Empire and Education Under the Ottomans: Politics, Reform, and Resistance from the Tanzimat to the Young Turks 9780755607723, 9781780761091

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LIST OF FIGURES

1. Provincial map of the late Ottoman Empire 2. Students of the Aşiret Mektebi—the Ottoman school for tribes 3. Map of the Ottoman Balkans 4. An idadî school, Yanya 5. Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa 6. Students of the Imperial Military Middle School, Monastir 7. Imperial Military Middle School, Beirut 8. An idadî school, Aleppo 9. An idadî school, Baghdad 10. The front gate of Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanîsi, Istanbul

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LIST OF TABLES

3.1 Ottoman population statistics as constructed for the Three Provinces of Ottoman Macedonia, circa 1905 3.2 Villages of at least fifty households and with no ibtidaî in Kosovo vilâyet

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LIST OF CHARTS

3.1 Ottoman population statistics as constructed for the Three Provinces of Ottoman Macedonia, circa 1905

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TIMELINE

1789–1807 1798 1802 1804–1813 1807 1807–1808 1808–1839 1811–1818 1815–1817 1821–1829 1830 1832 1839 1839–1861 1853–1856 1856 1861–1876 1866–1869 1867 1869

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Reign of Sultan Selim III Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt Wahhabis seize Mecca First Serbian Uprising Deposition and later assassination of Sultan Selim III Reign of Sultan Mustafa IV Reign of Sultan Mahmud II Ottoman/Egyptian—Wahhabi War Second Serbian Uprising Greek War of Independence French invasion and seizure of Ottoman Algeria Treaty of Constantinople and establishment of Kingdom of Greece First major Tanzimat decree, also specified as the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane Reign of Sultan Abdülmecid I Crimean War Second major Tanzimat decree, specified as the Hatt-ı Hümayun or the Islahat Reign of Sultan Abdülaziz I Cretan Revolt Ottoman forces expelled from Serbia Education Act of 1869

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TIMELINE

1876 1876–1909 1877 1877–1878 1878

1880 1881 1882

1884 1885 1895–1897 1898 1908

1909–1918

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Reign of Sultan Murad V Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II Romanian War of Independence Russo-Turkish War Sultan Abdülhamid II suspends Ottoman Constitution and Ottoman Parliament in February Treaty of San Stefano signed March 3 Cyprus Convention on June 4 results in Britain’s acquisition of Cyprus from Ottomans in exchange for British support both at Congress of Berlin and vis-à-vis Russia Prizren League first convenes on June 10 in the southern Kosovo city of Prizren Treaty of Berlin results from the Congress of Berlin, which was held in June and July Rumeli Vilayetleri Nizamnamesi drafted by Ottomans French seizure of Ottoman Tunisia Establishment of Kingdom of Romania Provincial Education Directorates with inspectors established in the Ottoman Empire Britain invades and seizes Egypt Establishment of Kingdom of Serbia Education Contribution Tax (or maarif hisse-i ianesi) Eastern Rumelia united with Principality of Bulgaria Serbo-Bulgarian War in November Cretan revolution, ending with Great Powers’ occupation of island Cretan state established Young Turk Revolution compelling Sultan Abdülhamid II to reinstate Ottoman Constitution and Ottoman Parliament Establishment of Kingdom of Bulgaria with Principality of Bulgaria’s declaration of independence from Ottoman Empire Annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary Unification of Crete with Greece Reign of Sultan Mehmed V

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1910 1911–1912 1912 1912–1913 1913

1914–1918 1918–1922 1918–1923 1922 1924

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Establishment of Kingdom of Montenegro Italo-Turkish War Italian seizure of Ottoman Libya First Balkan War Second Balkan War Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 results in Ottoman renunciation of claims to Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, with varying degrees of British authority/annexation asserted over each Ottoman cession of Albania following the Second Balkan War World War I Reign of Sultan Mehmed VI Anglo-French occupation of Istanbul Ottoman Empire and sultanate abolished Caliphate abolished

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PREFACE

Once known as “the Eternal State,” the Ottoman Empire by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could no longer confidently bear that appellation. During these pivotal years, imperial dissolution transpired rapidly as a consequence of economic decline, intense competition with other empires, and rising desires within the empire’s diverse communities to establish independent nation-states. Amid these dynamics, Ottoman leaders sought to implement modernist philosophies and ideals of state and education, charging the empire’s diverse schools with the mission of fostering cohesion and imperial loyalty in the face of territorial annexation by European rivals and outright secession by minority populations. My book surveys and analyzes the politics and practices of modern schooling agendas in the Ottoman imperial provinces from 1869 until the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. My analysis shows that late Ottoman educational politics emerged both as state-led initiatives to achieve social and political control through top-down governmental “reform” schemes and as contested terrains in center-periphery struggles over matters including—but often extending far beyond—curriculum, teachers, and educational taxes. I contend that late Ottoman education cannot be viewed simply as the state’s imposition of its will on powerless and passive populations. Rather, it must also be viewed with regard to local adaptation, negotiation, acceptance, and resistance. Indeed, the narrative is not simply one of policies centrally imposed

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and locally assimilated; it is a dynamic history of varied social interactions with diverse factors of influence and mixed outcomes. Thus my book, distinct from existing works on Ottoman education, critically evaluates the politics of actually implementing educational policies, on the one hand, and of resisting them, on the other hand, as experienced and documented in late Ottoman Balkan and Arabic-speaking provinces of the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, the primary materials employed for my study are from the Maarif İraade collection of the Başbakanlık Archive in Istanbul, Turkey, and include: records from the Ottoman Ministries of Education, Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Internal Affairs; records from the office of the Grand Vizier; commission reports, correspondence, curricula, and textbooks; and, key imperial decrees relevant to various aspects of education during the years analyzed. Impressed by the empire’s recordkeeping capabilities, in general—particularly in the decades preceding its collapse, I was most intrigued by how the records of correspondence contained within this collection conveyed educational matters from a plurality of perspectives that were often at odds with one another. Because these documents were previously not utilized by historians of Ottoman education, my case studies (or chapters), analysis, and conclusions are novel in terms of content and perspective(s). Although each chapter of my book may be viewed as a distinct vignette that renders unique insight into the overall conduct of Ottoman governance throughout the empire, they convey collectively a comprehensive portrayal of Ottoman statecraft and schooling. My thesis is that educational policies aimed at building citizenship and loyalty instead heightened ethnolinguistic and religious identities, thus contributing to—rather than inhibiting—the empire’s demise. In presenting this local yet regionally-comprehensive history of Ottoman education, my study thus highlights the varied agendas behind imperial educational policies, their application to subject populations and places, and community-scale reactions. Finally, as a contribution to the study of the Ottoman Empire, in general, and its histories of education, in particular, from the vantage of comparative and world histories of empire and education, I decided to include as my first appendix to this book my translated and edited

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version of the Education Act of 1869. Although many of the events covered in my book transpired in the decades following the authoring of this act, its foundational and symbolic significance for the empire both in education and in governance made it a point of recurring reference in my own study and a text of paramount importance in many others. To this end of enhancing accessibility to this field in Ottoman and education studies, I also sought to include a thorough glossary of many relevant terms and concepts. In these regards, I hope that my book inspires further historical analysis of schooling and society-state relations in the late Ottoman period.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Since the time that I began to work on the early stages of what developed into both my career and this book, I have accrued many debts to many people. I will try to speak to those who were most helpful, inspirational, or just fun to be with along the way. My love of history was nurtured and encouraged by a few of the teachers who inspired me as a student at Atatürk University in Erzurum, Turkey. In particular, I am grateful to Muhsin Bozkurt for sharing his appreciation for and love of Ottoman Turkish and for helping me to realize its rich diversity and many subtleties. I also am extremely grateful to Dündar Aydın, who always had faith in me. As a research question, the topic of education in the late Ottoman Empire was first suggested to me by my former advisor in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kemal H. Karpat. As a graduate student in Madison, his enthusiasm for topics of nationalism and religion in the Hamidian era was contagious, and I appreciated his insights during this early stage in my work. As a PhD student in History at the University of Arizona, I benefitted greatly from the advising team that supported my further development as a student and historian. My co-advisor and Ottomanist advisor Linda Darling provided continuous support throughout my time in Tucson, and she has been a good friend ever since. My co-advisor Julia Clancy-Smith was a great source of motivation and continues to inspire me to write beyond the narrative style that I was indoctrinated in as an undergraduate and early graduate student in Turkey. Finally, Laura

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Tabili was extremely generous with her time, her editorial and other suggestions, and her example as a scholar and mentor. Before I even arrived to begin my first tenure-stream position in History at Michigan State University (MSU), Mark Kornbluh, David Bailey, and Pero Dagbovie helped me to feel welcome and like I was a part of the community in East Lansing. From the time of my arrival, I benefitted greatly from the time and dedication demonstrated by Mark Kornbluh as he created an inclusive and productive atmosphere for junior faculty like me in the department. Since Mark’s departure, I have continued to receive terrific support and advice from Walter Hawthorne. Serving as both official and unofficial mentors, many of the senior faculty that I met when I began at MSU have also been strong sources of support; in particular, I would like to thank Alan Fisher, Gordon Stewart, Lisa Fine, Leslie Moch, Sayuri Shimizu, Susan Sleeper-Smith, Pero Dagbovie, Kirsten Fermaglich, Daina Ramey Berry, David Robinson, Laurent Dubois, Maureen Flanagan, and Keely Stauter-Halsted. During my first years at MSU, I also greatly enjoyed both the large number of new historians at MSU and the reading group that some of us attended—especially Katie Dubois, Erica Windler, Ethan Segal, and Ben Smith. I am also very grateful to Laura Fair for her friendship and the time shared gardening at her farm. In terms of institutional, scholarly, and financial assistance, I have been fortunate for the support that I received. The NAEd/Spencer Fellowship that I received enabled me to focus on my documents and writing for one year, and grants from MSU through the CASID (Center for Advanced Study of International Development), GenCen (Center for Gender in a Global Context), and Muslim Studies programs all provided various research support grants, as did the Department of History through MSU’s Sesquicentennial award for cartographic and GIS support. I benefitted greatly from assistance received from staff at the Başbakanlık Archive (especially from Ömer Ceylan) and the Bayezid Devlet Kütüphanesi—both in Istanbul, Turkey’s National Library in Ankara, at the National Archive in Washington, DC, at the Regenstein Library’s Middle East collection at the University of Chicago, and at MSU in both the inter-library loan department and at RS/GIS (especially from Sarah AcMoody). Organizationally, while

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I have enjoyed some of the larger conferences, I really feel that I have benefitted most from the smaller meetings held under the auspices of both GLOW (the Great Lakes Ottomanist Workshop—not to be confused with the other organization sharing that acronym, the Great Ladies of Wrestling) and MEHaT (Middle East History and Theory) at the University of Chicago. Additionally, although edited and augmented substantially since its original publication, one of my chapters draws heavily upon my article “An educational prescription for the Sultan: Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s advice for the maladies of empire,” which appeared in 2007 in Middle Eastern Studies, volume 43, number 3. I am grateful for being able to republish portions of it in its reworked form herein. Many friends and associates have also provided encouragement, suggestions, and morale along the way. In particular, going back to Erzurum, I am forever grateful to my friend Deniz Bilgen. Since arriving at MSU, I have enjoyed the friendship of Gamze Çavdar and Yavuz Yaşar, Jyotsna Singh, and Mara Leichtman. Beyond MSU, I have appreciated suggestions received during my sometimes-annual (especially at MESA) discussions and encounters with Hale Yılmaz, Kent Schull, Nancy Stockdale, Gavin Brockett, Carolyn Goffman, Ben Fortna, Tijana Krstic, and Ryan Gingeras. Also at MSU, my undergraduate research assistant and honors advisee Patrick Heffner was especially helpful. In bringing my manuscript to publication, I am grateful for the comments of anonymous reviewers at I.B.Tauris and the assistance provided by Rasna Dhillon and Tomasz Hoskins. Though my thanks are many, I claim all responsibility for any errors or shortcomings in this final product. In reflecting upon my upbringing and my family, I am inspired by the memories of my late mother and father. I am grateful to my mother, Şükran, as she taught me first-hand about the limitations of illiteracy for girls and women in a context with profound societal and cultural restrictions, and to my father, Ömer, who came to appreciate the value of learning and eventually overcame his fears of allowing for an educated daughter. I am also grateful to my brother Muzo, always there when I needed help and an unwavering friend, and to my sister

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Fatoş, a dear friend and fighter. Some of my in-laws were also quite helpful, as my late mother-in-law Barbara A. Evered helped me to free up my summers while I completed my dissertation by having her son and grandson visit at the cabin, and my late sister-in-law Dana L. Evered was nothing short of a second mother to our son. In closing, I save my greatest thanks for last. For Kyle—for whom my words are insufficient for conveying the gratitude that I have—we not only grew up together over the last twenty years (since meeting in Karpat’s seminars) but he also helped to incorporate my studies of Ottoman history into our lives along the way, I thank you. Finally, for our son, Augie, who grew up hearing about a dissertation—and then a book, who wanted to learn the Ottoman alphabet as he saw his mother reading and writing, and who helped me learn about childhood and education in America through sharing his own, I dedicate this book.

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Figure 1: Provincial map of the late Ottoman Empire1

CHAPTER 1 NO OTTOM AN CHILD LEFT BEHIND: ON GOVER NMENTALIT Y AND EDUCATION

Government as a general problem seems to me to explode in the sixteenth century, posed by discussions of quite diverse questions. . . . There is government of children and the great problematic of pedagogy that emerges and develops during the sixteenth century. Michel Foucault on governmentality2 Throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire undertook major reform programs to reconstitute and enhance its power through the development of a modern state structure.3 One of the most critical of these initiatives, the Education Act of 1869 (translated in full and presented in Appendix 1), introduced a centralized and compulsory education system that was modeled after the French example.4 While thorough implementation was delayed until the 1880s,5 this intervention in the lives and communities of the empire’s populations was influenced not only by developments in Western philosophies and systems of governance6 but also by the eroding sovereignty of the Ottoman state over its own territories and peoples. Confronting many challenges, the empire’s modernizing elites hoped that their anticipated system of education would reduce social

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and political disorder and create a cohesive society under a statecentered ideology of Ottomanism. The aspirations of the Ottoman state to spread education to the most remote regions of the empire, however, were often frustrated. Its goals were stymied by the empire’s dwindling financial and institutional resources, its immense geographic extent and demographic diversity, and escalating competition with foreign powers.7 Implementation was also impeded by the fact that various ethnonational8 and religious communities within the empire already had high-quality schools available for their children.9 This was especially true among urban communities of some—though definitely not all—non-Muslim populations. Moreover, it was not uncommon for those non-Muslims with the economic means to do so to send their children abroad for advanced schooling. The existence of such schools was a fact known by most Western observers of the day, such as the American William Eleroy Curtis (1850–1911), an author and proponent of America’s growing role in global affairs: The Greeks, Armenians, and Jews each have their own schools connected with their churches and maintained by private contributions. Some of them offer a high standard of education and have fine libraries.10 Hyde Clarke confirmed the same when he wrote, “Some of the schools of the Greek and Armenian communities in Turkey are equal to anything in Europe.”11 When the Education Act of 1869 was proclaimed, many minority communities thus already had not only their own developed systems of schooling but also their own ideals and expectations about the purposes of an education. As a result, groups of various ethnonational and religious compositions throughout the empire were drawn into an emergent system of imperial education. Given that many of these communities had—and sought to retain—their own schools and educational agendas, relationships of contestation emerged frequently. Such confrontations led to instances of acquiescence, resistance, and negotiated alternatives, based on the relative demands and positions of the communities and the state. In short, and as this study establishes,

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given the empire’s geographic, institutional, and fiscal limitations, local communities and individuals shaped the Ottoman state’s ambitious education policies as implemented, at least as much as they were shaped by these policies. This book examines these interactions over education and governance in the different parts of the empire where ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse populations lived. The communities examined, which were located in the Balkans and in the Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern and North African provinces, displayed multifarious responses to centralized education. This book thus brings together a view not just of the decrees that emerged from Istanbul but also of local, communal claims and reactions to the state. It does so in order to analyze critically varied roles in the dynamics of center-periphery relations that shaped the contours and conduct of imperial educational politics and the empire’s governance of minority communities in the late Ottoman era. As I demonstrate in subsequent chapters, however, the new tools and techniques of political administration that the empire adopted—to include the implementation and application of modern schooling policies—proved not infrequently to be insufficient and even counterproductive for effective Ottoman governance. Moreover, the state’s attempts to render an inclusive and attractive imperial ideology of citizenship failed to match the unifying fervor of emergent ethnonationalisms. Meanwhile, the constant interference of Western powers—which claimed to be merely promoting reforms for minorities and modernization—also frustrated Ottoman efforts to establish and retain control. In the words of one eminent scholar of European history, by demanding privileges for various ethnoreligious groups, “the very Western European powers that were aggressively establishing direct rule within their own domestic territories successfully pressed Ottoman authorities to create special statuses for ostensible nationalities, thus hindering the establishment of direct rule and generalized citizenship in the empire.”12 From Sovereigns to Educators

Emerging at the beginning of the fourteenth century as a small frontier principality in Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire grew rapidly to

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incorporate ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse communities under the sovereign rule of their leaders, the sultans.13 Organizing these distinct subject communities along the lines of their religious affiliations, in a sociopolitical structure known collectively as the millet system, the Ottoman Empire was able to administer a diverse population by granting to its subordinate communities, or millets, a semiautonomous status.14 So long as these communities were loyal to the empire and recognized its sovereignty under the sultan, the system functioned well enough. However, various processes (e.g., the rise of ethnonationalist movements in the years following the French Revolution) that were under way and specific events (e.g., Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, and the increasing frequency of insurrections by local, semiautonomous leaders governing peripheral Ottoman territories)15 that occurred by the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created new challenges in Ottoman statecraft—and to Ottoman legitimacy, altering drastically the empire’s otherwise remote relationships with the majority of its diverse communities. As the empire entered into the modern era, any exercise of absolute control by a distant sultan, as conditioned by generalized policies of pluralism and relative autonomy in the empire’s peripheries, was no longer practicable. Internally and externally, the state and its leaders were threatened. The search for an ideology that could integrate all communities and strengthen the state in the face of foreign and domestic challenges continued until the empire’s demise in the early 1920s.16 Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkism were pursued by various leaders, parties, and governments of the empire from 1839 until its eventual collapse.17 Of these, Ottomanism was the least exclusive and most common. After 1839 the Ottoman government endeavored steadily to expand its administration over its existing territories to permit far greater control over its subject peoples. In these contexts, Ottoman governance entailed attempts at social engineering and political retuning of state-society relations—shifts in statecraft that had obvious parallels and precedents in the rise of the modern states of Western Europe. The reforms for modernization came with an emphasis on a new identification for all Ottoman subjects that was intended to go beyond

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traditional relationships of loyalty to the state and sultan. Ottomanism was thus the state-based identity expected of all subjects living in the empire’s lands. Anticipating that this statewide identity would bring together the empire’s diverse communities without challenging their existing identities (as based on religious, ethnic, linguistic, and other factors), Ottoman leaders expected that major reforms extending equal rights to all subjects and incorporating them into a centralized administrative apparatus would block further developments of fractious ethnonationalisms and serve as a bulwark against foreign intrigues. Decrees (i.e., the Tanzimat reforms) were announced in 1839 and 1856, declaring and guaranteeing the equality of all citizens regardless of religion.18 Given the population’s profound ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity, most Ottoman statesmen viewed this state-based identity as the most neutral and least antagonistic ideology to pursue as the empire struggled for social unity and economic and political stability. Following patterns of worldwide change in the realms of education and citizenship-building that were intended to make state-sponsored schooling more accessible to the youth of ordinary families, not just the children of elites,19 nineteenth-century Ottoman rulers elected to adopt similar policies and goals. Reformers in the state aimed to achieve this objective through the establishment of a centralized school system for all children of the empire. This evolution of the state as educator hypothetically enabled it to assume and wield enormous power, as the state thus declared its right to intervene pedagogically in the life of every child within its domains. This was a new chapter in statechild and state-citizen relations; providing schools was a governmental intervention that went far beyond existing traditions of education. The Ottoman reformist elite came to view schooling all children of the empire as an essential service (and strategy) in counteracting growing social unrest throughout the empire’s territories. These developments in Ottoman educational policies reflected attempts to extend imperial governance not only to the population but also to the political economy of the empire.20 Schooling and vocational training were viewed increasingly as necessary initial steps toward a wider industrialization that the Ottoman economy needed to foster to compete effectively both internationally and at home.21 Education

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would give the state an opportunity to socialize children at an early age so that they would become loyal to the empire, would be integrated with other community members, and would also make vocational and fiscal contributions to the empire’s economic health. Facing ethnonationalist separatisms and regional demands for autonomy, reformers within the state and beyond saw centralized education as a means to isolate and eradicate phenomena of ethnonational and religious resistance and to integrate different communities into a shared, multinational or cosmopolitan, modern Ottoman society. In countering social unrest within the empire, education thus became the centerpiece in the state’s wider citizenship project. Such projects are, in truth, twofold initiatives to promote state legitimacy among a population. First, legitimation happens directly through instruction (i.e., indoctrination) in citizenship-building lessons. Second, it occurs through the indirect accord (i.e., contract) that a state strikes with its ruled populace when services (e.g., education) are provided and accepted. Indeed, the potential power of schools made education an attractive undertaking for many modernizing, citizenship- and nationbuilding states of the era,22 and the Ottoman Empire, with its citizenship-building aspirations, was thus not unique in this regard. What distinguished the Ottoman Empire from Western and a few other emerging nation-states of the day was its status as a vast land-based imperial entity that included so many ethnically, linguistically, and religiously different communities within its contiguous borders.23 Given this complex social structure and geography, the introduction of Ottomanism as the overarching identity for the empire’s diverse communities—many of which were pressing for increased autonomy and even territorial sovereignty—was a calculated measure that the Ottoman state was compelled to take. This empire-wide identity passed through various manifestations as the nineteenth century came to a close and the social and territorial structure of the empire changed substantially. Concurrently and in site- and population-specific contexts, the state also focused on the Islamic identity of its majority Muslim population when tactically advantageous.24 This was true especially during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909). Nonetheless, although the ideology of the Ottoman state would incorporate and shift

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to Islamism when expedient, the broad principles of central education established with the Education Act of 1869 continued in force amid such modifications. While the goals of the state would thus encourage Muslim unity, the principles of—and the techniques for achieving—a centralized system of education remained intact and were indeed enforced more rigorously as the years progressed. It must be acknowledged that, while the Education Act of 1869 was a significant intellectual and institutionally legislated moment, it was not the beginning of the state’s direct involvements in education, nor was it the genesis of thinking about modern or mass schooling within the Ottoman Empire. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state started paying attention to education, especially during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–39).25 Efforts to spread education to the masses and to employ modern ideas only became viable, however, after the Education Act of 1869, which hypothetically systematized over the whole of the empire what earlier sultans had pushed for piecemeal. There were, therefore, already state schools in the Ottoman Empire by 1869, but they were limited in numbers and locations, and they lacked administrative coordination. After 1869, state schooling became (at least conceptually—until full implementation in the 1880s) a different phenomenon, one that would diffuse from the center of the empire to its peripheries, with greater consistency in form and content. It is also important to note that prior to 1869 there existed not only state schools but numerous community schools at local levels, established by each religious denomination to train its own children. There were missionary and foreign schools as well, and the empire also permitted private schools. For Muslim children, the mektebs and medreses, as managed by religiously trained teachers, or müderris, were the most common forms of primary and postprimary schools that were available. The Education Act of 1869 allowed all of these existing schools to continue to operate, but it also attempted to marginalize some of them. Making private, missionary, and foreign schools subject to state licensing, registration, and inspection, the Ottoman state endeavored to pave its own way to establishing its preferred alternatives. Non-Muslim community schools were also subject to the same state provisions, but

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the state refrained from interfering in their religious or language teaching, especially at primary levels of education. The Muslims’ mektebs and medreses and their teachers were targeted much more directly, as the state saw the education provided by the mektebs and medreses both as backward and ideologically unsuitable, on one hand, and as incapable of fulfilling the empire’s political and developmental needs, on the other. For this reason, the Ottoman state, through decree and discourse, attempted to alter existing Islamic community schools and offer its own state schools as the most appropriate option in providing for Muslim children’s education. This focus on reforming or replacing Muslim primary schools derived from several factors. In the nineteenth century, the Islamic religious establishment opposed many of the centralizing reforms that the Ottoman state initiated. As a consequence, leaders within the state commonly perceived and depicted the religious establishment as antimodernist and reactionary. Ottoman reformers thus endeavored to depict the empire as—and to function eventually as—the ideal provider of primary education for its Muslim children, a job previously in the hands of the traditional religious establishment. In characterizing the religious establishment as backward, the state conversely empowered itself to define its own educational plans and its schools as “progressive” or, more commonly, as “scientific” alternatives. When the state initiated its reforms, although many mektebs and medreses retained some of their traditional elements and continued to employ some of the same teachers, the state mandated ceremonial transitions authorizing and reestablishing each of these schools with the state’s seal of approval. Mekteb and medrese teachers were now subject to retraining and certification, and the schools themselves were subject to licensing, registration, and inspection. The Ottoman Empire’s emergence as educator gave the state the necessary credentials and means to promote its modern state- and citizenship-building plans. This development, however, was also a transition from an imperial state that legitimated its sovereignty on the basis of dynastic and religious grounds to an entity that staked its legitimacy on its capacities to modernize—modernize itself, its economy, and its populace. Cultural and societal transformations were hypothetically in

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the hands of the state, as presumed educator, and schooling was thus employed not only to spread redefined images of sultan, caliphate, and empire but also to connect the state more directly with its people. Despite the obvious paternalism in this pedagogical approach to governance, actually achieving integration and loyalty through a centralized education system was a constant struggle not only for the state but for its subject communities. Indeed, inherent to this transition to a state—albeit an empire—that prioritizes the development of its populace as an ultimate objective and source of legitimacy, is a significant amplification of the capacities and consequences of subjects’ resistance. In the Ottoman context, the ideas and techniques that the state employed to rule its population and to school its children were complicated greatly by its subject communities and their disparate demands. As a result, when we examine the state’s efforts to govern its populace through education, we observe many different contours of what we may identify as both imperial hegemony and Ottoman governmentality, as per the works of Gramsci and Foucault, respectively.26 Imperial Hegemony and Ottoman Governmentality

A critical examination of the nineteenth-century Ottoman experience in terms of Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of governmentality can best explain many of these processes of change not only within the empire but also in the form and function of the empire itself.27 Although Foucault employs the term governmentality to trace the developments of political change in the West—its unique histories of “governmentalization of the state”28—his inquiry is also revealing in non-European contexts of modernization and political consolidation. Observing shifts in the forms of governance during the eighteenth century, he describes their manifestation as a “distinctly new form of thinking about and exercising of power.”29 This new form of governance was indeed based on the use of knowledge and control and thus constituted a “rationality of social control.”30 Foucault identifies the development of governmentality as essential for the survival of the modern state. The eighteenth century saw an elaboration in the forms of Western administrative states, which were expanding their claims of sovereignty from their

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territories and all those “subjects who inhabit it”31 to a broader focus on the population itself. Underlying these shifts were concurrent developments in the power of states to dictate, to coerce, and to discipline. The effective state would now function, as Foucault recalls Guillaume de La Perrièr’s metaphor, like the bumblebee armed with knowledge that “rules the beehive without needing a sting.”32 Though the Ottoman leadership increasingly sought to master its knowledge of its domains and subjects, this idea of rule sans sting was a novelty quite far from the realities of a sometimes desperate Ottoman state. Foucault asserts that the emergence of governmentality in the eighteenth century was attributable to booms in population, agricultural production, economic growth, and the availability of money. Demographic growth and associated levels of economic and fiscal prosperity thus became the focus for state leaders; more so than simply knowing one’s territory. As a consequence, effective control (i.e., both knowing and managing) of these numbers became the “ultimate end of the government.”33 While states made their subject populations into the targets for development, advances in states’ capacities to exert control were also devoted to matters of political economy. After all, “to govern properly, to ensure the happiness and prosperity of the population, it is necessary to govern through a particular register, that of the economy.”34 The new notion of the government—and of society, therefore— required that it be a state of “each and all” caring for every individual and the entire population.35 Since the populace was the paramount focus of governmentality, the state was expected to look after the “welfare of the population, the improvement of its conditions, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health, and so on.”36 Such newly idealized roles of states were both the reason and the justification for the large-scale campaigns in education, in health, and in other social realms that became the standard in developed and modernizing states as the nineteenth century progressed. The Ottoman Empire strove to follow this trend, establishing schools and opening new medical centers, but it did so in the relative absence of analogous foundations, such as comparable economic growth and resources, political power, and societal cohesion. It is worth noting that most of these new roles taken on by governments had traditionally been in the hands of religious establishments.

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In essence, by pledging to shoulder the burdens of caring for the sick, alleviating poverty, and educating children, new states were replacing religious institutions.37 The new providers of such services were now the secular states, initiating major shifts in the arrangements of “pastoral power.” As noted previously, a significant component in the emergence of governmentality was the development and adoption of tools and techniques to learn more about the populations that states sought to govern. The quantity of information collected depended not only on the capabilities of the state but also on its goals regarding its peoples. As James C. Scott astutely writes, Just as a woodsman who takes only an occasional load of firewood from a large forest need have no detailed knowledge of that forest, so a state whose demands are confined to grabbing a few carts of grain and the odd conscript may not require a very accurate or detailed map of the society. If, however, the state is ambitious . . . then it will have to become both far more knowledgeable and far more intrusive.38 The ability to collect pertinent, useful information was also dependent on a state’s desire and capacity to make such information “legible”—or actionable. Examining nineteenth-century statistical collections in his largely biographical study of American Francis A. Walker, Matthew Hannah demonstrates how the United States employed such information in formulating and implementing policy with respect to Native Americans.39 Inventories amassed by states about peoples and resources were thus, in Scott’s words, “organized in a manner that permit[ted] them to be identified, observed, recorded, counted, aggregated, and monitored.” 40 In the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, especially after the rise to power of Abdülhamid II in 1876, there was a major expansion in surveillance and in the collection of information for the purposes of controlling populations.41 Although the empire already kept very good records for taxation purposes, there was an explosion in the types and the volumes of information that were collected by the Ottoman state of the late nineteenth century.

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Once the state is empowered by data on its subjects, its methods of control, coercion, and discipline become a significant component of our inquiry into governmentality. According to Foucault, discipline in society existed before the rise in governmentality, but it became “more important or more valorized . . . at the moment when it became important to manage a population.” 42 Governmentality emerged not in isolation but rather in concert with the progression from the “society of sovereignty” to the “disciplinary society” and then to the “society of government.” Manifestations of governmentality thus preserved the features of previous systems by adding new dimensions. This evolution of governmentality would result, at its final stage, in a tripartite “sovereignty-discipline-government” political entity.43 One of the major developments in Ottoman statecraft during the nineteenth century was the dissemination of new ideas concerning governance. Many of these novel political philosophies envisioned and advocated a more modern and effective state. With the Tanzimat decrees of 1839 and 1856 and pressures toward realizing a bureaucratic state, many within the Ottoman ruling elite gradually changed their perceptions of government and governance. Amid this trend that fostered liberal reforms in the empire’s societal and political structures, there were also currents of thought that promoted recognition of total equality among all subjects living within the empire and the creation of a more representative body of governance in the form of an Ottoman parliament. All of these goals, it was imagined by many of their advocates, might be secured by enacting a constitution. In further contextualizing the Education Act of 1869, we might thus regard it as initially an outgrowth of this liberal Tanzimat era and associated notions of constitutionalism. While all of these currents of political change were under way by 1876, when Abdülhamid II ascended to the throne and vowed to adopt a constitution, he reversed course two years later, shelving any ratification of the document. According to his purported memoirs, he possibly even viewed constitutionalism as a medicine for specific ailments—but not one to be used as a panacea.44 Not until the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and their replacement of Abdülhamid II with another sultan in 1909 was the constitutional matter brought back for discussion.45

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Nonetheless, he did retain and advance particular liberal reforms that had arisen since the Tanzimat era, as was the case with the Education Act of 1869, which really only began to be realized by the 1880s. There were thus two major developments in nineteenth-century Ottoman governance and political life. First, there was the emergence of a modernist state under the 1839 Tanzimat—though much of what was associated with the Tanzimat reforms was hypothetical, implemented only at limited scales, in later years, or not at all.46 Second, there was the subsequent period of particularly autocratic governance from 1876 onward. Though this period was lacking a representative parliament (after Abdülhamid II’s first year as sultan) and a constitution, Abdülhamid II’s policies also sought to penetrate the daily lives of local communities in an effort to foster loyalty and achieve state control. Hamidian Governmentality

Generally referred as the “Hamidian era” in Ottoman history, the reign of Abdülhamid II is described as such to highlight his direct involvement in imperial administration, despite the pressures to ratify a constitution and create a functioning parliamentary state. For this reason, the Hamidian era presents historians with a prime opportunity to examine the development of governmentality, or the “art of governance,” within a modernizing non-European, absolutist context.47 Using schooling in the empire both as our topical focus and as a medium for our inquiry into this development, we can ascertain both the roots and the techniques of the Hamidian era’s “authoritarian governmentality.” 48 With its focus on all peoples of the empire and its usage of the emerging bureaucratic tools and techniques at the disposal of modernizing countries, the Hamidian state was truly the pioneering force in an Ottoman governmentality. This was apparent particularly in the empire’s extensive collection and use of data and in its efforts to insinuate itself into the daily lives of all members of its subject population; measures justified by authorities for the sakes of both modernization and security. The ideas of, and mechanisms for, governance that had been available to Western leaders since the eighteenth century were

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increasingly adopted by Ottoman rulers in their pursuit of more effective administration of the empire. Late-nineteenth-century Ottoman governance was also the culmination of a century-long set of processes. While it accomplished a partial transition into a bureaucratic and centralized state during the nineteenth century, the government also underwent another major shift, focusing ever more of its attention on its own population. The rise of ethnonationalisms among the empire’s subjects compelled rulers to become more introspective regarding their population, but the subjects of this administrative reorientation very often perceived it to be intrusive and inappropriate—thus further alienating the people from the state that sought to bring them closer. To survive, the empire found it necessary to learn more about its subjects and to control them more directly, yet subject communities that were accustomed to rather indirect measures by the empire chaffed at transformations that brought the imperial state into a more direct rule over them— compelling various peoples to react against control in ways that even gave rise to separatism. In many respects, therefore, Abdülhamid II’s reign was the zenith of the empire’s most dramatic changes in governmentality but also the period of the populace’s most overt reactions against the state, observable at both center and periphery. Although most literature concerning the rise of governmentality has pertained to its manifestations in liberal societies, there also exist expressions of “authoritarian governmentality” that “operate through obedient rather than free subjects, or at a minimum, endeavor to neutralize opposition to authority.”49 As I have observed, the late Ottoman period revealed features common to the notion of authoritarian governmentality. This was especially true during the rule of Abdülhamid II, whose policies focused so heavily on controlling the empire’s populations that it pursued an overriding objective to eliminate any and all words of opposition and acts of resistance against the state. In his supposed memoirs, Abdülhamid II (or the author purporting to be the sultan) likened himself to the gardener who protects his plants from dangerous pests, justifying the use of censorship to ward off subversive ideas and ideologies from the empire’s vulnerable population.50

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In analyzing these relations between rulers and subjects, how modern states derive their power is also significant. Michael Mann identifies five major spheres or sources of state power: the economic; the ideological; the military; the political; and actual leadership. Highlighting the significance of economic and ideological power, he asserts that modern states have the capacity to “convert economic and ideological resources . . . into military power—a test at which they may be more or less effective.”51 Seen in these terms, the late Ottoman state lacked the economic power of its European counterparts, yet it might well be argued that Abdülhamid II focused on education not only to increase economic growth but also to augment the state’s ideological power (through the use of schooling to promote ideologies of both Ottomanism and Islamism), thus enhancing potentially the military strength that late Ottoman rulers so aspired to command. His reintroduction of the title of the caliphate, as the highest Islamic institution of leadership over all Muslims, was intended to symbolize such imagined military power both among Ottoman Muslim subjects and abroad, especially as a counterweight to the empire’s competitors with large Muslim colonies, such as Britain, France, and Russia. Consistent with Bismarck’s aphorism—“the nation that has the schools has the future”52—Abdülhamid II pushed to use schooling to achieve the twin goals of uniting the people of the empire and enhancing its prospects for economic and political survival. Ottoman policies in education never came close to realizing the results of Germany’s educational agenda (i.e., 29,000 trained teachers and an 85 percent literacy rate—higher than in either Britain or France),53 as its efforts to create a more centralized and modern state and an educated, loyal, and prosperous populace were frustrated by western European powers’ involvements in Ottoman affairs, by demands for privileges—even independence—from ethnonational and religious communities, and by its own overly ambitious hopes and methods. The Hamidian Restructuring of Reform

During the reign of Abdülhamid II, the Ottoman state’s attempts to create a more cohesive society and to eliminate ethnonationalist

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aspirations were challenged by certain factions of the elite who believed reforms were actually undermining the social and political structures of the empire. Concluding that policies appeared to be creating conditions of unequal development between Muslims and non-Muslims, Abdülhamid II observed that the empire was empowering the latter at the expense of the former. Political reforms had resulted in a constitution and a parliament in 1876, institutions that would have limited the powers of the ruling monarch. These restrictions on his power were thus a major factor motivating Abdülhamid II’s reversal of constitutional reforms. Under his own nominally more Islamist-oriented programs, however, new levels of social and political engineering that targeted more directly the empire’s Muslim population emerged. Such overt involvements in Muslim community life brought new tensions and conflicts, which contributed to Abdülhamid II’s fall, with the coming of the Young Turk Revolution after his thirty-two-year rule. Other developments in the Ottoman Empire also led Abdülhamid II to follow a more Islamist agenda. The war with Russia in 1877– 1878 and both the Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin that followed it were major blows to the empire, resulting in military and territorial losses in the Balkans. Commenting on the outcomes of the Congress of Berlin with regard to the Ottoman Balkans, one historian wrote: At the end of the Berlin Congress, six Powers had the right to intervene in Macedonian affairs in order to supervise the application of the reforms mentioned in Article 23 to improve the life of the Christian populations. Among the signatory states, one should underline the fact that Austria-Hungary and Russia were directly interested in the three vilayets and that their respective objectives were decidedly opposite.54 The suffering and migration of large numbers of Muslims from the Balkans, Russia, and elsewhere promoted an image of the Ottoman Empire as—and the expectation that it would function like—a safe haven for Muslims. The Islamic character of the empire also became

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more pronounced as its citizens saw Western powers interfere in the empire’s internal affairs in order to allegedly improve the conditions of their co-religionists—as the rationale for this interference was framed. From an Ottoman perspective, however, it was the inconsistencies in Western attitudes and policies regarding Ottoman communities that dictated the transformation of late Ottoman identity, giving it a more overt Islamic character. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Ottoman rulers were cognizant of the need to modernize in areas beyond just the military. They were well aware of the potential role of education— especially of mass education and increased literacy, and thus Sultan Mahmud II made primary education compulsory. However, many educational policies of the early nineteenth century simply remained on paper, reflecting the desire to change but the absence of the effort and the means to do so. Ruling a vast territory and diverse population, the empire needed a major educational policy and implementation; the policy component came with the Education Act of 1869.55 This legislation charted out and focused the state’s attention on matters of content and control over all education-related issues (e.g., administration, licensing, registration, inspection, accounting and finances, curriculum, languages of instruction, directors, teachers, and students, among many other factors). Concerns immediately arose regarding language, curriculum, and religion in this diverse empire, and thus the challenges of managing diversity in education kept Ottoman rulers, administrators, and educators occupied until the empire’s eventual collapse. These debates intensified during the reign of Abdülhamid II, as he altered some of the reform policies initiated previously and implemented new ones. Curricular, linguistic, and religious issues were particularly challenging in Ottoman education. Much of the curriculum, especially at primary levels, consisted of lessons in religion and morality, as was the case in other states during the period.56 In postprimary education, however, the emphasis shifted to secular subjects that might prepare students for eventual employment. Since the Ottoman Empire had different religious communities, it required each community to take responsibility for educating its own children at primary levels, based

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on their religious affiliations. This policy kept many Muslim and nonMuslim children segregated during the years of their primary schooling. In the case of mixed communities, where children of different backgrounds went to school together, religious issues were taught by each community’s chosen religious instructor, thus maintaining clear distinctions between religions but also accommodating students’ and communities’ religious differences.57 According to the Education Act of 1869, all schools—confessional, missionary, foreign, and state schools—were under the control of the Ministry of Education and required state approval of teachers, curricula, and books in order to operate on a legitimate basis. The Ministry of Education in Istanbul and the education directorates within particular provinces provided such approvals and authorizations. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, the empire also adopted a policy of infusing Islam into approved curricula within the schools of Muslim communities. Though seeking to unify Muslims under an imperial ideology of Islamism, the state taught only its own version of Islam, an approach discordant with the reality of a Muslim populace with many sectarian and communal variations in the religion.58 As will be discussed, this imposition of an Ottoman orthodoxy in Islam was a significant source of contention. The history of non-Muslim community schools in the Ottoman Empire was also quite complex for domestic but also foreign relations. Embroiled in struggles between the empire and its rivals (i.e., Britain, France, Russia, and later Italy), such schools were used by co-religionists in competing states as pretexts for these states’ territorial and geopolitical ambitions in the declining Ottoman realm. The demands that they made of the empire to improve the conditions of their co-religionists gave way to both fear and mistrust of not only the European powers but also the non-Muslim communities within the empire. The presence of missionary, foreign, confessional, and Ottoman state schools swayed peoples and communities in different directions, making them subject to the imperial competitions of the day. These international rivalries were thus also played out both in imperial policies and in small-scale contexts in the empire’s many communities, schoolyards, and classrooms.

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Mass Schooling in a Pluralistic Empire

Studies of Ottoman education thus far focused primarily on education in the imperial capital and on the policies developed by the state,59 leaving many incomplete pictures and unanswered questions for historians. Both the peripheries of this pluralistic empire60 and the actual dynamics of policy implementation remain to be explored. Educating and governing this ethnonationally, linguistically, and religiously diverse population were complex and uneven endeavors. Although the Ottoman state was inclined towards recognizing religious divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims in education, as noted above in the case of Muslims, each of these categories itself comprised sometimes disparate subgroups. Among Muslims, ethnonational and linguistic distinctions between Arabs, Turks, Albanians, and others required special attention both in formulating and in implementing policy. Likewise, the umbrella term non-Muslim covered numerous ethnonational, linguistic, and sectarian differences. With its self-legislated mandate to adopt mass schooling, the empire faced the challenge of administering a universal system of instruction while working with such differences. This was often far more than just a delicate balancing act for a nineteenth-century state with such limited capacities. Well aware of education’s potential role in governing and developing the empire and its different communities, Ottoman leaders understandably sought to promote mass schooling. Viewed in terms of other European states of the day, wide-scale systems of education were envisioned as empowering a government to disseminate a universal identity while enlisting the population’s many communities and their own local elites in the process. Thus, while the examples of European rulers were promising, Ottoman leaders were also cognizant that, in the absence of the nation-state as the ultimate ideal and the nation as ultimate sovereign, integration could by no means be guaranteed simply through the administrative ratification of education policies. In such a pluralistic society, an evolved notion of citizenship was the best that could be aspired to without alienating particular groups. Heavyhanded control of schools could be catastrophic, as proved to be the case with, for example, Muslim Albanians.

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The accommodation of pluralism became a challenge for administrators and educators; how much to accommodate, and how to instill a supranational identity of Ottomanism without alienating distinct communities? In general, Ottoman education policies sought to maintain the ethnoreligious pluralism of the empire while adding an imperial ideology to citizens’ identities and allegiances. As noted previously, in lower-level primary education, Muslim and non-Muslim children were taught separately. Regulations required that non-Muslim children receive their religious training from their own religious instructors. Despite such religious and linguistic freedom at the primary level, a dose of patriotism was also infused. As the Education Act of 1869 specified, “Ottoman history and geography courses shall be taught in non-Muslim community member’s mother tongue.”61 The designation of holidays was another way of maintaining tolerance while asserting state-imparted values. Primary school students were allowed to celebrate holidays separately according to their different cultural communities, as defined by religion. Both Muslim and non-Muslim students celebrated one common holiday, the anniversary of the Ottoman sultan’s accession to the throne.62 Conformity, attendance, and support and participation in approved programs of schooling were thus mandated by the state for all concerned: students, communities, and teachers. The law stipulated that all school-age children must attend primary schools unless a valid reason, as approved by local authorities, prevented them from doing so. Parents or guardians of children who did not attend were subject to warnings and then fines. Local communities built primary schools and were expected to cover the costs of their maintenance and salaries of teachers. Both schools and teachers had to be registered with the state in order to have legal status. The Ottoman state saw primary schools as a venue for first increasing literacy, and this priority affected linguistic policies for schools. The empire thus exhibited great flexibility in accepting the use of various languages of instruction in classrooms. While education policy maintained spatial separation of Muslim and non-Muslim students at the upper primary level, language instruction was introduced, a note in the regulation specifying that “in addition to the curriculum,

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local languages will be taught.”63 The regulation also stipulated that religion-related courses be taught in children’s mother tongue and by instructors from their own religious communities. As was the case for lower primary schools, upper primary schoolchildren of non-Muslim communities were free to celebrate their own holidays as their religion and culture required, but they also shared the anniversary celebration of the sultan’s accession to the throne. School funds were also kept separate for each community. To a certain extent, the Ottoman state underscored—even accentuated—the religious identities of different communities. In many instances, the state did this unwittingly amid attempts to disassociate these communities from any ethnonationalist identifications or ideologies. Such religious accommodation required linguistic accommodation, as primary schools were mainly religious in orientation and many of the instructors spoke—and as available texts were likewise written in—the local languages. However minimal, Ottoman patriotism was infused in primary education, and Ottomanization took place as children’s education advanced. Moreover, it was essential to introduce the Ottoman language at some point. Indeed, graduates of the upper-level primary schools (i.e., the rüşdiye) might be expected to find jobs in the state bureaucracy, and all state employees were required to know Ottoman Turkish, the language of the state. Muslim and non-Muslim children would finally be integrated together if they advanced into postprimary levels of education. Postprimary schools were open to the children of all Ottoman communities. However, some of these schools also required tuition. The state’s policy was to provide postprimary educations to its poorest but brightest children from any community. The selection processes for funding were rigorous and needs-based, to ensure that only deserving students would benefit from such opportunities. That such processes of selection were politicized—at least at local levels (e.g., necessitating letters of reference from the muhtar of one’s community)—was apparent. Such politicization, over time, went far beyond the local scale, as the empire sought to appease or co-opt particular individuals and groups through education.64

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Late in the nineteenth century, the state offered increasingly to promising children the opportunity to attend postprimary boarding schools. The goal was to spread education to all the “children of the Ottoman homeland/nation” (evlad-ı vatan, an emergent expression through which this goal was cultivated)—regardless of the distance they lived from advanced institutions of education. By selecting talented students and educating them in boarding schools in provincial centers or the imperial capital, the Ottoman state used higher education to create elite groups in non-Muslim communities that could function as intermediaries between the state and local populations. Respecting (or acquiescing to) established hierarchies in those communities, the state accepted lists of deserving students (e.g., as provided by the higher religious authorities of Christian communities) from which it would bring a certain number to its postprimary educational institutions in Istanbul for free schooling. Similar policies were followed for the Muslim children of tribal leaders from the empire’s peripheries, as well. Most accounts of Ottoman education have emphasized the empire’s Islamic agenda in both the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, and the fates of non-Muslim communities under Islamicization is a matter of interest. Ottoman perceptions of non-Muslim communities went through major transformations during the nineteenth century. Ethnonationalism, western European nations’ favoritism toward their own co-religionists, these rivals’ uses of conflicting allegiances as pretexts to interfere in Ottoman internal affairs, and rapid transformations induced by reforms all contributed to these shifting perceptions. By no means were all Ottoman non-Muslims involved in political activism, but most experienced dynamics that pulled many into it. Thus European countries’ pressures on the empire and demands for privileges for their co-religionists shaped Ottoman educational policies particularly in regards to non-Muslim communities. In a sense, Ottoman efforts to implement mass schooling became an ideological and political battleground in the competitions between the Ottoman Empire and its rival European imperial powers. As a consequence, the vulnerable Ottoman state of the late nineteenth century suspected—and even feared—some of its own nonMuslim subjects’ potentials for collaboration with the empire’s foreign

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enemies. Perceptions of external agendas and of increased separatist tendencies within the empire thus created an atmosphere of suspicion that became the justification for censorship and control. Europe’s increasing economic and territorial penetration into Ottoman markets and lands furthered such distrust, and a cautious Sultan Abdülhamid II justified censorship and surveillance in patriotic terms. The fear of European rivals was thus transferred towards the communities that those countries sought to be advocates for in Ottoman domestic politics. Censorship, therefore, was not strictly applied to all nonMuslim schools, curriculum, or books, but most often applied only to the missionary and foreign schools that mushroomed in the empire with apparent goals of educating their co-religionists. Backed by their home countries, foreign missionary movements of many denominations fought to establish schools wherever they wanted, and they often refused to comply with laws that required imperial registration and approval. Paradoxically, Ottoman administrators also viewed non-Muslim schools with admiration and longing. The number of such schools, the quality of their teachers, and the educations that they provided often merited attention from fellow Muslim citizens as well. Ottoman officials understandably desired to create similar schools and learning opportunities for Muslim communities in the empire. In this way, non-Muslim schools were not only sources of concern for a securitydriven state but also became a source of inspiration and the preferred models for providing a modern Muslim education in the empire. Besides confessional schools, missionary and foreign schools also served non-Muslim children and, if they were interested, willing Muslim students as well. In general, those schools were very popular because of the quality of education they provided, and although the majority of the students were non-Muslims, some Muslim parents strove to send their children, too. Late in the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state developed suspicions about these schools’ impacts on children, especially with regard to how these they might shape views of and loyalties to the empire. Records of the treatment of non-Muslim communities as they were perceived and depicted by the European rivals of the Ottoman

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Empire do not correlate well with most of the actual policies that the state established and followed. Despite its profound criticism by states and observers from the West,65 the empire saw that its best interests lay in coexistence with the empire’s non-Muslims—and not in confrontation. Some scholars who have written on the Ottoman Empire, perhaps caught in the polemics of the day or conditioned by Orientalist images of the empire, characterized late Ottoman policies as purely Islamic—or Islamist, thus favoring Muslims at the expense of non-Muslims. In fact, as I have already pointed out, the late Ottoman state pursued generally a policy of Ottomanism towards non-Muslim and Muslim communities, and it only followed situationally an Islamist policy vis-à-vis its Muslim subjects. There were in practice, however, variations in policies from one area to another, rather than a uniform policy applied universally throughout the empire. Moreover, there were also collaborations between non-Muslim communities and the Ottoman state. Religious leaders who wanted to maintain their power and prestige were ready to cooperate and work constructively—or opportunistically—within the empire and its mass-schooling policy objectives. Community leaders, the old elite, and all who judged that their community interests and self-interest lay in collaborating with the empire thus engaged with the state and were advocates for its educational policies. Thus was created a generation (and sometimes more) of administrators who came from various communities, were trained through the schooling of the empire, and emerged immersed in Ottoman ways, language, and policy—that is, until they or their descendants challenged the authoritarian state that had educated them. Ottoman Education and the Imagined Unity of Muslims

Ottoman education policies in regards to Muslim communities closely resembled those applied to non-Muslims in many respects. The issues of language, curriculum, administration, and financing of education were very similar. However, there were also stark differences, as Muslims shared a religion with the ruling Ottoman dynasty, and as

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the Islamic identity of the state became more pronounced during the reign of Abdülhamid II. At the time when Abdülhamid II rose to the throne, he believed initially in an ittihad-ı İslam, a united Muslim community that he could work with. In addition—and not necessarily in contradiction— Tanzimat reforms relied on the concept of ittihad-ı anasır, the unity among all elements of a populace, though with recognition of two separate (i.e., Muslim and non-Muslim) subpopulations. These two categories were very broadly defined, and each minimized other vast demographic differences (e.g., among non-Muslims were included Greek, Armenian, and Jewish millets).66 Very soon after assuming the throne, however, Abdülhamid II realized that the unity he perceived initially was indeed being shaken by events. In the first Ottoman parliament, for example, delegates from Arab provinces (especially those from Syria) made a point of articulating the view that the Ottomans were conquerors who turned fellow Muslims into subject peoples.67 Sentiments such as those echoed in the first Ottoman parliament by the Syrians and other Arabs influenced Ottoman education policies as they were designed for and implemented in those provinces with large Muslim populations. In turn, the various responses of Muslim communities to policies of Ottomanization and centralization triggered varied reactions from the empire. Those regions prone to ethnonationalist ideologies, for example, experienced state policies differently as the empire sought to suppress divisive ethnonationalisms among its Muslim subjects. Although Syrian delegates were asked to leave Istanbul and return to their provinces once the parliament ended, Ottoman governance focused on Syria as a center in its education policies, making it a salient case in comparison to others.68 The underlying principle in Ottoman policies for Muslim communities was to advance the education system and promote schooling. In practice, however, there was no uniform policy, as some provinces received far more funding and attention than did others. Indeed, general assessment of risk determined which provinces were to be targeted as beneficiaries of educational expenditures. The provinces of contemporary Iraq, another set of such examples, were long neglected until an Ottoman awareness of Iranian propaganda that was disseminated

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among Iraq’s mainly Shia population repositioned the Iraqi provinces in the Ottoman consciousness as “high-risk” sites at the turn of the twentieth century. In organizing public schools for Muslim communities, Ottoman leaders configured them just as they did for the non-Muslim populace; there were community-funded primary schools, upper-level primary and secondary schools, and advanced professional schools. As noted, at primary levels, Muslim and non-Muslim schools were kept separate to allow each community to administer its own curriculum in addition to those lessons mandated by the state. In these contexts, a dose of Ottomanism was thus introduced through the mandatory subjects of Ottoman history and geography and through observance of particular dates, as with celebrations on anniversaries of the sultan’s accession to the throne. A central issue in Hamidian policies with regards to Muslim communities was the proposed modernization of existing primary school education, which was based on traditional religious teaching provided by a religious instructor at the medreses. During the second half of the nineteenth century the state promoted what it termed a “new method of teaching” (or usûl-ü cedîd)69 that introduced modern pedagogy into the instruction of primary schools’ pupils. Instead of closing all religious schools, however, the Ottoman policy sought to gradually reform them while pursuing a rigorous plan to also open additional modern public schools. Medrese schools were widespread—even at the end of Hamidian era, they still numbered in the thousands—and any reforms would require patience and considerable effort. These policies of gradual transformation kept many religious instructors employed and loyal to the state; the alternative was to watch them emerge as dangerous reactionaries who had lost their power and positions. The empire’s limited means was also a factor, as a shortage of teachers and the state’s desire to maintain some religious content in primary education also kept traditional instructors of medreses in place, although they were made subject to training in order to receive a certificate to teach. Language and alphabet politics were also two factors pertinent to state policies involving Muslim community schools. Although community languages were allowed at primary levels, as students advanced to higher education they were introduced to Ottoman Turkish (and to

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French, Arabic, and Persian). As noted, Ottoman Turkish was crucial politically and economically, as it was the language of the empire, and it was essential for acquiring state employment. Populations in Arabicspeaking territories were not infrequently cautious (at best) about public education, fearing that their children would become “Turkified” in state schools. Moreover, quite a few Muslims regarded Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, as a sacred language. Given this primacy of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish lacked legitimacy for many Arabic speakers. Contemporary discourse on and politics of language change were also alienating for many speakers of languages other than Turkish in the reformist empire. Though secondary and other schools taught Ottoman Turkish, they did not develop skills in students that approached native or highly functional levels of fluency.70 There was even some sentiment among educators—and a number of emergent Turkish ethnonationalists—to “modernize” the Ottoman language, which was loaded with Arabic and Persian vocabulary, by eliminating Arabic and Persian influences in order to (among other reasons) make it easier for children to learn. Such debates no doubt increased doubts among Arabic speakers about Ottoman intentions to enforce an eventual “Turkification” of its Muslim subjects. Such controversies over languages, it should be noted, continued until the end of the Ottoman Empire and well into the first decades of the Turkish republic.71 Alphabet politics also arose amid efforts to write a spoken language, fostering fierce levels of contention between the Ottoman state and Albanians. Some Albanians advocated their own alphabet. For Ottoman rulers, this was a disturbing signal of ethnonationalist aspirations that the vigilant state was obliged to oppose. Illustrating that these divides were not as simple as a clash between the wills of Albanian subjects and the intentions of distant leaders in Istanbul, we might note that the leader of Albanian ethnonationalist claims was Abdul Frashëri (1839– 1892). While Abdul Frashëri advocated for the Albanian ethnonational cause, his own brother Şemsettin Sâmi Bey (or Sami Frashëri for Albanians, 1850–1904) was at that time authoring books on Ottoman culture, history, and language.72 In particular, he prepared Kamûs-ı Türkî, one of the best Ottoman Turkish dictionaries ever produced.73 Ottoman reactions compelled Albanians to seek support from Austria

