulfilment of these

concessions. The long range effect of this policy of equality, however, was the increase

in the economic power of the remaining Christian groups, thereby, indirectly, according

them support in their nationalist struggle. 25

By 1856 the Ottoman government was facing the difficult task of administering a

stretched conglomeration of territories. A number of Ottoman provinces, including

Serbia, Moldavia, Wallachia, Egypt and Tunis enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy. The

central government often possessed little knowledge about many regions. This, evidently,

made it extremely strenuous for the government to assume total control over some areas.

The heterogeneous nature of the empire's population presented Ottoman reformers with

the tremendous difficult job of bringing about a reorganized empire on the basis of

Osmanllllk.

Representatives of all millets were appointed in 1864 by the Ministry of Education

to form a High Council for general education. This was initiated in the hope of

49 establishing the Tanzimat secular concept of an "Ottoman nationality". This is to be

achieved, it was stipulated, through the introduction of secular education that would help

foster better understanding and, consequently, political fusion between Muslims and non-

Muslims. Indeed, the lycee of Galaatasaray was established in 1868 with the prospect of

inaugurating this policy of Pan-Ottomanism. 26

The recourse for Ottomanism was judged by some to be but ill-timed; for at the

verge of the second half of the nineteenth century, the Western idea of nationalism was

already permeating into the religious minorities that maintained their own languages and

educational institutions, with sound financial positions of some of its members, and

complete autonomy in their internal communal affairs. This created in each of these a

sense of common entity, and collectively a sense of common interest.

The Greek independence gained with the help of an European crusade already set

the example to be followed. And when the state began to acquire new responsibilities

towards its citizens, according to the Tanzimat principles, the linguistic barrier stood in

the middle between the individual and the state, as it did on the state policy of expanding

public education. Had there existed some sort of unity in the educational system of each

community, the schools would have inculcated future citizens, the empire's language,

history and institutions, and would have planted in them loyalty for the state. The gradual

secularization of education and the acceptance of non-Muslims in the high schools of the

state was no doubt aimed towards achieving these ends. 27

lnspite of the insistence on the principle of equality as a means to mould

communities into a single Ottoman nation, it proved to be difficult, however, to avoid the

0 50 c contradictions inherent in this policy of Ottomanism, or to overcome the difficulties that faced its application. The whole matter needed definite secularized plans at the time when

religious loyalties were still deeply rooted and unwilling to be extinguished promptly.

The state at the top was still essentially an Islamic State and worked for the welfare

of the Muslims and their faith. The non-Muslim millets on the other hand made full use

of the European political, cultural, and economic penetration into the empire as well as

from the promises made in the reforms. They increasingly came to be enjoying a wealthy

and privileged position that aroused the envy and resentment of the Muslims.

Non-Muslims on the whole remained unconvinced and retained themselves

uninfluenced by the vague, though probably pious Ottomanism advocated by the Ottoman

reformers, constitutionalists, and later the young Turks. Similarly, the prevailing

condition of illiteracy, conservative tendencies, and a vast empire strangled by the

disharmony of its social structure, all combined to restrain the reformers who genuinely

strived to animate the principles of Ottomanism. 28

The long range effect of this policy of equality, however, was the increase in the

economic power of the remaining Christian groups, thereby indirectly according them

support in their nationalist struggle. By mid-nineteenth century, the minority peoples of

the empire began to lay greater emphasis on their vernaculars, as the western concept of

nationalism started to produce stronger influence among them. Separatism, therefore,

appealed more to them than the newly brewing concept of Ottomanism. The Muslim­

Turkish intellectuals, on the other hand, seized upon Ottomanism as a nationalist ideology

and attempted to define its content based on their own cultural-social and historical

51 background. 29 c The ideology of nationalism, imported from Europe had challenged and defeated

the centuries old idea of bureaucratic empires presiding from afar over peoples

compartmentalized into self-contained units by religion, race, language, and ecological life

style. For the Muslims of the empire, however, nationalism seemed opposed to Muslim

unity. It could still be labelled as blasphemous, or as yet another European plot to divide

the Muslims in order to eventually subjugate them. Accordingly, nationalism as an

European import was not readily accepted by the Ottoman Muslims. Instead, a subtle

form of religious or Islamic nationalism preceded the development of ethnic nationalism

which began to emerge by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

2- Population Changes

The economic penetration of the West drastically changed the modes of occupation

as well as the stratification patterns among the Muslims in the Ottoman countryside.

Immigration from lost territories as well as the flight of peasants from rural areas caused

much of the inflow into urban areas. It was these lower-class groups which called for war

and demonstrated when foreign intransigence exceeded the limits. 30

After the second half of the nineteenth century, a new phase of mass migration and

influx of refugees fleeing persecution began to infiltrate the already depopulated Ottoman

countryside. Economic misery and natural disasters, however, encouraged further

migrations to urban centres. Most of the refugees came from the Turkish Tatar and

0 52 Circassian lands being reconquered by the Russians. The Ottoman government . c encouraged these movements, and issued a special Refugee Code and refugee commissions

to resettle them. Those refugees who had been resettled in the Ottoman Balkan regions

endured yet another painful resettlement, along with the other Muslim inhabitants, back

to the Ottoman hinterland. These movements increased tremendously at times of rebellion

and war in these regions. The Muslim refugees also brought with them religious

animosity and began to take vengeance at the non-Muslim elements in a manner previously

unknown to the Ottoman hinterland population. 31 The general feeling of uneasiness,

following the Crimean War, led to minor incidents of religious fanaticism in Anatolia and

the Arab provinces. Ephemeral uprisings or disorders also took place in Kurdistan,

Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Albania, and thousands of Tatar refugees poured into the empire

fleeing Russian domination. The Ottoman economy suffered greatly as a direct result of

wars and rebellions, as was evident in the untilled fields, and the triple increase of price,

in only two years, by 1856.32 This also precipitated a dynamic internal population

movement within the empire.

The increased level of urbanization also provided a reliable indicator of the social

transformation during this period. Despite the lack of census figures, estimates suggest

that, in general, the Ottoman Empire witnessed a discernible growth in urban population

of major cities as mass migrations from desolated villages increased. Furthermore, an

increase in the number of Europeans, European colonial subjects (merchants, officials,

missionaries, travellers etc.) as well as Muslim and non-Muslim subjects gave those cities

their cosmopolitan character. The rural Ottoman population and that of the unaffected

0 53 interior towns became increasingly differentiated from the urban population. Niyazi c Berkes suggests that, rather than a rising Turkish bourgeoisie, those Turks living in urban

centres after the second half of the nineteenth century constituted what could be considered

as the "Turkish" middle class. On the top of this class, were both Europeans and non-

Muslim traders. By comparison, Turkish business classes together with the artisans of

medieval guilds proportionately sank to become underprivileged. The latter, on the other

hand, competed with the peasants in marginal economic or otherwise non-productive

activities in the newly growing urban centres. According to Berkes:

"During this period, the medreses, ... , were given an elixir. They became the refuge of the impoverished peasantry. They housed, thanks to their endowments, a reserve army for a reaction against the Tanzimat, or more correctly' against its failure. "33

In the western parts of the empire, the Muslim-Turkish elements underwent a new

stage of social revolution which became politically meaningful partly because of the

pressure of international events in the Balkans, and partly due to the policies of the

government itself. When the Turkish masses in the Balkans lost an effective leadership,

they began to appear only as subservient to the rising Christian notables, or after

independence were simply forced to flee to the remaining areas of the Ottoman state.

