In 1826 Muhammad 'Ali sent a delegation to France to study European languages and science. One delegate, Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, thought it right for Islam to recover European advances in science since the renaissance because their foundations were built on medieval Islamic ideas.
Al-Tahtawi controversially praised constitutional government built on justice, equity and the happiness of the people, ideals that were unfamiliar in Islamic tradition. He also praised upward mobility which also had no place in the hierachical society of Ottoman Egypt. Newspapers were unknown in the Arab world. Al-Tahtawi even supported the 1830 revolution of Charles X and the people's right to overturn their monarch to preserve their legal rights. The book Al-Tahtawi produced was a masterpiece and a catalyst for Ottoman and Arab reform in the 19th century.
Europe had surpassed the Ottomans in military and economic might although they still assumed their culture to be superior. Reform was accepted as being necessary to avoid being overrun by the European threat. They wanted steamships, telegraph and railways. However, reform led to unpaid debts and that gave Europe more leverage over the Ottoman Empire. To delegate spending, a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament was set-up between 1839 and 1876 - this period was called Tanzimat 'reordering'. Corporal punishment was curbed and torture were abolished and an annual budget regularized the empire's finances. An annual census and land registry were introduced to increase tax revenues which led to the advent of elementary schools to train thousands of the civil servants required. Attempts were also made to reconcile Islamic law with European legal norms.
Europeans used religion to meddle in Ottoman affairs. Unbelievably, the Crimean War 1854-1855, had its roots in who got the keys to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Catholic or Greek Orthodox monks. The French backed the Catholics, the Russians the Greeks and the rest is history. In order to avoid European interference, government attempted to confer equality between Muslims and non-Muslims which got them in trouble with with The Qur'an. However following Crimea, at the risk of public outrage, the 1856 Reform Decree established complete equality of all Ottoman subjects, regardless of faith. The reform risked provoking rebellion against the government and violence between its subjects. Muhammad 'Ali did it in egypt in 1820 and the Ottoman's thought they could manage it too.
Muslims attacked Christians in Aleppo in October, 1850, resentful of their commercial contacts in Europe. Returning Druze fought the Maronites in Mount Lebanon supported respectively by the British and the French. In 1860, the Druze forces utterly destroyed the Christians.
The Christian annihilation on Mount Lebanon put Damascus Christians in danger. Christian refugees, fleeing Druze bands, littered the lanes around churches. In July, 1860, communal violence saw a reported 5,000 Christians killed from an original population of 20,000. Rape, burning of property and looting were widespread. This provoked Napoleon III to send a military expedition to protect Christians. So the plan to discourage European intervention failed. Retributions against the Damascus perpetrators were put in place by the Ottomans, including a death sentence for the governor, in order to divert the French. Commissions were set up to compensate Christians. It was a brilliant response to deal with French grievances before they arrived on Syrian soil.
The Ottomans subsequently refused the British demands to abolish slavery since contravening the Qur'an had proved so disastrous. Instead they opposed the slave-trade which the Qur'an is silent on. The local economy and social welfare were the keys to Ottoman hearts and the only way to make Tanzimat pallatable. Electric trams for example would boost public pride and sway opinion towards reform.
In Egypt, the British were granted the concession to build the Alexandria toCairo railway which opened 1856. Then of course came the concession for the Suez Canal which went to the French. The British, who would be using the canal to get to its territories in India, objected to the free labour offered in the concession. When free labour was withdrawn, Napoleon II demanded 84 million francs compensation (about $33.5 million in 1864).
In 1861 the American Civil War saw cotton prices soar and Egypt's annual income rose from £1,000,000 in the early 1850s to £11,500,000 in the mid-1860s.
Ismail Pasha wanted to surpass the Ottomans and sought to remake his capital Cairo in the image of Paris to mark the opening of Suez. Each new concession made Egypt more vulnerable to European
domination and the coffers were being emptied. Tunisia was following exactly the same path. He formed a Nizami army equipped with modern weapons. Khayr al-Din, one of the last Maluks to rise from slavery to the peak of power was trained by that army. He echoed al-Tahtawi's assertion that Europe's debt to medieval Islamic science justified borrowings. he strived for vertical integration for the cotton and silk industries and watched in vain as national funds were frittered away.
Trying to keep up with Europe cost the Ottoman Empire and made it more reliant on European creditors. Khayr al-Din recommended spending within their means. Ahmad Bey was a spendthrift, vain leader. In Egypt a Consultative Council of Deputies, comprised of landed notables in 1866, saw a broader participation in affairs of state emerging.