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and Italy for their cause, further aggravating Ottoman apprehensions. In this way, the Albanian community also became one of the main targets of educational control in the Hamidian era. Although the Ottoman state invested in improving the educational opportunities available to many Muslims, its emphasis on control and censorship often negated these efforts to achieve stability. Thus, while the sultan and leaders of the Hamidian era strove to cultivate a “golden age” for Ottoman education, the state’s seeming obsession with security instead polarized Muslim populations. This recourse to fostering institutions of control over institutions of learning thus made their policies the subject of enduring, harsh criticism.74 In response to such critiques from Albanian ethnonationalists, Şemsettin Sâmi Bey wrote that he had two countries; one was his “principal homeland/nation” (or vatan-ı umumî) (i.e., that greater homeland/nation of the Ottomans), and the other was his “secondary homeland/nation” (or vatan-ı hususî) (i.e., that more personal or intimate homeland/nation of the Albanians). Although he affirmed his love for his larger country, he declared that his love for his smaller country was twice as great.75 A Growing Rift Between Muslim Populations and Abdülhamid II

In both Muslim and non-Muslim communities of the late nineteenth century, schooling was heavily influenced by the political climate inside and outside the Ottoman Empire. Concerned with potential separatism among its subjects, the empire feared that non-Muslim communities would be swayed by colonizing Western countries. Disguising their intent under claims of protecting their co-religionists, Western powers promoted ethnonationalism among non-Muslims and encouraged them to seek separation from the empire. At this time, the Ottoman administration started to view its Muslim communities as potential targets for foreign countries, as well. Some Muslim leaders and intellectuals saw the reign of Abdülhamid II as authoritarian and repressive and tried to fight against him by establishing organizations and disseminating anti-Ottoman views through newspapers and other outlets. The empire exiled many of these dissenting voices, who frequently settled in one of the European

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capitals and continued their dissent from abroad. These critics raised two general objections. First, the Ottoman regime was depicted as increasingly autocratic throughout the Hamidian era. Second, Abdülhamid II designated himself as the caliph of all Muslims. This was an old title of religious and political significance, but it had not been used so actively by previous Ottoman rulers. In Ottoman Anatolia, the story was told that the title had been transferred to the sultan when Egypt was conquered and the last surviving member of the Abbasid Caliphate was found living there devoid of power. According to official histories, he departed for Istanbul and, once there, transferred the title to the sultan. Yet no earlier Ottoman ruler had attempted to use it as a tool to legitimate himself and the state in the eyes of other Muslims. Lacking economic and military power, Abdülhamid II tried to use the title to rally Muslims against the aggression of the Western world. In practice, revivification of the caliphate was often counterproductive. It simply encouraged further aggression from Western powers: As most of these global empires had large numbers of Muslims in their own colonies, they feared a unified Islamic front. There were also attempts to create counterclaims to the caliphate. Though some Muslims believed that any Muslim could be so designated and that Abdülhamid II’s claim was thus valid, others understood the caliphate to be a title that only Arabs could inherit and shoulder. The late Ottoman state pushed the view that there was flexibility in the qualifications for the caliphate, using schools for Muslims to promote the Ottoman Empire as sovereign and its ruler as sultan and caliph. Meanwhile, Western interests and involvements in determining a caliph for Muslims constituted a clear indication that power relations had changed to the detriment of the empire.76 Abdülhamid II wanted to revive the Islamic faith and associated practices in order to unify the empire’s Muslim populations against outside antagonists. In pursuit of that goal, he employed methods of both positive enforcement (e.g., sending advisory committees to assess and warn about external threats, promoting education for Muslim children, and so on) and restrictions (e.g., enhancing state control through surveillance, amassing statistical and other information on imperial subjects, imposing exile, and so forth). Utilizing education—both lessons

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and opportunities for education—to cultivate loyalty among traditional power holders in the empire, Abdülhamid II established a School for Tribes (Aşiret Mektebi). This intriguing institution brought the children of influential tribal leaders from the peripheries to the imperial center of Istanbul to educate them and thereafter return them to their communities (note the relevant photo of students from this school in Figure 2). Such policies and modes of administration enabled the Ottoman Empire to survive for almost another half century. Ahmed Mithat’s description of what Abdülhamid II meant for the Ottoman state’s longevity was especially vivid; while many believed that the empire was dead and were ready to anoint the lips of the corpse with the customary zemzem water, he observed that Abdülhamid II seemingly brought it back to life.77 Considering the colonial contexts of the empire is essential if we seek to understand late Ottoman education. While scholars agree that Abdülhamid II’s authoritarian measures alienated many, a critical understanding of the era’s educational policies in regards to its Muslim and non-Muslim communities requires a greater understanding of the wider colonial contexts. Territories of the Ottoman Empire were not generally colonized directly by European powers. Nonetheless, economically, culturally, and politically, the pressures of Western empires were felt throughout many of its lands—and in the classrooms of its central and local educational institutions alike. Facing a stronger Ottoman Empire than they had anticipated, Western colonial powers reflected their frustrated efforts—and their long-term aspirations—by establishing schools in every corner of the empire, in turn accusing the Ottoman state of intolerance, backwardness, and oppression. Yet it had generally been the right of a sovereign state to demand full application of its laws in every corner of its territories. While the empire sometimes resorted to repressive measures, the West was also bent upon demonizing it so as to justify dismantling it and dispersing its lands to those who helped the West achieve these ends. Battles over images that ensued between the West and Abdülhamid II continued even after the collapse of the empire. While Abdülhamid II fought with every means he had to counter disparaging portraits of himself, his state, and his religion, he was routinely mocked in the foreign and opposition presses. Such depictions have

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left images of his authoritarianism as his legacy, neglecting his struggle to maintain an empire that needed miracles to escape bankruptcy, revive its economy, confront ethnonationalist separatisms, and institute mass education and other public services. Faced with each of these challenges, Abdülhamid II was compelled by international coercion to seek approval from rival European governments to exercise powers they themselves routinely deemed legitimate within their own domains. Financing Schools and Security

Despite Ottoman aspirations to implement educational reforms as a means to realize societal modernization, economic development, and an enhanced state of security, the empire’s precarious fiscal situation constituted a major impediment to any realization of these ambitions. Regardless of the state’s sanguine objectives, as epitomized by the Education Act of 1869, it was not until Abdülhamid II’s reign that a reliable basis of support was secured. The source of this funding consisted of the very local populations that the state was striving to incorporate through schooling, in addition to some charitable funds. In 1884, the Hamidian government introduced the education contribution tax (or maarif hisse-i ianesi) in order to provide regular funding for schools. Proposed by Grand Vizier Said Paşa, this tax was intended to finance the support and spread of postprimary education by funding the opening of rüşdiye and idadî throughout the empire. It was also intended to cover the expenses of establishing education directorates to administer educational policies in the empire’s peripheries. One-third of the tax, which was collected locally, was sent to Istanbul to cover the costs of institutions of higher education in the capital, and the remaining two-thirds were reserved for primary (especially upper-level primary) and postprimary education in the provinces.78 While the tax brought in more money for education, the portion of it sent to the imperial center became a matter of contention. Both lacking the resources for universal enforcement and opting to avoid direct confrontation—and likely alienation—of provincial populations, the empire elected frequently to engage in negotiations between its peripheries and representative Ottoman administrators. In some cases, communities

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wished to divert tax revenues to fund the lower-level primary schools that the empire wanted communities to establish and finance independently. Tensions also arose for some communities over use of the money to support postprimary and higher education because they were located far from these advanced schools and were therefore unable to send their children to the institutions that they were to sponsor. These complaints were among the factors that led to an increase in the number of boarding schools in the provinces, thus allowing greater numbers of children to benefit from schools regardless of their distance from home. Despite the spread of boarding schools, funding remained a contested issue. As this book illustrates from its analysis of center-periphery correspondence, local community leaders sought to retain all tax revenues collected in their own regions and wanted to determine among themselves how to spend them. Desperate for money, however, the Ottoman state increased that portion of the education tax that it allocated to state institutions of higher education in Istanbul from onethird to one-half—amid the obvious dissatisfaction of regional leaders and the empire’s subjects not residing in the capital. In general the empire was also unable to exercise strict control over both tax collection for the center and local expenditures for schools, with some areas spending revenues on various goods or services without the state’s approval. In some cases, locals even sought to retain the central state’s portion of the education contribution tax—or actually generate additional funds from the state—through spending on, for example, building projects that would remain unfinished without infusions of additional funding. Indeed, the Ottoman archival record contains documented exchanges between imperial and local officials over the collection, allocation, and expenditure of educational funds. Historicizing Ottoman Governmentality through an Examination of Schooling and Education Politics

It was obvious that both Muslim and non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman Empire wanted better living conditions and justice. All were aware of foreign involvements in Ottoman state affairs and foreign demands for better conditions for non-Muslims. Some believed that

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they could achieve their aspirations by separating from the empire; others wanted to work toward changes within the empire. Such externally derived, localized initiatives, however, were not what the Ottomans needed, as they would polarize the society politically. Abdülhamid II thus sought to become the defender of Muslim communities within the empire and looked to better their conditions in order to defuse conflicts. His reliance on censorship, surveillance, control, and coercion, however, made enemies. Using all means available, he countered anyone he considered an enemy, and every community he dealt with responded differently to his policies. This book presents a view of these contested issues in the realm of education. By looking at the empire’s peripheries and their disparate conditions and processes, it provides more insight than could be derived by looking at the center alone. This study concerns the politics of education in the Ottoman Empire, and it analyzes the impacts of the empire’s modern schooling agendas on Muslim and non-Muslim communities between 1876 and up to the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. These final years of the empire were crucial, as the Hamidian (1876–1908) and the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) (1908–18) regimes both attempted to deal with the empire’s rapid dissolution and with demands from minority communities that expressed strong desires to establish their own independent nation-states. This book evaluates critically the varied roles of schools and how the Ottoman state sought to use them in promoting not only modernization but loyalty among its ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse populations. I argue that Ottoman education policies designed to foster loyalty among its citizens instead played a pivotal role in heightening these communities’ ethnonational and linguistic identities and thus contributed to implosions within the empire and fragmentations at the peripheries. Individual chapters thus examine the contentious politics of education vis-à-vis the empire’s ethnic and religious minorities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—not just the policies themselves but the resistance they provoked. While numerous studies have examined ways in which education fostered political cohesion when administered directly or through other governmental institutions, few have examined instances in which those policies failed, or even fostered

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fragmentation. In considering specific situations outside the Ottoman Empire, one quickly ascertains that while certain cases were traumatic and results were far from uniform across time and place, success came when education fostered loyalties on the basis of the universal ideal of a nation-state. By contrast, educational policies in societies lacking the nation-state as the ultimate ideal—and the nation as ultimate sovereign—have generally failed to produce communal unity. In ethnically, religiously, and linguistically pluralistic societies like the Ottoman Empire, an evolved notion of citizenship was the best that could be aspired to without the obvious alienation of particular groups. In such a case, increased involvement by the state—even when designed to enhance the loyalties of its citizens—could have catastrophic outcomes for a multiethnic and multireligious empire in the modern era of the nation-state. This work maintains this observation as its primary thesis, inquiring into both the conduct and the consequences of educational policies with respect to the ethnic and religious communities of the Ottoman Empire. Histories of Ottoman educational politics illuminate many of the failings of citizenship-fostering and nation-building educational agendas that would be enacted subsequently worldwide in both nationalistic and pluralistic polities and societies. Indeed, such examples of failure have been quite apparent in the years following the empire. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish republic itself attempted to overcome—and continues to grapple with—the dilemma posed by having numerous ethnonational and religious minorities situated in a nation-state with an exclusive dominant national narrative. At a time when certain ideologies, religions, and ethnonationalisms of the Middle East are frequently characterized as malevolent, this collective experience from Ottoman educational history yields a powerful and cautionary lesson in the ramifications of state policies geared toward controlling, co-opting, marginalizing, or otherwise manipulating political, religious, and other identity-based constructs.

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Figure 2: Students of the Aşiret Mektebi—the Ottoman school for tribes.79

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Figure 3: Map of the Ottoman Balkans80

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CHAPTER 2 FACT-FINDING MISSIONS, SCHOOLS, AND PUBLIC R EL ATIONS IN THE GOVER NANCE OF OTTOM AN ALBANIA

When the Ottoman state proposed reforms to stabilize and develop the empire during the nineteenth century, many initiatives entailed significant interventions in the identities, cultures, and social and economic lives of its populations. This was especially true of reforms involving education, in which the goals extended beyond achieving simple literacy to wider aims such as realizing cultural and political integrity, social cohesion, economic development, and even territorial unity. This chapter deals with education and the wider reformist agenda in the Ottoman Balkans, particularly in the areas comprising Ottoman Albania. It begins by examining Ottoman motivations for these interventions and identifies what the Ottomans sought to reform, their associated goals, and their measures for implementation. I approach the question of governmentality in the Balkans historically in order to explore how Ottoman educational reform projects were implemented in subject communities, how challenges arose and compromises were faced, and how the state targeted specific populations. Finally, I examine the varied ways that the Balkan communities (especially the Albanians) themselves responded to Ottoman policies; while

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accounts of resistance as written by the Ottomans, ethnonationalist leaders, or Western observers are not uncommon, the actual voices from these communities in their direct dealings with the Ottoman state are. The Ottoman education reforms examined in this chapter had three main goals. First, the Ottomans sought to establish a modern state apparatus for a direct and centralized administration of their Balkan territories and populations. Second, they aspired to recruit citizens from Albanian Muslim communities to function as loyal retainers of the state, preventing simultaneously any development of Albanian ethnonationalist separatism. Third, Ottoman leaders strove to minimize or inhibit entirely any further foreign encroachments on the region. They employed multiple approaches and techniques to achieve these goals: expanding educational opportunities, sending influential state representatives to both assess and advise communities, promoting official Ottoman Turkish through education and denying Albanianlanguage schools, pitting foreign countries against each other, working with collaborating local community leaders, emphasizing religious identity, and enacting regulations of censorship and expanding the scope of state control. Resistance and Remapping Ottoman Albania

Conceptually, the Ottoman Empire entered into an era of new relations with its various populations with the two major reform plans of the Tanzimat era (i.e., in 1839 with the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane and in 1856 with the Islahat). Accepting the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims, the state strove to pursue rapid centralization in its provinces, bringing what had been for centuries a distant state ever more into the daily lives of its populations. In doing so, the empire also began to demand taxes and to impose conscription for military service. Albanian communities were previously subject to minimal or no taxation. Many Albanians thus rejected these burdens of reform and revolted to maintain their relatively autonomous status within the empire. Such resistance was especially evident among the northern Albanians, or Ghegs, who commonly were referred to and regarded

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by Ottomans and many foreigners as fiercely independent “mountaineers.” Traditionally, the Ghegs only served the state during times of war and carried a low—or even exempt—tax status. The Ottoman state’s demands for recruits for its new regular army and for direct tax revenues compelled the Ghegs to rebel against the empire and its reforms. Southern Albanians, or Tosks, on the other hand, complied with these demands and associated reform projects. Despite some complaints, they remained generally loyal to the Ottoman state. Thus, Tanzimat reforms were fully applied only in Yanya and Monastir. In the other Albanian provinces, their application remained partial or ineffective.1 In 1865, in an effort to increase the centralization process in the peripheries of the empire and to ensure its integrity against both internal and external pressures, the Ottoman state pursued administrative reorganization. This reform effort divided Albanian-inhabited areas into the three provinces of İşkodra, Monastir, and Yanya2—with Kosovo becoming a fourth province in 1878. The Ottoman state’s reorganization of its Albanian territories aimed to create a “substantial and compact group of Muslims” in each of these provinces3 while simultaneously inhibiting Albanian ethnonational awareness and associated political demands. Each province had its own local government and garrison and was directly connected to the central government in Istanbul. Part of this administrative reform was the creation of local administrative councils that included local notables and leading community figures. Thus, the central Ottoman government endeavored to present its local administrative changes to local elites as integrative and even participatory—an essential aspect of emerging relations of governmentality in the West during this period as well. This strategy of governmental integration can be seen clearly in 1893, for example, in the composition of the provincial administrative council of Kosovo. The council consisted of both imperial and local leaders, and it was headed by the governor of the province. Additional regular members included the naib, defterdar, mektubcu, Müfti Ali Riza Efendi, Greek Metropolidi Mitoyodi Efendi, Bulgarian Metropolidi Maxim Efendi, and a representative for the chief rabbi, Bahor Efendi. There were also elected members: Abdurrahman Ağa,

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Abdullah Bey, and Dimitri Komat Ağa.4 Despite these political efforts to integrate local officials, the empire still faced considerable reactions and resistance, as will be noted later in dealing with responses to the Treaty of Berlin. In subsequent years, the Ottoman state also focused on developing the loyalties and Islamic cultural identities of these Muslims by establishing schools, mosques, and masjids. The empire also pursued a policy intended to create controlled measures of unity among Muslim Albanians in hopes that they would become “ideologically, politically and socially committed to the basic interests of the empire, and might also provide recruitment to secure peace on the empire’s increasingly vulnerable frontiers.”5 This policy of promoting religious identities of Albanians, especially Muslim Albanians, continued until the end of Abdülhamid II’s reign in 1909. Education was an inseparable part of the Ottoman state’s effort to instill and maintain religious identity among Albanian peoples in order to stabilize its rule and prevent any further development of an Albanian ethnonationalism. Though it viewed the Albanian populace as potentially useful in its administration of the Balkans—looking at it as something of a Muslim extension of the Ottoman state, the empire also regarded the Albanians with suspicion. For this reason, Ottoman leaders followed what was essentially a divide-and-rule strategy with the Albanians, leaving large numbers of various ethnonational communities in the redrawn provinces in order to make any region-wide ethnonational unification of Albanians difficult, if not impossible. This administrative reorganization thus mixed sundry ethnonationalities in each province, positioned the Albanians to monitor and police them, and used their very presence and the act of provincial partitioning to preclude formation of a homogenous Albanian community. Remapping amid reform thus was not undertaken only for purposes of more effective taxation or administration, but was also a matter of the empire’s geopolitical administration of its remaining Balkan territories with an eye to risks both foreign and internal. As one source observed, echoing the Ottoman perspective, “The warlike Albanians occupied a strategic position in the Balkans; it was necessary therefore to prevent their unification.”6

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Cevdet Paşa’s Fact-finding Mission to the Ottoman Balkans

Implementation of Ottoman education agendas in the Balkans following the introduction of the Education Act of 1869 was guided both by prior reforms the state had instituted and by input rendered previously and currently from certain key individuals. In this context of policy formulation, we might note one example from the imperial fact-finding missions that the Ottoman state dispatched in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an instance from the 1860s, Ahmed Cevdet Paşa (1822–1895) was sent to the Balkans as a high-ranking officer charged with conducting a mission of thorough inspection. He supplied the Ottoman state with detailed information about the region and its peoples—especially concerning its Albanian population. This information and Cevdet Paşa’s position as a leading bureaucrat in Istanbul whose opinions were respected greatly by Abdülhamid II shaped profoundly state perceptions of both the region and its Albanian populations. Cevdet Paşa’s own religious training, his openness to new ideas of reforms, and his strong commitment to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire at any expense made him a powerful and esteemed bureaucrat in the eyes of fellow Ottoman leaders—and this was especially true with regard to his influence with the sultan. Cevdet Paşa’s assignment to the Balkans in 1861 as an inspector for the empire came about following the Crimean War. In this conflict, the dispensation of Ottoman territories in the Balkans constituted a major dimension in Europe’s evolving so-called Eastern Question. Russia claimed that non-Muslims in the Balkans, especially in Bulgaria, suffered from inhuman treatment, and encouraged European states to send a mixed committee to inspect conditions in the region. This proposal was rejected by the Ottoman state as an infringement upon its sovereignty. Nonetheless, Ottoman leaders feared such demands and viewed any subsequent mandate for a European commission in the Balkans as a catalyst for an empowerment of the Bulgarians and the further diminishment of Ottoman control. The Porte thus proposed sending its own commission, to be led by the grand vizier and composed of Muslim and non-Muslim community members. It was under such conditions that Cevdet Paşa went to the Balkans to assess

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the situation and provide the empire with his informed findings. In reading his own account of the period, one notes how profoundly puzzled he became as he realized the empire’s changing fortunes and the pressures that the Porte was being subjected to by other countries. Expressing his amazement, he speculated in his writing, “Had an evil eye struck the Ottoman state?”7 Upon the completion of his mission in Bulgaria, Cevdet Paşa noted that, although there were local disturbances, circumstances were not as desperate for minorities as claimed by Russia. Thereafter, he went on to Bosnia and from Bosnia to İşkodra, where there was much unrest among Albanians caused by border fights with Montenegrins. While deployed in this capacity, he reported to the Ottoman state on a regular basis and addressed what he viewed as the probable causes of unrest. He emphasized that the scale of this conflagration stemmed from French support for the Montenegrins in the conflict. In the absence of such foreign meddling, which expanded the scale of the conflict, he commented, it would have been little more than another fight among the local mountain folk. Cevdet Paşa also secretly encouraged the Bosnian population to organize paramilitary forces to defend its lands. In regards to the İşkodra region, he supplied the Ottoman state with particularly detailed information. Highlighting the geographic significance of the Albanian region for the Ottomans, Cevdet Paşa described it as the “wall” of the empire’s European possessions and identified İşkodra as its “lock.”8 This perceived significance of İşkodra contextualized the information that he rendered to the Ottoman state and shaped the parameters and intensity of the region’s administration in subsequent years. His lengthy reports to Istanbul contained in-depth information about the local Albanian populations and their religions, languages, intercommunal relations, social structures, schools and students, traditions, and economic conditions. He further supplied the Porte with comprehensive geographic and financial information and the tax status of different towns and communities.9 As noted, northern Albanian Gheg communities were most resistant to added taxes and compulsory service in the empire’s new military. İşkodra was one of the Ottoman Balkan provinces with a large measure of autonomy, and its populations were accustomed to their

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long-standing privileges regarding tax payments and military service. Ottoman proposals to alter this traditionally loose order thus were met with resistance from communities that sensed their privileges were already lost or soon to disappear. Demanding they retain their semiautonomous status, Ghegs puts up resistance that compelled Ottoman leaders to focus on northern Albanian territories (and especially İşkodra) in their efforts to assert control over the lands and populations of the Balkan region. According to Cevdet Paşa, the Ottoman state lacked adequate information about its Albanian subjects. He thus set forth to prepare information about them and render associated policy-relevant suggestions. Such data and directives were crucial in Ottoman policymaking in regards to the Albanian populations and region. Albanians, he wrote, were religiously and linguistically divided. There were Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox Albanians, though Muslims were the clear majority. The linguistic differences that separated northern from southern Albanians were mostly on disparities in regional dialects rather than distinct languages. Commenting on their religious diversity, Cevdet Paşa informed Istanbul that Catholic and Muslim Albanians, despite their differences in religious faith, were actually well disposed towards each other. Regarding İşkodra, he wrote that when people moved from mountains and settled in towns and converted to Islam, they maintained their ties with their Catholic relatives in mountain villages and continued to visit each other. Catholic Albanians in the past had been exempt from paying the cizye. In its place they were responsible for rendering military service from their communities an option that, he asserted, they traditionally accepted wholeheartedly. Cevdet Paşa acknowledged that Orthodox Albanians felt differently about their Catholic and Muslim neighbors.10 Examining ways of encouraging Islamic identity among Muslim Albanians to keep them loyal to the Ottoman state, Cevdet Paşa recommended more state schools, masjids, and free related services, like circumcision. Commenting on learning and education in İşkodra, Cevdet Paşa noted that, thanks to the state’s efforts to establish sıbyan (i.e., primary schools) and mosques, 20,000 people had been saved from the “evils of ignorance.” These citizens, he continued, were able

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to rid themselves of their false beliefs and thus became enlightened through learning and religion. In his view, the attendance of roughly 850 boys and 350 girls at these primary schools and the circumcision of approximately 5,170 Albanian Muslim men confirmed a local commitment to schooling and enlightenment. The news of a 100-year-old man and his circumcision was included as evidence of the intensity of religious rejuvenation in the area.11 Cevdet Paşa thus recommended that the state establish more primary schools for the mountain villagers of İşkodra and pay the salaries of their teachers. Further, he asked for more mosques to be constructed and for additional personnel who could be delegated to provide free circumcisions for those who wished to undergo the procedure.12 Cevdet Paşa’s particular emphasis on the religious training of Albanian and other Muslims originated, in part, from his conviction that Catholic priests were aggressively promoting an anti-Ottoman radicalism in the region. Although there existed generally harmonious relations between the Catholic and Muslim communities, in order to promote that solidarity and undermine the priests’ efforts, Cevdet Paşa considered the establishment of a paramilitary force that would be composed of both Catholic and Muslims to defend their borders.13 Interestingly, his observations of, and his desire to promote, the unity of Albanians beyond their religious differences became problematic for the Ottoman state after the 1870s, as Albanians united, demanded autonomy, and expressed strong aspirations for their own schools with classes taught in Albanian. Such later demands compelled the Ottoman state to change its policies and refocus its efforts so as to promote religious identities, especially those of Albanian Muslims. Such efforts by the empire to promote education and Islam were deemed necessary to curb the lure of ethnonationalism and associated desires and demands for Albanian autonomy. Cevdet Paşa’s observations and reports regarding north Albanian provinces from the early 1860s shaped the Ottoman state’s education policies in the coming decades as the relationship between Albanians and the Ottoman state went through a stormy phase in the midst of territorial changes and interethnic rivalries in the Balkans. After all, as observed both above and by Skendi, Ottoman reforms in Albania went beyond the

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establishment of an efficient system of taxation, as was the case in other areas of the empire. Rather, Ottoman leaders used and applied the reform agenda politically in order to prevent Albanian ethnonational unification.14 For İşkodra and everywhere else in the empire, the Education Act of 1869 mandated the establishment of primary schools in villages with fifty households or more,15 and it stipulated that local communities were financially responsible for the establishment and maintenance of these schools. While some communities welcomed the demand, others found it intrusive and saw the schools as unwarranted extensions of the state into their daily lives. Commenting on this state of affairs in 1869—with particular reference to the empire’s European territories and what he viewed as similarities with resistance in British efforts to pacify Ireland, Hyde Clarke wrote: The government, by the help of an organised Ministry of Public Instruction, has been for years engaged in the work of reform, but encounters great difficulty from the bigotry and antipathy to association of all the populations, and the seditious tendencies of some. It is not merely that the Christian will not associate with the Mussulman in education, but the Mussulman is opposed to the government infidel and godless schools; in fact, the Ottoman government has to contend with Irish difficulties.16 The later introduction of the education contribution tax in 1884 furthered such resentment, especially in communities that still lacked primary schools and in which the local share of the education tax was earmarked for postprimary education. In an effort to channel that money to primary schools, local communities and administrators devised ways to convince the Ottoman state to release that fund to establish primary schools and if possible, generate more money from the state’s budget. Such was a common situation throughout the empire, as Ottoman archives are filled with letters requesting a redirection of funds. For certain provinces, like İşkodra, the Porte responded favorably to such requests. This was especially true in regions that were subject to foreign interests or missionary activities, and it was also

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evident in contexts of geographic vulnerability, as with border towns. Subject to both Austro-Hungary’s and Italy’s encroaching interests and interference, İşkodra was one of the provinces that the Ottoman state considered particularly “strategically significant” and where it thus demonstrated great flexibility in establishing primary schools. Albanian Ethnonationalism and the Politics of Schooling

Territorial threats to, and foreign intrigues in, Ottoman Albania greatly influenced politics within the Albanian provinces and invariably had a role in shaping the formulation and application of Ottoman policy. During the nineteenth century, the fundamental issue for the empire was maintaining its territorial integrity and sovereignty against internal and external pressures. Following the Crimean War of 1853–1856, Britain and France ostensibly positioned themselves alongside the Ottomans in order to counter Russian efforts to benefit from the Eastern Question.17 The Ottoman state had to confront challenges coming from the ethnonationalist separatism of its Christian minorities and Albanians, as well as from increasing influence of the Great Powers upon Ottoman decision making.18 Thus, when Albanian ethnonational identity began to develop and associated demands for autonomy emerged, the empire staunchly opposed the development of that identity, fearing that it would precipitate additional foreign interference in the region. This fear played a major role in shaping Ottoman polices in the face of Albanian ethnonationalism. Arising not only from internal factors and Ottoman influence, the Albanian ethnonational movement for territorial unity and autonomy also was shaped by interactions with neighboring ethnonational and religious communities and the impacts of wider-scale imperial rivalries. While the Montenegrins constituted a primary adversarial concern for many Albanians, the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878 also had considerable influence upon the Albanian movement. Following the 1877–1878 war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, Albanians believed Russia had imposed a harsh treaty upon not only the empire but the Albanian people.19 The treaty accorded substantial territories traditionally claimed and occupied

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by Albanians to the neighboring countries of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro. Until this treaty, local communities of Albanians mainly focused on opposing the centralization efforts of the Ottoman state. The treaty, however, compelled these varied groups to coalesce into an Albanian ethnonationalist movement.20 The Ottoman state thereafter followed the evolution of the Albanian movement carefully and attempted to manipulate it. After the Treaty of San Stefano, roughly eighty Albanian community leaders and many other Albanians gathered in Prizren on 10 June, 1878 to determine a strategy in response. Representing Albanian communities in the north, those in attendance at this meeting that would constitute the emergence of the Prizren League were mostly landowners, Muslim clergymen, and local chieftains. Influential leaders from the south, such as Abdul Frashëri, were also present. Regarding Abdul Frashëri during an earlier stage in this period of shared Ottoman and Albanian crisis in 1878, one historian would later observe: On 14 January 1878, in the midst of a military crisis threatening the capital itself, Abdul presented a provocative speech in parliament. The Albanian deputy from Yanya raised the question why there had been a lack of meaningful progress in the “state and nation” (devlet ve millet). The he proceeded to identify three main reasons: “ignorance (cehalet), “despotism” (istibdad), and a bureaucracy filled with officials who lacked intelligence or were preoccupied with foolish squandering. According to him, the state and the nation lacked solid education, a just order, and competent officials.21 According to Gawrych, most of Abdul Frashëri’s presentation concerned the divisive question of education. In his view, of state schools, solely the military schools were good quality, and most villages lacked any primary schools for boys and none for girls existed at all in the region. He further questioned, “How can we be civilized with this ignorance? How can we make progress?” This questioning of the state regarding schooling seemed infectious, and Syrian and other delegates began to raise similar points about the lack of education throughout the empire

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over the coming weeks. Amid such criticisms, by February 14, 1878, the sultan dissolved both chambers.22 By June, the Prizren gathering was convened in order to unify the Albanian territories and fight any detachment of these territories from the Ottoman Empire. In order to achieve their goal, the participants agreed to create an organized front, the Prizren League.23 For their part, the European powers found the terms of the treaty to be a threat, viewing it as having the potential to embolden Russia in the Balkans, and demanded a renegotiation of the treaty at the Congress of Berlin. Aware of this congress, Albanian leaders conveyed their position by dispatching telegrams and letters to Berlin and to the empire, demanding terms that would prevent dismemberment of an Albanian homeland and requesting preservation of the sultan’s sovereignty over it24—often seeking some measure of autonomy therein.25 Although the sultan reportedly sympathized with the Prizren League’s strong opposition to any measures of territorial partition of their perceived homeland, he was also distressed when the Albanian opposition thereafter began to issue demands for autonomy.26 The Prizren League had an Islamic character. When the Berlin congress handled matters involving Albanian territories occupied by Muslim majorities, it became an advocate for the Muslims in those areas and defended their rights. Initially, the empire supported the League and sought to publicize their protests to illustrate the chaos that might be unleashed in the region should the Berlin congress fail to reverse the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano. The congress did reverse most of the treaty’s terms, but Albanians still faced major territorial losses and were frustrated that the congress did not grant them a greater measure of autonomy within the empire. This dissatisfaction drove the League to reject the new boundaries declared by the empire and arm Albanians to defend their lands. The Ottoman state’s compliance with the Treaty of Berlin and its acceptance of demands to yield some Albanian territory also made it a target of the emergent Albanian opposition. The Treaty of Berlin played a significant role in redefining the nature of Ottoman-Albanian relations. Despite the treaty’s modification of the Treaty of San Stefano, the Ottoman Empire still lost roughly

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one-third of its territories and over 20 percent of its population.27 Such losses laid bare the empire’s weaknesses and fueled Albanian insecurities. Albanians feared that, should the empire collapse, their territories would be partitioned. Leaders therefore focused on uniting Albanian provinces in order to avoid such a calamity. However, Albanian leaders were well aware that they were not ready for a complete separation and thus concentrated their efforts on obtaining administrative autonomy within the Ottoman system. Such was their solution until they were strong enough to survive independently. Indeed, the Albanian movement was focused on autonomy even before the Congress of Berlin, and had previously asked the empire for permission to unify Albanian lands into one province, to employ Albanians in its administration, and to adopt the Albanian language for official use in schools and in courts. In November 1878, under the guidance of Abdul Frashëri, Albanian leaders drafted articles of a program for the “administrative autonomy” of Albania. In this document, they demanded that in schools and in administration the official language should be Albanian. Further, they demanded the right to withhold portions of direct taxes levied for the central treasury in Istanbul to cover the costs of establishing and maintaining schools and other public works. Acknowledging the conditions of religious diversity among Albanians, the program proposed freedom of religion for all living in Albania.28 The Ottoman government refused to acquiesce to Albanian demands for unification and autonomy. Rather, the Porte created a new province, Kosovo. Seen as another obstacle impeding their goal of Albanian unification, such imperial policies frustrated Albanian leaders. In response, they refused to pay taxes or comply with requirements for military service, and they demonstrated against the Ottoman state.29 The Ottoman state considered education to be a key instrument not only in its reform agenda but also in controlling Albanian territories. While primary education was seen as a means of instilling devotion to the sultan and to the state, every community, according to the Education Act of 1869, was allowed to teach in its local languages. Such freedom, however, was denied to the Albanian people. They were forbidden from teaching their own children in the Albanian language

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at the schools in their provinces. Until 1878, these schools employed Ottoman Turkish with Muslim students and Greek with Orthodox Christian students. Ottoman statesmen were as aware of the connection between language and identity politics as were Albanian ethnonationalist leaders. In this context, imperial leaders used educational restrictions to deny further development of an Albanian identity. Foreign pressures and geopolitical (i.e., territorial) concerns shaped Ottoman educational policies in Albania. The empire was sometimes liberal, accepting concessions, but it was mostly conservative. Territorial ambitions of Slavic communities in the Balkans made the Porte depend upon its Albanian population to protect its borders. When threatened by Montenegrins and Bulgarians, the Ottoman state worked with the Albanians to thwart threats and pledged concessions along the way. Such promises often were unfulfilled, however, as the Porte was limited in what it could deliver and by its suspicions of the Albanians’ long-term aspirations. Albanian language demands were thus seen in the Ottoman capital as one more sign indicating foreign intrigues to unite Albanians around language and identity in order to facilitate an eventual move to secede. When it came to the Albanian movement, the Ottoman sultan was especially concerned not only about the Porte’s dependency upon Albanians but also about his image as the caliph of all Muslims. Since most Albanians were Muslim, a repressive campaign to crush the Albanian movement would tarnish the sultan’s image and legitimacy in the Muslim world. He thus sought to shape his role carefully to avoid direct conflicts with the Albanians in ways that would weaken his claims to authority among Muslims.30 His solution to this delicate problem entailed the promotion of religious ties at the expense of the Albanians’ language. Despite the sultan’s hesitancy, other Ottoman statesmen were ready to crush the Albanian movement, regarding it as detrimental to their authority and the empire’s survival.31 Expressing their discontent over Ottoman denials of autonomy and language rights, some Albanian leaders rejected the authority of imperial officials in Albanian lands and refused to recruit conscripts for the military.32 Between 1879 and 1880, some northern Albanians took action against the Ottomans. Southern Albanians, although

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supportive of autonomy and linguistic freedom, presented no direct opposition.33 The empire responded to this opposition by initiating a campaign against the Albanian movement in April 1881 and thereafter, upon its successful conclusion, by imprisoning or otherwise sending the leaders of the Prizren League into exile in other provinces of the empire. In the meantime, the Porte promised Albanians that it would protect their rights and that military recruits would be able to stay within Albanian territories rather than serve in distant provinces of the empire. Many Albanians were skeptical of such promises, however, suspecting that the Ottomans were less and less capable of retaining their European possessions and protecting Albania and its population.34 Following the Ottomans’ crushing of the Prizren League as an instrument of political resistance, Albanian patriotic leaders became even more concerned about schools as instruments of cultural resistance.35 As ideal means for nation-building, schools and language were closely connected. In the case of the Albanian language, there was also the matter of alphabet. While some Albanians advocated use of an Arabic-based alphabet, others opted for one that was Latin-based. Such debates continued until the turn of the twentieth century. Sami Frashëri, one of the most prominent leaders of the Albanian movement wrote, “Albania cannot exist without the Albanians, the Albanians cannot exist without the Albanian language, and the latter cannot exist without its own alphabet and without schools.”36 The promotion of religious divisions in the Albanian populace emerged as a means to prevent Albanian ethnonational unification. Potentially separable as Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics, Albanians were subjected to propaganda and varying sorts of support from different power centers. Traditionally, they belonged to three different millets, and this administrative fragmentation was reflected in Albanians’ cultural development. When there was a surge to open primary schools in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire in 1840s, most Turkish schools aimed to educate Muslim children and instill loyalty to the Ottoman state. Orthodox Albanians were members of the Greek Church under the Patriarchate in Istanbul. A similar education program was followed by the Greek Orthodox Church, as it

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aimed to educate children of Albanian families in the Greek language and attempted to Hellenize the Orthodox faith. Albanians thus had limited options when it came to education; they could either send their children to Turkish schools or Greek schools. In each case, they were educated in a foreign language. There also existed a third possibility. Albanians could send their children to neither school, a choice made by many parents. Both Turkish and Greek schools aimed to maintain and extend their cultural influence among Albanians. Despite their differences, they both denied endorsement for, and strove to prevent the establishment of, schools in the Albanian language.37 The third religious group (i.e., the Catholics) was under the protection of the Roman Catholic Church. Despite its loose connection, the church emerged as an advocate for the Albanian language in the nineteenth century. Initially under AustroHungary’s cultural protection, Catholic Albanians were later brought into contact with Italy.38 The reform-based expansion of Ottoman direct rule brought challenges both to individual populations and to the empire itself, as some communities opted to retain autonomy within the empire or even declare independence. The ready availability of outside support for such separatist claims prompted the Ottoman state to pursue more aggressive policies to ward off foreign interests within its territorial boundaries. Education was one of the main tools in the hands of the empire to train the personnel necessary for its expanding bureaucracy within its modernizing government. The Porte also endeavored to realize its potential to reach the children of the empire to promote state values and enhance loyalty to the state and its ruler, the sultan. This paternalist approach to manipulating education proved frustrating for the empire, however, since many of its multiethnic and multireligious communities had the freedom to educate their children, and in the age of nationalism, many opted to pursue the education of their children in separate and private schools. Foreign and missionary schools further muddied the educational arena with attractive opportunities, as many allowed ethnic communities to receive an education for their children in their own languages, and this schooling generally was often provided free of charge.

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Catholic Albanians in the North sometimes enjoyed opportunities to send their children to Austrian schools that were opened in the area. Relying on a three-century-old treaty with the Ottoman Empire that gave Austria the privilege of “building and reparation of Catholic churches, religious institutions, and schools,” Austria began to increase the number of its schools for Albanians.39 Some of these efforts, such as the opening of a Jesuit seminary in İşkodra, met with strong opposition from local Muslims. After the interference of the Austrian government, the Ottoman state gave its permission in 1860 for the seminary’s establishment. Very active among Catholic Albanians, Jesuits also established a printing press in İşkodra that later published books in Albanian. The numbers of schools run by Catholic clergy increased in time, and Franciscans were tasked with the duty of educating the children of the countryside, mostly surrounding İşkodra. In an effort to gain sympathies and support from Albanians, schools run by Austro-Hungary allowed instruction in the Albanian language. They claimed to support the Albanian ethnonational cause and vowed to strengthen Albanians to withstand pressures from neighboring Slavic nations.40 The Dual Monarchy’s language policy pleased Albanian patriotic leaders, as they were empowered to focus on the linguistic unity of Albanians in the late nineteenth century. For many Muslim Albanians, although they welcomed the linguistic policies of Austria, religious differences became an issue, and they monitored Catholic propaganda with great suspicion. Observing these insecurities, the Ottoman state focused on empowering Muslim Albanians by opening schools for them. By emphasizing Ottoman Turkish in schools and by cultivating religious affinity among Muslim Albanians, the empire hoped to separate Muslim and Christian Albanians, thus preventing their ethnonational unification. Additionally, the Ottoman state desired to counterbalance Albanian influences so much that it permitted Italy to establish schools in the Albanian provinces. In part because of Cevdet Paşa’s reports, the Ottoman state was well aware of the close relations between Muslim and Christian Albanians. Ottoman leaders feared that a common, non-Ottoman language would advance this relationship and contribute to ethnonational unification—and separatist politics. The Porte thus focused on promoting religious and linguistic cleavages in Albanian society.

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The Patriarchate in Istanbul generally supported the Porte’s language policies for Albanians. As I have indicated, it opposed Albanian linguistic and educational rights out of its fear that such liberties could undermine its own power and prestige and might even lead to a separate Albanian church. The Patriarchate thus supported the linguistic policies of the Ottoman state and promoted Greek schools for Orthodox Albanians.41 In its efforts to promote religious solidarity among Albanian Muslims and to prevent foreign countries (especially Austro-Hungary and Italy) from empowering Catholic Albanians, the Ottoman state made efforts to establish primary schools in northern Albania. Although primary schools were the responsibility of the communities, in the face of an increased threat from Austria, the Ottoman state began to establish schools and masjids for its Muslim Albanian population. Italy was also a major competitor with the Dual Monarchy in the Albanian provinces.42 In an effort to compete with Austria, Italy began to establish schools in İşkodra and in several coastal towns. By the late nineteenth century, Italy increased its efforts to spread its schools. Although it located a number of schools along the coast, Italy concentrated on schools in İşkodra. These schools were lay institutions, and their official language of instruction was Italian. Like the Austrian schools, however, many Italian schools taught using the Albanian language.43 By 1889 in İşkodra, when a local idadî was compelled to close its doors due to its inability to cover the expenses of operation, the Catholic schools were seen as the clear beneficiaries of this situation. As Deringil wrote, “This was playing into the hands of the Italian consul, who was promoting the local Catholic schools as alternatives, and it was inevitable that the local population would indeed send their children to those schools if Istanbul failed to make adequate provision.”44 Although a few Albanian schools opened in the 1880s in Korche, they were short-lived. They resulted both from the Albanian lobby in Istanbul that demanded such schools and from Ottoman policy, which “oscillated between reform and conservatism in response to European pressure.”45 Muslim and Orthodox communities were under pressure to withdraw their children from Albanian schools, causing the number of students in them to drastically decline. In November

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1898, Albanian leaders held a school congress in Bucharest and agreed to send a telegram to the sultan requesting that he issue a directive to establish courses in the Albanian language in each Albanian school. The leaders complained about the absolute lack of Albanian schools and commented on the high number of schools teaching in foreign languages (i.e., in Turkish and Greek).46 Albanians, despite their opposition to the Ottoman government, were prepared to fight for it whenever the empire was at war with either the Greeks or the Slavs. In short, they feared that an Ottoman defeat would be detrimental to their long-term territorial aspirations. In 1897, during the war between Greece and the empire that began following an insurrection in Crete, the Albanians fought on the side of the Porte. Before the war was over, however, they once again demanded administrative autonomy. Indeed, some Albanians refused to lay down their arms unless their demands were fulfilled. Though the Ottomans entered into negotiations, talks broke down once a revolt erupted in Kosovo in November 1897. The insurgents demanded tax reductions and opening of Albanian schools. The revolt lasted until 1898, and though the Ottoman state made concessions, the December 1897 peace treaty with Greece enabled the Ottomans to avoid fulfilling these pledges. Ottoman Education Policies and the Albanian Provinces

Cevdet Paşa’s earlier observations regarding the peripheral Balkan provinces became a guide for future state policies. Later decisions regarding schools and mosques in the region reveal continuities in Ottoman policies that stemmed from his observations and recommendations for the region. Acting upon a request from the vilâyet of İşkodra, in late 1892 the Ministry of Education requested that the grand vizier open ten primary schools and masjids in the mountain villages of northern Albania. Since the population of the towns of İşkodra, Leş, and Tuz was very poor and could not cover associated expenses, the Minister of Education requested funds for construction of the schools and salaries for teachers. He asked for a one-time expenditure of 27,900 kuruş for construction and an annual amount of 14,400 kuruş for teachers’ salaries. He also requested the construction of ten masjids for the same villages, for

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which locals provided 8,000 kuruş, but which needed another 10,167 kuruş for completion. With no immediate response to his request, the minister sent another letter to the grand vizier, bringing to his attention the urgency of the situation. This urgency existed because Catholic priests in these villages were trying to undermine local Muslims’ religious beliefs and because granting this local request for schools and masjids could “ward off those harmful attempts and their impacts.”47 This request for schools was reviewed and discussed by the Council of Ministers. Upon deliberation, the Council agreed to comply with the request in part, and set about to determine how the costs would be divided. Council members agreed that the costs of teachers’ salaries must to be paid from funds set aside for the idadî school planned for the region but not yet opened. For school construction, monies could be derived from the Ministry of Education’s fund for construction in the provinces. As for the masjids, the requested amount could not be covered by educational funds. The nature of the masjids required that they be paid for either from the Hazine-yi Evkaf-ı Hümayun (a fund for imperial pious foundations) or from the sultan’s charitable institutions fund. Since the masjids would both protect Muslims from Catholic propaganda and provide a space for Muslims to congregate for daily prayers and customary Friday prayers, their construction was both a religious necessity and a religious duty of the state. During deliberations, the Minister of Pious Foundations agreed that Hazine-yi Evkaf-ı Hümayun could pay the costs of masjid construction. Since the masjids would be located in the same villages as the schools, the Council concluded that the teachers, like their school counterparts, could work as masjid imams and preachers, thus reducing operating costs. The Council emphasized that this conclusion was in line with prior directives of the sultan.48 When the Council’s decision was submitted to the sultan, it was approved within one day.49 Local administrators’ requests for both schools and masjids, on the one hand, and the state’s proposals to fund them, on the other hand, together provide a clear indication of how local aspirations and imperial strategies mutually came to center on the Porte’s promotion of state schools and the matter of public financing. In this way, the state defined the needs of communities in religious terms and requested

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that the money collected for postprimary schools be used for their construction. At times, the state needed to readjust and offer to cover associated costs from its own religious building funds. However, funds collected for postprimary schools (in this case the idadî schools) could pay the salaries of teachers who, in the end, would serve both as schoolteachers and spiritual leaders in the masjids. By providing some of the funds for masjid construction, local governments softly pushed the empire to come up with the rest. The Porte’s knowledge of Catholic priests’ activities in the region decades prior, thanks to Cevdet Paşa’s fact-finding mission, added considerable weight to the claims of locals in the eyes of state leaders. Although the tax revenue collected for postprimary school investment funded some operating expenses or primary schools, the money was viewed as more beneficial for the locals, who, in the absence of primary schools, could not hope to send their children to postprimary schools. Both sides made sacrifices from their original positions—locals trying to direct taxes collected for postprimary schools to their region to be used for funding primary schools and religious institutions, and the empire trying to convince local communities to fund their primary schools by presenting postprimary schools as incentives—and both sides attained their goals (in compromised form) with equal measures of adjustment and maneuvering. Salary expenses were also an issue for the empire, and teachers appointed to İşkodra received very small salaries. Teachers’ salaries were not fixed, fluctuating from one region to another of the empire, but most of them received around 200 kuruş per month. Two years after these arrangements (by 1894 or 1895), the local government of İşkodra requested salary increases for its teachers. Officials argued that salaries were insufficient and asked the Ottoman state to provide funds to increase all twenty-nine schoolteachers’ salaries (each school had only one teacher) to 200 kuruş. A list of salaries, which ranged between 110 and 156 kuruş per month, was submitted to the state. After some deliberation, the state approved the request and transferred funds for the requested increase.50 It was thus a significant move for the state to appoint teachers who could function as religious leaders in towns where local religious figures were suspected of involvement in

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ethnonationalist activities. A similar state policy was followed in Syria, where local religious figures were sidelined from their earlier duties of traveling to remote areas to inculcate Islamic beliefs and practices among local populations in the face of growing missionary threats. Though aware of such dangers, the Porte wanted its own teachers and religious leaders to face the rival missionaries that arrived in the Ottoman Empire, most aided politically and financially by their countries of origin. Local leaders often used the geopolitical and religious threat posed by foreign missionaries to justify nonpayment of the education contribution tax, seeking to keep the entire amount for local expenses rather than sending any of it to Istanbul. In some cases, they lobbied effectively for money from the empire to be diverted to their own communities. Ottoman archival sources reflect well the empire’s sometimes frustrated efforts to collect tax revenues in order to finance its wider strategies. The emerging rhetoric conveying fears of foreign missionaries was indeed used by the Ottoman state to justify its schools, appointment of its own teachers, and appointment of its medrese graduates as the Porte sought to establish its rights to teach children of the empire, especially Muslim children at primary school levels. The Ottoman re-Islamization project thus came, in part, as a reaction to efforts by local communities to retain their education contribution tax. In finding a middle ground the state provided primary schools, especially religious primary schools. In this way, we might view Hamidian Islamization as having had local—and not simply imperial—roots. Though the Ottoman Empire instituted the education contribution tax in 1884, in most cases actual collection took several more years in many peripheral areas. In 1887, some notables of the vilâyet of Kosovo demanded that the money collected for the education contribution tax be used for primary schools only and asked that the public works share be eliminated.51 Successful in their demand, they were able to postpone paying the tax until 1894 and even then paid it conditionally. In that same year a letter from the province of Kosovo informed the Ottoman state that people in the sanjaks of Yeni Pazar and Taşlıca agreed to pay their public works and education taxes—but on a conditional basis. These communities sought to combine both shares for

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the current year as an education fund and use it to establish primary schools. Further, they demanded that in the following year there be a reversal of the amount of the shares, with the higher amount (1 percent) being the education share, and the lesser amount (0.5 percent) being the public works share. While the Ministry of Education was sympathetic to an adjustment, this request stirred up a great deal of controversy in the capital between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works. Demanding that its funds be restored, the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works petitioned for a solution through the main court of appeal for administrative affairs, the Şura-yı Devlet.52 Once questioned about this issue, the Ministry of Education informed the Şura-yı Devlet that it supported the local decision on this issue. This support was explained with an argument that the people in the two sanjaks were living in a state of “darkness of ignorance” and that they could not appreciate the importance and benefits of the relative shares of taxes (and of their support for education), and thus would refuse to pay money to either ministry until they could be ‘civilized.’ The two sanjaks had agreed to pay taxes only recently and had argued effectively that before anything else, they needed primary schools “in order to be able to learn their religious obligations.” If that condition were not recognized and honored, the two sanjaks seemed prepared to refuse to pay taxes for either fund. Since the Ministry of Education was under financial constraints because of the expanding number of postprimary schools, it could not find other sources to fund schools, and accepting the local solution appeared to be the best option.53 Defending its financial claims, the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works opposed any changes to its share. Officials argued that any diversion of the amount allocated to the ministry would harm its work and that the same amount should be collected in each region. The ministry’s share was intended to finance branches of the Agriculture Bank (Ziraat Bankası) in order to help out poor farmers; if its share were reduced, the ministry would be unable to proceed with this plan. Officials suggested that the Ministry of Education find the money it needed from other sources.54 After examining both sides of the argument, the Şura-yı Devlet sided with the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works. The decision focused on the necessity of establishing

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bank branches that could benefit people who “lived like Bedouins” (i.e., as pastoralists). Diverting the funds towards new schools would disadvantage them and cause discontent. Furthermore, the proposed diversion would violate established procedures; thus the Ministry of Education needed to identify alternative sources of funds.55 The establishment of public funds (menafi hissesi) to provide cheap credit for cultivators through the establishment of branches of the agriculture bank met with opposition from wealthy notables who sat on local councils and influenced loan policies that favored them.56 New banks offering low-interest credit would harm their economic standing, as they enjoyed the profits of granting locals high-interest loans. It was perhaps this concern that made the Şura-yı Devlet favor the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works. Since the problem was deeply rooted, solving it was not easy. Rather, the issue involved the long-standing struggle between local elites and the Porte, with the success of its centralization agenda at stake. The task of solving this conflict over funding was delegated to a higher committee, the Council of Ministers. It met under the leadership of the grand vizier to reexamine the case and the decision rendered by the Şura-yı Devlet. Members of the Council partly agreed with the verdict, in that the requested reallocation of finances violated accepted procedures and would undermine bank projects proposed for the sanjaks in Kosovo. The Council thus supported the decision that the Ministry of Education should look for other sources of funding to cover costs under usual circumstances. However, the fact that locals of the two sanjaks, “because of their ignorance,” refused to pay their shares and consented to do so only with the concessions requested meant that their proposal to alter the allocation of monies should be accepted.57 After this unusual effort to solve the problem quickly, the grand vizier submitted the decision to the sultan on the same day and received approval within two days.58 What was most striking in the Ministry of Education’s decision was the description of the local population as naive, almost uncivilized, as a justification of their rejection of public works. As this case demonstrates, however, the locals seem neither naive nor uncivilized when we consider the settlement: a decision that resulted in the Porte—with

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the sultan’s approval—allowing all collected taxes to be left with the local community. Local officials were aware that once money was sent to Istanbul, there was no guarantee that they get any of it back for their community. They were, therefore, determined to keep the money in their own hands, rather than waiting for it to return in the form of state-provided services or expenditures for infrastructure. This shrewd action clearly indicated the general state of mistrust some local leaders had of the state’s practices of taxation and expenditure. Indeed, they did not want to support institutions in the distant capital or elsewhere with no guarantee that the state would fulfill what they perceived to be the obligations to their community that came with extracting the tax. Rather than accepting this settlement as a victory of the periphery, the Ministry of Education made a strained effort to focus on the necessity of civilizing these unruly peoples—even at the expense of losing funds for other institutions. One of the main issues emphasized by the Ministry of Education was that people in Yenipazar and Taşlıca had not been paying any taxes; neither education nor public works taxes. Given that the local population was barely convinced of the necessity of schools and had agreed to pay the taxes only in the form of an education tax that would support their local school, this special tax arrangement was a good start. As the Ministry of Education noted, any attempts to change the nature of this agreement proposed by the locals would endanger future collections of even that agreed-upon amount. According to the Ministry of Education, it was necessary to accept the solution offered by local authorities.59 As another example of state-local exchanges, letters poured in from Kosovo requesting more schools and the state struggled to respond. In 1884, the grand vizier sent a letter to the Ministry of Education regarding the establishment of three medreses for Muslim populations living in the Kosovo towns of Gusinye and Plava. The letter informed the minister that the Council of Ministers had received a local request for the medreses and for three teachers knowledgeable and competent in the new instructional methods, and it conveyed a request for his ministry’s help in fulfilling this request. Such schools, as the sultan also agreed, would eliminate “inappropriate actions that emerged from

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a lack of education and manners.”60 The ministries of Education, of Pious Foundations, and of Internal Affairs were delegated the task of aiding in the establishment, funding, and staffing of these schools, as deemed necessary. The grand vizier supplied the Minister of Education with letters and reports from investigations that they acquired from local officials and from the administrative council in Kosovo. According to local estimates, there were 2,406 Muslims in the two towns. Since they were unable to cover associated costs and lacked other sources for funding the requested schools, they needed to identify reliable funding. Some locals offered alternative support, providing rocks and wood for the construction of two schools in Gusinye and for one in Plava. According to construction estimates, they still needed about 8,232 kuruş for completion of the buildings and regular funds to pay teachers and janitors, and a reasonable amount for miscellaneous expenses. Although financial conditions were difficult, the needs of the local populations and the geopolitical significance of their locations compelled officials to view these expenditures as essential. The Minister of Education reported to the grand vizier his solution: construction costs would be covered from the education tax arrears and the salaries of the teachers (set at 180 kuruş per month) would be covered from education tax money.61 As the demand for funding primary schools in the provinces of the empire increased, the Ottoman state examined each request carefully and made the necessary accommodations. Letters of appreciation were sent to Istanbul to acknowledge the support of the state, some of which even requested permission to name schools after the sultan. The Minister of Education forwarded from Salonica a letter that requested permission to name the new 500-student primary school in the village of Notya after the sultan. Submitting this request for the sultan’s approval, the grand vizier noted that the construction costs and salaries for teachers and janitors were derived from local public funds and that locals wanted the sultan to be remembered in the school’s name.62 Another letter requesting permission to name a primary school after the sultan came from İşkodra. The administrators of a primary school in a prominent neighborhood sought approval for their new school built for Muslim children in Abdülhamid II’s name.63 Such requests in letters of appreciation required little effort to get approval.

