Opposition and legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire : conspiracies and political cultures 9780203834879, 0203834879

Table of contents :
Book Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Political culture of conspiracy
2 A sheikh and an offcer: The Society of Martyrs and the Kuleli incident
3 New and old forms of opposition: The Young Ottomans and the Vocation group
4 How to exchange Sultans: The successful coup against Abdülaziz
5 War and refugees: Ali Suavi and the Ciragan incident
6 Bourgeois conspirators: The Skalieri–Aziz committee
7 Conclusion: The Tanzimat and beyond
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Opposition and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire

This book looks at opposition to the Ottoman government in the second half of the nineteenth century, examining a number of key political conspiracies and how these relate to an existing political culture. In his detailed analysis of these conspiracies, the author offers a new perspective on an important and well researched period of Ottoman history. A close reading of police records on five conspiracies offers the opportunity to analyse this opposition in great detail, giving special attention to the different groups of political actors in these conspiracies that often did not come from the established political elites. Florian Riedler investigates how their background of class and education, but also their individual life experiences influenced their aims and strategies, their political styles as well as their ways of thinking on political legitimacy. In contrast, the reaction of the authorities to these conspiracies reveals the official understanding of Ottoman legitimacy. The picture that emerges of the political culture of opposition during the second half of the nineteenth century offers a unique contribution to our understanding of the great changes in the political system of the Ottoman Empire at the time. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Middle Eastern history, political history, and the Ottoman Empire. Florian Riedler is a historian specialising in Ottoman history of the nineteenth century. His current research interests are social and urban history of the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly Istanbul, as well as the history of migration in the Ottoman Empire.

SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East Series Editors Benjamin C. Fortna, SOAS, University of London Ulrike Freitag, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

This series features the latest disciplinary approaches to Middle Eastern Studies. It covers the Social Sciences and the Humanities in both the premodern and modern periods of the region. While primarily interested in publishing single-authored studies, the series is also open to edited volumes on innovative topics, as well as textbooks and reference works. 1. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia The Umma below the winds Michael Francis 2. Russian–Muslim Confrontation in the Caucasus Alternative visions of the conflict between Imam Shamil and the Russians, 1830–59 Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker, G.M. Hamburg 3. Late Ottoman Society The intellectual legacy Edited by Elisabeth Özdalga 4. Iraqi Arab Nationalism Authoritarian, totalitarian and pro-fascist inclinations, 1932–41 Peter Wien 5. Medieval Arabic Historiography Authors as actors Konrad Hirschler 6. The Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 1890–1908 Gökhan Çetinsaya 7. Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World The urban impact of religion, state, and society Amira K. Bennison and Alison L. Gascoigne

8. Subalterns and Social Protest History from below in the Middle East and North Africa Edited by Stephanie Cronin 9. Nazism in Syria and Lebanon The ambivalence of the German option, 1933–45 Götz Nordbruch 10. Nationalism and Liberal Thought in the Arab East Ideology and practice Edited by Christoph Schumann 11. State–Society Relations in Ba’thist Iraq Facing dictatorship Achim Rohde 12. Untold Histories of the Middle East Recovering voices from the 19th and 20th centuries Edited by Amy Singer, Christoph K. Neumann and Selçuk Aks¸in Somel 13. Court Cultures in the Muslim World Seventh to Nineteenth centuries Edited by Albrecht Fuess and Jan-Peter Hartung 14. The City in the Ottoman Empire Migration and the making of urban modernity Edited by Ulrike Freitag, Malte Fuhrmann, Nora Lafi and Florian Riedler 15. Opposition and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire Conspiracies and political cultures Florian Riedler

Opposition and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire Conspiracies and political cultures

Florian Riedler

First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

© 2011 Florian Riedler The right of Florian Riedler to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Riedler, Florian. Opposition and legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire: conspiracies and political cultures / Florian Riedler. p. cm. – (SOAS/Routledge studies on the Middle East ; 15) “Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada”–T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Turkey–Politics and government–1829-1878. 2. Turkey–History– Tanzimat, 1839-1876. 3. Political culture–Turkey–History–19th century. 4. Conspiracies–Turkey–History–19th century. 5. Political activists– Turkey–History–19th century. 6. Social change–Turkey–History–19th century. 7. Opposition (Political science) –Turkey–History–19th century. 8. Legitimacy of governments–Turkey–History–19th century. 9. Police– Turkey–Records and correspondence. 10. Turkey–History–Tanzimat, 1839–1876–Sources. I. Title. DR565.R54 2011 956'.015–dc22 2010026799 ISBN 0-203-83487-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 978-0-415-58044-1 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-203-83487-9 (ebk)

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations

viii ix

1

Introduction: Political culture of conspiracy

2

A sheikh and an officer: the Society of Martyrs and the Kuleli incident

12

New and old forms of opposition: the Young Ottomans and the Vocation group

26

How to exchange Sultans: the successful coup against Abdülaziz

42

5

War and refugees: Ali Suavi and the Çırag˘ an incident

58

6

Bourgeois conspirators: the Skalieri–Aziz committee

71

7

Conclusion: the Tanzimat and beyond

84

3

4

Notes Bibliography Index

1

90 104 111

Acknowledgements

This study took the present form in a process that stretched over several years and I would like to thank all the people who supported me during this time, first of all my parents. The DAAD’s (German Academic Exchange Service) HSP III program as well as additional funding from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) enabled me to undertake the original research on the topic. In. Istanbul the staff at the Bas¸bakanlık Ars¸ivi, the Atatürk Kitablıg˘ ı and ISAM have been most helpful. For academic support and reading draft chapters I would like to thank my supervisor, Ben Fortna, and especially my fellow PhD students at SOAS as well as Ulrike Freitag and my colleagues at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. Not to forget Nina, Charlotte and Erik who enriched my life even more than Ottoman history.

Abbreviations

A.MKT.MHM = Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası. Sadaret Evrakı. Mektubi Mühimme Kalemi, in BOA A.MKT.NZD = Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası. Sadaret Evrakı. Mektubi Kalemi. Nezaret ve Devair, in BOA A.MKT.UM = Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası. Sadaret Evrakı. Mektubi Kalemi. Umum Vilayat Kısmı, in BOA BOA = . . Bas¸bakanlık Osmalı Ars¸ivi, Istanbul ID = Irade Dahiliye, in BOA FO = Foreign Office, in PRO HH = Hatt-ı Hümayun, in BOA HR.MTV = Hariciye Nezareti Evrakı. Mütenevvid Kısmı, in BOA PRO = Public Record Office, London Y.A.HUS = Sadaret Hususi Maruzat Evrakı, in BOA Y.EE = Yıldız Esas Evrakı, in BOA

1

Introduction Political culture of conspiracy

In a recent book Aykut Kansu attempted to re-establish the Young Turk revolution of 1908 as the decisive event at the beginning of modern Turkish history. In creating a democratic parliamentary system the revolution was much more significant than Mustafa Kemal’s act of founding the Republic in 1923. As much as this reinterpretation was to correct our understanding of modern Turkish history, Kansu’s criticism also was levelled against the common treatment of the late Ottoman period in historiography that disregarded 1908 as the decisive break and failed to assess its significance as a popular and democratic revolution. He singled out the focus on the state and its elites in mainstream scholarship as the reason for this misinterpretation. In this picture there was little place for dissenting voices, conflict or internal struggle over the fundamentals of the political system.1 This study will take up the issue of conflict and opposition in the late Ottoman Empire and therefore will examine in some detail a string of conspiracies against the Ottoman government during the Tanzimat era in the second half of the nineteenth century. Surprisingly, these conspiracies lack closer scholarly attention. If they were mentioned at all, the older literature has denounced them either as backwards looking or appreciated them only as forerunners of the Young Turks. In contrast, this study likes to examine them in their specific historical context rather than judging them in hindsight and see how they relate to existing Ottoman political culture of opposition. The findings will help establish an inventory of politically active groups in Ottoman society other than the state elites and they will reveal the contested issues in the Ottoman political system of the Tanzimat. The conflicting interpretations of the right way to order society between state and opposition, but also between different opposition groups, offer the opportunity to review Ottoman political culture and its development in the nineteenth century. In the 1960s political scientists defined political culture in the framework of comparative research on democracy and democratic values in different societies. This study adopts a more neutral usage that assigns to the concept of political culture the role of balancing structural and systemic approaches to politics. Consequently, I will highlight the subjective factor in the analysis

2

Introduction

of political processes and tend to give perceptions of the political actors a broader space. Although the concept of political culture is often criticised as particularly blurry, it helps to thematise at least two interrelated aspects of politics. The first is the importance of (often unconscious) fundamental norms defining a group’s basic understanding of politics up to the point of what is political at all. In this sense political culture signifies a deeply embedded form of ideology that has its effect on political decisions, on thinking of legitimacy or authority and on the style of political action. The latter performative side is the second important aspect the concept of political culture calls attention to. When examining politics, rituals and symbols that are expressions of an aesthetics of political action have to be taken into account.2 A group’s fundamental beliefs about politics also include the ways it deals with conflict in society. To capture this notion John Foran, a social scientist working on the causes and outcomes of revolutions (modern as well as historical), has coined the term ‘political culture of opposition’.3 The fundamental thinking of a group about opposition, its legitimacy and its proper forms, define this culture that is fed by a group’s past experiences, its expectations and emotions as well as its subjective assessment of a political situation. In a political system with an established political culture of opposition revolutionary solutions of conflicts in society are said to be much more likely than in other political systems. Especially instructive for this study is Foran’s application of the concept to the case of Iran.4 He examines different forms of opposition movements in the nineteenth century such as tribal risings, tax revolts, religiously driven rebellions like the revolts of the Babis as well as the Tobacco boycott movement of the 1890s. His macrosociological approach discerns the different classes of Iranian society that supported these movements, highlighting outside dependency as an agent of social change and as a cause for opposition. From the perspective of the Iranian constitutional movement of 1905–11 that established a modern political culture in Iran he classifies the earlier events as driven by a traditional or a transitional culture of opposition. It remains to be seen in how far these categories also make sense in the Ottoman case. Scholars have used political culture to examine the roots and trajectories of revolutions regarding other historical contexts as well. Perhaps in the most innovative way this has been done in the case of eighteenth century France credited to be the founding moment of modern political culture per se. Above all the political culture of the French old regime has attracted attention as the laboratory of new political symbols and terms that developed in the framework of the absolute monarchy, ways of seeing and ordering society, and the development of forms of political contestation like the political press or parliamentarianism.5 In the case of Russia, research on the political culture in the 1917 revolution has only just begun. However, historians of nineteenth century Russia were well aware of the changes in the political culture mainly among

Introduction

3

radical groups that gave rise to revolutionary activities and ideologies that went along with the delegitimisation of the old regime. In Russia the role of secret societies was particularly important in shaping pre-revolutionary political culture of opposition.6 Likewise in the Ottoman Empire we find an old regime that changed considerably during the nineteenth century, not least where its fundamental values, political arrangements and symbols were concerned. This study cannot claim to present an encompassing picture of nineteenth century Ottoman political culture. It will concentrate on one particular form of opposition, the conspiracy, that seems to be a natural outgrowth of any absolutist political system where there is no place for a loyal opposition. However, conspiracies can serve to thematise different aspects of Ottoman political culture in general and illustrate its development during the nineteenth century. Particularly through the main historical source on conspiracies, police records and similar documents produced by the prosecuting institutions of the Ottoman state, both the political culture of opposition, but also the political culture of the governing elite come into view. Small-scale events like conspiracies that, compared to larger social movements of protest, consist of a limited number of participants direct the investigation in a specific direction. Individual motives and choices as well as the worldviews of the historical actors come to the foreground that otherwise would go unnoticed. This can add some important aspects to larger structural explanations of Ottoman politics. Here lies, I hope, the potential of the micro-historical approach offered here. Moreover, the conspiracies investigated below also testify to the multiplicity of groups politically active in the nineteenth century Ottoman Empire. The study will ascertain which elements of Ottoman political culture they shared and on which fields their different interests and positions in the political system caused differences in their political behaviour. The remainder of this chapter will introduce the main developments of the Ottoman political system as it formed in the first half of the nineteenth century, paying particular attention to the intertwined issues of power, legitimacy and political style. It is against the political culture of the ruling elites that oppositional culture of secret societies has to be placed. Some general remarks on opposition in Ottoman history and its historiography will conclude the introduction. While the end of the nineteenth century political system that was destroyed by the victorious Young Turk revolutionaries is signified by 1908, there are at least two dates that are important for its inauguration. The dissolution of the janissary corps in 1826 by Sultan Mahmud II (1808–39) completed a first phase in a process of centralisation of power that is one of the constitutive elements of the nineteenth century Ottoman political system. Traditionally the janissaries of the capital could muster a decisive weight to tip the scales in favour of one or the other political faction. A very important group that could organise opposition to the decisions of the

4

Introduction

central government and that had a long-standing and vital culture of opposition was thus gone. As a consequence the sultan unlike most of his immediate predecessors emerged as the sole source not only of political legitimacy but of real political power. He could start a programme of reform that was to define Ottoman history in the nineteenth century. The rise of the civil bureaucracy as a powerful group in the Ottoman state apparatus was closely connected to this programme of centralisation and reform. In a long historical process that had already begun in the eighteenth century the civil bureaucracy (kalemiye, mülkiye), and especially the Sublime Porte with the grand vizier at its head, became an important and at times dominant power centre in the Ottoman political system of the nineteenth century.7 This dominant position was expressed on different levels: in the creation of new ministries such as the ministry of interior or the foreign ministry that offered job opportunities to the officials from the civil bureaucracy; in the preponderance of institutions like the Sublime Porte over the palace or the army (its contenders in the Ottoman central administration) in determining the general political line of the empire; and last in the dominance individual politicians from the civil bureaucracy exercised over Ottoman politics. Mustafa Res¸id Pasha (1800–58) was the first of a string of influential politicians originating from the Translation office at the Sublime Porte who dominated Ottoman politics in the middle years of the nineteenth century. His disciples and successors as main representatives of the process of political reforms and modernisation were Mehmed Enim Âli (1815–71) and Keçecizade Mehmed Fuad (1815–69). Much of the power of this group of politicians rested on their know-how of diplomacy and their close relationship to the European powers that became increasingly important for the empire. For historians the roughly four decades that the bureaucracy from the Porte dominated Ottoman politics serve as a further subdivision of the nineteenth century. This period known as the Tanzimat era begins with the proclamation of a famous reform edict in 1839 and ends either at the death of Âli Pasha in 1871 or alternatively with the accession to power of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). From a general point of view the Tanzimat meant the continuation of the reforms initiated by Sultan Mahmud II. However, while before reforms had been closely connected to the person of the sultan and his reassertion of power, now they were in a sense generalised to become the official policy of the empire. Previous attempts were brought into a systematic framework, the scope of reforms was widened and new groups became their main supporters. It was the common goal of all the single steps and measures taken to render all branches of the governmental apparatus including the Ottoman army more centralised and professional. Additionally, the reforms aimed at creating a modern system of education and law more in tune with the needs of the state and its people. Most fundamentally, the relationship between

Introduction

5

ruler and ruled, between the state and its subjects was concerned. All Ottoman subjects were to become more equal with each other and vis-à-vis the administration putting the state on a broader basis than before. It is still an open question to what degree the Tanzimat not only affected the power relations between the different groups in the Ottoman state and altered the institutional structure, but also changed political culture. Scholars whose main interest is modern Turkey often attribute the nondemocratic aspects of Turkish political culture to the negative effects of the Ottoman era. Indiscriminately they speak of one Ottoman political culture that is described as extremely state-centred and authoritarian.8 As has often been remarked, in such an authoritarian political culture there was no place for loyal opposition. All acts of opposition against the government were rebellions (isyan, fesad, fitne) notwithstanding the tradition of co-opting their leaders to government positions. The reason was the compound nature of Ottoman legitimacy that integrated religious elements and a patriarchal notion of authority.9 In the Ottoman political system the sultan from the Ottoman dynasty was the cornerstone of legitimacy. The office was the centre of a rich symbolism and many rituals of power had been arranged around it over the centuries. Especially on the occasion of the death of the old sultan and the enthronement of the new sultan these symbols and rituals came to be displayed. Questions of succession carried important political implications and irregularities inevitably resulted in the formation of political camps.10 After the seventeenth century most sultans had ceased to play an active political role, but they remained the ultimate arbiters between the political factions and local power-holders who effectively ran the country. Despite these changes the ideal image of an active and powerful ruler who was the guarantor of a just and well-ordered society remained a stock image of Ottoman political thought.11 Habituation and the antiquity of the dynasty became the main assets of the ruler in the face of their periodic loss of real political power which had never resulted in a formal redefinition of their authority. In the early nineteenth century local power-holders tried to gain official recognition of their role in the state. Mahmud II was forced to sign the so-called Deed of . Alliance (Sened-i Ittifak), which, however, remained a dead letter because the sultan would not have his role restricted. Furthermore, the political elite of the Tanzimat never managed to alter the structure of authority in the political system. For example, it proved impossible for them to introduce a Westminster-style cabinet system that would have stabilised the government. The grand vizier as well as other ministers remained the absolute delegates (vekil-i mutlak) of the sultan, who could withdraw office at will. The only thing that the political elite from the civil bureaucracy could do was to rid themselves of their traditional status as servants (kul) that gave their master, the sultan, not only power over their career and the right to

6

Introduction

confiscate their wealth, but also legally sanctioned power over their life and death. All these prerogatives were abolished by decree in 1839.12 Therefore a recurring question in this study will be how different opposition groups viewed the role of the sultan and how this defined their aims and strategy. Religion was closely entwined with the dynastic aspect as one important source of sultanic legitimacy. The continuous use the sultans made of such religious roles and titles as for example that of protector of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina or gazi, that is the conqueror of infidel lands added to the lands of Islam (dar ül-Islam), might serve as evidence for using religion as means for authority. Other titles such as Caliph were fully asserted only late in the nineteenth century, most vigorously by Sultan Abdülhamid II who was very consciously trying to manipulate the political culture of Sunni Muslims. This was particularly important in times when factual legitimacy flowing from the subject’s prosperity and security were harder to attain, because of the constant decrease in power the empire suffered. Likewise symbols such as the standard of the Prophet, his mantle and sword still played an important role in the ritual of ascension of a new sultan. All sultans of the nineteenth century made use of these religious symbols and titles to support their authority. Sometimes this was done consciously; in most cases religious symbolism was a pervasive undercurrent.13 The reforms of the nineteenth century did not and could not touch on the position of the sultan; however, the prescribed changes questioned some other fundamentals of the state’s legitimacy as far as it could be distinguished from that of its ruler. This mainly concerned the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Ottoman state and society. In this regard the reform decree of 1839 itself bears witness to how the legal structure of the empire moved away from the traditional tenets entrenched in political culture. The decree singled out three fields on which the sultan’s subjects could expect new regulations: their personal rights, the empire’s system of taxation, as well as the military. The new sultan promised to respect and protect life, honour and property of all of his subjects, Muslims and non-Mulims alike, to introduce proportional taxation and abolish tax farms, as well as to restrict military service to five years. The first of these promises in particular has drawn much attention from contemporary European commentators as well as modern scholars. The document has been interpreted as a decisive step away from traditional Ottoman legitimacy, giving up Muslim preponderance in favour of equality among the different religious groups of the empire.14 At the same time it has to be acknowledged that regarding its rhetoric the decree remained a fairly conservative document. In its introduction it used the traditional theme of putting the empire’s decline down to the non-observance of the sharia and the sultanic law (kanun). As a new twist in this old argument, though, this served as a justification to introduce new regulations resembling numerous reform proposals of the eighteenth century.15 If there were indeed

Introduction

7

a fundamental change in the basic legitimation, it constituted a long-term trend and was not primarily tied to the decree of 1839. In the decades before its promulgation there had already been very similar statements by Sultan Mahmud II, which can be understood in the framework of his paternalistic conception of office.16 Only in the second half of the nineteenth century and particularly with the second of the great reform decrees of 1856 did this issue gain a new quality that made it a source for opposition as discussed in the Chapter 2. Also other fundamentals of the Ottoman political system only changed slowly. While the legal system and the administration saw constant reform during the period, there were few new political institutions that could mediate the political process. Politics remained a prerogative of the elite in the centre; popular participation was at its beginnings and restricted to the participation of provincial elites in the newly founded administrative councils until a first Ottoman parliament was created in 1876.17 Constitutionalism was one of the new ideas discussed in the second half of the nineteenth century by Ottoman intellectuals and politicians. The study will ask how this idea was integrated in the conventional thinking on political authority and especially if and how it could become an ideology that fuelled opposition to the government. In the second aspect of political culture, the style of politics, continuities were even stronger on the surface. As in previous centuries, day-to-day politics revolved around powerful individuals who were eligible for high offices in the centre. They built political factions around their households that were locked in constant struggle by the means of office intrigues, slandering and gossiping. These households had lost their earlier military power since Mahmud II had forbidden them to have a military retinue. Poets who were protected by influential politicians played an important role in the political struggle. In this sense also the great politicians of the civil bureaucracy, although they were associated with reform, rationalisation and rule of law, remained patron pashas par excellence. They were regularly criticised for their favouritism and arbitrary decisions by their contestants.18 The investigation below will show to what extent the conspiracies were still connected to this form of politics and to what degree they were offering their members other forms of expressing their political ideals. The history of opposition in the Ottoman Empire is long and colourful. For modern historians instances of contestation like rebellions, revolts, mutinies, urban uprisings or conspiracies are important, because they offer alternative views on Ottoman history. Contestation exhibits the structures of power and the interests that supported Ottoman rule and make it seem less natural and god-given. It puts into perspective the monolithic picture of Ottoman political culture that contemporary chroniclers liked to display for their own reasons.19 Rarely has the political culture of opposition concept been used explicitly to analyse the rich history of Ottoman opposition and contestation.

8

Introduction

While scholars in general have put questions of power in the foreground of their analysis, questions of legitimacy and political style have always attracted attention as well. The string of rebellions and mutinies that from the late sixteenth century onwards shook the empire have been a particular source of continuing interest and debate regarding their political and social causes and their significance for the development of the Ottoman state and its institutions. Scholars treated the frequent janissary mutinies, revolts of provincial governors and factional struggles in the capital of the post-classical age as examples of a crisis of the elites that resulted in political tensions on three levels: inside particular elite groups as manifest in factional struggle and rivalry between grandee households; between different elite groups over questions of who would have the ultimate decision regarding imperial policies; and, lastly, between established elites and rising groups that tried to change their status and participate in the privileges of the former.20 Structurally similar events of political crisis can be encountered in the eighteenth century when also other groups like ulema and the guilds of the capital came to play a significant role. Examples of the consistent patterns of political contestation are the so-called Edirne incident of 1703 as well as the Patrona Halil rebellion in 1730 and the rebellion of 1807 that ultimately brought Mahmud II to the Ottoman throne.21 Historians have made reform the main historiographic theme to analyse the instances of opposition and political contestation in the nineteenth century. In this perspective one of the main questions was in how far opposition meant opposition to the reforms and what vested interests were involved. In a historiographical tradition that saw the founding of the modern Turkish nation state in direct continuation of the reform programme of the nineteenth century there was a tendency to take the side of the Ottoman authorities and condemn such opposition. In this view above all the janissary corps on account of its involvement in the rebellions of 1807 and 1826 was blamed as the ultimate obstacle to progress in Ottoman society. In a more neutral fashion other instances of opposition to reform have also been examined. The uprisings in the Balkans in the decade after the empire’s tax system was reformed in 1839 serve as an example for material interests that, when threatened, could become a trigger for opposition. While landowners and tax farmers defended the old tax system, peasants rebelled to obtain the promises made to them. In the end the peasants’ labour duties were abolished, however, the Ottoman government had to pull back on its plans to end the system of tax farming, because the new system proved inefficient. In the relevant decree issued in 1841 it continued its strategy to wrap reforms in a conservative language highlighting the importance of the sharia for the empire.22 Other examples for opposition against measures of the Tanzimat come from the Arab provinces of the empire. Regarding the riots in Aleppo in 1850, in Mosul in 1854, in Nablus in 1856 and most seriously in Damascus in 1860 scholars have identified an amalgamation of different reasons as

Introduction

9

causes for unrest. Besides material interests that were at stake opposition was directed against demands from the centre like the draft or taxation. Moreover, those active in these incidents defended the preponderance of Islam in society against the ideology of equality of all Ottoman subjects as it was proclaimed by the government.23 The issue of slavery in the Ottoman Empire offers a similar example of entwined material and ideological interests causing contestation. British abolitionists had inserted this issue into the Ottoman reform debate in the 1840s. In a rebellion in the Hejaz, led by the Sherif of Mecca and supported by prominent traders, threatened material interests could be linked to questions of state legitimacy. In a fetva obtained from the head of the ulema of Mecca the ban on the slave trade was declared unlawful and the Ottomans were called polytheists (müs¸rik), who introduced innovations contrary to Islam.24 The notions of political culture of opposition in the nineteenth century are best captured in a short article by S¸erif Mardin.25 The author stresses that events like revolts and rebellions, far from being mere riots or machinations of power, were displaying the popular understanding of Ottoman legitimacy that rested on a tacit contract between the ruler and the ruled. In this way Ottoman society was defending its freedom as it was understood mainly in religious terms couched in a religious language. Such ‘popular rebellions’ as Mardin called them followed a typical pattern from gossip to demonstrations to armed intervention as a last resort. They brought together different groups of Ottoman society, disgruntled merchants and craftsmen from the bazar, ulema and, in its military phase, the local janissaries, that united were able to press their demands maintaining their freedom. According to Mardin the basic elements of this particular political culture of opposition, its thinking on legitimacy as well as its style were still alive in the nineteenth century. Other scholars have picked up on this and have reinterpreted, for example, the role of the janissaries in Ottoman society. The janissaries were re-established as legitimate spokesmen for the interests of society vis-à-vis the centralising tendencies of the state under the leadership of an ambitious sultan.26 In a similar way to Mardin this study will re-investigate five conspiracies in the second half of the nineteenth century, several of which were also cited in his article as examples of ‘popular rebellions’. The first of these to be discussed in Chapter 2 is the so-called Kuleli incident of 1859 staged by an organisation called the Society of Martyrs. Its assumed objective was to kill the unpopular Sultan Abdülmecid and replace him with the heir apparent. Because the conspiracy was reported to the government in its planning stage by a traitor, most of its members were arrested and questioned by the police. The surviving interrogation documents allow a close look at the political culture of the involved groups and individuals. The two leaders, a highranking Ottoman officer and a Sufi sheikh, are representatives of two important sides of Ottoman legitimacy.

10

Introduction

The Chapter 3 will focus on the opposition during the 1860s that grew from the milieu of the low-ranking civil bureaucracy and was embodied by the so-called Young Ottomans. Their articles in the Ottoman press as well as those that were written in European exile offer a picture of established as well as of new ideologies among the opposition to the government. A very interesting aspect regarding this well-researched group was that some of its members originated from a little-known secret society called Vocation. Once again surviving police records allow some insight into the motives and aims of its members. Chapter 4 deals with the only conspiracy that met with success, namely that of high officials to depose Sultan Abdülaziz I (1861–76). The chapter will examine the plotters’ attitude to sultanic authority and the mechanisms of conflict management among the political elite of the empire. Another focus will be on their interplay with a variety of groups and milieus of the capital Istanbul, such as the ulema, protesters on the street and the military, that ensured the success of the enterprise. The final two secret organisations that are under scrutiny in this study were both directed against Abdülhamid II who had succeeded Murad V in 1876. The so-called Üsküdar Society, the subject of Chapter 5, was organised by the former Young Ottoman Ali Suavi and had close connections to the political milieu of low-ranking bureaucrats investigated earlier. At the same time it illustrates how deeply exterior influences, namely the refugee crisis after the Russian–Ottoman war of 1877/78, could precipitate such events. The Skalieri–Aziz committee, named after its two leaders, serves as the last example in Chapter 6. Here again surviving interrogation records allow an eye-level account of the motives of the plotters, their personal views of Ottoman legitimacy and the particularities of a political culture that encompassed not only the bureaucracy of the capital, but also the economic bourgeoisie represented by a Greek merchant active in freemason circles. In this opposition group modern as well as traditional forms of political struggle and participation were mixed. In the older literature these conspiracies were usually judged as to how far they ran counter to the reform policy the Ottoman government tried to implement. However, the nineteenth century conspiracies are hard to bring into line with the teleologic research agenda scholarship on the Tanzimat displayed in the past. The work of Tarik Zafer Tunaya, the father of Turkish political sciences, is a good example of how awkwardly they fit into a picture that scrutinises the Tanzimat from the viewpoint of the modern, secularist Turkish Republic. In the first edition of Tunaya’s seminal work on political parties in Turkey, Türkiyede siyasî partiler, published in 1952, all the abovementioned conspiracies were treated in an introductory chapter on the Tanzimat, though labelled not as parties but as ‘organisations’ (taazzuv). Probably because of this unclear classification the second edition of the work appearing 32 years later left them out entirely and started with an account of the Young Turk groups of the late nineteenth century, namely the

Introduction

11

Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), to which a whole volume was dedicated, as the forerunner of the political parties of the Turkish Republic.27 Only when oppositional groups during the Tanzimat were conceived as real forerunners of the Young Turk movement, could they be appreciated accordingly. An interesting example is Ahmed Bedevi Kuran’s book on : ˘ unda revolutionary movements in the Ottoman Empire, Osmanlı Imparatorlug : Inkılap Hareketleri ve Milli Mücadele, 1959.28 The author who was active in the Young Turk opposition himself was able to align all opposition groups on account of their common enemy, the Tanzimat state. Such a valuation of political groups opposed to the Tanzimat state was taken up again by scholars like S¸erif Mardin, for example in his seminal work on the Young Ottomans. With his concept of ‘popular rebellion’ he avoided a state-centred perspective on political opposition in the nineteenth century and stressed the rootedness of this opposition in the longue durée of Ottoman political thought and practice. A valuable hint to a wider framework in which the conspiracies and secret societies of the Young Turks as well as their antecedents can be analysed has been given by Thierry Zarcone. Following the diffusion of Freemasonry in the Middle East in the nineteenth century he stressed the process of adaptation and assimilation with an Islamic Sufi culture of secrecy.29 The present study will try to situate the five conspiracies under consideration in this context of research. It will try to clarify the elements in each of them that belonged to the traditional political culture and those that annunciated the rupture in the Ottoman political culture and prepared the revolution. The continuities and discontinuities of different elements such as thinking on legitimacy and power, style of political action, forms of communication, etc. were mixed in their own special way with contradictions of their own. Altogether this mélange expresses the unique political culture of the Tanzimat era.

2

A sheikh and an officer The Society of Martyrs and the Kuleli incident

In 1859 in what has become known as the Kuleli incident a group calling itself the Society of Martyrs (Fedailer Cemiyeti) tried to initiate a coup against the Ottoman government. Although this attempt to topple Sultan Abülmecid I (1839–61) was a complete failure, it gained some attention by the fact that it was the first major act of political contestation in the Ottoman capital since the janissary revolt in 1826. Taking place after over thirty years of modernisation of Ottoman institutions and twenty years after the Tanzimat decree had been issued, almost inevitably contemporaries and modern scholars alike have seen the conspiracy in the wider framework of how the reform policy was understood and reacted to from the political elites as well as the people. Ottoman dissidents like Namık Kemal, but also nineteenth century European observers like the Hungarian orientalist and traveller Arminius Vambéry or Edouard Engelhardt praised the members of the conspiracy for their liberal attitudes and even attributed constitutionalist thoughts to them. Writers with a Young Turk background like Yusuf Akçura and Ahmed Bedevi Kuran recognised in the conspirators the forerunners of their opposition to the regime.1 Later, . Kemalist historians came to an opposite evaluation of these events. Ulug˘ Ig˘ demir who was president of the official Turkish History Society TTK for almost thirty years and who published the police records on the Kuleli incident labelled the events a ‘reactionary (irticai)’ plot, because one of its leaders was a sheikh. Scholars like Roderic Davison or Bernard Lewis principally subscribed to this judgement.2 The following re-evaluation of the Kuleli incident will try to dissolve these contradictions by showing how the plotters were embedded in a common political culture of opposition that could bring together men from different backgrounds. On a number of layers the Kuleli conspiracy addressed problems of power and legitimacy the Tanzimat had created. The political developments in the 1850s that gave the reform process a new direction are important for understanding the motives and goals of the plotters.

