Challenges from Christian Europe

 Short-answer ID terms:
 “Imperialism of Free Trade” (ca. 1815–1870)
 Capitulation agreements

 Lecture subheadings:
 Capitalism and the world economy
 Military challenges
 New ideologies
 Commercial capitalism, ca. 1500–1700
 Bulk trade in staple goods
 Dependent on mass trade in
enslaved Africans
 Paved way for creation of
“national economies”
 Competition, technical
innovation, empowerment
of merchants and of
business interests
The Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran in the 19th century
 The Industrial Revolution
 Began in England ca.
1750
 Use of coal-powered
steam engines in
manufacturing
 After 1815, English
factories exported
mass-produced cloths
and textiles to the
Middle East
 “Imperialism of Free Trade”
• From ca. 1815–1870, Britain
used its sea power and
diplomacy to open new
markets for its manufactured
goods

• Britain signs free trade

agreements with Ottoman
Empire (1838) and with
Iran/Persia (1841)

• As an industrial pioneer,
Britain soon established
market dominance where free
trade prevailed
 Capitulation agreements
• Originally, permission given by the Sultan or Shah for merchants from
friendly foreign powers to do business in the imperial/royal realm

• Foreign communities were accountable to the Sultan’s/Shah’s

representatives via the foreigners’ diplomatic representatives

• Later, a changing balance of power allowed European governments to

claim extraterritorial privileges and immunities for their merchants

• Also, locally based associates and employees of European merchants and

governments began to acquire extraterritorial status

• By the 19th century, Capitulations created significant communities of

foreign-protected residents, merchants and sojourners in Ottoman and
Qajar lands who were exempt from Ottoman and Qajar laws and taxes
Challenges to the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran in the 19th century
 New challenges to dynastic empires
and their ruling ideas:
 No legal distinction between rulers
and ruled: French Revolution’s
abolition of “all feudal distinctions”
 Citizens should be responsible to the
state as individuals rather than as
members of mediating corporate
groups
 Linguistically defined nations are said
to be the basic units of history, and
these “nations” have the right of
national self-determination
 Image of a Mamluk, late 18th century

Mamluks were professional soldiers, initially

brought to Egypt and other Ottoman lands as
slaves who had been trained in the military
arts. Many became powerful administrative
and military figures in their own right.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s French army invades Ottoman Egypt, 1798

Painting: “The Battle of the

Pyramids”

The French occupation of Egypt

lasted from 1798 to 1801
Muhammad Ali Pasha (autonomous ruler of Egypt, 1805–1848)
• Established first modern-style state in the Middle East
• Introduced military conscription and an effective tax
system to pay for Egypt’s growing bureaucracy and
military
• His state intervened in economic life to expand
irrigation works, encourage cultivation of cash crops
and build rudiments of modern industry
• Ultimately Muhammad Ali’s regime overextended
itself and faced combined opposition from his
Ottoman suzerains, their British allies, and resentful
populations in Egyptian-ruled Syria, especially in the
regions of Lebanon and Palestine.
• Muhammad Ali’s descendants governed Egypt till
1952
19th-century Egypt including Muhammad Ali Pasha’s conquests
 Egypt slipped steadily from Ottoman Istanbul’s grasp in the 19 th century

 Independent-minded Ottoman governor Muhammad Ali Pasha occupied the

Hijaz (western Arabia) on the Sultan’s behalf in 1812

 But he seized Ottoman Syria-Palestine in defiance of the Sultan in 1831

 International diplomatic intervention stopped the Egyptian army from

conquering Istanbul itself in the 1830s

 At its peak in 1840, Egyptian army had 115,000 infantry plus specialized units

 Syria-Palestine and the Hijaz were restored to Istanbul’s authority in 1840 as

part of a British-brokered agreement

 From 1840-1882 Egypt (including Egyptian-ruled Sudan) was recognized as an

autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire

 British Army invaded and occupied Egypt in 1882

 19th-century reforms: The Ottoman Empire & the Tanzimat
 Short-answer ID terms:
 Janissary infantry
 Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839)
 Tanzimat (1839-1876)
 Ottomanism

 Lecture subheadings:
 Centralizers and their opponents
 Military reform
 Administrative and legal reform
 Opponents of centralizing power in the
Ottoman Empire, early 19th century
 Janissary garrisons
 Provincial notables
 Regional princes and tribal chieftains in de
facto autonomous regions (e.g., Kurdistan
and Albania)
 In 1807 Janissaries of Istanbul, supported by
leading ulama, force sultan to abdicate after
he tried to establish a new-style army with
help from exiled French military advisors
Sultan Mahmud II abolishes the Janissaries
• Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (at
left, r. 1808–1839) abolished
Janissary corps (at right) in 1826
• Greek Revolt (1821) underscored
Janissaries’ military
ineffectiveness
• In 1826 the Janissaries revolted,
trying to repeat their putsch of
1807
• Sultan’s loyalists defeated the
1826 rebellion
• Critically, the top ulama refused
to support the Janissaries’ 1826
rebellion (unlike 1807)
 Sultan Mahmud II and Ottoman reform
 Janissaries’ abolition (1826) cleared the way for a new-style
Ottoman army (at right)
 Sultan Mahmud followed up (1828) by ordering a common dress
code for all civil servants (regardless of religion)
 Mahmud wanted to make the Sultanate a paternalistic focus of
popular loyalty (rather than just a remote symbol of majesty and
authority)
 All these measures laid the groundwork for the subsequent
Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876)