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School Accessibility and Public Relations in the Ottoman Balkans

Abdülhamid II’s educational agenda prioritized “mass education” of the empire’s citizens. His policy supported postprimary education with state funds but left primary education in the hands of the citizens. This approach resembled educational policies prior to the introduction of modern schools, when charitable institutions and donations provided religious education to the empire’s children. His agenda, however, did not imply that because primary education was provided by the regions of the empire it was unfunded by the state. Leaders of the Porte were aware of education’s potential in inculcating ideologies and promoting loyalty to the state and its sultan. It was the financial cost of primary education that determined the Porte’s policy. In the end, the goal was to bring primary education to every corner of the empire—and to have it funded by the citizens themselves. Primary education was essential, because unless there were enough primary school graduates, state-supported secondary and higher schools would be left empty. Abdülhamid II strove to make postprimary schools more accessible to the empire’s citizens by opening new schools in sanjak and kaza centers. In order to cover the expenses of postprimary schools, the state introduced the previously discussed education contribution tax in 1884. Citizens thus were required to open primary schools and educate their children in the hope that they would then qualify for the postprimary schools. However, such confidence in education—and especially in the Ottoman state itself—did not develop in the hearts and minds of all citizens of every part of the empire in the same way. Many parties in both European (especially the Balkan) and Arab territories viewed the spread of schools as the encroachment of state institutions intended to exert control over them, their children, their communities, and their peoples. As a consequence of such apprehensions, local parties often rejected outright any educational initiatives by the state. In addition to obedience and loyalty, Abdülhamid II’s government thus expected two things from its citizens: they should pay their education taxes, and they should open primary schools for children in order to generate students for the postprimary schools that began to spread throughout the empire. However, the opening of public schools was

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viewed with suspicion in some areas, such as Bosnia, because the local populations perceived these schools as schemes to bring them closer to the state by inculcating loyalty to the Ottoman state.64 However, without a solid base of primary-school graduates, planned postprimary schools could not be filled. In 1899, acutely aware of some citizens’ disinclination to pay their education taxes and invest in opening primary schools, Abdülhamid II requested that three committees be established to go to Balkans.65 This campaign, designed to win over the “hearts and souls” of the population, especially sought the popular support for the state’s education policies. The task of the committees was similar to that of public relations offices a century later in both businesses and governments. It was decided that three committees should be set up with four members in each. The first member would be the local educational director of each chosen region. Each of the remaining three members the committee would be a handpicked individual from the high offices of Religion, Education, and Civil Administration in Istanbul. For this project, the Balkans was divided into three areas: Edirne and Salonica, Kosovo and Monastir, and Yanya and İşkodra. Each committee was assigned to one of these designated areas.66 The mission designed for the committees was multifaceted. First, the committees were to remind local populations of the necessity and significance of primary schools in which their children could learn the foundations of Islam and Islamic theology.67 Second, they would point out advancements in higher education (i.e., postprimary schools) and that postsecondary schools relied on primary education (i.e., the necessity of having primary-school graduates to enroll in postprimary schools). Third, they were to remind local populations of the significance of their financial contribution to support educational plans.68 Besides being spokespersons for the empire’s educational plans, these committees also had a financial mission to accomplish: to collect the education taxes due from local government funds (or mal sandığı) and other sources.69 In a sense, these committees would function like present-day collection agencies, collecting education funds that were supposed to be sent to Istanbul from local taxes, but were not sent on time or were never collected.

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After the three offices of Religion, Education, and Civil Administration selected their best candidates for the committees, the Commission of Ministers (Meclis-i Vükelâ) reviewed the pool of candidates with respect to their intended assignments and approved selected candidates. The Ministry of Education selected three people from the Education Commission to represent their department.70 The Ministry of Internal Affairs submitted the names and credentials of its selected candidates for this job and concluded that they were “fit to accomplish the mission of ‘encouraging the locals to financially support the education.’”71 The office of Şeyhulislam also sent a letter indicating their chosen candidates.72 Among the most striking features of these committees were the selection criteria of the candidates. Since the job was working as an intermediary between the state and the periphery, candidates were expected to have good job records and the potential to influence people in the provinces. Since each of the three offices (Education, Religion, and Internal Affairs) was asked to pick candidates with “noticeable competency and successful job record,” Şeyhulislam Mehmed Cemaleddin presented his selected candidates as “successful and competent in their job and fit for the requested qualifications.”73 The letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave a detailed description of its candidates. Their qualifications included holding a high position in the Balkans and being familiar with both the region and the languages of their area of assignment. For instance, Evkaf-ı Hümayun Mahlülat Müdürü (escheat) Faik Bey, who had been to Edirne before and was familiar with the area and its conditions, would be sent to Edirne and Salonica. Other professional and personal qualifications were also highlighted in records of the candidates. Kazim Efendi “knows the Albanian language and has the ability to convince people of ‘how education can be beneficial to local people.’”74 Because of these skills, he was selected to go to the Kosovo and Monastir vilâyets. The third candidate, Hakkı Efendi, was a governor of a sanjak and had served in the Rumeli region. He would also be a valuable asset. There was a considerable financial investment in such a program, which required employing high officials with successful job records. Their appointments required additional payment; the Commission of Ministers decided on the amount and how it would be covered. Those

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who received their salaries from Istanbul would get an additional 3,000 kuruş per month during their appointment. Officials who were locally appointed would also get an additional payment of 3,000 kuruş each month while working on the project. If the appointed officials did not have a salary, they would be paid 5,000 kuruş per month for the length of the project. Individuals appointed were also provided with travel allowances.75 The archival document providing this information does not make clear whether local funds would cover all the costs of additional salaries and travel expenses or just those expenses incurred by local officials or while central officials were in peripheral areas. Another matter that merits attention is how expensive these commissions and salaries were. One month’s additional salary for each of the nine charismatic personnel—3,000 kuruş—would cover twelve primary schoolteachers’ salaries for a whole year (teachers were paid 150 to 200 kuruş a month). Since we lack information about the duration of the committees, it is hard to estimate their total cost to the state and local budgets. One document shows that the three committees applied to the Ministry of Education in Istanbul to hire a salaried clerk for each committee, a request due to the large amount of work and the difficulty of hiring clerks by paying their travel allowances only.76 The committee members suggested that the Ministry of Education allocate 400 kuruş a year for the clerks. Since the Ministry of Education lacked funds to cover the salaries of the clerks, the sultan was asked to approve a transfer of funds from the Ministry of Education’s expenses section into salaries. According to the ministry’s estimates, the amount would be 400 kuruş for each year and 14,400 kuruş for the year, and that amount would be transferred from the budget’s “periphery” section and from “installations” into “salaries.” As revealed in archival documents, however, the committees proved almost entirely useless in convincing local populations to pay education taxes and help finance primary schools, even in their own areas.77 Available documents show that the committees targeted only the Muslim populations of the Balkans, with no mention of the large number of non-Muslims living in the area. Clearly, the committees were introduced at a time when Abdülhamid II’s policies shifted to focus on Islamic unity and Islamic identity instead of a state-based

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identity of Ottomanism. Teaching Muslim children in the region about their religion and Islamic identity was thus favored. This tactic was challenged later when Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa was appointed—albeit under European pressure—to determine the educational needs of the population in the Balkans as a whole, and petitioned for schools that would serve the educational needs of both Muslim and Christian children alike (as addressed in the subsequent chapter). Amid the rise of ethnonationalism, there were limitations to the degree of consent that could be cultivated by the empire within its communities of ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse populations. A ceding of measured autonomy to locals (the state’s acquiescence to local authorities in matters of taxation, local expenditures, and associated plans for development) was critical in creating and sustaining the measure of consent needed to enable continued imperial rule. Indeed, such flexibility in practice was far more important than any fact-finding or public relations missions that the Porte could deploy.

Figure 4: An idâdî school, Yanya.78

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CHAPTER 3 A GEOPOLITICS OF STATISTICS, R EFOR M, AND EDUCATION IN OTTOM AN M ACEDONIA AND THE BALK ANS

An apple tree, a pear tree, a plum tree, and an oak tree were planted in such a way that their branches touched each other. Because of its height, the oak dominated the others, but the small trees in turn blocked the air and light from its lower branches, so much so that they were rotting and falling off. One day, the small trees fought among themselves trying to reach the sun. Their noise and cries were so loud that God heard them and asked: “Why are you fighting? Each one of you exists in the ways that you should; no tree is better than the other. Each tree deserves the ground that it stands on.” The situation in the Balkans is like that. The apple tree is Romania, the plum tree is Serbia, the pear tree is Greece. Our Turkey is the oak. Attributed to Abdülhamid II1 [T]he agents of these States openly or in disguise employ every means they consider lawful to attain the end which they profess to believe desirable, bribing infidel Turks, buying the consent of

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parents to have their children educated in this school or in that, distributing gratis books, pamphlets and leaflets in which they virulently abuse each other and eulogise the cause—delighted at the conversion or apostasy of a child or a family, as if the political problem could be solved, at this hour of the day, on the basis of “cooked” or even genuine statistics. A journalist on conditions in Macedonia in 18952 In the early twentieth century, Macedonia was still a territory under the sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. Ottoman rulers declared that the legitimacy of their governance in Macedonia derived not only as a right of their conquest centuries earlier but also from their self-asserted mandate to administer the region’s Muslim and Turkish majorities. Despite the outcomes of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and the treaties that followed, contentious matters regarding the receding territories of the Ottoman Balkans were unresolved. For those who would rule the region and for those living in it, the lands of Macedonia were one such source of contestation. Following the Treaty of San Stefano in March 1878 and the treaty derived from the Congress of Berlin in June and July 1878, Bulgarian, Greek, Montenegrin, Romanian, and Serbian ethnonationalists (and states) achieved independence or gained territories3 from the Ottoman Empire. Parties from all these groups laid claim to Macedonia and the Macedonian population. By means ranging from rhetorical propaganda to mapping, to census-taking, to schooling, to the use of arms, they fought against each other—and against Macedonian ethnonationalists—for the region. As this chapter demonstrates, territorial contestation in the Ottoman Balkans took on many dimensions—with schools functioning as both the terrain of, and prizes in, the ongoing conflicts. Key voices speaking for the emergent political identity of Macedonianism seemed to support the Ottoman position. Indeed, they sought a limited autonomy for Macedonia within a larger Ottoman polity but wanted rights to use the Macedonian language in their schools and local administration.4 This group of ethnonationalists, along with Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs (also referred to as Romanian Macedonians, Koutzo-Wallachs, Wallachs, or Wallachians),

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and others, competed for Macedonia. Regional conflict lasted for decades, only briefly ending with an administrative repartitioning of territories after the Second Balkan War in June and July 1913. As Benedict Anderson notes in his classic study Imagined Communities, the map and the census are two essential devices in the administrative arsenal of the modern state.5 As will be observed in the coming pages, both were employed by the Ottomans and others in constructing and dividing Macedonia and in defining its inhabitants. In addition to these strategies for laying claim and achieving control, discursive struggles to declare the terms of reform in the provinces, and deployment of fact-finding missions there, were also significant. Additionally, trade also played a role in the region’s “quiet penetration” by Austria-Hungary,6 among other powers. Regardless of the types of struggles at play, control of educational policy and schooling was both a means to the end and an end itself. This ethnoterritorial conflict and the manner in which parties sought to prosecute their objectives propelled Macedonia into disorder and insecurity. Mapping the Lands and Tallying the Populations

Geographically, Macedonia of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was composed of three provinces: Kosovo, Salonica, and Monastir. Administratively, the Ottomans referred to this region not as Macedonia but as the Three Provinces of Rumelia (or Elviye-yi Selâse). The ethnonational, linguistic, and religious composition of Macedonia was very complex, Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, Vlachs, Albanians, Jews, and others living side-by-side throughout the region. When the Ottoman Empire organized and mapped its provinces, administrative boundaries were established with a Muslim majority in each one, and the boundaries of the Three Provinces were demarcated so as to make formation of alternative, homogeneous communities quite problematic, if not impracticable. This sort of geopolitical rearrangement of ethnonational identities and associated territories in order to achieve a greater degree of imperial control, as evident in the provinces that constituted Macedonia, was an evolving practice. Perhaps the state most associated with it, as the

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twentieth century progressed and as peoples increasingly identified (or were taught to identify or not to identify) in ethnonational terms, was the Soviet empire.7 One might draw similar comparisons to the later construction of apartheid-era South Africa and its designation of tribal populations and lands in ways that spatially and demographically marginalized blacks relative to a fictitious white, ruling “majority.”8 Likewise, China renders a vivid example today, beginning with its initial establishment of minzu or nationality designations and homelands, its redefinitions and assimilations of particular groups, and its present efforts to establish a Han majority in contested minority regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang.9 In redrawing the administrative map of the Ottoman Balkans—ostensibly to enhance the state’s administrative efficiency—particular groups were included or excluded in ways that maximized Ottoman claims to regional sovereignty. In line with Edward Said’s observation regarding the “enumerative” nature of Orientalism,10 late Ottoman methods of rule in the Balkans also emphasized legitimacy through the (reconstructed) demographics of such reconstituted territories. Describing the vilâyet of Salonica, Skendi notes that it was constituted by adjoining a subregion of what might be considered the Macedonian region with lands from Thessaly. The Monastir vilâyet likewise comprised both a section of a larger Macedonia and portions of what would be regarded rightly as Albanian. Finally, the Kosovo vilâyet was demarcated by combining another segment of a larger Albania with Serbian lands.11 Such was a major cause of the conflict; each empire, state, and emergent ethnonational community in the region had reason to claim rights to some—or all—of the lands of the Ottoman Empire’s Three Provinces (i.e., Macedonia). Most concerned parties—including the Ottoman Empire— assembled their own statistics to validate their claims and demonstrate that their constituencies and ethnic kinsmen constituted clear majorities in the region.12 Overall population figures rendered by all groups were suspect, as were statistics for memberships in religious communities and political parties—and even enrollment numbers for area schools. As one Western author observed in 1903, “each Macedonian party has had the strongest motives for magnifying the numbers of its own adherents and for underestimating the strength of its opponents.”13

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The empire participated in these statistical campaigns as well. As table 3.1 shows, Ottoman statistics were constructed so as to present a clear Muslim (i.e., Ottoman) majority in Macedonia. Interestingly— and not surprisingly—the Ottoman Empire used religious identification when counting its Muslim population. The statistics showed clearly that the Muslims were the majority group in the Three Provinces. This claim was contested, however, by interested Balkan ethnonationalisms and foreign countries, who asserted that if the Muslim population were divided along ethnonational lines, the Turks would constitute but a minority in the region. Relying on declarations affirming this Muslim majority without ethnic divisions, Ottoman rulers thus opposed strenuously any alternative depictions14 or separatist counterclaims that could upset their precarious balance and rights to rule over the Three Provinces. As I have argued in the first chapter, in this case the empire found it expedient to advocate an ideology of Islamism within a wider promotion of Ottomanism.15 The contradiction inherent to the combination of these strategies in the same place, however, compromised Ottoman efforts to foster a meaningful “consent” among populations that the state and sultan aspired to rule. Given the suspect nature of the subgroups of the ethnonational and religious communities shown in the table, we should examine

Table 3.1: Ottoman population statistics as

constructed for the Three Provinces of Ottoman Macedonia, circa 1905.16 Demographic Subgroups in Macedonia Muslims

1,508,507

Bulgarians

896,497

Greeks

307,000

Serbs

100,717

Vlachs

99,000

Total population of Macedonia

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Total

2,911,721

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Demographic Sub-Groups in Macedonia Vlach 3% Serb 3% Greek 11%

Muslim 52% Bulgarian 31%

Chart 3.1: Ottoman population statistics as constructed for the Three Provinces of Ottoman Macedonia, circa 1905.

these individual figures from a critical perspective. Nonetheless, if we assume that the figure of 2.9 million people for the Three Provinces is somewhat accurate, this total constituted a significant percentage of the empire’s roughly 20.9 million citizens circa 1905.17 Governance through demographic discourse was a significant cause behind Ottoman opposition to the Albanians’ petitions for autonomy and cultural development through their own curriculum and schools. The Ottoman state viewed Albanian claims as impediments to its efforts to impose order and legitimacy in the Balkans—and also anticipated that petitions for autonomy might eventually turn into demands for independence. For their part, many Albanians simply aspired to limited autonomy within an Ottoman system, concerned that, in the event of struggles with other ethnonational groups or states, the territory they might claim as their own within the empire could be lost. These fears held by both the Ottoman state and Albanians were well founded, as the claims of each were contested by local adversaries, neighboring states, and other empires. The most active community seeking to achieve its goals in the region consisted of Bulgarian Macedonians and their supporting kinsmen in the recently established

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neighboring state of Bulgaria. Dismissing the notion of any distinct “Macedonian race” and perceiving a universal hatred among Bulgarians for the Turks, American author Arthur D. Howden Smith, in his 1908 Orientalist account of the Bulgarian Macedonian movement, later emphasized not only their mutual animosity towards former British Prime Minister Disraeli but also their wider objectives: One may say, with little fear of denial, that Disraeli is more cordially disliked by the Bulgarians than any other figure in English history. Disraeli was the man who, by the Treaty of Berlin, prevented the creation of “Big Bulgaria,” thereby throwing back into the Turkish grip the two-and-a-half-million Bulgars of Macedonia. His action may have been necessary, in 1878, to block Russia’s advance on the Mediterranean, but it has entailed years of suffering on millions of Christian men and women.18 Other ethnonationalisms and neighboring states likewise aspired to “larger” homogenous homelands for themselves. In their turn, the Greek government and the Patriarchate supported Greek guerrilla bands, Serbia sustained the struggles of local Serbs,19 and some Vlachs received aid from Romania. Hoping to undermine opposition in Macedonia, the Ottoman state relied heavily on Albanian surrogates, who had been at odds with neighboring Slavic ethnonationalisms since the treaties of San Stefano and Berlin in 1878. This support for and use of the Albanian population could have adverse consequences, drawing the empire into the wider conflicts that beset the region. When a May 1901 Albanian attack resulted in a massacre of a number of Serbs, Russia found pretext to interfere and demanded retribution for the perpetrators of Serbian casualties. Russia petitioned again for reforms and also for privileges for Christian communities that would allow them to keep arms for their own protection. The Ottoman state’s unwillingness or inability to introduce reforms in Macedonia was seen by Russians and other European critics as perpetuating the state of rebellion. To suppress opposition, the Ottomans came to rely further upon local Albanians, even providing weapons to its loyal Muslim populace. This taking of sides along religious lines made the

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Macedonian movement appear to be an outgrowth of a “Muslim versus Christian” struggle. The causes of conflict were in fact far more complex. While there were interreligious rhetorics and animosities, struggles for territory and sovereignty were also at play—generally along ethnonational (and ethnoreligious) and political/state lines. Albanians, especially those from Kosovo, were mainly Muslim and often identified themselves with the Ottoman state through religious affinity. Thus, the Slavs’ opposition to the Ottoman Empire made them an immediate target of Albanian opposition. By defining Albanian opposition in religious terms, the Ottoman state sought to establish discursively that the Albanian struggle was a campaign waged by beleaguered Muslims against of the Crusade-like onslaught of “Slavic Christendom.” This depiction of the Albanians as oppressed Muslims—which aligned well with Ottoman ambitions to co-opt them—also inhibited Albanian self-recognition as a distinct nationality.20 While the tactic of promoting the struggles of the Albanians may not have been advanced on the ground within the Balkans, as distinguished from discursive representations emanating from the Porte, it was nonetheless strategically ill-advised. Indeed, as the tempestuous prose describing suffering Christians by Western authors like the Arthur Smith indicates,21 the imagery of a Christian versus Muslim conflict could only weaken the empire and the Albanians in wider engagements over the Three Provinces that involved neighboring states, regional empires, and Western powers. Reflecting the nature of these varied conflicts, their associated enlistment of quantitative discourse, and the intrinsic place of education in struggles over the Balkans, the historian William Langer, in his enduring study of empires, observed that in 1894, the Serbs claimed to have over a hundred schools in the Kosovo vilayet, and their pupils numbered over five thousand. The Bulgarians . . . claimed to have over six hundred schools with more than twenty-five thousand pupils, while the Greek schools of the Patriarchate in 1895 numbered, according to Greek statistics, over fourteen hundred, with eighty thousand pupils. In addition the Roumanians, who

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had been carrying on an active propaganda for some time and were spending some four hundred thousand francs annually on Macedonian schools, put the number of their institutions at over thirty and the number of pupils at some two thousand. Of course these figures are all exaggerated. Still, Europe had rarely seen such an all-consuming passion for education as seized the Balkan peoples in behalf of their Macedonian brothers during the last decade of the 19th century.22 Contesting Control by Controlling Reform

As I have noted, the struggles over the Balkans between the Ottoman Empire and its local and imperial rivals often centered on the perceived conditions of area Christian communities, their status vis-à-vis the state, and the wider question of reforms. Indeed, the territorial tug-of-war between the Turks and the Russians (among others) was often depicted deceptively as merely a matter of the Ottoman state’s intentions to carry out reforms to which it pledged during the late nineteenth century (e.g., as in the agreements in 1878 resulting in the Treaty of Berlin) and afterwards. It is critical to remember, however, that this context of contestation yielded at least two starkly discordant images of what reform symbolized for the empire in territories like Macedonia—to say nothing about what it meant for many other local communities and for foreign powers seeking to impose reform programs. First, we might consider reform in its most positive rendering. In this light, it was idealized as the realization of at least some of the promises made by the Ottoman state to its pluralistic populace since as early as the Tanzimat era: promises of modernization and of equality among all citizens of the empire. Moreover, it was also viewed in practical terms by some as the necessary course of action to be taken in order to guarantee the survival of the empire, but a course of action that had to be enacted according to the empire’s own terms and capabilities. The second way of viewing reforms implied—should they be mandated or enforced from outside the empire—that they were a pretext for and a means of Western colonization of Ottoman territories. Talks of reforms specific to Macedonia started during the Istanbul

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Conference in 1876 and continued beyond the reign of Abdülhamid II until the Balkans Wars of 1912 and 1913. Participants at the conference in 1876 demanded that any reform program in Macedonia include the participation of both Muslim and non-Muslim communities in matters of local administration within a locally autonomous structure. Furthermore, proponents of reform demanded that, to guarantee the implementation of such an ambitious program, an international commission and a European military force oversee (and enforce) it. Tensions over reform continued after the 1877–1878 Ottoman war with Russia. Russia’s victory and its demands in favor of a greater Bulgaria in what was a territorial partitioning of the Ottoman Empire’s Balkan provinces created significant resentment of Russia, initially among the Ottomans and non-Bulgarian peoples of the region and later even among the Bulgarians, when they came to believe their cause had been abandoned by the tsarist state. European powers countered Russia’s ambitions through the Treaty of Berlin, reversing most of those terms in the Treaty of San Stefano favoring Russia’s (and Bulgaria’s) wider territorial aspirations. As a condition of this reversal, however, the Berlin treaty stipulated reform measures for Macedonia. Although the Ottoman state agreed publicly that there was a necessity for reform, it rejected uninvited foreign involvement in the design and application of policy, viewing such administrative interventions as infringements upon the empire’s sovereignty. In response to Article 23 of the Berlin treaty, the Ottoman state drafted a reform and reorganization proposal for its European provinces, the Rumeli Vilâyetleri Nizamnamesi, in 1880. Pending approval by the European powers, the Rumeli Vilâyetleri Nizamnamesi was to be signed by Sultan Abdülhamid II and implemented thereafter.23 Although the proposal was not drafted by local committees—as stipulated in the treaty—the European powers approved it, with minor changes, as delivered by the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Viewing the Treaty of Berlin as an effective—albeit short-term— impediment to Russia’s aspirations in the Balkans and the Straits, European countries lost their commitment to enforce reform in Macedonia. In response to this scaling back of international pressure, the sultan never signed the Rumeli Vilâyetleri Nizamnamesi

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program. The reforms were never scheduled for implementation in the Macedonian provinces.24 However, as inter-community and society-state relations worsened in the ensuing years, the urgency for reform resurfaced and again came to haunt the Ottoman state in the early 1900s. Non-Muslim communities living in the Balkans demanded implementation of the promised reforms. The empire, however, was afraid that they would privilege particular groups or promote demands for autonomous states, exacerbate tensions between ethnonational populations, and further diminish Ottoman sovereignty. At most, the Ottoman state might be characterized as moving slowly and cautiously towards implementation of reform. In the eyes of many contemporary Western observers, however, the Ottoman state had incentives to stall, or evade entirely, any reforms, and no incentive to promote their actual implementation. In a 1907 article on the question of Ottoman Macedonia in 1907, which the author of the 1911 book Turkey and Its Peoples Sir Edwin Pears concluded, “I suggest that the causa causans of the unrest in the Balkan States is the knowledge that Russia persistently works to obtain Constantinople.”25 Pears depicted Turkey’s continued involvement in the region as contrary to the Ottoman state’s best interests and a drain upon the resources and manpower of the empire. As Pears wrote, “Austria and Russia are quite agreed that Macedonia is virtually lost to Turkey. That Turkey should have to keep up a large army there and to increase her expenditure is only to say that she is being forced to assist in the process of her own disintegration.”26 In brief, many observers in the West viewed Ottoman Turkey’s continued presence in the Balkans, secured by European powers (primarily England) through the Treaty of Berlin, as a short-term geopolitical solution to Britain’s concerns about Russia’s encroachments in the region—with full anticipation that the time bought through this delaying action would hasten the demise of the empire itself. Years earlier, in both 1895 and 1903, the journalist and philologist Emile J. Dillon, while serving as something of a regional foreign correspondent and essayist for the British periodical Contemporary Review,

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drew similar conclusions.27 Writing in 1895, he observed that, with the Treaty of Berlin, Macedonia, like Armenia, was relegated to . . . [a] most unfortunate category: it was handed back to the Turks, on the explicit condition that they would generously do what the Powers themselves could not and would not do—viz., sacrifice political interests to the demands of justice and humanity, introduce far-reaching reforms, and give these people such a taste of the advantages of self-government as would excite a ravenous appetite for more.28 Dillon went on to observe that by the 1890s, it was already too late to improve conditions in the region, and that “Even if these reforms were actually framed, sanctioned and promulgated, the situation would be in nowise improved.”29 When violence escalated in the Balkans in the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire attempted to restore order and protect its people. The brutal nature of ensuing events in the region was described vividly in the Western press, albeit with a bias that emphasized the suffering of Christians while disregarding like conditions experienced by Muslims. Assuming positions of “protectors” for their co-religionists in the Balkans, Russia and Austria-Hungary, among other signatory powers at the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, pressured the empire to initiate reforms that might bring an end to the violence afflicting that region.30 Russia and Austria-Hungary, long interested in advancing their footings in the region, saw a moment of opportunity. They demanded that the Ottoman state bring about the resolution of violence and thus renewed their demands for reforms in Macedonia. In September 1902, they submitted to the empire a mandate for reforming the Three Provinces. It recommended the appointment of an inspectorgeneral for a fixed number of years; reorganization of security forces with inclusion of Muslims and non-Muslims proportionate to their populations; and the establishment of separate budgets for each province such that local tax revenues would be devoted first to covering

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the costs of local administration.31 Those countries involved in reform programs in Macedonia were the parties most invested in the area. The European powers that had seen the Ottoman Empire as their prey since the late nineteenth century were recasting themselves as its “protectors.”32 In order to keep foreign countries at bay and foster internal stability, Abdülhamid II announced that the Ottoman state would, with minor changes, accept the reform program demanded by Austria-Hungary and Russia and would initiate an agenda of centralizing reorganization. Many observers recognized that this move was prompted by fears that rival empires might otherwise demand more direct control of reforms in Macedonia and further compromise the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Other European countries’ approval of the Austro-Russian proposal left the Ottoman state with no choice but to acquiesce, even though the proposal for the Three Provinces was a clear breach of the empire’s sovereignty. In a March 3, 1903, article in The Times, a Vienna-based correspondent commented that the Ottomans’ decision was due to European countries’ uniform stand: “had there been the slightest crevice in the solid front of the European recommendations it is believed that the Sultan would have found a wedge, thin, yet strong enough to force the powers asunder.”33 The article noted that Bulgaria—more so than Turkey—was warned under threat of “the direst of consequences” not to interfere with the reform program.34 The Ottoman state complied reluctantly and accepted their proposal after making minor changes. In this contentious context of reform, administrative centralization, and associated efforts to stabilize a problematic European frontier, we arrive at the December 1902 appointment of Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa (1855/1857–1922/1923) (hereafter referred to as Hilmi Paşa) to Macedonia as inspector-general for the imperial vilâyets of Rumelia, fulfilling one of the provisions in the proposal by Russia and AustriaHungary. Hilmi Paşa, a former Ottoman governor of Yemen and a future minister of the internal affairs and grand vizier in the later İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (or CUP) era,35 was sent to the Balkan region to conduct investigations and provide informed suggestions to the newly created Rumeli Provinces Reform Commission. Commenting on Hilmi

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Paşa, a French consul of Damascus once wrote, “For Turks, he is a precious official, for us, he is an irreconcilable enemy because he is convinced, dangerous because he is intelligent.”36 Following earlier examples of Ottoman responses to Western pressures for reform, such as Cevdet Paşa’s mission to the Balkans, the empire assigned Hilmi Paşa to the Balkans to demonstrate its commitment to reform—and to prevent deployment of an alternative European commission to the region. The publicity of his fact-finding assignment, his promotion of peace and justice in the region, and his presence were expected to calm the situation in, and provide reports about the needs of, the empire’s European provinces, assisting the empire in better guiding its policies. Hilmi Paşa’s Fact-Finding Mission and Report

Assigned to inspect each of the Three Provinces and submit his findings to the sultan and the Ottoman state, Hilmi Paşa is primarily known today for the region-wide census that he ordered rather than for the broader project of which this census was a part.37 His demographic survey was a multiyear census, and there is, consequently, disagreement over its reliability. Indeed, as McCarthy notes in his examination of Ottoman demography, the term “census” may be inappropriate because the count was not conducted at a single time throughout the region.38 As with other population figures in the region, various ethnic groups have attempted—then and now—to employ his statistics in their own demographic rhetoric to justify or negate territorial claims and ambitions.39 Despite Hilmi Paşa’s significant findings about and suggestions for the region’s educational conditions, the suggestions that he made are largely unknown.40 Among Hilmi Paşa’s reports on educational conditions in the Balkan vilâyets, his report of 1903 to the sultan about educational conditions in Kosovo and ways to improve them41 is extremely significant because it illustrates not only contemporary conditions in Kosovo vilâyet but also the political and economic dimensions of education as related to the political and imperial aims of the Ottoman Empire and of Western countries interested in the Balkan question. His 1903 report emerges

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in late Ottoman historiography as an essential document for understanding histories of imperial education and reform politics—both in the Balkans and more broadly. His recommendations reveal the contentious dynamics of center-periphery relations amid the political disintegration of Ottoman governance in the region. His suggestions on policy were those of an imperial insider committed to the retention of the empire’s European territories through implementation of educational reforms that could both instill loyalties among the empire’s citizens and counter Western (esp. Austrian and Russian) pressures to implement reforms—and outright interference in the empire’s internal affairs.42 The Hilmi Paşa documents are thus unique because they not only indicate an Ottoman official’s views and advice on the educational needs of the Balkans, especially in Kosovo vilâyet, but also contain the responses of the Porte to his suggestions. His report at no time suggests that this high-ranking Ottoman official ever questioned the necessity of reform, as one might anticipate in view of Western observers’ commentaries on the motivations and intentions of the empire. Rather, Hilmi Paşa’s report reveals that the dynamics of Ottoman educational policies during the reign of Abdülhamid II were complex and varied from one site to another, depending on an area’s political and economic significance for the empire and on local factors. His report is evidence that there were committed reformers working for the empire at its highest levels who sought to effect change in the Porte’s Balkan territories on behalf of both local populations and the empire’s long-term integrity.

Hilmi Paşa on Kosovo’s Educational Conditions and Needs As part of the promised reforms for the vilâyets of Rumelia, the Ottoman state pledged and planned to open primary-level ibtidaî (primary schools), rüşdiye (secondary or sometimes advanced primary schools), and idadî (advanced or postsecondary schools). The state agreed to establish ibtidaî in all villages with fifty or more households and to increase the number of ibtidaî that already operated within larger towns. Within the larger towns rüşdiye would be increased, or built if otherwise lacking. Finally,

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idadî would be established within vilâyet centers.43 Each vilâyet would have its own education budget and would use two-thirds of its own education taxes (maarif ianesi) to finance its own educational expenditures. The remaining one-third would be sent to Istanbul to support higher educational institutions in the empire’s capital.44 Among his duties, the Ottoman state tasked Hilmi Paşa with determining the number of villages with at least fifty households but no ibtidaî. He was thus ordered to gather information about the names and locations of these villages and other necessary details (e.g., administrative information, population capable of serving in the military, educational infrastructure, and so forth) based on their registers and report his findings to the sultan. He provided this information as an attachment to one of his letters to the Sublime Porte (see table 3.2).45 His job also entailed rendering his personal observations, gathering written records to inform the state about each village’s educational status, and, using his observations and findings, suggesting how to improve conditions in the area. Hilmi Paşa was expected to provide information for each vilâyet, and the first of his reports was based on his findings from Kosovo vilâyet.46 Table 3.2: Villages of at least fifty households but with no ibtidaî in Kosovo vilâyet [translation of table produce by Hilmi Paşa].47 Provinces

Towns

All Muslim villages

All Christian villages

Mixed Totals villages

Central Province Üsküp

21

1

9

31

İştib

10

2

0

12 8

Orhaniye

8

0

0

Pilanka

0

13

0

Radvişte

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0

8

15

Osmaniye

3

4

8

15

Karatum

0

6

0

6

Komanova

4

0

10

14

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Table 3.2:

(Continued)

Provinces

Towns

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OTTOMANS

All Muslim villages

All Christian villages

Mixed Totals villages

Kuçane

7

1

5

13

Köprüce

15

6

2

23

Priştine Priştine

19

3

7

29

Preşeve

10

21

9

40

Gilan

55

12

6

73

Mitroviçe

5

0

0

5

Vulçitrin

20

0

5

25

Yenipazar

3

1

1

5

11

0

9

20

0

4

0

4

10

0

4

14

İpek İpek

Berane Terğovişte Gosniye

4

0

2

6

Yakova

25

3

0

28

Yenice

0

0

0

0

Yenice Akova

12

0

3

15

Kolaşan

12

5

2

19

0

4

0

4

Prizren

57

0

14

71

Kalkandelen

45

0

29

74

Luma

25

0

0

25

Yeni Varoş Prizren

Taşlıca

Totals

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Taşlıca

0

4

0

4

Prepol

2

6

0

8

390

96

133

619

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Based on the data that Hilmi Paşa obtained, Table 3.2 charts the numbers and locations of villages that had at least fifty households but no ibtidaî. His report divided villages by inhabitants’ religious affiliations, reflecting his (or the state’s) sensitivities to distinctions between Muslim and non-Muslim subpopulations of the empire. Though such a division complicated ethnic communities’ claims of majority in given areas, it reveals that Ottoman officials continued to view populations through historic lenses that made distinctions by religion but not ethnicity—even in the early twentieth century. It also speaks to the pervasive impress of Ottoman imperatives to control demographic data and categorization in the Three Provinces and associated desires to render a Muslim majority. The figures for Kosovo vilâyet note 619 villages with at least fifty households but no ibtidaî. The statistics furthermore indicate that 390 of these villages were all Muslim, 96 were all Christian, and the remaining 133 were mixed communities with both religions. This division of Muslim, non-Muslim, and mixed villages indicated an awareness of the region’s multireligious, communal structure and a possible sensitivity to Western pressures regarding inter- and intracommunal relations. Western powers, rival empires, and local states had supported coreligionist populations and activities in the area overtly and covertly for some time and demanded that the Ottoman Empire assist these communities, in particular insisting that the state provide educational institutions. Thus the education of non-Muslim communities became a contested issue between the empire and its Western competitors. Indeed, the Ottoman archives contain large numbers of documents on Ottoman-Italian, Ottoman-French, and Ottoman-British competition over education and schooling in the empire’s European and Arabicspeaking territories.48 Witnessing the effects of missionary and foreign schools on its population in the nineteenth century, particularly the second half of the century, the Ottoman state was compelled to orient its policies to include different denominations of the empire in its reform plans. Hilmi Paşa’s mission and his subsequent report were thus integral to a wider agenda of appeasement and of preventing further foreign

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penetration. Such documents highlight the ironic position of the Ottoman state, which considered an all-inclusive education policy to ward off foreign interests that at the same time were pushing it toward these very policies. Aware of Ottoman financial and political weaknesses, neighboring countries sought to create their own areas of influence in the empire’s Balkan territories. If the Ottoman state failed to comply with Western demands for reforms, especially those related to education, it would be subject to further pressures and increased interference in its internal affairs. For these reasons, Hilmi Paşa’s suggestions were geared toward targeting all areas, Muslim or non-Muslim, for educational reform. As I have discussed previously, the reign of Abdülhamid II saw the Ottoman state follow (sometimes as a consequence of external and internal pressure) in many circumstances an Ottomanist educational agenda that sought to educate the empire’s children according to their particular religious beliefs and practices—while also struggling to instill state-based identities and loyalties. To achieve that goal, the empire required teaching Ottoman Turkish in all schools, whether they were Muslim or non-Muslim. In order to eliminate any complaints about their financing, the state paid the salaries of Ottoman-Turkish teachers from its own budget. A budget prepared by the education accountant of Kosovo for the vilâyet, dated January 15, 1903, indicates that non-Muslim schools’ Ottoman-Turkish class teachers were paid 17,280 kuruș a year. This budget was submitted to the empire as an attachment accompanying Hilmi Paşa’s report.49 The Ottoman state’s mixed agenda was intended to prevent the divisive consequences that were anticipated with any secular-ethnonational alternatives in education. The religious aspect of Hamidian education was thus critical in its overarching Ottomanist agenda, which sought to incorporate every community in the empire. Indeed, documents indicate that Abdülhamid II never lost sight of his empire’s multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual character. In 1895, Abdülhamid II dictated to his head clerk a lengthy note reminding his grand vizier about the realities of the empire: “Ottoman people are composed of various kinds [ecnas-ı muhtelifeden mürekkep], and all

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decisions should be made while that reality is kept in mind, that the empire does not have only one nation.”50 Beyond the specific cases of Muslim communities, Hamidian education was, in principle, thus Ottomanist first and Islamist second. As I have noted, however, this reality blurred when an Islamist agenda took precedence (e.g., as in efforts to appeal to Albanians or Arabs) in particular areas at certain times, depending on local political developments within the empire. Therefore, attempts to categorize Abdülhamid II’s reign as purely Islamist or Ottomanist are misleading because tactics in the empire changed frequently and varied based on the exigencies of particular regions and specific places. Until the end of his reign, Abdülhamid II was a pragmatic ruler who attempted to change his policies in step with the dynamic political situations of the various regions the empire governed—even if that meant resorting to ruthless measures. Financing Kosovo’s Education

Hilmi Paşa offered several suggestions relevant to financing the schools of Kosovo vilâyet. Just as a few local authorities had attempted to do beforehand, he tried to attract more money to Kosovo and suggested that the state earmark the entire education contribution tax collected from Kosovo to cover local educational expenses. Using the budget prepared by the accounting office of Kosovo’s education department, Hilmi Paşa pointed out that Kosovo’s current educational expenses totaled 668,970 kuruş and that the amount available for those expenses was only 599,300 kuruş, the amount left after Kosovo sent one-third of its education contribution tax to Istanbul. Kosovo did not even have enough funds to cover immediate educational expenditures51—to say nothing about the costs of new schools, teachers, and associated expenses of operation. Hilmi Paşa suggested, therefore, that the state should leave all education contribution tax revenues to the area itself in order to cover current expenses and fund new initiatives. He included a copy of Kosovo’s education budget in his report to the Sultan and the Porte. Hilmi Paşa’s report also urged that the state not require locals to cover ibtidaî expenses, as planned by past Hamidian statesmen.

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Two-thirds of the education contribution tax was far from enough to finance the new schools envisioned for Kosovo vilâyet; it was not even enough for current operational expenses. In addition, distributing school expenses among the local population seemed to him to be quite impossible. Referring to previous attempts to dispatch committees and inspectors to convince local peoples to finance schools, Hilmi Paşa considered such attempts “fruitless” and suggested a more regular flow of money in order to ensure successful results.52 As I have noted, the documents suggest that Hilmi Paşa believed genuinely that educational reforms were indispensable in securing and administering the Three Provinces. Because the Ottoman state had promised previously to launch educational reforms and establish schools, he believed that further neglect of such plans and a failure to open schools as a result of financial difficulties would invite criticism of a state that appeared to be retreating from its promises in the Balkans. The state, he argued, “must show some activity in the field of education, no matter how small it is.”53 Recalling the language used by leaders of some of the communities lobbying the Porte, Hilmi Paşa described the situation in Kosovo as “desperate” and “urgent.” His report to Istanbul indicated that, even though the reforms he proposed would cost money and could burden the state, conditions in the region necessitated action. He reiterated that if the state failed to act, it would disappoint, and break faith with, the people. Without being specific, Hilmi Paşa reminded the government that “incidents” around Albania (likely referring to renewed calls for reform from within and beyond the region) were mainly a result of “ignorance” and that such a condition could be eliminated with education, an apparent reference to the communities of Albanian rebels who challenged Ottoman authority and to others who incited interethnic rivalry and violence in the Balkans. Because the Ottoman state sought to construct a new image for itself as a modern state that had the desire and capacity to assume its modern responsibility to educate its citizens, Hilmi Paşa employed that very imagery and ambition to sway the Porte and sultan. Indeed, the same tactic was employed by some governors in letters petitioning support from Istanbul. Hilmi Paşa’s own words recall phrases

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found in letters that were forwarded routinely to Istanbul after the empire introduced the education contribution tax.54 He argued that the “Sultan should not disappoint his people because the Muslims in Albania were entrusted to their Sultan.”55 Relying on that assertion, he commented that the sultan needed to make financial sacrifices in order to enact necessary reforms and avoid disappointing his people. There were significant discrepancies in the spread of state-sponsored schools in the Ottoman Empire’s European territories, for which different causes have been offered by scholars. Recently, scholars have argued that only those provinces that lobbied effectively in Istanbul (e.g., Monastir and Yanya) received state-financed schools, while others (e.g., Kosovo) were neglected because they lacked any political voice in Istanbul.56 Though such observations are accurate, other issues also influenced state decisions. If funding schools in certain areas were merely the result of successful lobbying, then we might expect Hilmi Paşa’s advocacy in 1902 and 1903 for Kosovo vilâyet to have been effective, too. However, correspondence between Hilmi Paşa and the Ottoman government, as well as between different offices in Istanbul, shows that the state had a limited budget with which to respond to lobbyists’ requests and that all parties involved were becoming more familiar with the goals of and language for requesting funding for local educational expenses. Initially, the state acquiesced to some pleas and bargained with local authorities, conceding when necessary, as with the towns of Yenipazar and Taşlıca in Kosovo. In 1894, those two towns negotiated with the empire to keep their education tax for local needs, and the state agreed.57 What seemed a temporary agreement appears to have become a permanent one, for almost a decade later, the budget Hilmi Paşa submitted to the sultan indicated that Yenipazar and Taşlıca were still keeping their education taxes for their own local expenses rather than sending tax revenues to the state.58 Overall, however, the location (i.e., the frontier status of a region) and the taxes extracted from certain areas influenced decisions to provide more state funds for schools. In other words, state perceptions of external and internal pressure and notions of risk of territorial loss seemed to have the greatest impact upon choices of funding.

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There was also another related factor of significant influence: the presence of missionary or foreign schools. In their letters, local authorities emphasized the danger such schools posed to their communities. Oftentimes, these warnings figured prominently in obvious ploys to avoid forwarding education contribution tax funds to Istanbul—and sometimes to secure additional state money for establishing local schools. Local authorities accentuated vulnerability to foreign influence to encourage the state to ameliorate the “ignorant and uncivilized” behavior of their own people. Depicting citizens who needed to be “tamed” through schooling, they asked the sultan to provide citizenship- and loyalty-building opportunities. Indeed, Hilmi Paşa employed the same tone in his own texts and tried to recoup more money for Kosovo, adopting positions that local authorities had held since the education contribution tax was introduced in mid-1880s. It is difficult to determine the extent to which Hilmi Paşa shared their perceptions of the causes of and solutions to problems in the Balkans, or was influenced by local authorities to become a spokesman for them.59 Regardless, one cannot help but wonder whether his reliance on local authorities informed or influenced directly his letters, perhaps mirroring what those locals also sought to achieve for their communities and—perhaps—for the empire in its Balkan territories. Hilmi Paşa’s Advice on Staffing Kosovo’s Schools

Hilmi Paşa not only charted the number of schools needed in the region, he also recommended ways of improving education. One major obstacle to Hamidian educational programs was the inadequate number of teachers available to appoint to new schools opening throughout the empire. In fact, this staffing shortage remained a major impediment to the empire’s ambitious agenda to promote schooling in its peripheries. Acknowledging that fact, Hilmi Paşa wrote that Kosovo vilâyet needed both schools and teachers. Because the ibtidaî section of the teacher-training college in Istanbul could not accommodate regional needs, his report advised that the government focus on creating a pool of “local” teachers. Hilmi Paşa suggested that instead of the required

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two years of teacher training, the state should open ibtidaî teachertraining institutions (or darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî) and train interested locals to teach courses listed in village curricula60 within five or six months, or even less, so that they could serve as ibtidaî teachers in the villages. In his view, this approach to staffing was financially prudent. Rather, than pay 300 to 400 kuruş to teachers trained and dispatched from Istanbul to the peripheries, local teachers could be hired for monthly salaries of as little as 200 kuruş. According to his report, if local teachers were hired at a monthly salary of 200 kuruş, the total salaries paid to ibtidaî teachers in the 619 villages that lacked these schools would be about 1,485,600 kuruş annually,61 assuming one teacher for each school. He thus suggested that the state leave its onethird of the education contribution tax to be used for local educational expenses, at least temporarily. A second suggestion by Hilmi Paşa outlined ways of avoiding teacher shortages in his proposed schools. Because the darülmuallimin (teacher-training school) in Istanbul did not produce enough graduates to send to the Balkans, the state could use the graduates of Istanbul medreses as ibtidaî teachers in Albania. Indeed, teacher shortages in the empire led to the idea of using local medreses as medrese-i muallimin (i.e., medrese teacher training schools) to train teachers. This short-term solution would give medrese students a new career opportunity and also eliminate the pressure on darülmuallimin.62 It is ironic that Hilmi Paşa suggested medrese graduates as teachers for the supposedly modern schools of the empire. This suggestion may have arisen because Hilmi Paşa and the state wanted to emphasize religious identity among the Albanians to prevent the development of Albanian ethnonationalism. A large majority of Albanians were Muslim, and most observers believe that ethnonationalism emerged later in Albania than among other Balkan ethnic groups because the Albanians were loyal to the Islamic Ottoman Empire and its Muslim ruler for a much longer period than were other Balkan populations. Once Albanians became politicized, recognizing their linguistic and cultural differences and articulating their own ethnonational identity and aspirations, however, the empire resorted to

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harsh measures to suppress Albanian ethnonationalism and promoted religious (i.e., Islamic) identity to retain their loyalty. While the proposal to hire graduates of medreses as teachers may have been a way to introduce Albanian students to religion instead of secular topics that might encourage ethnonational separatism, the Ottoman state may also have hoped that Albanian pupils, having learned about their religion from medrese-trained teachers, would appreciate even more the schools that the state opened for them. This was the kind of unity that the state worked to achieve via its sometimes Ottomanist and sometimes Islamist approach as it struggled to retain its rapidly disappearing European territories.63 Whatever the reason for the proposal, it is clear that religion could still play a vital role in the politics of education, especially in the ibtidaî of villages. Hilmi Paşa’s report detailed precisely how medrese-based training of teachers would be convenient fiscally: since medrese students already received 150 kuruş from the state, it would be efficient to add just another 50 kuruş to their salaries and appoint them as ibtidaî teachers in the villages of Albania.64 Recommending Critical Sacrifices by the Empire

Hilmi Paşa’s views on what measures needed to be enacted and how best to implement reforms took note of funding, and he worked tirelessly to convince the Ottoman state that more funding was essential for securing the region. He wrote: “Even though leaving one-third of the education taxes collected from the area to be used for local educational expenses might harm the administration of higher education in Istanbul, this harm is far less significant than the damage that would occur from not opening schools that were part of the proposed reform project.”65 He was sure that the sultan could identify alternative resources to support higher education and the costs of its administration in Istanbul, conveying that education taxes should be left for local needs. Whether to support local schools in the peripheries or institutions of higher education in Istanbul was thus a question debated among the different offices of the Sublime Porte, and had been ever since the introduction of the education contribution tax.

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Hilmi Paşa’s efforts were not only designed to solicit financial support from Istanbul to open ibtidaî in the Balkans, but were also intended to encourage an increased number and diffusion of darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî throughout the Balkans to provide more teachers. Toward that end he wrote, “There is no need to explain in details that finishing a school building and covering its costs are not enough to achieve the main goal. Funding suitable teachers is of far greater importance in areas where knowledge and learning could not flourish properly.”66 Expanding the number of darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî in the Balkans, he argued, would eventually make the region self-sufficient in meeting local schools’ staffing needs for qualified teachers. His suggestion to recruit locals to become educators was already a common practice in some areas of the empire. Indeed, the Ottoman state followed a policy of educating children from the peripheries in Istanbul, then sending them back to their communities in order to promote loyalty to the state and to the sultan.67 In Hilmi Paşa’s proposal, however, local children would be educated within their own region— perhaps in sanjaks (sub-vilâyet administrative districts) or kazas (subsanjak administrative units)—rather than in Istanbul or in their own villages. As before, following such training, they could return to their home communities to teach. This plan seemed to be primarily a financially calculated initiative rather than one that aimed to keep locals away from (or educate them against succumbing to) “harmful” ideologies—ethnonationalism being the one that caused the most apprehension. As noted above, should teachers be appointed directly from Istanbul, it was standard practice to pay them between 300 and 400 kuruş. Appointing locals, in contrast, would more likely cost between 150 and 200 kuruş, thus saving the state significant amounts of money and enabling the staffing of more schools in the region. By Hilmi Paşa’s estimation, a major factor inhibiting locals from considering careers as teachers stemmed from the fact that the only darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî in Kosovo vilâyet was in Üsküp. Many people lived farther away in distant kazas and could not realistically hope to attend the darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî. The inability of people from faraway villages and towns to attend darülmuallimin in vilâyet centers for two to three years because of distance and cost had been a major

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concern in other parts of the empire, as well. In 1888, the issue was discussed in education commission meetings, and it was noted that most of the darülmuallimin in the vilâyet centers of the empire’s periphery had very low enrollments and started accepting ibtidaî students.68 To overcome the problem of recruiting prospective teachers from local communities, Hilmi Paşa proposed that, first in every sanjak and then—if and when necessary—in the kazas, more darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî should be opened. Increasing the number of local teacher-training institutions would cost money, but the expenditure would prove a worthwhile investment.69 Hilmi Paşa considered these measures essential even though few people currently available in the region would be able to provide curriculum and instruction according to any of the new methods of teaching. In truth, however, the distinction between new and old schools—at least at primary levels of instruction—was often more about the ways in which children were educated rather than about what they were actually being taught. Attracting locals to be teachers for their own ibtidaî would be a challenging endeavor for any administration in the late Ottoman state—given that teachers’ salaries were extremely low throughout the territories of the empire. Although there was no set amount, because the location of the appointment would make a difference in determining salary rates, usual pay would range between 150 and 400 kuruş. Hilmi Paşa asserted that many locals would be disinclined to spend two years in darülmuallimin to become teachers with projected salaries of only around 200 kuruş, so it would be wise to decrease the mandated duration of training in order to attract more students. The curriculum of the ibtidaî has four or five subjects, and we do not have enough time and the right conditions to teach those subjects in two long years. Therefore, we should first open darülmuallimin in every sanjak center, and we can expand them into important kazas if there is an absolute necessity in the future. Appointed teachers could train new teachers in the subjects taught at ibtidaî within five or six months, and Education Councils in the region could give qualifying graduates their teaching certificates. It is urgent and very important that the

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students of darülmuallimin get paid about fifty to sixty kuruş each month while attending these schools. That amount would be paid from local education funds.70 Hilmi Paşa requested the sultan’s approval of his proposed educational plans. Upon finishing his inspection in Kosovo vilâyet and determining the number of villages with fifty households without schools and analyzing them, he sent an official telegram from Üsküp to Istanbul to let the Sublime Porte and the sultan know that he had finished the Kosovo section. He thereafter shipped his findings via mail.71 Though one would assume that Hilmi Paşa continued his work by proceeding to other vilâyets of the Three Provinces, only records from Kosovo vilâyet are available in the Ottoman archives.72 It is also possible that, given the state’s subsequent response to his finding and policy suggestions, as discussed below, perhaps his inspection was no longer desired. The Response by the Ministry of Education to Hilmi Paşa’s Report

A few days after receiving Hilmi Paşa’s report, the sultan asked the Ministry of Education to examine it. Minister of Education Celâl Paşa wrote a lengthy commentary responding to Hilmi Paşa’s requests for educational reform and his suggestions on design and implementation of reforms. Celâl Paşa rejected many of Hilmi Paşa’s requests outright, recommended further investigation, or drastically reduced them.73 Celâl Paşa wrote that, even though Western states and the Ottoman Empire agreed on the need for educational reforms in the Balkans and establishing ibtidaî in villages with at least fifty households, the fourth article of the education law required that the costs of establishing and the recurring expenses of ibtidaî be covered by local communities. He explained that the state had made exceptions for extremely important areas where people could not afford to establish schools and had undertaken the responsibility itself.74 In replying to the proposal that the state leave its share of education taxes in the Balkans to be used for financing reforms within the region, Celâl Paşa noted that, because some areas of Kosovo and other

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imperial vilâyets of Rumelia were already sending less than one-third of their education funds to Istanbul, such a decision would put too much of a strain on school administration in Istanbul—a clear disclosure of sentiments that, at the very least, privileged the center over its peripheries and indicated the center’s fiscal dependence on its subject frontiers. Hilmi Paşa’s request for state financial support to establish schools in Kosovo because of the local conditions of poverty did not attract much sympathy in the Ministry of Education. Apparently, the number of requests from other regions throughout the empire that used similar justifications and rhetoric to attract investment in education had increased appreciably by the turn of the century. Indeed, the frequency of these requests was such that the ministry felt compelled to be cautious—even skeptical—in addressing such reports, even if the information came from its own administrators, not from the local leaders. The Ministry of Education thus responded to Hilmi Paşa by asserting that there must be some areas or villages within the region where people could afford to open their own ibtidaî. Before the empire would even consider aid to the area, these local opportunities needed to be further investigated and all possibilities exhausted. The ministry requested that in undertaking such inquiries, it would be necessary to determine precisely how many villages could not afford to open their own schools. The ministry indicated that, upon receiving such a report that distinguished places that could afford a school from others that definitely could not, it might investigate ways to assist local communities perceived to be the neediest.75 Celâl Paşa attempted to lower the cost of reform and went beyond Hilmi Paşa’s ideas to ascertain more detailed numbers and avoid establishing more than 600 ibtidaî in Kosovo alone. Financing those schools was the major concern for the Ministry of Education. Thus, he tried to determine the areas that were important and also financially unable to afford ibtidaî. For Celâl Paşa, this would be the “proper course of action.” Desiring to lower the number of schools the state would finance, Celâl Paşa determined that the number for Kosovo vilâyet was 100 rather than Hilmi Paşa’s suggested 619, and for all

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Rumelia vilâyets, the number of state-sponsored schools would be 400 to 500 rather than Hilmi Paşa’s 1,500. Celâl Paşa suggested that the remaining villages could establish their schools gradually with administration by their local communities. Because the funds needed to establishing 400 to 500 schools would be an additional burden on his ministry’s budget, he requested that the state increase it to cover those expenses.76 One of the most significant aspects of Hilmi Paşa’s reform plan for the Balkans was the request to open darülmuallimin in sanjaks of Kosovo and other imperial vilâyets of Rumelia in order to provide a sufficient number of teachers for his projected new schools. Once again, however, the Ministry of Education put the burden on the region and its peoples, claiming that darülmuallimin in the region should emulate Salonica’s example. There each municipality contributed in some form the necessary support to cover the expenses of opening a school and keeping it operational.77 Celâl Paşa mentioned that even though schools were essential, the educational funds of the region were insufficient to cover all the expenses of such schools. It is noteworthy that low tax revenues from an area seemed to bias state officials against reforms there, even in the face of external pressures to apply educational reforms in the area—bias possibly due to suspicion of tax evasion, actual fiscal limitations, and resentment over external meddling, or some combination thereof.78 For the burning issue of finding teachers to make those planned schools a reality, Celâl Paşa agreed to the appointment of medrese graduates as ibtidaî teachers in Albania by paying an additional 50 kuruş from the ministry’s budget in addition to their current salaries of 150 kuruş. Celâl Paşa thus opted for medrese graduates with religious backgrounds rather than locals who could acquire training in their own sanjaks. This decision may have been based solely on financial concerns associated with encouraging darülmuallimin, or it may have reflected a fear of emerging Albanian ethnonationalism and a desire to prevent locals from transmitting ethnonationalist sentiments to their students, a task made easier because such teachers spoke the same language as their students instead of the official language of the empire, Ottoman Turkish.