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Together with the progressive involvement of the Ottoman Empire in international affairs and markets in the second half of the nineteenth century its political system also changed. One issue that became increasingly problematic was the position of non-Muslims in the Ottoman state and society. It was openly addressed only in the second of the famous decrees promulgated during the Tanzimat era, the so-called Reform Ferman (Islahat fermanı) of 1856.3 In contrast to the decree of 1839 the Reform Ferman was almost exclusively concerned with the rights of the Christian subjects of the empire. It reiterated the promise of equality given earlier, awarded positive cultural and religious rights to them, and abolished the remaining discriminations they suffered. On the face of it this concern for the Christian subjects of the sultan in the Reform Ferman of 1856 was a direct reflection of the international situation, namely the Crimean War (1853–56). This illustrates a recurring mechanism in nineteenth century history that international questions of war and peace brought to the fore questions of Ottoman legitimacy. The alliance of the Ottomans with the European states against Russia fundamentally altered the empire’s status in the international arena. It dealt the last blow to the traditional Islamic system of international relations (siyar) that the empire de facto had left behind since the late eighteenth century. With the peace treaty of Paris the Ottoman state became an official member of the Concert of Europe and part of the system of international law.4 The Reform Ferman that was included into the text of the peace treaty of Paris was a means of paying off the political debt to this alliance. It was heavily criticised for this inside the empire being labelled a sign of weakness and interference from abroad.5 However, from the perspective of the Ottoman statesmen who drafted it, the decree was to function as an antidote against the rising sectarian and national feelings inside the empire as well as against intervention from outside. While from an European perspective the Crimean War had been fought about the balance of power, for the Ottomans its principal cause was Russia’s claim to execute an overlordship over the empire’s Orthodox subjects. The empire had entered the war in a time of general crisis that had also had a negative effect on public opinion. Already in the 1840s the highranking Ottoman politicians had become very unpopular and, towards the end of the decade, even the sultan himself was criticised.6 Rumours of Abdülmecid’s drinking habits and the incredible waste of money in his palace began to spread.7 In turn, his younger brother and heir apparent to the Ottoman throne, Abdülaziz, was styled as the complete opposite to the sultan with his allegedly corrupted morals. In popular opinion Abdülaziz was presented as a very religious person, to the point where people believed that with his reign an era of renovation of Islam would set in.8 This juxtaposition of reigning sultan and heir apparent was also played out among the empire’s political elites where two camps supporting the one or the other were building. These factions cannot be differentiated into

14

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reformers and conservatives, but had a purely political function. For example, the side of the sultan was supported by men like Res¸id who had married a daughter of Abdülmecid, but also by alleged conservatives like Rıza Pasha, a long-time minister of war, as well as the sultan’s mother. The main supporter of Abdülaziz’s cause proved to be the long-time minister of marine Mehmed Ali Pasha who had also married into the family of the sultan. Apart from rumours about assassination plans against the heir apparent the biggest threat to Abdülaziz’s right to the Ottoman throne was the idea to change the law of succession in favour of the sultan’s eldest son Murad. It is not clear whether the sultan himself was part of this project, but as so often in Ottoman politics the resulting rumours were as effective as any concrete steps undertaken. There is one contemporary observer who ascertains that the Kuleli conspiracy was in fact organised by high-ranking partisans of Abdülaziz. In general, the project of changing the law of succession remained a source of disturbance in the Ottoman political system.9 Especially in the tense atmosphere of the 1850s during the war with Russia there were frequent counter-rumours that a coup against the sultan was imminent. When Mehmed Ali in March 1855 shortly fell from grace and was sent to exile to Kastamonu this was not only due to a financial affair, but also because he was accused of being in contact with a group of dissatisfied ulema with connections to the harem and perhaps even with Abdülaziz himself. With the deterioration of the sultan’s health and his rising unpopularity as the war drew on many people, among them the British ambassador, expected a violent resolve of the succession crisis.10 In 1857/58 the tense political situation apparently even led to an intervention of the British, French and Austrian ambassadors. In a joint note they pointed out the inappropriate behaviour of the sultan and the bad mood among the ulema and the people. Also in the Ottoman cabinet the rumours of an imminent revolt ran high. A similar mood prevailed in summer 1858 when a rumour emerged of a conspiracy being hatched either by the ‘fanatical party’ or by a group of Hungarian and Polish officers being engaged by Greek circles in the capital.11 A real conspiracy actually was discovered in mid September 1859 that was connected in many ways to the political developments of the preceding decade, although not always exactly as the rumours of the time suggested. According to the rules of political secrecy in the first few days the public in the Ottoman capital was left in the dark about the importance of this conspiracy. People had to rely on the European press that reported the arrest of up to 200 plotters. Only later on an official communiqué in the Ottoman press corrected these earlier reports as having been blown out of proportion.12 In all newspapers it was stated that the goal of the conspiracy was to overthrow the Ottoman government. Only The Times which was not subjected to the Ottoman censor could spell this out. According to its correspondent this would have meant surrounding the sultan on the street,

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15

ordering him to abdicate and, if he did not comply immediately, to kill him. As for the motives of the plotters the same article alluded to ‘the abuses of Administration’ and named as the main groups of participants in the plot the ulema, theological students as well as the army as represented by two officers. The Ottoman press naturally avoided such graphic descriptions, but instead tried to convey the impression that the government had everything under control.13 The European diplomatic missions in the capital in general were kept better informed than the public. Already on 17 September, the day when most of the plotters were arrested, the British dragoman had his first of a series of interviews with the Ottoman foreign minister. In the reports he wrote for his ambassador the dragoman mentioned for the first time a third ringleader, a certain Sheikh Ahmed, and also added a personal evaluation of the incident. The real object of the conspirators, as confessed by some of the prisoners, was to get rid of the Sultan by violent means and to replace him by his brother. The present Ministers were also to be sacrificed and particularly Aali Pasha and Fuad Pasha. Their successors were to be men of the fanatical party and belonging to the old school. The motive alleged is the little regard shown by the present Govt. to the Holy law, the prescriptions of which according to them are trampled under foot.14 This was the first in a long line of interpretations that see the 1859 conspiracy as a decidedly anti-Tanzimat plot stressing the religious motivation of the plotters. In a later statement, however, the dragoman added the profligacy of the palace as well as the pay arrears for the troops as causes for the conspiracy.15 The main source of information on the plot and the conspiracy behind it is the official report produced by the commission of investigation called the interrogation document (istintakname).16 This report was compiled from the statements of the alleged members of the conspiracy after they had been cross-examined for almost two weeks. All information about internal matters of the conspiracy comes from these interrogations that are included in the report, although in an abridged and heavily edited form.17 These statements reveal that a commander of the Bosporus fortifications had been approached by the plotters, but had preferred to announce the existence of the conspiracy to the minister of war who acted immediately and had the plotters arrested.18 Forty-one prisoners were put under custody at the Kuleli barracks on the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. One of the leaders of the conspiracy, the military officer Cafer Dem Pasha, drowned on the way to the designated place of confinement when trying to flee. Two days after the arrests, the interrogation of the suspects began, carried out by a special commission consisting of the grand vizier, the minister of war (serasker), the s¸eyhülislam and several other high-ranking officials. From the name of the barracks where the trial took place the affair derived its name: the

16

A sheikh and an officer

Kuleli incident. The plotters, however, called themselves the Society of Martyrs (Fedailer Cemiyeti). According to the official report the society had been founded five or six months earlier by a certain Sheikh Ahmed. Together with him four other members, Hüseyn Daim Pasha, Cafer Dem Pasha, Rasim Bey and Arif Bey, three officers and a scribe in the Ottoman military, formed the inner core of the conspiracy. For their leading role all five were awarded the death sentence. The other members of the society, altogether about 20 people, got off with lighter sentences mostly consisting of hard labour (kürek) or internment (kalebend). They had taken an oath by signing a document in Arabic stating that they were entering a pact with Ahmed and thus became a fedai, i.e., someone who is willing to sacrifice himself for the common cause. It remains unclear in what relation the remaining 15 prisoners stood to the conspiracy. Since the list of fedais along with other documents of the conspiracy had been burned before the police could lay hands on them the question as to who was a member of the conspiracy and who was not relied entirely on the evidence given in the cross-examination by the arrested themselves. Some of them successfully claimed that they were in private relation to the sheikh or, at least, that they were not told about the real aims of the society they joined.19 From the perspective of the government the conspirators’ aims were described as purely criminal. Throughout, the interrogation document uses the traditional political language of order that displays the Ottoman state’s view of its own legitimacy. Like in other contexts secular and religious terminology were employed side by side for the maximal effect of condemning the enemy.20 The Society of Martyrs was labelled the seditious society (cemiyet-i fesadiye) that was to raise the people and soldiers against the state and to change its principles (usul) and laws (kavanin) by means of bloodshed. In contrast to the public statements mentioned above the report frankly admitted that the sultan himself was to be the aim of an assassination attempt. To mark the seriousness of this ‘biggest of all crimes’ as well as to prepare the announcement of the death sentences of the five main culprits the tone of disapproval and contempt once again was stepped up by taking recourse to a highly moralistic language: The harm and dangers cannot be enumerated that the sedition they tried to stir up was causing to religion and state (din ü devlet), although this sedition was totally opposed to the sharia, which they wanted to put forward hypocritically and falsely to advocate their vicious personal purposes.21 The judges fundamentally denied the plotters the ability and authority to meddle in politics: They did not have the intellectual capabilities to understand the sharia and the administration of government, but were just a gang of thugs who could use their weapons.22 This argument especially was

A sheikh and an officer

17

brought forward against the officers in the conspiracy amounting to half of the arrested suspects and the largest group among the fedai and especially against Hüseyin Daim their leader and highest in rank: Although Hüseyin Pasha obtained the rank of a general of division by the great favour of the sultan and he had to know more than others about the condition of state and country and was obliged before everyone else to guard order (nizam) and law (kanun), he assembled in his house some of the members of the plot [ … ] and he worked and persuaded against the established orders of the rank and honour of the Ottoman state, which was offered to him by the sultan.23 As to be expected the plotters themselves described their goals somewhat differently. Both leaders of the conspiracy, Ahmed and Hüseyin Daim, did not cooperate with their interrogators, denied all charges and claimed not to remember anything.24 The sheikh’s stock phrase, ‘My aim was not assassination (suikast) but to carry out the statutes of the sharia!’, apparently made it unchanged from the protocol into the edited report. The report, however, added its own interpretation as to Ahmed’s reason for founding the society and its aims: According to his unfounded opinion about the matter of equality of rights, which the subjects of the Ottoman state had acquired at the time of necessity for justice and need for judgements, [ … ] he started to establish such a society with the illusion to protect the glorious statutes of the sharia. He said that the aim of this society was not to assassinate anyone, but to introduce the ulema to this society and let them express their thoughts.25 In a similar vein the second in command, the officer Hüseyin Daim Pasha, answered that the society was ‘about realising the statutes of the sharia and reforming politics (ıslahat-ı umur-u umumiye)’.26 In the transcripts of the interrogations he added as a motive the squandering of the treasury (beyt-ül malın israfı).27 All these bits of information about the programme of the society and the motives of the plotters are heavily filtered by the official perspective the judges were projecting. At first sight this programme seems to have consisted merely of a slogan, i.e., the implementation of the sharia (icra-ı s¸eriat) that Sheikh Ahmed, Hüseyin Daim Pasha, but also other members of the conspiracy were referring to in their interrogations.28 Biographical data regarding some of the plotters especially its two leaders can give a hint as to the intellectual roots of this programme and how it was connected to the other motives mentioned above. Such a biographical perspective will give an example of the heterogeneity of the society and its aims. It will also show the connection of the Kuleli conspiracy to the immediate political situation of

18

A sheikh and an officer

the 1850s as well as to the longer reaching developments in the Ottoman political system during the Tanzimat. According to his interrogation Sheikh Ahmed, the founder and president of the Society of Martyrs, was born around 1813 in Süleymaniye in the province of Mosul. His life was the story of an increasing involvement in politics that at one point switched from supporting the Ottoman Empire into opposition against the sultan and his government. The keystone of Ahmed’s biography including his later ‘political career’ was his membership in the Naqshbandi order of dervishes where he attained the rank of a sheikh. Regarding his place of birth, Süleymaniye, then the principal place of a small semi-independent Kurdish emirate in the strategic border region between Persia and the Ottoman Empire, this choice comes as no surprise. One of the town’s most famous descendants, Sheikh Abu’l-Baha Ziya al-Din Khalid al-Shahrizuri, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, established in his hometown his own branch of the Naqshbandiya that he had embraced in India.29 This branch, named the Khalidiya after its founder, established itself in the wide stream of religious reform movements that began to form in the Islamic world from the end of the seventeenth century. Although sometimes these movements were at odds with the parallel developments of political and social reform, nonetheless they have to be considered inherent parts of the modernisation process in the Islamic world. The Naqshbandi order believed in the periodic regeneration of religious life through the implementation of Islamic law in its original form. It was the central position they awarded to the sharia that distinguished the Naqshbandis from most other sufi orders. In its beginnings the biggest rival for the Khalidiya was the traditional Kadiri order whose sheikhs managed to oust Khalid al-Shahrizuri from Süleymaniye several times. Khalid had to go to Baghdad where he won many followers and later to Damascus where he died in 1828. By then, however, the Khalidiya had been firmly established in Kurdistan. The secret of its success lay mainly in its superior organisation. Likewise its rise was also connected to the political and social changes the region underwent from the 1830s onwards. One aim of the centralisation policy of Sultan Mahmud II had been to submit the semi-independent Kurdish emirates of Eastern Anatolia to the imperial centre. Sufi sheiks in general and especially the ones from the Khalidiya were arbitrating these changes and sometimes could assume outright political power that could turn against Ottoman supremacy. One of the last and most pertinent examples is the revolt led by sheikh Ubaydullah of Nehri against the central government in 1880.30 In the neighbouring Caucasus we also encounter this phenomenon in the figure of Sheikh Shamil resisting Russian conquest from the 1830s. Far from remaining a purely regional tarikat, the Khalidiya also managed to establish itself in the rest of the empire and especially in the capital. In the 1820s its first deputies (khalifa) arrived in Istanbul where the Naqshbandiya was already the most successful order regarding the number of convents

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and followers. Many of the adherents of the Naqshbandiya were state officials who were also involved in planning the reforms during the reign of Selim III (1789–1807) and Mahmud II (1807–39). One of them, the tutor of sultan Abdülmecid, apparently was involved in the drafting of the Tanzimat charter. At this stage political reformism was still compatible with Islamic revivalism of the Naqshbandis. The teachings of the order supported the empire against European imperialism and Shiism for being the most powerful Sunni state and as that a guarantor of the implementation of Islamic law.31 Unfortunately we have almost no information about Ahmed’s rise in the Khalidiya. According to his interrogation he descended from an old and prominent family of Süleymaniye, which owned land and a tekke there.32 He was probably too young to be taught by Sheikh Khalid himself, but even after the founder of the order had been ousted from Süleymaniye the town remained a Khalidi stronghold. Two contemporaries claimed that Ahmed acquired his immense classical learning he was later credited with in Baghdad that was another centre of Naqshbandi teaching.33 The only information we get from his own interrogation statement is that he arrived in Istanbul 13 years before his arrest and became a calligrapher at Osmaniye Mosque and later a teacher at one of the religious schools attached to Bayezid Mosque. Additionally he spent some time with the Ottoman army of Anatolia and Batum during the Crimean War.34 This episode is most interesting for it not only reveals Ahmed’s activist character, but also has to be regarded as laying the immediate ideological and personal foundations for organising the Society of Martyrs. Ahmed’s involvement in the Crimean War was part of a broad patriotic movement that supported the war against Russia on account of a religious interpretation of Ottoman legitimacy. At its highest level the s¸eyhülislam, who allegedly held sympathies for the Naqshbandis, expressed this view. He not only reminded the sultan in several fetvas in a general fashion of his duty to lead the jihad. He also managed to explain the Ottoman alliance with Christian states by labelling the latter as vassals rendering their due service to their overlord, the Ottoman sultan.35 More significant, however, was the popular protest movement that reacted to the mounting political tensions between the Ottoman Empire and Russia in spring 1853. It was fuelled by patriotic as well as religious feelings, and apparently the political factions in the capital also used this movement for their own purposes. While Res¸id Pasha advocated a reconciliation with Russia as advised by the European powers, the war faction was headed by the minister of war Mehmed Ali. Protests reached a first peak in May when the ulema, medrese students and guild members started a campaign in favour of war. A poster on the wall of S¸ehzade Mosque called for the jihad against Russia and, on a somewhat more official level, a petition signed by 35 ulema voiced the same demand. A sheikh of the Rifai order of dervishes demanded to be handed the standard of the Prophet stored at Eyüp to lead

20

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his followers into battle. During the protests the rumour that the sultan soon would be deposed in favour of his brother re-emerged. The Porte distanced itself from these initiatives and even sent some of the ulema and medrese students into exile.36 More serious and disrupting were the protests the Ottoman capital witnessed in December 1853. The medrese students went on strike and demanded a tougher response against Russia that had destroyed the Ottoman fleet at Sinope. At the same time, in some Istanbul barracks there was unrest among soldiers who threatened to join the students. To restore order the Porte had 160 students arrested. They were offered the chance to join the army, but most of them rejected it and were exiled to Crete.37 Ahmed together with another alleged member of the Kuleli conspiracy, Hoca Nasuh, was involved in this pro-war movement. The sheikh addressed a petition to the Ottoman government to be allowed to take part with 3,000 of his followers (mürid) in the war. His request was granted in spring 1854 by the authorities which, at the same instance, promised to provide provisions for the men on their way to the Anatolian front.38 Ahmed was not the only Khalidi sheikh who actively joined the war efforts, as the example of the head of the Khalidiya in Erzincan shows.39 Sheikh Shamil, the most famous of all political leaders from the Khalidiya, who was also present on the eastern front of the Crimean War is another example. Shamil had been most successful in realising the ideological and political goals of his order in his fight against the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. From the 1830s onwards he was able to organise parts of Daghestan into a veritable Naqshbandi state that resembled an extended tarikat. He collected taxes, settled Muslim refugees from other parts of the region and interpreted and implemented sharia law. The most important task, however, was to lead the fight against Russia with an army composed of his personal followers whom he led under the title commander of the faithful (amir al-muminin).40 Following Khalidi doctrine initially Shamil seems to have accepted the leading role of the Ottoman sultan. However, his relations to the empire were marked by disappointments. None of his requests for assistance was ever heard, because the Porte would not risk endangering its good relations with Russia during the 1830s and 1840s. The Ottoman government even expelled one of Shamil’s lieutenants preventing the recruitment of fighters in the empire. After the declaration of war contacts were re-established and the sultan even issued a ferman making Shamil governor of all the lands he could conquer. But apart from such symbolic gestures a real cooperation never materialised. By then Shamil’s position was much too weak to help the Ottomans by attacking the Russian army from behind the front. Moreover, until the end both sides did not trust each other entirely.41 Contemporaries saw Ahmed’s role parallel to these examples. Most prominently the orientalist and traveller Arminius Vambéry stated this in a romantic characterisation of the sheikh:

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[Ahmed] had taken part in the whole of the Crimean war as a Gazi (a warrior for religion), bareheaded and barefooted, and clad in a garb whose austere simplicity recalled the primitive ages of Islam. His sword never left his lean loins, nor his lance the firm grasp of his clenched fist, either by day or by night, except when he said his prayers, five times a day. Through the snow, in the storm, in the thickest of the fight on the battlefield, during toilsome marches, everywhere could be discovered the ghost-like form of this zealot, his fiery eyes scattering flames, and always at the head of the division, under the command of my chief [Hüseyin Daim].42 Likewise, a member of the conspiracy said that he met Ahmed in Batum in September 1854 as a participant in the jihad. Another member, a medrese student, directly compared Ahmed’s group with that of Sheikh Shamil and a private from the artillery reported that Ahmed commanded 50,000 soldiers and worked for the reform of the world (ıslah-ı âlem).43 For Ahmed the war offered the opportunity to sharpen and pursue his Naqshbandi ideology and actively support the empire. Furthermore, he enlarged his personal network and became acquainted with many of the later members of the conspiracy. The most important person in this matter was Hüseyin Daim, the highest ranking officer in the plot. Like Ahmed, Hüseyin Daim also originated from the periphery of the empire, a fact that shaped his life and career. By birth a Circassian he followed a classical pattern being bought as a slave for one of the big Istanbul pasha households, being educated there and then becoming part of the ruling elite of the empire. Of this pattern that since classical times had run parallel to the devs¸irme system Hüseyin was one of the last examples. According to the European adventurer Frederick Millingen employed in the Ottoman army Hüseyin, at a young age, became a page in the palace of Mahmud II and from there entered a military career. Maybe he was among the servants of Mahmud who manned the new army after the janissaries had been abolished in 1826.44 During the 1830s and 1840s he rose in the ranks, probably helped by Hafız Mehmed, the Ottoman officer who lost the famous battle at Nizip against the Egyptian army in 1839 and reportedly was his brother (or a patron with the same ethnic background).45 In the Crimean War Hüseyin distinguished himself in the battle at Kurudere in Eastern Anatolia in 1854 and, in the following year, was part of the army under the command of the British general Fenwick Williams that defended Kars against the Russians. Many of the other European generals employed in Kars described him as a brave soldier and a honest man in contrast to some of the other Ottoman generals who saw in their deployment only a nuisance distracting them from their careers in the capital. Just before the town had to be handed over to the Russians in autumn 1855 Hüseyin was promoted to the rank of general of division (ferik).46

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Apart from his advancement in the army the war was also the occasion when Hüseyin met Sheikh Ahmed. The exact circumstances of this encounter are unknown. The orientalist Arminius Vambéry, who worked as the tutor of Hüseyin’s son in 1859, claimed that it was the sheikh’s activist stance and warlike faith that attracted the officer. Possibly Hüseyin was also initiated into the sheikh’s order, because the same source later, in 1862, called him ‘an enthusiastic religious mystic’ with connections to the Naqshbandi order of dervishes. We know nothing about Hüseyin’s relation to religion or any Sufi affiliation before he became acquainted with the sheikh.47 Another source of spiritual influence may have been the Hungarian officers in the Ottoman army which again Vambéry claimed. After the suppression of the revolution in 1848 thousands of Polish, Hungarian and Italian revolutionaries had fled to Ottoman territory and some had found employment in the Ottoman army. Their political influence is disputed; probably it was their anti-Russian stance that most attracted their Ottoman colleagues.48 After the war Hüseyin Daim was deployed to the border of Montenegro where he was charged to repel Montenegrin militias from Ottoman territory. The larger question behind these quarrels at the Ottoman border was Montenegro’s independence from the empire already under discussion during the peace negotiations at Paris. In May 1858 an Ottoman advance unit led by Hüseyin was ambushed by the rebels and lost up to 700 men. The Porte had to accept European arbitration so that the border was fixed according to the military status quo. As a consequence of this defeat Hüseyin had to give back a decoration (ikinci derece nis¸an), which was newly assigned to him only about a year later.49 Again it is possible that the experience of defeat and degradation deepened Hüseyin’s willingness to join Ahmed’s group which must have been forming at the same time. The frustration may not have derived solely from the humiliation of the Ottoman army in confrontation with a band of rebels. The result of the affair may also have been a personal grudge against the minister of war Rıza Pasha, who is said to have been partly responsible for the lack of troops in the troubled region on the Montenegrin border, but who did not have to face the consequences because of his palace connections.50 In contrast to Hüseyin Daim, information about Ahmed’s life in the crucial years between the end of the Ottoman–Russian war and his arrest in September 1859 is scarce. The only explanation for his turning to militancy against the government is connected to his Naqshbandi ideology. As he stated in his interrogation: ‘I became cold inside the minute the ferman about the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims was issued.’ Further he voiced his frustration that he would not have participated in the war, if he had known earlier that ‘the war was not for religion, but for the state’; a statement that he then partially took back.51 It is unknown if Ahmed had any particular grievances or any concrete experience in connection to this

A sheikh and an officer

23

rather abstract event that made him determined to move against the sultan and his government. The personalities and life stories of its two founders, that are so important to understand the political culture that nourished the Kuleli conspiracy, are also reflected in its structure and membership. Ahmed who personally recruited half the members of the Society of Martyrs clearly emerges as its heart and brain. The society was organised around him like a small tarikat consisting of a group of followers (mürid), who were personally dependent on their sheikh and spiritual leader (mürs¸id) to whom they owed unquestioning obedience. Moreover, in the case of the conspiracy, like in a tarikat, besides the initiated members there existed an amorphous circle of followers (muhibban) accounting for approximately half the 41 suspects arrested in connection with the plot. The tarikat was clearly the form of ‘secret sociability’52 at hand to protect the plans of the plotters and recruit new members. With this form of organisation and ideology it comes as no surprise that Ahmed was successful in recruiting members from the religious milieu of the capital to his conspiracy. There was a group of four medrese students as well as two other Sufi sheikhs, whose task was to give support to the plot with their followers and students. One of them was the Naqshbandi Sheikh Feyzullah from Hezargrad/Razgrad in present day Bulgaria (number 22 on the list of culprits), who claimed to have a thousand followers. He was recruited with the help of the müftü of the council of Tophane (no. 6), who functioned as a bridge between the members with a military background . and the ones coming from the religious side. The other Sufi sheikh, Ismail from Kütahya (no. 23), perhaps a Naqshbandi, too, who is said to have had as many as 6,000 followers, was approached by Ahmed himself after a sermon in Aya Sofya. A last member from the religious side we have already met in connection with the pro-war protest movement was the hodja Nasuh Efendi (no. 21). Because he did not become a fedai he could not be sentenced for membership of the society, but nonetheless was banned from Istanbul for a couple of years.53 Most members of the conspiracy, however, had a military background. The army officers constituting the largest group of fedai were the arms and bones of the conspiracy. Besides the general of division (ferik) Hüseyin Daim (no. 2) there were four captains (yüzbas¸ı) and three majors (binbas¸ı), and a few non-commissioned officers. The officers from the inner circle mostly recruited members for the society from among their colleagues and kin. Some of the military men also were old acquaintances of the sheikh such as, for example, a lieutenant from Daghistan (no. 16) and a captain, who like the sheikh himself came from Süleymaniye and was a son of the ruling family of that city (no. 8). A sergeant from the Tophane supply regiment (no. 15), who was recruited personally by Ahmed explicitly claimed in the interrogation to be his mürid. He became an especially zealous member and brought five new followers from different artillery

24

A sheikh and an officer

units in Istanbul to the conspiracy, two of whom signed the pact with the sheikh. Arif Bey (no. 4) represented a third milieu present in the conspiracy. As a scribe he did not directly belong to the military, but to a social class of lowranking civil officials with a reforming agenda that was to pick up opposition to the government in the next decades. Like Hüseyin Daim he was interested in European affairs, knew some French and even wrote a treatise on how the Ottoman system of administration, finance and government should be reformed to conform to modern standards and be more just and efficient.54 The rest of the suspects were people from different or unclear backgrounds. There was a poor confectioner (muhallebici), who seems to have been a client of one of the alleged leaders in the inner circle of the conspiracy, and in this way got involved in the conspiracy. Last to mention was a group of four Circassians who were supposed to carry out the sultan’s assassination. There were a lot of Circassian refugees in Istanbul at the time, but the allegation that a large number of them actually was included in the secret society is doubtful.55 The conspiracy’s diverse membership gave rise to the contradicting evaluations as to its aims and overall character described in the introduction to this chapter. At the same time this diversity also attests to the integrative power of its leader and his political culture. It has been shown how Ahmed’s understanding of Ottoman legitimacy as well as his political style was shared by other members of the conspiracy from diverse backgrounds. This political culture provided the Society of Martyrs with all its characteristic elements beginning with its secret tarikat-like structure, its terminology and slogan and so on. While in the Ottoman context it had been traditionally the Bektashis who stood accused of plotting and secrecy, in the case of the Society of Martyrs the Naqshbandis served as the model. It is a sign of the changing political climate that a sheikh from an order that was a champion of Islamic reformism and originally had been near to the state organised this opposition. Not only the state used an Islamic language to support its policies; also the opposition could employ it to highlight the contradictions of the reform process. Many of the grievances the conspiracy’s members were nursing could be addressed in this language, too. The dependence of the empire on foreign powers was one the members from the military felt most directly. Most important was the demand for a more open distribution of power in the political system of the country and the control of the allpowerful elite of statesmen. According to the traditional ideal of the autocratic state the plotters saw the exchange of sultans as the key to their success. In this way they were very traditional and not against the regime per se, but only against the current government including the sultan. Hüseyin Daim and his colleagues can be evaluated as forerunners of a new political culture of opposition in the Ottoman army that, after the destruction of the janissaries, had not yet re-emerged as a milieu

A sheikh and an officer

25

for opposition in the political system. Their worldview contained some elements that European observers described as liberal, but that at the same time were understandable in the traditional religious discourse of political justice. The war had created the situation that enabled and accelerated the formation of the conspiracy that was the natural form of opposition. It can be seen as symptomatic for the failure of the conspiracy that its leader, Sheikh Ahmed, was not part of the political establishment. Hüseyin Daim’s position was not high enough to secure success and despite all the discontent and factional struggle among Ottoman politicians this did not translate into their participation in the plans of the Society of Martyrs. In this sense the judgement of the French ambassador to Istanbul, Thouvenel, is right that the conspiracy was special in that it deviated from the traditional palace revolutions, because it was initiated by ‘subaltern actors’ and, for the first time after fifty years, actually planned to lay hands on the person of the sultan.56 The Ottoman authorities either did not see this or preferred to ignore it. In the end, for all the condemnatory rhetoric that was used in the official report on the Kuleli conspiracy the treatment of the plotters was very lenient. The death sentences of the five main culprits were commuted and most of the convicts were reintegrated into the political system after some years. This lenient treatment can be understood as an expression of the elite’s traditional thinking on order. Its breaking and resurrection was part of a perpetual circle, which recurring nature made such acts of contestation less grave.57 On a political level, as an immediate limitation of damage the authorities tried to appease Muslim public opinion. After anonymous posters had appeared calling for the liberation of the plotters, the government issued a decree concerning public drinking and women’s dress. However, it was much harder to find a suitable response to the dissatisfaction with the general political situation. For once, the sultan promised to set in order the finances of the empire and reduce the spending of the palace. Also the replacement of Âli Pasha as grand vizier with Kıbrılslı Mehmed Pasha at the end of October 1859 can be seen as a reaction to the public mood; his replacement had been the demand of an anonymous petition sent to the palace some time after the detection of the plot.58 These, however, were only temporary measures and in the following years the influence of Âli and Fuad even increased. Basically the fundamental problems of the empire stayed the same so that new opposition groups were formed. Not even the individuals sent to exile after the Kuleli conspiracy could be confined for long. When Abdülmecid died in 1861 and his brother Abdülaziz finally came to the throne, most of them were allowed to return to Istanbul except for Ahmed, who had to stay in his place of exile, Cyprus. The Kuleli incident was remembered for a decade or so as a viable attempt to change the policy of the state and was referred to by succeeding groups and individuals.

3

New and old forms of opposition The Young Ottomans and the Vocation group

With the Young Ottomans a decade after the Kuleli conspiracy saw the emergence of one of the most famous opposition groups in the history of the Tanzimat. This small group of intellectuals forming in European exile has been credited with many ‘firsts’ in the political history of the Ottoman Empire like the introduction of constitutional thought, the use of newspapers for the dissemination of political ideas and the formation of a modern public opinion based on a political press. Its members have been seen as the intellectual antecedents of the later Young Turks in introducing elements from European political culture to the empire and adapting it to their needs. In their writings the Young Ottomans for the first time came close to developing what might be called ‘political theory’. Here the question of Ottoman legitimacy was posed in a much more articulated manner than before and new political ideas were openly discussed. This also included hints towards a new legitimisation of opposition against the authorities. Such a view has sometimes obscured the fact that the Young Ottomans were deeply entangled with the power structure and political culture of the empire under Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–76). The description and analysis of a small secret society called Vocation (Meslek) in which some of the Young Ottomans took part will be an example for the political milieu out of which the opposition of the 1860s grew as well as for the style of their opposition. Likewise the configuration of the political system in general is important to understand this opposition. Given the fact that many problems the empire faced were still the same it is not surprising that there were many resemblances and even personal connections to be found to the Society of Martyrs. While historiography has treated the two opposition groups as fundamentally opposed regarding their members, their ideology and their political culture, from within the political system they resembled each other considerably. As has been noted earlier many contemporary dissidents with a Young Ottoman and Young Turk background regarded the plotters of Kuleli as their antecedents. One of the main goals of the men of the Kuleli conspiracy had been to exchange Abdülmecid for his brother, who, it was generally believed, would have a better grip on his ministers and the problems the empire was facing.

