Tanzimat

The Tanzimat (" réorganisation" in Turkish osmanli) was one era of reforms in the Ottoman Empire which lasted of 1839 with 1876, date on which was promulgated the Othoman Constitution, followed election of a first Othoman Parlement, dissolves two years later by the sultan Abdülhamid II, which restores the constitution and the Parliament only after the revolution of the Young person-Turks in 1908, after thirty years of stagnation and Absolute monarchy.

This ambitious project was launched to try to fight the slow decline of the empire which had seen its territorial plate being reduced and its weakness to increase compared to the other European powers, making of him " the sick man of Europe".

The Sultan Mahmud II had preceded these reforms, in particular by an official declaration of 1830

I make the distinction between my subjects, the Moslems with the mosque, the Christians with the church and the Jews with the synagog, but there is no difference between them in some other measurement. My affection and my direction of justice for all among them are strong and they are in truth all my children. (Kaynar 1954, p.100, reprod. in Karal 1982)

1839

The first reform, the Hatt-i Sharif of Gülhane (noble rescrit of the pink Room) of 1839, was the work of the sultan Abdülmecid Ier. This edict drew up the list and the general framework of the reforms to come, which were supervised by bureaucrats educated imported of other European countries. A good part of them were attempts to graft European good practices on the empire: the universal Conscription, the reform of teaching, the elimination of the Corruption, equality between all, whatever their religion. The Council of the legal ordinances (Meclis-i Ahkam-i Adliye) was set up to implement these objectives.

Although this rescrit was presented at the time in the Western press, in France in particular, like a constitution, it was still far. The freedom of religion and belief was not instituted in an unambiguous way, just as the political equality between Moslems and not-Moslems. In practice, the communities recognized not-Moslem women profited from the freedom of religion, certain not-Moslems filled of the auxiliary functions within the Othoman institutions, interpreters, special correspondents, but also, in an abstract way, Greeks, Armenians and Jews worked as doctors, secretaries and advisers for various sultans and notable during first half of the 19th century.

1856

In 1856 was proclaimed the Hatt-i Humayun (rescrit imperial) extending the application of the reforms by guaranteeing the equality between all the Othoman citizens without reference to religion, which consequently made it possible to the not-Moslems to enter the public office and to fit in the public schools as well military as civil.

Concretely, in one decade the not-Moslems represented half of the Othoman diplomats in station abroad, of the Greeks and of the Armenians were named ambassadors with London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna and Saint-Pétersbourg.

1876

The reforms culminated in 1876 with the drafting and the coming into effect of a Othoman Constitution controlling the autocratic capacities of the sultan. The new sultan Abdülhamid II signed it, but did not take a long time before suspending it, just as the Othoman Parlement, thus starting three decades of preserving Counter-Reformation.

Assessment

Tanzimat had consequences durable and extended (Armenian genocide), in particular because the future leaders of the Young person-Turks and the leaders of the Republic of Turkey, but also those of the Arab nationalist movement, were informed in schools setting-up thanks to these reforms. The Nahda, rebirth Arab of the 19th century, constituted to a certain extent a cultural movement parallel in Tanzimat, in particular by the introduction of an educational system of the European type which allowed the creation of a concurrent elite educated of notable feudal and clergy and thus closes revolutionary.

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