She was armed with four 229 mm (9 in) guns, was powered by a single-screw compound steam engine with a top speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

At the start of the Greco-Turkish War in 1897, the Ottoman Navy mobilized Mukaddeme-I Hayir and the rest of the ironclad fleet but found almost all of the ships to be in unusable condition.

[1][2] Mukaddeme-i Hayir, meaning "Great Abundance", was ordered in 1868 from the Imperial Arsenal in 1868, a copy of her British-built sister ship Feth-i Bülend.

[3] Early in the ship's career, the Ottoman ironclad fleet was activated every summer for short cruises from the Golden Horn to the Bosporus to ensure their propulsion systems were in operable condition.

[6] On 14 May 1877, an Ottoman squadron consisting of Mukaddeme-i Hayir, Feth-i Bülend, Necm-i Şevket, Muin-i Zafer, Avnillah, and Iclaliye bombarded Russian positions before landing infantry to capture of the Black Sea port of Sokhumi two days later.

On the 31st, Mukaddeme-i Hayir, Feth-i Bülend, the steam frigate Mubir-i Sürur, and several other ships departed Batumi for Trabzon to bring ground troops to Varna to defend against an expected Russian attack across the Danube.

[7] By June, Mukaddeme-i Hayir had returned to Sulina at the mouth of the Danube, where she assisted in the defense of the town, along with a gunboat and an armed tugboat.

On 8 November, the Ottoman gunboat was sunk by the mines, and Mukaddeme-i Hayir steamed out to engage the Russian vessels, forcing them to withdraw before they could complete the minefield.

The British naval attache to the Ottoman Empire at the time estimated that the Imperial Arsenal would take six months to get just five of the ironclads ready to go to sea.

In anticipation of the war breaking out, the Ottomans inspected the fleet in February 1897 and found that almost all of the vessels, including Mukaddeme-i Hayir, were completely unfit for combat against the Greek Navy.

The Ottomans contacted several foreign shipyards, and Krupp's Germaniawerft received the contract to rebuild Mukaddeme-i Hayir on 11 August 1900, but the deal was cancelled and the ship was not reconstructed.