New and old forms of opposition

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When the sultan died in 1861 and succession brought Abdülaziz to the Ottoman throne the high hopes that were held in the new sultan were frustrated. In terms of the foreign and internal political situation the 1860s remained a decade of an ongoing crisis for the empire. Russia, the big threat to Ottoman sovereignty, had been contained by the Treaty of Paris, but the growing national movements in the Balkans remained a problem. The unification of the two principalities Moldowa and Valachia under one king and the cessation of most Ottoman rights to the new country, Romania, were fought out entirely in the diplomatic arena. In other cases, however, ancient Ottoman rights were disputed more hotly. In Serbia where there were still small detachments of the Ottoman army it came to clashes with the local population. In the beginning of the 1860s there were also minor revolts in Herzegovina, Montenegro and on Crete, all of which could be suppressed. Likewise, in Mount Lebanon the clashes between Druzes and Maronites that spilled over to Damascus provoked French intervention. Unfortunately there is little historical evidence as to the effect these political developments had on public opinion in Istanbul. The only time popular discontent was voiced openly was during the financial crisis of November 1861. After a dramatic devaluation of the kaime, the Ottoman paper money, there were bread shortages and for a short time it looked as if riots could break out in the capital. With a new loan from Europe, however, confidence could be restored and the kaime was withdrawn from the money market.1 What kind of damage this as well as the military and diplomatic defeats meant for the prestige of the sultan can only be guessed. For sure, the damage must have been huge for the Ottoman politicians who tried to deal with the constant crisis. From the end of the 1850s onwards Ottoman politics were dominated almost exclusively by Mehmed Emin Âli (1815–71) and Keçecizade Mehmed Fuad (1815–69), who had risen from the translation office of the Porte as protégés of Res¸id. During the time of the Crimean War they had become independent of their mentor, who had died in 1859; apparently they had used the Kuleli conspiracy to consolidate their power.2 Also under the new sultan Abdülaziz Âli and Fuad remained in their supreme positions, because of their diplomatic skills and their ability to rally European support for the empire. Abdülaziz, who was eager to widen his influence on day-to-day political decisions, had to learn how indispensable the two politicians were during a cabinet crisis in December 1862/January 1863. After quarrels over the question of financing the army and navy grand vizier Fuad together with the other ministers handed in their resignation, but had to be reinstated some months later.3 In this situation a group of intellectuals and poets from the milieu of the low-ranking civil bureaucracy for the first time began to use privately owed newspapers as a medium of political opposition. .The founding figure of an independent Ottoman press was the intellectual Ibrahim S¸inasi (1826–71), also a protégé of Res¸id Pasha, who edited the successive papers Tasvir-i Efkar

28

New and old forms of opposition

(Description of Opinions) and Tercüman-ı Ahval (Translator of Conditions). The articles in S¸inasi’s papers mainly touched on educational and cultural subjects, but they also entered the field of politics from time to time. This seems to have been the reason why S¸inasi had to leave Istanbul in 1865 and decided to go into voluntary exile to Paris. How much his alleged involvement in a conspiracy against Âli Pasha organised by one Said Sermedi might also have played a role is not clear. Likewise unproven was the rumour that S¸inasi had connections to the Society of Martyrs, because he had been employed as a scribe in the same office as one of its leaders.4 His closest supporter and disciple, the young official in the translation bureau and poet Namık Kemal (1840–88), took over the paper of his mentor and successively together with other journalists began to include more politically minded articles. The occasion for conflict with the government derived from the revolt on the isle of Crete that broke out in 1866 and proved hard to contain for the Ottoman army. In this critical situation the Ottoman government was very susceptible not only to outside pressure from the European powers, but also to interference in its policy by the press at home. The articles Kemal printed in autumn 1866 on the Cretan question and especially his campaign to help the Turkish population of the island were anxiously watched by the government. The authorities interfered openly when in October Kemal wrote a column about Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Istanbul singing anti-Turkish songs and thus endangering public order in the capital. The Tasvir-i Efkar was ordered to print an official statement by the ministry of police that everything was under control.5 The relations between the small Ottoman press and the government further deteriorated in the following year when the Tasvir-i Efkar began to take part in a campaign against the government led by Mustafa Fazıl Pasha, a former Ottoman minister and brother of Ismail, the governor/viceroy of Egypt. After he had lost the struggle with Fuad Pasha for the grand viziership and the Egyptian succession had been altered and conferred to his brother’s son, Mustafa Fazıl had chosen Europe as a place of exile. In the beginning of 1867 by means of articles in some European papers he continued his criticism of the Ottoman government claiming he was at the head of a large party called, in imitation of other European reform movements, Young Turkey (la Jeune Turquie).6 The independent Ottoman press, namely Namık Kemal’s Tasvir-i Efkar and the Muhbir (Reporter) edited by one Ali Suavi, who would become one of the most interesting figures of Ottoman opposition, took up the issue (probably without any direct contact to the pasha) and published translations of the article. In March 1867 as a next step in this campaign against the government an open letter by Mustafa Fazıl to Sultan Abdülaziz reached the Ottoman public.7 This letter that had been published in the European press before and in the empire was distributed as a pamphlet was written in the timehonoured form of a petition to the sultan. In deferential language it raised some of the issues, which can be regarded as the conventional points of

New and old forms of opposition

29

criticism of the Ottoman political system of the time. Most obviously this was the condemnation of the tyrannical and corrupt system of government that especially afflicted the Muslims. Responsible for this were the sultan’s ministers – ‘these subaltern tyrants’ – who were neither checked by the sultan’s good intentions nor by a public opinion that did not yet exist in the empire. As an immediate remedy, as opposed to more long-term measures such as improving the educational and economic framework of the empire, Mustafa Fazıl urged the sultan to adopt a constitution. This would result in the total equality of Muslims and Christians and would improve the image of the empire in Europe. The publication of the letter added the last element to a constitutional debate mainly orchestrated by Mustafa Fazıl that had been going on in Istanbul for some time. Already in February a certain Halil S¸erif, an Egyptian, too, who would later become Mustafa Fazıl’s son-in-law, had presented a draft constitution for the empire to the public. The Courrier d’Orient, whose editor was in contact with Mustafa Fazıl in Paris, also took part in this discussion.8 By way of this press campaign Mustafa Fazıl had become a recognised figure of opposition against the Ottoman government led by Âli Pasha since February 1867. A clampdown on the Istanbul press in March 1867 subsequently made him its leader. Since the beginning of the year it had been especially the Muhbir and its main writer Ali Suavi who had openly criticised the way the government handled the rebellion in Crete and the situation in Serbia where the local government demanded a complete withdrawal of the remaining Ottoman troops from the territory of the autonomous province. This paper as well as Kemal’s Tasvir-i Efkar were closed and their editors together with Ziya Bey, a journalist and rival of the grand vizier, were sent to serve as officials in remote provinces of the empire.9 It was at this moment that Mustafa Fazıl stepped into the picture and offered his assistance to the three exiled journalists inviting them to come to Paris where they arrived at the end of May. Kemal, Ziya and Ali Suavi were only the first of a small group of men who began to assemble around Mustafa Fazıl and subsequently formed the Young Ottoman Society. The remaining members of the Young Ottoman Society followed a more conventional style of political contestation in forming a conspiracy to topple the Ottoman government. It resembled in many ways the Society of Martyrs, but because of the social origin of its founders its style of organisation and the political ideals it was advocating were slightly different. When this conspiracy was detected in June 1867 its three leading members, Mehmed, Nuri and Res¸ad Beys who were friends of Kemal, fled to Paris and joined the men around Mustafa Fazıl. Similar to the Kuleli incident at first there were only rumours in the European press giving information about this conspiracy. In the second week of June 1867 papers in Europe broke with the news that an uncertain

30

New and old forms of opposition

number of people had been arrested in Constantinople, because a plot against the government had been detected. According to several papers Hüseyin Daim Pasha as well as a secretary of Mustafa Fazıl were among the arrested. As claimed by one article the plan of the plotters had been to invade the Porte with a mass of people on 5 June and assassinate the grand vizier Âli and other ministers assembled there to attend the council of ministers. Afterwards the crowd was to march to the palace to force the sultan to implement a reform plan. This would have included the signing of ‘a sort of charte’, the creation of a parliamentary assembly as well as the adoption of financial reforms putting an end to the extravagant spending of the palace. The author of the conspiracy was said to be Mustafa Fazıl, who would have returned to Istanbul immediately if the plot had succeeded. Its president was said to be Ziya Bey, its vice president Mehmed Bey, both of whom had been able to flee before they could be arrested. The plot apparently had 400 members, whose names were found on a list seized by the police in the house of Mustafa Fazıl’s secretary; 120 of those had been arrested.10 Once again a look at the Ottoman investigation documents offers more credible information about the extent and the aim of the conspiracy as well as the political culture of its members. These documents consist of an official report (mazbata), a summary of the oral interrogations as well as the sentence for each of the suspects. In addition there was a memorandum (arz tezkeresi) to the sultan making him acquainted with the findings of the trial and asking him to confirm the sentences in a decree (irade).11 The introduction to the official report recounted the events in the following manner: When the news was heard that some people had established a secret society (cemiyet-i hafiye) to cause sedition (fitne ve fesad) against the vigorous administration of the state, these people were arrested in groups of one or two in the quarters where they lived and were brought [ … ] to the ministry of police where they were imprisoned and interrogated alone or, if necessary, by confronting them with each other.12 The report went on, saying that some of the arrested had to be released again, but 25 stayed in custody. The instigators of this organisation, which was called Vocation (Meslek), were Mehmed, Res¸ad and Nuri Beys, who had not yet been arrested. Until 20 days before the arrest of their members the aim of the society was said to be the promotion of civilisation, humanity and prosperity (medeniyet, insaniyet, umraniyet). Only after that date it turned against the government and tried to recruit new members. Apparently for each member a booklet with writings of the society was produced (Meslekname) and they held meetings in their houses, in various medreses and one on a field outside Istanbul.

New and old forms of opposition

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Regarding the group’s plan of action the introduction stated: On a day that the Privy Council (meclis-i has) was to meet they wanted to finish off the members of that council before attacking the Porte and then, as they had written it down in the circulating documents, wanted to conclude the matter by making [new] appointments. In short, they tried to undertake their treasonous assassination attempt in order to find a way to their vile hope to obtain rank and office for each of them.13 After thus defining the aim of the society the introduction of the report concluded by stating that the suspects were to be classified in five categories according to their degree of involvement in the conspiracy, i.e., if they knew about the plans to overthrow the government. Then the report turned to the individual interrogations of the suspects. As had been the case with the Society of Martyrs the composition of the Vocation group depended heavily on the social environment of its three leading figures, Mehmed, Nuri and Res¸ad. Mehmed Bey (1843–74), born a descendant of a well-known family of Ottoman officials, had been a pupil of the Mekteb-i Osmanî, the Ottoman school that had been founded in Paris in 1858, before he was employed in the translation office (tercüme odası) of the High Council at the Porte.14 Nuri Bey (1840–1906) and Res¸ad Bey (1844–1901/2) were colleagues of Mehmed in the same institution. Like them, nine of the 25 interrogated suspects were employed directly by the government, seven in the central bureaucracy of the capital and three in the local administration. Furthermore, there were four people with professions related to the administration, two writers of petitions (arzuhalcı) and two tax farmers (mültezim). In most of the cases it seems to have been professional contacts with the three leaders that brought these officials to the secret society. More of a surprise were the four men with a religious background who joined the group. One sheikh, two hodjas and one student of theology were arrested, interrogated and found guilty. Like the government officials they were recruited by Mehmed and Res¸ad, who apparently had connections to the religious milieu. In one of the interrogation protocols it was stated that the two came to the Aya Sofya Mosque one day and proclaimed ‘that the commands of the sharia were worthy and that the time of their realisation will come and also showed the statutes of the Vocation group (Meslekname)’. From another source we know that Mehmed sometimes went to the medreses attached to Fatih Mosque to share his opinions with the ulema.15 Unfortunately there is no information as to whether these religious professionals had any influence on the group’s ideology. It seems to have been the task of the hodjas to have their students ready at the Aya Sofya Mosque on the day of the attack on the Porte following the classical pattern of popular unrest in the capital.

32

New and old forms of opposition

The rest of the 25 members of the Vocation group came from different or unclear backgrounds. Among them was an astrologer (number 9 on the list of suspects) and two tradesmen (nos. 21 and 22), who, however, played no important role in the society. The near total absence of any members from the army – there was one retired major, who was already in his sixties (no. 23) – perhaps marked the most striking difference to the Society of Martyrs. Another specific feature of Vocation clearly was the structure of the group. Rather than a charismatic individual it had three leaders at its top and instead of the tarikat it chose another model of organisation. On the outside the Vocation group operated as a charity promising financial help to its members. In this way it attracted people before its real purpose was revealed to them. Small stipends were paid to at least four of the poorer suspects, among them one of the hodjas (nos. 8, 12, 16, 18). One of the tradesmen was asked to contribute to the funds of the society (no. 21). As claimed by the introduction of the official report, another strategy to tie the members to the group had been to promise them offices for the time after the coup. Indeed, there seems to have been a list of future appointments (tevcihat pusulası) (no. 2), but in only three cases is there more detailed information as to what posts the suspects were promised. Another common strategy the leaders employed to strengthen the trust in the conspiracy was to exaggerate its dimensions. Many of the suspects claimed that at the time they were recruited they were told that high Ottoman politicians as well as thousands of soldiers and medrese students were involved in the plot and that armed fedai were at its disposal. One statement (no. 4) explicitly mentioned Hüseyin Daim Pasha, but there is no further hint in the whole report as to what his involvement really was. His name might just have been mentioned to show that the conspiracy had the backing of an experienced officer. The same applies to the alleged connection of the Young Ottomans to the plot. One of Mustafa Fazıl’s ex-secretaries, Azmi Bey, who was on position one in the list of suspects, said that there was a plan to bring back his former chief from Paris and that also another of the latter’s servants was involved in the matter. Once again it remains unclear how much Mustafa Fazıl himself knew about the conspiracy. Likewise, the truth of another suspect’s statement (no. 13) that the group tried to realise the conspiratorial ideas that Kemal and Ziya also held is dubious. Most probably such an allegation was to calm down members of the group when confronted with the violent aims its leaders developed. Ziya himself vehemently denied a connection between the plotters and the Young Ottomans already assembled in Paris in an article to a French newspaper.16 Apart from offering financial help or posts in the administration the leaders of Vocation clearly wanted to bind its members ideologically to the group. The introduction of the report had already mentioned the so-called Meslekname, which seems to have contained the programme of the group.

New and old forms of opposition

33

It seems that every member was handed a numbered copy of this piece of writing, although there is no specific information about its content to be found in the report (nos. 2, 9, 18). Nonetheless, the ideology of Vocation partly can be reconstructed from the suspect’s statements. Only one of them (no. 2) actually seems to have used the terms humanity and civilisation (insaniyet, medeniyet) found in the introduction to describe the goals of the society. Two suspects said it was about reform (ıslahat dair bir s¸ey, no. 10) or about the reform of the administration (idare-i devletin ıslahatı, no. 17). According to another statement the rights of the Muslim community (millet) was the object of the group’s endeavours (no. 20). A clearer picture of the ideology of Vocation emerges when looking at the description of one of the last meetings that was held in one of the hodjas’ room. In this meeting Mehmed Bey demanded a national assembly (millet meclisi), which he also repeated in other circumstances (cf. statements of nos. 8, 15, 19). One of the other members present (no. 25) propagated parliamentarianism with the argument that now that even the Armenians had a national assembly the Muslims could not wait any longer. This reformist and constitutional programme of Vocation seems to have been the uniting element especially in the initial phase of the society, before the plans for the violent overthrow of the government were hatched. It may well be that . Vocation in this phase was identical with the so-called Patriotic Alliance (Ittifak-ı Hamiyet), a secret society that, it has been claimed, was at the basis of the political engagement of the individuals later called the Young Ottomans. According to Ebüzziya Tevfik, a contemporary writer and journalist who made the Young Ottomans’ acquaintance in the 1860s, the Patriotic Alliance was founded by six young men at a picnic in a forest near Istanbul in June 1865 as a debating club that discussed constitutional ideas and their promotion in the empire.17 Reportedly among them were not only Mehmed, Res¸ad and Nuri, but also Namık Kemal, a certain Ayetullah Bey, the son of the host of one of Istanbul’s most important literary salons, as well as Refik Bey, the editor of the short-lived journal Mir’at (Mirror).18 The so-called Patriotic Alliance is said to have been inspired by the Italian Carbonaria that promoted liberal and constitutional ideas in the form of a secret organisation since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Like the Hungarian and Polish revolutionaries many of its members who had been persecuted in Italy used Istanbul as a place of exile. There may even have been a continuing influence on the Vocation group. Its organisational form as a charity may have been inspired by the Italian Society of Mutual Assistance (Società Operaia Italiana di Mutuo Soccorso) that exiled Italian carbonari had founded in Istanbul in 1863.19 That the Vocation group was a continuation of the Patriotic Alliance is possible, however, was never acknowledged by the main informant on the latter group, Ebüzziya Tevfik, who also had first-hand information of Vocation and its detection.20 That the two groups were identical is very

34

New and old forms of opposition

likely since also Vocation started as a secret debating club of constitutional ideas before the society switched to putsch plans against the government as its main goal. One member (no. 13) stated that he tried to leave the group when a change in its programme occurred that ‘did not correspond to Vocation’s just and moderate principles and regulations’. At the beginning of the new phase the leaders seem to have tried hard to recruit new members. From the statements of at least seven suspects it can be inferred that they joined the conspiracy at that point. One of them (no. 18) claimed that in the middle of March he saw 15 names on a membership list. Most of the other members (nos. 4, 6, 16, 17, 23) were recruited in May 1867, in the weeks when the planning for the attack on the Porte was underway. Whereas it is doubtful that there were any real contacts between the plotters and the journalists assembling in Paris like Namık Kemal and Ziya, there still may be an indirect connection. The change in attitude regarding violence in the leadership of the Vocation group seems to have been taking place at the same time as the Porte began its crackdown on the press in Istanbul. This might have convinced Mehmed that a debating club was not an adequate means to change the politics of the empire any more. As compared to Vocation, the Young Ottoman Society that was founded in Paris in August 1867 adhered to a very different style of opposition. Because of their exile the Young Ottomans could entirely concentrate on political journalism as a form of opposition. With them a very successful type of dissent emerged in the Ottoman Empire: the political émigré. At the same time it becomes apparent that the individuals who constituted the Young Ottoman Society remained heavily connected to the Ottoman political system and to its political culture of opposition in general. The society that had been brought together and was entirely financed by Mustafa Fazıl consisted of the two groups of fugitives Kemal, Ziya and Suavi as well as Mehmed, Res¸ad and Nuri who were joined by one Agah Efendi, a former scribe in the translation office, minister of post and owner of the Tercüman-ı Ahval, S¸inasi’s old journal. The eighth member of the society was a defector from the Ottoman embassy in Paris and an old friend of Kemal.21 The aim of the society was to propagate the reforms Mustafa Fazıl had advocated in his open letter to the sultan by publishing a journal, which was to figure as the continuation of the Muhbir with Ali Suavi as its chief editor. Ziya was chosen president of the society, because he was the oldest member.22 For a time the Young Ottoman Society focused entirely on the press as a means of opposition and moved away from the conspiratorial means as employed earlier by some of its members. The background of its founders as well as the circumstances of its establishment were clearly responsible for this development. From Paris it was impossible to organise the overthrow of the government, but the European environment proved ideal for editing newspapers. Because of the liberal British press law it was decided to produce the Muhbir in London rather than in France. The Muhbir as well as

New and old forms of opposition

35

later Young Ottoman publications could then easily be smuggled into the empire to be circulated among friends. Usually they were simply sent through the foreign postal services – a fact that the Porte was well aware of, but could not prevent.23 Being in exile, however, also had its disadvantages. Not only had some of the young men problems adapting to life in Europe, which further pronounced the existing differences among them.24 Also the fact that they were totally dependent on Mustafa Fazıl’s money was to cause difficulties for the group. As it turned out, even before the establishment of the group the mentor of the Young Ottomans had begun to prepare his return to Istanbul to resume his activities in Ottoman politics. In June and August Mustafa Fazıl had several audiences with Abdülaziz, at that time on a state visit to France and Britain. The ex-minister and his sovereign seem to have come to some kind of agreement and in September Mustafa Fazıl returned to the empire. At a last meeting with Kemal he apparently told the latter that he could pursue their common goal much better from inside the Ottoman administration. We do not know if Mustafa Fazıl really thought he could influence the sultan to move in the direction of the open letter or if, from the beginning, he only had used the dissidents from Istanbul to put pressure on the Porte to let him return. Neither his goals nor his strategies to attain them were very clear. Back in Istanbul Mustafa Fazıl considered the Muhbir much too radical, but nonetheless did not cut his support immediately. Also the other Young Ottomans were not content with the paper, which was more and more run exclusively by Ali Suavi. The latter’s political views, to be examined in Chapter 5 in greater detail, were developing into a different direction from those of the other Young Ottomans. Also the personal relationship between Ali Suavi and the rest of the group continuously deteriorated. For these reasons in spring 1868 Mustafa Fazıl finally ordered the Muhbir to stop its publication and allowed Kemal and Ziya to establish their own paper, Hürriyet (Freedom), which first appeared on 29 June of the same year. However, the inherent conflict of the Young Ottoman Society between its cautious financial backer in Istanbul and the quarrelling individuals in Europe continued to pose problems. After a short while Mustafa Fazıl also broke with Ziya for his bitter articles against grand vizier Âli Pasha in Hürriyet. After prosecution in England the paper had to move to Geneva and later ceased to exist.25 In the meantime the other Young Ottomans had also engaged in their own publications independent of their original mentor. In July 1869 Ali Suavi had started a paper called Ulum (Science) in Paris. At the same time : Mehmed edited the Ittihad (Union) in Paris defending constitutionalism and featuring articles in Turkish, Arabic, Greek and Armenian.26 Later, in: April 1870, he issued the most radical of all Young Ottoman papers, the Inkılab (Revolution) in Geneva of which only five numbers appeared. This paper featured personal attacks on the sultan and his administration calling for

36

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a revolution in the empire to achieve political change. For that reason it was quite exceptional among the Ottoman exile-papers of the time.27 Apart from his journalistic activities Mehmed also claimed to have been involved in a further attempt to overthrow the sultan. According to his own statement he travelled secretly to Istanbul actively to pursue a revolution. The journey, which probably took place in April or May 1869, however, seems not to have shown any results.28 Since there are no other witnesses to it, it is hard to say whether it ever took place, and what planning it might have involved. There is a possibility that it has to be seen in connection with the arrest of Hüseyin Vasfi Pasha, an officer in contact with the Young Ottomans. Hüseyin Vasfi (1835–78), who had graduated from the Ottoman military academy and who was the son-in-law of Mütercim Mehmed Rüs¸di, a high official who was to play a role in the deposition of Abdülaziz (examined in Chapter 4), became military attaché in Paris and director of the Mekteb-i Osmanî in 1867. There he apparently came in contact with the Young Ottomans and perhaps even joined their group. In the end of February 1869 he returned to Istanbul where he was arrested for an unknown reason. He was released again in April with an official assurance of his innocence and : then went back to Europe and helped Mehmed to produce the Inkılab.29 Like Mehmed Hüseyin Vasfi seems to have been a radical accepting violence as a means to attain his political goals. He remains a shadowy figure, because there is little information available about the nature of his political ideas. There have been attempts to connect him to other plots against Abdülaziz during the 1860s. One account asserts that Hüseyin Vasfi and Mehmed organised a conspiracy among the officers of the Istanbul guard regiment to kill the sultan in the mosque of Beylerbey in June 1865. If this account is not completely fictitious in the first place – the author claimed to have heard it in Young Turk circles in Brussels in 1870 – it might actually refer to activities or rather plans connected with Mehmed’s secret visit to Istanbul in spring 1869.30 Equally unproven is the claim made by Ebüzziya Tevfik that Hüseyin was part of the so-called Konduri–Altıncı plot involving a Russian tradesman and the son of a Greek banker who at the end of September 1868 were charged to have conspired to murder Sultan Abdülaziz. Apart from the fact that the plot rested on a false denunciation at the time of the events Hüseyin Vasfi probably was on his way back to Europe from his last assignment as commander of a military unit. It is thus very unlikely that he had anything to do with the episode, which offers a good example of the political climate of the time that could lead to false arrests. Not every investigation of rumours by the Ottoman police turned up a real plot.31 In accordance with their : revolutionary ideals Mehmed and Hüseyin Vasfi stopped publishing the Inkılab when the Franco–Prussian war broke out to give support to the French side. After the war, in late 1871, Hüseyin Vasfi under conspiratorial circumstances took residence in Athens from where he

New and old forms of opposition

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corresponded with the opposition against Abdülaziz, among others with the heir apparent Murad. He returned after the deposition of the sultan and eventually died in the Russian–Ottoman war in 1878.32 Mehmed already had returned in 1874 to the empire after an amnesty had been proclaimed, but had died in the same year. Regarding their radical ideas and their stress on action to attain their political goals the two had been exceptions compared to most of the other Young Ottomans. With the exception of Ali Suavi the editor of the Muhbir (who will be considered in Chapter 5), Namık Kemal and Ziya were most elaborate about their political ideas. They could express them relatively freely in their paper Hürriyet, because they were not subjected to any form of censorship except for their dependence on some sort of external financial backing. Conforming to their writings in Istanbul many articles of the two were about the political situation in the empire since the beginning of the Tanzimat. In general they criticised the interference of the European states in Ottoman affairs and the influence of their representatives in the empire. As one of the gravest effects of this interference Kemal and Ziya singled out the changing position of the Christian subjects in the empire, who in the eyes of the two journalists had attained a privileged position. That this had been a relatively recent development matched their veneration, which especially Ziya showed, for Res¸id Pasha in contrast to his successors Âli and Fuad. As had been the case for Sheikh Ahmed, the leader of the Kuleli conspiracy, the Reform ferman of 1856 was seen as the watershed between good and bad reforms.33 As one of the innovative features of their political ideas Kemal and Ziya propagated a constitutional system (usul-ı mes¸veret), which they tried to explain to their readers in their articles. At the basis of such a system they saw a written constitution that would replace all the existing secular laws and particularly the two reform decrees of 1839 and 1856. The political institutions of the French Second Empire were to serve as a model for a new institutional framework for the Ottoman Empire. An elected legislative chamber would be complemented with an appointed senate and a council of state. The sultan would keep his prominent position, but would be subjected to the law.34 It may seem more of a surprise regarding the background of the Young Ottomans that throughout their articles in Hürriyet Ziya and Kemal awarded religion and especially Islamic law an important position. Not only did they reject the split the Tanzimat administration had introduced between the new secular courts and codes of law and the original Islamic administration of justice. For Kemal in particular the sharia was the general foundation of reform and freedom. As a consequence the constitution would also depend on it.35 This respect for Islamic content and concepts was also reflected by the more theoretical articles Kemal wrote for Hürriyet. Although he was acquainted with Western political philosophy and took some ideas like the separation of powers or the social contract from it, he tried to integrate

38

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them into an overall Islamic framework. For example, whereas Kemal’s theory on the origin of society resembled the classical European social contract theories, his explanations regarding the origin of government altogether relied on classical Islamic thinking. With an oath of allegiance (biat) the Islamic community delegated power to an imam or caliph, whose task it was to oversee the correct implementation of the sharia in the Muslim community.36 The relationship of the Young Ottomans towards their own opposition was still very much entrenched in traditional political culture. Beginning with Mustafa Fazıl’s open letter, one of its characteristics was that it tried hard to efface its own oppositional stance. The conventional form Mustafa Fazıl chose, informing an ignorant ruler about the true circumstances in his country, made it possible for him to criticise the government without questioning the legitimacy of the sultan. A direct confrontation would have been unhelpful since it would have made Mustafa Fazıl’s return to office unlikely. In the beginning the letter describes a political utopia set in the times of the early Ottomans where the subjection to one ruler was freely accepted and an expression of the high moral and religious values of the Turks. The letter contrasts this form of government with the ‘secular despotism’ of the Byzantines – an only thinly veiled allusion to the Tanzimat administration cleverly putting Abdülaziz in the position of the morally impeccable early Ottoman sultans. That the present-day empire did not resemble this utopia any more was the fault of a class of clerks, who interfered in the harmonious relationship of ruler and ruled. Whereas the Christian subjects of the sultan had the option to engage in rebellion against these oppressors, the original political pact between the Turks and their sultan prevented the Muslims from doing so. They suffered patiently except for some ‘badly suppressed murmurs’ against such oppression. These were the only forms of opposition in the absence of a public opinion, which Mustafa Fazıl also seems to count among the legitimate means to react to the oppression of the administration. Under these circumstances even a legitimate form of political action, i.e. petitioning the monarch, an activity in which Mustafa Fazıl clearly saw himself engaged in, became dangerous. Mustafa Fazıl was able to integrate even his call for a constitutional system into this traditional model of politics. Like in Piedmont, Austria or Prussia he wanted the constitution to be imposed by the monarch and not demanded by the people. The limits it would pose to the absolute power of the sultan would be the limits set by himself.37 Naturally the Young Ottoman journalists were not under the same restraints as their mentor and had a different agenda. However, it is interesting to note that most of them maintained the distinction Mustafa Fazıl had made between the authority of the sultan and his administration. Only the latter was criticised as tyrannical while there were no attacks on Abdülaziz personally. The most striking example of how this distinction

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worked was made by Ziya Bey. Born in 1825 – and thus belonging to the same generation as Âli and Fuad – he became part of the circle of young officials who were sponsored by Res¸id Pasha. Ziya’s rivalry with Âli first broke out in 1861 when he sided with the new sultan against Âli’s dominant position in the administration. But his subsequent attempt to intrigue against the latter backfired and he was first dismissed from his post in the palace bureaucracy and then sent to administrative posts further and further away from the capital.38 In exile in Europe Ziya remained one of the fiercest critics of the government. The apogee of his personal hatred against Âli was a satirical poem called Zafername (Account of Victory) on the crisis in Crete in 1867. Moreover, many of the grievances against his government were retrospectively treated here making it a source for the mood prevailing in the journalistic circles in Istanbul throughout the 1860s.39 However, as much as Ziya criticised the government and the grand vizier in particular he tried very hard not to appear in opposition to his sovereign Abdülaziz. Already in summer 1867 when the sultan was on his visit to Britain Ziya had managed to hand over a petition to Abdülaziz explaining his association with the Young Ottomans. Likewise he abstained from any direct criticism of the sultan in his articles for the Hürriyet. Even when he advised reform of the political institutions of the empire, the position and the power of the sultan remained untouched. In one of his articles Ziya relates a conversation he had with the sultan in a dream on the topic of introducing a national assembly. Ziya assured the sultan that his power would be curtailed only in so far as it was now curtailed by the precepts of the sharia.40 The general tendency by Young Ottomans like Ziya or Kemal to see European political institutions as a modern expression of Islamic law in this case also forbade any alteration of the role of the ruler. But it was not only for this ideological reason that opposition to the sultan was not a possible option. For Ziya as for Mustafa Fazıl it also made no sense from a professional standpoint. Belonging to the highest class of functionaries for them it was important to get from the sultan the additional power to be able to defeat their enemies with whom they were competing for office. Regarding people like Kemal, who were never part of the highest class of officials, the reason for upholding the distinction between the sultan and his government is perhaps to be found on a more abstract level. It is interesting to note that Kemal, although he was the most advanced of all Young Ottomans in developing a political theory, never dealt theoretically with the topic of opposition. This probably was due to the fact that he relied very much on classical Islamic political philosophy. His ideal of politics, for example, was a state of harmony, which also was a characteristic of classical Islamic political thinking where there was never a strong tradition of the right of rebellion. Likewise Kemal never felt the necessity to think about mechanisms to divest the ruler of his power and legitimacy.41

40

New and old forms of opposition

In this respect Kemal’s attitude to earlier opposition movements is interesting. There is an article by Kemal in Hürriyet about the Kuleli conspiracy disapproving of the means employed in this rebellion (isyan). At the same time, however, he remarked that the group also made some constructive proposals how to save the state from its present condition and asked whether the authorities had the right to judge them in the manner they did.42 In another article about the promise made by the state in the Gülhane decree not to put anyone to death without a trial, Kemal invoked the death of Cafer Pasha, one of the leaders of the Society of Martyrs, surmising that it was improbable that he threw himself from the boat that was to bring him to the Kuleli barracks into the Bosporus.43 Calling for fairness in the behaviour of the state vis-à-vis the opposition, even if it planned to use violence to accomplish its objective, was perhaps the most modern attitude of Kemal. He himself, however, always seems to have kept away from violence and preferred the press as a means to propagate his political views. These fundamental political convictions Kemal upheld when he managed to return to Istanbul in August 1870 after he had publicly laid down his editorship of the Hürriyet. History seems to repeat itself: because of his criticism of the government a new paper he was editing was closed two times and Kemal together with the other writers of the paper, among them Nuri from the Young Ottomans as well as their later biographer, Ebüzziya Tevfik, was sent to Cyprus until he profited from an amnesty on the occasion of the deposition of Abdülaziz. During his exile in Magosa (Famagusta) Kemal encountered Sheikh Ahmed, who like other religious dissidents had been exiled to the island. In his letters Namık Kemal expressed veneration for the sheikh and his plight and helped him petition the government to be released from his exile. Kemal said nothing about his attitude to the sheikh’s radical past. However, that he must have been somewhat impressed with his opposition showed in the fact that he called him ‘imam-ül ahrar’ (imam of freedom).44 The Young Ottomans shared many elements of the political culture that was displayed by the Society of Martyrs. Without the direct link to the Naqshbandi milieu of the latter, nonetheless many Young Ottomans saw Ottoman legitimacy in religious terms. They displayed reverence for religion and the sharia as the ultimate arbiter of justice in society. Likewise the empire’s dependence on the European powers was seen as a problem leading to the discrimination of Muslims. Another parallel was the hatred towards the leading statesmen of the time most notably Âli Pasha. To get rid of the Tanzimat politicians the more radical among the Young Ottomans advocated the exchange of sultans like the Society of Martyrs had done. These members also pursued a traditional style of opposition creating a secret society that attempted to stage a coup involving the traditional groups of the capital. Contact to the ulema and their students was established, however, the group failed to involve the army. The majority of the Young Ottomans displayed a traditional reverence to

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41

the sultan’s person and the office that was a result of their class origin. This origin and the particular circumstance of exile also made them choose journalism as the main oppositional activity after having experimented with the traditional form of a debating society. Here lies the Young Ottomans’ innovative contribution to Ottoman political culture of opposition. Together with the new form, European-style newspapers, European content of political philosophy and theory also began to be discussed among them and their readership. The Ottoman state could easily reintegrate these former bureaucrats especially after Âli Pasha had died in December 1870 and thus an important reason for their opposition was gone. Agah came back to Istanbul in November 1871; Ziya in the following year after a panegyric poem together with a petition to the sultan had been successful. Also Nuri and Res¸ad returned in 1872 when they had been granted an amnesty for their implication in the activities of the Vocation group. None of these individuals played an important political role after their return from exile except for Namık Kemal and Ziya. In 1876 after the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz the two were first appointed secretaries to the new Sultan Murad and later, after the ascension of Abdülhamid, included in the commission that was to draft a constitution for the empire.45 This came as no surprise for perhaps the most important and lasting result of the Young Ottomans’ publications in exile had been the propagation of certain political concepts such as that of a constitution or a parliament. In 1867 the function of a constitution had been to curb the power of the Tanzimat administration embodied by Âli Pasha. Choosing originally European institutions was an expression of the Young Ottomans cultural background being part of the Tanzimat bureaucracy, although these institutions were being justified by them in an Islamic framework. Ten years later the task of the constitutional commission was very different. A political development, which will be the focus of the next chapter, had eradicated the sharp distinction the Young Ottomans had made between the sultan and his administration. Now it was the sultan himself who was to be controlled. This notion was a consequent step towards a modern understanding of a constitutional system, but a notion diametrically opposed to the traditional framework in which the Young Ottomans had fitted.