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Aware of the pressing need for the empire to respond to Hilmi Paşa’s advice one way or another, the Ministry of Education devised a plan of action for which it sought approval from the sultan. On the same day that Celâl Paşa responded to Hilmi Paşa’s report, he wrote a letter specifying the details of his ministry’s educational plans for the imperial vilâyets of Rumelia.79 Celâl Paşa’s letter sheds additional light on the debates about the educational reforms in the vilâyets of Rumelia and their financing because it referenced and engaged with letters from different offices. Celâl Paşa wrote that the sultan issued an order after he received Hilmi Paşa’s report in which he stated that “educational reforms in the above mentioned vilâyets must be within the limits of the region’s two-thirds of the education tax collected in the area” and that “there should not be excessive financial demands from the state budget.”80 In his order, the sultan also requested more information from the Ministry of Education on two matters: (1) the findings of inspection committees that were sent to the Balkans to determine the possibilities for funding the expenses of ibtidaî and (2) the possibility of funding the recurrent expenses of those ibtidaî through the Evkaf-ı Münderise (vakıf, or pious foundation, of undesignated or unclaimed status) funds. Celâl Paşa mentioned that the inspection committees that inquired about the possibility of finding funds like the Evkaf-ı Münderise and other financial resources to cover the expenses of the schools had made many inquiries but produced no tangible findings. In 1899, as described in chapter 2, the state had sent three inspection committees to the Balkans. They made several suggestions, but none were found to be tenable by the Ministry of Education. To support his argument, Celâl Paşa provided an example from the committee that was sent to Monastir. The committee had suggested ways to collect more money in the Balkans to cover the cost of education there, including, but not limited to, charging fees for state-provided official documents, such as marriage licenses and similar governmental papers. The committee also suggested using Ziraat Bankası to collect and handle education and vakıf funds to show the actual amount of taxes collected and spent in the region. However, the Ministry of Education was concerned that such solutions would be unreliable because revenues would differ from one year to the next and from one area to another.

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Some proposed remedies seemed to suggest retaxing items that were already subject to taxation. For Celâl Paşa, such an approach would be both “unacceptable and insufficient.”81 He reminded them that, after all such proposals were already deemed unsuccessful in 1902, with the Finance Department (Maliye Dairesi) of the Council of State (Şura-yı Devlet) reaching a conclusion that the best solution for funding the ibtidaî in the Balkans would be for necessary finances to come from the state budget.82 In a defensive mode, the Minister of Education repeated that the education contribution tax collected in the imperial vilâyets of Rumelia—even the one-third that was required to be sent to Istanbul—was sometimes left in the area to cover local educational expenses. Even if the state left its entire share from that region to the area, it still would not be enough to cover ibtidaî expenses. As it became evident that local communities could not be burdened with the cost of education, the only alternative in covering their expenses was the state. Therefore, in the end, the cost of opening ibtidaî in those villages of at least fifty households without schools, as well other schools such as the idadî and rüşdiye, must be paid by the state because, said Celâl Paşa, “there is no alternative to it.”83 Because the financing of all the planned schools seemed impossible to accomplish at once, the Ministry of Education’s final solution and suggestion to the state was reducing the number of the schools and funding only the ones that they viewed as “crucial.” Initially it was planned that the state would establish ten more idadî and thirty-four rüşdiye in the kazas. Even though the region had several military and civil idadî and rüşdiye, they needed new ones as well. However, in order to be able to cover the expenses of those idadî, some areas that had secondary geopolitical or economic significance would be disregarded because “there is no other choice.”84 Therefore, instead of the planned ten idadî, five would be established first and the other five left for the future. The areas where idadî were going to be built would be in Monastir vilâyet’s İşkodra, Yanya vilâyet’s Preveze, İşkodra vilâyet’s “Naksİşkodra” [sic] and Draç, and Kosovo vilâyet’s Prizren. Annual expenses for those five idadî would be 276,900 kuruş. Of that amount, 60,440 kuruş would be obtained from the rüşdiye that already existed in those vilâyets and that would be combined with the idadî after their opening,

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with the rüşdiye’s funds transferred to idadî. Thus, the remaining amount would be 216,460 kuruş each year. The cost for establishing the five idadî would be an additional 36,965 kuruş. The Ministry of Education decided to contact vilâyet administrators about the rüşdiye to be established, ascertaining their needs but determined that priority would be given to the most important areas. Therefore, the ministry decided to decrease the number of new rüşdiye from thirty-four to twelve. The cost of establishing those twelve rüşdiye would be 5,000 kuruş each, while their continual expenses would be 151,680 kuruş each year. As for the existing rüşdiye that needed to be reformed, the Ministry of Education decided to postpone the reform project because of its high cost—388,620 kuruş a year. In the end, the number of idadî and rüşdiye planned for the region was reduced drastically and annual expenses were reduced to 370,900 kuruş. As for the ibtidaî that would open in villages with a minimum of fifty households, wrote the Minister of Education, some would have expenses covered by the state, while others would be left to the local communities for financing and administration.85 With this new plan approved by the state and the sultan, the number of schools and their expenses was reduced to the bare minimum, and other projects, such as reforming and reorganizing the existing rüşdiye, were postponed for years. The Ministry of Education’s final plans for the imperial vilâyets of Rumelia were discussed by the Council of Ministers, chaired by the grand vizier. As customary, after the Council reached its conclusions, a draft of its decision would be submitted to the sultan by the grand vizier’s office for imperial approval. Almost all of the Ministry of Education’s suggestions were accepted, with the exception that, of the suggested five idadî, the state should give the priority to opening schools first in Ilbasan and Prizren and then one in Draç, disregarding İşkodra and Preveze because they already had idadî that would be sufficient to answer their needs.86 Even though the education law required that local communities establish ibtidaî, the state would assume responsibility and establish 500 ibtidaî in the empire’s Balkan territories where local populations had no means to do so. Within ten days, the sultan approved this plan and ordered its implementation.87

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Conclusions

The Ottoman state’s desire to reintegrate the peripheral regions of the empire under a centralized administration was a challenging task. Successes and failures in meeting the task of bringing the empire’s frontiers under greater state control depended on many factors, including the capabilities of the state to invest in the necessary “manpower and infrastructure” to exert control in a given area.88 One of the major vehicles for this exertion was the state’s rapidly emerging educational bureaucracy, but these institutional capacities were in turn limited by fiscal constraints, differing objectives and approaches within the Porte, and internal and external demands for reform. As I have discussed in this chapter, after the 1877–1878 war with Russia, the Albanians were configured statistically and cartographically by the empire to constitute the majority (and Muslim—and thus Ottoman) population in the Three Provinces of the Ottoman Balkans. Northern Albanians who lived in Kosovo and İşkodra were living in tribal settings, and it was hard for the Ottoman state to control the area. Furthermore, Austria-Hungary and Italy regarded that area as falling within their spheres of influence. Akşin Selçuk Somel thus argues that “due to these political conditions the Ottoman state provided full financial support for the development of ibtidaî education in the Kosovo and İşkodra vilâyets with the aim to strengthen the values of loyalty to the state and the Sultan.”89 It is true that the Ottoman state invested in loyalty and support for the sultan through establishing educational institutions, in this case ibtidaî. However, the empire did not provide all necessary financial support for the development of ibtidaî in the Balkans, especially in Kosovo and İşkodra. As this chapter demonstrates, Ottoman educational policies were fluid and shifted rapidly throughout the reign of Abdülhamid II. Because the empire had a shrinking budget, funding ibtidaî in the Balkans, though they were deemed crucial in obtaining loyalty, became harder. The goal of the state, to provide education, remained the same, but compelling locals to cover its expenses—or at least a share of the costs—was difficult at best. It proved impossible for the empire to collect the education

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contribution tax in some parts of the Balkans, and that influenced the amount of investment could make there. Indeed, the substance of the Porte’s responses to Hilmi Paşa’s recommendations is quite telling: keep educational reforms within the limits of the regions’ financial contributions. The state in select communities sacrificed its share of the education contribution tax to cover local educational expenses, but this was not a universal compromise. In sum, it is important to be aware of the ever-changing realities of the Ottoman state in order to avoid grand generalizations. Moreover, decline as imagined or experienced was something the empire itself strove to contest. In this struggle, education—or at least the promise of education—provided by the state was a powerful weapon in the empire’s political and discursive arsenals. It was not, however, an undertaking entirely in the hands of the Porte. Beyond the borders of the state, considerable pressure was exerted by rival empires and Western powers to implement reforms for local minority populations. For their parts, these local populations were not waiting passively to be the spoils of war that might be acquired by competing empires and neighboring states. The populations of local communities had their own views on political and economic matters—and their own impressions of what the respective obligations and duties of empires to their peoples should be. Although much of the political strife in the Balkans centered on clashes between global empires, international demands for reform, and violent rivalries among ethnonationalisms and religious minorities, sometimes politics actually was very local, concerned with the sources of school financing, where it should be applied, and on what types of schools and curriculum it should be spent. Most political dynamics can be read differently depending on the geographic scale that a historian focuses on (global, regional, local, and so forth). In context of political contestation between center and periphery—which in the Balkans had ethnonational, linguistic, and religious dimensions—local communities not only distinguished themselves through their creative ways of resisting the impositions of a distant empire, but sometimes found their own voices. In the reports and recommendations of Hilmi Paşa much of what is communicated is not what one would expect from an Ottoman bureaucrat dispatched on

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a fact-finding mission. Instead, his correspondence reflected sentiments and proposed solutions that were quite local. We can only speculate whether this locally flavored correspondence exposed his sensitivities to politics on the ground in the Balkans, the persuasive abilities of the Balkan peoples themselves, or perhaps a lack of commitment on the part of an inspector-general who was just relaying messages. However, that locals played critical roles in contesting the empire’s educational policies amid the state’s efforts to achieve Hamidian governmentality is certain. In the Balkans, grand schemes of hegemony over the population and of effecting governmentality were stymied by the realities of the empire’s decline, by limited resources, by contestation from within and abroad, and—quite possibly, as shown by the debate over the Ottoman state’s desire for reform—by a lack of will.

Figure 5: Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa.90

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Figure 6: Students at the Imperial Military Middle School of Monastir.91

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CHAPTER 4 R EFOR MING OTTOM AN SYR IA: MISSIONARY R IVALS, THE TR AVELING ULEM A , AND THE DA M ASCUS MEDICAL SCHOOL

Because of the devastation of Rumelia, the revenues of the government have become reduced by nearly a half. In order to make up for this loss, the most important issue for us now is to render prosperous and increase the wealth of the Anatolian and Arab provinces. . . . The development of Syria [i.e., Damascus and its environs], Aleppo, and Adana would turn this area into an Egypt. . . . This can be accomplished with ease under the aegis of our sovereign.1 In 1516, a greater Syria that included today’s Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria came under Ottoman control. From that time until the empire’s post–World War I collapse Syria was governed by the empire, except during the brief 1831–1840 Egyptian occupation. During those centuries, Syria’s economy flourished or declined depending upon the Ottoman state’s power and control in the area. When state power declined, local families emerged to fill the vacuum. Aleppo, Damascus, Hama, and Jerusalem were the main cities of the greater Syrian region, each surrounded by rich agricultural

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hinterlands. Damascus and Jerusalem were also significant for religious purposes. While Jerusalem was itself a destination for religious visits, Damascus was one of the key staging sites for Muslim pilgrims involved in the annual hajj to Mecca and Medina. These geoeconomic and religious aspects of greater Syria increased its significance for the Ottoman state.2 Damascus acquired even greater importance in the late nineteenth century when Abdülhamid II employed increasingly the title of caliph to enhance his legitimacy. Security for Damascus, as a major gathering site for those engaged in the annual pilgrimage of Muslims, was crucial. Indeed, guaranteeing the safety and success of the pilgrimage was an essential responsibility in maintaining the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultans as caliphs.3 During the late nineteenth century, the empire undertook various administrative reforms in Syria designed to enhance its direct control over the area, to facilitate its broader agendas of imperial reforms, and to promote the region’s revenue-generating capacities, as noted in the above epigraph. As this chapter on Ottoman Syria begins, these reforms were contextualized within and conditioned by the empire’s geopolitical remapping of the region. From this basis in territorial and administrative reorganization, the state sought to contest the educational endeavors of it European missionary rivals, establish educational practices and institutions in the region that would offset the control over schooling enjoyed by traditional (i.e., religious) shareholders, and construct a modern center for instruction in modern medicine and health. All of these efforts, however, were tempered greatly by the state’s own fiscal limitations and its resourcefulness to overcome such challenges. Reforming and Remapping Ottoman Syria

Until the 1860s, Ottoman reforms met with opposition in Syria. Those notables and ulema who were traditional power holders in Syrian society saw the approaching Ottoman reforms as threats to their power and status. The empire thus explored ways to incorporate them into its administration of the region so that it could better implement its reform programs. Determined to create a modern state, Ottoman

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statesmen entertained great aspirations to reorganize governmental and social institutions and provide services in the form of education, public works, roads, telegraphs, and railroads. The empire also assumed other functions of a modern state such as census taking, land registration, and government banks. The Provincial Law of 1864, similar to France’s provincial reorganization, represented the height of this attempted transformation, and had geographic dimensions, too. With its adoption, the “old empire was redefined as the unified type of modern territorial state envisioned by the reformers.”4 Such reorganization involved greater Syria, as well. Traditionally divided into four provinces with administrative capitals in Aleppo, Damascus, Sidon, and Tripoli, greater Syria went through several administrative reorganizations in the nineteenth century. Following Ottoman reacquisition after its occupation by Egypt from 1831 to 1840, greater Syria was reorganized and redrawn as three provinces, with Tripoli being absorbed into Sidon. The Provincial Law of 1864 further revised this territorial reorganization, and this resulted in just the two provinces, Aleppo and Damascus (Sidon was united with Damascus). Officially, the Damascus province was thereafter known as the Province of Syria. This second reorganization resulted in part from an 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon and Damascus that brought Western intervention to the region. Ottoman statesmen were concerned that such interventions would continue and eventually create conditions in which the “Christian population would attempt to bring the region under the patronage of the West, or that the Western Powers would try to take advantage of their regional influence to annex this area.”5 A final reorganization of the Ottoman provinces of greater Syria took place in 1887, when Beirut was redrawn as a separate province. By 1888, greater Syria thus consisted of the three provinces, Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus.6 This reorganization resulted from political, strategic, and economic motives and was intended to reestablish a strong Ottoman presence in the area could enable both internal reforms within the provinces and strengthen imperial administration in the face of increased Western pressures. In practice, this territorial and administrative reorganization was intended to create administrative

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units that would be easy to rule by experienced, Istanbul-appointed governors who would be delegated expanded authority. The Provincial Law of 1864 also aimed to encourage or enhance the involvement of local power holders in the administration of their provinces by incorporating them into local administrative councils.7 Local notables and the ulema entered these councils to shape policies and protect their interests in a rapidly changing Ottoman social and political structure. Aware of the power that these figures held in their communities, the Ottoman state sought to attract their support by including them at various scales in imperial administration. Aside from local administrative councils in provinces and subprovinces, there was also a general council, or meclis-і umumî, in the center of each province. These bodies were organized to oversee the administrative, judicial, financial, and educational affairs of the provinces. The governors, aware of local councils’ power, tended to collaborate with them in order to successfully manage local affairs but sometimes found themselves subordinated in the process.8 Ottoman efforts to incorporate local leaders into provincial administration were expanded with the creation of local education councils. Part of the Education Act of 1869, these education councils were deemed necessary for successful implementation of education reforms, and the councils’ duties entailed advising directors of education on issues related to the field. In the provincial educational apparatus, the highest office was that of the director. Education directors represented the central government, and their offices were staffed mainly with Turks and Muslims, whereas education councils were composed of both Muslim and non-Muslim members from local communities.9 Members of education directorates were also members of the local education council. Very often local education councils played significant roles in shaping education policies in the empire. This was true in part because they incorporated the traditional religious establishment, including the ulema that had for centuries provided education to the empire’s children. As conditions changed, these councils adapted in their staffing, and the ulema undertook roles in the education councils as the Ottoman state sought to implement its education reforms. The empire

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had to negotiate its relations with the ulema carefully, as some served on these councils to protect their own interests and were among the most established power holders in the region. Education was an area of reform the Ottoman state moved cautiously into, seeking the support of the ulema. The ulema viewed their memberships in provincial education councils as their means to influence the implementation of policies. Having been the providers of education for centuries, they were alarmed by the emergence of state schools and worked diligently to defend their power and positions, reshaping state objectives in local politics. Afraid to lose their customary control over education, the ulema found it necessary to enter into the administration of the state rüşdiye schools that began to open in Damascus in the 1860s.10 Though unable to impose a traditional Islamic curriculum, the ulema retained seats in local educational councils over the following decades and shaped the specific implementation of educational reform in their province. Other members of Syria’s education councils came from the leading families of Damascus.11 In the end, strategic partnerships between local governments and the ulema tended to result, as both sought to maintain their positions and advance their interests within the evolving imperial order. By the 1880s, the Ottoman state was paying closer attention to local education councils and began to monitor them in various at-risk provinces—especially in those deemed vulnerable to foreign interferences. The provinces of greater Syria were among these at-risk territories. Local education councils were seen as a remedy to improve education for Ottoman children, both a means to raise funds and an aid in the implementation of the central government’s education reforms. They were also seen as roadblocks to the increasing penetration of foreign and missionary schools in the Ottoman Empire. Alarmed by the numbers of foreign and missionary schools and their activities geared towards attracting Ottoman children, the state saw the establishment and expansion of educational administration and accompanying local councils as a way to protect its children and gain their loyalty. Furthermore, the empire sought to use education councils as a mechanism to monitor the number of flourishing nonMuslim schools in the provinces. Growing suspicious of separatism

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among non-Muslim communities, the state perceived education councils to be an ideal means to inspect and control them.12 With such hopes, the empire collaborated with local and religious notables that formed part of local education councils in Ottoman provinces. As this chapter will demonstrate, such members of local councils found solutions to missionary and foreign schools that reflected their own perceptions and interests. The traveling ulema13 thus emerged as a project that reflected such realities. Foreign Pressures, Missionaries, and the Ottoman State

Following the 1882 British invasion of Egypt, the province of Damascus became a center of Ottoman attention. In an effort to undermine British and French designs, the empire began to expand its direct control over the southernmost lands of the province of Damascus. This push was intended not only to thwart British and French penetration, but to secure the road going to the Hijaz region for annual pilgrimages. This expansion of state sovereignty in the peripheries of the empire focused on establishing state institutions, settling pastoral nomads, enabling communication, and enhancing transportation for agricultural and economic development. As part of this development, the empire also built schools and mosques, competing with foreign missionaries for the loyalties of its subjects.14 Modern state schooling in the province of Damascus emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and gained momentum during the Hamidian era. Major Ottoman educational investments in the province took place during the governorship of Ahmed Hamdi Paşa (1880– 1895), who was Midhat Paşa’s successor. One of Abdülhamid II’s trusted bureaucrats, he was highly favored in the Ottoman state, a status that benefited the province of Damascus. He promoted policies that pleased the Porte, and he did not “trade on the good will extended him by attempting to promote policies he knew would not find favor in Istanbul.”15 Given more power and authority than his predecessors, Hamdi Paşa’s strong relationship with Istanbul allowed him to govern effectively. He thus had more success in the province of Damascus than his

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famous predecessor. The most prominent achievements of Hamdi Paşa were in the realm of education. He supported the expansion of state schools in the province of Damascus that was initiated by his predecessor, and one of his first actions was to establish a local education council in Damascus to promote state schools. During his first years as governor of the province, Hamdi Paşa benefited from great agricultural harvests that covered the costs of his development projects and schools he built. This economic opportunity enabled him to surpass the achievements of his predecessors.16 There were two major issues that shaped Hamdi Paşa’s educational policies in the province of Damascus. First, there were increasingly public manifestations of anti-Ottoman sentiments in the province. Second, the empire encountered a rise in efforts by France to expand its influence there. Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, anti-Ottoman feeling in Syria grew in response to ensuing economic and political decline. Though Midhat Paşa smoothed down this hostility during his governorship, it reemerged in the early 1880s. The rise of the Mahdi of Sudan in 1882 led to rumors that he had summoned tribal leaders of the Syrian desert to organize an uprising against the empire and expel it from Arab territories. Hamdi Paşa sent his representatives to negotiate with them and prevented any such uprising.17 He saw education as a way to generate loyalty to the Ottoman state and the sultan, especially in the Syrian hinterlands. British and French efforts to expand their influence in the province of Damascus were another major element that shaped Ottoman education policies in the region. Starting in the 1860s, French and Italian Catholics of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and English Protestants of the Church Missionary Society began to establish missions in area villages. They provided education and health services and worked under the protection of the British and French governments.18 When the competition to expand their overseas possessions increased between Britain and France, France tried to rely on its privileges, given as capitulations in the sixteenth century, to justify its claims to Syria. Reshaped by France’s “romantic view of history,”19 those privileges were extended to French merchants, traders, and diplomats in an

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effort to promote trade by providing trade and associated community privileges. In the nineteenth century, France unilaterally expanded its umbrella of protection to include local Catholic communities. Thus, by the late nineteenth century, French efforts were quite focused on greater Syria and its Christian communities. This new attention on local Christian communities was an addition to France’s longtime interests in commerce in the Levant and the significance of regional holy sites. To achieve its goal, France relied on missionaries. Ottoman statesmen realized immediately that there was an “organic link between nineteenth-century imperialism and missionary zeal.”20 Concerned by increased British interest in the Ottoman Mediterranean, the French government sent military attaché Louis de Torcy to the province of Damascus in 1880. He traveled through the province and prepared a report based on his observations. In his findings, he asserted that if France did not expand its influence in Syria, it would fall into other hands21—that is, Britain. The de Torcy mission to Syria shaped French policies much as Cevdet Paşa’s mission to the Balkans shaped Ottoman policies. His report commented on discontent with Ottoman rule, and he recommended that France establish good relations with the leaders of discontented communities in Syria, especially with minorities like the Nusayri and the Druze. He believed that these communities would support France in the event of an eventual French occupation of Syria.22 De Torcy’s 1880 report highlighted the significance of French Catholic education provided by French missionaries and urged an increase in government subsidies for missionary education. Aware of Syrians’ attractions to Protestant, Russian, and Italian education, the French government acted upon this suggestion and provided subsidies for missionaries in Syria. France revealed contradictions between its secularism at home and its religiosity abroad – at least as an adjunct to its empire building; “despite their pronounced anticlericalism the Republican French governments found it more expedient and judicious to build on the existing Catholic structure.”23 France subsidized missionaries not only in Mt. Lebanon and Beirut but also in the Syrian interior. Its efforts to provide support for missionaries in the Syrian interior increased following the 1881 British occupation of Egypt. In

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an effort to expand its influence in the area, France also gave subsidies to indigenous churches to improve their schools and open new ones.24 Ottoman statesmen were acutely aware that Western powers were employing schools to conquer the empire from within. In doing so, European empires were actively reclaiming non-Muslim populations as their own along lines of religious affinity. As each Western power took a community under its protection, it took advantage of the diplomatic immunity provided by Ottoman capitulations in earlier centuries and extended that immunity to the members of these communities. Past capitulations and educational polities thus combined to eliminate the legitimacy and control of Ottoman law within the empire’s own territories and over its own subjects.25 It was the missionaries’ zeal to reach Muslims and the attraction of some Muslim families to missionary schools that the Ottoman state was most concerned about. French missionaries were situated in coastal towns of Syria and gradually expanded their activities into the hinterland of the province of Damascus. For provincial administrators, the most aggressive missionaries in the interior of the province were the Jesuits. Following the French government’s increase in financial support, the number of schools they established increased rapidly. Two other groups of French missionaries in the Syrian interior, the French Lazarist Fathers and the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, were also active, but the Jesuits had the highest number of schools, located mainly in the area of Bekaa. The French also subsidized indigenous church schools in Hums, Hawran, and Baalbek. These were thus the areas in which the governor of the province, Hamdi Paşa, wanted to establish Ottoman state schools as counters to those of the French.26 French subsidies for schools in the province of Damascus were an immediate success. Their number of schools increased rapidly and even non-Catholic minority communities (e.g., those of the Nusayri, the Druze, some Shia Muslims, and even those of some seminomadic Bedouin tribes) started to petition France for funding. These new French schools sometimes even attracted some Sunni Muslim children as students. This response signaled to France that it could achieve its political goals in the province of Damascus not by arms but by schools.27

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France was not alone, however, in the contested educational landscapes of late-nineteenth-century Damascus. There were privately sponsored British and American Protestant schools, Russian Orthodox schools, and even Italian schools. The rise of French schools in Syria was detrimental to some of them, especially the Protestant schools. Indeed, new French alternatives forced some of them to close.28 The emerging Ottoman schools further intensified this competition. In an effort to counter foreign schools and undermine their presumed moral and political effects, the Ottoman state began to establish ibtidaî and rüşdiye schools as well as idadî schools in the province of Damascus. By 1885, it had 275 idadî schools, of which 29 were for girls, eight rüşdiye schools, one idadî, and, one vocational school.29 The Ottoman state sought different ways to combat foreign— especially French—schools in the province of Damascus. While some of the measures taken by Istanbul and Damascus administrators were positive, others were repressive. As the numbers of schools established indicate, the empire began investing heavily in schools in the Syrian interior. At the same time, Hamdi Paşa employed a spy system to learn about foreign activities in the province. He was especially concerned about dissatisfied parties and their attempts to communicate with the representatives of foreign countries. In an effort to contain foreign— and especially French—efforts in Damascus, an inspection committee from Istanbul recommended in 1888 a division of the province into two, a coastal province of Beirut and an interior province of Damascus. This administrative reorganization was deemed a necessary measure to enable effective monitoring of foreign activities. A major effort proposed by the local government in Damascus and approved by the central government involved the use of religious figures to travel through remote areas to inculcate Islamic beliefs and practices and to warn Muslim populations about the potential evils of sending their children to missionary schools. In the 1880s the state aimed to provide primary education to rural communities. However, in the absence of established schools and increased missionary activities, it opted for locally inspired temporary solutions: the traveling ulema.30 Provincial administrators in Syria saw increased foreign and missionary activity as threatening the unity of Ottoman—and especially

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Muslim—communities of the empire. They were concerned about the cultural damage that those schools could create. Provincial authorities, especially ulema serving in local education councils, proposed the solution of traveling ulema, until enough permanent schools could be established in the countryside. For the Ottoman state, state schools would best achieve the goal of guaranteeing its sovereignty over its populace, but this option would take time to implement. Provincial authorities, however, preferred alternative solutions, like the hiring of local ulema. Religious scholars and teachers would be tasked with traveling throughout rural Muslim communities to revive Islamic beliefs, practices, and faith while warning subjects about foreign influences. This re-Islamization of Muslims, by teaching them the essentials of their religion, was considered necessary to counter the impacts of foreign and missionary schools. Since local authorities viewed the danger in religious terms, their solution was also religious (i.e., religious education). Such a solution would give the local ulema additional occupational opportunities with significantly higher salaries, but it also would increase their power and prestige within their respective communities. The Traveling Ulema as Teachers within the Empire

In 1884, the governor of Damascus, Hamdi Paşa, sent a letter to Istanbul requesting permission to appoint fifteen to twenty religious teachers and an inspector to “educate local communities and the Bedouin around Syria about Islamic beliefs and practices and protect them from being deceived by foreign propaganda.”31 The geographic focus of the project was specifically Hawran, Balqa, and Hama. Having deliberated over the request and found it feasible, the Council of Ministers concluded: In Syria’s Hawran, Hama, and Balqa sanjaks the majority of settled, tribal, and nomadic Muslims are held in the claws of ignorance and unawareness. It is clear that, if this condition continues, it will cause major damage to the Muslim community because their ignorant conditions will benefit foreign groups in achieving

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their goals. Thus, it is necessary to establish primary schools to educate those children. Moreover, mosques and masjids should be established in settled areas to educate people to understand the basic principles of Islam and not be deceived. Further, a special commission in Syria must be established immediately to oversee a group of traveling religious teachers. As they have been seen to be necessary, fifteen to twenty capable religious teachers (muallim) who are familiar with the language and traditions of the region will be appointed as teachers to instruct the settled and nomadic Arabs in the dogma and pillars of Islam.32 The Council thus decided that a committee should be established in Damascus under the Damascene ulema to oversee the project. Each of the appointed teachers would receive 1,000 kuruş per month, far more than the standard 200 kuruş for teachers employed by the state, and their inspector would receive 1,500 kuruş. The Council of Ministers’ approval seemed to constitute a temporary solution that would function only until the state could establish primary schools within the area. Since the danger to the region—and hence to the empire—was presented as “immediate and fatal if overlooked,” the state responded without delay. The Council also addressed the matter of financing the proposed project. It decided that, resources permitting, the salaries of appointed teachers and costs of proposed primary schools must be covered from the area’s local funds. If such funds were insufficient, however, the remaining portion would have to be paid by the state. Interestingly, the Council entertained the idea that such solutions could also be applied in Baghdad and Yemen, where state authority was contested. Acting on the governor’s suggestions, the Council of Ministers agreed that, in those two provinces, “local communities and the tribes could be taught both the necessary knowledge of the religious principles of Islam and obedience to the high Islamic Caliphate.”33 It therefore decided to examine the plan’s potential for success under the auspices of those two provinces’ local authorities. Thus, local and central authorities together cited missionary and foreign threats as justifications for bringing tribal populations under the control of the state.

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Most striking from these deliberations were expressions of a heightened sense of danger and the dire need of protection. It was true that, in the province of Damascus, Christian missionaries were active in attracting followers for their denominations. Although missionaries had been in the area for decades, Ottoman suspicions grew after the British occupation of Egypt in 1881 and the French occupation of Tunisia in 1882. The apparent collaboration between missionaries and associated foreign powers was an obvious concern, but there were also anxieties regarding the missionaries’ interests in conversion. The Ottoman state thus changed its flexible policy regarding the presence of the missionaries. Not only did the Porte disassociate itself from any involvement with missionaries, it strove to keep them under state surveillance. It is vital to note that it was local and religious leaders who shaped the responses of the provincial and central governments by proposing the traveling ulema. Interestingly, such policies were taking shape around the time when the empire introduced the education tax. Indeed, this coincidence raises conjecture that the proposal to hire ulema was a means to avoid sending one-third of the education contribution tax to Istanbul with the intention to use the entire amount to finance Damascus’s own local educational expenditures, which might be determined by local authorities rather than by the far-off Ottoman state. As for the desires of local authorities, their perceived educational needs were religious and could be taken care of by the local ulema, who were familiar with the languages and traditions of the area. Although there is no evidence that the state pursued a rigorous program of sending traveling teachers and preachers to work among the settled and tribal communities in Baghdad and Yemen,34 the governor did move quickly to build the schools mentioned in his proposal, although he failed to ask for an imperial order to make their construction official. In addition to their teaching duties, the members of the traveling ulema were also dispatched to rural areas of the province of Damascus during the month of Ramadan and preached against foreign and missionary schools. Such appointments, however, lasted only until 1893. In early 1892, Governor Osman Nuri Paşa sent a letter to Istanbul requesting the appointment of seven local ulema to travel in districts of Damascus and warn Muslim families about the harm that could arise

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from sending their children to missionary schools. Istanbul responded positively to his request.35 Months later, the new governor of the province of Damascus, Mehmed Rauf Paşa, requested permission to reappoint seven members of the ulema in neighboring towns during the month of Ramadan to preach and advise people about the “religious damage” that would occur from sending their children to non-Muslim schools. Protestant and Jesuit missionaries were reportedly opening schools in the province of Damascus and accepting Muslim children free of charge, attempting to make further inroads by giving their parents clothing and other items and in other ways seducing them away from their religion. The governor insisted that the missionaries were “poisoning” the religious beliefs of innocent children.36 In order to encourage the approval of his request, the governor assured the central government about the success of the traveling ulema in Damascus by stating that many Muslim children had been taken out of non-Muslim schools after the ulema’s visit during the previous year. The governor reiterated that Protestants and Jesuits were making sacrifices to achieve their “corruptive” purposes, hinting that the Ottoman state needed to make similar sacrifices to counter the impact of missionary schools in the province. Since the governor was aware of the empire’s desire to establish state schools, he entertained that idea as well, and suggested that the empire could employ the traveling ulema for several more years while simultaneously building elementary schools that could eliminate Muslim children’s attractions to missionary schools.37 To this end, he recommended opening five schools in Baqa’ul-Aziz district and covering their expenses from the education contribution tax that was intended for secondary schools and higher education. The grand vizier immediately asked the Ministry of Education to work on constructing the requested schools, but he disregarded the request to reappoint the ulema until a reminder arrived months later. Minister of Education Ahmed Zühdü Paşa (1834–1902; minister from 1891 to 1902) responded by noting that he was already planning to establish some schools in the area and deemed the request appropriate.38 However, he proposed to cut the amount requested for teachers’

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salaries. Although the governor asked for 400 kuruş monthly for the teachers, the amount was reduced to 250 kuruş, as the suggested salaries were higher than in neighboring areas, where others were paid only 150 kuruş monthly. Because of the significance of the area and the fact that monthly salaries of teachers in neighboring Lazkiye sanjak were 250 kuruş, the same salary was considered the right amount in Baqa’ul-Aziz district.39 Mehmed Rauf Paşa’s request for schools thus went through successfully, but his petition to fund the traveling ulema was left unanswered. Therefore, he sent a telegram to Istanbul and reminded the grand vizier of his request. He asked for an imperial order that would send ulema to neighboring areas during the holy month of Ramadan.40 Submitting the request from Syria to the sultan, the grand vizier received the approval within three days.41 The request by the governor of the province of Damascus is noteworthy in that he sought to please both the state and local ulema by proposing the opening of state schools, on one hand, and by securing the reappointment of the traveling ulema, selected from among the local ulema, on the other.42 The threat conveyed in his letters to Istanbul was described as religious, implying an impact on culture, but the empire was also aware that missionary activity was undermining its sovereignty in the province of Syria. Defiance of the Ottoman state’s newly introduced education contribution tax in 1884 was rather common in the periphery. As mentioned in preceding chapters, many in the periphery were aware that one-third of the education contribution tax was going to be used to support schools in the capital, while the other portion would be used to open postprimary schools in the periphery. It was the responsibility of local populations to establish primary schools in their villages and towns, although their teachers would be appointed by the state. Many in the periphery were aware that their chances to benefit from the tax money were limited because postprimary schools would be located far from their towns and villages. Local leaders, especially religious figures, emerged as defenders of local communities, demanding that local funds be used for primary schools.291 In an effort to maintain culture and the religion of Islam, as well as their own interests, leaders in Damascus also petitioned for the appointment of traveling ulema.

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The introduction of the education contribution tax compelled local and religious authorities to be more assertive in shaping the Ottoman state’s education policies in the province of Syria. “Saving People from Savagery and Ignorance Requires Serious Solutions”

The central government increasingly viewed the traveling ulema project as “unsuccessful” and not worthy of financial support. Starting in 1893, the Ottoman state began to take a decisive stance against the involvement of the ulema in teaching in the rural communities of the province of Damascus. The rationale explaining this shift was articulated as financial, but it also had to do with the state’s desire to consolidate education in the empire. Although the ulema saw themselves as a legitimate “civilizing” force in rural communities of the province, the Ministry of Education viewed their efforts to counter missionary and foreign schools in the province of Damascus as ultimately unsuccessful. The inclination to eliminate the ulema from teaching in rural communities was also a means to assert the primacy of the state in the realm of education. Educational changes in the 1890s reflected this priority, as the state became more authoritarian and pursued vigorously its rights to control private schools, textbooks, teachers, and curricula. Further, the state itself employed a more “moral” stance on education, eliminating the need for support in teaching from the local ad hoc religious establishment. Simply discouraging involvement of local communities with nonMuslim missionary institutions was insufficient, and the state was compelled to present a viable alternative. Instead of spending money on traveling ulema, the state viewed investments in state schools as more beneficial and less costly. Thus, when it became obvious in 1893 that the local administration in Syria had spent large sums of local education tax funds without the prior approval of the state, the Council of State (which was subordinate to the Council of Ministers) began to scrutinize the entire traveling ulema project. Zühdü Paşa, characterized by one historian as a prime representative of the autocratic traits

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typical of the Hamidian period,44 played an important role in this process. When Zühdü Paşa became Minister of Education in 1891, there was a major shift in educational programs. From the perspective of many Ottoman statesmen—and this was especially true in the case of Zühdü Paşa—the state’s reliance upon the traveling ulema had several drawbacks. Indeed, he indicated clearly that state schools provided a better alternative to the traditional lessons and practices of teaching. From this perspective money needed to finance the opening of schools and should not be spent on paying the salaries of the traveling ulema. He saw requests for the traveling ulema as attempts to keep the entire education tax in the region, and to extract more funds from the state to accommodate high salaries. Zühdü Paşa was able to convince the state to abolish the traveling ulema in Damascus on the grounds that it was an ineffective solution in the province of the Damascus and that state-appointed teachers could better achieve the task. In 1893, the Council of State recommended that such projects cease; concomitantly, “Syria must not disregard sending Istanbul its share from local education contribution tax funds.”45 Upon becoming Minister of Education, Zühdü Paşa proposed spreading state education throughout the empire. In addition, he recommended a series of changes that would facilitate greater imperial control over schooling. Increasing censorship and authority over schools and teachers, he also sought to reorganize education in the empire’s peripheries. His proposal of 1892 indicated that the central state was increasingly intent on establishing more postprimary schools in the peripheries and more teacher-training schools in order to enable state primacy in education throughout the empire. For the Minister of Education, the solution to mitigating the increased numbers of missionary and foreign schools in the peripheries was opening new state schools and the seasonal employment of schoolteachers during breaks from regular instruction to preach and give advice to locals about the harmful effects of missionary and foreign schools. He viewed this option as potentially more beneficial and more attuned to state policies and associated goals for education. When asked by the grand vizier about his opinion on frequent requests from

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the province of Damascus for reappointment of the traveling ulema, he cited the sultan’s approval of his approach and stated that “saving people from savagery and ignorance requires ‘serious’ solutions, such as opening schools . . . Syria’s education budget is stretched very thin over countless number of schools of various kinds, leaving no room for a traveling ulema.”46 Furthermore, in 1894, the governor of Ottoman Syria, Mehmed Rauf Paşa, sent a letter to Istanbul. He requested state approval to appoint several local ulema to work as religious teachers and preachers in communities situated in southern Syria. This had been an ongoing practice since the 1880s, and the governor’s request was simply for a renewal of these appointments and an approval for each position’s monthly salary of 2,000 kuruş. To justify his request, he argued that the region required civilizing and that it was a site of increased missionary activity. As he wrote, “The inhabitants of Maan district live in ignorance and savagery; years ago the British established schools in Karak and started educating Muslim children in English. Protestant missionaries are further poisoning nomadic Arabs by inculcating the articles of their own faith.”47 Mehmed Rauf Paşa explained that, in order to counter such harmful activities and “save them from ignorance,” the Arabs’ own religious beliefs must be taught.48 Aside from his petition to permit and finance traveling ulema, Mehmed Rauf Paşa also requested that the empire establish schools in the areas of Maan and Tafila and for the Majalli tribe. Both the ulema and the schools, however, were rejected by the Ministry of Education because of a “lack of funds.” The governor repeated his request, and then applied to the office of the grand vizier to adjudicate his “stalemate” with the Ministry of Education—emphasizing that his concerns were “very urgent” and that safeguarding fellow Muslims from the influence of missionaries was a “religious duty.” When the grand vizier shared this request with the Minister of Education and asked for a report, he was informed that all funds were used to pay regularly hired teachers and that no money remained to pay for the traveling ulema.49 The Minister of Education reminded the grand vizier that, based upon a past request from the region itself, the state had allowed the employment of traveling preachers and teachers for a number of

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years. However, since the results of the traveling ulema were not perceived as beneficial to imperial goals, the sultan proposed to abolish them. It was not feasible to continue to support a program that had failed to demonstrate itself productive. To do so, the minister contended, was “not only against intelligence and wisdom but was also against the order of the Sultan.”50 Lacking imperial support, the practice of deploying the traveling ulema was to be abandoned. For Zühdü Paşa, the sultan’s decision (or acceptance) to abolish the traveling ulema was clear evidence of its ineffectiveness—and a clear endorsement of his own views. For the sultan and the Minister of Education, the only reasonable proposition involved opening new state schools and providing permanent teachers rather than following an expensive practice that they viewed as “fruitless.” The Minister of Education’s decision to end the traveling ulema project in the province of Damascus found approval among the Council of Ministers.51 The governor of Damascus was thus informed about the decision made by the Council and authorized by the sultan.52 After that rejection, there were no more attempts to revitalize the traveling ulema project in the province of Damascus, at least according to official documentation. In future requests from the province of Damascus, the focus shifted mainly to the matter of establishing new schools. In 1897, for instance, the governor of Damascus asked Istanbul to open several primary and postprimary schools in the Cebel Druz region. In response the Ottoman state sent a committee to determine the educational needs of the area in question. The committee suggested opening eleven primary schools and three rüşdiye schools, and it recommended that the state not send preachers selected from the Damascene ulema to be appointed as preachers there. The committee declared that such appointments would be improper. Since prior deployments of preachers failed to yield expected results, this job should instead be delegated to teachers of the rüşdiye schools. Those teachers had to be selected carefully according to their moral strength and other capabilities; they should do the empire’s preaching.53 Ottoman desires to instill morality and develop skills through education continued, however, until the end of Hamidian era. The question centered on who could best deliver spiritual, political, and

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vocational lessons to the population. Like Japan, which in 1869 sent Shinto proselytizers to the countryside to disseminate virtues of morality and loyalty, the empire desired to charge state-trained preachers and teachers with a similar responsibility. Religious education was deemed essential in the empire’s schemes to foster a unity and conformity that might render its population “governable through moral suasion.”54 The Ottoman state’s endorsement of the traveling ulema in Syria, and its later withdrawal of support, should be understood within the wider context of late-nineteenth-century Ottoman governing strategies. Some scholars have depicted the traveling ulema project as a state-initiated, top-down plan. Eugene Rogan refers to it as a sort of “Ottoman evangelism,”55 while Benjamin Fortna depicts the traveling ulema as the “crusaders of the Hamidian regime.”56 However, my examination of archival documents of correspondence and not just decrees reveals that it was a policy suggested by the periphery, not imposed from the center. Attributing many imperial policies to decision-making in Istanbul rather than to other sources indicates a failure to acknowledge the power of the periphery and of local and religious notables in determining courses of action—even policy formulation. Indeed, the traveling ulema perhaps envisioned themselves as “crusaders” who were “to scour the countryside armed with the Holy Book and rail against threats posed to the Muslim population,”57 but there is little indication that Abdülhamid II or Zühdü Paşa regarded them in this way. Leaders of the empire necessarily included local authorities and their suggestions in determining state responses. However, when such suggestions were no longer deemed useful, the central state rejected them and instead focused on the grander visions of its central administrators in shaping policies. It is crucial to note that the elimination of the traveling ulema did not imply an elimination of religion in education. Rather, control of religion was shifted to state-trained and state-appointed teachers and preachers. Indeed, the empire came to focus more on religion in schools by the end of the nineteenth century. In 1901, a special commission determined that the purposes of Ottoman education would be, first and foremost, the inculcation of religious belief and morality, and second, the teaching of useful information about science and technology

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in the fields of agriculture and industry, depending on the prevailing occupations in a given area.58 In contrast with some scholars’ depictions of the traveling ulema as purely a top-down and state-led program to bring Muslims into the fold of Islam, the traveling ulema were instead a project suggested first by local leaders and then approved by the state. Even though the Ottoman state initially supported this program, it is critical to underscore its origins, as it emerged from local demands, and recognize that its termination was decided by the empire at the highest levels: the Minister of Education and the sultan. In other words, it can hardly be characterized as a top-down imperial policy. The origins and implementation of the traveling ulema reflected its roots in local traditions and structures of belief and power. Acknowledging local players and their roles in state policymaking renders a more nuanced picture of the empire during its most contested decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were several reasons behind the Ottoman state’s rejection of the request to reappoint the traveling ulema. While the Hamidian era witnessed a focus on a reactivation of Islamic identity as a means to assert the legitimacy of empire as the protector of Muslims and Istanbul as the seat of the caliphate—and the sultan-caliph as the highest leader of all Muslims—the state also wanted to position itself to control the religious establishment, just as it did with other institutions at the time. There was thus an imperative to keep religion and the religious establishment under the control of the state. In this context, state-infused religion and religious figures were supported. This resulted in the state educating more medrese students in Istanbul in order to deploy them to the provinces as teachers.59 In the end, the state saw religion as potentially useful, but the dosage and the provider of this prescription had to be controlled by the state and not by local religious figures. Scholars of the Hamidian era also have tended to emphasize the presence of religious education—particularly in primary schools, but they often failed to recognize that local religious authorities and administrators also contributed to retaining a religious focus in education because it would maintain the status quo. Although both the state and

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local religious authorities relied on Islam to protect their own interests, Hamidian Islam emphasized selection and training of religious figures in state intuitions in order to ensure that, in their contacts with locals, they would focus on instilling loyalties to the empire and to the sultan. Indeed, as an examination of their demands for religious instruction shows, local leaders themselves created a context for relying on their own local ulema and not on the religious figures selected instead from Istanbul and sent to the peripheries to instruct people in the precepts of their religion. Whereas the empire often saw political problems afflicting areas, local authorities often instead explained them as religious in nature. One theme that emerges clearly from archival documents, however, is that the state often realized that local authorities had their own intentions and that were inclined to manipulate the state through its own anxieties. Based upon such realizations, the empire sometimes altered or abandoned its policies. Indeed, instead of giving in to local demands, Ottoman rulers followed policies that the state saw as more suitable from an empire-wide perspective. Opening additional schools and sending out more teachers was thus preferable to reappointing local ulema to train children in the peripheries of a greater Syria. A significant dimension of local politics and educational policies related to attempts to play upon the fears of the empire in order to attract greater state investment or retain locally raised education taxes. Seeing the new tax not just as an imposition on their communities but as a new way to derive money from—or in the name of—the state treasury, many local authorities found ways to avoid sending the required percentage to Istanbul. Likewise, they used portions supposedly reserved for local postprimary schools to fund the opening of primary schools whenever they could. The Ottoman state also invested in spreading state schools beyond the primary level in the province of Damascus. As I have noted, the interest in doing so was a consequence of the competition that the state confronted from increased foreign and missionary schools and locals’ interest in them. The Damascus Imperial Medical School was a result of such competition and increased the significance of the province of Damascus in connection with the sultan’s claims of sovereignty based upon the caliphate.

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The Damascus Imperial Medical School: Competing with France and America

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state explored the possibilities of expanding its medical schools throughout the empire. This consideration stemmed from the government’s desire to compete with French and American medical schools in Beirut that were attracting large numbers of students. Impressed by the quality of their work, Ottoman authorities were equally concerned about the impacts those schools were having on Ottoman subjects. In 1897, Ottoman statesmen thus considered opening medical schools in Aleppo, Aintab, Bursa, Diyarbekir, Izmir, Salonica, and Syria, among other provinces. However, economic conditions and the cost of building such institutions prevented these projects from materializing. At the turn of the twentieth century, however, there were new realities to face. With the construction of the Hijaz railroad and the increasing desire to combat Western missionaries, the Ottoman state decided to shoulder the burden of establishing a medical school in Syria, the Damascus Imperial Medical School. It was the first Ottoman medical school in any of the provinces of the empire. Medical schools thus far existed only in Istanbul. There were already two medical schools in the Ottoman Empire, established by American and French missionaries. The American Medical School in Beirut was established in 1863 by Protestant missionaries. Although the school accepted all qualified candidates, graduates of American colleges in the Ottoman Empire were accepted without qualifying exams—a provision that made these other American schools more appealing. Until 1887, the language of instruction was Arabic, and then it was switched to English. The length of medical education was four years. Upon completion of their courses, students were subject to an examination by a committee composed of Ottoman doctors. If successful, they could serve as doctors anywhere in the Ottoman Empire. During its first forty years, from 1867 to 1907, 313 doctors received their degrees from the American medical school in Beirut.60 In 1883, Jesuit missionaries established a French medical school in Beirut. The school had two sections: medicine and pharmacology.

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Students were accepted after an examination and were educated following the curriculum of medical schools in France. Students were obliged to pay fees to attend. During its first twenty-five years, 315 doctors and sixty-nine pharmacists received diplomas.61 Since this school was within Ottoman domains, its graduates needed the certification of the empire in order to work there. The late Ottoman state strove to establish its authority over all education within the empire, including professional medical education. The examination of missionary medical school graduates by a committee of doctors selected from Istanbul medical schools demonstrates the power of the state to assert its authority over them. However, while the Ottoman government annually sent a medical committee to Beirut to examine graduating students of the French medical school, the Americans were asked to send their graduates to Istanbul to be examined for certification. In 1903, John Leishman from the Istanbul Legation of the United States contacted the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tevfik Paşa, regarding his former petition to have the examining committee that traveled to Beirut examine the American students as well, avoiding the inconvenience of sending students to Istanbul. “The case in itself is a very simple one,” he wrote; “all that is asked is that the same courtesies be granted the American Medical College at Beirut that have been accorded to the French Medical School at the same place, which enable the students at the latter [to save the trouble and expense of a trip to Istanbul].” This arrangement would not have created any additional expense for the Ottoman government. However, the language of Leishman’s letter indicates that there was more at stake than cost. Americans wanted to be granted the same privileges as their French competitors: “The granting of this petition simply paces American institutions on an equality with those of the other nations.”62 Leishman indicated that had his letter been submitted directly to the Ottoman sultan with a favorable recommendation, rather than working through Minister of Foreign Affairs Tevfik Paşa, it would have been granted. Ottoman authorities seized upon this request as an opportunity to bargain with the American consul. In return, the Ottoman officials wanted the Americans to provide a full list of American educational,

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charitable, and religious institutions that were operating in their empire.63 Determined to receive approval for his request, Leishman requested an audience with the sultan.64 As a follow up to the Ottoman request, he submitted a listing of all American schools and charitable and religious institutions, with their full names and locations, and he promised to provide further information if asked, once the Ottoman authorities extended to the American school the same privileges received by France.65 Although an imperial order effecting Leishman’s wishes does not exist among the archival documents, I assume that the request to have the traveling Ottoman medical examination authorities in Beirut annually examine American medical students in addition to the French medical students was settled favorably for America. When the Ottoman Empire started to plan for a medical school in Damascus, it was understood that it would compete with the American and French schools. Aleppo and Damascus seemed to be good potential sites for this project since there were a number of military medical doctors there who could serve as teachers.66 Even though such medical schools were needed everywhere in the empire, one in Damascus or Aleppo seemed most “urgent.” 67 Aware of the diligent work of foreign missionaries to find funds for their institutions, the Ottoman state committed itself to the pursuit of a new source of funding for its expensive educational institution. Getting the Butcher to Finance the Damascus Imperial Medical School

Financing such medical schools would be a challenge for the empire, so the grand vizier requested the Ministry of Education to set up a special commission to address funding and staffing. The commission was asked to explore the possibility of using military personnel as teachers in new medical schools and combining military and civil medical schools in Istanbul to save money. The grand vizier proposed that since Istanbul had two medical schools, a boarding civil medical school (Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Mülkiye) and a military one (Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane),68 the boarding civil medical school could be converted into a non-boarding medical school and combined with the military medical

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school. They could then use the funds from the civil medical school to fund other medical schools in the empire. Upon conducting research, the commission submitted a lengthy report to the Ministry of Education. Although the grand vizier hoped to use the empire’s educated military personnel as teachers in its planned school, the Ministry of Military Schools strongly rejected the idea, as it would distract them from their military duties and it would crowd the military medical school in Istanbul. 69 The minister feared that once military personnel worked as teachers, they would not want to take on their primary job again. In the best interest of the empire, the ministry argued, military personnel must be left to do their own work. The Ministry of Military Schools also rejected the plan to combine Istanbul’s civil and military medical schools to save money, which could then be diverted to its medical schools in the periphery. Since Istanbul was the educational center of the empire with numerous schools and the highest quality of education, in which the state heavily invested, it is significant to see the state trying to downsize its schools in the capital in order to generate money for higher education in its distant provinces. The construction of the Hijaz railroad and the spread of disease in the area were among the reasons for the urgency of such decisions. In 1901, an Ottoman medical commission was assigned to examine health conditions and required medical needs along the line of the railroad. The commission submitted a report recommending the establishment of a medical school in Damascus. The report indicated that with the construction of the railroad there would be an increased demand for doctors to care for the railroad workers. Also, having locals educated as doctors would be beneficial because they were already acclimated.70 Upon the rejection of the Ministry of Military Schools, the commission proposed a different source to fund a medical school in Syria that could later be used to open other medical schools in Baghdad, Erzurum, and Smyrna. It was the zebhiyye tax collected from butchers for each animal they slaughtered. It was already being collected in Istanbul as a source for financing charitable expenses, and the commission decided to maintain it as is. The tax was also collected in the Balkans to fund elementary schools; though this would not be

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used. There was also a zebhiyye tax of 567,692 kuruş collected from the provinces of Aleppo, Aydın, Baghdad, Beirut, Hüdavendigar, Trabzon, and Syria to support the fund established to assist the Muslims of Crete who were in dire need (Girit Muhtacin-i Ahali-i Islamiyyesi İanesi.) The committee suggested that, if the other provinces of Konya, Ankara, Kastamonu, Cezayir-i Bahr-ı Sefid, Sivas, Van, Bitlis, Basra, Diyarbekir, and Mamuretü’l Aziz were assessed the zebhiyye tax, the amount would be around 1,900,000 kuruş. Since Crete only needed 180,000 kuruş, the rest of the money could be used to fund a medical school in Syria.71 The commission’s funding plan seemed feasible; the medical school and the teaching hospital would cost about 3,000,000 kuruş to build and would require about 800,000 kuruş for annual expenses. Utilizing the zebhiyye tax would make the plan a reality. Until the building was completed, a building would be rented for 20,000 kuruş per year. That would allow the school to begin training immediately. After a period, the committee suggested, the zebhiyye tax could be used to fund future medical schools in Smyrna, Bursa, or Baghdad. Once Muslims in Crete no longer needed the money channeled from the zebhiyye tax, the state could use the funds for medical schools as well. 72 The proposed financing of Syria’s medical school reveals much about the fiscal realities of the late Ottoman Empire. Although the zebhiyye tax was instituted in the Anatolian provinces to support Muslims in Crete who were in need of financial assistance, but it was readily used for other expenses. The most noteworthy point is that the state planned to expand the tax to other provinces and make it appear more permanent. After collecting the zebhiyye tax, the state would use it for its projected medical school in Syria. This attempt to finance the school would be criticized following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution.73 Retaining the Balkans’ and Istanbul’s zebhiyye funds so that they would be out of this project’s reach was also important, as the state wanted other provinces to shoulder the empire’s expenses of the Syrian medical school. Once the commission’s report was submitted to the Council of Ministers for review, it was approved immediately. The Council agreed that opening a medical school would curb local peoples’ interests in

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the American and French medical schools in Beirut, because the students of both were children of Beirut and neighboring areas. Even though these foreign schools were providing beneficial training, their presumed impact on students’ morality made offering an alternative a necessity to save these “children of the country.”74 Once the sultan approved the plan, it was ready to be realized.75 The language of instruction at the Damascus medical school was to be Ottoman Turkish. The empire had previously invested itself heavily into providing medical education in the Ottoman language. In the 1830s, Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) communicated his intent to fund the translation of foreign medical books into Ottoman Turkish. He saw this endeavor as a means to maintain independence: “We are not happy about having foreigners come to the empire and enter its various corners as doctors.”76 He thus encouraged a program of translation that continued beyond his reign and gained momentum in the 1850s when Ottomanization of the language of instruction was blooming. Thus, when the medical school opened in Damascus, there was no difficulty finding books, medical dictionaries, and other related material in Ottoman Turkish. For the empire, it was one of the major purposes of higher education to provide education in the language of the empire, bringing a linguistic unity. Opening the Damascus Imperial Medical School

State plans thus were made to open the Damascus Imperial Medical School on August 31, 1903, the anniversary of Sultan Abdülhamid II’s accession to the throne. After renting a building, the organizers of the school searched for a suitable director for the school. Although the inspector of health in Konya, Zeki Bey, was an immediate candidate, his youth and lack of experience were concerns. The organizers believed that, for such an important job, the director should be an “older and more experienced individual who is also familiar with local languages.” Until a suitable candidate was found, a temporary director was appointed.77 The next step was to identify and attract students and teachers. An announcement was made to encourage qualified students from

