Tanzimat and the Ottoman Empire

Perhaps the area of the Islamic world that felt threatened by modernity most acutely was Turkey and Istanbul, the headquarters of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish historian Ilber Ortayli called the nineteenth century the longest century of the empire. The empire was seemingly set on a period of decline that led to its role as the ‘sick man of Europe’, and to much discussion within Turkey itself as to the future role of the empire, if any, in the developing structure of Europe and the Middle East. The Young Ottomans were a group of Turkish intellectuals who met at a picnic in 1865 and tried to produce a theoretical and practical plan to preserve the empire. It is worth pointing out that all these intellectuals were part of the state bureaucracy, and were trying to reform the system of which they were a part. Some of them went so far as to be critical of Islam, while others were more sympathetic to traditional religion, but they all tried to find some version of religion that would not compete with material and social progress. The Tanzimat (regulation) period (1836–78) was one of intellectual ferment in Turkish political ideology, and it played a large part in the future history of Turkey and the lands of the Ottoman Empire beyond the nineteenth century.

It is interesting to note that the source of discontent of the Young Ottomans were ‘Ali and Fuad Pasha, and yet these individuals who were important decision-makers in the

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century thought 328

Government were themselves struggling with the attempt to modernize and improve the situation of the empire. The outlying areas of the empire were keen on independence, and this was supported by the Christian powers, or at least by some of them such as Russia, and there were demands for all the citizens of the empire to be given equal constitutional rights. Up to this time a complicated system whereby each religious community was more-or-less allowed to run its own affairs had persisted, but legally Muslims in the empire had more rights than the other religious groups, although in practice this did not lead to a great deal of unfair treatment in Ottoman society. The Ottomans were unable to hold onto their territories through military power, their armies proved increasingly ineffective, and financially the state proved to be less productive given the inroads of capitalism and imperialism from without. It is always difficult to manage a period of protracted decline, of course, and with hindsight the rulers of the Empire do not seem to have done too badly, but for those living at the time the actions of the government were perceived as being disastrous, although the reasons for the disaster were variously identified. Some thought that the empire was not sufficiently aggressive, others that it was too Islamic, and some argued it was not Islamic enough. There was not just one ‘Young Turkey’ movement, and the production of political theory during this period took many different forms.

Even within the Islamic world the empire was losing its grip, and yet the Sultan nominally represented the caliphate, the Islamic world as a unified political entity. It is hardly surprising that the decline of the Ottoman Empire brought about a lively discussion about the role of Islam in the state and the compatibility of religion with science and technology. It is important to appreciate that in many ways the leading advocates of such a discussion was the state itself, and its officials.

Tanzimat and the Ottoman Empire