INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS DEPARTMENT

(MODERN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY)

Sarah Al-Janabi
1810512518

The Ottoman Empire and Egypt during the era of

Tanzimat:
This era were filled of big achievements, this inspiration came to
reforms and Europeanized the ottoman institutions. For example in
Egypt Mohammed Ali was a smart leader who made a lot of effort to
build his own state by using an European methods of administration,
political organization and the most important was the education, he built
many schools which stimulate the European one, the teachers were most
of them from Europe and the students learned many European languages
such as the French.

First of all, if we want to understand this era of reforms that changed

the whole empire must start from the beginning. Tanzimat era in the first
fifteen years was dominated by Rashid Pasha he arose in the Ottoman
Empire administration as a foreign minister after that he took the
position to take the office of grand vizier. After Rashid Pasha, Ali pasha
came to be his successors as a leader of the reform movement. Ali pasha
could enter to the power by his knowing the European language and he
want to change the empire for the best but Ali was not working alone ,
Fuad pasha was associating with Ali in the last decades of reforms. Fuad
pasha graduated from the military school which founded by Mahmud II;
because of his educational background he could easily access to the
power, Fuad was well known for his loving to Europeanized his job.
At that time the empire was really taking a new path and we can see
those changes by the two royal decrees which defines the essence of the
Tanzimat, the first one was the Hatti I sharif of Gulhane this decrees was
a kind of certain administrative reforms, such as the canceling of tax
farming and also the elimination of corruption this actually was made
before but this one was so remarkable because sultan extend the reforms
to all the Ottoman subjects. The second decree was in the time of
Crimean war Ali and Fuad pashas encouraged the second one to be
released Hatti Humayan which is the principles were repeated and to
make sure that the equality between the subjects are existed regardless
their religion; Muslim and non-Muslim should attend the military
service and also to have an equal opportunities for state employment and
admission to state schools. These decrees were originally made to secure
the Christian loyalty to the empire and sultan it sought to smash and
vanished the cultural and religious autonomy of the Millets. Besides that
to create an empire of common citizenship which is replaced the
religious ordering of the society inside the empire.

During the reforms, military order took a big attention but those reforms
extended to other areas as well. For example the Tanzimat order
established institutions of higher learning for civilians the one of the
important one of them was the civil service school and many others. The
impact of these schools was very essential at this era because graduating
from these schools enjoyed a very high rate in taking the state
employment and taking most of the position of authority in turkey and
even the Arab states. Even the secondary schools were within the
framework of reforms by creating a ministry of education.

In the time of tanzimat a new order came in the field of laws and many
new legal codes emerged by taking the French code as the model such as
a new commercial codes were emerged and a new secular system
established called Nizame to deal with the Muslim and non-Muslim
issues. However, most of these codes were originally took its roots from
the shaariah and no matter how the secular codes or the European
western law may affect the civilian lives, but the empire would remain
her framework within the Islamic rules.
At this time a new generation were emerged called the young ottoman;
they were represent an attempt to recreate the institutions of the tanzimat
with the Islamic ottoman political traditions and also calling for the more
democratic government. Besides that they criticized Ali and Fuad pasha
for their bureaucratic absolutism. In their view the two decrees were not
good for the empire and converted it into a western one by leaving the
essential Islamic political and social values.
They believed that the democracy was originally existed in the Islamic
tradition of consultation.
Some of the Turkish elites who were learning in the European country
talked about the success of it by explaining the European success secret
not just with the technical methods but they also have a good political
organizations at that time the after Ali Pasha reign Abdull Aziz came to
the throne and his era was full of chaotic. In result the public started to
ask for the constitution, inside it were many important chambers such as
the equality between the subject and also their rights to serve in the
deputies chamber, but unfortunately the millet role was not mentioned in
the constitution, it was a paper that confirmed the patriotism of Ottoman
Empire.