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the neighboring towns and villages of Syria to apply. In the first year, twenty-five students registered; fifteen for training in medicine and ten for studies in the pharmacy section of the school. Finding teachers for the medical school was more challenging than anticipated, and the state increased salaries from 1,500 to 2,500 kuruş to attract qualified teachers willing to work in Syria. Many of them were graduates of the medical schools of Istanbul. As planned, the Damascus Imperial Medical School opened on August 31, 1903 with a major ceremony in the rented building.78 Construction of the permanent facility took longer than planned and was not completed until 1914. The number of enrolled students indicates that the Damascus Imperial Medical School was quite successful. In 1906, 102 students were enrolled at the school, fifty-six in medicine and forty-six in pharmacy.79 Some students from the foreign medical schools in Beirut also wanted to transfer. A 1907 letter from the Ministry of Military Schools mentioned that the medical school in Damascus had gained a great reputation in a very short time and that students from other places were applying to it. The letter emphasized that even students who attended the American and French medical schools in Beirut were now applying because they realized they would get a better education there.80 The Minister of Military Schools wrote to state authorities for information on criteria for accepting foreign students to the Damascus Imperial Medical School. Successful applicants were expected to have a good command of Ottoman Turkish or French. Ohannes Narlıyan, an Ottoman citizen attending the American Medical School in Beirut, was among the individuals who applied to transfer to the medical school in Damascus. Another applicant, Ohannes Balıkcıyan, was an Iranian citizen. Although both students insisted that they should be accepted to the fourth year of study because they had taken anatomy and physiology courses, school officials hesitated to place them in the fourth year. The officials’ rationale was that these students had taken anatomy only for one year and, though they knew Ottoman Turkish, were not entirely familiar with medical terminology in Ottoman Turkish. These two transfer students were therefore accepted to the third-year class. Another student, Joseph Malkalı, was transferring from the French Medical School in Beirut. His application was not complete until he

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submitted all the necessary paperwork, as stipulated by school administrators. Thus, by 1907, three students had already transferred from the competing medical schools of Beirut, and the minister expected this number to grow in future years.81 The medical school in Damascus set itself to compete with Beirut’s medical schools and wanted to attract their students. If students could be siphoned from these competitors, the strength of the Damascus school would be demonstrated. The Minister of Military Schools thus informed state officials that officials were endeavoring to make entry easier for prospective transfer students from the medical schools of Beirut. He stipulated, however, that they would do so within the limits of existing laws, carefully checking all necessary information and making sure that prospective students had good morals, could document their courses, and could pass a qualifying exam.82 The school did not have its own regulations, so school authorities used the Imperial Medical School regulations designed for all medical schools in the empire. That regulation, however, had no guidelines covering students of foreign nationalities. Although an Iranian student, Ohannes Balıkcıyan, had proven a good candidate, authorities were not sure if they were allowed to accept his transfer and thus asked for clarification. Although the minister indicated that existing laws prohibited foreign nationals from entering state medical schools, that provision applied only to the military medical school, so he inquired if that law included civil medical schools like the one in Damascus. This issue was also problematic because graduates of the medical schools in the empire were required to work in the service of the empire, and school officials did not know how to waive or otherwise handle this obligation for foreign students. This question of accepting foreign students apparently upset the balance of medical schools, as the purpose of those schools was to serve the citizens of the empire—not to be serve foreign students whose entrance would limit the number of students from the empire itself. However, if such an acceptance involved competing institutions, the rules were different (if a foreign student was transferring from a Beirut medical school, which was a gain for the Damascus medical school and added to its prestige). Therefore, in response to a query from the

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Minister of Military Schools, the Council of Ministers sent its approval for accepting “deserving” foreign students into the program if school authorities perceived no “harm” in doing so.83 The Ottoman Imperial Medical School in Damascus served the Arab provinces for several years and was closed during the World War I. Some of its graduates reopened it in 1919 with a new name, the Arab School of Medicine.84 Despite their desire to change the language of instruction to Arabic immediately, the transition was gradual. Most of the teachers were graduates of the Damascus Imperial School of Medicine and preferred to lecture in Ottoman Turkish. Introducing Arabic as the language of instruction had to wait until books and dictionaries could be translated.85 Conclusions

Ottoman attempts to collect and control the revenues of education were not limited to the education tax introduced in the 1880s. The state also searched for other ways to acquire money to fund its educational plans. The case of the Damascus Imperial Medical School reflects the state’s desires to compete with European powers that encroached on Ottoman territories as it amassed enough money to establish its own educational institutions within its own contested lands without the limitations imposed by inadequate funds. By shifting sources of funding—and by collecting new taxes without referring to them as education taxes, the state was able to use the monies collected in its Anatolian provinces for financing a medical school in Damascus. In doing so, it made that province both a center of attention and a source of resentment among some of its subject peoples. Hamidian desires to invest in greater Syria in order to keep it under the empire’s rule made the sultan a convenient target for the Young Turk regime, whose members viewed heavy investment in that area as a sort of “favoritism” of Arabs and aimed to follow a more “egalitarian” and Ottomanist (and later an ultranationalist) policy by reversing the sultan’s priorities. Such later reversals of policy increased internal divisions and dissatisfaction among subject peoples in the final days of the empire. Hamidian investments in greater Syria, including

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establishment of a medical school and a military academy, won the sultan and the state some measure of support in the region, although many citizens continued to criticize both. This disparity in views of Abdülhamid II’s reign and Ottoman policies has dominated Arab historiography, with Arab scholars seeing him through the eyes of the Young Turks and criticizing his attempts in Arab territories as the planting of the imperial flag in the region and an effort to maintain imperial order, rather than a service to the peoples of the area. Such vilifications of Abdülhamid II and his policies have been reversed in some sources since the 1970s, but persist in many other accounts.86

Figure 7: Imperial Military Middle School, Beirut.87

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CHAPTER 5 ALEPPO’S “UNFIT” TEACHER: GENDER POLITICS AND R ESISTANCE TO R IVAL EMPIR ES

In England, Russia, and France, there exist Bible Societies which become exceedingly rich through the donations of rich and fanatical Christians who bequeath all their wealth to them in their wills . . . Although the English, Russian and French governments seem not to be involved in their activities, they secretly aid and abet them in sending missionaries into darkest Africa. In this way they spread their beliefs among the local population. By increasing the numbers of their followers this religious influence is then transformed into political leverage . . . Although it is obviously desirable to take firm measures against them, if open opposition is brought to play, the Sublime Porte will suffer the vexing interventions of the three powers’ ambassadors. Thus the only way to fight against them is to increase the Islamic population and spread the belief in the Holiest of Faiths.1 Missionary and foreign schools in the Ottoman Empire predate the reign of Abdülhamid II. While the empire was more tolerant of their existence at the beginning of his reign, this tolerance was replaced with strict regimes of control as the empire’s territories started to diminish

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and its vulnerabilities increased in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, the empire eventually viewed missionaries and foreign teachers as agents of the Great Powers, who aimed to destabilize the empire’s structures of social organization and political authority. This Ottoman perspective on foreign schools was not unwarranted; the Europeans clearly utilized schools politically not only in Ottoman lands but also in their own overseas colonies. As European colonialism went through its most aggressive stages towards the end of the nineteenth century, Western colonizers expanded their authority over their own colonies by establishing schools and gradually controlling education to serve to imperial interests.2 The Ottoman state and its local representatives grew suspicious about harms that missionary and foreign schools might inflict upon their communities, undermining their authority and claims to sovereignty. Although not directly colonized, the Ottoman Empire was under immense foreign economic, political, and cultural pressure. The colonial ambitions of Europe’s Great Powers drew the Ottoman Empire into a cultural war that took place in the schoolyards. However, that war was not always waged between and among states; it also incorporated local communities. They were the main targets of such competition, but they also had their own agendas. This chapter examines relationships between the empire and its colonial competitors as manifested in the localized contestation over education. As colonial schools emerged throughout the Ottoman territories, responses from locals and the state differed over time and by locality. While some individuals accepted the claims of superiority of Western education, rendering them more receptive to missionary and foreign schools and eager to place their own children in them, others viewed foreign schools as institutions that, in the long run, would undermine Ottoman cultural and territorial integrity. The British occupation of Egypt in 1881 and the French occupation of Tunisia in 1882 exacerbated such fears among those who were skeptical of Europeans’ motives and ambitions in the region. Therefore, foreign and missionary schools and their collective presence in Ottoman territories unleashed new, and heightened ongoing, ideological debates among three competing groups: the traditionalists, the Westernists, and the moderates, who wanted a synthesis of traditional and modern.3

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Ottoman responses to European educational aggression took a variety of forms: outright rejection, control, and censorship through new and expanded laws and regulations, and acquiescence. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state attempted to take firm measures to control foreign schools, books, post offices, and curricula. Focusing on Ottoman confrontations of Europeans, Zühdü Paşa’s tenure as Minister of Education was the highpoint in the empire’s expanded efforts to impose censorship and control over foreign schools and publications. This chapter addresses the new inspection committees and press regulations that arose to control foreign and missionary schools within the borders of the empire. Finding himself in a position like that of French Minister of Public Instruction Guizot, who complained that the lack of information about schools in his country led the state to act blindly,4 Zühdü Paşa demanded aggressive work from all administrators of education, especially inspection officers, to provide information that could be used to create education maps of the empire. By amending the empire’s existing Press Regulation (which ostensibly served to control information but was rarely enforced prior to the tenure of Zühdü Paşa) he also aimed to empower state officials with the knowledge essential to identify and control “harmful” materials before they could enter the empire. The arrival of missionary and other foreign women as teachers in the Ottoman provinces sometimes provoked anxieties among locals and officials. Their views of foreign and missionary women’s presence in their towns reveal gendered dimensions of education within a colonial context. Ironically, while missionary and foreign women marched to the Ottoman Empire to “save” their co-religionists and others, they had to struggle at home to acquire such elevated positions.5 Although they were ready to “civilize” women and men on Ottoman soil, their sheer presence and behavior, as well as their sex, prompted their rejection by some local administrators. It is also true that their enthusiasm for girls’ education, particularly within non-Muslim communities, made such schools appear more “dangerous” to traditional forces, causing them to launch an educational campaign of their own to modernize their traditional schools and attract students.6

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Late Ottoman Education and Inspection

The history of inspection in Ottoman public schools begins with the rise of the state’s increased involvement in education in the 1830s. Inspection during the initial decades of public education was mostly geared towards determining whether the teachers were qualified.7 When public schools started to expand in number during the second half of the nineteenth century, inspection also increased. When the Ministry of Education was established in 1846, inspection was part of the ministry’s duties. However, there were only two inspectors responsible for primary and advanced primary schools in Istanbul. The Education Act of 1869 expanded the practice of inspection throughout the empire. It was with the Education Act in 1869 and the development of educational administration in the provinces that inspection spread to the peripheries of the empire. According to the Education Act, provincial education councils had to include an inspector (two if necessary, one Muslim and one non-Muslim) who were selected by the Ministry of Education and appointed by order of the sultan. Provincial education councils were charged with the responsibility of inspecting all schools, libraries, and printing houses in their province. They were also to impose the terms of state laws and reforms, as they saw fit.8 Two types of inspectors were involved in provincial education administration. One was called a müfettiş, whose job involved traveling through a province and inspecting its schools on regular basis. The other type of inspector was called a muhakkık, who was assigned to inspect a particular case or an area when there was a specific need to do so. Although the two classes of inspectors had similar general responsibilities, a muhakkık had the power to inspect not only schools and libraries but also the inspectors themselves. They were thus paid for additional traveling expenses for such assignments, whereas a müfettiş had anticipated traveling expenses rounded into his salary. Although both the müfettiş and muhakkık served on provincial education councils, it was the director of education and his assistants who were ultimately responsible to the Ministry of Education for their province. Thus, they were also expected to inspect schools, libraries, high

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schools, and other postprimary institutions in their province.9 It was through such an organization and hierarchy that the Ottoman state aspired to control the schools throughout the provinces of the empire. As the number of schools increased, the ethnonationalist aspirations of many communities became more explicit, and foreign countries emerged as serious competitors of the empire for the loyalties of its population. Under those circumstances, the scope of, and expectations regarding, inspection of education increased drastically. In the central administration of education, the Ministry of Education maintained a small group of inspection offices until 1887. They specialized in the supervision of primary and advanced primary schools, high schools, and printing houses. As for the peripheries of the empire, there were two General Inspectorates, and these office holders were appointed to monitor the schools in the hinterland of the empire, divided with assignments in either the Balkans or Anatolia. Each official was expected to travel within his domain and inspect primary and postprimary schools and make necessary recommendations for their improvement. Their duties pertained mostly the goals of reforming traditional primary schools in the more distant parts of the empire. However, the size of the empire, the “irrecoverable” conditions of traditional schools, which made them unfit for conversion into modern schools, and the lack of fully developed educational administrations in provinces were obstacles impeding the inspectors’ success.10 As mentioned above, the emergence of provincial educational administration constituted a significant turning point in the purposes and practice of inspection in the Ottoman provinces as each province was assigned its own inspector. In 1887, the supervision of inspection emerged as a separate unit within the Ministry of Education, and all inspectors were assigned to this unit. During the same year, the ministry opened two more inspectorates: one for non-Muslim and foreign schools and another for institutions of higher education. In the following years, the latter was also assigned to supervise private schools. By 1892, the inspection unit of the Ministry of Education had eight inspectors. Five were responsible for, respectively, the empire’s primary schools, advanced primary schools, middle schools, institutions of higher education and

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primary schools, and non-Muslim and foreign schools. The remaining three were responsible for the printing houses and the libraries of the empire. The number of inspectors in the Ministry of Education further increased in 1890s, and it continued to rise until the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. By that time, there were about forty inspectors at the Ministry of Education’s inspection unit. The greatest increase was in inspectors supervising primary and advanced primary schools, followed by those monitoring printing presses and libraries. In the 1890s, primary and postprimary girls’ schools also became subject to inspection and had their own inspectors within the Ministry of Education.11 The volume and activities of the inspection offices caused much resentment among the opponents of the regime. As the Committee of Union and Progress came to take charge of the government after 1909, one of the very first things it focused on was closing down these inspection and censorship offices.12 The Emergence and Expansion of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools

As early as 1869, the Education Act determined that all non-Muslim schools had to obtain a license to open. They would be allowed to operate thereafter so long as they could demonstrate that they conformed to the rules and regulations of the state and the Ministry of Education. Article 129 of the Education Act employed an umbrella term for all nonstate schools and defined them as “private schools.” They could be established by communities of the Ottoman Empire, by individuals, or by foreign countries. The cost of their construction and maintenance was the responsibility of their founders. The law required that the teachers in private schools must have teaching certificates approved by either the Ministry of Education in Istanbul or by educational administrators of the provinces. In order to ensure that teaching would not be morally or politically subversive, the law required schools to submit their curriculum and books for inspection. If this evidence was acceptable, schools could receive a permit from either the Ministry of Education, if located in Istanbul, or from local education administrations or from governors, if located in the periphery. Unless these conditions were fulfilled, no

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permit would be granted to private schools to open or to continue providing instruction. If private schools had teachers with diplomas from non-Ottoman institutions in hand, they needed to be approved by the Ottoman educational administration.13 Although the Education Act established clear rules, they were generally not enforced unless the state’s suspicions were aroused regarding specific schools for geopolitical or other reasons. In 1887, upon the suggestion of Minister of Education Münif Paşa, the empire established the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools (Mekatib-i Gayri Muslim ve Ecnebiyye Müfettişliği).14 Konstandini Paşa, a Greek who knew Turkish, Greek, English, and French became its first director, but he was replaced later by a Muslim director.15 Despite the law and the inspection office, private schools in Ottoman territories were oftentimes established with little or no regard for the empire’s stipulations. When the empire started to enforce compliance (i.e., with Zühdü Paşa’s tenure), missionary and foreign schools typically hid behind the protections of the powerful countries in which they had originated. Foreign powers in this way were encouraged continuously to intercede with the empire on behalf of foreign schools. The implementation of laws and regulations governing education in the empire was thus associated strongly with diplomacy, a cause of conflict and sometimes even threats of war. The laws and regulations regarding non-Muslim schools may suggest that the empire had the intention and the means to control, inspect, and enforce conformity and compliance in all of these schools. However, a detailed analysis reveals a different picture; it shows that non-Muslim schools routinely manipulated educational laws, rejected compliance, and sought shelter behind their countries of origin when threatened with closure. The empire was compelled to rigorously apply the laws. In some cases, inspectorates opened to monitor non-Muslim schools did no inspection or enforcement, and produced no results that conformed to the intentions of the state in creating the institutions. In the 1890s, the empire attempted to enforce stricter controls of foreign and missionary institutions. In a letter to the grand vizier in 1892, Minister of Education Zühdü Paşa warned about the current condition of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools,

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established in 1887. Zühdü Paşa mentioned that, even though it was established for an important and useful purpose, its directives were ignored. The inspectorate failed keep records or produce any other substantive outcome that would help keep non-Muslim schools under state supervision. He thus proposed to reorganize the inspectorate with greater staffing and funding to accomplish its mission.16 Zühdü Paşa insisted that, from then on, the inspectorate must collect important information related to all non-Muslim and foreign schools. He sought to reshape it and demanded greater productivity. He stated proudly that, within six months he had sent to the inspectorate 1,450 files to work on and that in the previous forty-four months, it had handled only 170 insignificant cases. Zühdü Paşa asked for authorization to hire more personnel to handle the increased workload and explained why it was needed: there were at least 1,200 schools in Istanbul alone and about 35,000 currently operating in the peripheries. These schools had about 200,000 teachers of various nationalities, including foreigners. However, 95 percent of the schools were not licensed, even though a license was an obligation decreed by the sultan. In order to enforce its licensing requirement, the Porte first needed to collect information about the schools: their location, their levels of instruction, the communities they represented, the ways in which they were established, their years of operation, and their curricula and books. According to Zühdü Paşa, all of this information needed to be checked, in addition to the imperative of verifying their sources of income and their expenditures. Any significant changes or deviations from normal procedures that a school might make needed to be documented and approved. Such information, he mentioned, could be obtained through the provincial education directorates. Even though local educational commissions were relegated by an 1880 decree the task of controlling the books and curricula of non-Muslim and foreign schools,17 Zühdü Paşa’s letter leaves the impression that, even in 1892, in practice the commissions’ supervision was far from what the state had expected.18 Zühdü Paşa sought to acquire further information about the schools, and insisted that fund-raising activities such as plays, balls, concerts, and lotteries that benefited the schools must be inspected with far

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greater frequency and that information about schools’ accounts must be obtained. The inspectorate had received reports that many of these events were occasions for ethnonationalist speeches by school administrators. Concerned about the schools’ potential to instill ethnonationalist sentiments, Zühdü Paşa wanted to place these seemingly innocent activities under closer scrutiny. Since some of these events were also fund-raisers, the minister insisted upon disclosure of financial records as well. Zühdü Paşa also wanted to register and oversee schools’ teachers. Wanting to verify that school personnel had proper qualifications (i.e., required certificates or diplomas), he noted that those without acceptable credentials would be offered the opportunity to take a test at the Ministry of Education and could be issued proper certification. These regulations and inspections of personnel were not only for schools in the periphery. Indeed, he emphasized that non-Muslim and foreign schools in Istanbul also needed to be monitored to ensure that their activities and personnel did not compromise the law and order of the Ottoman state. Zühdü Paşa thus emerged as a key figure in Ottoman governance, insisting that detailed information be collected and relevant statistics be produced. Zühdü Paşa’s reform project appears to have initiated the practice of collecting data used to compile the educational annals that were beginning to be produced.19 The yearly publication of the educational annals reflected the state’s efforts to control educational agendas and instructional landscapes in the empire, despite the fact that such control was being contested from within the empire’s many corners by many players. Since these tasks would require a large number of inspectors and scribes, Zühdü Paşa sought to increase the budget of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools by another 3,000 kuruş each month in order to hire more personnel and run the inspectorate more effectively.20 Until this time, there was only one person in the inspectorate assigned to such functions of inspection. That an institution with major ambitions and claims operated with such a minimal number of employees reveals the limited nature of Hamidian inspection and its capacities to control foreign and non-Muslim schools. Many critics of

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the Hamidian era highlight seemingly draconian control mechanisms and records; however, closer scrutiny makes it clear that this authoritarian infrastructure often existed in name only, at least for some time. Indeed, the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools was a phantom institution. Our glance at the history of inspection in late Ottoman education allows us to better contextualize the emergence and rise of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools. It illustrates that Ottoman interests in inspecting education grew over time and in scope as internal and external demands changed. The state’s attempt to establish a surveillance system over non-Muslim schools does not imply that Muslim schools were left unchecked. Indeed, as Zühdü Paşa’s letter indicated, the Inspectorate of Muslim Private and State Schools and the Inspectorate of Press were both occupied with fulfilling their responsibilities, and they occasionally asked for the Ministry of Education’s assistance. Clearly, controlling the empire’s entire educational and intellectual activities would have required a large number of personnel.21 Therefore, the minister asked for authority to employ three graduates of institutions of higher education (i.e., from sultanî or mülkiye) to work as “traveling inspectors” and five scribes for record keeping. Zühdü Paşa’s request was deemed reasonable by the Council of Ministers.22 With the approval of the sultan, Zühdü Paşa launched his expanded mission to inspect and control. This decision of the central government empowered local authorities to take serious actions against foreign and missionary schools. Foreign country representatives loathed these measures and attempted to challenge and manipulate state authorities to expand their educational institutions. Foreign Schools and Local Politics: The Case of Madame Marshall

On 25 December 1893, Minister of Education Zühdü Paşa sent a letter to the grand vizier informing him about a school case in Aleppo. According to his letter, three months prior the Minister of Foreign Affairs sent Zühdü Paşa a letter conveying the French embassy’s interest in seeking help for a French national in Aleppo., a woman named Madame Marshall, who wished to obtain permission to open a school for girls in Aleppo. Upon receiving the request, Zühdü Paşa contacted

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provincial administrators in Aleppo in order to obtain information prior to rendering a decision. He wanted to know about several issues: if there were sufficient numbers of French citizens residing in Aleppo to make use of such a school, if local authorities foresaw it causing harm at present or in the future, if the location of the proposed school was appropriate, and if the women interested in providing education had the necessary qualifications for the job. Zühdü Paşa especially sought further information about Madame Marshall.23 In response to the Ministry of Education’s inquiry, provincial administrators in Aleppo explained what they thought of Madame Marshall’s request. They informed the Minister of Education that Madame Marshall had worked in Aleppo a year before as a teacher at a school for Jewish girls and then had gone back to France. Upon her husband’s death, however, she returned to Aleppo and began to provide private lessons. According to provincial authorities, she displayed unchaste manners and behavior (ahval ve etvar-ı hiffetkârânesi işitilip). Madame Marshall planned to employ two women as assistants: Mademoiselle Mary worked as a servant for the French consul in Aleppo, and Madame Josephine, an Armenian, was also employed in domestic service. These women, it was noted, lacked the requisite qualifications to open and operate a school.24 The provincial administrators cited another reason to refuse a permit. There were only ninety French residents in Aleppo, and there was already a school for girls run by nuns. According to Zühdü Paşa, Madame Marshall’s application for a permit several months prior was rejected by Aleppo’s local administrators, and the interference of the French embassy on her behalf was both inappropriate and unacceptable. Zühdü Paşa told the Minister of Foreign Affairs to deliver his ministry’s refusal of the French request.25 The rejection of Madame Marshall’s request was conveyed to the French embassy in Istanbul through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The French embassy replied, informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the women in fact had the necessary qualifications and that the planned school was for all children in the area, and not just for the French. The embassy requested, therefore, that the state reconsider its decision.26 Again the Ministry of Education contacted local

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administrators in Aleppo and asked for their opinion regarding the French embassy’s request for reconsideration. The governor of Aleppo met with the governing council and crafted a report for the Ministry of Education. According to the governor, the behavior of the women involved did not match what should be expected from a schoolteacher. The governor’s letter to the Ministry of Education implies that the personal information provided on the women is for the ministry’s own decision-making process and not intended for the French embassy. Therefore, in opposing the school, both locals and then the state placed an emphasis on the “lack of demand for girls’ schools” instead.27 The governor also forwarded copies of Madame Marshall’s request letter and other relevant papers to the Ministry of Education for review. The Minister of Education now sought to resolve this issue at the highest level of the state. He thus contacted the Minister of Foreign Affairs and noted that, since a new school was at issue rather than an existing institution, it was subject to new regulations of the state that necessitated the approval of the sultan to open a school. Such was the recommendation of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools.28 Unsatisfied with this response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appealed to the grand vizier. The Minister of Foreign Affairs explained that although local authorities in Aleppo considered a second school for girls unnecessary, France insisted on a permit to open the school, which would serve all the children of Aleppo. The minister requested that a permit be granted by the sultan.29 In the meantime, Madame Marshall moved ahead with her planned school without receiving a permit. The events that followed the local officials’ initial refusal of Madame Marshall’s request reveal the tensions between foreigners and their associated diplomatic representatives, on the one hand, and Ottoman statesmen and empire’s provincial leaders on the other hand. Empowered with the support of the French embassy following local authorities’ denial of a permit to open a school, Madame Marshall designated a house as a school and began to teach there. The director of education in Aleppo sent letters and telegrams to the Ministry of Education informing the minister about the unfolding state of affairs. Provincial officials warned French representatives about Madame Marshall’s school and its unauthorized operation, but they received no

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response. Local authorities wanted to pursue legal action against Madame Marshall. Since she was a French citizen, the public prosecutor’s office of Aleppo sent a summons to the French consulate to be delivered to Madame Marshall. The letter was sent back to the prosecutor’s office. The French consulate’s disrespect for the authority of provincial officials and its indirect rejection of Ottoman sovereignty produced a palpable level of anger and frustration in Zühdü Paşa’s ministry. He reminded the grand vizier that the empire could not afford to remain silent in the face of such disrespectful conduct (hareket-i serkeşâne), a clear violation of the will of the sultan.30 It was imperative that action be taken, he warned; remaining silent in this case would be detrimental to the empire’s initiatives at this critical time when the ministry was working hard to reduce the injuries caused by foreign schools.31 When the Council of Ministers met on May 19, 1895, in response to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ appeal to the grand vizier, it decided to approve the permit for Madame Marshall’s school. According to the Council’s report, the school was currently in operation, and all local attempts to close it had failed. Better to give the school a permit and have it operate with a license than without one.32 This pragmatic solution prevented further tensions with the French embassy and gave the state the power to inspect and control the school. When it was submitted for approval, Abdülhamid II gave his permission to abide by the council’s decision.33 The impact of this decision on local governing authorities, however, was disregarded by those who made it. One may speculate about the message the decision in Istanbul sent to local officials in Aleppo and elsewhere and to foreign consulates and embassies operating within the empire. The outcome was precisely the opposite of what Zühdü Paşa initially sought; instead it maintained the illusion of legal and sovereign authority by acquiescing to real violations of it. The realities of the empire and the never-ending pressures and threats of foreign embassies made it hard—and sometimes impossible—to implement policies that aimed to confront the competitors who contested Ottoman sovereignty over its territories and its peoples. Cases like that of Madame Marshall’s school compelled the empire to tighten its control and expand its laws and regulations, even if such legal provisions

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were unenforceable. When Zühdü Paşa submitted a report to the sultan in 1894, he repeated the same concern over foreign and missionary schools and asked that permits must be denied to foreign schools where there were not enough nationals.34 The Ottoman state’s acquiescence in Madame Marshall’s school demonstrates not only the diplomatic power of France vis-à-vis the empire, but the central government’s own awareness of local, institutional, and cultural politics. Local administrators and councils in various provinces applied their own criteria for assessing the appropriateness of teachers in deciding whether to approve school permit requests. Theirs was a response to increasing foreign presence and moral criteria, and such justifications were used to refuse further foreign penetration in their region. In cases of potential conflict with major powers, however, the central government sometimes overruled such local decisions. Madame Marshall’s case illustrates the profound limitations on expanded inspection and on the empire’s ability to assert control in the Ottoman provinces.35 Madame Marshall’s case illustrates the profound limitations of expanded inspection and the empire’s ability to assert control in the Ottoman provinces. Many sources, however, also depict foreign and missionary women’s lives in the Ottoman provinces as ones of tremendous hardship. Describing British and American teachers in Syria, Robert Barr wrote at the turn of the twentieth century: The official Turk naturally dislikes all the numerous schoolmasters which England and America have imposed upon him in various parts of the land of the Crescent. As a general rule, the local official Turk knows that he may harry missionaries and schoolmaster as much as he pleases so long as no diplomatic complaints are made, but he has to walk gingerly, because he is well aware that if a protest is made his official life will be shortened. The teachers who exile themselves far away from home and friends, in order to instruct the youth of Syria, are mostly devout, earnest persons, willing to sacrifice health and strength and even life itself if they can ameliorate in some measure the hard lot of the poor people among whom they labor.36

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Madame Marshall’s case demonstrates the opposite side of this Orientalist imagery. As a French citizen, she had the full support of the French consulate. Aided by the pressures of her embassy, she readily defied the laws of a sovereign state and achieved exactly what she wanted. Despite such concrete examples, images of victimized women teachers under the scrutiny of Ottoman officials dominated many writings of the Hamidian era. In depicting a British missionary woman’s encounter with such officials in remote Syria, Barr wrote, “she is like a motherly old hen whose chicks have been scattered by the down-swoop of a fierce hawk.”37 He accused local state officials of harassment, incompetence, and attempts to impede the efforts of missionaries and foreign teachers. Barr’s depictions included an example of a missing American missionary whom local officials did not want to aid in locating. He indicates that they pretended to contact Istanbul, knowing that nothing would be done, though they gave way immediately when high British officials interceded. He implies that authorities in Istanbul did not want local authorities get themselves—and the empire—in trouble. As with Madame Marshall, the state wanted to preside over such cases even if, in the face of direct foreign pressures, it would sometimes feel compelled to take backward steps. Similar scenarios took place in other provinces, as the chapter on Tripoli will indicate. Censorship as an Instrument in Combating Colonialism/ Insurgency: The Creation of an Ottoman “Patriot Act”

The power of European diplomacy and an Ottoman sense of powerlessness in the face of European penetration compelled state officials to find alternative means to assert control. Because it proved quite hard to control foreigners once they were in the empire, Ottoman leaders decided that the state needed to control them in another way, by limiting access to the empire’s territories. The customs office thus emerged as a key site in these efforts. For Ottoman statesmen the customs office was also the best check against the arrival of agendas and materials that would be detrimental to the empire. They realized that the empire’s greatest vulnerabilities were in the spheres of cultural politics rather than actual

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battlegrounds. If foreigners were coming into the empire to open schools and were conveying “harmful” ideas to children, the materials used in this teaching should be banned before they could enter the empire. The only avenue for controlling the dissemination of printed material was the customs office. Politically and morally subversive materials needed to be stopped there—prior to entry. Thus, fears that European books and newspapers were filled with distorted information about the Ottoman Empire, its religion, its ruler, and its boundaries led the empire to tighten controls over printed material that might enter its territories. Such control had to be accomplished through careful training of customs officials. Otherwise, ambitious but careless inspection officers could increase diplomatic pressure and prompt unnecessary complaints from foreign embassies. Relying on customs officials was controversial among Ottoman leaders, however, who did not want inspection officers to ban travel books, dictionaries, and other harmless printed material. Indeed, foreigners and their embassies might respond with irritation to unwarranted actions by state officials. Ottoman documents confirm that, in order to prevent “harmful” materials from entering the empire, the empire tightened its controls over customs. The Press Law of 1856 was replaced with a more rigorous one in 1885, and in 1888 the law was revised again.38 The law did not specify which books were harmful; instead, it offered a loose definition: anything that might convey negative sentiments regarding the Ottoman Empire and its sultan. This broad categorization caused many troubles subsequently. A few words or a few pages in a book might cause it to be categorized as harmful material, and the state’s inspectors needed clear guidelines. Ambiguities in the Press Law created tensions between the empire and foreign embassies. This prompted the state to reconsider the Press Law in order to clarify its restrictions but also to make it more difficult for harmful books and other critical printed materials to enter the empire. Although the empire tried various strategies to counter foreign cultural and political encroachment, implementation was always a significant challenge. The Ottoman Press Law was updated continuously in order to prevent harmful materials from circulating—whether they

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came from abroad or were produced domestically. Tighter controls at customs, if left in the hands of ambitious but careless inspection officers, could result in greater diplomatic entanglements and associated complaints of unnecessary harassment of foreign embassies. Indeed, such problems arose when some inspection officers confiscated travel books, dictionaries, and other printed materials of a similar nature from traveling foreigners—justifying their actions by describing the materials as “harmful” and “forbidden.” The empire had to determine ways to pursue its right to control what it considered harmful material but do it in a way that would not lead to abuses in the hands of the inspectors at the customs. Customs inspection officers were thus charged not only with keeping certain materials out of the empire’s territories but also with respecting foreigners’ freedoms. The appropriate lines between enforcement and harassment were thus quite important. To clarify the point, Abdülhamid II requested that specific information and guidelines be provided for book inspectors— especially for those who would be working for customs. Training inspectors and providing guidelines were considered essential in avoiding any abuses that could give foreigners further leverage in pressuring the empire for concessions in related and other areas. Amending the Press Law for Effective Control and Inspection

In 1895, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Internal Affairs collaborated to form a special committee to determine what changes to the Press Law could make it more effective in preventing the entry of harmful foreign publications. The committee was established by order of the sultan in an effort to make the application of laws more expedient and uniform. The committee had three members: Behcet Bey, the director of domestic press from the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Naim Bey, the director of the Inspection and Control Commission at the Ministry of Education; and Vehbi Bey, the head clerk of the Inspection and Control Commission.39 Upon finishing their work, the committee submitted a report to the Ministry of Education. It stated that, although it was necessary to ban foreign books and satire that contradicted the Islamic religion and state

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policies, excessive applications of the law raised foreign embassies’ concerns. In order to avoid such complaints, it was crucial to inspect books coming from foreign countries rather carefully. If they were deemed harmless, they must be allowed to enter into the empire. Books considered to have harmful content, however, required systemic handling. The committee offered several suggestions to amend the Press Law. First, it was necessary to expand the area of control to incorporate post offices. According to the committee, one of the shortcomings of the existing Press Law was that it recognized only customs sites as places through which harmful materials might enter.40 Because such texts could also arrive through the post, the Press Law needed to be extended to include post offices as sites for inspection and interdiction of harmful materials. The committee’s second recommendation stipulated that, with the exception of dictionaries and travel guides, books thought to contain harmful or critical passages or inappropriate expressions be confiscated and kept under the control of the state until their owners left the country. At that time, the materials should be returned to the departing foreigners. In its third recommendation, the committee suggested the preparation of a list of forbidden books to give to inspection and control officers at customs and post offices. The committee believed it could make explicit exactly what was allowed or forbidden. The committee thus prepared a list of “most harmful books and authors” as an amendment to the Press Law, submitting it to the Ministry of Education for approval.41

Summary of Changes to the Press Regulation’s “Handling Harmful Books, Pamphlets, and Other Printed Material” Section 1. All books, pamphlets, and printed material, printed in any foreign country, in any language will be inspected by the appointed officers when they enter the empire via customs or postal services. • Included in this ban are printed materials that are religiously or politically offensive to the caliph, the state, state officials, the

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Islamic religion, Ottoman institutions, and officially recognized sects. • All kinds of publication about murder. • Images or descriptions of obscenity that are contrary to morals. • The materials that were specifically included in the Press Law ban on 8 Kanun-i Evvel 1310/1894. All writings or images that are made to despise Ottoman manners and traditions as well as the material seen that is contrary to public morality and manners will be collected and seized. If there are inappropriate pages in a book that cannot be permitted to enter the country, those pages shall be cut out and destroyed before returning it to its owner. However, if the owner of the material does not agree, then the material will be withheld until the owner leaves the country. Only then will the material be returned to its owner. Local or foreign guests and visitors who carry religious texts, prayer books, dictionaries, novels, science books, and travel pamphlets that do not contain harmful items will not be interfered with. If Ottoman political divisions are falsely marked or colored on a map, that map and similar publications will be withheld with a promise that they will be given back when [visitors] leave the country.42 This bill is simply an amendment to the (8 Kanun-u Evvel 1310) Press Law’s “What to Do about Harmful Books” section and not a replacement for it. The officers at the customs and post offices are required to know and apply with utmost care the 26th and 27th articles of the Press Law as well as this amendment. Disregarding or disobeying them will have severe consequences, and those who do will be held responsible.43

The commission’s suggested amendments to the Press Law were sent to the Council of Ministers for review and approval prior to being delivered to the sultan. The members of the council thus approved the amendment with minor changes, clarifying some of the items on the list.44

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The Sultan’s Response

In 1895, the grand vizier submitted to the sultan the work of the special committee assigned to revise the Press Law.45 Although generally content with both the suggestions made by the committee and the Council’s recommendations, the sultan had reservations about the capacity of the state to implement the law—and thus solve the larger problem. According to the sultan, even though the committee prepared a list of authors and books that it considered harmful to the state, a list would be limiting. Indeed, as the sultan commented, new books were published every day, making the list outdated very quickly. Furthermore, he noted that some printed materials contained passages with multiple meanings, and these would be difficult to readily identify and intercept. Moreover, Abdülhamid II feared that people inside the borders of the empire might simply resort to publishing harmful materials themselves. As a consequence, more effective solutions were needed to protect the state from materials that might “distort” the minds of the people (halkın efkarı efsad edileceğinden).46 Abdülhamid II believed that such materials needed to be eliminated before they reached the people. He suggested, therefore, that further preventive measures be taken to eliminate books and other harmful materials. Any loopholes left open, he feared, would invite individuals to try to benefit from them: “Any loophole, if left unchecked, could end their sovereignty over their own land.”47 In a rather unusual fashion for the sultan, he dictated to his head clerk a lengthy note in which he warned the grand vizier that the realities of a multinational state were quite different from those of a single-nation state and that he must keep that reality in mind in making every decision: The Ottoman people are composed of various nations [ecnas-ı muhtelifeden műrekkep] and all decisions must be made while keeping this fact, that the empire is not composed of only one nation, in mind. Treating the population of the empire as one nation would result in very harmful consequences. If we are going to borrow from the laws of other countries that have only

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one nation, laws that serve them very well may produce the reverse effect in a multinational state.48 For the sultan and his advisors, therefore, emulating what had been successful in other countries—especially in so-called single-nation states—would be detrimental to the foundations and integrity of the empire. He essentially scolded the grand vizier for treating the empire as if it were a single-nation state. He believed that failing to acknowledge this reality would have dire consequences for Ottoman state and society. To emphasize and illustrate his point, the sultan gave the example of the small mixed courts (sulh mahkemeleri) of the empire. He argued that empowering these small courts, as a result of shortsighted efforts to borrow Western institutions, could degrade the structure and integrity of the empire. Even though these courts were restricted to reviewing cases that were small and limited, the sultan noted that they had dangerous potential if unchecked because their decisions could be construed as final. If a citizen in a mixed-population area had land worth 3,000 kuruş and one of his adversaries from a different nation (ethnicity), brought false witnesses and employed similar methods in suing him for 500 kuruş, he could win. Repeat the same strategy several times and, in a short period of time, most of the citizen’s lands and fields could be taken away. In this manner, through an unchecked manipulation of small courts, one group of people could strip the wealth of another group. Thus, what was a successful administrative remedy in one place might not be successful in another. The sultan thereby suggested that, when considering a solution for dealing with harmful materials coming into the empire, all possible avenues into it must be checked, reasoning that there would otherwise be some groups who could be manipulated. The following years revealed that the empire’s ambitious plans to control the flow of information in an age of rapid technological developments and flows of ideas were frustrated—even futile. Even while the empire was unsuccessful in blocking unwanted materials, foreigners continued to complain about strict regulations and their arbitrary application.49

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Conclusions

Looking at the decrees of state institutions, such as those of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools, one has the impression that, from the very beginning, the Ottoman state was capable of carrying out a campaign against non-Muslim and foreign schools and that effective surveillance permeated every part of the empire. In reality, as intimidating as the directives may have sounded, their effects proved extremely limited for various reasons, including but not limited to a lack of necessary personnel, the diplomatic powers of foreign states, and the empire’s tendency to legislate—or otherwise try to intimidate—while lacking capacities for enforcement. Ideas of control mechanisms are quite significant, as they indicate the state’s ambitions to control the flow of information in both foreign and Muslim schools, but its regulatory institutions proved impotent to control the activities of non-Muslim schools.

Figure 8: An idadî school, Aleppo.50

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CHAPTER 6 EDUCATIONAL POLITICS IN THE IR AQI PROVINCES OF BAGHDAD, BASR A, AND MOSUL

The territories that later became modern Iraq fell under Ottoman rule during the sixteenth century. The Iraq region was comprised of the three provinces of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, and the Porte administered them largely through the province of Baghdad. Bordered by the provinces of Van, Damascus, and Zor, with Persia to the East, the Iraq region also included the Persian Gulf. It was in these Iraqi provinces that the Ottomans were brought into close proximity with their religious rivals, the Shia Muslims. Iraq was the long-standing geopolitical frontier between two competing empires, that of the Sunni Ottomans and that of the Shia Persian empire. In the nineteenth century, the Iraqi provinces constituted an additional region in which the empire was compelled to confront its European competitors. As the “only land approach to the Gulf,” southern Iraq became a British site of interest by the mid-nineteenth century. Britain regarded Iraq as important both for trade and for protecting its Indian possessions.1 As the Ottoman frontier to Persia, the Iraqi provinces were quite significant for the Ottoman Empire, but this importance was mitigated both by their distance from the center and by more pressing concerns in other provinces. For these reasons

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the region was integrated only marginally into the wider Ottoman administrative system. In line with nineteenth-century imperial aims to reorganize the provinces in order to establish direct control and restore central authority, the empire began to introduce its Tanzimat reforms in the 1840s in Iraq. These reforms were accompanied by costly projects for schools and irrigation projects in order to improve life and commerce. However, since the Ottoman state had security priorities elsewhere that took precedence, some of these developments were postponed. Amid the Ottoman military’s new policies for restructuring, the Sixth Army and its headquarters were stationed in Baghdad. In addition, the Porte began to take steps towards registering the population for conscription into the empire’s new military. Understandably, neither compulsory military service nor direct taxation had any appeal for Iraq’s largely tribal population. The low tax base and low revenues from the Iraqi provinces resulted in both irregular pay for the region’s troops and a slow pace in implementing the empire’s ambitious reform agenda. The governors of Iraq thus worked to find ways to increase revenues. Identifying opportunities to increase regional levels of both trade and production were deemed to be the most feasible ways to increase the tax base—and thus provincial revenues.2 To maximize governmental control over its Iraqi provinces, the empire expanded its efforts during the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, Ottoman statesmen saw Iraq and Syria as potential areas to be developed to make up for the empire’s economic losses from lost territories in the Balkans. Later reforms thus were aimed at developing the Iraq provinces in ways that would increase productivity. In order to establish the requisite infrastructure for major development, the state needed to invest. As the empire was on the verge of bankruptcy, however, such investments were a major challenge. Reports submitted to the sultan for development projects emphasized a “civilizing” of the tribes, establishing greater security, expanding the Porte’s administration, providing education for the masses, and developing crafts and industry.3 Foreign interests in the area, especially the British, and the desire to transition from local subsistence economies to a regionwide export economy were major reasons behind the promotion of such initiatives.4

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Two state reforms were crucial for the Iraqi provinces, the Land Code in 1858 and the Law of Provinces in 1864. The Land Code aimed to register and redistribute land to individuals in an effort to undermine tribal confederations and subsistence-oriented communal ownership and to create a class of land-owning individuals who would pay regular taxes to the state. The Land Code was applied in Iraq during the threeyear governorship of Midhat Paşa, which began in 1869. Although tribal sheikhs registered most of the lands in their own names, such registration compelled them to cooperate with the Ottoman state as property owners in order to protect their interests. Because the imperial government and the governors wanted to “break the power of the great tribes, give safety to roads, and multiply ploughs, it was essential to detach the Shaikhs from an exclusively tribal setting, to win them for government by self-interest.”5 In the process, Midhat Paşa exerted his authority to incorporate the people into the empire’s administration and, by making compromises, carefully avoided confrontations with the tribes.6 Although his drive to implement military conscription met opposition, his public works investments were welcomed. A printing press, an official newspaper, an industrial school, a hospital, and new factories were established during his tenure as governor of Baghdad.7 As for the Law of Provinces, the Ottoman state reorganized its administrative structure in order to centralize administration. Reorganization involved establishing a local administrative apparatus structured from provincial center down to the village level. In order to promote local involvement, local councils were established that included notables and religious leaders of Muslim and non-Muslim communities.8 In theory, such restructuring initiatives would bring state institutions into these communities, which did not have them previously.

Iraq’s Diverse Populations The populations of the Iraqi provinces were ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and socially diverse. They included the Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Turcomans, Assyrians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Jews, and Yezidis. The populations also demonstrated diversity in their lifestyles: there were urbanites, villagers, settled tribes, marsh-dwellers,

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seminomadic groups, and nomads. Of the roughly 3.65 million people living in the three Iraqi provinces during the nineteenth century, only about a quarter lived in urban areas. This number increased, however, after the settlement policies of the state.9 A sizeable number of Shia Muslims lived in the Iraqi provinces and their numbers increased during the nineteenth century. The large Shia population in Baghdad influenced the ways that locals viewed the Ottoman state and how the empire applied and adjusted its policies. The presence of the atabat (i.e., the four Shia holy cities of Najaf, Karbala, Kazimayn, and Samarra, which were situated in Baghdad province) made Ottoman Iraq an attractive destination for Shia pilgrimage and a center of Shia learning and activism. During the nineteenth century, both Najaf and Karbala saw an influx of students (especially from Persia) who were interested in religious training and careers in Shia learning.10 These four cities held the tombs of Shia imams and thus attracted Shia pilgrims from neighboring countries, particularly from Persia and India. While the pilgrimage sites brought many travelers and traders from Persia, they also placed the Ottoman Empire under the Persian state’s close scrutiny as it sought to monitor its subjects’ treatment in Ottoman lands.11 The existence of large numbers of Shia Muslims and reports of an increasing number of tribal communities that were converting to Shia Islam alarmed the Ottoman state: To the Ottoman authorities, the presence of a large and growing Shiite population in Iraq represented a serious political problem. The Ottoman Empire was a Sunni state, with which its Shii subjects could not be trusted to identify. Nor, in principle, did Shiite Muslims recognize the Ottoman claims to possessive of the Great Islamic Caliphate, a claim which Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876–1909) repeatedly emphasized in an effort to give religious legitimacy to his regime. In short, the Shiites were regarded as potentially disloyal.12 The conversions to Shia Islam became quite significant at roughly the same time that Sultan Abdülhamid II began to emphasize his claims

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to be the caliph of all Muslims. Iraqi Shia populations who were influenced by the Shia ulema questioned the legitimacy of the empire. Encouraged by tribal suspicions and a general dislike for central state authority, locals tended to avoid engagements with the Ottoman state. Indeed, these pressures compelled many locals to embrace Shia Islam more strongly during the nineteenth century. As Charles Tripp observes, “An increasingly large portion of the inhabitants of Baghdad province saw little reason to associate themselves with, let alone pay taxes to, a state which seemed not only alien, but even doctrinally repulsive.”13 When Hamidian educational campaigns began to open modern schools in broad regions of the empire, the empire showed very little interest in including the provinces of Iraq.14 However, when local authorities’ complaints increased towards the end of the nineteenth century, the empire started to devote greater attention to Iraq—though scarcely so much as it devoted to its other provinces in either the Balkans or greater Syria. Faced with two challengers in Iraq, the Hamidian state responded in a different fashion: regaining the support of its Shia and Sunni populations and stopping foreign schools. In the late nineteenth century, the empire received reports of increased Shia conversions in Iraq. According to the reports, the conversions were due to Ottoman policies that avoided exerting control over Shia missionaries, who enjoyed relatively easy progress propagating Shia Islam in the region into the 1890s. Indeed, the empire was not particularly strict in limiting their activities. After several warnings from local Ottoman administrators, the state itself began to take steps to limit the missionaries’ impact. Although Shia missionaries played an important role in converting the tribal populations of Ottoman Iraq to Shia Islam, such conversions also had roots in Ottoman policies of settling the Iraqi tribes. The Ottomans justified their settlement policies as a means to “civilize the nomads, instill Sharia among them, and force them to settle their disputes in religious courts rather than according to tribal custom.”15 Yitzhak Nakash argues that the Ottoman land tenure system of the nineteenth century also fragmented traditional tribal structures. While some tribal sheikhs registered large numbers of land titles in their own

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name, thus acquiring large tracts of land, common people were left to struggle over the limited amounts of land and scarce water rights. Such conditions sometimes created significant rifts between sheikhs and the common members of their tribes. This divide increased when the empire employed the sheikhs to collect taxes from their tribes. In these conditions, Ottoman efforts to diminish the large confederations that traditionally dominated Iraqi tribal society led to such rapid change that conversion to Shia Islam acquired currency as both a spiritual coping mechanism and an act of political-religious resistance.16 Until the 1890s, the empire sought to achieve a Sunni-Shia union in Iraq that could counter Western encroachments. Encouraged by his advisor Cevdet Paşa (1823–1895), Sultan Abdülhamid II pursued a unifying policy among all Muslims, regardless of their differences. He declared that, in essence, there were no doctrinal differences between the Sunni and the Shia communities. The sultan, who also held the title of caliph, was “the bona fide head of the Sunnis, had the legitimate claim to be the leader of all the Muslims and to use the Ottoman state apparatus to undertake the necessary measures for unity.”17 In the view of Cevdet Paşa, since the sultan was the legitimate head of all Muslims, he had to try to win Sunni and Shia Muslims alike in Iraq to the caliph’s cause. Cevdet Paşa thus suggested repairing Shia religious sites in Iraq in order to win the sympathies of the Shia population, and he invited Shia religious authorities, the mujtahids, to Istanbul in order to gain their support. Such actions not only were significant as reflections of Hamidian policies of Islamic unity that included Shia Islam, but also reveal the impact of Hamidian advisors like Cevdet Paşa on decision-making. Indeed, the sultan followed the suggestions of his advisor, funding the restoration of Shia religious sites and providing their religious leaders with gifts and awards. These demonstrations of presumed favoritism towards the Shia clergy, however, created resentment among the Sunni ulema. It did diminish the zeal of most Shia ulema in their missionary activities in Iraq.18 The Persians viewed the “Ottoman advocacy of pan-Islamism not only as a counter to the threat posed by European powers but also as an aggressive policy toward Iran.”19 Perceiving the Ottoman appeal for Islamic unity to be the propagation of an ideology that “advocated

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the religious supremacy of the Ottoman sultan as the Caliph of the Islamic world,” the Persians believed that this agenda was provocative and ultimately dangerous to their own interests. The Shia clergy also perceived it to be a threat to their authority. In their eyes, Ottoman Islamism was not a political but a religious idea that eventually could undermine their own legitimacy.20 In the 1890s, reports from the Iraqi provinces began to address Shia propaganda and encouraged the empire to open its own schools in order to win the support of the local populations. In 1892, Süleyman Hüsnü Paşa, an exiled ex-military official in Iraq, advocated the opening of schools in the region in order to bolster state sovereignty in the area and counter Shia propaganda.21 His letter to the Porte recognized that the three provinces of Iraq were ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse. However, he emphasized, the state could establish its authority over these provinces if it heavily invested in primary and rüşdiye schools in towns and villages and idadî schools in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basra. Süleyman Hüsnü Paşa encouraged the use of the state’s official language in these schools. Though the state could start with instruction in Arabic, Kurdish, and Turkish, it could gradually transition to Ottoman Turkish with translations from Arabic and Kurdish sources. This emphasis on language, he noted, would foster a loyal citizenry that would not be subject to the Persian clerics’ Shia propaganda.22 Perhaps this was the reason why Shia clergy were discouraging Shia families from sending their children to state schools because they were perceived to be Sunni schools. The empire tried another strategy to undermine Shia influences in the Iraqi provinces. The empire educated children, largely Shia, from the Iraqi provinces in the medreses of Istanbul and sent them back to the region as Sunni missionaries. Expected to promote Sunni Islam upon their return, they would receive support from the empire. In 1891, ten Shia and two Sunni children from Baghdad and Karbala went to Istanbul for this purpose.23 The attempt failed, however, as some of the children became ill and escaped, while others resisted changing their views. The state thus abolished the plan.24 The empire also deployed Sunni ulema to Iraq to “organize Ottoman education and counter Shia propaganda.”25 In the 1880s, the empire

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agreed to send traveling ulema to the towns of Damascus province in order to prevent Western missionary impact on rural communities and to strengthen their loyalty to the Ottoman sultan and caliph (see chapter 4). The Council of Ministers agreed to launch a similar plan in Baghdad and Yemen—locations where loyalties were suspect.26 However, the project was ultimately abandoned by the state, as it failed to produce significant results because of its limited size, lack of support from local authorities, and irregular payment to the ulema. In 1905 there were efforts to revive the project by sending more effective teachers.27 In its search for effective policies, the Ottoman state received various proposals. In 1895, Ottoman military officer Ali Rıza informed the sultan about increased Shia activities in Baghdad. He commented that their influence on the local population was due to ignorance among the people and that this problem could be handled if the state would open schools there. In Ali Rıza’s view, the threat was religious and required a religious response. He suggested that the proposed schools have a high dose of religion and that the teachers must possess religious training and knowledge, and the ability to persuade. Such teachers could challenge students’ views. Outside of the classroom, whenever they had the opportunity, they should criticize respectfully Shia Islam and properly introduce Sunni Islam to children and others.28 Solutions similar to those proposed by Ali Rıza came from different directions, each emphasizing an intense approach that included religious indoctrination. The British in the Iraqi Provinces

The British were involved in the delivery and distribution of a sizable charitable fund known as the Oudh Bequest to the Shia mujtahid in Baghdad. Originating in India, this large endowment was established by the Shia state of Awadh (Oudh) that emerged in 1720 in northern India. The Awadh sent a large sum of money every year to support Shia shrines and religious figures in Najaf and Karbala. It continued even after the annexation of Awadh by the British in 1856.29 Thereafter, British representatives received the money and sent it to the appointed mujtahids in Najaf and Karbala for redistribution.30

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Ottoman leaders were well aware of the impact of such interactions between the British and Shia religious figures. Although there were complaints to the empire in 1875 about corrupt distribution of funds, the state could not interfere because the fund was under British control. The Ottoman governor encouraged British representatives in charge of the funds to handle the complaints, but he could not do anything further.31 A small number of ulema opposed the Oudh Bequest because of Britain’s involvement and accusations of corruption; however, the majority of them benefited from the endowment. Indeed, such financial support played an important role in the rise of Shia learning and activism during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1903, the British became involved directly in the distribution of the Oudh Bequest, increasing their power among the Shia ulema. The British used this leverage to counter the policies of the Persian state on the eve of the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. Seeing Russian loans to Persia as a threat, the British leveraged their control over the Oudh Bequest to foment opposition to the Persian state.32 The Ottomans viewed this change in distributing monies from the Oudh Bequest and the role that the Shia ulema played in the Constitutional Revolution in Persia as warning signs. Thereafter, the empire began to focus on developing its educational infrastructure and investment in the Iraqi provinces, especially in Baghdad. The British involvement in Ottoman Iraq’s educational and religious structure was not limited to the Oudh Bequest. There were also British missionary schools in various parts of the Iraqi provinces. An encounter with the British ambassador in 1896 over a missionary school demonstrated the Ottoman state’s inability to stop the emergence of such institutions. As in other parts of the empire, such as Aleppo and Tripoli, the empire used every means it had to register such schools so that it could monitor them closely in the future. In 1896, a British Protestant minister named Parfeyt requested permission to build a school for the Protestant children of Baghdad. His request was declined by Ottoman authorities, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs informed the British embassy of the decision. The minister explained that the permit had been denied because of the

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limited number of Protestant citizens residing in Baghdad who could benefit from such a school. There were, the minister said, only thirty-five Protestants in the entire area. The British embassy countered that its consulate had more accurate information regarding the true number of Protestants in Baghdad. The embassy informed Ottoman authorities that the proposed school was going to be under the protection of the British consulate. In response, the empire gave permission to establish the school under the condition that the British follow all requirements of the Education Act.33 The British Protestant school in Baghdad opened in June 1896 and had twenty-six Iraqi and ten European boys and girls. The following October, enrollment rose to sixty-one students.34 Despite warnings about the danger of Shia missionaries and British schools, the empire moved rather slowly and ineffectively to assert its power in Iraq. Although the state sent committees, collected reports about the potential danger, and opened several schools,35 its efforts were minimal and ineffective. This is a compelling contrast to the state’s rapid and more serious response when letters of complaint and warnings arrived from the empire’s European and Arabic-speaking territories. Perhaps the Ottoman administration did not take the Shia threat as seriously as did local leaders. Ottoman statesmen were well aware of the limited number of state schools in Baghdad. In comparison with the neighboring provinces, Mosul and Basra, Baghdad lagged behind, at least in the number of elementary schools.36 Baghdad Becomes a Focus of Imperial Attention

At the turn of the twentieth century, Baghdad became the focus of the central government. At that time, the state tried to reorganize its educational administration and work with its Sunni ulema, incorporating them into its central educational apparatus. Persia’s Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and the role that the Shia ulema of Baghdad played in it were viewed as signs of things to come for Ottoman statesmen. Thus, in 1907, the Ottoman state initiated educational reorganization of Baghdad and began to establish an education directorate in the city.37 Tevfik Bey, the education director in Trabzon, was appointed to

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Baghdad to organize its educational affairs. He also was delegated to keep an eye on Basra and Mosul until their own education directorates could be reorganized. His rank was raised and he was paid the highest salary given to any education director. His salary amounted to 3,500 kuruş, a sum lowered to 3,000 kuruş after the Young Turk Revolution when salaries of education directors were standardized at three levels.38 By contrast, the eventual education director of Basra had one of the smallest salaries at the time of the revolution, just 180 kuruş. This amount was raised to 2,500 kuruş after the revolution. Apart from establishment of an education directorate in Baghdad, the state also aimed to bring local religious leaders in Iraq to Istanbul to work in its education ministry. In 1907, Alusizāde Şakir Efendi, a prominent member of Baghdad’s ulema, was appointed to the prestigious Education Council (Meclis-i Maarif) of the Ministry of Education with a salary of 2,000 kuruş.39 Alusizāde Şakir Efendi recommended that the state establish a traveling ulema and medreses in Iraq. A solution of some popularity in certain contexts during the 1880s, this system was also employed in greater Syria but was terminated in the 1890s.40 There is no archival evidence indicating that his views on reviving the traveling ulema as a policy found application. It may have been overtaken by the events of the Young Turk Revolution. Local Efforts to Finance Modern Schools and the Unique Case of Mosul

As I have mentioned earlier in this chapter and in prior chapters, the Ottoman state preferred primary education to be left in the hands of, and to be financed by, local communities. It used the Education Tax, in most instances, to establish postprimary schools in towns and vilâyet centers. Although the state focused on establishing postprimary schools, particularly idadî schools in provincial centers, this decision was subject to criticism and to demands that the state also focus on primary education in order to create a large pool of candidates for postprimary schools.41 The state, for its part, viewed postprimary education as essential in order to train the growing number of officials needed for the empire’s expanding bureaucracy in both the center and the peripheries.