Under the circumstances and the new social setting -which they found themselves in-

caused them to use religion as the basis of group solidarity. They increasingly began to

identify themselves with the Ottoman political elite. 34

The war of 1877 with Russia resulted in the loss of vital territories, populated by

large numbers of Muslim-Turkish people, south and southeast of the Danube and the

54 Caucasus. Over one million people migrated to Thrace and Anatolia during this period c in what came to be known in Turkish history as '93 sokumu' -the disaster or 'unweaving

of 93' (1239/1877). The following decades similarly witnessed the loss of additional

European territories and the migration of thousands of additional Muslim Turks into the

heart of the Ottoman empire. This resulted in the disappearance of the empire's Christian­

Muslim balance, and became predominantly inhabited by Muslims in the remaining

areas. 35

Many Muslims turned to the Ottoman state as the only major independent Muslim

state in the world, aside from Iran, capable of liberating their lands from European rule,

at the time when the Ottomans themselves were concerned with the empire's own fate and

survival. 36 Moreover, the lack of emotional appeal among the Christian subjects, who

were held by their own brand of nationalism, caused Ottoman policies of integration to fail

dismally.

55 c CHAPTER 11: ENDNOTES 1. The word capitulation originated in reference to the "chapters" (Latin, capitula) into which each treaty was divided and only later took on its present connotation in keeping with what the treaties came to represent (originally did not involve submission to somebody more powerful). The first capitulation agreements were entered into by a powerful Ottoman Empire in a somewhat condescending spirit toward Europeans and contained reciprocal rights for the Sultan's subjects. But as the Empire became weak, the extra-territorial provisions, which European powers could extend even to local people, particularly dhimmis, increasingly belief Ottoman's control over their own territory. The Ottoman state concluded the first agreements with Italian city-states allowing their subjects these rights in the fourteenth century, and later extended these rights to France in the sixteenth century. On the capitulation in general see N. Sousa, The Capitulatory Regime ofTurkey, (Baltimore, 1933).

2. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, (Montreal, McGill University Press, 1964), pp. 54-55.

3. Kemal H. Karpat, "The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789-1908" m International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), p. 246.

4. Charles Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East, (Chicago, 1966), p. 60.

5. The non-Muslim subjects of the empire, for instance, benefitted the most from the development of trade under the impact of the European economic penetration which, furthermore, created an economic differentiation between them and the Muslims in the predominantly Turkish part of the empire. See N. Berkes, op. cit., pp. 139-142; Frank E. Bailey, British Policy and the Turkish Reform Movement. Cambridge, Mass., 1942., 63-178.

6. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman ... , p. 106.

7. R. Davison, Reform ... , pp. 111-112.

8. Ibid.

9. Bernard Lewis, The emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1968. p. 111.

10. Metin Kunt, Sina ~m et al., Turkiye Tarihi, Vol. 3, Osmanl1 Devleti, 1600-1908, (Ankara, Cem Yaymevi, 1987), p. 132.

11. Ibid.

0 56 12. Ibid.p. 136; Enver Ziya Karal,Osmanl1 Devleti, vol. VII, islahat Fermani Devri, c 1861-1876, Basla, (Ankara, T.T.K., 1983), pp. 228-237.

13. R. Davison, op. cit., pp. 111-113; M. Kunt et al., op. cit., pp. 136-137.

14. R. Davison, op. cit, pp. 301-308; M. Kunt et al., op. cit., pp. 148-149.

15. /bid, 308-310.

16. Similar actions were imposed upon Tunisia and Egypt as well, but these two countries it proved to be the least stage before outright Western control. M. Kunt et al., op. cit., pp. 168-169, N. Berkes, op. cit., pp. 271-273.

11./bid.

18. R. Davison, op. cit., p. 6.

19. N. Berkes, op. cit., p. 147.

20. R. Davison, op. cit, p. 40.

21. /bid, p. 43.

22. !bid; Kemal H. Karpat, op. cit, p. 259.

23. Re~id's memorandum cited in Cevdet's "Tezakir", pp. 76-82, quoted in R. Davison, op. cit., p. 56.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., pp. 59-60.

26. Individual Muslims (and some Jews) met the opening of the school with suspicion, and exhibited earlier signs of concern and preservation. Their scepticism was dissuaded only with assurances from the Turkish press that the new school would produce teachers, engineers, and economists without having to send the students abroad, and that their religious beliefs would not be harmed by contacts with the non-Muslim students. N. Berkes, op. cit., p. 1889.

27. Ibid.

28. R. Davison, pp. 55-56.

0 57 29. !bid, p. 222., N. Berkes, op. cit., p. 221. c 30. Kemal H. Karpat, op. cit, p. 247.

31. Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, (Wisconsin, University Press, 1985), p. 57. S. Shaw and E.K. Shaw, op. cit p. 116.

32. N. Berkes, op. cit., p. 95.

33. N. Berkes, op. cit., p. 145. Many of these medrese students actually came from the Balkan regions and were often angered and protested against the persecution of their families and relatives at times of turmoil in these regions. See M. Kunt et al., op. cit., p. 150.

34. K. H. Karpat, The Transformation of the Ottoman State ... , p. 250.

35. Ibid., pp. 272-273.

36. Ibid.

58 CHAPTER Ill

EXPRESSION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF PAN-ISLAMISM IN THE EMPIRE

59 c Journalism and literature became the by-products of earlier reform efforts that

started with Sultan Mahmut II. These two mediums later carried the earliest liberal ideas

expressed in Ottoman Turkish - the governmental and literary language of the time. 1

The continuation of Arabic, as the language of new learning, suffered

proportionately with the secularizing reforms of the Tanzimat. Consequently, the Ottoman

language emerged as the language of modern education as well as of the modern

government. It also appeared to incorporate a universal character that came to represent

the Tanzimat idea of Ottomanism.

Niyazi Berkes also suggested that the Tanzimat encouraged the cultivation of

Ottoman as a new literary and scientific instrument that would possibly counter the impact

of French on the educated elite. For some time, French posed as a possible medium of

teaching, which would likely function as a convenient vehicle for expressing new ideals

and ideas. Therefore, a modernized form of Ottoman was sought to be an ideal medium

capable of expressing new concepts - but still based on traditional foundations - in a way

understandable to all people.2

This continued until the accession of the capable Sultan Abdiilhamid 11, who later

managed to sway away the constitutionalists. By so doing, Abdiilhamid II was also able

to transform the mounting opposition against the Tanzimat towards laying the foundation

of an Islamic state. 3

The dissemination of Ottoman was facilitated through such means as school­

teaching, literature, and the press. Moreover, it was even used, particularly through the

0 60 c efforts of Cevdet P~a. as a medium for teaching, and hence popularizing the religion of Islam to the common literate people. However, the development of the "literature

language of the elite" induced, within a short period of time, an enormous gap between

Ottoman and the ordinary Turkish of the common people. 4

The Tanzimat statesmen envisaged the popularization of culture through reform of

the script. Together with education, this could be achieved through the development of

the press; and ultimately would lead to the rise of intellectual life and the development of

schools of thought. This development, however, led to an inevitable divergence between

graduates of the modern secular schools and the ulema who continued to receive their

education in the (concurrently existing) more traditional medreses. The increased

insulation of the national language from the medrese led eventually to the further alienation

of Islam from the political developments of the Tanzimat. 5

The increase in foreign relations culminated in the creation of the Tercume Odas1

(Translation Bureau) in 1833. This bureau was created for the purpose of training new

diplomats, who also, later on, formed the nucleus of the new intelligentsia that came to

play a central role in the ideological developments during the nineteenth century, and

undertook the task of advancing traditional Turkish literature and intellectual life. The

leading figures of the Young Ottomans, who were also instrumental in the development

of a powerful modern press, were graduates of this Bureau. 6

Modern education gained a new impetus. In the late 1850s there was an increase

in the number of modern elementary and even greater increase in secondary schools. The

Lycee of Galatasaray, an elite institution, emerged in 1860. With its instruction in French

0 61 and a totally Western-style curriculum, this 0 school was to play a central role in the growth of a modem-educated class.