4

How to exchange Sultans The successful coup against Abdülaziz

The year 1876 that many scholars in their periodisation of nineteenth century Ottoman history see as the end of the Tanzimat era was marked by some extraordinary political events. The deposition of two sultans, something that had not happened since the early nineteenth century, as well as the promulgation of the first Ottoman constitution offer the possibility of looking at Ottoman political history from different perspectives. Constitutionalism was a new element in Ottoman political culture that was first introduced by the Young Ottomans to the public. To some of its adherents it offered a new way of thinking on authority and legitimacy and, most importantly, the possibility to limit the authority of the sultan. In 1876, among the advocates of a constitution there was a group of young army officers who were the harbingers of an increasing role of the military in Ottoman politics and the modernisation of its political culture. The promulgation of the first constitution was made possible by a series of events that started with the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–76) for Sultan Murad V who, within a month, was in turn exchanged for Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). The speed of these exchanges attest to the fact that, under special circumstances, the legitimacy of a ruling sultan could become extremely precarious. The easy success stands in marked contrast to earlier examples when opposition had started with the same objective. Mainly responsible for this success was the cast of characters involved in these events. The conspirators that organised the coup came from within the political elite. Introducing the individuals planning and executing this coup and scrutinising their aims and motivations, this chapter will offer a view on elite political culture. Their way into opposition to their sovereign was a long-term process which was caused by the contradictions inherent in the Tanzimat political system. Likewise important was the way these individuals orchestrated the coup in conjunction with other groups in society. This illustrates the mechanisms with which a traditional political culture of opposition could be activated and manipulated successfully. In the 1870s the political system of the Ottoman Empire underwent a change, which prepared the basis of the coup in 1876. From the death of sultan Mahmud II in 1839 onwards officials from the Porte had dominated

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and guided Ottoman politics. One of the main objectives of the reform decree of 1839 had been to secure the position of the bureaucracy vis-à-vis the sultan. As a result, first Res¸id and then from the mid-1850s onwards Âli and Fuad Pashas had dominated the central administration of the empire. The Kuleli conspiracy as well as the opposition of the Young Ottomans were attempts to challenge the exclusive position of the two statesmen and the reforms they had initiated. When Fuad and Âli died in 1869 and 1871 respectively they left no apparent successor who could fill their dominant position in the Ottoman administration. Sultan Abdülaziz who longed for a more independent political role appointed ministers from various factions shifting them at an increasing speed. The office of the grand vizier as well as the various councils that had been created during the Tanzimat lost much in importance during this time.1 The first grand vizier Abdülaziz chose after he had gained the freedom to act independently was Mahmud Nedim Pasha (1818–83). From the same generation as Fuad and Âli, Mahmud Nedim had also been among the young bureaucrats protected by Res¸id. After some years in the administration of the provinces Mahmud Nedim returned to Istanbul in 1858, but his hopes of gaining a high position in the government did not materialise; he became minister of commerce for a short time before he was removed again after the Kuleli affair. The fact that Mahmud Nedim’s father was a sheikh of the Khalidiya might have aroused suspicion or, at least, furnished an excuse for his enemies to oust him from the government. In 1860, apparently discouraged, he asked to be transferred to Tripoli in North Africa and spent the following seven years there as governor of the province. The fact that he returned to the capital in summer 1867 at a time when the conspiracy of his nephew Mehmed with the Vocation group had just been discovered, led some people to conclude that Mahmud Nedim had been part of it. There was, however, no proof for this allegation and this time Mahmud Nedim was able to win the favour of Âli, was appointed minister of marine and managed to stay in office for the next three years.2 From the treatise Mirror of State (Ayine-i devlet) that Mahmud Nedim wrote during his time in Tripoli we know a lot about his political ideals, which were also the reason why he later became grand vizier. The treatise looked back to the glorious past of the empire when its rulers still had absolute power and their will was only limited by the precepts of religious law. Only when the sultans lost touch with their people and officials increasingly began to manage the affairs of the country was it that the decline of the empire set in. The first signs of this decline were the numerous revolts of the janissaries that shook the Ottoman state. The decline became fully apparent in the nineteenth century and was symbolised by the imitation of Europe that started during the Tanzimat. Like the Young Ottomans Mahmud Nedim also condemned the fact that the sharia was replaced by new codes and that a new class of bureaucrats, large in number, inefficient and expensive, ruled the country. He also criticised the idea to give equal

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rights to the Christian inhabitants of the empire. In contrast, he stressed the importance of justice for every subject of the sultan. According to his picture of the golden age of the Ottoman Empire Mahmud Nedim’s remedy for these ills was to give back the political initiative to the sultan.3 Like in the case of the Young Ottomans (and other examples of mirrors of princes from earlier centuries), the author of the treatise criticised the Tanzimat bureaucracy and threw his lot in with the sultan to gain favour and office. After this strategy had been successful during his time as grand vizier Mahmud Nedim acted according to these principles and followed the lead of his sovereign. Abdülaziz’s increasing power corresponded to the personal hatred some high officials began to cultivate for the ruler and his grand vizier. One of the first measures Mahmud Nedim undertook, apparently in concert with the sultan, was to purge the administration of all followers and clients of Âli and Fuad. From among the grand vizier’s enemies the organisers of the coup of 1876 emerged. While the fear for their personal careers brought these men together their ideas and their political style differed significantly. War minister Hüseyin Avni Pasha (1820–76) who was sent into exile by Mahmud Nedim became perhaps the most ardent enemy of the sultan and his chosen grand vizier. In the course of the years revenge for this exile became an obsession, as assured by Mahmud Celaleddin, a somewhat hostile Ottoman commentator on the events.4 Born as the son of a poor family in Western Anatolia, after a medrese education in Istanbul he had entered the newly founded military academy from where he graduated in 1849 as part of the first generation of Ottoman generals who obtained a professional European-style military education. In the following decade Hüseyin Avni rose rapidly in his army career. Entering the general staff during the Crimean War, afterwards he became president of the Military Council (dâr-ı s¸ura-ı askerî). In 1867 he was sent to Crete as governor and two years later he was officially nominated minister of war for the first time – an office he had effectively run for Fuad when the latter combined it with his grand vizierate from 1863 to 1866 and beyond until he was sent into exile to his hometown by Mahmud Nedim.5 Midhat Pasha (1822–84), the other prominent member in the alliance of high officials against the sultan, was also an established politician, but from a different background with different political ideas. Born in Istanbul he had entered the Ottoman administration as an apprentice, eventually becoming a clerk in the office of the grand vizier in 1840. In the next twenty years Midhat advanced in the central administration, occasionally charged with special missions to the provinces to check on the local governors and oversee the implementation of administrative reforms. In 1859 he was president of the High Council and part of the special commission investigating the conspiracy of the Society of Martyrs. After 1861 when Midhat was promoted to the rank of vizier his career shifted fully to the administration of the provinces, finally being appointed

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governor of the Danube province, the first model province administered according to the new provincial code of 1864. Brought back to the capital for a short time as president of the newly founded state council (s¸ura-ı devlet), in 1868 Midhat got in conflict with Âli, who was grand vizier at that time, and he was again transferred to the provincial administration of Baghdad.6 When Midhat came back to Istanbul in summer 1872 he caused Mahmud Nedim’s downfall. Sensing the unpopularity of the grand vizier, with the support of the alienated officials, who had remained in the capital, he obtained an audience with the sultan. As a result Abdülaziz who was disillusioned with Mahmud Nedim sacked the grand vizier and appointed Midhat instead.7 As grand vizier Midhat tried to get a grip on the problems in the central administration with the means and attitude of a provincial governor. He not only prosecuted the followers of Mahmud Nedim severely but also showed little regard for the wishes of the sultan. Moreover, he opposed the influence of the Egyptian viceroy Ismail and the Russian ambassador Ignatiev, who in turn hatched intrigues against him. After just 80 days in office Midhat was dismissed again. Midhat’s sudden downfall as well as that of his successors – Abdülaziz managed to use six grand viziers in three years – may be seen as a symbol of the general conditions of Ottoman politics during this time. To secure their offices against the vagaries of the sultan Midhat, Hüseyin Avni and a third high official, the former minister of justice S¸irvanizade Mehmed Rüs¸di,8 formed an alliance and initiated what in retrospect looks like a rehearsal of the coup of 1876. In 1873 the three politicians, who meanwhile had found their way back to power and office, held regular meetings to discuss the situation of the empire. Midhat especially spoke in favour of a constitution and a national assembly to control the sultan, who, if he were to decline to give his consent, had to be deposed. Apparently there already were detailed plans of how to realise this deposition. But these plans were given up when Midhat suddenly was removed from Istanbul and appointed governor of Salonica. To make the best of the situation Hüseyin Avni informed the sultan about the existence of the plot and subsequently was appointed grand vizier in February 1874. Apparently conspirators at such a high level in the hierarchy did not have to face the same consequences as others.9 Clearly, this episode of 1873 shows that the sultan’s personal legitimacy was badly damaged and that he was no longer perceived as standing above the political factions, but as a contestant for power like everybody else. Particularly Abdülaziz’s habit of shifting his ministers as often as possible in order to let none of them grow too strong was regarded as detrimental to the country and had to be a thorn in the side of any ambitious politician. The strategies of those in opposition to the ruler varied. There were those like Midhat Pasha who wanted to restrain the power of the sultan by

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a constitution. Hüseyin Avni and others wanted to check Abdülaziz in a more traditional way, by deposing him and controlling his successor. In the 1870s criticism of the sultan and his government was not only confined to the high-ranking officials of the Porte, but was also growing on a popular level. This was due to a crisis in the empire, which was caused by a series of natural catastrophes that were worsened by the administration’s mismanagement. In summer 1873 a drought destroyed much of the harvest in parts of Anatolia and Europe and frost and heavy rain during the following winter caused conditions to deteriorate for the population of the affected regions. The diminishing revenue added to the strain on the treasury leading to a financial collapse in October 1875. The government had to announce that for four years it would only pay half the interest on Ottoman bonds – a measure that not only destroyed Ottoman credit on the international financial markets, but also hit the small bondholders inside the empire.10 Entwined with the agricultural and economic downturn were political events adding to the atmosphere of crisis in the empire and particularly in Istanbul. In June 1875 a rebellion broke out among the Christian peasants of Bosnia–Herzegovina inspired by socio-economic grievances as much as nationalistic aspirations. The Ottoman government, since August 1875 headed again by Mahmud Nedim, who had been recalled from his post as governor in the provinces, lacked the will and the financial means to put a quick end to the rebellion. Thus the European powers started to take matters into their hands in what came to be known as the Great Eastern Crisis, which, eventually, would result in another Russian–Ottoman war. Austria and Russia were foremost in the diplomatic attempts to dissolve the problems in Bosnia–Herzegovina and urged the Porte in a conventional fashion to implement reforms in the rebellious provinces under the supervision of the powers. However, the revolt continued, because the rebels as well as certain circles in the Russian administration obstructed a peaceful solution. Also the Porte had to avoid a solution that would be too damaging regarding its sovereignty and territorial rights in the European parts of the empire. More than ever before the government had to take into account public opinion and therefore could not make too many concessions, either to the rebels or to the European powers. In the 1870s a critical press had become a normal feature of political life in the capital and the authorities had their difficulties : in keeping it under control. A regular victim of suspension was the Ibret, the journal Namık Kemal started publishing after he had returned from Europe. In 1875 the government imposed a strict censorship regarding news about the insurrection to avoid any awkward discussion of its conciliatory stance that was dictated by its military weakness.11 In general, Ottoman public opinion in the 1870s seems to have grown more self-conscious and hostile to European influence in the Islamic world.

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Ideas already voiced by the Young Ottomans found a wider audience and were reiterated in the press. It was the time of nascent pan-Islamic feelings that were taken up by the sultan and his government, but which in turn also created political obligations.12 The fact that much of this new ideology developed in reaction to the Russian expansion in Central Asia and the public perception that Mahmud Nedim was working together with the Russian ambassador Ignatiev, directly linked the international with the domestic situation. This made the sultan and his government, both of them already affected by the crisis at home, even more unpopular.13 In spring 1876 the contempt the population, especially in the capital, felt vis-à-vis the sultan and his government slowly reached boiling point. In Istanbul the sultan was openly scolded, because the government had defaulted on the interest payments for the bonds due in April. Additionally there was talk of a looming insurrection in Bulgaria, which, indeed, broke out around 5 May. Despite the swift military response and total control of any news concerning the events in Bulgaria this caused considerable anxiety in Istanbul.14 The diffuse opposition in Istanbul against the government found its expression in the demonstrations medrese students (softa) staged in the first half of May 1876. For centuries such demonstrations had been a typical characteristic of political unrest in the capital and also late nineteenth century contemporaries regarded the medrese students as the natural embodiment of popular opinion.15 At the same time there are also claims that their protest was organised by Ottoman politicians like Midhat or even the grand vizier himself. It is very likely that all Ottoman politicians tried to use the student movement for their own purposes. But regarding its programme the movement seems to have incorporated into its demands many genuine popular grievances that surpassed factional politics.16 In the beginning the students at the medreses attached to Fatih Mosque followed by their fellows of Bayezid and Süleymaniye suspended their lessons as a sign of opposition to the regime – behaviour that the court historian Ahmed Lütfi compared to the ancient example of the janissaries turning over their soup cauldrons. The students then began roaming the streets of Istanbul and were reported to be supplying themselves with weapons in the local shops. There were several big meetings where patriotic speeches were held. Alluding to the situation in Bosnia and Bulgaria, speakers denounced the suppression of Muslims by Christians and stressed the religious duty for each Muslim to oppose any statesman who tolerated such conditions. To ensure the reform of the state and the nation (ıslah-ı mülk-ü millet) they demanded the deposition of the grand vizier and the s¸eyhülislam accused of favouritism. Less than a week after the beginning of the agitation these demands were granted and in Mahmud Nedim’s stead Mütercim Mehmed Rüs¸di was appointed.17 After this sudden victory the mass meetings subsided, but the student movement stayed intact for a while. That might be an indication that now

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there was an organising spirit behind it, which was generally believed to be Midhat. In fact, the latter did not become part of the cabinet until the end of May, despite the initial demand of the students. Their programme in this second phase of the movement, however, gives no clear indication as to any outside influence. First on the agenda was the old demand to limit the sultan’s civil list. This step was to be accompanied by the creation of a General Council (s¸ura-ı ümmet) where notables of all the provinces of the empire would be represented. On top of everything the students asked for measures against oppressive officials. According to another source popular demands like an employment guarantee for officials and the augmentation of the latter’s wages were also included in this list.18 The very mixed nature of these demands makes it likely that the student movement did indeed represent public opinion. Regarding the excitement about the insurrections in the Balkans the students’ reaction was very similar to that at the beginning of the Crimean War. Demands like the control of the sultan’s expenses or the convocation of a representative body sounded more recent and would not have been possible twenty years earlier. The idea of a General Council, however, was much more conservative than the parliament Midhat tried to implement subsequently. It was probably an expression of the generally vague understanding of constitutionalism in Ottoman public opinion at the time.19 If Midhat really took part in organising the student movement, his influence on its ideology was thoroughly watered down by the general political culture. In fact, in August 1876 when Midhat was earnestly preparing a constitution a group of medrese students opposed his draft on the ground that it was to give equal rights to the Christians in the empire.20 The particularity of the student movement was that it was able to incorporate so many of the public grievances into its opposition against the regime. Its success clearly relied on its capability of mustering a mass of armed young participants at a time when the regime had no soldiers at hand to quell the demonstrations. It was certainly for fear and not for a sudden appreciation of public opinion that Abdülaziz almost immediately granted the more technical demands of the students. But as easy as it was for the students to cause a change of ministers, they needed leaders in higher positions to put into reality the demands that reached deeper into the Ottoman political system. This was the point when the alliance of ministers around Hüseyin Avni and Midhat took over again and, switching to a more clandestine style of opposition, deposed Sultan Abdülaziz. When in August 1875 Mahmud Nedim had become grand vizier for a second time the factionalism among Ottoman high officials was again exposed. Hüseyin Avni, who was minister of war at that time, was pushed out of the cabinet in October and appointed governor of Bursa to keep him away from the capital. Midhat, in an unprecedented and provocative step, handed in his resignation as minister of justice in late November, justifying

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his behaviour in a memorandum with the lack of initiative of the grand vizier in the face of the internal crisis. Like Hüseyin Avni, Midhat also advocated the use of force against the rebels in Bosnia as well as a firmer stance against the interference of the European powers.21 In an interrogation five years later Midhat gave a very lively description of the period when Mahmud Nedim was grand vizier.22 The fact that he had been removed from power under similar circumstances as in 1872 brought Hüseyin Avni’s hatred for the sultan to a peak. Midhat himself watched the aggravating crisis from his country house near Istanbul to where he had retired. But all his attempts to influence the political situation failed. Through an emissary he was in contact with the sultan’s mother, who asked for his advice on how to overcome the present crisis. His proposals, however, to check the rebellion militarily, to govern the country in a lawful way and to introduce true equality between Christians and Muslims, were deemed too radical to be related to the sultan. Among the other contacts Midhat maintained during his time out of office probably were Hüseyin Avni and other Ottoman politicians and ulema as well as the British ambassador Elliot. The latter claimed that from December 1875 he knew of Midhat’s constitutional plans to limit the absolute power of the sultan especially in financial matters and to create a parliament constituted of delegates from all parts of the Ottoman population.23 It is not likely that during winter 1875/6 either Hüseyin Avni or Midhat undertook any concrete steps to plan for the forthcoming coup against Abdülaziz. But Midhat’s opposition against the sultan was growing more and more pronounced, as shown by an anonymous memorandum issued on 9 March 1876. The document was written in French and signed by a group of ‘Muslim patriots’, but probably had been composed by Midhat himself. The main aim of the memorandum was to influence international public opinion in favour of Midhat’s faction and to ask for support from the European ambassadors for his political programme. Quite frankly the author of the document played with the possibility of deposing Abdülaziz, who was called a ‘miserable fool’. A deposition was not only wished for by the general public, but would also be legitimate, because the sultan was not in possession of his full mental capacities any more and violated the sharia that gave him the duty to work for the public good. According to the document Abdülaziz’s officials plundered the country and were responsible for its catastrophic financial situation. Like Mustafa Fazıl’s open letter, the memorandum of the Muslim patriots also advocated a representative assembly as a solution to the empire’s problems. This assembly would act as a counterweight not solely to the administration, but to the absolutism of the sultan.24 After the fall of Mahmud Nedim’s government because of the student protest the deposition of Abdülaziz as imagined and legitimised in the memorandum came a step closer to realisation. Hüseyin Avni was recalled from Bursa and took over the war ministry again, Midhat became minister without portfolio and the new grand vizier Mütercim Mehmed Rüs¸di

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replaced his namesake S¸irvanizade, who had died in 1874, as one of their principal allies. Now all the main leaders of the future coup were assembled in the government and their motivation to oust Abdülaziz seems to have been intensified by the rumour that after the excitement subsided Mahmud Nedim would be made grand vizier again.25 According to all available information it was Hüseyin Avni who first urged his colleagues to take the final step, and it was he who then undertook much of the actual planning for the realisation of the coup. Midhat, in the interrogation already mentioned, said that at first he had warned the minister of war and only had consented to the deposition plan when he realised that it had become so general a topic – he said that there was no one among the ministers and ulema who was not pleased with the thought – that he could not resist any longer. Midhat also claimed that, while he was again negotiating with the sultan’s mother about the implementation of a reform programme, Hüseyin Avni started to organise the details of the coup and created a fait accompli.26 Surely Midhat exaggerated his opposition to the deposition plan in order not to incriminate himself in the interrogation. He seems to have opposed the way the deposition was to be carried out rather than the plan itself. Midhat envisioned a huge popular demonstration to give some democratic credentials to Abdülaziz’s deposition.27 Maybe it was also his idea to obtain a fetva from the s¸eyhülislam in order to keep the coup within the formal limits of Islamic law and the traditional understanding of how to exchange a sultan. Hüseyin Avni apparently did not care for this.28 In accordance with his background he stressed the military side of the operation and he introduced a couple of young officers to the plot, who proved vital for its success. To one of these officers, Süleyman Hüsnü Pasha (1838–92), we owe the most detailed account of the coup, entitled Feeling of Revolution (Hiss-i inkılab). Approximately at the time of the beginning of the student strike Süleyman Pasha, the director of the Ottoman military academy, together with some friends developed a plan of his own to depose the sultan. Apart from the sultan’s ministers and the medrese students these officers around Süleyman Pasha formed the third group that was necessary for the successful realisation of the coup against Abdülaziz. Their leader, Süleyman Pasha, was an interesting figure in that he combined a military background with strong liberal and constitutionalist convictions. Born in Istanbul in 1838 Süleyman entered the military preparatory school and graduated from the military academy in 1859. Subsequently he started active duty in Bosnia, Albania and Crete and advanced through the ranks. Upon his return to the capital he was appointed teacher for literature to the military academy and, in 1873, being promoted to the rank of a brigadier general (mirliva) became its director. As director Süleyman first of all brought the curriculum of the military academy in line with similar European institutions and founded a military advanced elementary school (rüs¸diye) as a preparation for the

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academy proper. Additionally he introduced new textbooks, some of them written by himself. He also tried to extend his educational reforms to other parts of society. Therefore he wrote several works of general interest, among others a history of the world, an Islamic catechism for children and a Turkish grammar, and pursued the project of introducing the teaching of sciences to the medreses. Süleyman was known for his liberal views – he frequented the salon of Abdurrahman Sami Pasha, the grandfather of the Young Ottoman Ayetullah – and was a supporter of constitutional rule for the empire. Stressing education as a means to progress for the Muslim peoples Süleyman’s views were in line with that of the Young Ottomans; it is, however, very doubtful if he really was a member of the Young Ottoman Society as was sometimes claimed.29 Officers like Süleyman were examples of a new social type in the ranks of Ottoman opposition, which in future would dominate that field. The new army that had been founded in 1826 replacing the janissaries, on the one hand, entertained a special relationship of personal loyalty to the sultan. Mahmud II had staffed the new army with his followers and courtiers and also his successors saw in the military a natural ally against the encroachment on their power by the civil bureaucracy. On the other hand, the army like the Porte became an distinct institution in the state apparatus and therefore could develop an independent ethos and a political culture of its own. One of the most important features of the new army was its educational efforts. After a phase when students were sent to Europe to acquire military knowledge, at the end of the 1830s a couple of schools, the military academy, a military engineering school and a medical school were established to produce the professional staff the military needed to keep up with modernisation. On the initiative of Süleyman the system of military schools was gradually expanded. The first students started graduating from these special schools in the late 1840s. In the beginning they were a minority and according to one report they were mocked and not employed as to their abilities by their traditionally minded officers still from the old system.30 This probably was the first observation of the rivalry between the traditional officers risen from the ranks (alaylı) and those educated in the new schools (mektebli), which was to become a serious rift in the Ottoman officer corps and was partly responsible for the so-called counter-revolution of 1909 against the Young Turk government. Apart from their professional military knowledge the education in the new schools also induced the new officers with new political ideals. It was no longer the person of the sultan to whom they owed their loyalty, but the fatherland and the nation. As Süleyman Pasha’s account of the deposition of Abdülaziz remarked: In any case, nationalist ideas were well established among the Academy’s officers and students. In short, neither the War Minister nor

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How to exchange Sultans a commander called these battalions and students into action; rather, they were ordered and aroused by the patriotic sentiments that filled the consciences of all. And Süleyman Pasha was the living personification of those patriotic sentiments.31

In the following decades there would be many more examples of this new political consciousness especially from the side of the students of the military schools of the capital. As part of the Young Turk movement these students directed their opposition against Abdülhamid and his neopatrimonial understanding of authority. They recurred in the political culture of opposition in the army that first emerged in the coup against Abdülaziz. After having been introduced to the group of ministers around Midhat and Hüseyin Avni, Süleyman Pasha took an active part in planning the coup. At a meeting with the war minister he scattered the last doubts about the feasibility of such an undertaking, voicing the opinion that many army officers, not only those with a background in the military academy, but also those trained in the palace, were no longer loyal to Abdülaziz.32 Together with the minister of marine, Süleyman and Hüseyin Avni took the final decisions to proceed with the coup. It was agreed that on the following Wednesday, 31 May, Prince Murad would be escorted from his quarters to the war ministry, while Süleyman and his battalions would surround Dolmabahçe Palace where Abdülaziz was staying. In the war ministry in Istanbul the oath of allegiance (biat) to the new sultan would then be sworn by the members of the cabinet. Before this plan could be carried out there were complicated negotiations that involved the former Young Ottoman Ziya as to how Prince Murad should be given notice of the coup and how he should behave. The crown prince had been put under house arrest because of serious rumours regarding a forthcoming coup, so ideally Murad had to sneak out of his palace without causing a great sensation. Murad and his councillors, however, insisted that it was necessary that he would be taken by a unit of soldiers from his quarters. In case the coup failed, the prince would then be able to claim that he had participated only under compulsion.33 At the last minute the plotters decided to move forward the date, because they had serious reasons to believe that they had been discovered. After an emergency meeting on Monday, Süleyman went back to the military academy and, at two o’clock in the morning, ordered the officers perform their prayers. Then the students of the academy were called out and given ammunition, and they took position in front of Murad’s palace. Next, the four battalions under the command of his friends were despatched to Dolmabahçe Palace, barring anybody from entering or leaving the place. Neither the cadets nor the soldiers of the four battalions were told what they were involved in. Many thought that Abdülaziz had suddenly died and they were guarding his palace.

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There was a moment of confusion when Süleyman entered Murad’s palace in the early morning hours – the two men did not know each other personally – but when Hüseyin Avni arrived the future sultan consented to go to the war ministry. Until then nobody had noticed that there was something unusual going on. Some of Abdülaziz’ servants, who had seen Murad been taken away by soldiers, thought that he had been arrested.34 When Hüseyin Avni arrived with Murad at the war ministry almost the whole cabinet was assembled there. Midhat, the grand vizier and the s¸eyhülislam had come directly from Hüseyin Avni’s villa where they had been informed that the coup had been brought forward to the early morning hours. In the ministry the deposition fetva was read by Hayrullah stating that Abdülaziz was wasting the resources of the country and that he had lost his common sense and was no longer fit to rule. Then the biat was made and Murad V was declared the new Ottoman sultan.35 Abdülaziz only learned of his deposition together with the inhabitants of the capital when the warships on the Bosporus, which had been guarding the seaside of the palace, began firing their canons. According to all accounts the sultan immediately grasped the meaning of the noise and resigned to his fate. Together with his two sons, his wives and his mother he was taken to Topkapı Palace by Süleyman.36 In contrast to their ruler the inhabitants of the quarters along the Bosporus were thrown into panic when they first heard the sound of guns in the early morning hours. They assumed the Russian fleet was attacking Istanbul, but in the course of the morning the news of the exchange of sultans transpired. At first the public seems to have been very careful with any display of emotions, but as the day wore on a feeling of relief and joy took over. There was a general hope that now a new era of peace and liberty would begin.37 Meanwhile the transition of power was completed with Murad moving into Dolmabahçe Palace. Upon arrival the new sultan was hailed by the soldiers, who had brought him to the throne, and a second biat ceremony was held in the palace. Also new appointments for various government offices were made; among others Ziya became chief secretary of the palace.38 There had been no immediate problems in the transition of power from the old to the new sultan, but already in the first week after Murad’s enthronement the different agendas of the officials who had brought him to office came to light. The decree traditionally issued on the occasion of a new sultan’s ascension did not mention a constitution as Midhat had wished for. The other minsters had been against such a project and had prevented any step in this direction. Regarding the more general issues on which the opposition against Abdülaziz had rested only the financial problems of the empire were addressed. Then, on 15 June 1876, a bloody incident suddenly altered the balance of power in the cabinet. Çerkes Hasan, an army captain, ambushed a cabinet meeting and managed to kill among others Hüseyin Avni. The details of this

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assassination never were cleared up sufficiently and it remains dubious whether it was a political murder at all or rather an act of private revenge. For all its doubtful circumstances the consequences of the murder were considerable. On the one hand Midhat was able to push through his constitutional project without any significant opposition. On 15 July the Grand Council took the decision to prepare the draft of a constitution for the empire against the doubts of some ulema.39 On the other hand the violent disruption of Ottoman politics did profoundly disturb the new sultan. The suicide of his uncle Abdülaziz just six days after his deposition for the first time had exposed Murad’s mental instability, which grew even more severe after the attack on the cabinet. When Murad’s state of mind did not alter in the following weeks this began to pose a real problem for the running of the state. The precedent of Abdülaziz’s deposition made it easier to come to the conclusion that also Murad had to be exchanged for his half-brother and heir apparent Abdülhamid. Before a final decision was taken and Murad like his uncle Abdülaziz was declared unfit to rule, Midhat tried to ensure that Abdülhamid would consent to his plans. The prince duly assured that he would work for the implementation of a constitution and was declared sultan on 1 September 1876.40 Midhat’s constitutional project offers the opportunity to review the Ottoman political system at the beginning of the reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). On the one hand, drawing up a constitution was an attempt to alter the structure of authority and set limits to the political role of the sultan. Changing the empire into a constitutional monarchy and making the sultan dependent on a written set of rules was unprecedented in Ottoman history, but for the plan to work it would have required a less independent and power-conscious ruler as Abdülhamid turned out to be. Indeed, when the constitution was abandoned after only two years there followed a time of unprecedented personal power of the sultan. On the other hand, the constitutional project had also an external aspect. Russia that had already demanded reforms to end the revolt in Bosnia– Herzegovina in 1875 had reiterated these demands and issued an ultimatum. After British mediation it was agreed to hold a conference in December 1876 in Istanbul to discuss the issue of reforms and rights of the Christian population. In this context the Ottoman government announced its constitutional project that would make such a conference obsolete. Mainly because of these external implications and not for liberal convictions Abdülhamid kept his promise and created a commission to draw up a draft of the future constitution. Therefore the first voices of dissidence during his reign untypically came from the conservative side. When Midhat investigated the origin of a series of posters speaking against the constitution, a small but high-ranking conspiracy was detected at the end of October. Because many of its members came from the class of ulema, at first the sultan seems to have been reluctant to act tough as the cabinet demanded.

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Only when his ministers threatened to resign did the sultan agree to deal with the plotters. Less than 20 people were arrested, stripped of their rank and then summarily exiled.41 All that is known about the goals of this conspiracy are rumours, since there was no formal trial of the suspects and no other documents seem to have survived. However, that its ideology was based on religious opposition to the constitution, as was also voiced again and again in the drafting commission, can be inferred from the persons involved in it. The main instigators were two high-ranking former Islamic judges (kazıasker), one Muhyiddin and one S¸erif Efendi. In the beginning, together with Ramiz Pasha, another high official, they had openly opposed the idea of a constitution and only later had switched to their conspiratorial methods. If we believe the report of the British dragoman, these men additionally wanted to prevent a conciliatory stance in the war against Serbia and Montenegro, fearing the government would yield to the demands of the European powers. The same report .claimed that especially Muhyiddin wanted to bring his former pupil Yusuf Izzeddin, the eldest son of Abdülaziz, to the throne and thus advance his career.42 Also other high functionaries like Kamil Bey, a former steward of Kıbrıslı Mehmed Pasha, and Rıza Bey, connected to Abdülaziz’s last grand vizier Mahmud Nedim, may have joined the conspiracy to improve their career prospects by an exchange of sultans. S¸erif Efendi might have had such a motive, too. In the crisis of May 1876 caused by the student protests he had been Mahmud Nedim’s candidate for the office of s¸eyhülislam.43 While such opposition was foiled and the international situation worked in favour of the creation of the first Ottoman constitution, the sultan and his conservative supporters in the cabinet and the drafting commission were able to alter it in accordance with their wishes. These ministers, palace officials and counsellors, most notable Cevdet and Damat Mahmud Pashas, who were personally appointed by the sultan, opposed Midhat’s project as much on ideological grounds as from fear it would enlarge the power of the constitution’s main supporter. Therefore the plan to introduce the office of a prime minister who would appoint ministers and be responsible to the sultan was blocked. Also those articles that enumerated and circumscribed the powers of the sultan had to be abandoned to suit more the traditional role of the all-powerful sultan that was propagated by Abdülhamid and his officials. After a drafting process of three months, literally at the last moment this group was able to insert the famous article 113 that allowed the sultan to exile anyone posing a danger to the state.44 In the final version of the constitution that was promulgated on 23 December shortly after Midhat had been made grand vizier the sultan retained much of his traditional powers. In his person much of the legislative and executive powers of the state were combined and above all an article stated that he could not be held responsible for his acts. He had the right to nominate his ministers and his decrees remained an important element

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of legislature. He was the one who had to sanction the bills the Ottoman parliament issued. The parliament was one of the new creations of the constitution, but its role was much diminished regarding the original intentions of the liberals. Apart from giving a vote on the budget all it could do was to discuss bills brought in by the ministers. Besides these structural questions the constitution addressed many issues that had been already discussed during the Tanzimat and in a way assembled them in one document. In numerous articles it guaranteed the rights of the Ottoman subjects who were to be equal before law. Also other personal rights such as the security of person and property, the freedom of the press and association as well as the prohibition of confiscation and forced labour and the levying of taxes not sanctioned by law, some of them already contained in the older reform decrees, were again stated.45 With the exception of the parliament that was in fact a new institution, the first Ottoman constitution did not radically transform the political system of the empire. The constitution clearly was not a liberal constitution, but resembled the imposed constitutions known from several European monarchies that introduced modern political forms, but retained royal power and ideology. Also the second objective of the constitution, to act as a shield against outside interference and a substitute for other reform proposals, was not realised. When it was publicly announced at the Istanbul conference it was received coolly by the delegates of the European powers who continued to draw up a new programme of reforms to defuse the situation in the Balkans. The demands of the powers were rejected by an assembly of Ottoman dignitaries – a parliament was not yet in session – at the end of January 1877, which opened the way for war. It was this war that not only made the workings of the constitution and the parliament difficult, but also provided the background for the opposition in the focus of the next chapter. The example of the coup against Abdülaziz and the deposition of Murad shows that in the political culture of the elite the individual sultan was dispensable. Tanzimat politicians were extremely confident they knew best how to run the state according to their newly acquired specialist knowledge; Abdülaziz’s wish for more political influence was clearly seen as a nuisance. However, for all the personal hatred that Abdülaziz incurred, the conspiracy of ministers like all others before never thought of abolishing the monarchy completely. All they hoped for was that a new sultan could be controlled more easily. Constitutionalism that offered the chance to redefine the role of the sultan quite radically was the closest that political culture came to a revolutionary solution of the question of sultanic authority. However, this was the ideology of a minority as the rift that such a solution produced among the plotters shows. Still the next generation of statesmen grappled with this problem. Many of Adülhamid’s grand viziers tried to formalise their position vis-à-vis the ruler, which was interpreted by the sultan as an act of insubordination.46

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Popular political culture was more varied and less easily defined. While previously opposition had blamed the Tanzimat statesmen for the political crisis of the empire, in the 1870s Abdülaziz was made responsible. Therefore it was easy for the coalition of ministers to find support from among the public as represented by the movement of the medrese students. The demonstrations as expressions of a popular culture of opposition by the plotters were seen as a welcome support to their clandestine methods. However, this coalition was short-lived as would become clear in the course of events. In popular political culture an active and powerful sultan was still seen as the most important bulwark against oppression from the bureaucracy. Abdülhamid understood this much better than his predecessors and was able to capitalise on it.