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However, the critics’ view of the problem was borne out in the province of Mosul, where the state had postprimary schools but lacked enough qualified students to benefit from them, because of the lack of primary schools or the poor quality of education provided in them. In 1899, the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed the Council of State that the province of Mosul would finally receive some rüşdiye schools and a civil idadî school to train civil administrators. There were, however, major shortages of trained elementary school graduates to attend these institutions. Even though the rüşdiye schools added elementary classes to their programs, the shortfall in the number of graduates was much bigger than anticipated. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mosul lacked elementary schools, a deficit that prevented postprimary schools from attaining their anticipated results. Therefore, the first priority needed to be more elementary schools in the area,42 implying that the state should itself invest in opening them. Since the education contribution tax collected from each province was to be used primarily to fund secondary education, local authorities were eager to benefit from this fund of tax money. Doing so, however, required having a number of elementary schools sufficient to generate a pool of qualified students for secondary schools. Reflecting the local communities’ disinterest or inability to fund elementary schools, local authorities in Mosul drafted a letter that proposed a new source of income for elementary education, a tax on animal intestines exported to Europe.43 The letter from Mosul mentioned that in the past butchers had thrown animal intestines away. In recent years, however, they had begun to sell intestines to European markets for thirty to forty para each. The intestines were shipped from Mosul to Damascus, then to Istanbul, and then onward to Europe. About 120,000 to 140,000 intestines were exported per year, and the trade generated about 90,000 to 100,000 kuruş annually.44 Local authorities wanted to charge traders five para from each intestine sold, and they asked the state for permission to collect this tax.45 When the Council of State discussed the issue, it agreed to use the tax on intestine sales to open modern elementary schools, since the region desperately needed them. However, if each intestine sold for

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thirty to forty para, a five-para tax on each was high. Asking a higher percentage would make businesses less profitable and might reduce the volume of trade. Local authorities thus suggested that, since the intestines were only from the slaughtered sheep, they could also charge the tanners who used sheep and other animal skins to make leather that was sold throughout the empire. The Council accepted the idea of using taxes obtained from the sales of animal intestines and skins to finance elementary schools, so long as the taxes would not constitute undue burdens on local populations. Although local authorities suggested collecting five para from each slaughtered sheep, goat, or lamb and thirty para from each slaughtered cow, ox, and water buffalo, the Finance Department of the Council of State reduced the percentage. The tax on sheep and goats would be five para, while no money would be collected from slaughtered lambs, since they were not as common; for cows, oxen, and water buffalo, the tax was reduced to twenty para. Sale records indicated that the vilâyet would derive 15,000 kuruş annually from the two taxes. This money would be accepted as the Education Tax for Mosul, and it could be applied towards the opening of new-style elementary schools, since the region did not have any. The state emphasized that such a tax should not be a burden on people, and local authorities promised that it would not be because of the small amount being collected.46 The Council of Ministers approved the decision and the sultan also gave his consent.47 Although the letter from the Minister of Internal Affairs that was mentioned above implied that there was an idadî school in Mosul, other documents indicate that, even as late as 1905, the state was still in the planning phase for an idadî school there.48 A letter from the Council of State’s Finance Department in 1905 mentioned that, even though an idadî school in Mosul was much needed and could be very beneficial, it could wait another year since the construction season for the current year had been missed.49 It seems that with the obvious exceptions of Syria and Aleppo, no other Arab provinces stood to benefit as much from the Hamidian educational enterprises as did those of Iraq. In most cases, support for education was restricted to the limited amount generated by the Education Tax collected in the area and that was directed towards

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the construction of new educational infrastructure. Whenever there was an urgent need to reassert the empire’s sovereignty, some schools were built as a gesture; or sometimes, as was the case for the idadî in Medina, it was an expression of religious piety on the part of the sultan.50 However, in practice, many of the initiatives designed for Iraq were deferred or otherwise left unrealized. Conclusions

Education in Ottoman Baghdad was heavily influenced by Shia conversion and activism. Religious competitions between the Sunni and Shia shaped the policies and nature of education. Although the empire established state schools in all three Iraqi provinces, in Baghdad educational landscape was dominated by religious schools and institutions that limited the development of state schools. The presence of Western missionaries and foreign schools also influenced Ottoman decision-making and administration in the Iraq provinces. Dominated

Figure 9: An idadî school, Baghdad.51

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by Sunni Muslims, Mosul, for instance, was watched carefully, but investment depended on local funds raised to cover the cost of primary schools. This was an effort to incorporate locals in establishing schools and participating in educational development of the province. It was also a reflection of local administrators’ creative thinking in finding ways of raising funds to cover the cost of schools.

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CHAPTER 7 CONFRONTING ITALIAN EDUCATIONAL AND IMPER IAL A MBITIONS IN TR IPOLI

In 1911, Italian forces occupied Tripoli.1 The Italians attempted to legitimate their actions by claiming that Italian enterprises in Tripoli and Benghazi faced intolerable, continuous, and systematic opposition. The Italian government charged that the Ottoman Empire “displayed constant hostility toward all legitimate Italian activity in Tripoli and Cyrenaica” and thus compelled an active defense of Italian interests and dignity.2 This rationale for direct military occupation did not convince observers from other European countries; it had been known for decades that Italy had a concerted interest in acquiring the last Ottoman province in North Africa. The Italians had long claimed that the Ottomans’ management and development of Tripoli did not justify their possession of it. Italy contended that it would develop the province and should be allowed to do so.3 Opposition to the Italian occupation showed that the Ottoman state and the people of Tripoli did not share Italy’s opinions. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the empire had endeavored to assert direct rule in Tripoli, invest in the province’s development, and improve educational, judicial, and medical services. Largely tribal in population, the empire considered sedentarization and agricultural

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development as the most expedient means to achieve economic progress. Such policies would also produce more tax revenue that could finance imperial reform projects. There were, however, two major obstacles that impeded Ottoman efforts: Italian ambitions were considerable, and the local tax base provided extremely low revenues. Both conditions hampered the Ottoman state’s efforts. The low tax base delayed implementation of proposed development projects, and the overt nature of Italian geopolitical designs on the region since the 1880s constituted a major preoccupation for all foreign and domestic policies that involved Ottoman Tripoli. While the Italians followed a gradualist policy in their penetration of Tripoli through investments in establishing an apparent economic and educational presence, the Ottomans were compelled to respond diplomatically to Italian demands regarding Tripoli. In this context of diplomatic exchanges between Italy and the empire, confrontations over Italian schools in Tripoli provide a means for analyzing not only the nature of Ottoman-Italian relations but also the impacts of international diplomacy on education-based efforts to colonize the empire’s lands and peoples. In this respect, foreign schools established at the time were figurative beachheads for eventual foreign occupation of Ottoman territories. Unified in the 1860s, Italy longed to compete in Europe’s colonial rivalries for overseas possessions. During the late nineteenth century, when the so-called Scramble for Africa was an engaging project for many European countries, Italy entered the contest as an obvious latecomer. An eventual acquisition of Tripoli was thus viewed from Rome as an opportunity in waiting. Initially, Italy desired to lay claim to Tunisia, but France’s occupation in 1881 shattered this dream. Since most of the African territories surrounding the Mediterranean had already fallen to Britain and France, Italy was inclined to settle for what remained; Tripoli was one of the few remaining territories not yet claimed by any major colonial power of Europe. As a peripheral power, Italy was limited by the claims of the major colonial powers. It thus opted to wait for the opportune moment to acquire Tripoli, in the meantime pursuing a gradualist penetration.4 Depicted by one French observer as “sunny Siberia,”5 Tripoli was a remote Ottoman province. Its strategic location in North Africa and

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in the Mediterranean, however, made Tripoli a focal point in wider Ottoman policies, especially after the 1880s. Following France’s invasion of Tunisia and Britain’s invasion of Egypt in 1882, Tripoli remained the only Ottoman-governed province of North Africa. Viewed as a gateway to the Sahara and central Africa, where Sultan Abdülhamid II longed to one day strengthen Islamic solidarity, Tripoli was also regarded as an essential site in protecting the empire’s Middle Eastern territories. These strategic and symbolic views of Tripoli thus made it a centerpiece in the thinking of late Ottoman policymakers. Convinced that the only threat to this geopolitically significant province was Italy—and not Britain or France—the empire looked for ways to attract support from within and outside of the empire in order to dash Italy’s hopes and designs.6 Italy was likewise seeking support from France, Britain, and the other Great Powers to bolster its claims to Tripoli. When Italy renewed its commitment to the Triple Alliance in 1887, Germany and Austria-Hungary acknowledged Italy’s claim to occupy Tripoli.7 Moreover, in 1901 and 1902, France and Britain signed different agreements with Italy that acknowledged Italian interests in Tripoli. Thereafter, Italy began to assert itself with a more aggressive posture in dealing with the empire. The case study presented in this chapter follows this major diplomatic shift, its associated impact on Ottoman-Italian relations, and often contentious exchanges regarding education that ensued amid this contest for sovereignty over Tripoli’s population and territory. The Shifting Governance of Ottoman Tripoli’s Lands and Peoples

Captured by the Ottomans in the sixteenth century, Tripoli remained essentially autonomous and was ruled by local dynasties until the nineteenth century. Following France’s occupation of Algeria in 1830, the empire reoccupied the largely autonomous province. Under direct Ottoman rule, Tripoli was subjected to major economic and political reforms.8 In 1864, Tripoli was among the first of those provinces in which the Law of Provinces was applied. The law divided Tripoli into four sanjaks (or subprovinces) with new administrative structures that enhanced

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direct control.9 Similar to other provinces, Tripoli had a governor and local councils involved in its administration. Benghazi became an independent sanjak in 1863, and its mutasarrıf (subprovincial governor) reported directly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Istanbul. Although it became a province for a brief period of time, in 1888, it was returned again to its independent sanjak status. Cyrenaica was the center of the Sanusiyah order that emerged in 1842 and grew rapidly thereafter. As noted above, the nineteenthcentury empire invested in Tripoli in order to develop its administrative, educational, commercial, judicial, and medical services. Part of its wider program also promoted sedentarization, agricultural development, and urbanization in order to modernize the province, improve its economy, and realize greater tax revenues. Apart from its role as a critical service, education was regarded as significant in this wider project of regional development. The empire thus established primary and secondary schools in Tripoli. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Tripoli even had a rüşdiye school for girls, a teacher training school, and a military academy. Aside from state schools, there were religious schools attached to each Sanusiyah zawiya that taught reading, writing, and mathematics, in addition to instruction in religious subjects.10 The empire also accepted students for its School for Tribes (Aşiret Mektebi) from Tripoli. Despite this push by the empire for greater levels of schooling, the number of students in Tripoli was rather low. In 1903 Tripoli had a population of 500,000, of whom only 12,375 were students. Benghazi had 300,000 people and just 1,638 students. Compared with Ottoman provinces of similar population numbers, Benghazi’s very low number of students is significant. Mosul and the Archipelago territories of the Aegean, which had roughly the same population as Benghazi, had student populations of 6,699 and 31,340, respectively.11 As I have noted, Ottoman educational efforts in the region were hampered by a low tax base. Tripoli was exempt from the Education Tax. The large number of nomadic and tribal communities meant that the tax base would remain insignificant relative to the cost of developing the region. To offset this challenge, the Porte sometimes found inventive ways to fund its educational establishments. When building

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a rüşdiye school, the empire used portions of earthquake disaster funds set aside for Istanbul.12 At other times, however, the burden shifted, and local administrators were encouraged to find local funds. When local leaders asked Istanbul for state funding to improve the conditions of existing primary schools and establish new ones in 1892, for example, they were notified that they would need to identify and rely upon their own resources for such projects. Similar to other Ottoman provinces, in their requests for financial assistance from the central government local authorities in Tripoli emphasized their own limitations. In this case, they stressed the tribal composition and structures of their communities and their populations’ general lack of appreciation for education.13 Confronting Italy in Tripoli

Ottoman perceptions of Italy were critical in shaping both states’ policies in the late nineteenth century. As an imperial latecomer, Italy lagged behind other European empires. This gave rise to what some historians of Italy have depicted as an aggressive inferiority complex. Sensing that “the Turks regarded Italy as of no account,” Italian leaders like Premier Francesco Crispi sought to demonstrate that Italy possessed both the capacity and the energy to carry itself among the Great Powers. In 1889 Crispi, as a pretext for action, propagated the complaint that “Turkish officials in Tripoli under French influence, were showing disrespect to the Italian consular authorities by failing to make courtesy visits” to help Italy to attain its goals in North Africa.14 He threatened to bomb public buildings in Tripoli if the Ottomans did not act appropriately by complying, and he deployed warships to compel the Ottomans to respect Italy. Aware of Crispi’s intentions to fabricate a conflict that might warrant further actions, the simply sent their local representatives visit the Italians.15 In the 1890s, Ottoman sovereignty over its various provinces continued to be challenged. Crispi continued to demonstrate his determination to establish Italy as an empire and lay claim to its self-proclaimed rights in North Africa; Tripoli.16 Prior to its direct occupation of Tripoli in 1911, Italy actively established schools in Tripoli to create a foothold

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in the empire’s Mediterranean territories. There was a great deal of competition between France and Italy to win the hearts and minds of potential students through the opening of new schools in Tripoli, Khoms, and Benghazi. Viewing France as its main European rival for hegemony in the region, Italy attempted to “reach as many people as possible in North Africa with its schools” and challenge France’s widespread missionary efforts.17 Italian schools in the region were geared mostly towards educating the empire’s non-Muslim communities, raising the suspicions of local and central administrators.18 In 1902, its educational expansionism brought Italy to the brink of war with the Ottomans.

Italy’s Educational Expansionism in 1902 Viewing France as its main competitor, the French occupation of Tunisia in 1882 was a major blow to Italian ambitions in the Mediterranean. Having carefully surveyed French actions in the following decades, Italy in 1901 reached an agreement with France by which France declared that it had no interest in Tripoli. In return, Italy acknowledged that it had no interest in Morocco. Each colonial power was thus free to acquire its target, Tripoli and Morocco, respectively. Most significant in this agreement was France’s recognition of an Italian right to claim Tripoli19 France’s apparent acquiescence over Tripoli has been understood by many to reflect a desire to have an Italian Tripoli function as a buffer against a British Egypt. This agreement, coupled with the Italian press’s enthusiastic support for expansionism, enabled Tripoli to be depicted as Italy’s “Promised Land.”20 In March 1902, Italy also received Britain’s support for its claims to the territories of Tripoli. The British government recognized Tripoli as within an “Italian sphere of influence.”21 With its first advances into Tripoli having come through economic and educational investments, these diplomatic assurances paved the way for Italy’s military occupation in 1911. Supported by France and Britain, Italy furthered its institutional penetration of Tripoli and Benghazi22 with its schools. These diplomatic agreements and educational initiatives alarmed Ottoman authorities

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immediately, and decisions were made by the Council of Ministers to take measures to protect Tripoli, increasing its defenses and tightly containing Italian initiatives.23 Feeding these anxieties, reports of Italian activities in the empire’s territories continued to pour into Istanbul. In October 1902, a letter from the mutasarrıf of Benghazi informed the Minister of Internal Affairs that the Italian government was preparing to reopen a school that had previously closed down. The mutasarrıf’s account conveyed information compiled from his police chief’s reports. According to this intelligence, the Italian consulate had assigned a person named Giovanni from one of their teacher training schools to serve as the director of the reopening school. Giovanni and his family had arrived in Benghazi aboard an Italian postal ship and immediately started to work on transforming a rented dwelling into a school in order to begin teaching. The mutasarrıf, therefore, asked the state to provide him with instructions on how to respond if the school started to operate.24 Upon receiving this letter conveying the local authorities’ reports from Benghazi, Minister of Internal Affairs Mehmed Memduh Paşa immediately informed the grand vizier. His letter summarized Italian activities in the empire. In regards to educational institutions in Tripoli and Benghazi, Mehmed Memduh Paşa explained that the Italians were prepared to open two girls’ schools, one in Darna and another in Khoms, and a boys’ elementary school in Benghazi. From the Ottoman perspective, these events were not isolated, and similar situations in the Balkans influenced how matters in Tripoli were perceived and dealt with. In the Balkans, the Italians were already quite active, mostly in Yanya/Janina, İşkodra/Shkoder, and Draç/Durres. Although they had an existing school in Yanya, the Italians were engaged in building two more, a regular school and a vocational school. They had no permission to open or operate the first one, but they acquired the sultan’s approval for the latter. Beyond these schools, Italy also worked to open a post office inside the Italian consulate building in Yanya. Elsewhere, the Italians were establishing a vocational school in İşkodra and an elementary school in Draç.25 Mehmed Memduh Paşa’s report provided details about these Italian plans, and it also included information regarding local reactions and

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responses to them. Local authorities had attempted to halt such plans—especially those for a post office in Yanya—and the ensuing impasse prompted the Italian embassy’s protests. Embassy officials claimed that Ottoman soldiers had surrounded their Yanya consulate. Upon such protests and criticism, the state gave orders to local authorities to cease such methods of intervention. Attempts to solve the problem through diplomacy also failed because, Italian authorities argued, other foreign countries already had post offices in the area. The Italians thus insisted that they should enjoy the same rights as were extended to other countries. From the point of view of Italian authorities, if the Ottoman state banned Italy’s post offices, the ban should include other foreign countries that operated the post offices in the same areas. According to Mehmed Memduh Paşa’s report, the Italian post office in Yanya operated despite the confrontation with local authorities and its lack of a license from the empire. Italians planned to open another post office in Draç, and Mehmed Memduh Paşa encouraged the grand vizier to ask the Ministry of Postal and Telegraph Services to look into the matter. He acknowledged that the empire rejected any recognition of these post offices. In short, they constituted illegal foreign institutions on Ottoman sovereign soil.26 Commenting on Italy’s schools in the Balkans, Mehmed Memduh Paşa acknowledged that the sultan extended approval to the Italians to establish a vocational school. However, the Italians had no authorizations or approvals from the Porte for their other schools. Italian efforts to establish a boys’ vocational school in Yanya were a source of contention, and fueled considerable resentment and anger among local administrators and residents. These sentiments were apparent in the actual complaints that were received by the empire. Although the Italians were required by law to apply to local authorities to obtain permission, they had not done so. Now that their school was almost finished, local authorities were greatly frustrated, and they expected the state to take action to stop such foreign institutions from mushrooming throughout their towns. When the Italian embassy was questioned about projects in Yanya, however, it responded that the state could “show no hardship” (irade-i müşkülāt edilmemesi) resulting from

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these schools, and asked the state authorities to reconsider.27 The tone of Mehmed Memduh Paşa’s report indicates clearly his resentment and frustration in the face of these overt and defiant Italian intrigues. Having yielded previously to the Italians in the Balkans, Mehmed Memduh Paşa seemed inclined to now confront the Italian authorities in Tripoli and Benghazi. In his correspondence, he informed the grand vizier of the Italians’ plans to open schools in Derna, Khoms, and Benghazi. The Italians’ recent plan to reopen a school they had previously closed in Benghazi was explained by their declared need to serve Italian families who lived in the area. Criticizing this rationale, however, Mehmed Memduh Paşa emphasized that there were few Italian families in either Benghazi or Derna—too few to warrant opening either of these schools. Khoms was another area in which the Ottomans faced an “unlicensed” Italian school. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was notified that the Italians had already rented a dwelling in Khoms and converted it into a school. There an Italian named Antoniodi Peskaver was already teaching foreign boys, with no official permits or authorization. Local administrators informed Istanbul that there were only twenty-two British households with 102 people in Khoms, and only four Italian households with nineteen Christians. In short, there was no clear need for another Italian school in the area in addition to the one that operated without a license in the rental building. Besides, the local official noted, another school would be “dangerous.”28 Citing the Italians’ apparent disregard for Ottoman laws, these officials argued that any further schools without state permits could trigger vigorous reactions from the local populations and their leaders. Mehmed Memduh Paşa informed the grand vizier that opening foreign schools “in that part of the empire” was not only significant but also dangerous. The state should do anything it could to stop them.29 This observation, he wrote, was the same as that communicated by the sultan in his various orders; it was time to apply these safeguards. The grand vizier’s office decided to monitor Italian activities in the empire more closely and delegated several offices to handle this responsibility. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Postal and Telegraph

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Services were each assigned to observe the progress of Italian plans to open and operate schools and post offices in the empire’s territories. Responding to the Italian School in Benghazi

The Minister of Internal Affairs, in addition to the local authorities of Benghazi, wanted to take action to combat further Italian penetration of the region. Letters continued to arrive from Benghazi regarding Italian activities in the area. Just four days after he sent one letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the mutasarrıf of Benghazi sent a second to update him about ongoing events. He mentioned that, after deciding to open a school in Benghazi, Italians rented a dwelling that they converted into a school. What appeared most provocative, however, was that the Italians had also erected a flagpole on the school grounds and hoisted an Italian flag to fly on it:30 “As of yesterday there was a flagpole and as of today there is an Italian flag flying on it.”31 In a letter to the Italian consulate in Benghazi, the mutasarrıf mentioned that the Benghazi police reported the rental of a building to be used as a foreign school. The mutasarrıf reminded the consul that, in order to open and operate such an establishment on Ottoman soil, they would need to inform the appropriate state authorities. Despite this rule, the Italian consulate had not rendered the slightest information about the Benghazi school building or intention to open it. The mutasarrıf was galled that the Italians had decided to fly a foreign flag on a pole on unauthorized school grounds. After reminding the consulate that such acts were unacceptable, the mutasarrıf warned the consul that he would inform higher authorities about the case. The letter ended with his request for the Italians to explain their actions. In his correspondence with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the mutasarrıf included a copy of his letter to the Italian consulate in Benghazi and their response. When letters from Benghazi and Khoms arrived at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mehmed Memduh Paşa immediately forwarded them to the grand vizier. Demonstrating a noticeable increase in Italian presence and audacity, he requested a course of action to be undertaken accordingly.32 He encouraged the grand vizier to ask the

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Minister of Foreign Affairs to contact the Italian embassy in order to halt any establishment of such schools. Since the Italian consulate also brought in a teacher from Italy, He noted that bringing in a teacher from Italy was a clear indication that the Italian consulate desired to open another school in Benghazi, and stated that the Porte should take immediate action to forestall further Italian designs on the area. Following the developments in Benghazi rather carefully, the Minister of Internal Affairs forwarded the letter he received from the mutasarrıf of Benghazi along with an attachment including the exchange of letters between the Italian consulate and the mutasarrıf’s office. Determined that foreigners, in this case Italians, be taught to obey the laws of the empire, the minister emphasized the significance of flying an Italian flag on school grounds and the threat of Italy’s persistence in establishing the school despite their lack of permits.33 The Minister of Education on Italian Schools

The Ministry of Education was one of the offices that were asked to compile and present findings regarding Italian educational initiatives in the Ottoman Empire. Working through the office of the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools, its report to the office of the grand vizier revealed further information on Italy’s efforts in Tripoli. According to the Minister of Education’s report, the Italians had opened a school in Benghazi several years ago without permission, but local authorities failed to notice its establishment. When the Italians tried to relocate this school, local authorities were more attentive and informed the Italian consulate of the obligation to obtain a permit by applying to the local educational directorate of Benghazi before moving the school. In a threatening response, the Italian consul responded that he had “an order from the Italian consul-general not to apply for permission.”34 Thus not only was the consulate in Benghazi involved, but the higher authority in Trablusgarb, the consul-general, as well. The Italian consul-general sent an insolent letter to the mutasarrıf of Benghazi telling him not to stand in the way of Italy’s plans. Italian authorities found attempts to prevent the school’s transfer offensive, and if the mutasarrıf

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tried to stop it, he would be held responsible for the consequences of his actions.35 Drafting an indignant response, the mutasarrıf of Benghazi reminded the consul-general of this threat and stated that the offenses the Italian consul-general accused the mutasarrıf of were, rather, the fault of Italian authorities who refused to comply with the laws and regulations of the empire.36 In this tense correspondence between the mutasarrıfiye and the Italian consul-general, the Italian claimed he had never heard of laws regarding the opening of schools in any part of the empire. In response the mutasarrıf pointed out that he had informed the Italian consulate about the regulations that schools were required to follow, including the necessity of obtaining permits from local officials. He emphasized that this was not merely a “local” response originating from local authorities’ own decisions; rather, it was part of the general practice of enforcing universal laws and regulations, applicable in every part of the empire. That being the case, the mutasarrıf wrote, there could not be exceptions to the rule for Italian schools; the education directorate of Benghazi would continue to pursue its course of action.37 The mutasarrıf described himself as a “disseminator of Ottoman law” who was using the powers of the state to leverage against an “aggressive” Italian attitude. In order to convince the grand vizier to take immediate action against the Italian schools, the Minister of Education provided further examples of Italy’s activities in Albania. According to information sent by local authorities, the Italians were attempting to open a school in Avlonya/Vlore in Albania. The Italians had already opened an elementary school in a dwelling previously rented out to an Italian watchmaker in a Christian neighborhood. This school had eight boys and girls, as well as a few Greek students who wanted to learn Italian. Now the Italian consulate wanted to open another school, and reports indicated that the consulate had already acquired the necessary supplies, such as chairs and maps. Although the Italians changed course, deciding not to open another school, this correspondence indicates the empire’s awareness at the highest level—even involving the grand vizier and the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools—of Italian activities within its territories.38

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To the Minister of Education, these activities in the empire were unacceptable—particularly the response by the Italian consul-general in Trablusgarb. In both Benghazi and Avlonya the Italians had knowingly evaded compliance with the Law of Education and other regulations. The Minister of Education restated the sultan’s previous order of 1888 to Italian authorities upon their request to open schools within the borders of the empire. That order, according to the Minister of Education, explained all the rules that they were required to obey should they elect to establish schools within Ottoman territories: Establishing and opening Italian schools in certain areas of the Ottoman Empire requires that the embassy, like its peers, submit information about their administration. The [sultan’s] order also requires the monitoring of those schools for the way they instructed children and kept a record of it; teaching Turkish and avoiding the use of books that were deemed detrimental to the state, the sultan and/or caliph, and/or the religion of Islam. The order also required that teachers in those schools use proper language and avoid talking about or saying anything against the state and its religion. It further required that the curriculum and the books used in those schools be approved by local authorities and that state officials have the right to inspect them at any time.39 Believing that Italian authorities should be reminded of the sultan’s order, the Minister of Education sent to the Italian embassy a translated copy. He sought to convince the grand vizier that Italian attitudes must be corrected; that the Italians must be shown the imperative of complying with all laws and regulations, and that local authorities must be encouraged to enforce these provisions. Frustrated by Italian representatives’ attitudes towards local authorities’ efforts to enforce the empire’s laws, the Minister of Education declared that Italian responses were not merely insulting but “unlawful” and requested a firm response. He urged the Minister of Foreign Affairs to inform the Italian embassy that, in the future, if the consulate or its functionaries should break any laws or rules, the embassy must convey to those responsible all

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necessary instruction in order to correct them.40 The Minister of Education strongly supported the argument that Ottoman law must be respected and that Italian representatives must be warned by their superiors to respect the sovereignty of the empire. Italy Becomes the “Protector” of Catholic Students in Benghazi Following Italy’s acquisition of French and British support for its claims to Tripoli, Italy sought to strengthen its footing by emphasizing the right to protect Italian Catholics. In short, Italy demanded the same privileges enjoyed by France. Though the Italian consulate was extended the right to function as the designated protector of Catholic students in Benghazi and to educate them in their own schools, the Ottoman state kept a close eye on Italian activities within the empire. As protector of Italian Catholics in the empire, Italy strove to enjoy the same rights as France with its protectorate over Catholic communities. Well aware of Italian intrigues involving Tripoli and other territories, the Ottomans were reluctant to extend the same privileges. Until the turn of the twentieth century, France enjoyed sole rights to function as “protector” of Catholic communities in the empire. This privilege was recognized not only by the Porte, but had the backing of the Pope, too. After the 1880s, Italy aspired to deny France this exclusive privilege as it sought to function as a protector of its own nationals within the empire. Until the 1890s, the Pope opposed Italian and German demands to diminish France’s in the empire by designating protectors according to nationality. In 1888, the Pope expressed opposition to such “innovations” and supported France’s singular position.41 At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, relations between Rome and France deteriorated. Italy was set to seize upon this discord as a way of “dislodging France from her position vis-à-vis the Catholics in the Levant.”42 Italy’s demands to protect its own nationals increased drastically. In 1901, a small conflict between Latin and Orthodox monks at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem over the issue of sweeping privileges brought this competition to the surface. Both Italy and Germany seized this moment to appeal to the Ottoman Empire for the right to intercede on behalf of their own nationals.

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In November 1902, the Ottoman state accepted German and Italian motions to intervene on behalf of monks involved in the incident at the Holy Sepulcher.43 Although this recognition of Italy’s right to interfere was case-specific, Italy started to extend this privilege unilaterally to other areas and situations within the empire whenever it had the means. In line with Italian initiatives, Catholic orders began to petition to transfer their allegiance to the embassies of their own nations, rather than to France. The empire refrained from involving itself in these motions, letting them be resolved between France and the nations involved. When pressures accumulated, France reluctantly accepted the sharing of its status as protector in the empire. These developments paved the way for the 1905 emergence of an Italian protectorate.44 Tripoli was the first place where Italy pushed to break France’s monopoly. In 1903, the mutasarrıf of Benghazi reported to state officials in Istanbul that the highest Catholic clergy in Tripoli had informed the Council of Catholic Priests in Benghazi about their decision to put their students under the protection of the Italian consulate rather than the French. This change implied a transfer of students into schools that would be established by the Italian consulate in Benghazi. The French consulate informed the consul-general of Tripoli that they would comply with the decision of the Council of Catholic Priests only if it was approved by the Pope. Lacking this approval, the council would have to communicate with French educational authorities in order to settle the issue.45 The emergence of Italy as the “protector” of Italian Catholics in Tripoli made Ottoman authorities extremely suspicious of Italy’s wider plans. With the French monopoly broken, new power centers started to emerge, as Italy began demanding the same rights and privileges as France in establishing and maintaining schools and other institutions traditionally undertaken by missionaries. When Ottoman officials realized that Italian Catholics in Tripoli were transferring their allegiance to Italy, they had no power to oppose the shift—though they resolved to make sure that the Italians would comply with Ottoman laws. When news of the Italian Catholics’ transfer reached Istanbul, the sultan ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry

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of Education to monitor the issue. The Minister of Education sent a report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to explain steps that could be taken in response to the Italians’ behavior. Informing the ministry that the Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools was assigned to monitor Italian efforts, the Minister of Education recalled that Italian schools must follow the 1888 order that explained the rules and requirements for founding schools in Ottoman territories. The Minister of Education claimed that, when the order had been presented to the Italian ambassador, it was accepted. Now Ottoman statesmen were pushing Italian authorities to honor that order. He offered the Minister of Internal Affairs evidence supporting the Ministry of Education’s position, noting the sultan’s decree of 1893, which required that any school established in any part of the Ottoman Empire receive approval from the sultan.46 The Minister of Education, therefore, believed that Italian authorities must comply with the law; any noncompliance or defiance would constitute disrespect towards both sultan and the empire. Since he expected the Italian consulate to launch a school campaign in Benghazi, the Minister of Education wanted to warn all other departments to know the laws of the empire so that they could act in according with them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would send a copy of previous orders to the Italian embassy, and the local authorities would also be informed about the ways that they should handle issues once the Italians started to put their plans into action. For the Ministry of Education, if laws and specific protocol existed, they were to be followed. The Report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

It was not only the Ministry of Internal Affairs that followed Italian activities in Benghazi but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well. After receiving four letters from the grand vizier regarding Italian activities, the Minister of Foreign Affairs contacted the Italian ambassador in Istanbul and the Rome Embassy General. He requested the immediate termination of Italy’s school initiatives in Benghazi, Derna, and Khoms. In his letter, the minister explained the reasons for the Ottoman state’s rejection of the Italian schools.47

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In response to the warnings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian ambassador in Istanbul paid a visit to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He told the minister that the school in Benghazi had been open before and had operated with the permission of the Ottoman state. He noted that it was the Italian government that had decided to close it, that their present attempts to reopen the same school were thus legitimate, and that the empire should not contest its opening. Concerning the school in Khoms, the ambassador argued that they were merely adding a girls’ school to the already existing boys’ school. As for the school in Derna, it was planned to be a very small school for girls and would serve only Italians and Maltese who were already residing in the area. After minimizing the potential impact of these schools in this geographically significant—and vulnerable—part of the empire, the ambassador stressed that Italian authorities were deeply committed to these schools.48 The ambassador compared the limited privileges of Italy to those extended to other foreign countries. The French have over 600 educational institutions in the Ottoman Empire. There are Russian, English, and American schools in many Ottoman provinces that don’t even have any Russian, English, or American people. In comparison, the number of Italian schools is no more than 25, and stopping the establishment of two small girls’ schools with frivolous excuses is a major concern of the Italian state.49 What the ambassador omitted was the fact that the Ottoman state had a policy of preventing the establishment of new foreign schools, if it could.50 It was required that each new institution receive the approval of the sultan. In the case of foreign schools, it gradually became more difficult and time consuming to obtain permission as Istanbul consulted with local authorities to make sure that proposed schools would pose no dangers at the moment or in the future. Such exchanges of information took time, and many foreigners—Italians included— resented such delays and inquiries. The ambassador thus demanded the same tolerant treatment that he perceived the French to enjoy in

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the region and empire. He insisted that eight months had passed since Italy had applied for permission to establish these schools and that the Italian government rejected the excuses provided by the empire for denying authorization. The ambassador informed the minister that he had received “special instructions to let them know that Italian authorities were very determined on the issue.”51 When the Minister of Foreign Affairs during their conversation explained to the Italian ambassador that the empire was not attempting to prevent Italian schools alone, that there was no need to open schools in areas where no Italians resided, and that the areas under discussion clearly fell into this category, the Italian ambassador repeated that his country’s authorities were determined on the matter of Italian schools.52 Having been subjected to the Italian ambassador’s threatening treatment, the Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote a lengthy letter to the grand vizier to explain why the Porte should let Italian authorities have what they wanted. Since those schools would serve the Maltese who spoke only Italian and their families and the Italian government was so determined about their opening and it is expected that in time their opening will be ordered. It became apparent from the ambassador’s way of talking that our state’s determined opposition could cause another incident and that the Italian government could undertake some extraordinary steps. Prior to his visit, the ambassador sent a note to our ministry in which he claimed that France’s privileges give Italy the right to open schools. Instead of letting such issues surface, it is my belief that we should settle the issue in hand . . . . Otherwise, there is no doubt that Italian government would pursue such claims very rigorously.53 The Minister of Foreign Affairs recommended that, in order to avoid having Italy pursue an official claim to the same rights as France to open schools in Ottoman territories for its Catholic communities, the empire should permit them to open the schools that they were seeking to establish. Otherwise, the minister implied, what is an inconvenience

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could devolve into a disaster. The minister essentially explained the issues from the Italians’ perspective, informing the grand vizier that the schools that the Italians planned to open in Derna and Khoms were elementary schools for girls that would not accept Muslims as students. Therefore, he noted, they constituted no threat to Islam or to the state’s hegemony. Further, the minister reasoned that the school in Benghazi was in operation before and there was currently a French school there as well. Insisting that preventing the opening of these schools could cause conflicts, he indicated that they might result in further diplomatic and geopolitical threats. He concluded by noting that, under the current conditions, the instigation of an incident would be improper; “if those schools open and we close them forcefully, the consequences should be considered rather very carefully.”54 In sum, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that the Italian schools in Derna, Khoms, and Benghazi should be allowed to open and operate as other foreign schools, and that the province of Tripoli and the mutasarrıfiye of Benghazi should be told to act accordingly and to avoid provoking international incidents. Decision on Italian Schools

Upon receiving the letter from the Ministry of Education, Mehmed Memduh Paşa drafted an “urgent” letter to the grand vizier about the Catholic Commission’s decision to place Catholic students of Benghazi under the Italian consulate’s protection.55 He reminded the grand vizier that three ministries, those of Foreign Affairs, Education, and Internal Affairs, were assigned collectively to take necessary measures and urged the three ministries to adhere to two previous orders of the sultan regarding Italian schools in Ottoman lands. Mehmed Memduh Paşa urged the grand vizier to finalize a course of action to be followed by the state officials, as the mutasarrıfiye of Benghazi awaited the state’s decision. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also acknowledged the excesses of the Italian consuls in the Balkans and Tripoli and urged the grand vizier to make a decision to determine the state’s course of action.56 The grand vizier brought the issue to the Council of Ministers to arrive at a decision. The members of the Council were reminded

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that there was previously an Italian school in Benghazi that had been closed down by the Italian government and that Italian authorities were simply trying to reopen it. During the discussions, they were also informed about the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ unpleasant encounter with the Italian ambassador, during which the ambassador stressed that the Italian government insisted these schools be opened. Although the minister tried to change the ambassador’s mind, the Italian government insisted that there must be justice and equality for Italians in opening these schools, as other states were permitted to open theirs.57 The final decision that the Council of Ministers reached on Italian activities and demands in the empire was quite the opposite of what the Ministry of Education and local authorities expected. The Council decided that the Italians should be allowed to transfer their existing schools to an alternate location, seeing no harm in it. Regarding opening of new Italian schools in areas such as Draç, Khoms, and Derna, the Italians should be given permission so long as those schools were not located in Muslim neighborhoods, would not accept Muslim children, and would comply with the Education Regulation’s requirements for permits and demonstrate compliance with regulations. As long as they did so, the Council saw no harm in giving permits to the Italian schools.58 It is clear that the grand vizier tried to avoid a clash with Italy and sought to avoid giving the Italians an excuse to attack or occupy Tripoli. Still fresh in the memory of the Ottoman statesmen was what France had achieved with such threats a few years ago. In 1901 France occupied Mytelene on a small pretext and used it as a leverage to demand, among other things, the legal recognition of all French schools, hospitals, orphanages, and other charitable institutions.59 While the occupation increased the image of France, it was detrimental to the empire in terms cultural, economic, and political. Examples like Mytelene were exactly what the grand vizier sought to avoid. Ottoman statesmen were well aware that when requesting permissions to establish its institutions, Italy acted as if it respected the integrity of the Ottoman Empire; however, when refused, Italy was ready to threaten the empire with its naval force.60 When the grand vizier submitted the decision of the Council of Ministers to the sultan on the same day,61 Abdülhamid II gave his approval immediately.62

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Conclusion

Scholarship concerning education during the Hamidian era requires a close examination of various elements that played different roles. Colonial and imperial competition as well as local responses and pressures from the peripheries are crucial factors in exploring the contentious issues emerging from educational agendas in the empire. The power struggles between the Ottoman Empire and its European competitors over the rights to educate the peoples of the empire were always influenced by local matters in addition to global politics. Seen as an extension of European territorial and economic ambitions, foreign educational agendas and schools in Ottoman territories brought new dimensions to state-periphery relations. Aware of local administrators’ frustrations over foreign and missionary schools—they sent alarmed letters and telegrams to Istanbul over and over again—the empire tightened its controls but increasingly found itself assuming a defensive posture in the face of European imperial aggression, and inclined towards rendering

Figure 10: The front gate of Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanîsi, Istanbul.63

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concessions. Although the Ottoman state was determined to prevent the establishment of new foreign and missionary schools as a way to reduce their impact on the empire’s Muslim and non-Muslim communities, such solutions were not always applicable on the ground or from the vantage of risk-averse ministers in Istanbul.

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CHAPTER 8 SUMM ARY AND CONCLUSIONS

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Ottoman state committed to a series of reforms in order to centralize its rule and restore its power. Those reforms were multilayered and included areas of administration, military, land-tenure, taxation, and education. Moreover, many of these reforms were committed to in legislation only—never actually being implemented. In this study I have focused on the emergence, implementation, and impacts of modernist educational agendas within the empire from 1869 through 1908, beginning with the proclamation of the Education Act of 1869, extending through the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909), and ending with the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. During these pivotal years, imperial dissolution transpired rapidly as a consequence of intense competition with other empires, rising desires within the empire’s diverse communities to secede and establish their own independent nation-states, and ongoing processes of economic decline. In these contexts of conflagration and fragmentation, Ottoman officials aspired to apply modernist philosophies concerning education and the ideal state, thus tasking the empire’s numerous and diverse schools with their own missions to foster cohesion among ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse populations and to promote imperial loyalties in the face of territorial annexation by European rivals or outright secessionism among its own minority populations. These

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Ottoman educational policies, focused on citizenship-building and instilling loyalty, instead played a pivotal role in heightening ethnolinguistic and religious identities, thus contributing to—rather than inhibiting—the empire’s downfall. In this book, my approach to this modernist expansion of imperial control has been informed by Foucault’s conceptualization of state-society relations, thus rendering a broad portrait of Ottoman governmentality with particular attention devoted to schooling as a specific “technique” of governance. Indeed, the Ottoman state’s educational reforms were but one of many strata in the empire’s numerous and varied interventions into the lives of its populations. As such, they came with a rational for this intervention. In the nineteenth century, reforms in education were presented as the means to modernize and improve the conditions of individuals, communities, and empire. Progress, thus, was used to define the underlining purpose of state involvement. Within this emerging governmental rationality, traditional styles of education and schools were depicted as unsuitable for contemporary conditions, and the traditional providers of such education, the religious establishment, was defined as unbefitting. Such depictions of existing schools and education justified the state’s efforts to emerge as the singular provider of a modern and scientific education that relied on secular concepts within the empire. This governmental rationality was successful in bringing students to state schools, especially to advanced primary schools and secondary schools, as their graduates acquired enhanced opportunities for employment. At primary school levels, however, many communities in the empire’s peripheries preferred to send their children to the traditional schools. In the Albanian provinces, for example, community leaders and local administrators asked for medrese graduates sent from Istanbul as teachers for local schools. Integral to these nineteenth-century Ottoman efforts to create a modern state structure, the empire developed institutions to manage its diffuse populations. In doing so, the empire sought to become known as an educator state, a development on par with worldwide innovations in the realms of both educational and citizenship-building projects. Internally, however, the rise of universalist agendas for public education within the empire entailed radical governmental

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interventions. In the field of education, such intercessions in society by the state appeared with the increased construction of schools and an intensification of surveilling students, teachers, curricula, books, and all aspects of education. Such interventions extended far beyond existing traditions of education and were integral with contemporary agendas for modernization. Believing in the necessity of public education to counter social unrest throughout its territories, to promote economic development, and to create loyal citizens, the empire attempted to launch its major educational campaigns on a universal scale. Until 1876, the ideology behind education was Ottomanism, the unity of all citizens in the empire. During the reign of Abdülhamid II, it changed from Ottomanism into a combination of Ottomanism and Islamism, with the underlying assumption that Muslim subjects of the empire were falling behind their non-Muslim counterparts and that the empire, as a Muslim state, must develop policies to improve their conditions and incorporate them into the administration of the empire in order to rebuild harmonious relations. This change in ideology accelerated after the 1877–1878 Ottoman-Russian war. Territorial losses after the war and the Treaty of Berlin shaped Ottoman policies in the Balkans and the Arab provinces. Seeing the Arab provinces as potential areas to develop in order to compensate for its losses in the Balkans, the empire concentrated on applying administrative and land reforms. Education was seen as a crucial aspect of such policies. Indeed, incorporation of local community leaders in applying reforms was essential for their success—and for effective governance. The state therefore established various councils, including educational and administrative councils, in the provinces of the empire in order to facilitate the application and administration of its ambitious reforms. Among these reforms, the Education Act of 1869 constituted a major turning point in the history of public education within the empire—at least as perceptible in terms of Istanbul-based policies. Although there were previous efforts towards compulsory mass schooling, the Education Act systematized such efforts and centralized education. Adopted from the French system, it was adjusted to the needs of the empire. It categorized schools as state or private and defined them as primary, upper primary, or secondary schools, high schools,

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or professional schools. It further determined the conduct of students, teachers, inspectors, and education directors. The Education Act was a portrait of what the empire wished to achieve; in essence, however, the empire lacked the means to make this plan a reality in a short period of time. Nonetheless, as a plan it was used as a guide to achieve educational goals step by step. Ottoman administrators were well aware that they lacked the resources, teachers, and infrastructure the plan necessitated, but such limits did not prevent them from establishing an institutional foundation in order to gradually realize their educational goals. Significant efforts were made both to train more teachers as educators—and as agents of the state and of modernization—and to raise funds to cover the costs of these educational reforms. The introduction of the education contribution tax in 1884 was a major step in funding state schools. There were, however, significant drawbacks to the tax. It required that one-third of generated revenues be sent to Istanbul to support institutions of higher education that were located in the capital. Additionally, it also stipulated that the remaining two-thirds of collected revenues be applied to financing upper-primary and secondary schools. This allocation of tax revenues led provincial administrators to petition continuously for exemptions to keep the entire amount of tax revenues amassed within their own provinces and for authorization to utilize these funds to instead found accessible primary schools. Such requests were legitimate, as provincial administrators and local leaders saw the necessity of establishing primary schools for the children of their communities before any consideration of funding secondary schools. Exhibiting the profound limitations to real state authority that existed in the late Ottoman era, the empire frequently permitted provinces to retain and apply their own funds that were allocated for postprimary schools to instead establish local primary schools. Such decisions, it might be noted, correlated significantly with the geopolitical significance of given areas. In other words, the more “at risk” a community was—either to local unrest or foreign intrigues, generally, the more autonomy that community was ceded by the empire in order to retain and enhance regional loyalties. Rarely, however, did the state relinquish its own one-third share of

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revenues from the education contribution tax, which was crucial for maintaining Istanbul’s institutions of higher education. For its part, the late Ottoman state prioritized postprimary education because graduates of such schools could be employed in the empire’s bureaucracy or continue their education in more advanced institutions of higher education, training to become—among other occupations— future administrators and intermediaries for an internally expanding state. In designation and in application, the Education Act left primary schools to communities for funding. In areas with poor living conditions or with little inclination to foster elementary institutions of state education, officials were compelled to address the absence of primary schools in some fashion, perhaps by releasing locally-raised tax revenues to instead establish a desirable number of primary schools. The empire sought ways of encouraging communities to embrace state education, send their children to schools, and pay their education taxes. Realizing that many parents questioned the utility of an education and were inclined to send their children to schools only if there were prospects of employment, the state took measures to bring them into the fold. In 1894, the Ministry of Education launched a program to establish secondary-level boarding schools in the empire’s provincial capitals in order to provide access to deserving children of poor families who otherwise could not benefit from its growing number of secondary schools. This initiative was also designed to inhibit local complaints that rural children had no access to postprimary schools, though their parents still had to pay the education tax and shoulder the burden of postprimary schools. In contexts where local enthusiasm for education—and for the empire—were of particular concern, the state occasionally dispatched special committees both to evaluate matters and to enhance popular support (i.e., consent) through displays of incorporation and inclusion. Among such areas where communities contested imperial visions of education, we might note the Balkan region, where a state committee strived to remind the local population both of the necessities and benefits of education and of the availability of schools—if parents complied with state obligations. Despite efforts to rationalize imperial involvements in education as integral to the project of modernizing society and state, there were

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pronounced limits to Ottoman governance. While the state exhibited great interest in developing the social and economic lives of its citizens through education, the state also had the power to punish.1 The case of Albanians (chapter 2) illustrated that the empire and the local populace shared a vision of the necessity of education for the sake of economic and cultural improvement, yet they differed fundamentally over the nature and desired outcomes of a proper education. The insistence of local nationalists to utilize the Albanian language as the language of instruction posed a profound symbolic—and functional— obstacle to imperial ambitions to create a locally-derived administrative cadre that could govern via Ottoman Turkish, the language of the state. Thus, from Istanbul’s perspective, Ottoman Turkish was not only the necessary language of instruction, it was also an indicator of loyalties—current and future, and imperial officials remained deeply suspicious of Albanian demands for linguistic autonomy as a pronounced expression of probable imminent demands for geopolitical autonomy. Though Abdülhamid II generally sought to avoid confrontations in spheres of foreign policy, when such nationalist pressures seemed to mount within the empire and promote separatist agendas, he was not above employing violent force to contain and extinguish such demands—a generalized image that was common throughout his time and that persists in most historical accounts today. However, beyond these stereotypes of a primitive brutality from the period—often applied not only to the sultan but to Turks, in general, what I have sought to address through my study were the more nuanced forms of rule within the late Ottoman period and the plurality of “techniques” of governance which were employed (especially that of education and schooling) that went beyond mere violence. In doing so, I view profound parallels between the emergence of Ottoman governmentality and similar developments throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in not only other authoritarian empires but also within many of the world’s modernizing liberal societies and states— especially those that also were compelled to contend with matters of diversity, inclusion/exclusion, and mounting popular expectations for what states owed to their citizenries.

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While I have demonstrated that there was a profound gulf between Ottoman ambitions and capabilities to govern—particularly in contrast with numerous western states/empires of the period, there persisted within the empire many of the same inclinations for achieving governance, nonetheless. In this sense, the striving to make its society legible as an integral aspect of governmentality was evident throughout the empire in its final decades, and the empire expended enormous energies and sums throughout the period to better realize this goal. To this end, the collection of information was deemed essential in order to manage the population effectively. The empire thus assembled detailed yearbooks from each of its provinces that recorded not only the economic dimensions of each province’s administration but also specified many aspects beyond just its natural and human resources, often including extensive statistics and documenting the empire’s associated income and expenses for governing. These provincial yearbooks also incorporated education-related records; administrators, educational councils, number of schools, students, teachers, curricula, foreign and missionary schools, and so forth. Such statistical yearbooks were sent to Istanbul annually, allowing central administrators to comprehend and visualize their provincial possessions. In certain cases, accounts of minority communities’ attitudes toward state schools or nontraditional education were included, providing the state with some measure of knowledge of its faraway provinces that could be employed in formulating its ongoing and future policies. Information regarding the Yezidi community of Iraq, for example, was provided in the yearbook from Mosul. The Yezidis, the sourcebook explained, were opposed staunchly to state schools and any forms of nontraditional education. In this context, all learning (i.e., religious learning) was the monopoly of one family only, and the Yezidis feared that nontraditional teaching and learning would contribute to an eventual diminishment of their traditions and community.2 In maintaining control and managing its populations, the empire concentrated its efforts on religious minorities, especially “unorthodox” Muslim communities like those of the Druze and Nusayris (see chapter 4). Efforts to govern the education of these communities revealed not only internal but also international dimensions—and

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rivals—to Ottoman governance. In order to prevent their alliance with any foreign powers, especially the French or the British, Ottoman officials attempted to control interactions between the leaders of Druze and Nusayri communities, on the one hand, and representatives of those foreign countries that sought to court them in order to realize local/regional influence, on the other. In an age when the religious identities of minority communities became a possible mechanism for undermining imperial authority, the empire sought to surveil the conduct of all parties involved. Indeed, foreign interests were seen to nurture commonly the divisive nature of local identity politics, and such external interests often struggled to establish schools and provide medical services in places of a perceptible Ottoman absence. In so doing, local interests—sometimes motivated by survival, sometimes motivated by opportunism— sometimes positioned themselves strategically between the empire and foreign powers in order to enhance their own advantages. Amid such contests for the loyalties of local communities, for example, the Nusayris of Aleppo converted to mainstream Islam, and the empire responded by building schools and mosques and providing free textbooks for area schoolchildren.3 In contrast, the Druze of southern Syria opposed any establishment of state administrative entities or other measures (e.g., census taking) that could make them more legible to the state, and the Ottomans thus subjected them to increased regimes of state surveillance and control. Governing education also necessitated the governance of teacher’s and of textbook content. The empire viewed its teachers as agents of morality and modernity and aimed to appoint morally strong and suitable teachers to train loyal citizens for the empire. However, the state also suspected the loyalties of its teachers and closely monitored their training and appointments. This was especially true in Istanbul, where opposition to the sultan was growing among the student bodies of institutions of higher education. As the late empire focused on teaching morality as a means to countering corruption and to promoting its vision of an “Islamic work ethic,” teachers became the focus within many imperial educational policies. Appointments within the empire were based largely upon records of good behavior and positive

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assessments of teachers’ own moral standards. By the turn of the twentieth century, the empire had well established this moral criterion and qualification.4 However, such moralist expectations could also be applied to persons who taught foreign nationalities when their motives or conduct became suspect in the eyes of local or imperial officials. As demonstrated through the case of Madame Marshall in Aleppo (see chapter 5), local education councils sometimes rejected teachers for their own reasons on the grounds of their alleged personal conduct. Although the empire was successful in building its educational infrastructure and systematizing education, the end result was contrary to its intended outcome. While many both in the center and in the peripheries of the empire benefited from modernist educational policies and gained employment in various sectors of the state, many others demanded more liberal reforms and diverse arrangements for sharing power. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 was launched by individuals who, for the most part, had been educated within the imperial system. However, their visions of a modern “eternal state” entailed that of a constitutionalist empire—one that would also prioritize (rather than seek to diminish or overcome) national identity. The authoritarian state characterized by inspection and surveillance that Abdülhamid II viewed as the key both to safeguarding the continued existence of the empire and to countering foreign intrigues was precisely the edifice that the Young Turk revolutionaries aspired to dismantle—if only to re-enact their own singular, despotic, and far more brutal political alternative. Thus, while the authoritarian—and sometimes violent—yet ultimately ineffective techniques of Hamidian governance further estranged the empire from many of its most antagonistic subjects, it also compelled alienation among many of its most loyal supporters. Embodying this metaphor of loyalty and alienation, Abdülhamid II’s trusted administrator and inspector-general to the Balkans in 1902, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa, reported to Istanbul that everyone in Macedonia but himself had become a Young Turk. Within a decade, this devoted functionary of the Hamidian state had himself become a minister in the Young Turk government.

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APPENDIX 1 EDUCATION ACT OF 1869 (TR ANSLATED AND EDITED FOR READABILITY)

In most Ottoman histories, the Education Act of 1869 is referenced commonly as reproduced within Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi’s 1338/1920 Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı (published in Istanbul by Matbaa-yı Âmire). In the text below, I not only translate this piece of landmark legislation in educational history from its original Ottoman Turkish but also edit it for readability. This editing, I feel, is essential as the original consists of paragraph-long sentences, a lack of clarity due to awkward phrasing and punctuation, and (not infrequently) grammatical constructions that are surprisingly informal. In this editing, I have tried to be as true to the original meaning and spirit of the original text. Any errors in translation are mine alone. For scholar’s who cannot read Ottoman Turkish but seek a particular, word-for-word transliteration from the Ottoman into modern Turkish, I would recommend strongly consulting the transliterated version produced by Taceddin Kayaoğlu (published in 2001 by Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, Ankara).

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Public Education Act Part I Explanation of the Categories and Tiers of Schools1 Article 1. Schools in the Ottoman Empire function generally within two broad categories. The first category includes public schools and they are under the supervision and administration of the state. The second group includes private schools, and their supervision is under the control of the state, but their foundation and administration are the responsibility of individuals or religious communities. Chapter I – Public Schools Article 2. There are primarily three educational tiers. The first tier includes classes in the sıbyan2 and the rüşdiye,3 the second tier includes classes in the idadîye4 and the sultanîye,5 and the third tier includes those courses in the mekâtib-і âliye.6 In this regard, public schools in the Ottoman Empire are ordered into five graded stages; first is the sıbyan, second is the rüşdiye, third is the idadîye, fourth is the sultanîye, and fifth is the âliye.