Intellectuals (munevver), the products of the new secular schools, formed an

important category within the Ottoman urban population. Though with a degree of

differentiation, some medrese graduates could also be added to this category. They

constituted the upper echelon of different sectors of the bureaucracy, and with time, began

to assume much wider intellectual functions. 7

Among the other influences that affected reforms in the empire, beside diplomatic

pressure, were the entrenched Islamic tradition, the experiences encountered at previous

reform efforts, differences existing among Ottoman statesmen of the time, a rising yet

vocal public opinion that developed with contacts with the West, the introduction of

modem means of communication, as well as the beginning of a new movement in

literature. It is interesting to note that the latter two, represented the product of converging

and competing schools of thought ranging from the traditional to the latest secular

thought. 8

Sultan Mahmut 11 was successful in overcoming the Muslim resistance to new

reforms, as well as confining the Ulema to an allotted sphere, where they only conducted

their religious (as opposed to worldly) activities. This had, however, persisted until

foreign intervention with religious implications forced them back to the political domain

anew. Upholders of the ~eriat consistently opposed efforts made toward the introduction

of laws derived from European; and hence non-Islamic sources. They argued tirelessly that 0 new laws constituted radical encroachments against the ~eriat. In effect, their opposition

62 c symbolized an unceasing tendency among the reactionary camp to call for the return of religion as the backbone of polity. They triumphed, however, eventually effecting a return

of the $eriat during the reign of Abdiilhamid. 9

The lack of a national middle class, that could organize pressure from below,

exposed the ruling group as the designated reform party. However, the integrity of this

ruling group was hardly maintained as differences figured prominently on either the

objectives as well as the methods of reform. There was no lack of true and intelligent

conservatives, who opposed a sharp break with faith, the state and the past, as well as men

who acquired knowledge of western intellectual, political, and economic patterns, and

came up with their own interpretation oflslam. Both groups, however, constituted a ruling

group that was earnestly interested in brushing off external and internal pressures, and

dedicated itself to the preservation of the state. 10

However, many obstacles continued to engulf the leading Tanzimat reformers,

making it increasingly arduous for them to impose far-fetched and ambitious reforms. The

most important of these obstacles being the effect of traditional Islam, and the innate pride

and sense of superiority among the Muslim Turks as a ruling millet or millet-i hakime.

Consequently, and although Turkish Muslims were generally tolerant towards adherents

of other revealed religions, there remained an intensity of feeling among the Muslims that

was capable of producing fanatical outbursts, especially at times of political crises.

Moreover, Christianity and Judaism were considered only as partial revelation of the truth,

whereas the most learned of the Ulema as well as the common mass of Muslims conceived

Islam as the true faith. Therefore, in the light of religious revelation, maintained Roderic

0 Davison, "Christians and Jews were looked upon as second class citizens. "11

63 c Although there were individual exceptions, the Ulema, as upholders of Muslim traditions and Muslim learning, were inherently conservative, and as such often posed as

an obstacle to reform. Though it would be erroneous to describe the Ulema as fanatics,

they were, nevertheless, capable of inspiring fanatic sentiment among the Muslim

population, especially at times of dire political and economic stress. The innate pride in

their faith, that the Ulema maintained as a group, placed them as the leading defen~ers of

the established tradition. 12

Upon Sultan Abdiilaziz's accession, the conservative seemed to have hoped for

more from the new sultan, probably due to the fact that his accession hat seemed to lay

particular emphasis on conformity with the Seriat. The generally circulating rumours, at

the time, that Sultan Abdiilaziz was believed to be an "old Turk" might have also been a

factor in raising the traditionalists' expectation. 13

Western influences upon the people of the empire also increased apace, specially

after the Crimean War. This was particularly evident in the advent of the telegraph and

the introduction of other means of communication. Diplomats, travellers and adventurers,

businessmen, missionaries, students and refugees, among other groups, personified other

traditional channels of communications. 14

Diplomats were among the most prominent Europeans in the empire, but they

generally aroused suspicion because of their arrogance, disdainful manners, and constant

interference in Ottoman affairs. Russian diplomats were particularly disliked for their

outright support to the Balkan Slavs and the empire's Orthodox subjects. The high-handed 0 approach which foreign diplomats took in dealing with the Porte, often hampered the

64 c reform efforts of Ottoman statesmen, and further presented a significant obstacle to the general acceptance of their reform program. Many, including Cevdet P~a, lamented the

lack of adequate knowledge on the part of foreign diplomats, about Turkey or Islam. 15

The extraterritorial rights given to individual foreigners under the capitulations

constituted another basis through which diplomats and councils often used to interfere in

Ottoman affairs. Representatives of the great powers frequently abused the special

privileges, accorded to foreign nationals, ranging from the benefits of secular courts to

various kinds of tax exemptions. Among the abuses embittered the Turks the most was the

extension of protection, and consequently the capitulatory privileges, to thousands of

Ottoman Christians. These privileges placed the latter at an advantageous status ahead of

the ordinary Turks, both in business and on the social level. A number of these proteges

were also given foreign passports of countries they have not even seen before. Especially

just after the Crimean War, the major coast cities of the empire were filled by other

proteges from outside the empire, under either British, French, or Austrian protection,

who were, according to Davison "often, of shady or even criminal type" .16

As these kind of people, as well as other Westerners, who did not hesitate to take

advantage of the hospitable empire, became increasingly representatives of the West,

Muslim subjects of the empire grew resentful with the whole idea of western-rooted

reform. Evangelistic activities of missionaries from France, England, Germany, Italy, and

America, who were widely scattered over the empire, also aroused Turkish suspicion and

resentment. In the post-Crimean era, the efforts of these missionaries often ran against

Ottoman interests, when they encouraged sectarianism, and helped Bulgars, Arabs, and

0 Armenians advance their national consciousness. 17

65 c After the revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1863, Polish and Hungarian refugees poured into the Ottoman Empire in big numbers. They were looked upon more favourably

than other westerners, as they served no great power. Moreover, they also shared with the

Turks their bitterness and contempt against Russia, and a number of them adopted Islam

and married Turkish wives. The Porte often benefited from the services of the educated

professionals of this group when they were employed as doctors, engineers, and army

officers. One 6mer Lutfi P~a. formerly Michel Lattas - an Austrian Croat even became

the governor of Baghdad in 1857. 18

Hence, the different breed of westerners who flooded the Ottoman Empire created

mixed feelings and diverse perceptions from the part of the ordinary Turks. This same

mixed reaction, equally disclaimed western ideas and institutions.

To the ordinary Turks, the Tanzimat reforms represented a threat to the established

order, and consequently to the integrity of the Turkish Muslim society. This fear was

reinforced by the natural reluctance and resistance to change and innovation, and the

ingrained pride that Muslims possess for their faith. Davison maintained that borrowing

the institutions of an alien and an adverse western society meant, in effect, the acceptance

of the customs and ways of the Christian minorities whose position enabled them to

assimilate western ideas and patterns of life, regardless of how superficial their

assimilation has been. This acid test was particularly evident with government attempts

at the institutionalization of the new doctrine of equality. 19

Such a state of opinion in the empire, after the Crimean War, accounted for the

long period of slow change that characterized the execution of Tanzimat reforms. This

0 happened, it is worth mentioning, at the time when the situation of the empire called for

66 c immediate action persistently been urged by European diplomats; a task that was challenged by many obstacles. The most serious of these difficulties, according to Fuad

P~a, rested in "the national prejudices and in the condition of the public mores "20 Minor

incidents of religious fanaticism in Anatolia and the Arab provinces took place, due to the

general feeling of uneasiness, following the Crimean War. Ephemeral rising or disorders

also took place in Kurdistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Albania. The Ottoman economy

suffered greatly as a result of all these as well as the migration of thousands of Tatar

refugees pouring into the empire fleeing Russian domination.

