He was taught privately by his father until the age of fourteen, when, in 1816, he was appointed (as şakird - student apprentice) to the secretariat of the Divanı Hümayun (Imperial Cabinet) where he polished his education with courses in Arabic, Persian, grammar, Turkish elocution, and religious studies, as well as in French and English.

Mahmud II selected him as one of the Divanı Hümayun şakirds to be sent to study in Europe, and attended the École Militaire there, improving at the same time his capacity of the French language he had already acquired.

On his return, one of the duties of Mehmed Namık Efendi, as a member of the secretariat of the Divanı Hümayun, was to join as second interpreter the Ottoman delegation which signed in 1826 the Akkerman Convention with the Russians.

A year later Mehmed Namık Bey was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was sent to Saint-Petersburg as military attaché with the duty first and foremost of studying the organization of the Russian army.

Namık Pasha was sent the same year as special envoy to London, with the rank of ambassador plenipotentiary, to ask for naval assistance against the insurgent Khedive Mohammed Ali of Egypt whom France was protecting.

He did however, take advantage of the opportunity: he secured arms from the U.K., and obtained the possibility of fourteen students to be sent by the Ottoman government to study in artillery, infantry and naval schools in the U.K.

Today the College, which boasts of having had Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) as a student, has been moved from Constantinople to Ankara and is called Kara Harp Okulu (School of War for Ground Forces), which is still functioning.

British Major General Henry Rawlinson wrote a letter dated 1852 to then Foreign Secretary Malmesbury, strongly criticizing Namık Pasha's harsh approach to maintaining order.

The Crimean War saw the Ottoman state in dire need and it was to Namık Paşa, as Minister of Commerce, that the duty fell of looking for funds in Europe, a venture which took him to Paris and London for the whole of winter during 1853-1854 (from November to May) and during which he was received by Napoleon III.

For some he was too proud on behalf of the Ottoman state, for others; the interest rates insisted by the European bankers were too high and the parties were mutually too hesitant, and too distrustful, according to others.

Namık Pasha was away at Mecca during the events, and dealt swiftly with the aftermath on his return, though not before the bombardment of Jeddah by HMS Cyclops, while authority from the Sultan was awaited.

He replenished the Basra shipyard with ships he ordered from Istanbul, increased the traffic on the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers,[9] had bridges built, and made the land arable through irrigation.

Among the various titles he held was also that of yaver-i ekrem (aide de camp to His Imperial Majesty), and it is in that capacity that he carried a note from the Sultan to Alexander II.

His descendants live today mostly in Turkey (although some are located in the US, the U.K., France, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia), and many are prominent personalities in the Turkish mainstream.