Section I Sıbyan Schools Article 3. In every district and village or, depending upon circumstances, in every one-of-two districts or one-of-two villages there will be at least one sıbyan. In mixed villages and districts there will be a separate school for Muslims and another one for non-Muslim children. Article 4. The costs for construction, repairs, teachers’ salaries, and other expenses of the sıbyan will be paid by the general councils of the communities of given districts or villages [where the sıbyan are located].

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Article 5. Teachers necessary for the sıbyan will be selected and appointed according to the Regulations for Teachers. Article 6. The duration of an education within a sıbyan is four years and the courses listed below will be taught: • Arabic alphabet according to the new-method • Non-Muslim children will be taught the fundamentals of their own religion, and they will be taught by teachers designated by their own religious leaders • The Holy Qur’an • Tecvit7 • Treatises concerning morality • Catechism • Hand writing • Concise arithmetic • Concise Ottoman history • Concise geography • These courses will be taught to non-Muslims in their own language 8 • Treatise containing useful information After this training, anyone wishing to memorize the Qur’an will have the option of staying a little longer at the school. Article 7. If it becomes necessary to change or cancel these courses, local educational authorities must obtain approval from the Ministry of Education and the Higher Council of Education in order to do so. Article 8. In the sıbyan, with the exception of Muslim and non-Muslim religious festivals and holidays for each group and the all-schools holiday for the anniversary of the sultan’s accession, schooling will be scheduled in two shifts from morning until evening, teachers will be prepared to teach at scheduled times, and school-age children will be required to go to school. Article 9. In the Ottoman Empire, sıbyan education is required for girls between the ages of six and ten and for boys between the ages of seven and eleven.

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Article 10. The council of elders for each given district or village will prepare a register containing the names of sıbyanage boys and girls and the names of their parents or guardians and will deliver the sealed list to the school teacher. Article 11. If any child whose name is listed in the above-mentioned register fails to attend school, the teacher will inform the neighborhood muhtar,9 and then the father, the mother, or other guardian of the child will be summoned to the council of elders and questioned and warned about [the requirement to] send their child to school. Article 12. If either parent or other guardian of a child receives three warnings in one month about their child’s school attendance, and if it becomes obvious that the child was held back due to reasons other than those exemptions [from compulsory attendance] listed in Article 13, they will be fined, depending upon their means, between five and one-hundred kuruş and this money will be placed in the educational administration fund. If this fine fails to make an impact, then the local government will place the child into the school by force. Article 13. Reasons that could mitigate a school-age child not being placed in the school by force include: first, an examination of the child by means of the local government that establishes that there is a physical and mental reason that prevents the child from learning and schooling; second, if an individual who is unable or destitute has only one child and has a proven dependency [upon that child]; third, a child’s involvement in farming during [seasons of] planting and harvesting; fourth, if a child lives half one-half hour away from a school; fifth, if there is no school or if the school is inadequate; and, sixth, if the child is already learning to read and write at home or in a similar place. In short, these reasons justify exemption from forced placement in school by

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a local government. If it becomes apparent that a child is not attending the sıbyan for one of the reasons listed above, the parents or guardians of the child will not be fined. Article 14. As indicated in the Regulation for Examinations, a student who completes their education in a sıbyan will be accepted into a rüşdiye with their diploma.

Girls’ Sıbyan Schools Article 15. If within a district or a village there exist two sıbyan for the community, and there are no objections concerning location, one of them will be designated for the boys the other for the girls of that community. If this is not possible, then, until a separate girls’ sıbyan is made available, girls of the same community will be accepted to the boys’ sıbyan, but they will not be mixed with boys. Article 16. Teachers and sewing masters in the girls-only sıbyan must be women. However, until a sufficient number of qualifying teachers are trained, old and mature male teachers may be appointed. Article 17. The methods of education and administration, duration of education, holidays, requirements for students, and other issues of girls’ sıbyan will be subject to the existing rules and laws for all sıbyan.

Rüşdiye Schools Article 18. There will be a rüşdiye in towns with more than five-hundred households. If the population is solely Muslim, there will be a rüşdiye for Muslims only, if it is solely Christian, there will be a rüşdiye for Christians only. If the population is mixed, then there will be separate rüşdiye for Muslims and Christians. In a town with a mixed-population, for a community to have a rüşdiye, the number of

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their households must exceed one hundred. This rule is applicable to other non-Muslim communities. Article 19. The costs for construction, teachers’ and janitors’ salaries, and all other related expenses will be paid from provincial educational administrations’ treasuries. Article 20. The construction of rüşdiye buildings will be based on the design provided by the Higher Council of Education. Article 21. Every rüşdiye, depending on its student body, will have one or two head teachers and one or two assistant teachers. These teachers will be selected and appointed according to the Regulation for Teachers. Further, each rüşdiye will have a mubassır10 and a doorman. Article 22. Head teachers at the rüşdiye will receive eight-hundred kuruş, assistant teachers five-hundred kuruş, mubassır two-hundred-fifty kuruş, and doormen one-hundredfifty kuruş. For various operating expenses, a rüşdiye will allocate four-thousand kuruş per year. According to this calculation, each rüşdiye’s usual annual expenses will be at most forty-thousand kuruş. Article 23. The duration of an education within a rüşdiye is four years and the courses listed below will be taught: • Introduction to religious sciences • Ottoman grammar • Orthography and composition • Arabic and Persian through modern methods • Bookkeeping • Arithmetic • Drawing/drafting • Introduction to geometry • General history and Ottoman history • Geography • Gymnastics • The language commonly used in the area of the school Motivated, smart students living in trade zones can begin to learn French in their fourth year.

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Of these courses, those related to religious matters and aforementioned sciences will be taught in each community’s own language and their language will also be taught. Courses on religion for non-Muslim children will be taught, as explained in Article 6, by teachers designated by their own religious leaders. Article 24. The teaching of sciences and humanities listed above will be based on a special schedule that divides them by according to days. If local authorities deem it necessary to change or cancel some of them, this change and refinement absolutely must be approved by the Ministry of Education and the Higher Council of Education. Article 25. Vacation periods for Muslim and non-Muslim rüşdiye will be for twenty days, lasting from the beginning of August until the end of the third week. Every rüşdiye’s courses will end at the beginning of July, the subsequent two weeks will be for recitation, and an examination period will be designated from 15 July until the end of July. Once exams are completed, schools will be completely closed and will reopen again on 23 August. In addition, Muslim rüşdiye will have a fifteen-day holiday which will begin at the end of the third week of Ramadan and last until the end of the first week of Şevval,11 and they will have another week-long holiday for the holiday of sacrifice. Other vacations, aside from these listed holidays, Friday holidays, and other similar special holidays are not allowed. Similarly, non-Muslim schools will not close except for each community’s own religious festivals and special holidays. All rüşdiye will close on the day that coincides with the anniversary of the sultan’s accession. Article 26. Students who complete the rüşdiye and obtain a diploma in accordance with the Regulation for Examinations will be accepted into the idadîye without an examination. Those who fail their examinations, if they so choose, may remain at the school for an additional year.

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Girls’ Rüşdiye Schools Article 27. In large cities, there will be a Muslim girls’ rüşdiye if the population is solely Muslim, and there will be a Christian girls’ rüşdiye if the population is solely Christian. If the residents are mixed, then there will be separate rüşdiye for Muslims and Christians. Thus, in cities of mixed populations, for a community to have a rüşdiye, that community must have over five-hundred households12 and the establishment of such schools is currently reserved first for Istanbul and then later for provincial capitals. This rule is also true for non-Muslim communities. Article 28. Teachers at girls’ rüşdiye must be women and, until a sufficient number of qualified women are trained as teachers, the appointment of old and mature men is allowed. Article 29. The duration of an education within a girls’ rüşdiye is four years and the following courses will be taught: • Introduction to religious sciences • Ottoman grammar • Introduction to Arabic and Persian grammar • Orthography and composition • Selections from literature • Household economy • Concise history and geography • Arithmetic and bookkeeping • Drawing to help embroidery • Sewing • Music (not required) Of these courses, the ones related to religious matters and aforementioned sciences will be taught in each community’s own language, and in non-Muslim girls’ rüşdiye, in place of Arabic and Persian grammar, their own languages will be taught. As indicated in Article 6 and Article 23, courses on religious

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matters will be taught by teachers designated by their own religious leaders. Article 30. The girls’ rüşdiye will have two to four women teachers, additional teachers for sewing and music, a mubassır, and a doorman. Annual expenses of the school will be maximum forty-thousand kuruş and will be paid from the Educational Administration fund. Article 21. Girls with sıbyan diplomas will be accepted into the rüşdiye without examinations. Those without diplomas will be subject to examinations and accepted upon demonstration of sufficient qualifications. Article 32. Administration, holidays, and other related issues of girls’ rüşdiye will be the same as outlined in the regulations for boys’ rüşdiye.

Section II İdadîye

Schools

Article 33. İdadîye are established for the co-education of Muslim and non-Muslim children who complete a rüşdiye education. Article 34. It is decided that idadîye will be established in towns with over one-thousand households and demonstrated needs reflecting their location and state of affairs. Article 35. The costs for construction, teachers’ and janitors’ salaries, and all other related expenses of idadîye will be paid from provincial educational administrations’ treasuries. Article 36. In order to teach various science courses, each idadîye will have six teachers, including their assistants. They will have their degrees from the Darülmuallimin13 in Istanbul and will be selected and appointed by the Ministry of Education. Each idadîye will also have a mubassır and a janitor. Article 37. Each idadîye’s monthly salaries for teachers and staff will be six-thousand kuruş and annual related expenses will

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be eight-thousand kuruş. Thus, in total, usual expenses per year will be eighty-thousand kuruş. Article 38. The duration of an education within an idadîye is three years and the courses listed below will be taught: • Advanced Turkish composition and writing • French • Ottoman laws • Logic • Introduction to international economics • Geography • World history • Natural sciences • Algebra • Arithmetic and bookkeeping • Mathematic and geometry • Physical science • Chemistry • Drawing Article 39. Since the instruction of sciences and humanities listed above will be based on a special chart that divides the classes by days, they will be taught accordingly. If local authorities deem it necessary to make changes or cancellations, such changes and revisions absolutely must be approved by the Ministry of Education and the Higher Council of Education. Article 40. Vacation and examination periods for the idadîye will be the same as for the rüşdiye. However, since the school is mixed, the holidays of one community will also apply for the other community and will be administered equally. Article 41. Students who complete an idadîye education and obtain a diploma upon completion of their exams will acquire the privileges mentioned in the Regulation for Examinations. Those who fail their examinations, if they so choose, may remain at the school for an additional year.

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The Sultanîye Article 42. In every provincial capital, either a city or a town, there will be a sultanîye. Regardless of their community of origin, every Ottoman citizen who completes an idadîye education by passing its exams will be accepted into this tuition-based school. Furthermore, those who complete their rüşdiye education and have a diploma in-hand will also be accepted into this tuition-based school but placed in lower-level classes. In order to assist the brightest and most deserving graduates of idadîye to cover their tuition costs, five percent of incoming sultanîye students will be admitted annually free of charge, and ten percent will pay either a half or a fourth of the tuition. Article 43. The costs for construction of sultanîye will be paid by the Ottoman government. If student fees are insufficient to cover the operational expenses of a school, the remaining amount will be paid from the state treasury by adding it to its education budget and this expenditure and administration will be [handled] by the Council of Education. Article 44. Students of the sultanîye will be both daytime and boarding. Further, the schools will also accept students from outside who simply attend classes.14 The amount of the fees for the daytime, boarding, and haricî students will be determined by the local government and by the Council of Education and will be based on the conditions of their locale. However, in any case, annual total amounts for boarding students will not be less than twenty and no more than thirty-five Ottoman lira. Daytime students’ total fees will be a fourth that paid by boarding students. Article 45. For each sultanîye, there will be eight to twelve instructors to teach those courses in the humanities and sciences and their selection and appointment will be based on the Teachers Regulations. Each sultanîye staff will include a director, an accountant, a steward and a cook, a doorman,

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and a mubassır as determined by its needs. Administration of the sultanîye will be under the supervision of a provincial educational administration. Article 46. In sultanîye, there are two categories of courses, advancedlevel and junior-level. Junior-level courses are those taught at the idadîye. Advanced-level courses are divided into two groups; humanities and sciences. If beginning with advanced-level courses, the duration of a sultanîye education is three years. If beginning with junior-level courses, however, the duration is six years. Junior-level courses will be similar to those shown in the chart for idadîye. Advanced-level courses are listed below: Advanced-Level Humanities Classes • • • • • • •

Turkish writing and composition Arabic and Persian literature Semantics French International economics International law History

Sciences Classes • Descriptive geometry, perspective, algebra, and algebraic geometry • Plane and spherical trigonometry • Astronomy • Concise applications of physics and chemistry in agriculture and industry • Science of nature • Topography Article 47. The instruction of humanities and sciences courses listed in Article 46 will be based on a special chart that schedules them by days and will be taught accordingly.

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If local authorities deem it necessary to change or cancel any of them, this change and refinement absolutely must be approved by the Ministry of Education and the Higher Council of Education. Article 48. Vacation and examination periods of the sultanîye will be the same as in the rüşdiye and idadîye. However, it will be at the discretion of the local educational administration to determine if boarding students will spend their nights at school or outside of the school during the holidays. Article 49. Sultanîye students who study advanced humanities and sciences will have the right to take an examination. Those advanced students who demonstrate competence in the examination as based upon their advanced courses will have the right to be exempt from the lottery of the current year.15 Article 50. Students who complete the sultanîye and obtain a diploma in accordance with the Regulation for Examinations will acquire the privileges outlined in the examination regulations. Those who fail their examinations may remain at the school for an additional year.

Section III Âliye Schools Article 51. Âliye include the Darülmuallimin, the Darülmuallimat,16 the Darülfünun,17 and sciences and various industrial schools.

The Darülmuallimin Article 52. In order to train excellent teachers for various grades of public schools a Darülmuallimin will be established in Istanbul. It will have three branches, and each branch will have two divisions; humanities and sciences. The first branch is for training teachers for rüşdiye, the second for idadîye, and the third for sultanîye. Article 53. The rüşdiye branch will be divided into two departments. The first one will train teachers for Muslim rüşdiye, and the second one will train teachers for non-Muslim rüşdiye.

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Article 54. The duration of education within the rüşdiye branch is three years and, depending upon its division, the following courses will be taught: Humanities Classes • • • •

Turkish writing and composition Arabic and Persian for training in the new methods Language of each community General history - will be taught in the language of the community.

Sciences Classes • • • • • •

Drawing lines [drafting] Arithmetic Bookkeeping – to be taught in the language of the community Geometry Land surveying Algebra

Article 55. The duration of education in the idadîye branch is two years and the following courses will be taught. Science Courses • • • • • •

Science of nature Descriptive geometry and perspective Algebra Physics Chemistry Drawing

Humanities Courses • • • • • •

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Arabic and Persian translation exercises Turkish poetry and prose French Ottoman laws Logic International economics

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Article 56. The duration of education within the sultanîye branch is two years and the following courses will be taught: Science Courses • • • • • • • • • •

Plane and spherical trigonometry Algebraic geometry Conic sections Mechanics Astronomy Applied chemistry to agriculture and industry Comprehensive science of nature Geology Topography Drawing

Humanities Courses • • • • •

Comprehensive Turkish prose and poetry Comprehensive Arabic and Persian Semantics French-Turkish and Turkish-French translation exercises International law

Article 57. The Darülmuallimin will have a director, as many teachers as needed, and two doormen. Article 58. The director will receive a salary of five-thousand kuruş, and teachers will receive a salary between two-thousand and four-thousand kuruş. Article 59. Those interested in entering the Darülmuallimin, if they can submit, as specified in the examination section, a diploma from a rüşdiye, an idadîye, or a sultanîye, or a mülâzemet rüûsu,18 will be accepted without an examination. Those without a diploma or a mülâzemet rüûsu can be placed as daytime students in one of the departments, as determined by their score following an examination before the examination committee. Article 60. Students in the Darülmuallimin’s rüşdiye department will receive an eighty kuruş monthly salary, idadîye department

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students will receive one-hundred kuruş, and sultanîye students one-hundred-twenty-five kuruş. Salaried students will be limited to one hundred, and beyond this number, no salaries will be paid. Forty of them will be from the rüşdiye department, and the remaining sixty will be divided between the idadîye and sultanîye departments. Salaries will be allocated to the most deserving students. Article 61. Upon completing their courses and qualifying by passing an examination, rüşdiye department students can become either teachers for rüşdiye or continue their education in the idadîye department [of the Darülmuallimin]. Similarly, students who completed their education in the idadîye department can continue in the sultanîye department or become teachers for idadîye. Article 62. Those who finished the Darülmuallimin and pass their examinations are required to accept their duties based upon their qualifications as public school teachers. Article 63. Teachers trained in the Darülmuallimin will have priority over others to be hired as teachers in public schools. Article 64. Those who stop working as teachers in public schools for five years and who have no sound reason for doing so will be asked to repay the salaries they received during their education at the Darülmuallimin. They will also lose their privileges to acquire appointments as teachers in public schools. Article 65. It is permissible to take those examinations necessary for the courses in one’s field without completing the courses. Those qualifying after the examination will be accepted into for teaching. Article 66. The Darülmuallimin-і Sıbyan [i.e., that branch of the Darülmuallimin for training sıbyan teachers] will also be a department within the greater Darülmuallimin and will be under the supervision of its director. Article 67. The Darülmuallimin will have a well-organized library, and it will maintain a model museum and a comprehensive inventory of equipment necessary for chemistry and physics.

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The Darülmuallimat Article 68. In order to train teachers for the girls’ sıbyan and rüşdiye, a Darülmuallimat will be established in Istanbul. It will have two departments; one for sıbyan and one for rüşdiye. Each department will be divided into two; one for training teachers for Muslim girls’ schools, the other for nonMuslim girls’ schools. Article 69. The duration of education in the sıbyan department is two years, and the courses listed below will be taught: • Introduction to religious sciences • Will be taught in each community’s own language and the courses in religious sciences will be taught by individuals selected by religious leaders • Ottoman grammar and writing • Teaching methods • Each community’s own language • Treatise of morals • Arithmetic and bookkeeping • Ottoman history and geography • Useful knowledge [a course on nature that focuses on earth, water, fire, plants, agriculture, animal-husbandry, and metals]19 • Music • Sewing and embroidery exercises Article 70. The duration of education in the rüşdiye department is three years and the courses listed below will be taught: • Introduction to religious sciences • Will be taught in each community’s own language and the courses on religious sciences will be taught by individuals selected by religious leaders • Ottoman grammar and composition • Arabic and Persian • Each community’s own language • Ethics • Home economics

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• History and geography • Introduction to mathematics and natural science • Drawing • Music • Various practices in tailoring Article 71. The Darülmuallimat will have a woman director and a sufficient number of teachers for its various courses in the humanities and sciences, as well as a specialist for embroidery and two maids. Until a sufficient number of women teachers are trained, it is acceptable to appoint old and mature male teachers. Article 72. The director of the school will receive a one-thousandfive-hundred kuruş salary, teachers and specialists will receive seven-hundred-fifty kuruş, and maids will receive one-hundred-fifty kuruş. Article 73. Women aspiring to enter the Darülmuallimat will be accepted without examination if they have a diploma from a sıbyan or a rüşdiye. Those without a diploma can take an examination in front of examination committee and, depending upon their qualifications, can be placed into one of the two departments of the Darülmuallimat. Article 74. Those who complete their education in the sıbyan department and pass a test demonstrating their competence will qualify to either be teachers at girls’ sıbyan or to continue their education in the rüşdiye department. Article 75. Students finishing the Darülmuallimat and passing their examinations are required to accept their teaching appointments. Article 76. Teachers with a Darülmuallimat degree in-hand will have priority over others in the appointment of teachers for public schools. Article 77. Teachers who do not teach at least five years and who desire to withdraw from their service without a sound reason will be asked to repay the salaries that they received

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during their education. They will also lose their privileges to acquire appointments as teachers in public schools. Article 78. There will be fifty regular students in the Darülmuallimat, and those in the sıbyan department will receive a thirty kuruş salary; the ones in the rüşdiye department will receive sixty kuruş. If a salary becomes available, it will be given to the most senior among those not enrolled as regular students.

The Darülfünun Article 79. A university, called the Darülfünun-ı Osmanî, will be established in Istanbul. Article 80. The Darülfünun will have three departments: philosophy and literature; law and legal studies; and, natural sciences and mathematics. Article 81. Below are the courses to be taught in the department of philosophy and humanities: • Biology • Psychology • Logic and semantics • Discourse • Theology • Ethics • Natural law • History • Comprehensive Arabic • Persian • Turkish • French • Greek and Latin languages, and a common grammar to apply and compare the rules of all foundational languages • Poetry versification • General history • Archaeology • Numismatics

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Article 82. Below are the courses to be taught at the department of law and legal studies: • Interpersonal relations in Islamic law • Islamic jurisprudence • Roman law • French Civil Code • Judicial procedure relevant to common law • Land and sea trade • Imperial penal codes • Judicial procedure relevant to murder • Administrative law • International law Article 83. Below are the courses to be taught in the department of natural sciences and mathematics: • Astronomy • Physics • Chemistry • Geology • Mineralogy • Botany • Zoology • Geometry • Trigonometry • Geometric algebra • Linear geometry • Perspective • Integral and differential calculus • Theoretical and applied mechanics • History of natural sciences • Mathematics • Topography Article 84. The courses at the Darülfünun will be in Turkish and, until the completion of training [a sufficient number of] teachers capable of lecturing in Turkish, it is permissible to use French for instruction.

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Article 85. The duration of education for each department is three years for those graduating with a mezuniyet rüûsu20 and four years for those graduating as a müderris.21 Article 86. At the beginning of each semester, a schedule of courses for each department will be organized by their faculty and approved by the director of the Darülfünun and the Ministry of Education. Article 87. Classes will be delivered orally and publicly and those who would like to attend and listen will not be prohibited from doing so. Article 88. Every individual who complies with the Darülfünun’s regulations and is at least sixteen-years old can register as a student for its classes. Article 89. Students entering the Darülfünun will inform the director of their department regarding the locale of their residence and the name of a person to contact, if necessary. Article 90. Upon completing the explained procedure, those aspiring to join the Darülfünun student body will be subject to an examination before an examination committee composed of a teacher from each department for the Ottoman language, general history, geography, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, physical sciences, and logic. Article 91. If, after the examination the committee agrees upon the candidate’s acceptability, it will issue a şehâdetnâme,22 and with this certificate and a one-half Ottoman lira payment, the candidate will be registered in the student book. Article 92. If a candidate can prove that he took the courses mentioned on Article 90 by presenting a certificate or diploma granted from a school recognized by the government, he will be exempt from the examination. Article 93. During the first fifteen days of every three-month period students will renew their registration in person and will pay one-quarter Ottoman gold. Article 94. In order to renew their registration, students must present a certificate provided by the director of their

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department that affirms their attendance during the previous three-month period. Article 95. A student who defies the regulations of the Darülfünun will be warned and advised by the teachers, and if this happens three times, the student will lose one or two of his three-month period registration renewals and will have to repeat those courses. When necessary, a student may be suspended from the Darülfünun for a period of three months to one year. Article 96. Loss of registration, expulsion, or suspension will depend upon the decisions reached by the Darülfünun Council. Article 97. All students will be daytime students. Article 98. The selection and appointment of Darülfünun teachers will be based on the Teachers Regulations. Article 99. Monthly salaries for Darülfünun teachers will be between two-thousand-five-hundred and five-thousand kuruş, and for assistants between one-thousand-five-hundred and two-thousand-five-hundred kuruş. Article 100. A book with a chart that lists each student’s name will be produced and each student must sign it daily. Teachers will inspect these books once a week and record those who were absent. Article 101. Students attending for three months will be given a certificate of attendance by their teachers. Article 102. At the end of the year, students will present four registration notes and take an examination covering the courses taught during the year. If they fail to pass the first test, they cannot request a note for the fifth registration, and, similarly, if they cannot pass the second examination, they will lose the ninth registration note, and until the end of their education they will be dealt in this manner. Article 103. At the end of the third year, students will take a first examination that will be based on the courses taken during the year and then take a second examination that will cover all courses taught by their department.

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Article 104. A student passing the two examinations mentioned in Article 103 will submit a thesis written on a topic assigned by the administration office to the director of his department. If the director finds it acceptable, he will give the author permission to present his thesis to an examination committee composed of department faculty. Article 105. A student providing sufficient answers to the questions of the committee regarding his thesis will be given a şehâdetnâme that bears the seal of the Darülfünun and the signatures of the director of the department, secretary, and the head of the Darülfünun. Upon this certificate, in accordance with the Regulation for Examinations, the student will be granted a mezuniyet rüûsu. Article 106. Upon receiving a mezuniyet rüûsu, those aspiring to be a müderris will need to gather another year’s worth of registration notes, complete the necessary examinations defined by the rules for graduation, and write a thesis on an academic subject. After these steps, according to the Examination Regulations, the student will receive a şehâdetnâme in order to obtain a müderris rüûsu.23 Article 107. Aside from the diploma fee mentioned in the Regulation for Examinations, students will pay a fee of two Ottoman mecidiye gold of one-hundred [kuruş] for each examination that they take; funds will stay in the treasury of the Darülfünun.24 Article 108. Based upon the motion by the Ministry of Education, the Darülfünun will be under the supervision of a director, called the nâzır,25 appointed by imperial order. Article 109. The nâzır will be responsible for upholding the Darülfünun’s regulations, monitoring and attending to student behavior, advising those students who act against law, and informing situations to parents and, when necessary, to the Ministry of Education. Article 110. At the end of each year, the nâzır will prepare a special statement reporting on incidents that took place at the

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Darülfünun during that year, current conditions, and intended changes. Article 111. Each year, teachers of each department will elect one of their peers as their department director. Article 112. When necessary, the director of each department will call the teachers in the department and consult about the matters and affairs related to the department. Article 113. The Darülfünun Council will be under the leadership of the nâzır and composed of the department directors. It will discuss the curriculum of the Darülfünun, disciplinary matters, current affairs, and necessary reforms that may or may not require obtaining the permission of the Ministry of Education. Article 114. Each department will choose one of its faculty members to serve as a secretary. Article 115. Department secretary is responsible for recording minutes, handling written communication, and preserving these documents. Article 116. The monthly salary of the nâzır of the Darülfünun will be seven-thousand-five-hundred kuruş, and the salaries for the department directors will be determined by adding an additional one-thousand kuruş to the amount paid to faculty. Article 117. There will be a mubassır for each class and an appropriate number of janitors. Supervisors will be paid threehundred kuruş, and janitors will receive a salary between one-hundred-fifty and two-hundred-fifty kuruş. Article 118. Vacation times for the Darülfünun are: first, on every Friday and Sunday; second, on each communities’ special days and holidays; third, on Ramadan; fourth, one month following examinations; and, on the anniversary of the sultan’s accession. Article 119. A library will be established for the Darülfünun. Article 120. The director of the library will be appointed by imperial order as initiated upon a recommendation by the nâzır and a motion by the Ministry of the Education.

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Article 121. Five-thousand kuruş will be set aside annually for the library. Article 122. The library will accept gifts as donations or as bequeathed and can exchange books with other libraries. Article 123. For the teachers and students, the library will be open every day, for the public it will be open at designated times. Article 124. The Darülfünun will have its own treasury, and its administration will be handled by a particular official appointed by imperial order initiated upon a recommendation by the nâzır and a motion by the Ministry of the Education. Article 125. The income of the Darülfünun derive from: first, fees submitted for registration, theses, and exams; second, from donations and mefkûfât;26 and, third, from annual contributions by the state. Since this contribution will be granted to balance extra expenditures, it should decrease as the income of the Darülfünun increases. Article 126. The expenses of the Darülfünun include the salaries of the nâzır, the teachers, and the janitors, the costs of repairing the building from the fire, and the money allocated to the library. Article 127. In order to count the income and expenses mentioned in previous Articles, every year a register will be kept and submitted to the administration office of the Higher Council of Education. Article 128. Based upon its own regulations that will be established in the future, Darülfünun rooms will be prepared for the collection and preservation of items of natural history and old coins, and a chemical house [i.e., a repository for chemistry supplies] will be built. Each room will have its own staff. Chapter II – Private Schools Article 129. Private schools are those ones established in some neighborhoods either by [esp., religious] communities or by

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an individual or individuals of Ottoman or foreign citizenship. They can be fee-based or free. Their expenses and salaries are administered either by their founders or by the pious foundations that support them. In the Ottoman Empire, these type of schools must: first, employ teachers who possess a şehâdetnâme awarded either by the Ministry of Education or by a local educational administration; second, in order to prevent teaching courses that might defy morality and politics, their lists of courses and the books used must be approved by the Ministry of Education or by a local educational administration; [and, third], if the school is in the provinces, [it must acquire] an official permit from a provincial educational administration and the governor of the province or from the Ministry of Education, if the school is in Istanbul. Unless these three conditions are completely fulfilled, a private school will not be given a license to open and operate. These schools will be banned and closed if they violate these conditions. If teachers appointed by the founders of the school already have a şehâdetnâme in-hand, they must get them approved by the educational administration. Article 130. In both public and private schools, it is forbidden to beat or humiliate students because of misbehavior or a lack of study. Those students deserving punishment will be penalized in a manner that is appropriate with the severity of their offense and indolence, and those who violate this rule will be punished.

Part II General Assembly of Educational Administration Chapter I – Higher Council of Education Article 131. In Istanbul, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, a Higher Council of Education will be

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organized to function at the center of imperial educational administration. It will have two departments; a department of education, and a department of administration. Article 132. General Assembly of the Higher Council of Education will gather twice per year under the Ministry of Education and continue as needed and will include officials of its two departments, members of the Council of State and the Council of Justice, two respected members of each military and scholarly communities, and chief religious dignitaries of each religious community.

Section I – Department of Education Article 133. The Department of Education will meet twice under the leadership of a chairman. Its members are two types; domestic members who are Ottoman subjects, and external members who are foreigners. Domestic members are eight while external members are unlimited. This committee will have two secretaries, and one must know French in order to be able to communicate with European universities. Since the head and the directors of âliye are regular members of the Department of Education, they must attend meetings whenever they are invited. Article 134. The main responsibilities of the Department of Education are to: publish, translate, or have translated in a timely and organized fashion those books and booklets that are necessary for public schools and [to make] various essential science texts available in Turkish; place advertisements in newspapers or employ other methods to find experts, as necessary, or to establish essential associations to achieve this goal [of translation]; correspond with European universities; work towards the advancement of the Turkish language; inspect and approve books and translations to

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and award their authors and translators on the basis of their usefulness and benefits; conduct examinations for and award rüûs; and, provide funding for authors and translators of books and booklets that the Department of Education approves, for which the state will provide two-thousand kise.27 Article 135. Since the main duties of the Department of Education entail addressing the responsibilities noted in the above Article and to bringing them to conclusion, its members are required to submit a productivity report at the end of each year. Article 136. Internal members will be selected from among those distinguished scholars of the Ottoman citizenry; they must know Arabic, Greek, or Latin, or know one of the European languages and have a knowledge of Turkish and the ability to translate and publish. Article 137. External members will be in communication with the department and will express their opinions about education and learning regarding publications, provide guidance, and attend those meetings held every three months.

Section II – Department of Administration Article 138. Membership of the Department of Administration will include a chair and, with half of them Muslim and the other half non-Muslim, it will have two assistants and two muhakkık, and six muvazzafa28 of whom a third will be non-Muslim, and a head secretary. It will meet daily and work especially on schools in Istanbul and its surrounding areas. It will also oversee the schools and education councils, libraries, museums, and printing houses in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it will: monitor appointments of teachers; oversee legal matters associated with education, review complaints, conduct

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interrogations, pursue enforcement, conduct hearings, and present judgment for those to be punished; prepare the educational budget for Istanbul and surrounding areas, prepare regulations and present them to the council; and, ensure learning through its promotion of organization, consultation, and discussion. Article 139. When needed, the two departments can meet. Whichever department has concerns, its chair will lead the meeting. Article 140. The head of each department will receive a salary of seven-thousand-five-hundred kuruş, and members will receive four-thousand kuruş. The members of the Department of Education will receive further compensation for publishing. Head clerks will each receive a salary of three-thousand-five-hundred kuruş. All of them will be appointed through a selection made by the Ministry of Education. Article 141. Each department will have a secretary and an accounting department that will oversee the accounts of provincial educational treasuries. Article 142. The educational treasury in Istanbul will be administered by a special officer and will be under the supervision of the education department. Provincial Educational Councils Article 143. As a branch and executing intermediary of the Higher Education Council in Istanbul, under the leadership of an educational director, there will be an education council in every provincial center. This organization, as necessary, will be composed of two assistants, one Muslim and one non-Muslim; four muhakkık29 of whom two will be non-Muslims; four-to-ten Muslim and non-Muslim unofficial members; a secretary; an accountant; and, a treasurer. Similarly, elviye-i mülhaka30 centers will have, as needed, officers called müfettiş,31 one Muslim and one

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non-Muslim, and they will work under the supervision of the provincial administration. All of these must be Ottoman subjects. Article 144. The director of education councils, his assistants, the muhakkık, and müfettiş will be appointed by imperial order initiated upon a selection and request made by the Ministry of Education. Other members of the council will be notables of local communities and will be appointed upon the approval of the Ministry of Education as selected and recommended by provincial administrations. Dismissals and changes will also be subject to the consent of the Ministry of Education. Article 145. The director of education councils, his assistants, the muhakkık, branch inspectors, the müfettiş, the secretary, accountants, and treasurers are officers. The salary of the director is between three-thousand and five-thousand kuruş; assistants, muhakkık, and müfettiş receive two-thousand kuruş; and the secretary, accountants, and treasurer will receive between five-hundred and one-thousand kuruş. When the muhakkık are dispatched to other areas to investigate, they will be given travel allowances. Inspectors’ travel allowances are included in their salaries. Article 146. The duties of the education councils in province are to enforce the orders and instructions of the Ministry of Education and apply the provisions of this education act in its entirety in the provinces; manage funds provided by the state and funds collected from communities and monitor expenditures; oversee all schools, libraries, printing houses, and other institutions in the provinces; continuously inspect schools and effect necessary changes; send an annual report to the Ministry of Education regarding educational conditions in the provinces and objectives to be met; send an additional copy of this report to the general educational council of the province and organize its budget; and, in sum,

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identify and ensure optimal conditions for schooling. Included within its duties are the selection and reassignment of teachers, as necessary, the determination of their awards and punishments, and the granting of certificates and diplomas. Article 147. The director and assistants are responsible for managing current operations and overseeing and closely monitoring the enforcement of reform decisions, educational regulations, and directives from the Ministry of Education in their entirety. They are also responsible for inspecting schools and libraries, especially idadîye, sultanîye, and âliye; they will be vigilant about spending and using educational funds appropriately and avoid any waste or abuse, and on this point they are primarily responsible. Article 148. When necessary, muhakkık will: rotate their tours of schools and libraries in the province and their observance of actions taken by inspectors in sub-provinces; monitor for the proper administration of schools according to regulations; effect all necessary measures allowable within their power without permission and report all their actions to the educational council of their province; and, upon their return, submit a memorandum to the council regarding their inspections and actions as well as their observations. Article 149. Each inspector will tour and inspect schools within a sanjak32 initially every three months and, once the schools’ reorganization is complete, every six months and will take all necessary measures within the limits of their power to effect necessary improvements without permission and will report all their actions to the educational council of the province. Furthermore, they will send monthly incident reports to the same council. Article 150. When they have time, unofficial members will examine issues, coming to the council together with the official members and when an education-related duty is

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assigned to them with the decision of the council, they will carry it out. Article 151. When needed, the person for recourse for school teachers in a province is the muhakkık and the inspectors, however, if they are not available, primary school teachers, depending on proximity, will apply to rüşdiye or idadîye teachers; rüşdiye teachers will apply to idadîye teachers or directly to the inspectors; inspectors to the mutasarrıf33 of the sub-province or provincial education council. Article 152. For all matters, the provincial education council will apply to the governor of the province. Depending on the necessity they can also directly apply to the Ministry of Education.

Part III Regarding Examinations, Certificates, and Diplomas and their Privileges Article 153. There are three types of examinations in public schools. The first type is a grade examination and it is given at the end of each year when students pass from one grade to another. The second type is a graduation examination given upon finishing one’s education in a school. The third type is a qualifying examination34 and its particulars are indicated below. Article 154. The first type of examination for primary schools is taken before the council of elders in every village or neighborhood and administered by their teachers. The rüşdiye and idadîye examinations will be conducted in front of individuals selected from among the head teachers of the sultanîye and appropriate individuals who are knowledgeable about the area’s education. In areas where there are no idadîye or sultanîye, it will be sufficient to have its own teachers and individuals involved in area’s education. İdadîye examinations, if

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possible, will have a chief inspector from the education council present. Sultanîye grade examinations will be, in provinces, before the council of education; in Istanbul, before a group comprised of several members of the Higher Education Council and high officials of the Darülmuallimin and Darülfünun. Those students who qualify will receive a certificate.35 Article 155. The second type of examination will be conducted in the same fashion and those students who demonstrate competency will be awarded a school certificate. 36 Those receiving school certificates, if they wish to do so, will be accepted to the school above theirs without an examination. Article 156. All âliye (upper level) students will be examined before their school’s or department officials, their certificates from their school will be approved, and they will also receive a rüûs from the Higher Council of Education. Article 157. The third type of examination is for three degree types. The first degree has a mülâzemet examination and it is for the humanities, law, and sciences; the second degree has a mezuniyet examination and is also for the humanities, law, and sciences; and, the third degree has a müntehîlik examination and is for medicine, humanities, sciences, and law. Article 158. Those students who complete their education in idadîye, if they are located in Istanbul, will take the mülâzemet examination before officials from the Higher Education Council’s Department of Education, officials from the Darülfünun, and directors of the âliye. If they are in the provinces, after having their certificates approved by local education council, students can take a mülâzemet examination in literature, law, and science and it will be an oral examination. Those demonstrating competency in the examination will be awarded a mülâzemet certificate of competency on a special paper bearing their name and decorated with the emblem of the Ministry

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of Education and the name of the local education council that the student took his examination will be mentioned and the student will pay two one-hundred gold [equal to two lira] for the certificate and registration fee. Each year, three months will be set aside to conduct the mülâzemet examinations. Article 159. If a student taking the mülâzemet examination fails to demonstrate competency, he is allowed to take it again during the designated examination period. If he cannot pass the examination again, he will wait for the next examination period, and if he fails a third time, at the end of the waiting period, he may take it for the fourth time. If he cannot demonstrate competency again, he will be banned forever from [obtaining] a mülâzemet rüûsu. Article 160. The mülâzemet examination schedule will be prepared and announced by the Department of Education within the Higher Education Council, and it will coincide with the idadîye schedule. Article 161. Those holding a mülâzemet rüûsu will be accepted to the âliye [upper-level] and the Darülmuallimin without an examination. Article 162. Those not holding a mülâzemet rüûsu are not allowed to open and operate a private school. Article 163. Those holding a mülâzemet rüûsu, depending upon their concentration, will be employed either at important state offices or in administrative affairs. Article 164. Those completing the higher section of the sultanîye, if they produce a certificate from their school or if they have the mülâzemet rüûsu, will be allowed to take the mezuniyet examination and will take a verbal and written examination. Those demonstrating competency through the examination, or those who are Darülfünun third-year students or Darülmuallimin students who completed their second year and received a certificate, will be given a mezuniyet rüûsu in a similar fashion

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mentioned in Article 159. Students must pay a fee of three Ottoman lira gold. Article 165. The duration of the mezuniyet examination and the rules for repeating the examination are the same as for the mülâzemet examination, and the schedules of these examinations are also prepared and announced by the Department of Education. Article 166. Those holding a mezuniyet rüûsu, depending upon their field, will qualify to be employed in the state bureaucracy, by councils, and in the Nizamiye courts. Article 167. People receiving a mezuniyet rüûsu, upon the completion of their second year of the Darülmuallimin’s sultanîye branch, will have the right to be employed as head teachers in idadîye or assistant teachers in sultanîye. Article 168. Those completing their education in the Darülmuallimin’s sultanîye branch or in other âliye schools, upon receiving their şehâdetnâme and after taking their verbal and written müntehîlik examination, will be given a rüûs by the Higher Education Council and a fee of five Ottoman lira will be collected. Article 169. The duration of the müntehîlik examination and the rules for repeating the examination are same as for the mezuniyet examination, and the schedules of these examinations are prepared by the administration of the âliye and approved by the Ministry of Education. Article 170. As indicated in Article 167, those receiving the müntehîlik rüûsu, depending upon their field, will qualify to be employed as members of the Department of Education or as head teachers and then directors in sultanîye, idadîye, or in Darülmuallimin. Article 171. At the end of each academic year, the Department of Education and the Council of Education will be divided into three groups. The first group will administer the mülâzemet examination and will be composed of one member of each of the following: the Department of Education; the Darülfünun; and, the provincial

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education council, and it will include an inspector and two head teachers from the idadîye. The second group will administer the mezuniyet examination and will be composed of one member of each of the following: the Department of Education; the Darülfünun, or a member of the provincial education council; and, a muhakkık, and two teachers from the lower-level classes of the âliye. The third group will administer the müntehîlik examination and will be composed of members from the Department of Education, the Darülfünun, or Education Council director, and an individual from the ranks of the muhakkık and two individuals who hold mülâzemet rüûsu. Article 172. In each examination commission, there will be a box and the examiners will mark it, depending upon the candidate’s grade, with a white circle for “high,” a red one for “ordinary,” or a black one for failing. Article 173. Those earning three white circles will be designated as the best and their names will be recorded on the Darülfünun and Education Council rolls for their praiseworthy qualities. In attaining the privileges associated with their diploma, they will have priority over others. Those earning two white and one red circles will pass their examination as average. Although, earning three red circles or two white and one black circles are considered acceptable for the mülâzemet examination, they will not be considered acceptable either for the mezuniyet examination or for the müntehîlik examination. Names of those students passing their examinations will be recorded in celî on a panel to be hung upon the doors to the Department of Education or the Education Council. Article 174. Those who are Ottoman subjects but who do not receive their education in public schools may, if they desire to do so, take the mezuniyet and müntehîlik examinations. They will be subject to the rules and various phases of

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examination as listed in this regulation. Those deserving a mülâzemet rüûsu will directly take the mezuniyet examination, and those with a mezuniyet rüûsu in-hand will take the müntehîlik examination. Article 175. Foreign subjects, on the condition of paying the required fee, can take the above-mentioned examinations, but they will not have the right to claim employment in state offices. Article 176. Those taking the above-mentioned examinations will pay their rüûs fees in advance. Those failing the examination will be reimbursed half of these fees. Article 177. Twenty days prior to the end of an academic year, selected capable students of the idadîye and sultanîye, depending upon their classes, will be placed in a room and given a topic on which to write an essay. After this, students will be examined by a select examination commission and the deserving ones will be given awards, depending upon their merit, in an official ceremony. If this examination is in Istanbul, it will take place under the chairmanship of the Minister of Education and with the participation of members of the Higher Education Council, high officials of the Darülfünun, and âliye directors, ministers of state, ambassadors, and distinguished state officials. If the gathering is in the provinces, it will take place under the chairmanship of the governor and with the participation of the members of local administration, members of the education council, parents of the students examined, and local notables. The names of students receiving awards will be read loudly in front of this group, and each student will receive his award directly from the Minister of Education or the governor. For the students who receive awards for being the “best,” there will be two silver medals allocated from third-year exams at the higher section of the sultanîye and two bronze medals allocated from third-year exams of the idadîye.

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Part IV Regarding Teachers Article 178. Public school teachers must be Ottoman subjects. Those not holding a şehâdetnâme from the Darülmuallimin-і Sıbyan or those who could not pass the examination to acquire the mentioned certificate will not be appointed to sıbyan teaching. Those holding sıbyan teaching certificates will always be preferred over others. Article 179. Similar to the medrese-graduates, public sıbyan teachers can enter the lottery examination [for appointments]. Those sıbyan teachers whose sufficient qualifications are well-established, as mentioned in Article 49, will be exempt from the lottery. Article 180. Sıbyan teachers whose actions are deemed against the internal regulations of the school, depending on the degree of their fault and misconduct, will be officially reprimanded and punished. If that type of fault and misconduct is repeated and reprimanding and punishing becomes ineffective, they will be expelled. Article 181. The appointment of rüşdiye teachers will be from among those who have a Darülmuallimin-і Rüşdiye department certificate and established good behavior. Although, those who hold a mülâzemet rüûsu and those whose examination-based qualifications indicate Darülmualliminlevel education can also be employed in rüşdiye teaching. Darülmuallimin graduates should always be preferred over those holding a mülâzemet rüûsu and those holding the mülâzemet rüûsu should be preferred over those who could be appointed outside of the pool after an examination. Rüşdiye teachers must be at least twenty-five years old and have never been legally imprisoned because of a misdemeanor or crime. Article 182. If, in a province, a head teacher position opens up in a rüşdiye, the most senior assistant teacher of all the

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rüşdiye in that province will be appointed. If a head teacher position becomes available in an idadîye, within whatever region of the empire the school is located, the most senior assistant teacher of all the idadîye in that region will be appointed. If a head teacher position opens up in a sultanîye, the most senior assistant teacher of all the sultanîye in the empire will be appointed for that position. Article 183. If rüşdiye head teachers pass the examination of the idadîye department of the Darülmuallimin, and if idadîye head teachers pass the examination of the sultanîye department of the Darülmuallimin, or acquire a mezuniyet rüûsu, they can be appointed as assistant teachers for idadîye and sultanîye. Article 184. When a vacancy opens, the head teachers of the idadîye and the most senior assistant teachers of the advancedlevel section of the sultanîye can be appointed as a head teacher for the sultanîye or as an assistant to the âliye. However, they must acquire their müntehîlik rüûsu during that time. Article 185. When a vacancy opens, the most senior head teachers of sultanîye and âliye can be appointed as chief inspectors, as members, or as assistants for the Education Council, and as directors for sultanîye and âliye. Article 186. If the teachers of rüşdiye, sultanîye and âliye fail to fulfill their educational services without good cause, as a punishment, their salaries will be lowered by deduction, and teachers who miss ten days of work in a month will be expelled after a warning. Article 187. According to the imperial Criminal Code, teachers who lose their civil rights, due to committing a murder or other crime requiring their imprisonment, will have their degrees revoked. Article 188. Teachers who are assigned to serve as an examination official will receive an honorarium in addition to their salaries.

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Article 189. Both rüşdiye and idadîye teachers are allowed to give private or public lessons outside of their teaching days. Article 190. Public school teachers can retire based upon the general regulations established by the state regarding retirement. Article 191. Salary amounts for educational officers and public school teachers who qualify for retirement according to the law, and the orphans and dependents of the deceased, will be determined according to the general law.

Part V Regarding Financial Matters Article 192. The income of the general educational administration, as will be mentioned below, derives from public funds, tax funds paid by the people annually, vakıf appropriations, various funds, fees paid by students of sultanîye and âliye, and fees paid for penalties and crimes. Article 193. Budgets of the rüşdiye and idadîye and the Council of Education in Istanbul will be decided each year by the general assembly of the Council of Education and approved by the Council of the State. Afterwards, the funds paid by communities as requested by imperial order will be collected by municipalities and delivered to the main educational treasury. Funds paid by the imperial treasury will also be directed to the same treasury. Article 194. Similarly, the budgets of rüşdiye and idadîye and the Council of Education in the provinces will be prepared each year by the provincial council and approved by the general assembly and then sent to the Council of the State via the Ministry of Education. These expenses will be covered with taxes collected from the people by imperial decree, and the funds collected as such will be divided for each community and will be delivered

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to educational treasuries, as directed by the general assembly. Similarly, taxes that are due to the imperial state will be delivered from local tax treasuries to the educational treasuries. Article 195. Funds from older pious foundations and donations from various individuals will be left in the treasuries of those communities or neighborhoods that donors originated from. Article 196. Funds from the state and people will be divided for Muslim and non-Muslim rüşdiye expenses. For example, in a given province, the number of Muslim and non-Muslim rüşdiye will be used to divide the money for these communities. Similarly, remaining amounts after payments from the imperial treasury will be covered by their own communities. In a similar manner, expenditures by these schools will be separate. Since the expenses of the idadîye and educational administration will be paid jointly [by each community], close attention must be paid to this issue when funds are handled so the accounts of each community’s rüşdiye will not be mixed with one another and kept separate. Article 197. Shares from each community for the educational budget will be kept in the educational treasury and then will be sent to those locations they belong to with the approval of the education council and by special officers. They will deliver funds for a receipt. Education funds for the sub-provinces and districts will be handled to make sure that they are not delayed and that at the beginning of each month will be sent from local tax funds or other appropriate locations and a record will be kept of their accounting. Article 198. As decided, sıbyan teachers’ salaries and other expenses will be covered by the communities. Food, furniture, and cash amounts that will be needed annually for each sıbyan should be, depending upon its location, no less than nine-hundred kuruş and six-hundred kuruş [seeming

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to distinguish between large communities and smaller locales]. This amount will be divided monthly or, in an alternate manner that communities deem appropriate, to be collected. If the school has a vakıf 37 for funding, it will be taken from there; and, if there is no vakıf or the income from the vakıf is insufficient, the remaining portion will be paid by men of economic means from the community that the school belongs to, or from the community or village, accordingly.

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APPENDIX 2

PROPOSED CHANGES TO 1892 EDUCATION BUDGET

Shortly after Zühdü Paşa became Minister of Education, the Ottoman Ministry of Education submitted the following proposed budget in order to enable the construction of boarding idadî schools in vilâyet centers (BOA IM 1310 M 4. Rumi 27 Temmuz 1308 / 10 August 1892). The following tables reflect overall figures empire-wide (actually limited to fifteen vilâyets) and by vilâyet, respectively.

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Empire-wide (limited to fifteen vilâyets) proposed budget for boarding idadî schools Total

Proposed budget

8,212,564

Existing budget

9,569,988

Number of schools

433

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

789,300

Existing budget

784,300

Proposed budget

3,813,780

Existing budget

2,003,950

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools

15

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

771,650

Existing budget

3,971,232

Number of schools

16

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

130,560

Existing budget

42,960

Number of schools

15

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

2,305,006

Existing budget

2,524,818

Number of schools

242

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

402,268

Existing budget

342,728

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:248

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Edirne Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

853,302

Existing budget

853,770

Number of schools

26

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

74,680

Existing budget

69,880

Proposed budget

339,760

Existing budget

108,400

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 100

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

246,750

Existing budget

404,950

Number of schools

5

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

10,560

Existing budget

14,160

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

176,752

Existing budget

199,036

Number of schools

18

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

4,800

Existing budget

7,344

Number of schools

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Salonica (Salonika/Selanik) Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

774,356

Existing budget

771,756

Number of schools

19

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

66,760

Existing budget

64,960

Proposed budget

436,200

Existing budget

355,300

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools

1

Capacity of student body

150

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

105,700

Existing budget

196,300

Number of schools

2

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

155,856

Existing budget

150,488

Number of schools

14

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

1,440

Existing budget

4,708

Number of schools

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Hüdavendigar Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

815,224

Existing budget

844,908

Number of schools

42

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

54,780

Existing budget

57,300

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

321,160

Existing budget

108,400

Number of schools

1

Capacity of student body

100

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

92,850

Existing budget

280,000

Number of schools

2

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

10,560

Existing budget

10,560

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

325,430

Existing budget

378,304

Number of schools

22

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

10,344

Existing budget

10,344

Number of schools

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Trabzon Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

505,094

Existing budget

646.062

Number of schools

25

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,000

Existing budget

47,800

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

217,280

Existing budget

104,200

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,350

Existing budget

275,850

Number of schools

1

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

7200

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

185,432

Existing budget

213,172

Number of schools

19

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

2,832

Existing budget

5,040

Number of schools

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Erzurum Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

418,690

Existing budget

471,876

Number of schools

11

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

53,600

Existing budget

56,360

Proposed budget

275,420

Existing budget

99,700

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 75

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

213,282

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

81,270

Existing budget

101,742

Number of schools

9

Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

792

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools

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Beirut (Beyrut) Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

682,042

Existing budget

828,420

Number of schools

60

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

80,550

Existing budget

62,550

Proposed budget

270,020

Existing budget

254,900

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 75

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,350

Existing budget

272,250

Number of schools

1

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

113,522

Existing budget

142,720

Number of schools

9

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

163,200

Existing budget

96,000

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:254

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Syria (Suriye) Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

529,068

Existing budget

545,910

Number of schools

27

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

56,910

Existing budget

61,710

Proposed budget

270,020

Existing budget

222,500

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 75

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,350

Existing budget

179,100

Number of schools

1

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,548

Existing budget

81,160

Number of schools

5

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

100,840

Existing budget

1,440

Number of schools

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Konya Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

520,384

Existing budget

775,352

Number of schools

29

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

44,800

Existing budget

43,700

Proposed budget

214,040

Existing budget

91,000

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

361,800

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

10,680

Existing budget

10,680

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

250,864

Existing budget

268,272

Number of schools

27

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

Appendix.indd Sec1:256

0

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

0

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Kastamonu Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

203,470

Existing budget

659,258

Number of schools

27

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,200

Existing budget

25,920

Proposed budget

206,040

Existing budget

97,300

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

140,850

Existing budget

272,250

Number of schools

3

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

197,780

Existing budget

249,588

Number of schools

19

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

4,200

Existing budget

4,200

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:257

3

2/13/2012 11:33:28 AM

258

EMPIRE

AND

EDUCATION

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Sivas Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

457,336

Existing budget

615,582

Number of schools

23

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

48,160

Existing budget

51,760

Proposed budget

214,040

Existing budget

91,000

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

275,850

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

7,560

Existing budget

7,560

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

187,576

Existing budget

189,412

Number of schools

21

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

Appendix.indd Sec1:258

0

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

0

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A PPENDIX 2

259

Ankara Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

437,286

Existing budget

568,296

Number of schools

21

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

44,800

Existing budget

43,000

Proposed budget

214,040

Existing budget

97,300

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

272,250

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

170,046

Existing budget

155,746

Number of schools

19

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Appendix.indd Sec1:259

Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

0

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260

EMPIRE

AND

EDUCATION

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Aleppo (Haleb) Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

436,944

Existing budget

492,188

Number of schools

20

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

53,800

Existing budget

53,800

Proposed budget

217,640

Existing budget

92,500

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

179,100

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

157,104

Existing budget

166,788

Number of schools

18

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Appendix.indd Sec1:260

Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

0

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A PPENDIX 2

261

Adana Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

356,564

Existing budget

504,482

Number of schools

15

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

45,800

Existing budget

49,400

Proposed budget

206,040

Existing budget

97,300

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

272,250

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

94,068

Existing budget

83,276

Number of schools

12

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

2,256

Existing budget

2,256

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:261

1

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262

EMPIRE

AND

EDUCATION

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Diyarbekir Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

351,860

Existing budget

387,300

Number of schools

15

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

44,960

Existing budget

47,960

Proposed budget

406,040

Existing budget

91,000

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

0

Existing budget

182,700

Number of schools

0

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

90,660

Existing budget

63,840

Number of schools

12

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

1,800

Existing budget

1,800

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:262

1

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A PPENDIX 2

263

Cezayir-i Bahr-ı Sefid Vilâyeti Total

Proposed budget

470,944

Existing budget

204,828

Number of schools

73

Educational Administration—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

27,500

Existing budget

38,300

Proposed budget

206,040

Existing budget

93,150

Boarding İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Number of schools Capacity of student body

1 50

Daytime İdadî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

46,350

Existing budget

283,300

Number of schools

1

Teacher Training School—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

8,400

Existing budget

0

Number of schools

1

Rüşdiye Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses Proposed budget

72,098

Existing budget

81,274

Number of schools

7

İbtidaî Schools—Annual Salaries and Expenses

Proposed budget

11,556

Existing budget

108,804

Number of schools

Appendix.indd Sec1:263

63

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APPENDIX 3

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS TO BE USED IN OTTOMAN RÜŞDIYE SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS, 1895

Sent from the Ottoman Ministry of Education’s central administration to Crete, these three tables list required textbooks stipulated for local school officials in their acquisition of books, booklets, and pamphlets for public rüşdiye schools. In this instance, the assigned text list is for a combined rüşdiye that had both ibtidaî (lower primary) and upper primary (or typical rüşdiye) sections, each spanning three years (Source: BOA IM 1313 S 25).