During the Tanzimat period, foreigners as well as Turks advanced such arguments

that Islamic precepts contained no barrier to modernization, equality, and representative

government. Ubicini, for instance, believed that essentially all elements of modern

democracy were to be found in the teachings of the Koran's; while the young Ottomans,

within a few years, were to argue the fundamental democracy of Islam and its

compatibility with modernity. 21

Nevertheless, following the major progress, in education and the Tanzimat

accomplishments in the simplification of the written Turkish, and the literary

development, all combined to play a significant role in the Ottoman state. The reading

public, hence, began to be exposed to new ideas and institutions that had hitherto unheard

of.22

After 1860 more means became readily available for political socialization and

mass indoctrination; namely communication and the establishment of a modern press.

Both were used to enlist large numbers of people in the process of modernization, thus

0 paving the way for a new phase of Ottoman transformation. 23

67 Muslim Turkish subjects of the empire acquired for the first time new means of c criticisms through writings in newspapers, periodicals, etc. An incipient but effective

Turkish cultural movement was emerging following the Crimean War. The rise of a new

Ottoman middle class accelerated the rebirth of a nascent literary movement that

incorporated most of the enlightened laymen who challenged the traditional role of the

Ulema as the cultural leaders of the Islamic community. New literary forms as plays,

operas, stories and new social and political ideas were introduced. The simplification of

the Turkish language led further to the dissemination of new notions and ideas of nations,

government and progress. In general the changes in the basic Ottoman institutions led to

corresponding alterations in the social fabric, and inspite of the restraints of political

instability of the Tanzimat, continuity of policy remained, however, remarkably persistent.

The subject classes increased in confidence and felt and enjoyed the privileges and stability

of order. But traditionalism was now gradually giving way to increased liberalization

developed through the medium of the press, and by the improved level of communication,

and increased awareness of the outside world. All these combined to create in the Muslim

people of the empire an awareness of their own entity, though at this stage with deep

religious affinities, and created in them a tendency to resist despotic absolutism by

advocating constitutionalism and the establishment of a responsible government that they

could take pride in identifying themselves with.

0

68 CHAPIER Ill: ENVNOTES c 1. Niyazi Berkes, The development of Secularism ... , p.192.

2. Ibid. p.193.

3. Ibid. p.195.

4. /bid

5. Ibid. p.193-194.

6. Kemal H. Karpat, Transformation of the Ottoman State ... , P.255

7. N. Berkes,op.cit. p.142.

8. Ibid. p. 177; Roderic Davison, Reform .. , .p. 9.

9. N. Berkes,op.cit. p.172.

10. R. Davison, Reform .. , .p.64-65.

11. R. Davison, Reform .. , p.65.

12. R. Davison, Reform .. , p.67.

13. Abdiilaziz's accession occurred at a crucial time when the Porte was confronted with an alarming financial crisis that reached disastrous proportions in 1861. Also, at the same time, the empire was facing the Christian peasants' rising in Herzegovina, which was supported by Montenegro in 1862./bid. p.109-110.

14. Ibid. p.70.

15. It is no wonder, therefore, that Ottoman literature of the time was filled with stories of Russia's intrigues. R. Davison, Reform .. , p. 71.

16. Ibid. p.244. Siileyman Pa§a Criticized the Europeans for not mingling with the Turks, but with the Greeks and Armenians instead: Hiss-i inkilab, (Istanbul, 1326), p. 5)

17. These missionaries often supported the development of the vernacular of the Christians and founded schools that were mostly frequented by them. R. Davison,/bid. p.74-75.

18. Ibid. p.77.

0 69 19. Ibid. c 20. Fuad's memorandum of 1867, in Ubicini, Etat Present, p. 244. Quoted in Davison, Reform .. , p. 97-80.

21. Ubicini, Letters, I, p.57. cited in Davison, Reform .. , p. 67.

22. The first newspaper in the Islamic world, al-Waqa'i' al-Misfiyyah, was founded in Egypt by Mehmet Ali in 1828, and was published in Turkish and Arabic. Sultan Mahmut followed suit with his Takvim-i Vakayi (Calendar of Events), published in Turkish and French in 1831. N. Berkes, op.cit. p.126.

23. K. Karpat, op.cit. p.261.

0 70 c

CHAPTER IV

. AGENTS OF PAN-ISLAMIC IDEAS

0 c A- Early Political Groups

Inspite of the changing aspects of the Ottoman society as a result of the Tanzimat

reforms, features of the process of change as observed by the Ottomans, no doubt, aroused

their sentiments. They were the products of the Tanzimat ideal of ameliorating the

condition and quality of the people. Now they became increasingly in demand of these

amelioratist measures, and if need be they could struggle to obtain a saying in the

determination of their own fate.

The encroachment of Western powers was increasingly undermining the religious

basis of the state. Furthermore, the rising autocracy of the central government; economic

difficulties; and the growing bankruptcy of the state (when contrasted to the material and

communal successes of the non-Muslim millets) led the Muslims of the empire to question

the whole issue of reform and Westernization. Their Islamic heritage provided the only

basis for unity with which they could counter the difficulties of an unknown future. The

early impetus of the constitutional movement, therefore, acquired a religious,

anti-Western, and anti-Tanzimat outlook. 1

The first manifestation of the religious reaction appeared early in 1859 when a

secret group called itself the society for the preservation of the f:jeriat (Muhilfaza-i f:jeriat),

or the society for self-sacrifice (Fedai) was organized. It included army officers,

intellectuals, Ulema, medrese students, and a few others. They attempted an abortive plot

to depose; and if necessary even assassinate Sultan Abdiilmecid in protest of Western

reforms and the concession his hat has given to the Non-Muslims. Their aim was to

0 72 c restore the application of the Seriat law as the basic law of the state.2 Another secret society was organized in 1865, called itself ittijtlk-i Himyet (or the

Patriotic Alliance). This group was later came to be known as the Young Ottomans. Its

first aim was to "change the absolutist regime to a constitutional regime" .3 Their real

inspiration was their knowledge of French and an intimate observation of developments

in Western Europe. There seems to be no apparent programme of immediate action,

however, but the most literary gifted members of the society engaged in launching an

effective intellectual campaign against the sultan and his government through the medium

of a nascent but effectively growing indigenous press.

At first, they seem to have functioned loosely as a group; but a stronger bond

among them was that they represented the vocal Muslim reaction and resentment at

European interference in the affairs of the state, or more correctly, at the weakness of the

empire and its government, which was apparent in the eventful years of revolt in Crete,

and the evacuation of Belgrade in 1867. Their criticism, as demonstrated in the rising

Turkish journalism, amounted to a form of political and literary renaissance in the empire.

Though their proposed solutions seemed to have varied, they agreed, however, in at least

three basic ideas; namely constitutionalism, parliamentarianism, and Ottomanism.4 A brief

account of some of the prominent Young Ottoman figures; and their contributions is worth

mentioning here.

The three Ottoman intellectuals and forerunners of modern intelligentsia, :lbrahim

Sinas1 (1826-71), Ziya P~a (1825-80), and Namlk Kemal (1840-88) attempted to develop

an ideology and a broad theoretical grounds for the new reform institutions based on

0 73 c Islamic political tradition and Ottoman principles of government. They centred their ideas primarily on the restructuring of state institutions along the Islamic political traditions and

aimed at institutional adaptation as well as political socialization. In a way they acted as

agents of the centralized bureaucratic structure despite their professed differences with the

sultan, stemming principally from the desire to re-define the powers and functions of the

throne.

The Young Ottomans were considered 'liberal' in the sense that they called for the

introduction of a constitutional order and of representative institutions in order to create

a division of functions within the ruling institution. They criticized the absolute powers

of the sultan and his bureaucracy and sought to correct the errors of the Tanzimat reforms

so that the use of state power would not impose an alien cultural system upon society. The

Islamic principles of m~veret and Sura (consultation and council), instead of groups and

their interests, provided the basis on which representation was justified. 5

Most famous of the Young Ottomans in his contribution to the development of

Ottoman journalism was the poet, and dramatist, ibrahim Sinas1. He served as a former

clerk in the government, and was later sent to Paris through the help of Re~id P~a, where

he learnt French and acquired great interest and love for literature. His major contribution

was the simplification of the Turkish language. Thanks to his efforts, Ottoman Turkish

became widely intelligible in the social, political, and scientific subjects. He helped

achieve this, largely through his journalistic career, and later in his own journal the

Tasvir-i Ajkflr (Description of Ideas), in which he also published articles on historical,

literary and social subjects intended for the education of the general public. 6

0 74 Shortly after that, he was joined by the talented youth, Nanuk Kemal, who later c became one of the pioneering advocates of Pan-Islam. They set to work to build up the

confidence of a public opinion that could be taken seriously within the Ottoman Empire.