5

War and refugees Ali Suavi and the Çırag˘ an incident

In the initial phase of Abdülhamid II’s (1876–1909) long reign the main aim of opposition groups was to restore the sultan’s predecessor Murad who was confined in Çırag˘ an Palace on the Bosporus. Because the sultan had managed to extinguish all opposition from the higher ranks of his administration the representatives of this early opposition again were small groups relatively unconnected to power. Already in early December 1876 there had been an attempt to abduct Murad and remove him from Istanbul. Four men, a former Greek employee of the British embassy, a Pole and two Turks, were arrested. According to rumours it was either the British, the Russians or Sultan Abdülhamid himself who had backed this incident, which was never cleared up sufficiently.1 Another sensational attempt to reinstate Murad was the riot that took place in front of Çırag˘ an Palace in May 1878. A small conspiracy was successful in calling together a large body of Muslim refugees and stormed the palace before they were arrested by the police. It is the aim of this chapter to explain this event in the historical context of the ongoing war with Russia that had serious implications for the legitimacy of the Ottoman state. Especially important is the role of the conspiracy’s leader who was none other than Ali Suavi, the journalist and Young Ottoman political exile, whose life had taken a rather different course than that of his fellows. The incident at Çırag˘ an Palace, from which he acquired the epithet of a ‘revolutionary’ in historiography,2 offers the opportunity to review Suavi’s political thinking that underwent a remarkable development during his lifetime and resulted in different forms of political action of which the attempt to overthrow the sultan was the last and most radical. The Russian–Ottoman war of 1877/78 that was so crucial for the political fate of the empire resulted from the rejection by the Ottoman government of the reform proposals the European powers had drawn up after the promulgation of the constitution. After several fruitless attempts of mediation Russia returned to its ultimatum of the previous year and declared war in late April 1877. However, the Russian army crossed the Danube only at the end of June, but was halted by the resistance of Osman Pasha at Plevna, a fortress in northern Bulgaria.

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Like earlier conflicts between the two contestants, the Russian–Ottoman war of 1877/78 had serious ideological implications. The tsar declared his ‘sacred mission’ in this war, invoking pan-Slavism, the ideology of a group of his advisers that combined Orthodox religion with an ethno-nationalist thinking about the unity of all Slavs, for support. Likewise, the sultan tried to mobilise additional forces with a new pan-Islamic ideology – a political strategy, which, for example, resulted in an Ottoman diplomatic mission to the emir of Afghanistan. At home traditional elements of Ottoman religious legitimacy were reactivated to sustain the war effort and bolster the sultan’s authority. The s¸eyhülislam legitimised the war by means of a fetva and, after a couple of Ottoman victories, awarded the title gazi (warrior of faith) to Abdülhamid, henceforward to be used publicly in Friday prayer.3 However, a reverse in the fortunes of war also could reflect back on the government. As in previous years the most visibly active element in the capital were the medrese students. In the run up to the war they staged demonstrations denouncing the conciliatory stance of the Porte and demanding a return of Midhat Pasha from his exile in Europe.4 In May, after the fall of the town of Ardahan in Eastern Anatolia, a crowd of up to 3,000 students invaded the parliament building and called for the dismissal of the minister of war, who, according to them, was unable to handle the situation. The sultan gave in and dismissed his minister, but at the same time took the event as an opportunity to arrest the ringleaders of the protest. Also some of Midhat’s followers, who had remained in office, were discharged.5 When eventually in December 1877 the Russian army overcame the Ottoman defence at Plevna the war quickly turned into a military and political catastrophe for the empire. The Russians soon were advancing into southern Bulgaria, in the beginning of January 1878 Sofia was taken, some weeks later Edirne fell. On 23 February after a near confrontation with the British fleet the Russian advance came to a halt at San Stefano (Yes¸ilköy) south of Istanbul. There a treaty was signed ratifying the terms of peace, which the Porte had already been forced to accept at the end of January. Its actual implementation would have meant the end of Ottoman rule over the Balkans, one of the oldest and most integral parts of the empire. Besides these military and political aspects the war also brought about a human catastrophe that had immediate and longer term effects on Ottoman politics. When the advance of the Russian army entered southern Bulgaria many of its Muslim inhabitants fled from the countryside to the cities. During the winter 1877/78, under most difficult conditions, these refugees continued their flight and tens of thousands of them, mostly women and children, tried to reach Edirne by train to travel on to Istanbul.6 These refugees (muhacir) were a symbol of the decline of the empire’s military power, as it was unable to defend its subjects. In the ideologically charged atmosphere of the war the fact that they were Muslims carried special significance for the empire’s political legitimacy. In Islamic legal

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theory the issue of migration from a land falling back to the non-Muslim side (dar ül-harb) was an old problem. Orthodox scholars never had come to a conclusion regarding the question, whether it was a duty for Muslims to leave such a country. However, it was never in doubt that it was an obligation to shelter and feed a muhacir, who chose to leave his or her home rather than to live under a non-Muslim ruler.7 The Ottoman state had been first confronted with the problem of Muslim refugees in the last quarter of the eighteenth century when, in 1774, it had to renounce its sovereignty over the Crimean Khanate in the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. The annexation of the khanate by Russia ten years later brought a first wave of Muslim refugees to the empire. Parts of the Tartar ruling elite as well as the religious establishment, who had lost their privileged position and had preferred to emigrate, joined the war faction in Istanbul, which called for a renouncement of the treaty.8 This was the first occurrence of a political mechanism which was to affect the Ottoman state in the next century. Russian expansionism resulted in the loss of Ottoman territory and produced waves of refugees, who brought political instability to the empire. It may be seen as a historical irony that the same defeats in war also inspired reforms in the administration and the foreign relations of the empire, which, over time, seriously put in question one of the key stones of the empire’s traditional legitimacy structure, i.e., its Islamic character. Apart from Crimean Tartars who continued to arrive after the Russian– Ottoman war of 1828/29 and after the Crimean War, it was Circassians who represented the other large group of Muslim refugees in the nineteenth century. Like the Crimean Khanate, Circassia had been loosely subjected to the Ottoman empire until Russia systematically started to conquer the region from the late 1840s. Most of the millions of Circassian refugees came to the Ottoman Empire in the last phase of the conquest between 1862 and 1864. But already in the 1850s and after the end of the Crimean War a constant stream of refugees was trickling into the empire. Leaving their homeland the Circassians usually went by boat along the Black Sea coast and many of them eventually were stranded in Istanbul, which already had a large Circassian community. The opposition of Sheikh Ahmed may have been inspired by their fate. However, it remains unproven that a large number of them was connected to the Society of Martyrs. In the beginning the Ottoman authorities had difficulties in coping with such an influx of people, most of them ill and impoverished. In the 1850s the administration began to set in place the necessary infrastructure. Subsequently, the Ottoman government used the refugees for its own demographic politics. Tartars and Circassians were settled in the Balkans to increase the Muslim element there. Additionally, the Circassians, in their homeland mostly pastoral nomads, were used as an irregular police force and caused much trouble among the local farmers, Christians and Muslims alike.9

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The Balkan refugees of the Russian–Ottoman war of 1877/78 in general were easier to integrate due to their relative affluence and skills; many of them returned home after the war. Like other groups of refugees before them they became a political symbol in the eye of the public. Their own political activities were rather limited, however, as the detailed discussion of the Çırag˘ an incident will show. On 20 May 1878 the officer in charge of the police at Bes¸iktas¸ was informed that a mass of refugees, who had assembled in front of nearby Çırag˘ an Palace, had broken the gate and entered the palace gardens. When the police arrived at the scene they were directed by frightened servants to the second floor where they came across ex-sultan Murad surrounded by a group of men shouting ‘Long live Sultan Murad!’ The policemen killed the leaders of the party, attacked the other men in the room and arrested those present in the garden.10 It became clear only in the course of time that the incident at the palace was much more than a riot by disgruntled and desperate refugees as the above eye-witness account describes it. The foreign and domestic press revealed that the refugees had been merely called to the scene by the real instigator who was Ali Suavi, the former Young Ottoman activist, who was killed in the mêlée with the police.11 The government’s official statement carefully avoided mention of Suavi’s goal to restore Murad as sultan and instead spoke somewhat vaguely only of his ‘long established wickedness’ (minelkadim caygir-i zamir-i habâset) as being the motive for his actions. Additionally a further investigation and the trial of the members of the ‘seditious society’ (cemiyet-i fesadiye) which was said to be behind the events was announced.12 The report the investigative commission produced is the main source of information about the group around Suavi that had met for some months in his house in Üsküdar and hence was called the Üsküdar Society. The refugees, who had made up the bulk of the participants in the riot at Çırag˘ an, in general had not been members of this group and claimed not to have known of Suavi’s aims at all. The group’s members rather were drawn from among Suavi’s friends and admirers. Three of them had been killed in the fighting at Çırag˘ an. There were, however, a handful of other suspects, whose names were mentioned on a list found in Suavi’s pocket after his death. The commission extended its investigations to these persons, but since no other incriminating documents could be found either at Suavi’s house – apparently his wife had burned all papers before the police could lay hands on them – or in the houses of the other suspects, all findings of the commission remained uncertain and entirely rested on the credibility of the statements given in the interrogation. The seven members of the so-called Üsküdar Society who were not killed in the riot at Murad’s palace came from different backgrounds. Two originated from families of the Ottoman bureaucracy, such as the poet Süleyman Asaf Bey. About three of these followers we know even less, except that their

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names indicate that they originated from the Filibe region in southern Bulgaria. It remains unclear if they were refugees at all, but probably they were in contact with the refugees from their home region. Another important member of Suavi’s circle seems to have been one Üsküdarlı Nuri, who, as a former servant of Murad, stood accused of having acted as an intermediary between Suavi and the ex-sultan. According to the statement of the other suspects there had been an exchange of letters between the two in which Suavi had informed Murad about his aims. It is hard to say whether there were really any direct contacts between Suavi and Murad, since the witnesses had to admit that they had never seen the letters in question. Officially the Ottoman government suppressed this grave accusation and the sultan personally assured the British ambassador that his brother had been ignorant of the plot. Likewise, the affirmation of the suspects that Suavi entertained contacts with the British government is dubious. If there had been any such contacts, no traces of them were left in the official correspondence.13 As had been the case before, the government used the incident for more general purges and accused a range of people of being associated with the conspirators. The most prominent victim was the grand vizier Sadık Pasha. Apart from the fact that he had not been able to detect Suavi’s conspiracy in advance he had not reacted quickly enough when it occurred and, as a consequence, Abdülhamid suspected him of being part of it.14 Likewise the minister of marine, who at the time of the riot was on board a ship cruising in front of the palace, was accused of assisting the conspirators. However, the minister as well as some other officials who were named in the report could not directly be linked to the conspiracy.15 Another group of people questioned by the commission about their contacts to Suavi were Murad’s palace servants. But also in their case no certain connection to Suavi could be established. Nonetheless they were summarily dismissed from service and sent back to their provinces of origin. Also Ali, the editor of the newspaper Basiret (Insight), a paper that in the 1870s had helped to popularise pan-Islamic ideas, was suspected of helping the conspirators. As the commission found out, Ali had printed in his paper a letter from Suavi the day before the events at Çırag˘ an. Apparently this letter had served as a secret message to Suavi’s followers to strike the next day. Although Ali claimed to be innocent he was fined and the Basiret was closed down for an indeterminate time.16 After these investigations into the background of the events and its perpetrators those found guilty were handed over to a court martial, which was responsible to deal with any disturbances of public order since Istanbul had been put under the state of siege in May 1877.17 One of Suavi’s inner circle, Hafız Nuri, was condemned to death, because he was believed to have been involved in the planning of the coup and on the day of its execution he had been seen disguised as a refugee in the vicinity of Çırag˘ an. Three people were sent into exile for a lesser degree of involvement. They had not been

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present at Çırag˘ an, but had known about Suavi’s plan and had not informed the government about it. The former palace servant Üsküdarlı Nuri as well as two others were sentenced to serve three years in prison in some remote place of the empire, because they had some knowledge of the plot and on the day of the events had walked around in the vicinity of Çırag˘ an Palace. The refugees who had been arrested, some of them wounded, were sentenced to various punishments according to their degree of implication in the plot and its planning. Except for one of them who belonged to the Üsküdar Society and therefore was exiled to Bolu, the others, in their majority from Filibe, Hasköy and Pazarcık were awarded sentences between ten and three years of hard labour (kürek). Two or three confessed knowledge of Suavi’s goal, the others stated that they had been called to the palace under the pretext of collecting weapons to fight the Russians. This story is credible, because there already existed refugee committees in Istanbul to support an insurrection in the Rhodope mountains. It is unclear, however, if there was any real connection between Suavi and the Muslim insurgents. This was mooted by the British ambassador, but denied by one of the insurgents’ leaders, the British adventurer St. Clair.18 A great number of other suspects had to be released, because neither a connection to Suavi nor knowledge of the plot could be proven. Later a group of 16 and 34 suspects respectively, most of them refugees from various places in the Balkans, was acquitted.19 Summing up, the group organising the opposition against Abdülhamid in the Çırag˘ an incident was structurally very similar to groups that we have encountered in the case of the Kuleli incident and the Vocation group. A circle of devoted followers around a leader tried to change politics by exchanging the sultan in a violent coup. Only the charisma of the leader as well as the front of secrecy could cover up the fact that the group was largely unconnected to the mainstream of Ottoman politics. In the case of the Üsküdar Society the personality of Ali Suavi managed to lead his followers into action; although we do not know much about this handful of followers and what motivated them to take part in Suavi’s attempt. The lack of sources regarding the society makes it hard to ascertain the motives for the opposition of the group. A decisive element, for certain, must have been the desperate situation of the empire at the beginning of Abdülhamid’s reign and the resulting legitimacy crisis that was projected on the person of the ruler. A closer look at the intellectual development of the leader of the society, Ali Suavi, can illustrate the genesis of his opposition. This development covers twenty years, from Suavi’s early employment in the Ottoman administration to the years of his exile in Europe to the time after his return to Istanbul as late as 1876. In contrast to some of the other leaders of opposition the life of Ali Suavi in general is well documented. Because he was part of the group of Young Ottomans, who went into self-imposed exile in Europe, scholars were interested in Suavi from the beginning.20 Furthermore, Suavi himself was an

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active writer who, besides numerous articles and books on political questions and topics like education and science, published an account of his own life. In this account he stressed his oppositional role claiming that from the beginning of his career in the Ottoman administration he had constantly protested against misuse of power and general injustice. Born in 1839 in Istanbul Ali studied in one of the new advanced elementary schools (rüs¸diye) before he entered the Ottoman bureaucracy as a scribe in the war ministry. Despite his schooling and his chosen profession he also had strong connections with the religious milieu. Parallel to his employment in the central administration he completed his traditional education in the local medrese and began to write on religious topics before he went on the pilgrimage to Mecca at the age of 17. Upon his return Ali first taught at a medrese in Anatolia and then, for a short time, was director of the rüs¸diye of Bursa. In 1861 he was recalled to Istanbul because he had got into trouble with the local authorities. Subsequently he was transferred to the court of commerce in Sofia and later, in 1864, he worked in the local administration of Filibe. There, again, he clashed with the local governor and had to return to Istanbul in 1866.21 Back in the capital he became popular for his criticism of the government. Paralleling his experience in the religious and the bureaucratic world Ali had two places of agitation. The first was the S¸ehzade Mosque where he was a preacher. His sermons were famous, because they were delivered in a fervent style in the language of the common people and did not exclude political topics. Also people like Namık Kemal and Fuad Pasha were said to have attended them.22 As a second forum for his ideas Ali chose journalism and founded his own newspaper, the Muhbir (Reporter). Before, Ali had been writing mostly small essays on religious subjects, which circulated among his students. With his newspaper articles, however, he gained a new audience. The Muhbir, first appearing in January 1867, like Namık Kemal’s Tasvir-i Efkar (Description of Opinions) for a major part covered educational topics. But like the other papers the Muhbir also very soon started to sponsor more politically minded articles. There was, for example, a column where Ali, who was the main contributor to the paper, explained general political terms to his readers. He also wrote articles on domestic and foreign policy, especially on the events in Crete and personally initiated a campaign to help the Muslims of Crete who were affected by the insurrection on the island. Also the famous open letter by Mustafa Fazıl that kicked off the Young Ottoman movement was reprinted in the paper. As it turned out, the Muhbir took a lead in openly addressing political matters. After a hostile article against the policy of the Porte in general and the person of the grand vizier Âli Pasha in particular the authorities banned the paper and sent Ali into exile. This article protested against the fact that the fortress of Belgrade was left by its Ottoman garrison and handed over to the Serbs.23

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With his exile in Europe a second phase began in the life of Ali, who at some point acquired the byname Suavi, ‘the active and industrious one’. On the one hand Suavi’s life story developed similarly to that of his fellow Young Ottomans, who went into exile, founded journals and eventually returned to the empire. Also intellectually at the beginning he shared many of their basic political beliefs, like the importance of religion regarding the political order or the personal hatred towards Âli Pasha. On the other hand Suavi was different, not least because he was the last of the Young Ottomans to return to Istanbul. His political thinking especially as it may be gleaned from the three journals and several books he wrote in Europe reveal that he was the one Young Ottoman thinker most conscious of his dissident role, styling himself a ‘political martyr’.24 The first of his journals was a new version of the Muhbir, which Suavi started publishing in London from September 1867. The paper was financed by Mustafa Fazıl and was intended to diffuse the latter’s views. Although the articles generally were not signed, regarding their style many of them can be attributed to Namık Kemal. According to the editorial its task was to ‘cause the progress of education and civilisation of the eastern people and to bravely give expression to the reform opinion and to try to correct the opinions of Europe about Orientals’.25 Although Suavi’s views in general are associated with political radicalism, this programme was considerably different from and politically more modest than that which other members of the Young Ottoman Society were drafting at the same time in Paris. Suavi only adopted a more overtly political stance later, especially after the break with the Young Ottomans’ benefactor Mustafa Fazıl. A first step was the cessation of the Muhbir after which Suavi from July 1869 onwards started to publish a new paper, the Ulum (Science), appearing every two weeks in lithograph print. Besides education and science in the paper he frequently touched on political questions. Being his own master and not dependent on anybody he could use the Ulum to fight out political and personal quarrels, e.g., against Namık Kemal. Perhaps the most important step during this time was the final break with Mustafa Fazıl announced by Suavi in a series of articles during February and March 1870.26 What were the political ideas Ali Suavi treated in his writings in exile and in what way do they help understand the nature of his opposition? Of immediate interest are, of course, utterances that touch directly on the notion of opposition towards the state or its represantatives. Concerning this topic Suavi seems to have held two opinions, which are not easy to reconcile. On a very general level he was defending the right of rebellion within an Islamic framework. On several occasions in the Muhbir as well as in the Ulum he put forward that it was not the duty of any Muslim to show obedience to a tyrannical government. Like the other Young Ottomans in defending their notion of constitutionalism, Suavi in his defence of the right of resistance drew on examples from the Koran, the life of the Prophet Muhammad as well as the early Caliphs. He was perhaps the first Muslim

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thinker in modern times to invoke the well-known Koranic obligation to ‘command right and forbid wrong’ to legitimise his stance.27 Suavi’s radical theory, however, was restrained by practical considerations and the political culture prevalent among Ottoman officials. Suavi never invoked the right to revolt against the Ottoman sultan of his time, Abdülaziz, whom he always treated respectfully. As had been the case with the other Young Ottomans the target of his polemic were the Tanzimat politicians rather than the sultan. In one of his most radical articles Suavi issued a fetva ordering the killing of the grand vizier. This fetva published in the Hürriyet by Ziya was the main reason why Suavi, unlike some of the other Young Ottomans, could not return to the empire until Âli Pasha’s death. In regard to the Ottoman past Suavi defended opposition against the central government and tyrannical ministers. In one article in the Muhbir he chose the janissaries as an example of an intermediary body defending the right of the people against absolute government (hükumet-i mutlaka). In the present situation ministers had become so powerful because there was no institution that could take the janissaries’ place.28 The fact that Suavi never actually called for the overthrow of the Ottoman dynasty or attacked the sultan personally reveals a political conservatism that was becoming more and more pronounced during his years in Europe. In the beginning and under the influence of the other Young Ottomans he defended their model of a constitutional system (usul-ı mes¸veret).29 Like Namık Kemal he presented the need for consultations in the affairs of the state to be deeply rooted in the Islamic tradition and rejected firmly any form of arbitrary government. This line of argument, however, made Suavi neither a supporter of a Western-style parliamentary system nor a constitutionalist in the modern sense of the word. In his political thinking the sharia was to take the place of a modern constitution and the sultan was to retain most of his powers. Suavi assigned to him the traditional tasks of a Muslim ruler, i.e., guarding religion, protecting the state’s borders, dispensing justice and choosing the right officials.30 This political conservatism regarding the actual political system of the empire became even more pronounced during the time Suavi published the Ulum. Although he ascertained that historically speaking democracy was the natural political system in Islam, Suavi was very sceptical about the contemporary democratic regimes. Alluding to the events that shook Paris under the rule of the Commune in 1871, he maintained that in Europe this form of government had brought godless people to power who were rejecting religion as the basis of: society. In contrast to Mehmed Bey, who at the same time in his paper Inkılab (Revolution) had embraced revolutionary principles, Suavi displayed a very traditional attitude to revolution similar to that of Ottoman contemporaries to the French revolution of 1789.31 Moreover, Suavi was concerned about the export of the modern concept of democracy to the Muslim world. He expressed doubt whether people in the Ottoman Empire were educated enough for this sort of government,

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which only would lead to sedition and rebellion (fitneengiz olacaktir). Instead he promoted the monarchy as the ideal form of government for his own country: ‘According to our understanding the government, which is suitable to a situation and a society we find for example in the Ottoman state, must be a monarchy (padis¸ahlık).’32 Suavi again pronounced his scepticism vis-à-vis European-style parliamentary systems in an article in the Istanbul paper Vakit (Time) as late as September 1876. Writing under the shadow of Gladstone’s campaign concerning the so-called ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ Suavi directly condemned the system of parliamentary opposition and its tendency to influence public opinion. In contrast he depicted the Ottoman Empire as a polity that knew no changes and revolutions and thus stood for internal and external stability.33 The reason why Sultan Abdülhamid finally allowed Suavi to return to Istanbul in November 1876 might have been this endorsement of a traditional political culture that stressed loyalty to the empire and its ruler. Back in the capital a third phase in the life of the Ottoman official, Islamic preacher, journalist and political exile began in an environment very close to power. Even before his return Suavi had been appointed a member of the socalled Translation Society, a group founded by the sultan to influence public opinion abroad and inside his realm. It seems that Suavi also began to build a personal relationship with Abdülhamid for he was invited to the palace on several occasions and ultimately was appointed tutor of the princes as well as head librarian.34 At the peak of success, in February 1877, Suavi became director of the Mekteb-i Sultanî, the school at Galata Saray where he set about reorganising the curriculum according to his own ideas. Suavi was also a valuable political ally for the sultan in his struggle to become independent from the Porte and especially from the faction around Midhat. Although Abdülhamid formally complied with the conditions under which he had assumed his office, above all to promote a constitution, he did everything not to have his personal power limited by such a document. In this struggle Suavi was on Abdülhamid’s side for several reasons. First of all, it was his personal enemies like Namık Kemal and the British ambassador Elliot who supported Midhat’s ideas. Moreover, in agreement with his earlier political writings Suavi did not think that a constitution would be a solution for the problems of the empire.35 Like others Suavi feared that Midhat could dominate the sultan and become a figure like Âli Pasha had been. For this reason he wrote a supporting article when Abdülhamid finally sent Midhat into exile using article 113 of the constitution allowing the sultan to remove any person from the empire whom he deemed dangerous to public security. Suavi applauded the active stance of the new sultan, who, in accordance with his understanding of the duties of a Muslim ruler, was exerting his authority.36 At the time of the riot at Çırag˘ an Palace Suavi’s spell close to power was already over. In December 1877 he was dismissed from his office as director

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of the Galata Saray School on the intervention of the British ambassador Layard. Suavi’s reforms at the school had been directed mainly against the foreign staff and its non-Muslim pupils. Additionally he had provoked Layard with a series of anti-British newspaper articles. When the ambassador demanded Suavi’s dismissal the sultan agreed in order to keep good relations with Britain.37 Little is known about Suavi’s state of mind and his activities afterwards. Unfortunately he did not publish any articles, probably due to an informal ban. For sure, his loyalty towards Abdülhamid was badly damaged. The Russian advance on Istanbul must have stirred up his patriotic feelings and enticed him to political action. For Suavi, well aware of the political myth attached in Russia to the possession of Constantinople, the war fulfilled his earlier warnings against Russia’s political intrigues and aggressive designs.38 In the same manner Suavi most certainly was opposed to the treaty of San Stefano considering the fact that it meant the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. The signing of the treaty by the Ottoman government delivered a further impetus to Suavi’s decision to topple the sultan, whom he must have held responsible for the defeat in war. That he was not to accept this situation is shown in an episode from some time before the riot at Çırag˘ an. Suavi, together with a certain Sheikh Ahmed and one Necib Bey, was arrested because he had incited the population. The circumstances of this event remain unclear for the only source of information is a short note by the minister of war to the minister of police.39 Nonetheless, his arrest may have been the last incentive for Suavi to seek allies and strike sooner rather than later. Suavi’s plan to involve the refugees from the Balkans depended on the political significance this group held in his eyes as well as his personal ties to the region where most of them came from, i.e., the area of Filibe and adjacent towns in the Maritsa (Meriç) valley like Hasköy or Pazarcık. It is possible that members of the Üsküdar Society who originated from the region were old acquaintances of Suavi from the time he was working in Filibe before 1867. Probably these men persuaded the other refugees to come to Çırag˘ an Palace on 20 May, otherwise it would be hard to explain why they almost entirely came from this particular area. At first glance the refugees in Suavi’s eyes must have appeared as a ready mass of people to give momentum to his attempt. He might have thought that they would support him once the plan to seize Murad and declare him sultan was successful. The plotters seem to have been well aware that it would not have been wise to tell the refugees the truth about their designs. Being small townspeople and peasants they had little revolutionary spirit. In fact, most of them stayed outside after Suavi and his followers had crashed the gates of the palace. In general the political activity of the refugees in Istanbul had been peaceful, consisting mainly of petition-writing. To this time-honoured means of political participation they returned after the events to protest their innocence in front of the sultan.40

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Despite the fact that Suavi tricked most of the refugees to take part in his scheme, he showed great concern for their fate and it was their suffering that first encouraged him to act. When in summer 1877 the first refugees arrived in the capital, in his sermons and articles in the press Suavi tried to rally support for them and founded a relief organisation as he had done ten years earlier for the Muslims of Crete.41 Since then one of the recurring themes in Suavi’s articles had been the suppression and discrimination of the Muslims in the empire. With the outbreak of the crisis in 1876 this role was passed on to the Muslims of Bosnia. Later in 1876 during Gladstone’s campaign of the ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ his support switched to the Muslims of Bulgaria.42 Additionally, the fact that the Muslim refugees from the Balkans were victims of Russian military expansion awarded them a special status. Since his early political writings Suavi like many of his contemporaries in opposition and in the government had exposed Russian imperialism. While in exile in Europe he wrote two books connected with this topic, one on Khiva attacking the Russian conquest of Central Asia, the other on Bosnia criticising the pan-Slav policy in the Balkans. Also his connections with David Urquhart and the Foreign Affairs Committees, a British anti-Russian and pro-Ottoman pressure group with its own journal, the Diplomatic Review, underlines this strand in Suavi’s political thinking.43 Suavi was part of a rising number of Ottoman intellectuals perceiving the international environment in terms of a Muslim–Christian rivalry. In 1878 this opinion could still be used as a motive for opposition against the government. Later Abdülhamid managed to bring this line of thinking under his control and used it for his own political purposes in his notorious pan-Islamist policy. It may have been the experience in the early years of his reign that taught him the importance of this matter regarding the damaged legitimacy of the empire. The key political question of the 1870s, as the high officials in the focus of the last chapter posed it, was how to limit the political influence of the sultan. Dominating the sultan, in the way that the Tanzimat politicians had done so successfully for nearly three decades, damaged the legitimacy of the state and conjured up opposition. Some thought that a constitution could strengthen the state’s legitimacy and would offer a way out of this impasse. These were not Ali Suavi’s questions at all. He defended a type of sultanic authority that went along with political power. The justification for this model he found in the political tradition of the empire as well as in a modern political interpretation of Islam. Suavi would follow any sultan who would assume this ideal role. In his case, as well as in the case of the other Young Ottomans, this attitude also served the self-interest of their class. As petty officials they were very much dependent on a powerful patron who would support their careers. Therefore, choosing one of the most powerful patrons, the sultan himself, was a consequence not only from a standpoint of political theory.

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At the same time Suavi is also a good example of how this traditional approach to legitimacy could lead to opposition. Very similar to Sheikh Ahmed, who organised the Society of Martyrs, Suavi shows how disappointment of an ideal could lead to political action. The political culture of conspiracy offered an established means to both of them to put their political ideals into reality. That Suavi chose Murad who had been his enemy Midhat’s candidate to replace Abdülhamid can only be explained by the historical circumstances. It is true that Murad’s claim to the throne was the most legitimate compared . to other contenders such as Yusuf Izzeddin, Abdülaziz’s son, and possibly Murad was more accessible to Suavi and his followers. It is not likely that Murad who, for all that we know, was of a very different character and held different ideas from Suavi, had anything to do with this. As the next chapter will show other people had a much more realistic chance to put Murad’s reinstatement back on the agenda.

