State reform and reform movements, late 19th century Middle East

• Why and how did the Ottoman Empire instigate state reforms in the 19th century?

• What were the challenges facing state and society in the 19th century?

• How did states and people respond to these challenges?

Osman III – one of earliest sultans

What was the central question facing Middle Eastern elites, thinkers and politicians?

How has the West come to dominate us politically, economically and even (to an extent) culturally?

And secondly, what is to be done about this?

Why did the Ottoman Empire instigate reforms?

• Tensions between the center and provincial leaders

• economic encroachments by the Europeans

• military defeats

Istanbul - Mosque

Loss of Lands

What were the challenges facing state and society?

• Technology and science

• “modernizing”• how to reconcile

change with tradition

• different reformist agendas

• the threat from (and promise of) the West

A Janissary (Ottoman soldier)

How Did State And Society Respond? Early Reforms

• Selim III (r. 1789-1806)– Nizam-i jedid– Embassies in Europe

• Mahmud II (1808-1839)– End of Jannisaries– Reforms in bureaucracy– Medical and military

schools– Fez and frock, etc.

Selim III (r. 1789-1806)

How Did State And Society Respond? The Tanzimat (1839-1876)

• Equality of subjects– Hatt-i Sharif of Gülhane – Hatt-i Hümayan

• Strengthening of Ottoman consciousness– Nationality Law (1869)

• State schools and education • Creation of a modern government• Military conscription• Land reform (1858)• Abolition of tax farming (iltizam)

Other responses: Young Ottomans

• Who were they?• What was their

program?• What were some of

the influences that affected their ideas?

• Their form of patriotism; patrie

The Constitution of 1876

• Chamber of deputies• role of the sultan

(Abdul Hamid II, 1876- 1909)

• dissolution (1878)

Sultan Abdul Hamid II

Other problems: relations with the West

• Debt; Public Debt Administration (1881)

• the “Eastern question”

• European interests:

– Russia

– Habsburgs (Austria)

– French

– British

• Crimean War (1854-56)

• Treaty of Paris (1856)

• Congress of Berlin (1878)

Suez Canal – 19th c.?

Egypt in the reform era

• Muhammad `Ali (1805-1848)• School of Languages, 1835• Isma`il (1863-1879)• Economic infrastructure:

railroad (1852); Suez Canal (1854-1869)

• Dar al-Ulum, 1872• Mixed Courts, 1876• Egyptian reformers: Rifa`a

Tahtawi (1801-1873) Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905)

Islamic reform and reformers: Abduh

• Abduh: how to reconcile claims of divine revelation with those of reason, or those of Islamic law with those of modern law springing from other principles\

• his answer:

– religion and reason were compatible

– there was no contradiction between religion and science

– advocated reform from within

– though problem came from degeneration of Islam and “blind imitation” of older traditions

– argued for reinterpretation of Islam through national, education, legal and social reforms

– Muslims could selectively appropriate from the West

– as historical conditions warranted, core of Islamic principles and values should be reapplied to new realities and old traditions, where necessary, could be discarded

The Arab Provinces – 19th century

• Disturbances of 1860• Situation in Lebanon

(mutasarrifiyyah)• Sectarianism• “politics of notables”

Beirut 19th c. engraving