Other prominent members of the group were Ziya P~a, and the stormy Ali Suavi, who

preached in his own newspaper Muhbir (Messenger) a kind of constitutionalism based on

the Koranic doctrine of consultation (m~veret). 7

When Kemallater took over the editing of the Tasvir-i Ajkflr he was still trying to

raise the general cultural level of his people, but his writings, afterwards, began to assume

a more political tone. 8

The year 1867 was a turning point for the Young Ottomans when the Egyptian

prince Mustafa Fazll, once an Ottoman statesman, sent a letter in French from Paris to

Sultan Abdiilaziz (1861-76) demanding political reforms with emphasis on equality and the

need for constitutional reforms. Prince Mustafa Fazll's letter which he wrote to sultan

Abdiilaziz (published in 1867) best expressed the 'liberal' political thought that sought to

curb the powers of the sultan. He expressed his fear that the pride and honour of the state

were diminishing because of the injustices whims and exactions of subordinate officials

who depended only nominally on the sultan. The society then turned into oppressors and

the oppressed. The causes for intellectual degeneration, loss of moral virility, and

stagnation in agriculture and trade, he maintained, lay in "the political system's lack of

freedom and of a constitution. He also set examples of European countries and even of

the parliamentary beginnings in Egypt, Tunisia, Moldavia and Wallachia, and Serbia.9

This struck a vibrant chord for the Young Ottomans. Mustafa Fazll's letter was

0 75 hastily translated into Turkish, published, and widely distributed by the Young Ottomans. c They used the situation to condemn the adminstration of Ali Pa§a more openly, principally

on the diplomatic issues of Serbia and Crete. The Porte annoyed by the increasing

vehemence of their criticism, banished the agitators to various provincial posts. Instead,

upon the invitation of Prince Mustafa Faztl they joined him in Paris, where they managed

to achieve greater cohesion and began to share some common attitudes towards the

Ottoman Empire. They gathered there around the wealthy prince who provided

allowances for them and their publications. Their clandestine organs, HUrriyet (Freedom)

and Muhbir, were smuggled to the empire through the foreign post offices and were

widely read at home. Their publications seemed to have equally aimed at influencing

European opinion against the tyrannical leadership of Ali Pa§a; and also at emphasizing

the progressive aspect of Islam as capable of inspiring sound reforms. Shortly after the

defection of their princely guardian into reconciliation with the sultan, however, the Young

Ottomans were relapsed into disunion in European capitals. 10 Differences in opinion,

however, later crept into the group, and upon the death of Ali Pa§a in 1871, they began

to return back to the empire (with the exception of Ali Suavi who continued his Muhbir­

now more fanatically Muslim in tone- this time from London)Y

The Young Ottomans then resumed their journalistic and literary careers at home.

In his new paper tbret (Admonition) Nannk Kemal began preaching the essentially

democratic and progressive aspects of Islam in its principles of Sura (council) and the

UsUI-i m~veret (methods of consultation). The incorporation of these principles in

accordance with the Seriat, he argued, should be included in a constitution for the Islamic

0 76 Caliphate. His provocation for an Ottoman state based on religious principles constituted c a form of fme Islamic appeal. tbret became an organ for Pan-Islam and ideas of the unity

of all Muslims. 12

Kemal' s articles called for a rational reorganization of economic life and protection

of state property against the abuses of foreigners in property rights, trade and agriculture.

He favoured the expansion and nationalization of economic activity, but without according

undue favour to the christian minorities. He criticised the privileges granted to the

Christians and their demand for yet more, without showing complete loyalty and devotion

to their country. Kemal also denounced their separatism and opposed European

interference on their behalf, nevertheless, he also continued to pontificate the principle of

equality and Ottomanism.

When Kemal resumed his writings in the newspaper Basiret (which also became

the mouthpiece of the rising Muslim middle classes), he always spoke about the need for

"Muslim banks, Muslim corporations, and about protecting and supporting the Muslim

merchants. His purpose was to develop the Hayriye [Muslim] businessmen and the

Ottoman-Muslim enterprises. "13

The Young Ottomans were also concerned about the political culture of the

emerging modern Ottoman state. The basic goal was the creation of a new form of

identity and people loyal to their government. The new concept of Vatan (or fatherland)

was supposed to supersede religious, ethnic, and local divisions. In order to feed the

masses, with the emotional appeal, which was needed as a means of mass mobilization and

identification, Nanuk: Kemal turned to achievements in history to bolster confidence in the

0 77 future. His "historical romanticism" served as both a defense against prejudiced Western c views of Ottoman history as well as a bid to foster loyalty to the state using the concept

of fatherland. He began fostering a new concept of patriotism by showing interest in the

greatness and brightness of the Ottomans and their history. Nevertheless, the emerging

idea of fatherland was devised according to the Western approach and usages of ideology,

but only replacing Islamic values for Christian ones. It could hardly appeal, therefore, to

the Christian groups, who were striving to establish their own fatherlands.

Furthermore, beside his inculcation of Ottoman patriotism, he advocated, as also

did Ziya P~a, better education in the modern sciences and the improvement of agriculture

and industry of the state in order to withstand the penetrating European supremacy.

Roderic Davison pointed out that the Young Ottomans' criticism of the conduct of Ali P~a

helped "bolster the reaction and the Islamic sentiment that developed, in the empire, in

1871". 14

In the years 1867 to 1870, a number of pamphlets appeared, which advanced ideas

that paralleled that of; and reminiscent of Mustafa Fazt.l' s pamphlet. A group of Muslim

patriots circulated in 1867 an anonymous pamphlet that called for justice and liberty, and

insisted that the Koran was essentially in harmony with the requirements of humanity and

progress. 15 They demanded in their pamphlet a constitution and an egalitarian regime;

and called for the need to raise the economic level of the country in order to stave off

foreign intervention.

More assertive was the argument addressed, in the same year, by the Tunisian

0 78 statesman Hayreddin P~a. who was more concerned with raising Muslim states to the c European standard by the acquisition of European ideas and techniques in order to help

resist European control. He also envisaged a kind of government that would incorporate

representation of ministers and Ulema as an indispensable check on the authority of the

sovereign. 16 A year later Mustafa Celaleddin, a Turkish army officer and a Pole by

origin, published another work advocating Ottoman political reforms; and even went as

far as assigning apportioned seats to all elements of the empire in an elective chamber .17

The beginning of the seventh decade marked the inauguration of a new and

detrimental epoch in the history of the Ottoman empire. The increased political economic

and financial problems of the state developed a renascent anti-Westernism that stimulated

some elements of Ottoman patriotism mixed with Islamic conservatism as manifested in

the growing Pan-Islamic sentiment. In part the new religious sentiment seemed to have

been a reaction to the secularization of the Tanzimat and European pressures.

Early in 1870 Jamal al-Din al-Afgha.ni, a man with quite a reputation for learning,

made his first appearance in the Ottoman capital, where he was assigned a position in the

council of education. He delivered speeches in the mosques of Ayasofya and Sultan

Ahmed and gave a lecture under the auspices of the projected university of Diirnl-Funun. 18

In his lecture, he spoke on the usefulness of the arts and was criticised, especially by the

$eyhulislam Hasan Fehmi, of attributing a certain craft to the prophet. Amid the growing

controversy, he was eventually asked to depart by the Porte in order to calm down the

situation. 19 Ironically, Afghani was used, in this incident, as a scapegoat for the

0 79 c conservative elements and particularly the Ulema, who sought to stultify the inauguration of a secular university that would undermine their position as learned men and their status

as representing an educational institution.