Debt to Europe destroyed the Ottoman Empire, caused ironically by it's attempt to keep up with European technological and societal advances. An agreement with European debtors saw the Ottomans lose control of their finances in 1881 with the Ottoman Public Debt Administration which effectively opened the Ottoman economy to companies from Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands for railways, mining and public works. Egypt was the last to go bankrupt in 1876 but ahead of that date, the government had attempted to staunch the haemorrhage by selling its shares in Suez to the British in 1875 for £4 million ($22 million).
'Over time, informal imperial control hardened into direct colonial rule, as the whole of North Africa was partitioned and distributed among the growing empires of Europe.'
 |
| The accredited photograph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce |
Europe had surpassed the Ottomans in military and economic might although they still assumed their culture to be superior. Reform was accepted as being necessary to avoid being overrun by the European threat. They wanted steamships, telegraph and railways. However, reform led to unpaid debts and that gave Europe more leverage over the Ottoman Empire. To delegate spending, a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament was set-up between 1839 and 1876 - this period was called Tanzimat 'reordering'. Corporal punishment was curbed and torture were abolished and an annual budget regularized the empire's finances. An annual census and land registry were introduced to increase tax revenues which led to the advent of elementary schools to train thousands of the civil servants required. Attempts were also made to reconcile Islamic law with European legal norms.
Europeans used religion to meddle in Ottoman affairs. Unbelievably, the Crimean War 1854-1855, had its roots in who got the keys to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Catholic or Greek Orthodox monks. The French backed the Catholics, the Russians the Greeks and the rest is history. In order to avoid European interference, government attempted to confer equality between Muslims and non-Muslims which got them in trouble with with The Qur'an. However following Crimea, at the risk of public outrage, the 1856 Reform Decree established complete equality of all Ottoman subjects, regardless of faith. The reform risked provoking rebellion against the government and violence between its subjects. Muhammad 'Ali did it in egypt in 1820 and the Ottoman's thought they could manage it too.
Muslims attacked Christians in Aleppo in October, 1850, resentful of their commercial contacts in Europe. Returning Druze fought the Maronites in Mount Lebanon supported respectively by the British and the French. In 1860, the Druze forces utterly destroyed the Christians.
 |
| A Druze woman wearing a tantour. |
The Christian annihilation on Mount Lebanon put Damascus Christians in danger. Christian refugees, fleeing Druze bands, littered the lanes around churches. In July, 1860, communal violence saw a reported 5,000 Christians killed from an original population of 20,000. Rape, burning of property and looting were widespread. This provoked Napoleon III to send a military expedition to protect Christians. So the plan to discourage European intervention failed. Retributions against the Damascus perpetrators were put in place by the Ottomans, including a death sentence for the governor, in order to divert the French. Commissions were set up to compensate Christians. It was a brilliant response to deal with French grievances before they arrived on Syrian soil.
The Ottomans subsequently refused the British demands to abolish slavery since contravening the Qur'an had proved so disastrous. Instead they opposed the slave-trade which the Qur'an is silent on. The local economy and social welfare were the keys to Ottoman hearts and the only way to make Tanzimat pallatable. Electric trams for example would boost public pride and sway opinion towards reform.
 |
| Damascus tram in 1920. |
In Egypt, the British were granted the concession to build the Alexandria toCairo railway which opened 1856. Then of course came the concession for the Suez Canal which went to the French. The British, who would be using the canal to get to its territories in India, objected to the free labour offered in the concession. When free labour was withdrawn, Napoleon II demanded 84 million francs compensation (about $33.5 million in 1864).
In 1861 the American Civil War saw cotton prices soar and Egypt's annual income rose from £1,000,000 in the early 1850s to £11,500,000 in the mid-1860s.
Ismail Pasha wanted to surpass the Ottomans and sought to remake his capital Cairo in the image of Paris to mark the opening of Suez. Each new concession made Egypt more vulnerable to European
 |
| The Alexandria to Cairo railway opened in 1956 |
Trying to keep up with Europe cost the Ottoman Empire and made it more reliant on European creditors. Khayr al-Din recommended spending within their means. Ahmad Bey was a spendthrift, vain leader. In Egypt a Consultative Council of Deputies, comprised of landed notables in 1866, saw a broader participation in affairs of state emerging.
Debt to Europe destroyed the Ottoman Empire, caused ironically by it's attempt to keep up with European technological and societal advances. An agreement with European debtors saw the Ottomans lose control of their finances in 1881 with the Ottoman Public Debt Administration which effectively opened the Ottoman economy to companies from Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands for railways, mining and public works. Egypt was the last to go bankrupt in 1876 but ahead of that date, the government had attempted to staunch the haemorrhage by selling its shares in Suez to the British in 1875 for £4 million ($22 million).
'Over time, informal imperial control hardened into direct colonial rule, as the whole of North Africa was partitioned and distributed among the growing empires of Europe.'
 |
| British troops at the base of the Sphinx at the Great Pyramids in Giza in 1882. |
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