The financial statues in the ottoman empire were most of it to her

expanded administrative because she want to maintain a modern navy
and army supplies with warships and weapons, the problem at that was
the reform of Tanzimat didn’t care very much about the financial issues
and that put the empire into a magnificent financial issues. In order to
deal with this problem they started to take loans from European states
and that actually the same happened to Egypt by increasing the level of
debts meant that more and more funds to bay for the countries that gives
money and that was imposable and failed to make its payment. In affect
the empire was bankrupt. At that time many rebellions happened
because the public believed that the empire and sultan will fail to reform
the financial statues of the state, the unemployment spread through the
area and that event leads to many changes happened to the reforms.
The Tanzimat reform and its effect on the Arab societies,
The governorship of Hamid the son of Mohammed Ali affected the
relations between Muslim and Christian, he tried to isolate the Christian
but they could gather into the mountain of Lebanon for the rebellion but
the direct European intervention could solve the crisis.
Greater Syria returned to Ottoman rule, but many of the sectarian
relations had been profoundly changed. The Maronites had acquired
increased power within Mount Lebanon and a new freedom in Syrian
society as a whole that they were not inclined to surrender.
Encouraged by the promises of equality contained in the Ottoman
decrees of 1839 and 1856, Maronites and other Christians expanded
their commercial activities, entered into lucrative relationships with
European representatives, because they found that better for them to deal
with the western cultures and founded new educational institutions, and
generally asserted themselves in a manner that the Druze and Sunnis saw
as overstepping the bounds of what was not accepted to the minority
subjects in a Muslim state.

In the Turkish 1858 cod was centralizing measure designed to regulate

most of the landholding methods and to increase the tax-collecting as
efficiency of the central government. It was also supposed to protect the
peasant cultivator by allowing him to register and write his lands and
thus deal directly with the state instead of with tax farmers which has a
very bad affect in the past eras.
The code or law required all landowners to register their land with the
government to make it formal paper; in return, they would receive and
take a written title contract. It further prevented individuals to purchase
and buy or register previously unoccupied state lands. Although the
impact of the land law varied and different from region to region within
the empire, in parts of Greater Syria it led to the creation of vast private
estates. Individual notables bought huge tracts of uncultivated state lands
with the intention of developing them for commercial agricultural
purposes. In result many of the land owners were very rich and they
could create their wealth by the product which was taken from it.
Egypt and the era of reforms, after the big reforms that happened during
Mohammed Ali reign his successor were also trying to do so but they
failed. Nevertheless, the actions of Muhammad Ali’s administrative
reforms carried over to their reigns, and the central government
continued to broaden and to become more functionally and creative a
government specialized with the creation of new ministries and councils
which were taken their responsibilities with true loyal. And as was the
case in the central Ottoman Empire, the administrative positions
required to carry out the increased range of state activities were filled by
a new elite of officials trained in Europe or in European style Egyptian
institutions.

Ismail the magnificent was the son of Mohammed Ali, he took the
throne from his father, he was very well know because of his
achievements that made it in Egypt. Despite his actions he has many
negatives or bad order such as the financial issues that happened during
his reign. That’s why it can be a little doubt about his policies affected
Egyptian domestic development and external relations until well into the
twentieth century. Ismail’s objective was nothing less than the complete
Europeanization of Egypt in as short a time because he was well known
for his loving to European style and he was following them by copying
their methods. The School of Languages, reopened in 1868, was far
more elitist and European-oriented of course not for the public. By 1886
the institution had evolved into the Cairo School of Law, offering its
students a French-based legal education that made them among the most
sought-after candidates for state employment and that was Ismail
purpose. Ismail also revived the practice of sending student educational
missions to Europe and began the process of female education as the
European culture was. Despite he used to follow the European culture he
didn’t change the regime to democratic one.
Whereas Muhammad Ali had tried to establish his independence through
warfare, Ismail’s methods was to shower Ottoman officials with gifts
and bribes.
The problems emerged after the student graduated from the Islamic
schools and they couldn’t find jobs or employment in administrations
that were committed, for better or for worse, to policies of
Westernization. No matter how extensive these students’ knowledge of
the Quran or the shariah may have been, they did not have the
qualifications to compete with the students trained in Europe or in
European-style schools in Egypt. At the same time, the opportunities for
employment in the traditional elite sector of society were shrinking as
the new courts, new schools, and new concepts deriving from European
thought reduced the role of the Ulama to the more narrowly religious
sphere of activity.

If the Tanzimat period has some problemes such as lacked the dramatic
confrontations of the reigns of Selim III or Mahmud II, it nevertheless
produced far-reaching changes in the Ottoman Empire system. For this
very reason, some members of the Ottoman elite questioned the wisdom
of the reforms and f it is for the good public or not .In addition warned
that the abandonment or canceled of long standing Islamic institutions in
favor of the hasty adoption of European ones would lead to disaster for
the Ummah of Muhammad because as we mentioned before the process
were taken from the European thoughts.