6

Bourgeois conspirators The Skalieri–Aziz committee

Although detected only in July 1878, the last secret society to be examined in this study, called the Skalieri–Aziz committee after its two leaders, was older than Ali Suavi’s group. The committee was founded by friends of the ex-sultan Murad as a reaction to his deposition and aimed at reinstating him to the Ottoman throne. The Skalieri–Aziz committee was not the only group with such an agenda, but the last that concluded the pro-Murad phase in the opposition against Abdülhamid. The committee carries on many of the characteristics of earlier opposition. An important part of its membership were petty officials in the civil bureaucracy whose involvement in opposition attests to a trickle down of Young Ottoman ideas. However, compared to the other conspiracies the committee also had some peculiar aspects beginning with the wealth of information that is available about it. The verbatim interrogation protocols of the police investigation give insight into the history of the group and its plans as it was explained in the words of its members.1 Another peculiarity is the fact that the founder and leader of this committee was a Greek Ottoman subject, while most other members were Turks. In none of the conspiracies examined so far have non-Muslims played any significant role. In the nineteenth century their political activity usually took place in the framework of revolts for autonomy or national independence from the empire. In 1905 Armenian nationalists undertook an assassination attempt on Sultan Abdülhamid that involved conspiratorial methods. The question is in how far the exception the Skalieri–Aziz committee presents us with can be explained by a common political culture among both the Muslim and non-Muslim members of the group. On the night of 8 July 1878 the Ottoman police raided a house in the historic centre of Istanbul belonging to Aziz Bey, a scribe in the ministry of religious foundations (evkaf nezareti). The authorities had been informed that a secret society working against the government would meet on that evening. Apart from the owner of the house and his son the police arrested two other people on the spot. An unknown number of suspects was able to flee through the back door, but in the course of the following days altogether 28 people were apprehended and questioned.2

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One of the most important statements made on the first day of the interrogations undoubtedly came from Aziz Bey, the vice president of the committee, in whose house its last meeting took place.3 Aziz fully cooperated with the police and revealed the basic facts about the group that had been founded by a man named Kirlandi a while after Murad’s deposition in order to win back the throne for him. The committee usually met once or twice a month and it seems that its membership was rather fluid. Aziz gave altogether 18 names and much of the work of the police subsequently concentrated on finding these people and establishing their real involvement in the plot. According to Aziz’s statement the committee planned to block Abdülhamid’s palace with the help of Muslim refugees – obviously here he echoed the Çırag˘ an incident – and an officer of the palace guards or other high military commanders, who had to be won over. At the same time the conspirators wanted to free Murad from his confinement so that first the people and later the members of parliament could take an oath of allegiance, the biat, and reinstate the deposed sultan. Aziz claimed that these steps were coordinated with Murad with whom the plotters had been in regular contact. At first, letters were sent through the freshwater canals running under the palace and after these had been closed some guards and servants were bribed to deliver them. According to Aziz there were letters from Murad himself and from his mother ascertaining that the ex-sultan was well and that he wanted to leave the palace.4 Obviously to minimise his own involvement he described the person named as Kirlandi as the active force who held the committee together while he himself became more and more sceptical about its aims. Starting from these bits of information furnished by Aziz and five other suspects on the first day of the interrogation, the police tried to reconstruct the activities of the committee as a whole. By comparing the suspects’ statements and confronting them personally the interrogators tried to find out each suspect’s involvement in these activities. More important than the plotters’ motives were the technicalities of their participation in the plot on the basis of which they would be judged by the court. It is impossible to present in detail all the statements made by the 28 suspects during a period of over one month. Instead focusing on some key issues like the committee’s membership structure and its development over time, its way of recruiting new members as well as its activities and plans will reveal a great deal about its members’ thinking on legitimacy and their style of opposition. Like in other cases it is important to deconstruct the group’s image as a monolithic organisation that the police was looking for. In all statements to the police – except for one, which maintained that Aziz was the president (reis) and grand vizier (sadrazam) of the committee5 – a man named Kirlandi or Kirlanti was said to be the initiator of the plot. His full name was Kleanti Skalieri, born in 1833 to an old family of Istanbul

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Greeks; he was a stockbroker and businessman and spoke and wrote Greek and French and was able to speak Turkish.6 Some members of the plot like Aziz knew Kleanti because in the past they had done business with him.7 His job as a stockbroker seems to have made him a considerably wealthy man – or at least taught him how to get hold of money – so that, on several occasions, he was able to offer large sums of money to members of the committee in order to entice them to action or buy their silence. Kleanti’s friendship with Murad was mentioned by several former servants of the ex-sultan among the suspects. In the time before Murad became sultan on several occasions they had seen Kleanti with the heir apparent in the unofficial environment of the latter’s country house.8 This friendship prevailed after Murad’s deposition, which was one of the main driving forces for Kleanti to establish the committee. Regarding Kleanti’s long-standing contacts to Murad it is only natural to find many of the latter’s servants among his acquaintances. Because of their situation they either actively supported Kleanti’s plans or at least did not report him to the government. While the British ambassador Elliot remarked that Sultan Abdülhamid treated the members of his family honourably,9 nonetheless there were heavy encroachments on Murad’s entourage. All his servants, who were questioned by the police, had been temporarily dismissed or exchanged with employees more favourable to the regime.10 One of the most interesting of these former palace servants, who got involved with Kleanti, was one Naks¸fend or Naks¸bend Kalfa. A woman in her sixties, she had been raised in the palace in the time of Sultan Mahmud II and later had become part of Murad’s household until she had been dismissed after his fall.11 Afterwards she lived in the houses of several of her colleagues and for a time she also stayed with Kleanti. She had many contacts and, being a woman, she could enter places where men could not go in order to collect information or approach people. On several occasions she invited future members to the sessions of the committee in Kleanti’s or Aziz’s house.12 More than any other person from the group of palace servants Naks¸fend can be described as a full member of the committee. Apparently she stood in close relationship to Kleanti and Murad and was present when the discussions about the future of the ex-sultan took place. All the suspects insisted that on such occasions she wore a headscarf to stress her moral integrity.13 Like Kleanti she had remained in contact with the palace and received letters from Murad’s mother, which she answered personally in Turkish.14 Since she had not been at Aziz’s house when the police carried out the raid, she was able to flee together with Kleanti and the police never got hold of her. Like Naks¸fend two other of Murad’s servants were fully involved in Kleanti’s activities; two or three others were only loosely connected to the group. As it appears from one suspect’s statement the group of palace

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servants formed the nucleus of what Kleanti later attempted to organise as the committee. At the time they had been dismissed from service, in the second half of 1876 and the first half of 1877, they began to frequent Kleanti’s house where they engaged in discussions turning around Murad’s state of health.15 Later, when other people became part of this circle and Kleanti began to press for action, most of the servants stopped playing a significant role. Their most important task was keeping up communications between Murad and Kleanti, which over time became more difficult because Murad’s palace was guarded more strictly than before. Apart from Murad’s former servants a number of lower-ranking officers from the civil bureaucracy, altogether around ten men, formed a second distinct group in Kleanti’s circle. Most of them were personal friends of Kleanti or colleagues of Aziz. Scribes and petty officials from many different ministries and government councils in the capital were among them. Some of them at the same time held jobs as teachers, which was common practice for Ottoman officials to augment their pay.16 Two, Esad Efendi and Ali Bey, were also known journalists. In the last section of this chapter the significance of their participation in the conspiracy will be discussed in greater detail. The remaining suspects were relatives, friends or clients of other members. Among them was Kleanti’s nephew Mihal and Aziz’s son Kadri, the family doctor and two of Kadri’s former classmates now studying at the Darülmuallim, the teachers’ college. Both of them originated from Filibe and one wonders if this is just by chance or if the refugee question made them join the group.17 Only two of the suspects had a religious background, a hatib and a müezzin, which once again stresses the bourgeois character of the conspiracy. It is not clear if they had been at any of the meetings of the committee at all, or if they had just acquired some knowledge of the plot.18 As already suggested by the initial statement made by Aziz and exemplified by Murad’s servants the group assembling around Kleanti was rather fluid. There is neither a founding date recorded nor do we know of any membership list. The group evolved in different stages over a span of almost two years and the various individuals presented above played changing roles at different times. On the one hand this fluid nature offered a perfect defence strategy to the suspects. Old friends of Kleanti in particular claimed that they were only visiting his house as friends and were ignorant of the plot. On the other hand this rather loose structure had been a problem regarding the work of the group. Kleanti and maybe also Aziz recognised this and made at least two attempts to bind the individuals more closely to the group and widen its appeal. A common strategy was to promise positions in the future government in exchange for the support of the members. Although Aziz strongly denied such methods, it seems that a list was drawn up containing the offices each

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member of the committee would be awarded with after a successful exchange of sultans.19 Moreover, Kleanti started an advertising campaign preparing a couple of booklets that carried on top of the first page the slogan: ‘I agree to make an effort working as much as possible for the security of the nation (Milletin selameti için elden geldig˘ i kadar çalıs¸mag˘ a gayret etmeklig˘ e taahhüd ederim).’ The idea was that each member who was supplied with such a booklet should first sign or seal the above statement and then show it to his friends and let them do the same. However, when a week later Aziz collected the booklets there was not a single signature and later they were destroyed.20 This timidity of the members to identify with the committee also had serious consequences regarding its activities. While in the beginning Kleanti was just discussing Murad’s situation in his circle of friends, soon he developed the plan to free and reinstate him. The last and most radical of these successive plans was the assassination of the ruling sultan. As a first measure after Murad had been declared unfit to rule in 1876 Kleanti hired a psychologist from Paris specialised in magnetism to treat the ex-sultan. When he received a couple of letters from Murad, apparently demanding justice and calling for help, his commitment deepened.21 At first together with Naks¸fend he tried to gather support from the high officials in the capital. Under a pretext Naks¸fend entered the harem of Mehmed Rüs¸di Pasha, grand vizier under Murad and dismissed by Abdülhamid, but his wife would not let her through to explain her reasons. Next, Kleanti tried to deliver letters by Murad directly to him as well as to a couple of high Ottoman officials like the sherif of Mekka, the military commander Osman Pasha as well as some religious officials. In none of these cases, however, was Kleanti successful.22 As a last resort, Kleanti looked for support beyond the circle of high Ottoman officials. As was related in the interrogations he sent a letter in the name of the Ottoman nation (millet-i osmanî) to the British ambassador to which, however, he received no reply. The story of this letter may well correspond with Kleanti’s visit to Layard in June 1877. On this occasion, as we know from the ambassador’s report to the Foreign Office, Kleanti produced a letter by Murad and implored the ambassador to save the ex-sultan from a plot to murder him.23 Despite the fact that all these attempts had been fruitless, on several occasions Kleanti claimed in front of his friends that some pashas and even European statesmen were supporting his plans. However, none of the suspects’ statements gives any evidence that these were more than rumours in order to attract new followers and give a false image of the extent of the conspiracy.24 The fact that in reality the committee had no such high-ranking members, in turn, seems to have been hard to accept for the interrogators. In almost all the interrogations they enquired about the implication of Ottoman politicians or outside help for the committee. They rightly insisted that the plan

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to bring Murad back to power was doomed without any such support. Obviously it was beyond the interrogators’ imagination that low-ranking officials could meddle in politics without backing from the political factions in the capital. Without help from outside Kleanti got to the point where he took matters into his own hands. It was in the second half of 1877 that the variety of plans to reinstate Murad by abducting him from Çırag˘ an Palace were taking shape. As it appears from the interrogation protocols it was mainly Kleanti, perhaps supported by Naks¸fend and Aziz, who pushed ahead with these plans. Some of the suspects who became involved in Murad’s abduction reported that they were taken by surprise with the scheme and were tricked into giving their assistance to it. The most realistic of all the plans to free Murad was to get him out of the palace using the freshwater canals also used for communication. During September 1877 Kleanti and Ali Bey had visited Murad using this way and thus had established the feasibility of such a plan.25 However, when Kleanti wanted to take action four months later everything went wrong. On the designated day he returned to his friends who were waiting at his house without Murad, because the canal workers, despite a huge bribe of one thousand lira, had not been willing to cooperate.26 It remains unclear from the information given in the suspects’ statements whether the workers had agreed to a deal in the first place. Possibly Kleanti only pretended they had in order to keep up the commitment among his friends. Most likely one of Kleanti’s friends dissuaded the workers. Immediately after, the same individual informed the authorities about the committee, but they did not take the information very seriously. Only about six months later they reacted by raiding Aziz Bey’s house.27 After the canals had been blocked there seems to have been two other attempts to free Murad. It was one idea that Murad should climb the palace walls with a rope, which the ex-sultan declined for unknown reasons.28 In a second attempt Kleanti tried to enter the palace from the seaside by night. He was, however, detected by the guards and had to pretend that the wind had blown his boat to the quay accidentally.29 Despite all these difficulties, the plotters had detailed plans in case they were successful in bringing Murad to Aziz Bey’s house. There were some suspects who claimed that Kleanti wanted to smuggle Murad out of the city to bring him to Europe, more specifically to England.30 All the others related that Murad was to remain in the capital to be reappointed sultan by acclamation and taking the traditional oath of allegiance (biat).31 There were different opinions regarding the question by whom and where this acclamation should be performed. These different opinions give an image of the different forms of legitimacy the Ottoman sultan could possess. Aziz Bey remembered a discussion turning around this question at the night of the expected abduction of Murad.32 It was proposed to bring him either to the Hırka-ı S¸erif, the place the mantle of the Prophet was stored, to the war

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ministry or to parliament. The first option clearly stressed the traditional religious legitimacy of the sultan with special regard to the traditional ritual for an Ottoman prince to become sultan. Murad, when he was made sultan in 1876, had neglected this step and whoever proposed this proceeding might have acted out of the feeling that this time the ritual should be performed in the right order. The second suggestion, to bring Murad to the war ministry, was more conscious of the fact that the ex-sultan first of all had to gain a power basis among the Ottoman military in order to challenge his brother Abdülhamid. Since earlier attempts by Kleanti to recruit individual commanders had failed it was up to Murad himself to gain the necessary support. This opinion seems to have appealed to most members of the committee present at the discussion and was also mentioned in other suspects’ statements.33 There were other variants to this pragmatic and power-oriented approach. According to one, Murad was to be brought to the council of state (kubbe altı), according to another to the privy council (meclis-i has) where loyal members of Abdülhamid were to be arrested and the others were to take the oath of allegiance to Murad.34 The proposal to bring Murad to parliament displayed yet another and more recent notion of the sultan’s legitimacy. It was Esad who admitted having been in contact with some members of parliament, among them its president Hasan Fehmi Efendi; but he denied having talked with them about the committee.35 Also Kleanti as a constitutionalist probably followed this line of thinking. He and others who stressed this kind of legitimacy seem to have perceived parliament as a place of opposition to Abdülhamid’s absolutist rule. Yet another proposal came from Kleanti’s nephew, who compared the ex-sultan to Napoleon III. Like the latter he should be made sultan by the people and therefore he should be brought to a popular quarter like Fatih.36 That there was to be some sort of popular acclamation was also echoed in another statement suggesting that medrese students and the people had to take the oath of allegiance to Murad.37 These opinions clearly reflect the political role the students in the capital had played in the downfall of Abdülaziz in spring 1876. Given all the eventualities of these plans and particularly the lack of real support by any Ottoman politician, it was very unlikely that Murad would have been able to supersede his brother. Therefore sometime between December 1877 and May 1878 Kleanti also came up with a plan to assassinate Sultan Abdülhamid while performing the Friday prayer in public. At first there was some anxiety among the plotters about the consequences such an attempt on the life of the sultan could have at a time when the Russians were at the gates of Istanbul. But then, with the strong approval of Naks¸fend, Kleanti started to develop the plan. One of his followers agreed to hire an assassin and he boasted he was in contact with Gürcü S¸erif Efendi, the alim, who had been sent into exile in autumn 1876 after

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organising a plot against Abdülhamid. In the following days, however, this emerged as empty talk and the assassination attempt was not pursued.38 Summing up the examination of the investigation protocols so far, the socalled Skalieri–Aziz committee emerges as a loosely knit circle of individuals, which was held together by the connection to Kleanti Skalieri and his determination to help his friend Murad. This determination strengthened with the news that Murad apparently had recovered from his illness. It culminated in the plan to free the ex-sultan from his palace or assassinate the current sultan – a plan made by Kleanti and one or two of his closest friends who formed the core of the committee. Obviously Kleanti Skalieri was the driving force behind the conspiracy and an exception compared to all other leaders of opposition as he was the only non-Muslim among them. Another exception was that he was a dedicated Freemason – a fact that never came up in the investigation, but helps to explain many of the particularities of his opposition. Up to the second half of the nineteenth century Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire was solely confined to the circle of expatriates in the capital and other large port cities. As a consequence the lodges did not want and could not exert any influence on Ottoman internal affairs. It was only long after the beginning of the Tanzimat that some lodges tried to act as a bridge to Ottoman society by first admitting members from the non-Muslim communities and later Muslims into their numbers. Only then they became a political factor. Many of the Tanzimat statesmen, like Res¸id, Fuad and Âli, are said to have been Masons. For Ottoman liberals the Masonic lodge was a suitable place to socialise and to exchange new ideas – an opportunity that earlier had been solely offered by the Sufi orders that, however, excluded non-Muslims.39 One of the first lodges that took on this function as a bridge between Europe and the empire was the Union d’Orient, a lodge of French obedience founded in 1863 in Istanbul.40 Its members were mainly Ottomans of Jewish, Greek and Armenian extraction and its programme endorsed Ottomanism, i.e., the equality and peaceful coexistence of all peoples in the empire. The fact that Skalieri was initiated into this lodge and, in 1868, was admitted into its chapter for higher grades is a clear indicator of his liberal political views. In 1865 the president of the Union d’Orient, Louis Amiable, decided to make an attempt to attract Muslims to the lodge and therefore translated its rituals and its constitution into Turkish. The success was immediate; the number of Muslim Masons was constantly growing up to 1869 when more than one-third of the brethren were Turks. Most of them came from the army, but also palace and government officials could be found. Among them was Mustafa Fazıl Pasha, the sponsor of the Young Ottoman exiles in Paris. The end of the Union d’Orient came when a new president in the beginning of the 1870s abandoned the pro-Muslim stance, because the lodge was coming under stricter police observation. In 1873, with many others

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Skalieri withdrew his membership and the lodge officially ceased to exist in February 1874. By that time Skalieri’s Masonic activity had already shifted to Proodos (Progress), founded in 1868 as a lodge of French obedience and, like the Union d’Orient, promoting progressive and liberal values as well as peace and fraternity among all Ottoman subjects.41 In 1870 Skalieri became president of the hitherto predominately Greek lodge and opened up its membership for the other communities of the empire following the example of Amiable. In 1872/73 among the 68 members of the lodge there were 19 Turks. Most of them were government officials, including some future members of the committee; also Namık Kemal was a member of Proodos. Not figuring on the official list of members but undoubtedly the most prominent of all Turks was Murad, the heir apparent. He probably first got interested in Freemasonry during his visit to Paris with his uncle Abdülaziz in 1867. Upon his return he received a letter from the central lodge in Paris, the Grand Orient de France, that was handed over to him by Skalieri. This was the starting point of the friendship between the two men in that Skalieri, who was just seven years older than Murad, seems to have acted as a intermediary, relating to the prince European culture as well as the liberal ideas discussed in his lodge.42 When Murad himself was initiated into the lodge in October 1872 this was seen as a personal success for Skalieri. The initiation had to take place under strict secrecy in the house of Amiable, because, as Skalieri mused in a letter to the Grand Orient in Paris, the information that the heir apparent to the Ottoman throne was a Freemason would have been highly unpopular with the conservative Muslim milieu and would have delivered a pretext to Abdülaziz to change the line of succession in favour of his son Yusuf . Izzeddin.43 With the initiation of Murad Ottoman Freemasonry clearly entered a new phase regarding its political role in the empire. There might have been hopes from the side of the mother lodge in Paris of deeper political influence in the empire once Murad became sultan. As for men on the spot like Skalieri and Amiable, they clearly tried to influence the prince to eventually transform the Ottoman Empire according to their political ideals. Their strategy mainly seems to have been to encourage Murad’s liberal ideas. It was said that Amiable drew up a draft constitution for the empire at the prince’s demand. Through his Mason connection Murad was also brought in contact with Midhat Pasha. Skalieri, in turn, was busy lobbying the British ambassador Elliot and kept him informed about Murad’s ideas.44 With such a prominent member Proodos was directly affected by the events in summer 1876. After Murad had been declared unfit to rule the work of the lodge was suspended for a couple of weeks because everybody expected reprisals by the new sultan. To get rid of the pro-Murad image, in November 1876 a faction among the brethren forced Skalieri to abandon his office as president. As a consequence most of the friends and supporters of

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the ex-sultan left the lodge. The next blow for its membership came in 1878 when Skalieri had to flee Istanbul and several of its long-standing members were arrested. The remaining Turks especially deemed it too dangerous to be associated with the lodge and by the end of 1878 all of them had left. Afterwards Proodos continued with a mainly Greek membership until 1901.45 Freemasonry was Skalieri’s initiation into a very special political culture of secrecy, which he tried to continue in organising his friends and followers into a structure similar to that of a lodge. This suggested his idea to collect signatures under the document mentioned above. It is also likely that Skalieri used his Mason contacts to rally outside support for Murad. For years he ran a campaign to influence international public opinion in favour of the cause of the ex-sultan. One of the most important addressees were successive British ambassadors in Istanbul.46 The most concise product of this campaign was a booklet Skalieri issued in 1881 on the occasion of the trial of Midhat Pasha, who stood accused of being implicated in the death of Abdülaziz in 1876.47 The text adds nothing of importance to the events already described here apart from the story of Skalieri’s adventurous flight to Athens together with Naks¸fend Kalfa. Skalieri went so far as to deny the existence of a secret society to conspire against Abdülhamid altogether. While neither the suspects nor the interrogators in the trial against the Skalieri–Aziz committee made any mention of a link between opposition and Freemasonry, this changed in the following years. In the case of a conspiracy to kill Abdülhamid that was detected in September 1879 at least one of the six members, who were all of Ottoman Greek origin, admitted to have been a member of Proodos. The group had formed around a former servant of Murad named Sokrat and had hired a killer, who was caught when he tried to climb the walls of Yıldız Palace hiding a dagger in his clothes. The real motives of the plotters remain unknown – one suspect claimed that Sokrat made Abdülhamid personally responsible for the fact that he was out of work since the deposition of Murad.48 Now an increasing number of rumours about Mason conspiracies led by Midhat Pasha or even Edward, Prince of Wales, to overthrow Abdülhamid began to appear.49 By the 1890 Masons were counted among the usual suspects and were branded ‘a habitual source of sedition’ by the Ottoman authorities.50 To sum up, Skalieri’s way into opposition is easily understandable from his friendship with Murad that grew in the space of the Mason lodge. Skalieri’s opposition activities after Murad’s deposition were still connected with this Masonic framework, but to realise his plans to bring Murad back to the throne by abducting him from his palace or assassinate the ruling sultan he had to find other allies. The last section of this chapter will examine more closely the motivation of the rest of the members of the committee to join the opposition

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against Abdülhamid. This is obvious for the ex-servants of Murad, who were materially affected by the deposition of their former master, owed him loyalty and, in some cases, felt personal affection towards him. The participation of the other distinct group in the committee, the members from the civil bureaucracy of the capital, suggests a more general perspective. This group, that was also present in other conspiracies we have examined, can serve as an example of the loss of legitimacy the state and its representatives had suffered among its own officials. Ottoman civil bureaucracy had undergone a remarkable development during the Tanzimat, because it had been among the first objects of reform. Especially after 1850 its high functionaries had acquired a dominant position in the state that they were able to maintain for roughly twenty years. However, these high officials were only the tip of the iceberg of a newly emerging class in Ottoman society, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie as it has been called.51 Its characteristic was its formation in the modern Europeanstyle schools that enabled this group to reproduce as a distinct social class independent of the favour of the sultan or other patrons, unlike the old scribal service. As a result this bureaucratic bourgeoisie was developing a new political culture with new ideals that called for new styles of articulation. The vanguard and intellectual elite of this class were the Young Ottomans, who first articulated many of these political values and pioneered new forms of discussion in newspapers, etc. They did not only protest against the general conditions in the empire and the failure of reform, but were especially critical vis-à-vis their own superiors pointing to the stark discrepancy between the promise of a rational-legal administration and the real behaviour of the high functionaries of the civil bureaucracy that was still entrenched in traditional Ottoman political culture.52 Two members of the Skalieri–Aziz committee can be included in this milieu of critical journalists and intellectuals. One was Ali S¸evkati (1843–96), scribe in: the council of state, member of Proodos and regular contributor to the Istikbal (Future). For his articles he was reprimanded by the sultan and when the police investigation against the committee started as a precaution he left for Europe. There he started producing some small exile papers against Abdülhamid until he died in Paris without having ever returned home. Ali can count as the clearest example of the continuity between the early opposition against Abdülhamid and the Young Turk opposition of the 1890s.53 Also Esad Efendi (d. 1899), a clerk in the High Council and later chief secretary in the commercial court of appeal, fits the Young Ottoman model of opposition. Esad mainly wrote for the Basiret (Insight), the Hayal (Idea) and the Vakit (Time), to which Ali Suavi also contributed articles. Maybe for this reason he was arrested in the course of the investigations of the Çırag˘ an incident. Two booklets Esad wrote. in the 1870s attest to the range of his . political ideas. Union of Islam (Ittihad-ı Islam, 1873) was one of the

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first contributions to the discussion around a pan-Islamic policy for the Ottoman Empire. The treatise promoted Islam as the central ideology to strengthen the Ottoman Empire in the way of the national states of Europe. In Constitutional Government (Hükumet-i mes¸ruta, 1876) Esad tried to justify a constitutional government for the empire on the basis of the sharia to prevent the abuse of power by the administration.54 About the other suspects from the civil bureaucracy who had been arrested for their association with Skalieri, we know considerably less than about Ali and Esad. They were not engaged in journalism, so that it is hard to judge their political ideas. However, because of their anonymity they might be even more typical examples of the Ottoman bureaucratic bourgeoisie and its relation to opposition against the sultan. Aziz Bey, aged 42 at the time of the interrogation and an official (mukabeleci) in the ministry of religious foundations, may serve as a case in point. His political ideas may only be inferred indirectly by the fact of his friendship with Kleanti Skalieri and his membership in the Proodos lodge.55 Unfortunately we have no direct comment by Aziz as to what motivated him to join Ottoman Freemasonry, but at the time it offered an ideal place to discuss modern political ideas. It was also one of the places where members of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie could meet members of the commercial bourgeoisie who came from the minorities like Skalieri. Interestingly, at the same time Aziz followed a sheikh of the Mevlevi order, Kadirallah Efendi, although this affiliation had, as he affirmed, no political implication.56 It is known from other examples that the world of Freemasonry and Sufism did not exclude each other. Contemporaries frequently pointed to the parallels in both organisations’ rituals and mystical contents. But first of all both were voluntary organisations outside the control of the state where individuals could socialise with like-minded people.57 Moreover, the life of Aziz and that of other committee members from the civil bureaucracy underlines the importance of modern education for their class. We do not know anything about Aziz’s own schooling, but he sent his son to a rüs¸diye, probably to enable him to start a career in the central administration. Also some of the other suspects were involved in the modern education system of the empire, e.g. as teachers and students at the teachers’ college; one was a member of the council of education. Finally, apart from political ideas, the material situation of the officials also has to be taken into account as a reason for the loss of legitimacy of the state in their eyes. The salary system that had been introduced for the civil bureaucracy at the beginning of the Tanzimat never worked smoothly and usually salaries were in arrears for several months. It has been calculated that, in the 1870s, a government official needed a nominal salary of 1,500 to 2,000 kurus¸ to support a small family. The majority of officials in the committee were well below this threshold as the interrogation documents show. For these individuals surely this financial hardship meant that the pecuniary promises made by Skalieri on several occasions were the more tempting.58

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The Skalieri–Aziz committee gives the opportunity to observe the new political culture of a milieu that had come into being in the second half of the nineteenth century and was interested in new ideas. This political culture mainly spread among the civil bureaucracy of the capital, but as the case of Kleanti Skalieri shows had also entered the commercial bourgeoisie of the non-Muslim communities. It included new political ideas that may be called Young Ottoman ideas like liberalism, constitutionalism, but also a new version of Islam, in specific Ottoman interpretations that sometimes excluded each other. Apart from the press or the Freemason lodge private circles such as that around Skalieri offered the opportunity to discuss these new ideas. In the political system of the empire a certain degree of secrecy was necessary and was honoured by the tradition of older models of secret organisations like Freemasonry or the Sufi orders. Discussing politics was one thing, acting on the new ideas was another. Like all other leaders of opposition Skalieri had difficulties realising his aims, because his friends and followers were reluctant to fully engage in opposition. The difficulties of the committee that Skalieri formed were tantamount, starting from the lack of support from any of the influential Ottoman politicians. On the other hand the ideas people like Skalieri and Aziz engaged in had no mass basis either. What remained important for political action was the personal relationship among people rather than abstract ideas. One gets the impression that it was rather the friendship with Murad that enticed Skalieri to act and his personality that held the committee together. Through the interrogation where suspects had to defend themselves and tried to minimise their roles it is hard to reconstruct how deeply they were ideologically involved.

7

Conclusion The Tanzimat and beyond

The investigation of opposition to the Ottoman government in the second half of the nineteenth century has allowed for a special perspective on the political history of the Tanzimat. Apart from the class of high functionaries, who pretended to run the state in an exclusive manner, other groups have come into view that were politically active during this period. By participating in secret societies and opposition groups (as well as by other activities that have not been in the focus of this study) they tried to protect public interest as they understood it and influence the political process accordingly. Secret societies opened a way to politics in a system that excluded many on account of their low rank or their group’s standing in the political system. Most active in the conspiracies were the low-ranking officials, officers from the military and, to a lesser degree, religious officials. Especially the officials from the civil bureaucracy and the military men were the products of the reform process. Both had been educated in modern schools and looked for a way to express their political ideas. While the civil bureaucracy acted as the vanguard, individuals from the military only entered politics later, perhaps because of their closer connection to the person of the sultan. Only in opposition to Abdülhamid at the end of the century did they come to play a dominant role. Religious officials who likewise had lost much of their political influence at the beginning of the reform era were important in the conspiracies as connectors to the people and especially the medrese students. The issues of legitimacy that fuelled opposition and the political style that it used offered an opportunity to thematise key aspects of Ottoman political culture in the second half of the nineteenth century. Two of the main questions of legitimacy at stake concerned the redefinition of the sultan’s role in the political system and that of religion for the empire’s legitimacy. Although for much of the Tanzimat period the real influence the sultan had on politics was very limited, this restriction hardly touched upon the ideal of sultanic authority that remained deeply embedded in political culture. Groups like the Society of Martyrs or the Young Ottomans supported this authority against the Tanzimat politicians who were their main target

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of opposition. Paradoxically, in doing so they had to exchange the ruling sultan for his successor for they hoped that a new sultan would not be under the tutelage of his ministers any longer. This underlines that it was rather the Ottoman dynasty than the individual sultan that was the focus of loyalty and legitimacy. All the conspiracies were in one way or another connected to the question of succession, which remained a political issue throughout the nineteenth century. The Tanzimat politicians adhered to this logic as well, but in the opposite way: a sultan under their tutelage was just what they wanted. However, even from among the officials who deposed Abdülaziz and who clearly felt they had a right to rule only Midhat Pasha wanted to restrict sultanic authority by way of a constitution. This amounted to a radical understanding of what purpose a constitution should serve. Such an interpretation was usually not followed by all those who promoted constitutionalist thought. For the Young Ottomans and their successors constitutionalism remained tied to the religious legitimation of Ottoman rule and acted as a modern cipher for political justice. This example shows that religion was still an important medium of political legitimacy during the Tanzimat, but one that by no means was static or could be used only in reference to the past. That the opposition groups that took the Tanzimat politicians as their main target invoked this legitimacy comes as no surprise. These officials’ reforms were interpreted as concessions to the European powers that were detrimental to the Muslim population of the empire. In the most traditional way the dominant position of Islam was defended by Sheikh Ahmed, who in many ways was an outsider to the political system. However, likewise important was an interpretation of Islam as a source of social justice against the government as it was made popular and expressed in modern language by the Young Ottomans a few years later. This issue was so deeply felt that under the special circumstances of the refugee crisis people like Ali Suavi could seize it to justify opposition against Abdülhamid whose adoption of the cause of Islam had only just begun. The political style of opposition groups in the second half of the nineteenth century displayed some general characteristics of Ottoman political culture. One is the importance of personal relationships that take precedence over questions of ideology. All conspiracies formed around a charismatic individual who was able to support and assist his followers. In some instances opposition groups tried to widen their appeal with modern means of communication like leaflets and some of their members were active in the press, but on the whole personal and face-to-face relations were more important as a means of political propaganda. The cultural background of their leaders left a deep imprint on the conspiracies that sometimes emulated other institutions, e.g. the Sufi order as in the case of the Society of Martyrs, the charity organisation as in the case of Vocation or the Freemason lodge as in the case of the Skalieri–Aziz commitee.

