Tanzimat
Its goals were to modernize and consolidate the social and political foundations of the Ottoman Empire in order to secure territorial integrity against internal nationalist movements and external aggressive powers.
The reforms emerged from the minds of reformist sultans like Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839), his son Abdulmejid I (r. 1839–1861) and prominent, often European-educated bureaucrats, who recognised that the old religious and military institutions no longer met the needs of the empire.
[4] The ambitious project was launched to combat the slow decline of the empire that had seen its borders shrink and its strength wane in comparison to the European powers.
The Gülhane rescript was based on the principles of traditional court philosophy, with Butrus Abu-Manneh arguing that there was no Western influence in the edict.
[5] However, Historian Stanford Jay Shaw suggests that the Gulhane Edict manifested the ideals set out in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789.
The traditional Ottoman army, the Janissaries, had fallen from grace in terms of military prestige and a European-inspired reconstruction was a necessary change to be made.
[7] The Ottoman Empire consisted of a multitude of different cultures and the secondary priorities of the Tanzimat reforms were aimed at balancing the social structure that previously favoured Muslim subjects.
[11][12][13][14] During the Great Eastern Crisis, government ministers lead by Midhat Pasha conspired to overthrow Sultan Abdul Aziz in a coup and introduce a constitution.
However, the most significant clause of the Gülhane decree was the one enforcing the rule of law for all subjects, including non-Muslims, by guaranteeing the right to life and property for all.
The millet system created religiously based communities that operated autonomously, so people were organized into societies, some of them often receiving privileges.
[29] Member of the Council of Reorganization, 1852–1855 Although the Edict of Gülhane and the Tanzimat provided strong guidelines for society, they were not a constitution and did not replace the authority of the sultan.
Those educated in the schools established during the Tanzimat period included major personalities of the nation states that would develop from the Ottoman Empire.
As part of the Charter of 1856, European powers demanded a much stronger sovereignty for ethnic communities within the empire, differing from the Ottomans, who envisioned equality meaning identical treatment under the law for all citizens.
Historian Hans-Lukas Kieser has argued that the reforms led to "the rhetorical promotion of equality of non-Muslims with Muslims on paper vs. the primacy of Muslims in practice" (see Tanzimat Dualism); other historians have argued that the decreased ability of non-Muslims to assert their legal rights during this period led to the land seizure and emigration.
In their view, these were inevitable backlashes from the Muslim community to the legal changes, as the Tanzimat's values were imposed from above and did not reflect those of society.
The elites in Mount Lebanon, in fact, interpreted the Tanzimat far differently from one another, leading to ethno-religious uprisings among newly emancipated Maronites.
In order to boost its tax base, the Ottoman state required Arabs in Palestine, as elsewhere, to register their lands for the first time.
Prevailing illiteracy among the fellahin meant in the end that many local mukhtars were able to collectively register village lands under their own name.
Thus, they were able to later claim ownership and to sell the local peasants' lands out from under their feet to the new Jewish immigrants, as they themselves relocated permanently to Syria or Turkey.
[36] Alternately, rich Christian or Muslim families, the class of the 'Effendis', were able to accumulate large amounts of land which they exploited by themselves or sold on.