The Ottoman Turks awareness of other Muslims and Turkish peoples in Central

Asia and China, who suffered foreign aggression also helped to revive the growing Islamic

sentiment. In their appeal to the Ottomans, missions were sent from Khiva, Bukhara and

Kashgar and other places, and demonstrated gestures that symbolized their recognition of

Sultan Abdiilaziz as Caliph. Yaqub Beg who recovered Turkistan from Chinese control,

sent as a vessel, envoys to Abdiilaziz and had the sultan's name struck on coins; and

mentioned in the prayers. The sultan, however, could only render them his sympathies

and a few Ottoman officers to act as military instructors.20 The Ottoman state was in no

way capable of waging war on such a wide scale. This is also true of the Indian Muslim

who demonstrated support for the Sultan-Caliph hoping he would declare a jihad against

the British. 21 Russia also contributed to the rise of Pan-Islamism by pursuing its policies

of Pan-Slavism and by their military activities in Central Asia. North African countries,

and Tunisian and Algerian Arabs in particular sought the support of the sultan against

great power threats; and there was a growing tendency to recognize the Ottoman sultan

as the legitimate sovereign and Caliph. 22

Pan-Islamic sentiment grew in Istanbul in response to these events and the

Ottomans began to be aware of their role as leaders of the Islamic world. The Basiret

(Knowledge) newspaper was very active in expressing the cultural bonds of Islam and the

need for unity of all Muslims. It was even successful in arousing the concern of the Dutch

0 80 c when it carried news of military assistance to the sultan of Atchin in Sumatra. Other conservative papers also brought to attention the situation in Algeria and in other Muslim

countries. But this phase of Pan-Islamism, however, entertained only the need for a

common bondage of Muslims, and consequently, it helped produce only "the sentimental

attachment to the concept of the Caliphate" .23 Anti-westernism furnished its characteristic

as clearly manifested in the hostility towards foreigners and their missionary and

proselytizing activities within the Empire.

Sultan Abiilaziz used the prevailing conditions and tried to reassert the role of the

palace in state affairs especially after the death of Ali P~a. The last phase of Abdiilaziz's

reign was marked by the rapid shifting of state officials which undermined the continuity

of the process of reforms. His personality was growing increasingly capricious. The

quick replacement of top officials led each of these, of whom the most famous was

Mahmut Nedim P~a (Grand Vezier for several times) to engage in intrigues to secure

office by trying to satisfy the whims of the sultan. Count Nicholas Ignatiev, The Russian

ambassador and an active exponent of Pan-Slavism, on the other hand, became

increasingly influential as the sultan and his minister N edim tried an appeasing policy to

win the friendship of the Russians. But the deterioration of state conditions and the

increasing economic chaos caused the exasperated populace to begrudge the sultan's

extravagances, and the influence of the Valide Sultan, as they equally resented the grand

vezier "Nadimoff" who seemed to have been growing increasingly vulnerable to Russian

influence. 24

Meanwhile, Nanuk: Kemal and his colleagues continued their agitating criticism of

0 81 c state conditions. Kemal's patriotic play Vatan Yahut Silistre (Fatherland or Silistria), filled with tremendous emotional content, was performed during this time; and ignited blustery

demonstrations of discontent in the capital. It also led to his second banishment to

provincial exile. The following years witnessed more concentration of troubles beginning

in 1872 with drought and famine in Anatolia, followed by a severe winter and flood that

perished and plagued the country. The government calling for army recruitment to the

Balkan rebellion in 1875-1976 aggravated the already current depopulation of the

countryside. The government also pressed for more and new taxes to stop the growing

bankruptcy of the state with no avail under the prevailing conditions. General discontent

spread to the Balkans and a violent uprising broke out in Herzegovina and quickly spread

in scope and intensity to the whole Peninsula.

The Porte first adopted a more lenient policy toward the rebels, in part through

lgnatiev's influence who in the meantime continued to foster the rebellion by backing and

intensifying Pan-Slavic tendencies. This no doubt, added to the prevailing distress, and

set the inertia for the already flickered Muslim feeling and popular discontent. The Young

Ottoman's efforts to create a salient public opinion were not lost in vain. The Ottoman

public now was pressing the government to act to improve the situation.

A number of events occurred, thereafter, enhanced the already rising Turcophobia

in the West and vice versa. 25 The Porte unable to meet the high interests on public loans,

halved and later suspended their interest payments in 1876. This led to the discredibility

of the Ottoman government in Europe. Furthermore, news about the repressive measures

taken towards the Christian rebels by using irregular forces were twisted in European

0 82 c press; inducing a crusading hostility towards the Ottomans. And when Muslims in the Balkans were being massacred py the rebels, the government seemed to have lost control

over the furious populace. The softas or medrese students rioted in the streets of the capital

in protest, and were appeased only by a change in ministers. Public disregard for the

unpredicted sultan dominated, and the idea and need of a constitution to curb his

absolutism was intensified. An urgent quest for a constitution began in which Midhat P~a

was to take the leading role. The dominant feeling of enthusiasm for the constitution led

a group led by Hiiseyn A vni, the minister of war, to effect a successful bloodless coup to

depose Sultan Abdiilaziz. He was to be replaced by the more liberal sultan, Murad V. But

the new sultan who was already suffering from mental disorder, was unable to meet the

unhappy events that followed, which led to his complete mental collapse.26 A second

deposition was considered by the ministers, this time to bring to the throne the more willy

sultan Abdiilhamid IT (1876-1909) after Midhat P~a had extracted from him a promise to

announce the forthcoming constitution. 27

After some heated discussions, the new constitution was promulgated in December

1876, in an atmosphere that was dominated by a national and an Islamic reaction against

the Pan-Slavic and the European interference in favour of the Balkan rebels. It was timed

to coincide with the international conference that convened in Istanbul which, nevertheless,

continued its works and came out with certain reforms for the Balkan Christian provinces.

It also called for an international committee to supervise the conduct of reforms. Upon

the sultan's refusal to this final measure, however, Russia acted unilaterally, and thus

began the Turco-Russian war of 1877-8.

0 83 c B- Hamidian Pan-Islamism

The reign of Abdiilhamid 11 (1876-1909) started with the constitution of 1876,

which endeavoured to institute a constitutional monarchy based on the Islamic principles

1 of Sura (council) and m~veret (consultation). But soon afterwards, Abdiilhamid S

autocracy stopped all political trends that led to the establishment of this constitution.

The Turco-Russian war provided Abdiilhamid with the opportunity to call off the

constitution which already gave him all power and the final saying in it. It was not

convened again for thirty years. During the war Abdiilhamid used his title as caliph and

the prevailing anti-western sentiment to call for Muslim support against the Russians.28

This first appeal for universal Muslim support, though achieved only limited response,

may have convinced the new sultan of the importance of the Muslim unity for the

recuperation of the Empire, and hinted him of the importance of his position as caliph of

all Muslims.

The atmosphere in which he ascended the throne, the internal and external crises

of the state, and his distrust of his statesmen, all combined to determine the new sultan 1 s

future plans for despotic rule. The tragic dethronement of his uncle sultan Abdiilaziz

followed by his dramatic death, and the abortive attempt, led by Ali Suavi, to reimpose

the ex-sultan Murad V, caused him to fear his possible dethronement. Finally after the

end of the war and the culminating peace of Berlin, the sultan became convinced of the

need for an efficient administration to ward off the great powers I threats. This according

0 84 to the new sultan, could only be achieved through a centralized 0 policy. As we shall see he justified this - as long as he was supported by the prevailing realities- by utilizing his

position as a benevolent and patrimonial caliph of the Muslim peoples. In 1870 sultan

Abdiilaziz began the effort to strengthen the power of the throne, but it was Abdiilhamid

11 who consolidated this power and sought further to legitimize it through reinterpretation

of Ottoman Islamic political theory, and generalizing the rule of Islam in government

affairs.