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Additionally, particularly the conspiracies with a Young Ottoman background, such as Vocation, the Skalieri–Aziz committee and maybe also the Üsküdar Society, started as discussion circles of new ideas before they began to pursue more overtly political goals. Thus they also may be seen as part of a growing civil society in the Ottoman Empire that offered a new bourgeois milieu space to express their political ideas. Like in coffee-houses, the traditional place for such discussions, in secret societies people from different groups of Ottoman society could interact, but express themselves more freely. Conspiracies assembled Ottoman subjects that looked for a way to become modern citizens.1 The conspiracies relied on an old political culture of opposition that they had to adapt to suit their circumstances. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century this political culture of opposition had produced what Mardin has termed ‘popular rebellions’ that followed a typical pattern – gossip, co-optation of the janissaries, agitation in the bazaar and among medrese students – and rested on a specific understanding of Ottoman legitimacy.2 In the second half of the nineteenth century these examples were still vivid in collective memory and most opposition groups tried to start a similar sequence of events. They thought it essential for their success to link up with the important groups in the capital like military officers and religious officials. However, despite the fact that they invoked popular values they never were able to activate a mass basis, because they could not reach beyond the circles that the leaders of these groups could control. In the end all the conspiracies were denounced by one of their own members. In the long run no charismatic individual was able to control all of his followers and thus the authorities got the chance to break the secrecy surrounding the groups. As the conspiracies seem to fit into an older pattern of popular rebellion so does the uniform and stereotypical reaction by the authorities vis-à-vis the opposition. All conspiracies were designated as sedition (fesad, fitne), which underlined the monopoly the Ottoman government claimed over all political activity that went beyond politicising in the coffee-houses. Generally the political intention of the various plotters was played down and they were treated as mere criminals. This stance also becomes apparent in the juridical process to deal with these opposition groups once they had been detected. On the one hand this process showed some elements typical for the Tanzimat like the ministerial commissions judging the culprits according to the newly introduced criminal codes. The contents of the judgements, on the other hand, were quite traditional. Exile to a remote corner of the empire for the more important members of the groups, or for the lesser members to the galleys (kürek), which usually meant hard labour in the nineteenth century, were conventional Ottoman punishments. The few death sentences the Ottoman government dispensed usually were commuted and the state officials from among the opposition members were

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very quickly reintegrated into the Ottoman administration. In general the Ottoman government in the Tanzimat era seems not to have felt threatened too much by this kind of opposition, which, indeed, was minimal compared to other problems the empire had during this time. All the conspiracies accepted the traditionally circumscribed borders of Ottoman legitimacy, most importantly the rule of the Ottoman dynasty; they were not revolutionary. This only changed during the reign of Abdülhamid (1876–1909) and with it the cavalier attitude the state displayed towards conspiracy, as a short preview of the period following the Tanzimat will show. Until the turn of the century the opposition to Sultan Abdülhamid in many ways resembled the types we have already encountered during the Tanzimat. Most of the groups and individuals in the Young Turk movement (the umbrella term for all those opposing the sultan’s regime) stood in the tradition of the liberal-constitutional movement of the 1870s and they represented groups that had been politically active before like the students of the modern schools, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie as well as the military. Also other groups like Freemasons, high-ranking Ottoman politicians or the medrese students continued their tradition of opposition.3 For several reasons the relations between the opposition groups and the sultan became more tense and charged with hatred than before. First of all, Abdülhamid’s personality and past experiences may have shaped his reaction to political opposition. The events at Çırag˘ an Palace in May 1878 apparently had a considerable impact on him. The British ambassador reported that the sultan was afflicted by sleeplessness and headaches as well as a general suspicion that his functionaries and the army including the ambassador himself had been part of the plot. Abdülhamid seriously feared his immediate overthrow and was already painting his expected exile in dark colours.4 After one week this depression vanished from the sultan’s mind, but subsequently the same symptoms returned in a more permanent manner. For fear of assassination Abdülhamid completely isolated himself at Yıldız Palace and very rarely appeared in public. He became pathologically suspicious of everyone and everything and built up a network of spies reporting on the activities of real and imagined opponents. Apart from these psychological reasons that should not be considered unimportant it was Abdülhamid’s understanding of office which influenced his reaction to opposition. The sultan seems to have been convinced of his divine right to govern the Ottoman state and his personal mission to save the empire, so that every means seemed appropriate to him to fulfil this task. The earliest outcome of this attitude was the closing of the parliament and the suspension of the constitution both of which limited his personal rule. Subsequently, Abdülhamid centralised power in the palace to an extent unknown in Ottoman history and made every decision dependent on his personal approval.5 Given these facts it comes as no surprise that Abdülhamid was very susceptible to the question of legitimacy. He actively looked for new ways to

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counter the legitimacy crisis of the state using all the available modern forms of image control. Very often traditional Islamic symbols were cast into new forms to legitimise state policies.6 The sultan was able to remain in office longer than any other Ottoman ruler in the nineteenth century because of this profound understanding of modern politics paired with ruthlessness in dealing with opposition to his regime. The need to present the Ottoman state tradition as an unbroken chain was the reason why he was concerned not only by present but also past opposition. This can be observed most clearly in the persecution of the men implicated in the coup against Abdülaziz. The sultan was eager to eradicate any notion that this event could be used as a precedent to end his own rule. The most prominent victim of persecution was Midhat Pasha. After he had been allowed back from exile in Europe and had worked for a short time in the administration of the provinces, in 1881 he was arrested and condemned to death for the implication in the alleged murder of Abdülaziz. The death sentence was commuted and Midhat was sent into exile to Arabia where he was assassinated on the orders of the sultan in 1884. The fate of exile was shared by Hayrullah Efendi, the s¸eyhülislam, who had issued the two fetvas to depose Abdülaziz and Murad. Likewise Süleyman Pasha, the director of the military academy, who became commander-in-chief of the Balkan armies in the Russo–Ottoman war, was put on trial after the war, accused of having disobeyed orders. He was sent into exile to Baghdad where he died in 1892. Even the lower ranking officers and military students taking part in the coup seemed to have been watched closely. Their names can be found on a list in the Yıldız Palace archive, which might have been used to incriminate them.7 Also a report about the Society of Martyrs prepared at some point after the death of Abdülaziz, perhaps in 1880/81, might have been used for such a purpose. Apart from the five leaders in the inner circle of the conspiracy it contained the name of a certain general Hidayet Pasha, who at the time of the plot had been Hüseyin Daim’s aide-de-camp. In the general atmosphere of mistrust during the reign of Abdülhamid any implication in a conspiracy was ideal for a denunciation by a rival.8 In the end Abdülhamid’s regime was swept away by the revolutionaries of the Committee of Union and Progress that had become dominant in the Young Turk movement at around the turn of the century. There is an old and recurring debate as to whether their coup against the sultan might legitimately be called a revolution in the modern sense of the word or whether it was a revolt against the regime of Abdülhamid. The judgement on this question largely depends on the evaluation of how far the new regime could effect a rupture with the past regarding the material and ideological structure of society and state.9 As far as political culture is concerned the Committee offers a mixed picture: It clearly represents a break with the earlier opposition against

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Abdülhamid for it was guided by a very different set of ideas like materialism and nationalism which determined their approach to politics. However, on a deeper level the members of the Committee were deeply engrained in the political elitism that also the Tanzimat politicians had displayed. Likewise they inherited secrecy as the central characteristic of other opposition groups.

Notes

1 Introduction: Political culture of conspiracy 1 A. Kansu, The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey, Leiden: Brill, 1997, p. 18. 2 L. Dittmer, ‘Political Culture and Political Symbolism: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis’, World Politics 29, 1977, 552–83; K. Rohe, ‘Politische Kultur und ihre Analyse: Probleme und Perspektiven der politischen Kulturforschung’, Historische Zeitschrift 250, 1990, 321–76. 3 J. Foran, ‘Discourses and Social Forces’, in J. Foran (ed.), Theorizing Revolutions, London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 203–26; J. Foran and Reed, J.P. ‘Political Cultures of Opposition: Exploring Idioms, Ideologies’, Critical Sociology 28, 2002, 335–70. 4 J. Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993, pp. 152–215. 5 K.M. Baker, The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: Volume 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime, Oxford: Pergamon, 1987; R. Chartier, Les origines de la Révolution française, Paris: Seuil, 2000. 6 O. Figes and Kolonitskii, B. Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999; F. Venturi, Roots of Revolution. A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in 19th Century Russia, London: Phoenix, 2001. 7 N. Itzkowitz, ‘Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities’, Studia Islamica 16, 1962, 73–94; C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 106–11. 8 E. Özbudun, ‘State Elites and Democratic Political Culture in Turkey’, in L. Diamond (ed.) Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 189–210; E. Özbudun, ‘The Continuing Ottoman Legacy and the State Tradition in the Middle East’, in L.C. Brown (ed.) Imperial Legacy. The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East, New York: Columbia University Press, . 1996, pp. 133–57. : 9 B. Eryılmaz, ‘Osmanlı Devletinde Iktidar ve Muhalefet’, Ilim ve Sanat 35–36, 1993, 55–59; A. Ayalon, ‘From Fitna to Thawra’, Studia Islamica 66, 1987, 145–74. 10 N. Vatin and Veinstein, G., Le sérail ébranlé. Essai sur les morts, dépositions et avènements des sultans ottomans (XIVe–XIXe siècle), Paris: Fayard, 2003; H. Karateke, ‘Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate: A Framework for Historical Analysis’, in H. Karateke and M. Reinkowski (eds) Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, Leiden: Brill, 2005, pp. 13–54. 11 P. Fodor, ‘State and Society, Crisis and Reform, in 15th–17th Century Ottoman Mirror for Princes’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 40, 1986, 217–40.

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12 S¸. Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962, pp. 149–55; Findley, Bureaucratic Reform, pp. 113–50. 13 H. Karateke, ‘Opium for the Subjects? Religiosity as a Legitimizing Factor for the Ottoman Sultans’, in Karateke and Reinkowski (eds) Legitimizing the Order, 111–30; S.T. Buzpınar, ‘The Question of Caliphate under the Last Ottoman Sultans’, in I. Weismann and F. Zachs (eds) Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration, London: Tauris, 2005, pp. 17–36; S. Deringil, ‘Legitimacy Structures in the Ottoman State: The Reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909)’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, 1991, 345–59. 14 E. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 2 vols, Paris: Cotillon, 1882, vol. I, p. 36; R. Davison, ‘Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian–Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century’, American Historical Review 59, 1954, 844–64, p. 847. 15 V. Aksan, ‘Ottoman Political Writing, 1768–1808’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, 1993, 53–69. 16 H.v. Moltke, Briefe über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei aus den Jahren 1835–1839, Berlin: Mittler, 1891, p. 130 (05/05/1837), p. 141 (21/05/1837); H. Temperley, England and the Near East. The Crimea, London: Cass, 1964, pp. 40–1. 17 R. Davison, ‘The Advent of the Principle of Representation in the Government of the Ottoman Empire’, in W.R. Polk and R.L. Chambers (eds) Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968, 93–108. 18 Findley, Bureaucratic Reform, pp. 163–5; Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, 4 vols, Ankara: TTK, 1953–67, vol. I, pp. 19–20, 26–7; B. Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century, Istanbul: Isis, 2001, pp. 115–24; T. Erdog˘ du, ‘Civil Officialdom and the Problem of Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire (1876–1922)’, in Karateke and Reinkowski (eds) Legitimizing the Order, 213–32. 19 For a larger study that focuses on this theme cf. C. Finkel, Osman’s Dream. The Story. of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923, London: Murray, 2005. 20 H. Inalcık, ‘Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire 1600–1700’, Archivum Ottomanicum 6, 1980, 283–337; M. Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800), Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988, pp. 81–127; R. Dankoff, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, . Albany: SUNY Press, 1991; S. Faroqhi, ‘Crisis and Change, 1590–1699’, in H. Inalcık and D. Quataert (eds) An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 411–636, pp. 414–20. 21 R. Abou-el-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics, Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1984; R. Olson: ‘The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730: A Realignment in Ottoman Politics?’, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, 1974, 329–44; S.J. Shaw, Between Old and New. The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III, 1789–1807, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 378–95. . 22 H. Inalcık, ‘Tanzimat’ın uygulanması ve sosyal tepkileri’, Belleten 28, 1964, 623–49. 23 B. Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World. The Roots of Sectarianism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 130–68. 24 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. I, p. 111; E.R. Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression: 1840–1890, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 129–35. 25 S¸. Mardin, ‘Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective’, in M. Heper and A. Evin (eds) State, Democracy and the Military. Turkey in the 1980s, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988, 23–35.

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26 C. Kafadar, ‘Janissaries and Other Riffraff of Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels without a Cause?’, in B. Tezcan and K.K. Barbir (eds) Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, 113–34; K. Üstün, ‘Rethinking Vaka-i Hayriye (the Auspicious Event). Elimination of the Janissaries on the Path to Modernization’, Ankara: unpublished MA thesis, Bilkent University, 2002; D. Quataert, ‘Janissaries, Artisans and the Question of Ottoman Decline’, in D. Quataert, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change in the Ottoman Empire, 1730–1914, Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993, 197–203. 27 T.Z. Tunaya, Türkiyede siyasî partiler. 1859–1952, Istanbul: Dog˘ an, 1952 and T.Z. Tunaya, Türkiye’de siyasal partiler (genis¸letilmis¸ ikinci baskı), 3 vols, Istanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı, : 1984–89. : 28 A.B. Kuran, Osmalı Imparatorlug˘ unda Inkılâp Hareketleri ve Millî Mücadele, Istanbul: Çeltüt, 1959. 29 T. Zarcone, Secret et sociétés secrètes en Islam. Turquie, Iran et Asie centrale. XIXe–XXe siècles. Franc-Maçonnerie, Carboneria et Confréries soufies, Milano: Archè, 2002. 2 A sheikh and an officer: the Society of Martyrs and the Kuleli incident . 1 On the changing evaluation of Kuleli see U. Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası hakkında bir Aras¸tırma, Ankara: TTK, 1937, pp. 9–28; Y.A. Pedrosyan, ‘1859 yıllındaki “Kuleli vakası” nın karakterine ve bunun Türkiye tarihindeki yerine dair’, Belleten 33/132, 1969, 587–93, as well as recently B. Onaran, ‘Kuleli Vakası hakkında “bas¸ka” bir aras¸tırma’, Tarih ve Toplum 5, 2007, 9–39. . 2 Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, pp. 35, 38; R.H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire. 1856–1876, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 100–3; B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London: Oxford Uuniversity Press, 1960, p. 148. 3 Cf. Davison, Reform, pp. 52–113. 4 H.M. Wood, ‘The Treaty of Paris and Turkey’s status in International Law’, American Journal of International Law 37, 1943, 262–74. 5 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, 4 vols, Ankara: TTK, 1953–67, vol. I, pp. 67–68. 6 C. Kırlı, ‘Coffeehouses: Public Opinion in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire’, in A. Salvatore and D.F. Eickelman (eds) Public Islam and the Common Good, Brill: Leiden, 2004, 75–98. 7 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. II, p. 8; FO 78/894, no. 72, Rose to Malmesbury, Therapia, 04/09/1852; ibid., no. 84, 23/09/1852. 8 [F. Millingen] Osman Bey/Maj. Vladimir Andrejevich, Les Imams et les Derviches. Pratiques, Superstitions et Moeurs des Turcs, Paris: Dentu, 1881, p. 202; FO 78/819, no. 120, Stratford to Palmerston, Constantinople, 05/04/1850. 9 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. I, p. 38 and vol. II, p. 54, pp. 134–6; Millingen, Les Imams, pp. 200–7; H. Karateke, ‘Who is the Next Ottoman Sultan? Attempts Towards Changing the Rule of Succession in the 19th Century’, in I. Weismann and F. Zachs (eds) Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration. Studies in Honor of Butrus Abu-Manneh, London: Tauris, 2005, 37–54. 10 PRO, FO 78/938, no. 272, Stratford to Clarendon, Therapia, 15/09/1853; ibid. 78/1077, no. 292, Stratford to Clarendon, Constantinople, 16/04/1855; ibid. 78/1086, no. 675, Stratford to Clarendon, Therapia, 10/09/1855. 11 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. II, p. 52; FO 78/1366, no. 106, Bulwer to Malmesbury, Therapia, 04/08/1858; ibid. FO 78/1367, no. 196, 08/09/1858; FO 195/585, Philip Saule to Bulwer, Pera, 31/08/1858. 12 Times, 19/09/1859, p. 7; Journal de Constantinople, 21/09/1859, Intérieure. There are no editions of this paper on the 18, 19 and 20/09. Also cf. the article of the

Notes

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

31

32 33 34 35 36

93

. Ceride-i Havadis, 24 Safer 1276 in Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, pp. 9–10 and Times, 21/09/1859, p. 8 and 30/09/1859, p. 6. Times, 01/10/1859, p. 10 (the article apparently was written on 21/09) and ibid., 03/10/1859, p. 8; Journal de Constantinople, 24/09/1859, Intérieure. FO 195/627, Pisani to Bulwer, Yenikioy, 17 and 19/09/1859, also included in FO 78/1435, no. 164, Bulwer to Russell, Therapia, 20/09/1859. FO 195/627, Pisani to Bulwer, Yenikioy 27/09/1859. BOA, Divan-ı Hümayun Defteri, Mühimme-i Mektume Defteri no. 10. In the . following the published transcripts in Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, pp. 43–76, are used. Recently the original transcripts of the cross-examinations have been located in the Ottoman archives by Burak Onaran. Unfortunately I had no opportunity to consult them. . Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, p. 50, statement no. 4, p. 72, no. 40, p. 56, no. 10. Ibid., p. 44. M. Reinkowski, ‘The State’s Security and the Subjects’ Prosperity: Notions of Order in Ottoman Bureaucratic Correspondence (19th Century)’, in H. Karateke and M. Reinkowski (eds) Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 195–212. . Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, p. 45. Ibid., no. 1, p. 47. Ibid., no. 2, p. 49. Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, pp. 13–14. . Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, no. 1, p. 47. Ibid., no. 2, p. 48. Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, p. 13. . Cf. Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, nos. 8, 10, 11, 16 and 32. On Khalid and the Khalidiya cf. C.J. Rich, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, 2 vols, London: Duncan, 1836, vol. 1, pp. 320–1; A. Hourani, ‘Shaikh Khalid and the Naqshbandi Order’, in S.M. Stern, A. Hourani and V. Brown (eds) Islamic Philosopy and the Classical Tradition, Oxford: Cassirer, 1972, 89–103. M. van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State. The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan, London: Zed, 1992, pp. 222–34; J. Blau, ‘Le rôle des cheikhs Naqshbandi dans le mouvement national Kurde’, in M. Gaborieau (ed.) Naqshbandis. Cheminements et situation actuelle d’un ordre mystique musulman, Istanbul and Paris: Isis, 1990, 371–7; R. Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. B. Abu-Manneh, ‘The Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya in the Ottoman Lands in the Early 19th Century’, Die Welt des Islams 22, 1982, 1–36; H. Algar, ‘Political Aspects of Naqshbandi History’, in M. Gaborieau (ed.) Naqshbandis, 123–52, pp. 136–43. Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, p. 17. Cf. A. Vambéry, His Life and Adventures. Fisher . Written by Himself, London: . Unwin, 1884, pp. 24 and Abanlı Hacı Ibrahim’s statement in Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, no. 17, p. 60. . Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, no. 1, p. 46. Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century, Istanbul: Isis, 2001, p. 106. Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. I, pp. 23–24; Fatma Aliye, Ahmed Cevdet ve Zamanı, Dersaadet, 1332, pp. 99–103; a translation of the poster in FO 78/938, no. 255, Stratford to Clarendon, Therapia, 01/09/1853; see . also ibid. no. 259, 05/09; no. 272, 15/09; no. 284, 29/09; no. 286, 30/09; BOA, ID 17634 (15 M 1270); Journal de Constantinople, 470, 19/05/1853, Intérieur; A. Pottinger Saab, The Origins

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38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46

47 48

49

50 51

Notes of the Crimean Alliance, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977, pp. 81–4. FO 78/941b, no. 396, Stratford to Clarendon, Constantinople, 23/12/1853, which forwards Reshid to Stratford, Beshik Tashe, 23/12; see also ibid. no. 400, 24/12; Journal de Constantinople, 489, 24/12/1853, Intérieur; and A. Pottinger Saab, Crimean . Alliance, pp. 124–5. BOA, ID 18697 (18 . B 1270) and A.MKT.MHM 58/60 (10 S¸ 1270). On Hoca Nasuh cf. M.K. Inal, Osmanlı Devrinde Son Sadrıazamlar, 3 vols, Istanbul: Maarif, 1940–52, vol. I, p. 65. : M.L. Bremer, Die Memoiren des türkischen Derwischs As¸çı Dede Ibrâhîm, Walldorf: Verlag für Orientkunde, 1959, p. 16, 121b. M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan, London: Cass, 1994, pp. 225–35; A. Knysh, ‘Shamil’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, sec. ed., IX, 283–7. Gammer, Muslim Resistance, pp. 250–72; FO 195/410, no. 60, Brant to Stratford de Redcliffe, Erzeroom, 14/10/1853; ibid., no. 64, 28/10/1853; ibid., no. 2, Brant to Raglan, Erzeroom, 30/05/1854. Vambéry, Life and Adventures, pp. 24–5. Cf. unedited form in BOA, . Mehmed’s statement .that survived in its original, . ID 29258; Abanlı Hacı Ibrahim’s statement in Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, no. 17, p. 60. A. Levy, ‘The Officer Corps in Sultan Mahmud II’s New Ottoman Army, 1826–39’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 2, 1971, 21–39. F. Millingen, La Turquie sous le règne d’Abdul-Aziz (1861–1867), Paris: Librairie Internationale, 1868, pp. 157–8. That Hüseyin and Mehmed were brothers was claimed by Ebüzziya Tevfik in a note to Vambéry’s article ‘Osmanlı Hükumeti Mes . ¸rutasının istikbalın’ in Yeni Tasvir-i Efkar 14 (14 Ca 1327) as quoted in Ig˘ demir, Kuleli vakası, pp. 18–19. Unfortunately, no other contemporary source confirms this fact, not even Millingen who got to know both during his service in the Ottoman army. Cf. [F. Millingen] Osman-Bey/V. Andrejevich, Les Anglais en Orient, 1830–1876, Paris: Sagnier 1877, pp. 300–9. In any event the relationship between the two seems to be a typical case of ethnic solidarity, cf. M. Kunt, ‘Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, 1974, 233–9. Cf. FO 195/400, no. 37, Williams to Stratford, Camp near Kars, 16/10/1854; C. Duncan, A Campaign with the Turks in Asia, 2 vols, London: Smith, 1855, vol. I, p. 188; H. Sandwith, A Narrative of the Siege of Kars, London: Murray, 1856, p. 113; G. Kmety, A Narrative of the Defence of Kars on the 29th September 1855, London: Ridgway, 1856, p. 13; and Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. II, p. 82. Vambéry, Life and Adventures, p. 23 and Vambéry, The Story of My Struggles. The Memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, 2 vols, London: Fisher Unwin, 1904, vol. I, p. 165. K.H. Karpat, ‘Kossuth in Turkey: The Impact of Hungarian Refugees in the Ottoman Empire’, in ibid. Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History, Leiden: Brill, 2002, 170–84; D.M. Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War, London: . Longman, 1994, pp. 62–72. BOA, ID 28213 (4 S¸ 1275). Also cf. BOA, A.MKT.UM. 313/21 (13 N 1274) and 314/29 (29 N 1274); FO 881/760, No. 217 enclosure 1, Hecquard to Walewski, Ragusa, 14/05/1858; ibid., no. 219, Churchill to Malmesbury, Trebigne, 17/05/ 1858; ibid., no. 297 inclosure 2, Rumbold to Loftus, Vienna 14/06/1858; and Millingen, La Turquie, pp. 158–9. Cf. Times 01/06/1858, p. 10; 03/10/1859, p. 8 and FO 881/760, no. 219, Churchill to Malmesbury, Trebigne, 17/05/1858. As quoted in Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, p. 31.

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52 T. Zarcone, Secret et sociétés secrètes en Islam. Turquie, Iran et Asie centrale. XIXe–XXe siècles. Franc-Maçonnerie, Carboneria et Confréries soufies, Milano: Archè, 2002. . 53 Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam, p. 126; I. Gündüz, Osmanlılarda Devlet–Tekke Münasebetleri, Istanbul: Seha, 1984, p. 247; Ahmed Lütfî, Vak’a-nüvis Ahmed Lütfî Tarihi, M.M. Aktepe (ed.), parts 9–15, Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi and Ankara: TTK, 1984–93, part IX, p. 49a (113). 54 Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, pp. 24–9. 55 Cf. Times, 22/12/1859, p. 10. The article was later published in W. Thornbury, Turkish Life and Character, London: Smith, 1860. 56 Thouvenel to Walewski, 21/09/1859 as quoted in Onaran, ‘Kuleli’, p. 23. 57 Reinkowski, ‘The State’s Security’, p. 205. 58 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. II, pp. 84–8; BOA, A.MKT.NZD 293/77 (30 Ra 1276). 3 New and old forms of opposition: the Young Ottomans and the Vocation group 1 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, 4 vols, Ankara: TTK, 1953–67, vol. II, tez. 19, pp. 226–7; R.H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 110–13. 2 B. Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century, Istanbul: Isis, 2001, pp. 120–1. 3 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, vol. II, pp. 259–62; cf. also PRO, FO 78/1732, no. 20, Erskine to Russell, Constantinople, 05/01/1863 and ibid. no. 28, 08/01/1863. 4 S¸. Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962, pp. 252–5; K.H. Karpat, ‘The Mass Media’, in: R.E. Ward and D.A. Rustow (eds) Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964, 255–82, pp. 258–9. On S¸inasi’s alleged connection to the Society of Martyrs cf. Z. Ebüzziya, S¸inasi, Istanbul: . Iletis¸im, 1997, pp. 155–64. : 5 M.C. Kuntay, Namık Kemal. Devrinin Insanları ve Olayları Arasında, 2 vols, Istanbul: Maarif, 1944–57, vol. I, pp. 59–63; Mardin, Genesis, p. 27. 6 For the text of the letter and a discussion of the circumstances of its publication cf. M.K. Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ Türk kültür ve edebiyatı üzerinde aras¸tırmalar. I. Yeni Osmanlılar, Ankara: Baylan, 1976, pp. 5–11. An English translation appeared in Levant Herald, 22/02/1867, cf. Mardin, Genesis, pp. 34–5. 7 Davison, Reform, pp. 207–8; The text of the letter in M. Colombe, ‘Une Lettre d’un Prince Égyptien du XIXe Siècle au Sultan Ottoman Abd Al-Aziz’, Orient 5, 1958, 23–38; Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 14–30 and FO 78/1958, no. 101, Lyons to Stanley, Constantinople, 20/03/1867. 8 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 32–4; R.H. Davison, ‘Halil S¸erif Pas¸a, Ottoman Diplomat and Statesman’, Osmanlı Aras¸tırmaları II, 1981, 203–21. 9 Mehmed Memduh, Tanzimattan Mes¸rutiyete 1. Mir’ât-i S¸uûnaât, Istanbul: . Nehir, 1990, p. 50; H. Çelik, Ali Suavî ve Dönemi, Istanbul: Iletis¸im, 1994, pp. 75–80; Davison, Reform, pp. 208–9; Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, pp. 63–4. On Ziya see Mardin, Genesis, pp. 337–9. 10 Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 309–37. Of the 20 articles mainly from the French press reproduced here esp. cf. the one in Le Nord, 25/06/1867, pp. 326–30. Also cf. FO 195/887, no. 145, Pisani to Lyons, Pera, 05/06/1867 and FO 78/1961, no. 245, Lyons to Stanley, Constantinople, 13/06/1867. 11 BOA, Mühimme-i Mektûme Defteri 10, pp. 47–57 published in Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 372–96. 12 Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , p. 372. 13 Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 373–74.

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14 Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, pp. 381–93 and pp. 414–26. 15 Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , p. 392 and the account of Mehmed’s daughter in Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, p. 358, n. 4. 16 Liberté, 18/06/1867, as reproduced in Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 342–5. 17 For an evaluation of the account by Ebüzziya that was serialised in 1909 over 40 years after the events in the Yeni Tasvir-i Efkar cf. Mardin, Genesis, pp. 10–11; Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, pp. 357–8 and Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , p. 356. 18 Cf. Mardin, Genesis, pp. 232–3; Davison, Reform, pp. 181–2. 19 T. Zarcone, Secret et sociétés secrètes en Islam. Turquie, Iran et Asie centrale. XIXe–XXe siècles. Franc-Maçonnerie, Carboneria et Confréries soufies, Milano: Archè, 2002, pp. 29–31. 20 Cf. Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 396–8. On Ebüzziya’s: credibility cf. Z. Ebüzziya, ‘Ebüzziyâ Mehmed Tevfik’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Islam Ansiklopedisi 10, 374–8. 21 Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, 394–413. 22 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 44–5; Davison, Reform, p. 213. 23 Cf. FO 195/893, Sublime Porte, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères to British Embassy, note verbale, 05/10/1867 and ibid., no. 369, Savfet to Elliot, Constantinople, 14/10/1868. 24 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 106–7. 25 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 46–56; Davison, Reform, p. 216–18. 26 Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘, pp. 106–37. 27 Cf. : Bilgegil, Yakın çag˘ , pp. 138–281, who reproduces many of the articles of Inkılab. : 28 Inkılab, 28/04/1870, as quoted in E. Koray, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’e kars¸ı giris¸ilen bir suikast olayı ve Hüseyin Vasfi Pas¸a’, Belleten 51, no. 199, 1987, 193–204, p. 200. 29 Sicill-i osmanî, Mehmed Süreyyâ, 4 vols, Istanbul: Matbaa-ı Amire, 1308–11, vol. II, pp. 229–30; Koray, ‘Hüseyin Vasfi’ pp. 197, 202. 30 A. Frhr. Schweiger von Lerchenfeld, Serail und Hohe Pforte, Wien, Pest and Leipzig: Hartleben, 1879, pp. 201–6. 31 Koray, ‘Hüseyin Vasfi’ pp. 196–8. Also see the interrogation protocols of Konduri and Altıncı in BOA, HR.MTV 232/1 and 2. 32 Koray, ‘Hüseyin Vasfi’ pp. 202–4. . 33 I. Sungu, ‘Tanzimat ve Yeni Osmanlılar’, in Tanzimat, Istanbul, 1940, 777–857, pp. 81–99. 34 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 308–13, referring to Kemal’s article ‘Usul-ı mes¸veret’ in Hürriyet, 14/09/1868. 35 Sungu, ‘Tanzimat ve Yeni Osmanlılar’, pp. 800–7; Mardin, Genesis, pp. 313–19. 36 Cf. Mardin, Genesis, pp. 293–5, referring to Kemal’s article ‘Wa shâwirhum fî’l’amr’ in Hürriyet, 20/07/1868. 37 Cf. Colombe, ‘Lettre’, pp. 29–38. 38 Sicill-i osmanî, vol. III, 238–9; E.J.W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, 6 vols, London: Luzac, 1900–09, vol. V, pp. 41–61; Mardin, Genesis, pp. 337–9; Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, pp. 425–35. For the events in 1861 cf. Mehmed Memduh, Mir’ât-i S¸uûnaât, pp. 41–2. 39 Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. V, pp. 69–77 and 96–111. 40 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 347–50; Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. I, p. 436; B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, New York: Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 139–40. 41 Mardin, Genesis, pp. 295–6 and 305–7.. 42 Hürriyet 30, 18/01/1869 (old style?), ‘Innallahe ye’mürü bil’adli vli’ihsan’, partly . reproduced in U. Ig˘ demir, Kuleli Vak’ası hakkında bir Aras¸tırma, Ankara: TTK, 1937, pp. 13–14. 43 Hürriyet 45, 3 Mayıs 1869, as quoted in Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. II.1, p. 690 n. 3.

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44 Kuntay, Namık Kemal, vol. II.1, pp. 689–93. 45 R.E. Devereux, The First Ottoman Constitutional Period, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1963, pp. 46–59. 4 How to exchange sultans: the successful coup against Abdülaziz 1 C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 222–4 and 242–5. 2 Sicill-i osmanî, Mehmed Süreyyâ, 4 vols, Istanbul: Matbaa-ı Amire, 1308–11, . vol. IV, pp. 336–7; M.K. Inal, Osmanlı Devrinde Son Sadrıazamlar, 3 vols, Istanbul: Maarif, 1940–52, vol. I, pp. 259–68; B. Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century, Istanbul: Isis, 2001, pp. 163–7 and 172–3. 3 A résumé of the treatise, which was printed only in 1909, in Abu-Manneh, Studies on Islam, pp. 168–72. 4 Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, 3 vols, Dersaadet: Matbua-ı Osmaniye, 1326, : . vol. I.2.6, pp. 102–3. 5 A.I. Gencer, ‘Hüseyin Avni Pas¸a’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Islam Ansiklopedisi 18, 526–7; Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.6, pp. 100–1. 6 R.H.Davison, ‘Midhat Pasha’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, sec. ed., VI, 1031–5; Ali Haydar Midhat, The Life of Midhat Pasha, London: Murray, 1903, pp. 32–66. 7 R.H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 287. . 8 Sicill-i osmanî, vol. II, 385; Inal, . Son Sadrıazamlar, vol. I, pp. 436–44. 9 Davison, Reform, pp. 293–5; Inal, Son Sadrıazamlar, vol. I, pp. 451–3; Ahmed Cevdet, Tezâkir, 4 vols, Ankara: TTK, 1953–67, vol. IV, pp. 124–5. 10 Davison, Reform, pp. 301–10; H.O. Dwight, Turkish Life in War Time, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1881, p. 391. 11 Cf. Times, 07/08/1875, p. 10. : p. 5 and 22/09/1875, : . 12 M. Türköne, Siyasî Ideoloji Olarak Islâmcılıg˘ ın Dog˘ us¸u, Istanbul: Iletis¸im, 1994, pp. 145–95. 13 Davison, Reform, pp. 312–14. 14 Dwight, Turkish Life, pp. 1–6; Times, 18/05/1876, p. 10 (this article later was published in A. Gallenga, Two Years of the Eastern Question, 2 vols, London: Tinsley, 1877, vol. II, pp. 67–71); Davison, Reform, pp. 323–5. 15 Dwight, Turkish Life, p. 11; PRO, FO 78/2458, no. 539, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 25/05/1876 and Süleyman Pasha as quoted in R. Devereux, ‘Süleyman Pasha’s “The Feeling of the Revolution”’, Middle Eastern Studies 15, 1979, 3–35, p. 12. 16 For Midhat’s implication see FO 78/2458, no. 492, Elliot to Derby, Constantinople, 12/05/1876 and Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.6, p. 104. For the theory that Mahmud Nedim was behind the demonstrations to discredit Midhat and get rid of the s¸eyhülislam see FO 78/2458, no. 543, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 27/05/1876. Also cf. B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, New York:. Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 160–1. 17 Lütfi as quoted in I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz vâk’asına dair vâk’anüvis Lütfi efendinin bir risalesi’, Belleten 7, no. 28, 1943, 349–73, p. 354; Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.3, pp. 91–4; Times, 18/05/1876, p. 10; Dwight, Turkish Life, pp. . 7–11. 18 Cf. Lütfi as quoted in I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’, p. 356; FO 78/2458, no. 512, Elliot to Derby, Constantinople, 18/05/1876, who confirmed that the medrese students demanded a ‘modified constitution’ and ibid., no. 534, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 25/05/1876.

