[1] Basiret was established by Ali Efendi, a journalist, in 1869,[2] and the first issue appeared on 23 January 1870.
[3] He was financed by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in getting printing machines to launch the paper.
[3] Major contributors included Ali Suavi, Namık Kemal and Ahmet Mithat.
[6] Basiret covered critical articles about the bureaucratic structure of the Ottoman Empire.
[5][8] It became a platform for the pan-Islamist and pan-Turkist figures leaving its objective approach at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.