The Turco-Russian war and the succeeding peace treaties of St.Stephanos and

Berlin (1878), had severe implications on the Ottoman state. In the first place, the manner

in which the war was conducted for the protection of the Christians, assumed essentially

the character of a religious war, secondly, the provisions of the culminating settlement had

practically ended the Empire's domination and influence in its European provinces.

Thousands of Muslims were forced to abandon their wealth and properties. A flow of

Muslim migration to Anatolia ensued, and led to a tremendous decrease in the number of

the Muslim population in the remaining territories. 29 These migrants also carried with

them their hatred to the Christian subjects who betrayed the state, which have hitherto

treated them as loyal subjects.

The Muslim general opinion was similarly against the European claim that the

Turks and Muslims were incapable of progress and civilization, and against their continued

interference on the pretext of protecting the Christians. The religious mo.tives that were

identified with foreign interference (as represented by 'reformists' urges of Stratford

Canning) appeared to threaten the society's cultural survival. The throne appeared as the

0 85 c repository as well as the agency most suited to defend and preserve all ancient values. Abdiilhamid' s stature seemed to have been elevated among the religious-minded and

traditionalists largely due to his pious nature, ascetic habits, as well as his occasional

resistance to outside demands. He tried to reassert the identity of society more in religious

terms, and seems to have capitalized on the religious instinct of the people, which, he

believed, constituted the dominant force among Easterners. Karpat maintains that this

pattern of thought was, in fact;

"a reassertion of the Islamic identity and of piety as strongholds of resistance to the onslaught of change ... [and] a response to the changed conditions in the Ottoman empire and in the Islamic world in general. "30

Moreover, European intervention later assumed an aspect of a direct military

occupation at the expenses of the Ottoman Empire. From Central Asia to Tunisia, The

European imperialists completed the encirclement of most of the lands inhabited by

Muslims. Sporadic resistance movements assumed a local character devoid of any kind of

bondage, except the fact that most were directed against Christians, and that they were in

essence oflslamic character. Most of these movements were unsuccessful, however, and

the focus was placed at the Ottoman empire as the only major Muslim state capable of

fending off the European encroachment.

The call for unity of all Muslim peoples and states to unite in a common front

against the Western aggressions and domination was projected by certain prominent

figures, of whom the most famous and active was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who led a

0 86 militant and a stormy career. He travelled, wrote, and talked extensively preaching for

material and political reforms for the Muslims in order to be able to unite and withstand

the European aggressors. He hoped to utilize the caliphate for Muslim unification. 31

This coincided with Abdiilhamid' s aims who saw in this form of supranational

Pan-Islamism a means of strengthening his own hold over the vast but tottering Ottoman

Empire. The drive for Muslim unity, in an empire which was crippled by the

demoralizing effects of economic and military failures, appealed to sultan Abdiilhamid.

He was clever enough to perceive the importance of religious unity in a country

dominated by Muslims. He similarly seemed to have entertained the believe that all the

difficulties faced by the Ottoman state had largely emanated from its hetero-religious

structure. 32

Abdiilhamid's attempts to complete the reforms, started since the Tanzimat, could

have been frustrated by the general mode of suspicion to reforms. the rationale of the

Tanzimat reforms failed to appeal to the traditional feelings of superiority over the

non-Muslims, and there occurred a breach between the ruling elite and the populace that

resulted in further alienation when the reforms failed to reflect the self-view of the Muslim

population. As one Western observer stated:

"In 1881 and 1882 a hopeless despondency about the future of the country reigned everywhere in Turkish society. Prophecies were current that the Turkish power was at stake .. [and] .. Abdiilhamid had to create a feeling of hope among his Muslim subjects". 33

0 87 c Abdulhamid actually worked toward achieving this end. As one British council has observed: "The policy of the present reign has been consistently to develop the Muslim

feeling of self-reliance, and to bring home to Muslims the expediency of being a

self-supporting community" .34 The sultan then used the prevalent Pan-Islamic sentiment

to continue his reforms as best suits the interests of the Muslims without necessarily

arousing their general mood against reform and change. His reforms appeared to them

more "indigenous, tradition-loving, and Islamic in character" .35 Abdulhamid's appearance

as a self-confident caliph, and his personal character and piety appealed most to the

masses. The sultan himself worked to promote this feeling by building new religious

schools and institutions, and a strictly censored press was very effective in the

dissemination ofPan-Islamic ideas and the call for the rallying of the Muslims around their

leader.

On the whole sultan Abdulhamid proved to be a very clever ruler: He managed to

face the social and political problems that confronted him, and to control his influential

bureaucrats and statesmen. He looked forward to gain popularity by emphasizing his

position as caliph of all Muslims and his call for Muslim solidarity. He was profoundly

assisted by circumstances, for the Pan-Islamic movement actually pre-dated Abdulhamid

himself. All he did was that he took over an idea that had already found a widespread

consensus and utilized it against his internal and external foes.

At home, he pursued an autocratic and centralized policy combining all affairs of

the state in his own hands, and was assisted by a system of informers and spies who

enabled him to be informed about all matters pertaining to the bureaucrats and state affairs.

0 88 Nevertheless, such a type of administrative bureaucracy 0 prevented, significantly, the rationalization of the administration. He helped fostered a kind of traditionalism and open

religiosity as was evident in his support of mystic orders and scholastic medreses and "men

of religion". A number of Arab officials dominated the administration of the palace- the

principal centre for state policy. It seemed that Abdiilhamid had benefited from the fact

that previous sultans had failed to maintain any plausible relations with the average

subjects and especially those in the Arab provinces. This would help explain the presence

of certain Arab notables in Istanbul, such as tribal leaders and sufi heads. Famous of these

was the Syrian Sheikh Abul Huda Al-Sayyadi, whose task was to propagate the cause of

Abdiilhamid's Caliphate and to rally the Syrian Arab Muslims, in particular, around the

sultan-Caliph. 36

Abdiilhamid feared, far and most, the idea of instigating an Arab or Qurayshan

Caliph. He suspected particularly the British to have worked to this end. His provincial

policy was directed toward consolidating the unity of what is left of Ottoman territories,

as was demonstrated by the creation of Greater Syria to withstand any possible instigation

by the British from Egypt. He also tried to establish direct control on the Serif of Mekka,

but later followed a policy of appeasement as long as his position as Caliph remained

37 unthreatened. This is also true in the conciliatory policy he pursued in the arbitration of

tribal and territorial disputes, which constituted no institutionalized basis of administration.

The Ottoman's presence in the province of Tripolitania was also strengthened to

counter-balance the French and British occupation in the other Ottoman African territories;

but at the same time to watch carefully the activities of the powerful Sanussi; and a third

0 89 purpose of collecting the long neglected taxes 0 in order to compensate for the degraded income of the state. 38 The Hamidiye forces in eastern Anatolia composed of Kurdish

contingents was likewise created so geniusly to maintain state control over the eastern

regions. 39

Pan-Islam also formed the basic external policy of Abdiilhamid who sought to

achieve a double fold aim by pursuing this policy. A direct aim of preserving the integrity

of the Ottoman Empire, and a broader objective of uniting all Muslims of the world under

a universal Caliphate. He was aware of the implications of the rise of national feelings in

an empire composed of many races. Therefore an Islamic policy might have appealed to

the predominant Muslim population. The rationale of this policy would probably be based

· on the fact that if Islamic unity is lost the state would then be deprived of its essential basis

and would practically mean the end of the empire.