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19 FO 78/2458, no. 492, Elliot to Derby, Constantinople, 12/05/1876; ibid., no. 512, 18/05/1876; ibid., no. 534, 25/05/1876; ibid., no. 539, 25/05/1876. 20 R.E. Devereux, The First Ottoman Constitutional Period, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1963, pp. 39–40. 21 Cf. Ali Haydar Midhat, Midhat Pasha, pp. 67–8. The official court historian Ahmed Lütfi . Efendi called the memorandum a ‘varaka-i s¸eytaniyye’, cf. Lütfi as quoted in I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’, p. 357. . 22 Cf. Midhat’s statement of 8 Mayıs 1297 (1881) as quoted in I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, Midhat Pas¸a ve Rüs¸tü Pas¸aların Tevkiflerine dâir vesikalar, Ankara: TTK, 1987, pp. 52–5. 23 H. Elliot, ‘The Death of Abdul Aziz and of Turkish Reform’, Nineteenth Century 23, 1888, 276–96, pp. 279–80. 24 On the question of authorship cf. Davison, Reform, p. 320. The text of the memorandum is in Staatsarchiv 30, 1877, no. 5642, pp. 213–19. 25 Süleyman Pasha as quoted in Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, p. 14; Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.6, pp. 105–6. 26 Uzunçars¸ılı, Midhat Pas¸a, pp. 54–5. 27 Ali Haydar Midhat, Midhat Pasha, p. 83. 28 Süleyman Pasha as quoted in Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, p. 16. 29 Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, pp. 5–8 and Süleyman in ibid., pp. 13 and 15. The Young Ottoman connection is claimed by Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.6, pp. 109–10. 30 FO 195/440, no. 39, Williams to Stratford de Redcliffe, Camp near Kars, 23/10/1854. 31 Süleyman Pasha as quoted in Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, p. 27. 32 Ibid., pp. 12–14 and 16. 33 FO 78/2458, no. 535, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 25/05/1876; Süleyman Pasha as quoted in Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, pp. 17–18 and 27. 34 Ibid., pp. 19–26. 35 Ali Haydar Midhat, Midhat Pasha, pp. 82–5; Lütfi as quoted in Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’, pp. 359–60. 36 Süleyman Pasha as quoted in Devereux, ‘Feeling of the Revolution’, pp. 29–30; Lütfi as quoted in Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’, pp. 363–4. 37 Dwight, Turkish Life, pp. 17–19. 38 Lütfi as quoted in Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Sultan Abdülaziz’, p. 364. 39 Devereux, Constitutional Period, pp. 37–8. 40 Ibid., pp. 38–42. . 41 Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.3.3, pp. 190–4; Inal, Son Sadrıazamlar, vol. I, p. 367. Cf. also the notice in the press Stamboul, 23/10/1876; Levant Herald, 23/10/1876; Times, 26/10/1876, p. 3. 42 FO 78/2466, no. 1194, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 25/10/1878. 43 Cf. Times, 12/05/1876, p. 5 and Mahmud Celaleddin, Mirat-ı Hakikat, vol. I.2.4, pp. 93–4. 44 Davison, Reform, pp. 358–80; Devereux, Constitutional Period, pp. 34–59. 45 Devereux, Constitutional Period, pp. 60–79; B. Tanör, Osmanlı-Türk Anayasal Gelis¸meleri (1789–1980), Istanbul: Yapı Kredi, 2001, pp. 135–49. 46 E.D. Akarlı, ‘Friction and Discord within the Ottoman Government Under Abdülhamid II (1876–1909)’, Bog˘ aziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi 7, 1979, 3–26. 5 War and refugees: Ali Suavi and the Çıragˇ an incident . 1 I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Bes¸inci Murad ile og˘ lu Salâhaddin efendiyi kaçırmak için kadın kıyafetinde Çırag˘ ana girmek isteyen s¸ahislar’, Belleten 8, no. 32, 1944, 589–97; Times, 11 and 12/12/1876; BOA, Y.EE 22/85, 18 Za 1293; FO 78/2467,

Notes

2 3 4 5 6

7

8 9

10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17

18

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no. 1336, Elliot to Derby, Constantinople, 06/12/1876 and ibid., no. 1342, 07/12/ 1876. : M.C. Kuntay, :Sarıklı Ihtilâlci Ali Suavi, Istanbul: Ahmet Halit, 1946; F. Rıfkı, Bas¸ Veren bir Inkilapçı, Istanbul, 1954. A. Sinno, ‘Pan-Slawismus und Pan-Orthodoxie als Instrumente der russischen Politik im Osmanischen Reich’, Die Welt des Islams 28, 1988, 537–58; Levant Herald 17/05/1877. Times 16/03/1877, p. 5. Levant Herald 25, 28, 29/05 and 02/06/1877; Times 31/05, p. 5; 12/06/1877, p. 10; BOA, Y.EE 23/1 (14 Ca 1294). Cf. J. McCarthy, Death and Exile, Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1995, pp. 59–81 and the reports of the British and French consuls and the Ottoman authorities collected in B.N. S¸ims¸ir (ed.) Rumeli’den Türk göçleri, 3 vols, Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Aras¸tırma Enstitüsü, 1968–89, nos. 41, 42, 46, 51, 63, 105, 107, 114, 117, 121 incl., 125, 126, 128, 129, 133, 137, 138, 140, 142, 143, 144, 153 incl. 1. M.K. Masud, ‘The Obligation to Migrate. The Doctrine of Hijra in Islamic Law’, in D.F. Eickelman and J. Piscatori (eds) Muslim Travellers. Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination, London: Routledge, 1990, 29–49; A. Toumarkine, ‘Sécularisation du concept d’émigration et “ethnicisation” chez les immigrés caucasiens de Turquie’, in M. Bozdémir (ed.) Islam et Laïcité. Approches globales et régionales, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996, 405–14. A.W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea 1772–1783, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 58–63 and 91–4. M. Pinson, ‘Ottoman Colonization of the Circassians in Rumili after the Crimean War’, Études Balkaniques 8.3, 1972, 71–85; A.W. Fisher, ‘Emigration of Muslims from the Russian Empire in the Years After the Crimean War’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 35, 1987, 356–71, pp. 366–9; K.H. Karpat, ‘The Status of Muslims Under European Rule. The Eviction and Settlement of the Çerkes’, in ibid. Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History, Leiden: Brill, 2002, 647–75. Cf. . police officer Hasan’s report three days after the events, Y.EE 23/26 and I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Ali Suavi ve Çırag˘ an sarayı vak’ası’, in Belleten 8.29, 1944, 71–118, pp. 111–12. Levant Herald 21/05/1878; Times 22/05, p. 7; 24/05, p. 5 and 29/05/1878, p. 5. Quoted in Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Ali Suavi’, pp. 90–1. A French version appeared in La Turquie cf. FO 78/2788, no. 657, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, 21/05/1878. FO 78/2789, no. 688, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, 30/05/1878. . M.K. Inal, Osmanlı Devrinde Son Sadrıazamlar, 3 vols, Istanbul: Maarif, 1940–52, vol. 2, pp. 781–5; Times 27/05/1878, p. 5; FO 78/2590, no. 1299, Layard to Derby, Therapia, 05/11/1877; FO 78/2789, no. 696, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, 30/05/1878. Cf. Hasan Hüsnü’s report of 9 Mayıs 1294 in Y.EE 23/37 and Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Ali Suavi’, pp. 111–13. : Ali’s own account in Ali (Basiretçi), Istanbul’da yarım asırlık vakayi-i mühimme, Dersaadet: Hüseyin Enver, 1325, p. 58; cf. also Levant Herald 23 and 24/05/1878; on the role of the Basiret cf. A. Özcan, Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain, 1877–1924, Leiden: Brill, 1997, pp. 35–6. Cf. FO 78/2571, no. 448, Layard to Derby, Constantinople, 14/05/1877, the law of state of siege, Art 16: ‘Tous les comités secrets, fussent-ils formés avant la proclamation de l’état de siége, sont justiciables des conseils de guerre.’ Also cf. Levant Herald 25/05/1877. FO 195/1199, Sandison to Layard, Therapia, 02/05/1878; FO 78/2789, no. 667, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, 24/05/1878; FO 78/2792, no. 822, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, 24/06/1878.

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19 All the judgements are collected in Y.EE 23/14. Also cf. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘Ali Suavi’, pp. 107–9. 20 The most . recent and concise biography is H. Çelik, : Ali Suavî ve Dönemi, Istanbul: Iletis¸im, 1994. Cf. also Kuntay, Sarıklı Ihtilâlci and S¸. Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962, pp. 360–84 and A. Uçman, ‘Ali Suâvi’, in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı : Islam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, 445–8. There is even a theatre play on Suavi by . I. Tarus. 21 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 43–64. 22 Ibid., pp. 65–6. 23 Ibid., pp. 71–80. 24 Ali Suavi, A Propos de l’Herzegovine, Paris: Goupy, 1875, dedication to the reader. 25 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 97–8: ‘Ahali-i s¸arkiyyenin terakki-i ma’ârif ü medeniyetlerini mucib olacak efkâr-ı cedîdeye serbazlık vermek ve s¸arkılar hakkında Avrupa’nın efkârını tashihe çalıs¸mak.’ 26 Ibid., pp. 229–40 referring to Ulum 13, 15 Za 1278 (16/02/1870) and 14, n.d. (01/03/1870). 27 Ibid., pp. 557–62, referring to Muhbir 14 (28/11/1867) and 17 (25/12/1867), : Ulum 9,: 522. Cf. Mardin, Genesis, .pp. 377–9; M. Türköne, Siyasî Ideoloji Olarak Islâmcılıg˘ ın Dog˘ us¸u, Istanbul: Iletis¸im, 1994, pp. 124–7. For the formula of ‘Commanding right … ’ cf. M. Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 511. 28 Muhbir 10, 02/11/1867, ‘Hakikat-ı hal’. : 29 Türköne, Siyasî Ideoloji, pp. 107–10. 30 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 570–1, referring to Muhbir 36, 27/05/1868, ‘Umûr-ı âmme’. . 31 Z. Arikan, ‘Fransız Ihtilâli ve Osmanlı Tarihçilig˘i’, in J-L. Bacqué-Grammont and E. Eldem (eds.) De la révolution française à la Turquie d’Atatürk, Istanbul/ Paris: Isis, 1990; F. Yes¸il, ‘Looking at the French Revolution through Ottoman eyes: Ebubekir Ratib Efendi’s observations’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70,: 2007, 283–304. 32 Türköne, Siyasî Ideoloji, pp. 302–10: ‘Bizim anlayacag˘ ımız, mesele, meselâ devlet-i Osmaniye bulundug˘ u mevkiine ve haline ve cemaatine sâlih bir devlet ki pâdis¸ahlık olmalı.’ Ulum 18, ‘Demokrasi: Hükümet-i Halk, Müsavât’. Also cf. Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 575–9. : 33 Vakit 323, 1 N 1293 (19/09/1876) as reproduced in M.C. Kuntay, Sarıklı Ihtilâlci, pp. 90–7. 34 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 291–9. 35 Diplomatic Review, July 1876, p. 162, ‘Reform in Turkey’. 36 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 301–3, referring to Sadakât 63, 12 Kanun-ı Sâni 1877 and Vakit 460, 8 S¸ 1877. 37 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 339–42 and 347–63. On Layard’s role cf. FO 78/2586, no. 1157, Layard to Derby, Therapia, 01/10/1877 and FO 78/2590, no. 1290, Layard to Derby, Therapia, 02/11/1877. 763, 07/12/1877 (old style). 38 Cf. Ali Suavi, Herzegovine. 39 Y.EE 23/35 (n.d.). 40 BOA, Y.A.HUS 159/42 (1 C 1295); also cf. L.T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy. Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660, Leiden: Brill, 1996. 41 Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 342–4, referring to Ceride-i Havadis 3517, N 1294 and Vakit 644, 11/08/1877. 42 Diplomatic Review 24 (10/1876), pp. 270–4, ‘Letters by Ali Suavi Effendi’. 43 About Suavi’s relationship with Urquhart cf. Çelik, Ali Suavî, pp. 112–32.

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6 Bourgeois conspirators: the Skalieri–Aziz committee 1 The interrogation protocols, 81 folded A3 or single A4 sheets, can be found in Y.EE 23/5. Originally they were arranged in thirteen small booklets. In the process of cataloguing their original order was destroyed and the individual sheets were given random numbers 1 to 81. In quoting I will qualify the sheet numbers with ‘a’ for the page on that the number was written and ‘b’, ‘c’ and ‘d’ for the following pages. There are almost no European sources on the conspiracy except for a fantastic account in A. Frhr. Schweiger von Lerchenfeld, Serail und Hohe Pforte, Wien, Pest and Leipzig: Hartleben, 1879, pp. 218–24. 2 BOA, Y.EE 23/3, Mahmud to Mehmed Arif (26 Haziran 1294); Y.EE 23/4, Bab-ı Zabtiye (26 Haziran 1294). Y.EE 23/6, 1, no date, gives a list of the persons arrested. Cf. also the rest of. the official correspondence between the police and the palace in this folder and I.H. Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘V. Murad’i tekrar padis¸ah yapmak isteyen K. Skaliyeri-Aziz Bey komitesi’, Belleten 8.30, 1944, 245–328, pp. 280–4. 3 Y.EE 23/5, Aziz (9 B 1295), 21b. 4 Aziz (9 B 1295), 17d. 5 Agah (9 B 1295), 12a. 6 Mihal (14 B 1295), 31a, b; cf. C. Svolopoulos, ‘L’initiation de Mourad V à la franc-maçonnerie par Cl. Scalieri: aux origines du mouvement libéral en Turquie’, Balkan Studies 21, 1980, 441–57, p. 445. 7 Aziz (9 B 1295), 19d; Esad (21 B 1295), 60b; Üsküdarlı Nuri (23 B 1295), 53b. 8 Akif (20 B 1295), 45a; tütüncübas¸ı Hüseyin (18 B 1295), 42c; Kavasbas¸ızade Tevfik (28 B 1295), 69b. 9 Cf. PRO, FO 78/2464, no. 1010, Elliot to Derby, Therapia, 14/09/1876. 10 For a list of the dismissed servants cf. Y.EE 23/5, Akif (24/25 B 1295), 75d, c. In the beginning of November 1877 there seems to have been a raid on Çırag˘ an Palace by the government to enforce such an exchange of personnel, cf. Times 19/11/1877, 5. 11 Aziz (18 B 1295), 38a; Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘K. Skaliyeri-Aziz Bey komitesi’, pp. 251–3, with additional information. 12 Naks¸fend invited Vacid Bey, cf. Vacid (14 B 1295), 28a, 4a, and also stayed at his house, cf. . Vacid (14 B 1295), . second statement, 30a. She stayed for two nights at kurena Ismail’s house, cf. Ismail . . (16 B 1295), sec. statement, 32b and one month with kahvecibas¸ı Ibrahim, cf. Ibrahim (28 B 1295), 65b. She also lived for some time with Hacı Bekir, cf. Tevfik (29 B 1295), 72a. 13 Kadri (10 B 1295), 22a; Ahmed Rıza (15 B 1295), 33b; Mihal (15 B 1295), 34b; Hacı Hüsnü (23 B 1295), 50b. 14 Aziz (9 B 1295), 17d; Hacı Hüsnü (23 B 1295), 52a; Tevfik (29 B 1295), 72a. 15 Muhtar Bey (17 B 1295), 39d, c. 16 Cf. C.V. Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 302. 17 Abdullah (11 S¸ 1295), 79d, c; ibid. (11/12 B 1295), sec. st., 81c. 18 Mehmed (14 B 1295), 27b. 19 Üsküdarlı Nuri (24 B 1295), 53b; Abdullah (12 S¸ 1295), 81d. 20 Ahmed Rıza (11 B 1295), 22c. 21 Aziz (16 B 1295), 35b. 22 Abdullah (11 S¸ 1295), 81d, c; Aziz (16 B 1295), 40d; Aziz (20 B 1295), 77a. 23 Aziz (16 B 1295), 40d; FO 78/2574, no. 635, Layard to Derby, Therapia, 19/06/1877. 24 Cf. Mehmed Nuri (27 Haziran 1294), 15a; Muhtar (23 B 1295), 56d; Hüseyin (25 B 1295), 60d; Muhtar (27 B 1295), 69c. 25 Akif (25 B 1295), 75c; Muhtar (27 B 1295), 71c. According to Aziz (10 B 1295), 20d, Kleanti boasted he could enter the palace at any time like flying into the window like a balloon.

102

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26 Muhtar (13 B 1295), 23a; Aziz (14 B 1295), 29d, c; Aziz/Vacid (14 B 1295), 26a; Muhtar (24 B 1295), 51c, 56d; Hüseyin (25 B 1295), 56c, 60d; Muhtar (27 B 1295), 69d; suyolcu Ahmed (27 B 1295), 65d, c; Tevfik (28 B 1295), 69a; Ahmed (28 B 1295), 71b. 27 Hüsnü (21/22 B 1295), 52d, 48b; Aziz (22 B 1295), 48d; Muhtar (13 B 1295), 23a; Y.EE 23/5; Y.EE 23/11, Hüsnü’s petition to Abdülhamid (n.d.). 28 Mihal (15 B 1295), 33d. 29 Ahmed Rıza (15 B 1295),. 32a. 30 Kadri (10 B 1295), 17b; Ismail (16 B 1295), 37b; Mihal (26 B 1295), 61a. 31 On the history of the ceremony cf. N. Vatin and Veinstein, G., Le sérail ébranlé. Essai sur les morts, dépositions et avènements des sultans ottomans (XIVe–XIXe siècle), Paris: Fayard, 2003, pp. 269–305. 32 Aziz (14 B 1295), 29c. 33 Mehmed Nuri (27 Haziran 1294), 15b; Mustafa, ibid., 15d; Agah (9 B 1295), 24a; Vacid (14 B 1295), 4b. 34 Aziz (20 B 1295), 46a; Hüsnü (21 B 1295), 48b; Aziz (22 B 1295), 48d. 35 Esad (21 B 1295), 56a, 51b. 36 Mihal (20 B 1295), 44b. 37 Agah (9 B 1295), 24a. 38 Agah (11 B 1295), 20b and ibid. (7 S¸ 1295), 47d, c, 77b, c. 39 This is the overall thesis of T. Zarcone, Mystiques, philosophes et francs-maçons en Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve, 1993, showing the functional similarities of these institutions. 40 P. Dumont, ‘La Turquie dans les archives du Grand Orient de France: les loges maçonniques d’obédience française à Istanbul du milieu du XIXe siècle à la veille de la première guerre mondiale’, in J.-L. Baqué-Grammont and P. Dumont (eds) Économie et sociétés dans l’empire ottoman, Paris: CNRS, 1983, 178–83. 41 Dumont, ‘La Turquie’, pp. 188–94. 42 E. de Kératry, Mourad V. Prince – Sultan – Prisonnier d’État, Paris: Dentu, 1878, pp. 58, 61. 43 Cf. Svolopoulos, ‘L’initiation de Mourad V’, pp. 446–7, 450–1; Dumont, ‘La Turquie’, pp. 191–2. 44 Svolopoulos, ‘L’initiation de Mourad V’, pp. 452–3; Kératry, Mourad V, pp. 59, 86–7. 45 Dumont, ‘La Turquie’, pp. 192–4. 46 Cf. FO 78/2574, no. 635, Layard to Derby, Therapia, 19/06/1877; FO 195/1332, no. 504, Scalieri to Goschen, Athens, 21/06/1880; FO 195/1384, no. 490, Scalieri to Dufferin, 06/07/1881. 47 C. Scalieri, Appel à la justice internationale des Grandes Puissances par rapport au grand procès de Constantinople par suite de la mort du feu Sultan Aziz, Athens: Union Scalieri, 1881. 48 A résumé of the investigations is to be found in Y.EE 106/6, the interrogation protocols in Y.EE 106/7–13. The member of Proodos was a certain Haccar or Nikolas Haggiar, cf. Svolopoulos, ‘L’initiation de Mourad V’, p. 442. 49 Y.EE 141/15, n.d.; Uzunçars¸ılı, ‘K. Skaliyeri-Aziz Bey komitesi’, p. 245, n. 1. 50 Cf. M.S¸. Haniog˘ lu, The Young Turks in Opposition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 35. 51 F.M. Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 80–6. 52 C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 212–18; Göçek, Rise, pp. 125–33. 53 The list of the Proodos members in Svolopoulos, ‘L’initiation de Mourad V’, p. 442, gives his name slightly distorted as Safaati Ali, employé de gt. Also cf.

Notes

54

55

56 57 58

103

K.S. Sel, ‘Masonluk Aleminin Mes¸hur Meçhulleri’, Mimar Sinan 18, 1975, pp. 34–44. Osmanlı Müellifleri, Bursalı Mehmed Matbaa-ı Âmire, 1333, : Tahır (ed.) Istanbul: : vol. II, p. 85; M. Türköne, Siyasî Ideoloji Olarak Islâmcılıg . .˘ ın Dog˘ us¸u, Istanbul: Iletis¸im, 1994, pp. 208–9 and pp. 234–7; T.Z. Tunaya, ‘Ilk Osmanlı Anayasa Kitabı: Hükümet-i Mes¸ruta’, Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Türkiye Ansiklopedisi I, 34–5. Haccar (Haggiar), who was arrested for his implication in the Sokrat affair, named Aziz as a member of Proodos in his interrogation of 18 (Za?)1296, Y.EE 106/11, p. 14. In the Proodos membership list of 1873 there is listed one ‘Aziz Mahmoud, empl. de gt.’ which, if he did not join later, probably was Aziz Bey. Y.EE 23/5, Aziz (16 B 1295), 40c. Zarcone, Mystiques, pp. 301–26. T. Erdog˘ du, ‘Civil Officialdom and the Problem of Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire (1876–1922)’, in H. Karateke and M. Reinkowski (eds) Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 213–32, pp. 215–18; C.V. Findley, ‘Economic Bases of Revolution and Repression in the Late Ottoman Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, 1986, 81–106.

7 Conclusion: the Tanzimat and beyond 1 A. Salzmann, ‘Citizens in Search of a State: The Limits of Political Participation in the Late Ottoman Empire’, in M. Hanagan and C. Tilly (eds) Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, 37–66. 2 S¸. Mardin, ‘Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective’, in M. Heper and A. Evin (eds) State, Democracy and the Military. Turkey in the 1980s, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988, 23–35. 3 S¸. Haniog˘ lu, The Young Turks in Opposition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 33–70. 4 PRO, FO 78/2789, no. 692, Layard to Salisbury, Therapia 27/05/1878; ibid., no. 693, 31/05/1878; ibid., no. 752, Therapia, 08/06/1878. 5 K.H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam. Reconstructing Identity, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 161–8. 6 Cf. S. Deringil, ‘Legitimacy Structures in the Ottoman State: The Reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909)’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, 1991, 345–59 and Deringil, The Well Protected Domains, London and New York: Tauris, 1998. 7 BOA, Y.EE 20/26 (n.d.). 8 Y.EE 94/1 (n.d. 1298?) and Sicill-i osmanî, Mehmed Süreyyâ, 4 vols, Istanbul: Matbaa-ı Amire, 1308–11, vol. IV, p. 627. 9 S¸. Mardin, ‘Ideology and Religion in the Turkish Revolution’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 2, 1971, 97–211; A. Ayalon, ‘From Fitna to Thawra’, Studia Islamica 66, 1987, 145–74, pp. 163–5.

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Index

Abdülaziz 13–4, 27, 43–5, 50–3; assassination plans against 14, 36 Abdülhamid II 54, 67; assassination plans against 71, 77–8, 80; and opposition 87–8 Abdülmecid: assassination plans against 16; unpopularity of 13 Abdurrahman Sami Pasha 51 Agah Efendi 34, 41 Ahmed Lütfi 47 Ahmed, sheikh 68 Ahmed, sheikh, Süleymaniyeli 15–17, 22–3; early life 18–21; in exile 25, 40 Akçura, Y. 12 Ali, Basiretçi 62 Âli Pasha 4, 27; assassination plans against 28, 31; hostility towards 15, 39, 64, 66 Ali S¸efkati 74, 76, 81 Ali Suavi 28–9, 34–5, 64–5, 68–9; and Çırag˘ an incident 61–63; collaboration with Abdülhamid 67–8; political ideas 65–7 Amiable, L. 78–9 Arif Bey 16, 24 Austria 14, 38, 46 Ayetullah Bey 33, 51 Aziz Bey 71–6; and Freemasonry 82 Azmi Bey 32 Beylerbey plot 36 biat 38, 52–3, 72, 76–7 Bosnia-Herzegovina 27, 46, 49, 54, 69 bourgeoisie: bureaucratic 81; commercial 82–3 Britain 14, 54, 59, 62, 68–9 Bulgaria 47, 58–9

Cafer Dem Pasha 15–16, 40 Carbonaria 33 Cevdet Pasha 55 Christians see non-Muslims Circassia, Circassians 21, 24, 60 civil bureaucracy 4–6, 81; lower ranking 24, 69, 74, 81; salaries 48, 82 civil society 86 Çırag˘ an incident 61–3 Committee of Union and Progress 11, 88 constitution of 1876 54–6, 67 constitutionalism 7; Esad's treatise Hükumet-i mes¸ruta 82; of Midhat 45, 49; of Murad 79; of Süleyman Pasha 51; of Young Ottomans 29–30, 33–4, 37–8, 66 Crete 20, 27–9, 39, 64, 69 Crimea 60 Crimean War 13, 19–21 Daghestan 20 Davison, R. 12 democracy 66 Ebüzziya Tevfik 33, 36, 40 education: in army 51; in bureaucratic bourgeoisie 81–2; topic in newspapers 28, 64–5; see also schools Elliot, H.G. 49, 67, 73, 79 Engelhardt, E. 12 Esad Efendi 74, 77, 81–2 factionalism 7–8, 13–14, 19, 25, 48–9 fedai 16–17 fesad 5, 16, 30, 61, 86; see also rebellion Feyzullah, sheikh 23

112

Index

Filibe 62–4, 68, 74 fitne 5, 16, 30, 67, 86; see also rebellion Foran, J. 2 France 2, 14, 37 Freemasonry 11, 78–80, 82, 87; see also Masonic lodges Fuad Pasha 4, 15, 27–8, 78 gazi 6, 21, 59, Gladstone, W. 67, 69 grand vizier 4–5, 43, 56 Halil S¸erif 29 Hasan Fehmi Efendi 77 Hasan, Çerkes 53 Hayrullah Efendi 53, 88 Hidayet Pasha 88 Hungarians 14, 22, 33 Hüseyin Avni Pasha 44–6, 48–9; and coup 50, 52–3; murder of 53–4 Hüseyin Daim Pasha 16–17, 21–3, 24–5; alleged member of Young Ottomans 30, 32 Hüseyin Vasfi Pasha 36–7 . I. brahim S¸inasi 27–8 Ig˘ demir, U. 12 Ignatiev, N.P. 45, 47 international relations 13 Islam: as political ideology 37–9, 46–7, 62, 81–2, 85, 87–88; religious language 9, 16, 24, 37–8; religious symbols 6, 19, 76–7, 88; see also Muslims, pan-Islamism Islamic law see sharia Ismail, viceroy of Egypt 28, 45 . Ismail, sheikh 23 isyan 5, 40; see also rebellion Italians 22, 33 janissaries 3–4, 8–9, 43, 47, 66 jihad 19, 21 Kadirallah, sheikh 82 Kadri 71, 74 Kamil Bey 55 Kansu, A. 1 Khalid al-Shahrizuri, sheikh, 18–19 Konduri-Altıncı plot 36 Kuleli conspiracy see Society of Martyrs Kuran, Ahmed Bedevi 11–12 Kurdistan 18

Layard, H. 68, 75 legitimacy: and material conditions 46, 81–2; and military defeat 13, 59–60, 63; and religion 5–6, 19, 59, 77, 84–5; see also sultan Lewis, B. 12 Mahmud Celaleddin 44 Mahmud II 5, 7, 18–19, 21 Mahmud Nedim Pasha 43–50; his treatise Ayine-i Devlet 43–4 Mahmud Pasha, Damat 55 Mardin, S¸. 9, 11, 86 Masonic lodges: Proodos 79–82; Union d'Orient 78–9; see also Freemasonry medrese students 15, 21, 23, 31–2, 77; demonstrations in 1853 19–20; demonstrations in 1876 47–8; demonstrations in 1877 59 Mehmed Ali Pasha, minister 14, 19 Mehmed Bey 29–31, 33–6, 37 Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha see Âli Pasha Mehmed Fuad Pasha, Keçecizade see Fuad Pasha Mehmed Pasha, Hafız 21 Mehmed Pasha, Kıbrılslı 25 Mehmed Rüs¸di Pasha, Mütercim 47, 49–50, 75 Mehmed Rüs¸di Pasha, S¸irvanizade 45, 50 Midhat Pasha 44–5, 47–50, 88; and 1876 constitution 54–5, 67; his memorandum of Muslim Patriots 49 Mihal 74 military academy 36, 44, 50–1 military officers 17, 23; alaylis vs. mekteblis 51; new political ideas 51–2 Millingen, F. 21 Montenegro 22, 27, 55 muhacir 59–60; see also refugees Muhyiddin Efendi 55 Murad V 14, 37, 52, 54; abduction plot in 1876 58; alleged contact with Ali Suavi 62; contact to Skalieri-Aziz committee 72–6; and Freemasonry 79 Muslims 6, 33, 59–60, 69, 78; oppressed 29, 40, 47, 85; see also refugees Mustafa Fazıl Pasha 28–30, 32, 34–5, 65, 78; his open letter 28–9, 38, 64 Mustafa Res¸id Pasha see Res¸id Pasha

Index Naks¸fend Kalfa 73, 75–7, 80 Namık Kemal 28–9, 33–5, 41, 46, 79; his political ideas 37–40 Nasuh, hodja 20, 23 national assembly see parliament Necib Bey 68 newspapers: Basiret 62, 81; Courrier d'Orient 29; Diplomatic Review 69; Hayal 81;: Hürriyet 35, 37, : : 39, 40, 66; Ibret 46; Inkılab 35–6; Istikbal 81; : Ittihad 35; Mir'at 33; Muhbir 28–9, 34–5, 64–6; Tasvir-i Efkar 27–9, 64; Tercüman-ı Ahval 28, 34; Times 14; Ulum 65–66; Vakit 67, 81; see also press non-Muslims 6–7; equality demanded 29, 49; opposition to equality of 9, 17, 22, 37, 43–4, 48; political activity of 38, 71 Nuri Bey 29–31, 33–4, 40–1 Nuri, Hafız 62 Nuri, Üsküdarlı 62–3 opposition: Young Ottoman's understanding of 38–9, 65–7; see also rebellion Osman Pasha 58, 75 palace servants 62, 73–4, 81 pan-Islamism 47, 59, 62, 69, 82 pan-Slavism 59, 69 parliament: of 1876 56, 77; Ali Suavi opposed to 66–7; demanded by Young Ottomans 30, 33, 37, 39, 41; demanded by Midhat 45, 49; general council 48 . Patriotic Alliance (Ittifak-ı Hamiyet) 33–4 patronage 7, 69, 81 petitions 19–20, 25, 28, 38, 68 Poles 14, 22, 33 political culture 1–3, 24, 85–6; in army 24–25, 51–2; authoritarian 5; in bureaucracy 83; of elite 7, 56; of opposition 2, 9, 41, 86 political system 3–7, 42–3 press: domestic 27–9, 40, 46; in exile 34–6; see also newspapers public opinion: domestic 13, 25, 27, 29, 38, 46–8, 67; international 49, 67, 80 Ramiz Pasha 55 Rasim Bey 16

113

rebellion 5, 40, 67, 86; right of 39, 47, 65–6; see also fitne, fesad, isyan Refik Bey 33 reforms 4–5; 1839 decree 6–7, 19, 40; 1856 decree 7, 13, 22, 37; in historiography 8; opposition to 8–9 refugees: from Balkans 59, 61–3, 68–9, 72; from Circassia 24, 60; from Crimea 60; settlement in Daghestan 20 Res¸ad Bey 29–31, 33–4, 41 Res¸id Pasha 4, 14, 19, 27, 39, 78 revolution 2–3, 36, 66–7, 88 Rıza Bey 55 Rıza Pasha 14, 22 Russia 13, 20, 46–7, 58–60, 68–9; political culture in 2–3 Russian-Ottoman War of 1877/78 58–9, 68 Sadık Pasha 62 Said Sermedi 28 St. Clair, S.G.B. 63 schools: Darülmuallim 74, 82; Mekteb-i Osmanî 31, 36; Mekteb-i Sultanî 67, 68; rüs¸diye 50, 64, 82; also see education Serbia 27, 29, 55 S¸erif Efendi, Gürcü 55, 77 Shamil, sheikh 20–21 sharia 6, 8, 15–20, 31, 37–8, 43, 49; as basis of constitution 37, 66, 82; limiting sultan's powers 39, 43, 66 Skalieri–Aziz committee 72–8, 80 Skalieri, K. 72–3, 75–7; and Freemasonry 78–80 slavery 9, 21 Society of Martyrs (Fedailer Cemiyeti) 16–17, 28, 40, 44, 88; structure of 23–4 Sokrat 80 Sufi orders: Kadiri 18; Khalidi 18–20, 43; Mevlevi 82; Naqshbandi 18–20, 22–4; Rifai 19; see also Sufism Sufism 11, 82; see also Sufi orders Süleyman Asaf Bey 61 Süleyman Hüsnü Pasha 50–3, 88; alleged member of Young Ottoman Society 51 Süleymaniye 18–9, 23 sultan 5–6, 84–5; religious legitimacy of 6, 59, 77; rights under 1876

114

Index

constitution 55–6; spending of 13, 15, 17, 25, 48–9; succession of 5, 14, 79, 85; Young Ottomans and 37–9, 66 Tanzimat see reforms Thouvenel, E. 25 Tunaya, T.Z. 10 Ubaydullah, sheikh 18 ulema 14–15, 17, 19–20, 31; conspiracy against Abdülhamid 54–5 Urquhart, D. 69 Üsküdar Society 61–3, 68

Vambéry, A. 12, 20, 22 Vocation group (Meslek) 30–4 Williams, W. Fenwick 21 Young Ottoman Society 34–5, 51, 65 Young Turk revolution 1, 88 Young .Turks 11, 52, 81, 87–8 Yusuf Izzeddin 55, 70, 79 Zarcone, T. 11 Ziya Bey 29, 34–5, 41, 52–3, 66; alleged member of Vocation 30, 32; political ideas 37, 39