This explains the emphasis Abdiilhamid had laid on the importance of the

Caliphate. He saw himself as the head of all Muslims of the world, and even if his

temporal authority was damaged by any means, still, his spiritual authority would remain

untouched. He thought of his mission as a means to achieve the solidarity of all Muslims

and even entertained the idea of bringing Shi' ite Iran under his tutelage. 40 Abdiilhamid then

used his right to appoint the religious functionaries in the former Ottoman territories in

order to perpetuate his influence among the remaining Muslim inhabitants there. In

addition to that, the Ottoman government protested strongly to the powers whenever it

came to its Knowledge that Muslims in occupied territories were being persecuted.

0 90 c Missions were secretly sent to Iran, Turkistan, India, Africa, and China for propaganda activities, and an Ottoman counsellor was installed in Java. 41 Prominent Muslim figures

from all over the Muslim world like Sheikh Zafir, Sheikh Assad, the Indian Rahmatullah

and later the aforementioned Jamal al-Din al-Afghani were kept in Istanbul to heighten the

prestige of the Sultan-Caliph, but at the same time because of Abdiilhamid' s fear that they

create troubles or, even worse, establish ties with the European powers.

The Hijaz railway was constructed with the rationale of facilitating the Haj

pilgrimage as was widely believed by the populace, but its strategic advantages against any

future British expansion was not far from being unnoticed. As a matter of fact

Abdiilhamid's use of Pan-Islamism as a political weapon was successful in at least being

considered as potentially dangerous by the European powers and especially by Britain and

Russia, who both held wide territories inhabited by Muslim populations. One major

evidence was the cessation of political raproachment between Turkey and the West, after

the occupation of Egypt, and the transformation of competition amongst the powers from

the military to the economic sphere. 42

Abdiilhamid, on the other hand, was in desperate need of peace in order to reform

the country and rebuild a stronger empire. Therefore, he pursued this policy and did his

best to avoid any conflict with the European powers. The relative peace he could achieve,

but he was tremendously hampered, however, by the severe economic conditions which

was still suffering due to the implications of foreign debts and European financial control.

He sought to establish strong ties with Germany, the newly rising European power, to

which the latter was qualified for by not being engaged in any imperialistic adventure in c 91 c any Muslim country. The railway concessions which the sultan gave to Germany bore more than the economic and strategic advantages for his Islamic policy. Built in a

Non-Muslim Ottoman territory, it would also curtail the distance between Muslim India

and the centre of the Caliphate, but it equally arose the attention of Britain and the other

European powers. And it was only when a new balance of power in Europe was in the

making, and the growing internal difficulties which led to the rise of the Young Turks, that

AbdUlhamid's policies, which he had been building for over twenty years came to be

frustrated.

0 92 c CHAPTER IV: ENVNOTES

1. R.Davison, Reforms in the Ottoman Empire, p.269.

2. T.Z. Tunaya, Tilrkiyede Siyasi Partiler, Istanbul, 1952, p.90 and B.Lewis, op cit., p.151.

3. N.Berkes, Development of Secularism in Turkey, (Montreal, 1964), p.130.

4. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, p.130.

5. K. Karpat, op cit. p.262; B. Lewis, op cit. p.147f.

6. S. Mardin, The Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought, Princeton, 1962, p.252-261 N. Berkes, op cit. p.197ff;

7. B.Lewis, op cit., p.151. Ziya P~a also lamented that the capitulation, the economic and financial abuses of the foreigners, and the interference of Europeans, and corrupt officials threatened the country's future. He also pointed out the fact that changes in traditional dress reduced the demand for local cloth arid thereby ruining the local industry. (Hurriyet, 5 April, 1869), quoted by ihsan sungu, Tanzimat, p.821-22.

8. R. Davison, op cit., p.196.

9. Ibid., p.205. K. Karpat, op cit. p.262-263.

10. R. Davison, op cit. p.218.

11. B. Lewis, op cit, p.154.

12. R. Davison, op cit, p.297- ,

13. Ibid., p.22.; K. Karpat, op cit. p.264; quoting Hilmi Ziya Ulken, 'Tanzimattan Sonra Flkrr Hareketlaeri', Tanzimat, pp. 758-761.

14. K. Karpat, op cit p.265-266.; R. Davison, op cit, 228,

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., p.230-32

0 93 c 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., p.270.

19. Ibid., p.229 and Berkes, op cit, p.183.

20. Davison, op cit., p.274.

21. D.E. Lee, The Origins of Pan-Islamism, American Historical Review, 47:2, January, 1942, p.285.

22. Davison, op cit. p.276.

23. Ibid., p.277.

24. Ibid., p.282.

25. N.Berkes, op cit., p.261.

26. B.Lewis, op cit., p.l61.

27. Ibid., p.l63.

28. Indian Muslims fought with the Ottomans and Ottoman provinces were asked to provide support.

29. K. Karpat, op cit., p.75.

30. Ibid. p. 271-272

31. B. Lewis, The Middle East and the West, Bloomington, 1964, p.105.

32. Muzakkirati al-Siyasiye. (Abdiilhamid's Political Memoirs); Translated by M.Harb, Beirut, p.23.

33. Duquit, The Politics of Unity: Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia, MES, 1973, p.140 (quoting Ramsay).

34. Quoted in ibid. p.140.

35. N.Berkes, op cit., p.255

0 94 36. B.Abu Manneh,AbdUlhamid 11 and Shaikh Abul-Huda al-Sayyadi , MES c (1979), p.l40. 37. B.Abu-Manneh, Sultan AbdUlhamid and the Serif of Mecca (1880-1900) , Asian and African Studies, 1 (1973), p.l9.

38. Michel Le Gall, " The Ottoman Government and the Sanusiyya". A Reappraisal International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 21, Number 1, February 1989, pp.99.

39. S.Duguit, op cit., p.151.

40. E.Z. Karal, Osmanl1 Tarihi, Vol.8, p.546.

41. Ibid.

42. Shaw and Shaw, op cit., p.260.

0 95 c CONCLUSION The idea of Pan-lslam as it developed in the Ottoman Empire, passed through

various stages in parallel to the developments that the Empire had witnessed since the

beginning of the nineteenth century.

The whole movement was in essence a reaction to the persistent penetration of

Western ideas, values, and concepts that was deemed harmful and hazardous to the

existing Islamic heritage, tradition and civilization. The period of reforms in the Ottoman

Empire, was marked by the influx of Western and their alien institutions and ideals. The

deeply rooted traditional legacy naturally resisted the impact of the West, which was so

strong that it later achieved its supremacy largely through the material progress it

accomplished.

Reform, however, could not have been hindered since it has started, and inspite

of the continuous resistance, it succeeded in transforming the medieval empire into a new

modern state with a new society. The religious affinities, however, were still so strong

that the people looked only for the material prosperity of the West, but were not yet ready

to yield completely to the West and what it represented. The activities of the Young

Ottomans symbolized the process of social and political changes in the Ottoman society.

But an empire that had achieved its highest grandeur on the basis of Islam, psychologically

could not have abandoned all its legacy once and for all. The economic plight and the

consistent encroachment of the West, led the people to unite under the bondage that could

tie them all.

0 96 c The persistence of Western encroachment as later assumed a direct interventionist aspect, drew all the Muslims of the world in search of a united common front to withstand

the Christian intruders. All Muslims turned to the Ottoman Empire as the only strongest

Muslim country in a sentimental attachment and as a psychological compensation for their

lost territories. The Ottomans, however, could not possibly and practically have the

means to assume such a task.

Therefore,Abdiilhamid's use of Pan-Islam was directed in the first place toward

preserving the integrity of his own empire.Abdiilhamid's Pan-Islamism hence was

essentially utilitarian, and it differed from that of the Young Turks' in that it was markedly

consistent, and under the circumstances was increasingly appealing to the Muslims.

Another factor that led to the fading of Pan-Islam was that as a supranational

doctrine it was preached at the exact moment when Western nationalism was beginning to

permeate and stir much of the people of the Middle East. Eventually, however,

Nationalism appealed to diverse religious communities that could not have united without

abandoning Islam, and, thus, paradoxically, destroying the very basis of Pan-Islamism

itself.

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