Appendix.indd Sec2:264

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A PPENDIX 3 Year

Course

Book/pamphlet Author title

Price Sale location

Elifba-yı Osmanî

15

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Qur’an Section

Ecza-yı Şerife

10

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Reading in Turkish

İlk Kıraat Kitabı

25

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Risale-і Ahlâk

10

Maarif Kütüphanesi

10

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

First of Ottoman ibtidaî alphabet

Ahmed Rasim Efendi

Mental Arithmetic / Mental Calculation Second Catechism Muhtasar İlmihal of ibtidaî Turkish reading Vezaif-i Etfal and grammar Arithmetic

Appendix.indd Sec2:265

265

Muhtasar Yeni Hesab

Ali Nazima Bey

5

Maarif Kütüphanesi

30

Maarif Kütüphanesi

10

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

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266

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AND

EDUCATION

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Books and pamphlets for girls’ rüşdiye, 1895 (cont.) Year

Course

Third of ibtidaî

Tecvid Qur’an recitation with Tecvid (or, special pronunciation)

Fourth of ibtidaî (or first of rüşdiye)

Appendix.indd Sec2:266

Book/pam- Author Price phlet title

Sale location

5

Maarif Kütüphanesi

30

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Catechism

İlmihal

Arithmetic

Muhtasar Yeni Hesab

Religious science

Derikta

25

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Arabic

Al-Muşezzib (Sahv section)

100

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Persian

Rehber-і Farsî

10

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Talim-і Farsî

40

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Ottoman Turkish grammar

Kavaid-і Osmaniyye

30

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Arithmetic

Yeni Hesab (part 3)

120

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Geography

Osmanlı Coğrafyası

Turkish reading and grammar

Kısas-ı Enbiya (all three sections)

Ali 10 Nazıma Bey

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Sırrı Bey 20

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

55

Maarif Kütüphanesi

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A PPENDIX 3

267

Books and pamphlets for girls’ rüşdiye, 1895 (cont.) Year

Course

Author

Price

Sale location

Derikta Şerhi

25

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Al-Muşezzib (Sahv section)

100

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Persian

Hulasa-yı Rehnüma-yı Farsî

40

Matbaa-yı Osmaniyye Kütüphanesi

Ottoman Turkish grammar

Kavaid-і Osmaniyye

30

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Arithmetic

Yeni Hesab (part 3)

120

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Geography

Mücmel Coğrafya

60

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

History

Küçük Osmanlı Tarihi

50

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Reading in Turkish and orthography

Talim-і Benat (2 parts)

60

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Calligraphy

Karalama Meşkleri Ziya (Sülus) Bey

10 for Sülus; Maarif 5 for Rika Kütüphanesi

Derikta Şerhi

160

Matbaa-yı Osmaniyye Kütüphanesi

Arabic

Al-Muşezzib (Nahv section)

140

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Persian

Müntehebat-ı Gülistan

60

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Writing

Hanımlara Münşeat

50

Matbaa-yı Osmaniyye Kütüphanesi

Arithmetic

Yeni Zubdetü’lHendese

100

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Geography

Mücmel Coğrafya

60

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

History

Muhtasar Tarih-i İslam

80

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Fifth of ibti- Religious daî (or second science of rüşdiye) Arabic

Sixth of ibti- Religious daî (or third science of rüşdiye)

Appendix.indd Sec2:267

Book/pamphlet title

Hakkı Bey

2/13/2012 11:33:29 AM

APPENDIX 4

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS TO BE USED IN OTTOMAN RÜŞDIYE SCHOOLS FOR BOYS, 1895

Sent from the Ottoman Ministry of Education’s central administration to Crete, these three tables list required textbooks stipulated for local school officials in their acquisition of books, booklets, and pamphlets for public rüşdiye schools. In this instance, the assigned text list is for a combined rüşdiye that had both ibtidaî (lower primary) and upper primary (or typical rüşdiye) sections, each spanning three years (Source: BOA IM 1313 S 25).

Appendix.indd Sec2:268

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Appendix.indd Sec2:269

Second of ibtidaî

First of ibtidaî

Year

Azmi Bey Mustafa Bey Rıfat Bey Ali Nazıma Bey Ahmed Rasim Bey Ahmed Rasim Bey Ziya Efendi

İlk Kıraat

Telhisü’l-Mulahhas Sağir Hikayat-ı Muntehibe Oku Ibtidaî Part Hesab-ı Zihni Sülus Karalama Meşki

Reading

Catechism

Reading

Ottoman Turkish morphology

Arithmetic

Calligraphy

10 para

10 para

10 para

40 para

20 para

20 para

20 para

20 para

Azmi Bey

Elifba

Price

Alphabet

Author 10 para

Book/pamphlet title Ecza-yı Şerife

Course

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Arakil Efendi Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Darüşşafaka

Mahmud Bey ve Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Sale location

A PPENDIX 3 269

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Appendix.indd Sec2:270

Course

Fourth of ibtidaî (or first of rüşdiye)

Zihni Efendi Ali Nazıma Bey Azmi Bey

Al-Muşezzib (Sahv section) Yeni Hesab Coğrafya

Arabic

Arithmetic

Geography

Physical science

Ilm-і Eşya

Ismail Bey

Cevdet Paşa

Mustafa Bey

40 para

30 para

100 para

50 para

2 kuruş

40 para

5 para

10 para

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Kütüphane-yі Osmanî

Mahmud Bey ve Kasbar Efendi Kütüphaneleri

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kutuphanesi

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

UNDER THE

Ottoman Turkish grammar Kavaid-і Osmaniyye

Ziya Efendi

Rik’a Karalama Meşki Mufassal Ilmihal

Ziya Efendi

Sülus Karalama Meşki

Calligraphy

Religious science

Ali Nazıma Bey

Muhtasar Yeni Hesab

Arithmetic

Kasbar Efendi Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Karabet Efendi Kütüphanesi

Mahmud Bey ve Kasbar Efendi Kütüphaneleri

Mahmud Bey ve Kasbar Efendi Kütüphaneleri

Sale location

EDUCATION

10 para

10 para

Ali Nazıma Bey

Muhtasar Sarf-ı Osmanî

Ottoman Turkish morphology

20 para 30 para

Sırrı Bey

Muhtasar Osmanlı Coğrafyası

20 para

10 para

20 para

Vezaif-і Etfal

Hakkı Bey

Mustafa Bey

Mülahhas İlmihal

Price

AND

Zende-і Tarih-і Osmanî

Author

Book/pamphlet title

EMPIRE

Reading

Qur’an recitation with Tecvid (or, special pronunciation)

Third of ibtidaî Catechism

Year

Books and pamphlets for boys’ rüşdiye, 1895 (cont.)

270 OTTOMANS

2/13/2012 11:33:29 AM

Appendix.indd Sec3:271

2 kuruş

Zihni Efendi Habib Efendi

El-Muşezzib (Sahv section) Hulasa-yı Rehnüma-yı Farsî

Arabic

Persian

120 para

40 para 50 para

Ali Nazıma Bey Ali Tevfik Bey Ali Cevad Bey Cevdet Paşa Ismail Bey Rüşdü Bey and Mösyö Franco

Yeni Hesab (part 3) Memalik-і Osmaniye Coğrafyası Muhtasar Tarih-і Islam Tertib-і Cedid Kavaid-і Osmaniye Ilm- і Eşya Alfabe-yi Fransa

Arithmetic

Geography

History

Ottoman Turkish grammar

Physical science

French

70 para

80 para

60 para

10 para

Talim-і Farsî

40 para

25 para

Derikta

Religious science

Price

Fifth of ibtidaî (or second of rüşdiye)

Book/pamphlet title Author

Course

Year

Books and pamphlets for boys’ rüşdiye, 1895 (cont.)

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Osmanlı Kütüphanesi

Osmanlı Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Sale location

A PPENDIX 4 271

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Appendix.indd Sec3:272

Ali Tevfik Bey Hakkı Bey Rıfat Bey

Hasan Tahsin Efendi 70 para

Yeni Zubdeü’l-Hendese Mülahhsas Yeni Coğrafya Muhassar Osmanlı Tarihi Mufassal Nahv-ı Osmanî Usul Defteri Numune- і İnşa

Geometry

Geography

History

Ottoman Turkish grammar

Bookkeeping

Writing

100 para

70 para

50 para

100 para

Darüşşafaka

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Karabet Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Kasbar Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

UNDER THE

Asım Bey

Abdullatif Efendi

Yeni Hesab (part 3)

Arithmetic

EDUCATION

80 para

40 para 120 para

Ali Nazıma Bey

İlm-і Eşya

Physical science

Karabet Matbaası

4.5 kuruş

Lector

French

Rüşdü Bey and Mösyö Franco

Naim Bey

Müntehebat-ı Gülistan

Kasbar Kütüphanesi Kasbar Kütüphanesi

40 para

Habib Efendi

Rehber-і Farsî

Maarif Kütüphanesi

Maarif Kütüphanesi

AND

60 para

5 para

Avamil

Sale location Maarif Kütüphanesi

EMPIRE

Persian

5 para

Bina

Arabic

Price 25 para

Derikta

Religious science

Sixth of ibtidaî (or third of rüşdiye)

Book/pamphlet title Author

Course

Year

Books and pamphlets for boys’ rüşdiye, 1895 (cont.)

272 OTTOMANS

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GLOSSARY

ağa (also sometimes written as agha)—title of community leader in various tribal areas (esp. Kurdish) of the empire; also, in some contexts, a civil or military title. âliye (also referred to as mekâtib-і âliye)—the highest of secondary/postsecondary schools (to include many vocational and teacher-training colleges and the university in Istanbul). Aşiret Mektebi—the School for Tribes. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi—the Prime Minister’s Archive of Istanbul; Turkey’s major repository of Ottoman documents. caliph—Sunni Muslims’ proclaimed leader over the wider community of Muslims; the caliphate was the office and institution of the caliph. cizye, or jizya—a per capita tax levied on non-Muslims. Darülfünun—“the house of sciences”; it refers to the university of the late Ottoman era in Istanbul, later emerging as Istanbul University. Darülmuallimat—teacher-training school for girls and women, established in Istanbul in 1870. Darülmuallimin—teacher-training school for boys and men, established in Istanbul in 1846. Darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî—teacher-training school for primary school teachers. defterdar—head of treasuries, found at scales ranging from provincial to imperial administrations. elviye-і mülhaka—an administrative subdivision. Elviye-yi Selâse—the Three Provinces (of Rumelia).

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OTTOMANS

evlad-ı vatan—“children of the (national) homeland”; an expression of increasing usage in the later years of the empire that referred to the children of an imagined Ottoman nation/state/country/empire. Ghegs—an ethno-linguistic name for northern Albanians. haricî—translated as “external,” haricî students constituted one category of students in what was envisioned as a three-part categorization of sultanî students; boarding students, daytime students (who ate their meals at the school), and haricî students (who did not eat their meals at the school). Hatt-ı Hümayun—translated literally as “imperial edict,” but usage is in particular reference to the Tanzimat reforms. Hatt-ı Şerif (of Gülhane)—translated literally as “the noble edict of the Gülhane (or Rose Chamber),” but usage is in particular reference to the Tanzimat reforms. Hazine-yi Evkaf-ı Hümayun—fund, or endowment, for imperial pious foundations. ibtidaî—primary schools in the Ottoman Empire; ibtidaî preceded the advanced primary or secondary schools (i.e., the rüşdiye); viewed as modern primary schools that replaced the traditional, or sıbyan mektebi, schools (which were thereafter regarded simply as Qur’anic schools). idadî—advanced or postsecondary (or preparatory) schools in the Ottoman Empire which functioned much like the lycée or high schools found in the West; schooling at idadî followed the training that was provided in the advanced primary or secondary schools (i.e., the rüşdiye). Islahat—translated literally as “reform,” usage refers to the Islahat reform of 1856. ittihad-ı anasır—translated as the “unity of elements,” usage was in reference to the unity of all citizens (Muslim and non-Muslim) within the wider Ottoman Empire. ittihad-ı İslam—translated as the “unity of Muslims,” usage was in reference to the unity of all Muslims—often with respect to the pan-Islamist politics within the empire. İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti—the Committee of Union and Progress, or CUP; the Young Turks movement. kaza—often defined as a “district,” it was an administrative unit within the empire below the level of a sanjak but larger than a nahiye.

Glossary.indd 274

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GLOSSARY

275

kise—a term in Ottoman Turkish sometimes translated literally as a “purse” but generally referring to a sum of money (esp. 500 kuruş). kuruş—unit of Ottoman currency; also written oftentimes as a piaster in many historical sources; 100 kuruş equaled 1 lira. maarif hisse-i ianesi—the education contribution tax, enacted in 1884. maarif müdürü—an education director. mal sandığı—local government, or community, funds. masjid—generally a small mosque (esp. a prayer hall where a sermon for Friday prayers is not conducted, though exceptions exist). mecidiye—a type of Ottoman coin first minted during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839–1861). Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumi—Council of Public Education. Meclis-i Mahsus (also sometimes written as Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükela)—Special Committee of Ministers, or Privy Council. Meclis-i Vükelâ—Council of Ministers. medrese—a secondary and higher-level religious school, often compared to a seminary or religious college/university; great range of meanings attached to the usage of the term, past and present. In later periods, sometimes symbolized religious education (and were thus contrasted, in certain contexts, with the mekteb). medrese-i muallimin—medrese teacher training schools. mefkûfât—a property designated for a charitable endowment. mekteb—a traditional primary level school in which rudimentary lessons in reading, writing, grammar, mathematics, and religion are taught. Though often associated with religious education due to their existence as traditional sites of instruction, in later periods, they also sometimes symbolized secular education in certain contexts (in contrast with the medrese). mektubcu—provincial administrative official. mektubi—secretariat. metropolit—highest ranking Orthodox clerical official of a specific region and/or urban center; as in “Greek Metropolidi” mezuniyet rüûsu—the certificate conferred upon those graduating, varyingly, from a sultanîye, the Darülfünun, or their equivalent. millet—an Ottoman confessional/religious community. Over time, the term millet would also convey aspects of ethnonational identity.

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muallim—a teacher; sometimes with reference to those instructor found at modern (or secular) state schools (in contrast with the müderris of traditional or religious schools). mubassır—a school official charged with overseeing the conditions and conduct of the student body. muhakkık—inspector of special cases. muhtar (also sometimes written as mukhar)—a village head. mujtahids—Islamic scholar. mutasarrıf—governor of a state’s geographic administrative division (i.e., a mutasarrıfiye). mutasarrıfiye—a geographic administrative division of the state. muvazzafa—an official employed by the state. müderris—a teacher; sometimes with special reference to a religious teacher in traditional and/or religious schools (in contrast with the muallim of secular or state schools). müfettiş—routine inspector. müfti—a Sunni Muslim scholar who interprets Islamic law. mülâzemet rüûsu—a certificate that would enable someone to register for courses at the Darülmuallimin (with the term rüûs translated simply as “certificate”). nahiye—an administrative division below the district (or kaza) level. naib—a deputy judge. nâzır—the director of the Darülfünun, as appointed by imperial order. para—unit of Ottoman currency; 100 para equaled 1 kuruş. piaster—see kuruş. Rumeli Vilâyetleri Nizamnamesi—drafted in 1880 with the approval of European powers, this reform and reorganization act for the Ottoman Empire’s European provinces emerged following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, but was never ratified by Abdülhamid II—thus emerging as a source of contention between the Ottoman state, on the one hand, and Russia and minority ethnonationalities of the Three Provinces of the Balkans, on the other hand, in subsequent years. Rumeli-i Şarkî—Eastern Rumelia. rüşdiye—secondary (or sometimes simply advanced primary) schools in the Ottoman Empire; classes at the rüşdiye followed training at the primary schools (i.e., the ibtidaî) and preceded training at the advanced/postsecondary (or preparatory) schools (i.e., the idadî).

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277

rüûs—a “certificate” (indicating completion of an educational program, a related or substitute examination for such a program, or the equivalency thereof). sanjak—translated as “region,” it is a regional administrative division (above that of the kaza but below that of the vilâyet, or province) within the Ottoman system. sıbyan mektebi (or sometimes written simply as sıbyan)—a primary school; after the 1880s, it was used in reference mostly just to Qur’anic schools (as the ibtidaî became the common reference for modern primary schools). sultan—Ottoman ruler; and, the Sultanate was the office and institution of the Ottoman sultan. sultanî—the lycée, or secondary school, that would ideally come after the idadî, however, very few were actually built and operated. şehâdetnâme—a certificate of qualification. It may refer to one awarded upon successful completion of the entrance (or qualifying) examination for the Darülfünun, one awarded upon successful defense of one’s thesis, or one awarded by a board or council of education to attest to one’s qualifications. Şevval (alternately written as Shawwāl)—the tenth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Şura-yı Devlet—Council of State. Tanzimat—meanings pertain both to the early- to mid-nineteenth century era of reform in the Ottoman Empire and to the specific reforms carried out by the empire (esp. those of 1839 and 1856). tecvit—refers to lessons or classes on how to recite from the Qur’an with proper pronunciation. Tosks—an ethno-linguistic name for southern Albanians. ulema—refers generally to the wider Muslim community of clerics; though more specific usages pertain especially to legal scholars, this book employs the broader usage of the term. usûl-ü cedîd—the “new method/style of teaching” that was advocated by nineteenth and twentieth century reformers. vakıf (alternately written as waqf in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa)—a charitable endowment. vatan—homeland or territory; would later acquire reference to that of a particular state and/or nation.

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vatan-ı hususî—“private homeland/nation”; an expression used by the Ottoman Albanian Şemsettin Sâmi Bey to refer to Albanian as a smaller, or a “private” or more intimate, homeland. vatan-ı umumî—“public homeland/nation”; an expression used by the Ottoman Albanian Şemsettin Sâmi Bey to refer to the Ottoman Empire as a greater, or a “general” or wider, homeland. vilâyet—translated as “province,” it is the largest administrative division within the Ottoman system. zawiya—religious school (comparable to a monastery or convent) of North Africa; may also be a Sufi lodge. Ziraat Bankası—Agriculture Bank.

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NOTES

Chapter 1 No Ottoman Child Left Behind: On Governmentality and Education 1. Map produced by Sarah AcMoody, RS/GIS, Michigan State University. 2. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 229. 3. Earliest among these nineteenth century reforms were those attempted by Sultan Selim III (note, for example, Shaw’s 1971 examination of his reign in his book Between Old and New). 4. There was some contention in the West regarding the degrees to which the Ottomans borrowed Western ideas. According to British author Hyde Clarke’s 1869 report, however, “Leading articles in the Times, and other papers, are calculated to give a false impression as to the law of public instruction in Turkey, which is represented as an entirely new law, resulting from the Sultan’s visit to the west, his having become civilised, and having introduced the English and French system. The present is only an amended law, matured before the Sultan thought of coming here, and introduces very little that is new . . .” (Clarke, “Public Instruction in Turkey, 883). 5. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 9. This sort of delay was something European commentators had grown accustomed to as a point of criticism of the empire. As one anonymous commentator quipped, “It is easy for the Porte to issue edicts; the difficulty is to get them executed” (anonymous, “Recent Reforms in Turkey,” 423). 6. On the impact of not only Western ideas and philosophies but also the very direct involvement of Western actors in Ottoman educational reforms, note the description of French Minister of Education Jean Victor Duruy’s

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7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

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input on nineteenth-century Ottoman policy-making in both Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 86 and Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 15. On challenges to the Ottoman Empire and competition with foreign powers, note Fortna, Imperial Classroom, chapters 2 and 3. Throughout the course of this book, I use the term “ethnonationalism”— rather than attempting to differentiate between specific expressions of ethnicity or nationality—in order to refer to the ethnic, linguistic, and/ or national identities of various peoples and communities living in the late Ottoman era. My choice to do so reflects not only the fact that these identity constructs were complex in their forms and variety, but also the fact that this was a transitional period for those peoples living throughout the empire in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; a period of progression from ethnic to national self-/group-identification, among other processes. Indeed, as one of the prevailing contexts within which this study is situated, most communities of the regions examined were moving along such trajectories from identifying either simply in localized ways or in terms of Ottoman categorizations of millet towards more generalized notions of nationalism, as conveyed in B. Anderson’s Imagined Communities. Moreover, as many of the populations dealt with in this study were not only urban but also rural and variously unaffected by what Anderson described as “print capitalism,” assumptions of national awareness (as demonstrated aptly for contemporary France in Weber’s classic Peasants into Frenchmen) would be quite problematic. The term “ethnonationalism” itself, of course, derives from the works of Walker Connor (e.g., his 1994 book Ethnonationalism). In fact, many non-Muslim communities chose to develop their own systems of education rather than embracing state schools—an option that was available to them through the Ottoman millet system. For example, note Kazamias, “The Education of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1923.” Curtis, The Turk and His Lost Provinces, 153. Clarke, “Public Instruction in Turkey,” 883. Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 194. Though both written as general histories that cover the entire Ottoman period, on the rise of the empire, note the initial chapters of both Barkey’s 2008 comparative study Empire of Difference and Finkel’s 2006 book Osman’s Dream. Each of these sources provides varying coverage on the establishment of the Ottoman Sultanate, as well. On the origins, varied roles, and legacies of the millet system, begin by consulting Braude’s “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” Davison’s “The Millets as Agents of Change in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,”

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NOTES

15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

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and Karpat’s “Millets and Nationality.” Regarding general concepts of autonomy, note Streeter, Weaver, and Coleman’s 2009 edited volume Empires and Autonomy, and see Aksan’s chapter on nineteenth century developments therein titled “Ottoman Military and Social Transformations, 1826–28.” For commentary on this era, in general, and a discussion of the tenuous grip that Ottoman leaders of the time had on those territories beyond Istanbul and Anatolia, see Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Ottoman Empire, 7. On ideologies—as they may pertain to identity and as one might relate the concept to this book, note Eagleton’s 1991 text Ideology as a starting point. On the competition of ideologies in the late Ottoman era, note Part 1 of Zürcher, Turkey. On the context of reformism in the late Ottoman era—and on the specific Tanzimat initiatives as seen in terms of the concept of equality among the empire’s Christian and Muslim populations, see Davison, “Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century.” Regarding initiatives towards mass schooling and universal education in Western Europe—and with some coverage of Asia, see Green’s Education, Globalization, and the Nation State. Pertaining to similar programs in the United States—as compared with those in Europe, note Green’s Education and State Formation. On Japan’s initiatives towards mass education (and state-building) in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Platt, Burning and Building. On links between education and the socio-economic development of states in contemporary European contexts, see the chapter “Education and Development” in Maynes, Schooling in Western Europe, 117–131. On aspects of the Ottoman drive to industrialize and modernize, note Quataert’s books Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution and Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, 1500–1950. On such efforts to promote citizenship, nationalism, and loyalty to the state through education in France, note Harp’s Learning to be Loyal, and earlier works like R.D. Anderson’s Education in France, 1848–1870 and Artz’s The Development of Technical Education in France, 1500–1850. Also, on both Austria and Prussia, see Melton’s Absolutism and the 18th-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria. On education in the Russian Empire, see Dowler, Classroom and Empire. Also, concerning Russia’s approach to administering ethnically and religiously (especially Muslim) populations through constructed knowledge (i.e., through established religious orthodoxies that were based on the Tsarist state), note Crews, For Prophet and Tsar. In the absence of a singular Muslim population, Abdülhamid II attempted to variously foster the imagination of one existing in the empire through the

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25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

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use of education. According to Çetinsaya, he did so in ways that might be seen to have revealed repeatedly “a Muslim state seeking its Muslim nation.” Çetinsaya, “‘Çıban Başı Koparmamak,’” 164. See Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 22, and Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 23–36. See Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and Foucault’s “Governmentality.” Though the two scholars are commonly labeled quite distinctly as Marxist and postmodernist, respectively, Gramsci’s articulation of a theory of cultural hegemony in the Prison Notebooks—particularly its conceptualization of consent—may be viewed (in the view of this book’s author) as a precursor to Foucault’s later lectures on governmentality. Foucault, “Governmentality.” Foucault, “Governmentality,” 245. Dean, Governmentality, 19. Hannah, Governmentality and the Mastery of Territory in Nineteenth-Century America, 24. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 235. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 237–238. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 241. Dean, Governmentality, 19. Dean, Governmentality, 19. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 241. Dean, Governmentality, 74. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 184. Hannah, Governmentality and the Mastery of Territory in Nineteenth-Century America. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 183. This governmental compulsion to monitor and control left an indelible imagery in collective memories of the late Ottoman period. One of the most noted depictions of this experience in the Western imagination appeared in the 1988 British film Pascali’s Island. Though he spent his days observing and reporting on the locals and Western visitors to the Aegean island where he lived in 1908, actor Ben Kingsley’s character Basil Pascali suffered from nightly dreams of following his unanswered letters and memoranda back to Istanbul. Once there, in the Sultan’s immense repository, Pascali would be buried under an avalanche of unopened intelligence reports only to awaken. The film was based upon Barry Unsworth’s 1980 historical novel The Idol Hunter. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 243. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 243.

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44. Abdülhamid II, Abdülhamid’in Hatira Defteri, 20–21. Though often employed in journalistic or popular histories of the Hamidian era, the authenticity of the memoirs is a matter of debate among Ottoman historians, with most viewing the source as fraudulent – albeit having been written in a manner that many feel convey the views and sentiments of the sultan, not unlike an adroit historical fiction. 45. On historical developments involving constitutionalism, note Hanioğlu’s Preparation for a Revolution and The Young Turks in Opposition. 46. Regarding the limited nature of the impacts of the Tanzimat on the Ottoman state and society, note the marginal results in terms of education as discussed in Methodieva and Somel, “Keeping the Bonds,” 143, and the shortcomings in the number of schools opened as contrasted with the number proposed, as observed by Tekeli and İlkin, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Eğitim ve Bilgi Üretim Sisteminin Oluşumu ve Dönüşümü, 64 (cited in Methodieva and Somel, “Keeping the Bonds,” 143). 47. Despite this reference to the Hamidian era as an acknowledgement of Abdülhamid II’s central role in imperial administration, it must be recognized that he was not alone in charting the course of events in this historical era of Ottoman history. Throughout his reign, he was aided by many ministers and other officials. 48. “Authoritarian governmentality” is a term used by Mitchell Dean to differentiate between liberal and authoritarian forms of governmentality, and it suggests the desire to create obedience or at least to “neutralize opposition to authority.” Dean, Governmentality, 131. 49. Dean, Governmentality, 131. 50. Abdülhamid II, Abdülhamid’in Hatıra Defteri, 106. 51. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 258–259. 52. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 304. Mann added that with “nation” Bismarck also implied the “state.” 53. On these figures from France and Germany, see also Mann, The Sources of Social Power. 54. Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 86. 55. For a detailed account of the Ottoman Education Act of 1869 and other legal and administrative aspects of imperial schooling, see Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı. 56. For example, on Russian primary schools and religion, see Dowler, Classroom and Empire, 4. 57. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, 470. 58. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 68–84. Also, recall the observation on policies among the empire’s Muslim populations by Çetinsaya, “‘Çıban Başı Koparmamak,’” noted in the above footnotes.

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59. The two sources contributing the most to our collective understanding of education in the late Ottoman era thus far have been Somel’s 2001 book The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire and Fortna’s 2002 book Imperial Classroom. Somel’s study is an intricately detailed institutional history of Ottoman education that provides a solid basis for understanding the state, its emerging educational apparatus, and its administrative reach into the peripheries. Fortna’s research is an examination of Ottoman education that is both comprehensible and guided wonderfully by readings of and applications to the topic of critical theory. The result is a study that engages with both the global and internal politics of imperial schooling. Though not dealing exclusively with the topic of education in their scholarship, the works of Deringil (The Well-Protected Domains), Blumi (Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire), and Çetinsaya (Ottoman Administration of Iraq) also integrate matters of schooling into their research. 60. On the politics of pluralism in the Ottoman Empire, see Barkey, Empire of Difference. For specific questions associated with pluralism—both ethnonational and religious—and administration (especially concerning the millet system), note many of the chapters included in the two-volume Braude and Lewis edited collection Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. 61. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, 470. 62. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, 470. 63. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, 473. 64. As with the School for Tribes (or Aşiret Mektebi), as described in both Akpınar’s book Osmanlı Devleti’nde Aşiret Mektebi and Rogan’s article “Aşiret Mektebi.” 65. For example, as conveyed by the rabidly anti-Turkish Reverend W. Wright— and as validated by his own assertions of “my own experience as a witness of Turkish misrule.” Wright, “Turkish Law and Turkish Misrule,” 758. 66. Koloğlu, Abdülhamіd Gerçeği, 401. 67. Koloğlu, Abdülhamіd Gerçeği, 404. 68. Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, Including Lebanon and Palestine, 151. 69. See Kodaman, Abülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 117. Also note Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 108. 70. Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, Including Lebanon and Palestine. 71. For example, note Lewis’ book The Turkish Language Reform. 72. On these complexities of both Albanian politics and ethnonationalism, see Blumi, Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire. 73. This dictionary is still the standard Ottoman-to-Ottoman research text kept in-hand by most Ottoman historians today.

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74. Ergin, Türkiye Maarif Tarihi, volumes 3 and 4, 874. 75. Koloğlu, Abdülhamіd Gerçeği, 408. 76. On the caliphate and Ottoman relations with Western powers, see Evered’s MA thesis. See also: Evered and Evered, “Decolonization through Secularization.” 77. Cited in Koloğlu, Abdülhamіd Gerçeği, 271. 78. After initial confusion about its calculation, it was arranged in 1887 as follows: the 10 percent annual tithe would be increased to 11.5 percent, of which 10 percent was the standard amount of tithe assigned for the state budget; 1 percent was assigned for local public works funds (menafi hissesi) and the remaining 0.5 percent was for the educational fund. The tax amount for noncultivators was 5 percent, based on the value of their property. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-і Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı pp. 237–39; Kodaman, Abdülhamіd Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition) 244–245; and, Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 146. 79. “Students, Aşiret school,” LOT 9530, no. 6, Abdul Hamid II photo collection. 80. “Map of Ottoman Turkey in Europe, with the Ionian Islands;” Thomas, 1850.

Chapter 2 Fact-finding Missions, Schools, and Public Relations in the Governance of Ottoman Albania 1. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 24–25. 2. Not to be confused with the newly-composed administrative unit know as the the Three Provinces of Rumelia (or Elviye-yi Selâse) —or simply the Three Provinces (i.e., Salonica, Kosovo, and Monastir). 3. Vickers, The Albanians, 26. 4. Salname-i Vilâyet-i Kosovo: Altıncı Def’a. 5. Vickers, The Albanians, 26. 6. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 26. 7. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 100. 8. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 100. 9. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 100. 10. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 166–167. 11. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20. Though Cevdet Paşa considered it inappropriate to indicate the elderly man’s exact age, he did so in his report. 12. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 185. 13. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 184.

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14. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening. 15. This specification of fifty households or more was one that the sultan would again elect to apply in November 1902 when he issued his own list of reform proposals in an effort to avoid any imposition of foreign reform initiatives. Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 107. 16. Clarke, “Public Instruction in Turkey,” 883. 17. In the view of some anti-Turkish commentators in the West, the tenuous alliance with the Ottomans that resulted amid Eastern Question crisis management and discussion of reforms resulted in the marginalization of the empire’s Christian minorities. As one author wrote, for example, “The intention was simply to support Turkey against Russia, but in supporting the Turkish Government it became necessary, as the price of such support, to disregard the misgovernment of the Christian races. Pears, “A Programme of Reforms for Turkey,” 1020. 18. For contemporary perspectives on this question of European influence following the Crimean War, reform within the empire, and the role of England, note Blennerhasset’s 1877 essay, “The Reform of the Ottoman Empire,” in which he conveys the paternalistic views that many European powers then had of the empire; “The history, however, of all reforms in the Ottoman Empire proves the inability of the Porte to carry them through; and it is, to some extent at least, necessary that the Turkish government should be both coerced and assisted from without” (236). 19. For its part, Russia has commonly been characterized as opposing local autonomous regions/states, fearing “the repetition of a Rumelian-type situation and a possible attachment of the three vilayets to Bulgaria, which refused to submit to Russian influence” (Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 88). 20. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 33. 21. Gawrych, The Crescent and the Eagle, 41. 22. Gawrych, The Crescent and the Eagle, 41–On these matters of educational politics in Ottoman Albania as viewed in terms of Albanian political actors, see Blumi’s chapter “Defying the State and Defining the State: Local Politics in Educational Reform in the Vilayets of Manastir and Yanya, 1878–1912” in Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire. For perspectives on what the educational politics of this period meant with respect to the longer term trajectories of Albanian national identity, see Kostovicova, Kosovo, 29–37. 23. On matters of remembrance of the Prizren League in Albania, note Kostovicova, Kosovo, 139–142. 24. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 38. 25. Fore example, as articulated in anonymous. “Reuters Telegrams: Turkey.” The Pall Mall Gazette, Issue 4572 (17 October 1879): 6. 26. Yasamee, Ottoman Diplomacy, 26–27.

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NOTES 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

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Vickers, The Albanians, 33. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 89–90. Vickers, The Albanians, 34. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 96. This matter of preserving the sultan’s image as a supportive Muslim leader in Ottoman Albania may have also been connected with trepidation over the possibility of conversions. As retold in Deringil’s history, by the late 1880s and 1890s, declarations of conversions to Christianity in Albania became a matter of significant concern for the state. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 81. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 97. From some European perspectives, the southern Albanians also seemed amenable to rule by Greece—creating the impression that they were somewhat politically indifferent in contrast with northern Albanians. See, for example, anonymous, “The Greek Frontier” (special from Daily Telegram), North Wales Chronicle, Issue 2767 (26 June 1880): 5. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 106. On this shift from “political-military” to ethnonational resistance, note Kostovicova, Kosovo, 31–37. Sami Bey Frascheri, Was war Albanien, was ist es, was wird es werden?, quoted in Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 129. Logoreci, The Albanians, 36. While the Catholic clergy of Albania may have been viewed as a potential threat to Ottoman sovereignty in the region (recalling Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tezâkir 13–20, 184), it was interesting to note that they were also eager to convey their regard for and allegiance to the sultan, nonetheless; as recalled through the 1894 request made by the Archbishop of Üsküp to display the Hamidian tuğra upon his residence (as related in Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 33–34). Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 130. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 131. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 133. It is also interesting to note that Italy has also been characterized as not only an imperial-educational rival of Austria-Hungary but also of France—especially for influence in Salonica, where “its laic schools were in direct competition with the French ones” (Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 92). Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 131. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 119.

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45. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 133. 46. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 135. 47. BOA Irade Maarif 1310 M 12, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, Mektubi Kalemi, Numro 68, 4 Muharrem 1310 (29 July 1892). 48. BOA Irade Maarif 1310 M 12, Meclis-i Mahsus, 1 Zilhicce 1309 (27 June 1892). 49. BOA Irade Maarif 1310 M 12, Daire-yi Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun, 11 Muharrem 1310 (5 August 1892). 50. BOA Irade Maarif 1313 B 5, Sura-yi Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi 2701, 22 Cumadelahir 1313 (10 December 1895). 51. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 148–149. 52. For a history and function of this administrative court during the nineteenth century, see Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2. 53. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Şura-yi Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi 357, 4 Zilkade 1311 (9 May 1894). 54. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Şura-yi Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi 357, 4 Zilkade 1311 (9 May 1894). 55. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Şura-yi Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi 357, 4 Zilkade 1311 (9 May 1894). 56. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2, 231. 57. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Şura-yi Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi 357, 4 Zilkade 1311 (9 May 1894). The decision of the special commission of ministers is recorded at the bottom of Sura-yi Devlet report and has the date of their decision 25 Zilhicce 1311 (29 June 1894). The Minister of Education and Minister of Commerce and Public works were also present at the meeting as they signed the paper. 58. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Daire-yi Sadaret # 2720, 25 Zilkade 1311 (31 May 1894). 59. BOA IM 1311 Za 27, Şura-yı Devlet Dahiliye Dairesi # 357, 4 Zilkade 1311 (10 May 1894). 60. BOA IM 1312 Z4, Nezaret-і Maarif-і Umumî, Umumî # 6631, 30 Şevval 1312 (26 April 1895). 61. BOA IM 1312 Z4, Nezaret-і Maarif-і Umumî, Umumî # 6631, 30 Şevval 1312 (26 April 1895). 62. BOA IM 1310 C 2, Daire-yi Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun #1498, 30 Cemaziyelevvel 1310 (20 December 1892). 63. BOA IM 1323 S 12, Nezaret-і Maarif-і Umumî, Umumî #68220, Hususî #389, 30 Zilhicce 1322 (7 March 1905).

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64. Somel, “Ottoman Islamic Education in the Balkans in the Nineteenth Century,” 450. 65. Similar commissions were also sent to other areas of the empire where loyalty to the state and its Sultan became questionable. In Arabic-speaking territories of the empire, commissions were organized in a similar fashion (chosen candidates from higher administrative offices and Şeyhulislam’s office) to advise Muslims not to send their children to Christian schools. Eraslan, 250. 66. BOA IM 1318 SH 22 (Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükelâ # 2272) 27 Receb, 318 (20 November 1900). 67. This theological curriculum was described in the Ottoman as ulum-u diniyye ve esasiyelerinin talimi. 68. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Daire-yi Meşihat-ı İslamiye, Bab-ı Fetva # 178, 25 Receb 1318 (18 November 1900). 69. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Umumî # 38082, Hususî # 175, 22 Receb 1318 (15 November 1900). 70. Education Department appointed Abdullatif Efendi to Yanya and İşkodra, Hüseyin Şükrü Efendi to Salonica and Edirne, and Ahmed Vasfi to Kosova and Monaster. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Umumî # 38082, Hususî # 175, 22 Receb 318 (15 November 1900). 71. Ministry of Internal Affairs appointed Faik Bey to Salonica and Edirne; Kazim Efendi to Kosova and Monaster; Hakkı Efendi to Yanya and İşkodra. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3852, 26 Receb 1318 (19 November 1900). 72. Şeyhulislam’s office appointed Avni Efendi (previously a substitute judge/regent (naib) to Monaster) to Monaster and Kosova; Gorice Fehmi Efendi (previously a substitute judge) to Yanya and İşkodra; and, Şerif Efendi (currently substitute judge to Siroz) to Edirne and Salonica. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Daire-yi Meşihat-ı İslamiye, Bab-ı Fetva # 178, 25 Receb 1318 (18 November 1900). 73. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Daire-yi Meşihat-ı Islamiye, Bab-ı Fetva # 178, 25 Receb 1318 (18 November 1900). 74. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliyye, Mektubi Kalemi # 3852, 26 Receb 1318 (19 November 1900). 75. BOA IM 1318 SH 22, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükelâ # 2272, 27 Receb 1318 (20 November 1900). 76. BOA IM 1319 B 7, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Umumî # 42595, Hususî # 120, 28 Cemaziyelevvel 319 (12 September 1901). 77. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector-General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia Hüseyin Hilmi’s Report to the Grand Vizier, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 78. “High school, Yanya,” LOT 9525, no. 26, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

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Chapter 3 A Geopolitics of Statistics, Reform, and Education in Ottoman Macedonia and the Balkans 1. The quotation from 1903 derives from a self-described “nondiplomat” who was in anonymous, La Question des Réformes dans la Turquie d’Europe, 59; quoted in (and translated from) Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, 155. 2. The 1895 quotation from the second epigraph to this chapter was written by the correspondent and regional expert Emile Joseph Dillon in “Macedonia and the Macedonians,” 317. Partially quoted in Langer’s The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1912, 312. 3. In this case of territorial acquisition, we might also note Austro-Hungary’s de facto acquisition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was formalized afterwards in 1908. 4. Rossos, Macedonia and the Macedonians, 96–97. 5. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, especially Chapter 10 “Census, Map, Museum,” 163–186. On the politics of population and demography in authoritarian states, note Ipsen, Dictating Demography. Also, on the increasing use of statistics and a discourse of “facts,” see Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact. 6. Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 87. 7. On dimensions of Soviet nationalities policies, note Suny and Martin’s edited book A State of Nations, Martin’s The Affirmative Action Empire, and Kaiser’s The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR. 8. Note, for example, the material presented in Christopher’s 1994 book The Atlas of Apartheid. 9. On China’s minority nationalities and the state’s policies, note such studies as Harrell’s edited book Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers, Rudelson’s Oasis Identities, or Gladney’s Ethnic Identity in China. 10. Said, Orientalism, 72. 11. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 200. 12. Note, for example, both Michailidis’ “The War of Statistics” and Yosmaoğlu’s “Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls.” 13. Miller, “The Macedonian Claimants,” 470. 14. For examples of alternative figures presented on the populations of Ottoman Macedonia, see the second chapter “Peoples and Populations” of Anastasovski’s 2005 Ph.D. dissertation “Contestations over Macedonian Identity, 1870–1912.” 15. For a longer discussion of the empire’s educational agenda and its secular versus religious component, see Fortna, “Islamic Morality in Late Ottoman ‘Secular’ Schools.”

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16. These demographic figures for Macedonia derived from Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s surveys and were provided as such in Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, 148. Karal continued by noting—as observed by other sources cited above—that all parties had their own mutually-incompatible statistics (Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, 149). 17. On Ottoman population statistics for the period, figures for the entire empire in 1906 and 1907 are listed at 20,884,630 people in Karpat, Ottoman Population, 169. 18. Smith, Fighting the Turk in the Balkans, 3–6. 19. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 201. 20. Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 203. 21. Again, recall Smith’s unabashedly anti-Turkish/-Muslim volume Fighting the Turk in the Balkans. 22. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, 311–312. In his study, Langer cited, on the Serbian claims: Haumant, La Formation de la Yougoslavie, 443; Miller, Travels and Politics in the Near East, 379; and, Georgevitch, Macedonia, 175. On the Greeks’ declared numbers of schools, he cited Nicolaides, La Macédoine, 138 ff. Finally, on the Romanian claims, he cited: Weigand, Die Aromunen; de Stefani, “La Lotta dei Popoli nella Peninsola Balcanica,” 307; and, Bérard, La Turquie et l’Hellénisme Contemporain, 255. 23. Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, 150. 24. Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, 150. 25. Pears, “Macedonia and the Neutralisation of Constantinople,” 166. 26. Pears, “Macedonia and the Neutralisation of Constantinople,” 158. 27. See Dillon’s articles “Macedonia and the Macedonians” and “The Reign of Terror in Macedonia.” 28. Dillon, “Macedonia and the Macedonians,” 308. 29. Dillon, “Macedonia and the Macedonians,” 325. 30. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2, 209. 31. As noted even in contemporary histories of the day, such as Ward, Prothero, and Leathes, The Cambridge Modern History, 425. 32. For example, as depicted in Upward’s 1908 book The East End of Europe, 35. 33. Anonymous, “Why the Sultan Caved In,” 8. 34. Anonymous, “Why the Sultan Caved In,” 8. 35. For additional biographical material on Hilmi Paşa, see Inal’s Osmanlı Devrinde Son Sadrazamlar, especially material on pages 1654–1703. 36. Cited from French archival sources in Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 116. 37. In many Turkish academic works—and in this book, it is common practice to refer to the census as the “census of 1905.” Yosmaoğlu, in her article

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38. 39. 40.

41.

42.

43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

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“Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls,” referred to it as the “census of 1903”— though she noted that it might be known more appropriately as the “census of 1903–1907”—indicating when it was completed. Additionally, in his popular history book Salonica, City of Ghosts, Mazower identified it as the “census of 1904.” McCarthy, Population History of the Middle East and the Balkans, 118 and 136; as observed and cited in Yosmaoğlu, “Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls,” 74 ff. 10. Again, note Michailidis’ ‘The War of Statistics.’ With the exception of the earlier works that this chapter derived from; a chapter in Evered’s 2005 dissertation “The Politics of Late Ottoman Education” and Evered’s 2007 article “An Educational Prescription for the Sultan.” Discovered in my research in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, or Prime Minister’s Archive, of Istanbul BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). For greater detail on the dynamics of this confrontation between local groups, European powers (esp. Austria and Russia), and the Ottoman state over internal (i.e., Ottoman-led) reforms or those mandated externally, see Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2, 207–211. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). As indicated above, in Chapter 1, under a description of the education contribution tax. Though not dated, based on the accompanying letter that he submitted, it might reasonably be assumed to be from 1903. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). BOA IM, 1320 Za 17. Attached to Hilmi Pașa’s letter; letter dated 19 Şevval 1320 (15 February 1903). See, for instance, BOA IM 1312 Z 6; BOA IM 1313 L 2; IM 1320 Za 5. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). BOA IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun #2991, 20 Zilkade 1312/May 15, 1895. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903).

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53. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 54. See, for example, BOA IM 1310 M 4; BOA IM 1310 M 12; BOA IM 1310 Ş 23; BOA IM 1310 M 9; BOA IM 1311 Za 27; BOA IM 1312 Z 4 has illustrations of the pleas coming from the Balkans and Arabic-speaking territories of the empire as they described their conditions as “desperate” and referred to the Sultan’s duty to provide educational opportunities for his citizens in need. 55. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 56. Blumi, “Teaching Loyalty in the Late Ottoman Balkans,” 18. 57. BOA IM 1311 Za 27. 58. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 59. In some sources, there does appear speculation regarding Hilmi Paşa’s loyalties—if not to the Sultan or the reform project, then at least with regards to particular groups in the region. Yosmaoğlu, for example, noted that he was suspected by the French mission of favoring Patriarchists (“Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls,” 76 ff. 45). 60. For a sample of village ibtidaî curricula, see Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 297–299. 61. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 62. In the later (and significantly shortened) third edition of his Abdülhamіd Devri Eğitim Sistemi, Kodaman argued that this decision was never realized, with a few exceptions; see Kodaman, Abdülhamіd Devri Eğitim Sistemi, 3rd ed. 155–56. It is not clear from the document if those medrese graduates had any teacher training because they were not referred to as graduates of Medrese-i Muallimin. 63. Blumi, “Teaching Loyalty in the Late Ottoman Balkans,” 16. 64. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 65. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 66. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 67. Blumi, “Teaching Loyalty in the Late Ottoman Balkans,” 19. 68. See the first edition of Kodaman’s Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi, p. 236. It is interesting that Hilmi Paşa attempted to surmount this hindrance by spreading those darülmuallimin beyond the center of the vilâyets and into the sanjaks and kazas.

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69. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 70. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa’s Report, 19 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 71. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Telegram from Inspector General to Imperial Vilâyets of Rumelia, Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa, #42456, 5 Kanun-ı Sāni 1318 [only the Rumi date was listed] (18 January 1903). 72. Reference to Hilmi Paşa’s later activities pertain to his appearance before a meeting of parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies in January 1909, several months after the July 1908 revolution, to answer questions regarding the Ottoman Balkans; as detailed in Sencer, “Balkan Nationalism in the Ottoman Parliament.” 73. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 74. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 75. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 76. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 77. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 78. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 79. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51997, Hususî #258, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 80. The Sultan’s letter was dated 9 Kanun-ı Sâni 1318 (21 January 1903) and #3070. It was referred to in Celâl Paşa’s second letter detailing his ministry’s plans. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 81. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 82. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 83. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 84. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903). 85. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Umumî #51991, Hususî #256, 28 Şevval 1320 (27 January 1903).

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86. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun #2236, 17 Zilkade 1320 (15 February 1903). 87. The Sultan’s approval appeared on the letter submitted to him by his Grand Vizier. BOA IM Za 17 1320, Daire- i Sadaret, Amedi- i Divan-ı Hümayun #2236, 17 Zilkade 1320 (15 February 1903). 88. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, 15. 89. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 157. 90. “Hilmi Pacha,” Call no. LC-B2- 1377–7, George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress. 91. “Students, imperial military middle school, Monastir,” LOT 9527, no. 21, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

Chapter 4 Reforming Ottoman Syria: Missionary Rivals, the Traveling Ulema, and the Damascus Medical School 1. BOA YEE: 18/1867/93/39 (March1878), from Damascus to the Palace. Cited in Akarlı, “Abdülhamid II’s Attempt to Integrate Arabs into the Ottoman System,” 75. 2. Provence, The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism, 5. 3. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus,” 33–34. 4. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 20. 5. Zachs, The Making of a Syrian Identity, 99. 6. There were also three autonomous mutasarrıfyas (separate governate) of Jerusalem, Mount Lebanon, and Deyr-і Zor. 7. For a full examination of various local councils, see Davison, “The Advent of the Principle of Representation in the Government of the Ottoman Empire,” 93–108. 8. Maoz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 97. 9. Kodaman, Abülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), Although the Education Act required the incorporation of Muslim and non-Muslim community representatives, sometimes this rule was not followed. In Syria, until the end of 1880s non-Muslims were not represented at the educational council. This changed in 1887 when a native non-Muslim school refused government inspectors in complaining that they were not represented at the local council. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 102–103. 10. Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism, 29. 11. Deguilhem, “State Civil Education in Late Ottoman Damascus: A Unifying or a Separating Force?,” 232–237. 12. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 97–98.

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13. Though the expression “traveling ulema” (also spelled as “ulama”) has been employed by many scholars to refer simply to educated Muslim travelers, the term as a specific reference to traveling teachers working within the Ottoman Empire was coined as such in Fortna’s Imperial Classroom. 14. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, 14. 15. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 322–323. 16. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 326–331. 17. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 331–338. 18. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, 123. 19. Spagnolo, “French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I: The Functional Weakness of Imperialism,” 49. 20. Deringil, “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire,”13. 21. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 348. 22. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 348; Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon. 23. Spagnolo, “French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I: The Functional Weakness of Imperialism,” 58. 24. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 353–354. 25. Scholz, “Foreign Education and Indigenous Reaction in Late Ottoman Lebanon,” 34. 26. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 355–356. 27. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 357–358. 28. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 358–359; Spagnolo, “French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I,” 49, 59. 29. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860–1909,” 360–361. 30. Again, note Fortna’s Imperial Classroom. 31. BOA IM 1310 Ş 3, Şura-yı Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi # 2657, 22 Receb 1310 (9 February 1893). The background of the traveling ulema was discussed in an 1893-meeting when there was a quest to pay the cost of 16 schools built in Syria without an imperial order. 32. BOA IM 1310 Ş 3, Şura-yı Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi # 2657, 22 Receb 1310 (9 February 1893). 33. BOA IM 1310 Ş 3, Şura-yı Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi # 2657, 22 Receb 1310 (9 February 1893). 34. See the chapter on Baghdad for Ottoman efforts to create a traveling ulema in Iraq. See also, Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, especially chapter 5.

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35. Deringil, “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire,” 16. 36. BOA IM 1310 Ş 23, Suriye Vilâyeti Mektubî Kalemi # 19, 6 Muharrem 1310 (31 July 1892). 37. BOA IM 1310 Ş 23, Suriye Vilâyeti Mektubî Kalemi # 19, 6 Muharrem 1310 (31 July 1892). 38. Cite Zuhdu Pasa budget document/appendix 39. BOA IM 1310 M 4, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 89, 27 Muharrem 1310 (21 August 1892). 40. BOA IM 1310 Ş Telegram # 11443, Governor of Syria to the Grand Vizier, 17 Şubat 1310 (12 March 1893). 41. BOA IM 1310 Ş Daire-yi Sadaret, Amedi-і Divan-ı Hümayun # 2239, 20 Şaban 1310 (20 March 1893). 42. The governors were appointed by the state but their success depended on how much of the state resources they could attract to the area they were governing. To obtain support from the locals, they were in close contact with local notability. Rogan, Frontiers of the State, Perhaps, that was the driving force for the governor of Syria’s insistence on the reappointment of the traveling ulema. For an examination of Ottoman administrative policies in Syria, see Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 30–43. 43. In 1887 governor Râşid Nâşid Paşa sent a letter to Istanbul expressing his concern on funding for education. He complained that sending Syria’s education tax money to Istanbul prevented developing state schools to counter foreign missionary efforts. Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 58. 44. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 123, footnote 113. 45. BOA IM 1310 Ş 3, Şura-yı Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi # 2657, 22 Receb 1310 (9 February 1893). 46. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye # 17, 22 Şevval 1311 (28 April 1894). In 1894–5 there were 291 primary schools in Syria; 232 were traditional, 59 new-style schools. They served a total of 8,164 students of which 6,637 were boys and 1,527 were girls. The number of primary schools established since the coming of Abdülhamid II to the throne in 1876 was The source provides no information about their breakdown as traditional or new-style schools. Alkan, Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Modernleşme Sürecinde Eğitim İstatistikleri, 93–5. 47. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye # 17, 22 Şevval 1311 (28 April 1894).

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48. Recent studies examine such references to the peripheries of the Ottoman Empire as “uncivilized” as a colonial agenda of the Ottoman state. By depicting the communities as ‘barbaric,’ the Ottoman state was establishing itself as a civilizational force. See for instance, both Deringil’s “‘They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery’” and Makdisi’s “Ottoman Orientalism”. 49. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye # 17, 22 Şevval 1311 (28 April 1894). 50. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye # 17, 22 Şevval 1311 (28 April 1894). 51. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükela # 2953, 23 Zilhicce1311 (27 June 1894). 52. BOA IM 1312 M 3, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 2953, Sultan’s endorsement at the bottom of the page. 12 Muharrem 1312 (15 July 1894). 53. BOA IM 1315 R 4, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükelâ, 29 Receb 1314 (3 January 1897). 54. Platt, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 107. 55. Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 151. 56. Fortna, “Education for the Empire,” 78. 57. Fortna, “Education for the Empire,” 78. 58. BOA IM 1319 B 30, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükelâ, 19 Cemaziyelahir 1319 (2 October 1901). 59. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 93–111. 60. İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, 31–2. 61. İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, 33–4. 62. National Archives, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Turkey, Vol. 112, #2 February 1903. 63. National Archives, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Turkey, Vol. 112, #6 February 1903. 64. National Archives, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Turkey, Vol. 112, #24 February 1903. 65. National Archives, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Turkey, Vol. 112, #25 February 1903. 66. BOA IM 1321 M 18, Nezaret-і Maarif-і Umumiye, Umumî # 53308, 2 Muharrem 1321 (3 March 1903). 67. BOA IM 1321 M 18, Nezaret-і Maarif-і Umumiye, Umumî # 53308, 2 Muharrem 1321 (3 March 1903). 68. The military schools were not under the control of the Ministry of Education. They were kept separate from the rest of the schools and controlled by its

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69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

81.

82.

83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

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own ministry, the Ministry of Military Schools. Their education was specialized and most secular than any other schools in the empire. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, 62–63. BOA IM 1321 M 18, The Report of Ministry of Education’s Special Commission, 29 Zilhicce 1320 (29 March 1903). Kaadan, “The Ottoman Medical School of Damascus and its Effect on Medicine Teaching in Syria,” 27. BOA IM 1321 M 18, The Report of Ministry of Education’s Special Commission, 29 Zilhicce 1320 (29 March 1903). BOA IM 1321 M 18, The Report of Ministry of Education’s Special Commission, 29 Zilhicce 1320 (29 March 1903). İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, p. 38, note 69. BOA IM 1321 M 18, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükela #101, 2 Muharrem 1321/ March 31, 1903. BOA IM 1321 M 18, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 101, 18 Muharrem 1321 (16 April 1903). Kahya and Erdemir, Bilimin Işığında Osmanlıdan Cumhuriyete Tıp ve Sağlık Kurumları, 261. İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, 39. İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, 39–41. İhsanoğlu, Suriye’de Modern Osmanlı Sağlık Müesseseleri, 49. BOA IM 1325 Ca 4, Mekâtib-i Askeriye-i Şâhâne Nezareti, Mekâtib-i Tıbbiye-i Şâhâne, Tahrirat Kalemi #2, 23 Rebiulevvel 1325 (26 April 1907). BOA IM 1325 Ca 4, Mekâtib-i Askeriye-i Şâhâne Nezareti, Mekâtib-i Tıbbiye-i Şâhâne, Tahrirat Kalemi #2, 23 Rebiulevvel 1325 (26 April 1907). BOA IM 1325 Ca 4, Mekâtib-i Askeriye-i Şâhâne Nezareti, Mekatib-i Tıbbiye-i Şâhâne, Tahrirat Kalemi #2, 23 Rebiulevvel 1325 (26 April 1907). BOA IM 1325 Ca 4, Meclis-i Mahusus-u Vükelâ # 1166, 2 Cemaziyelahir 1325 (13 July 1907). al-Khayat, “The Ottoman Medical Terminology.” al-Kateb, “Review of the history of the teaching of medicine in Arabic,” 600–601. Ronen Raz, The Sultan Abd al-Hamid II in Arab Historiography, 1914– 1991,” Dünü ve Bugünüyle Toplum ve Ekonomi 5 (September 1993): 69–87. “Imperial military middle school Beirut Mekteb-i Rüşdiye-i Askeriye,” LOT 9512, no. 24, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

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Chapter 5 Aleppo’s “Unfit” Teacher: Gender Politics and Resistance to Rival Empires 1. Sultan Abdülhamid II’s comment on foreign schools in the Ottoman Empire. BOA İrade Dahiliye Yıldız Palace Imperial Secretariat # 6975, 27 Şevval 1309 (25 May 1892). Quoted in Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 114. 2. For a critique of colonialism and education, see: Kelly, French Colonial Education. Kelly argues that colonial authorities undermined indigenous educational systems to create a loyal elite rather than bringing “French metropolitan education” to colonized communities, 110. 3. For an excellent analysis of those three competing camps, Scholz, “Foreign Education and Indigenous Reaction.” 4. Gemie, Women and Schooling in France, 49. 5. Kıskıra, “‘Evangelising’ the Orient.” 6. Simon, “Jewish Female Education in the Ottoman Empire.” 7. Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 88. 8. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, Articles 143–152, 397–399. 9. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilat ve İcraatı, Articles 145, 146, & 147, 397–398. 10. Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 92–93. 11. Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 94. 12. BOA IM 1326 B 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi (no number listed), 23 Receb 1326 (21 August 1908). 13. Mahmud Cevad ibn el-Şeyh Nâfi, Maarif-i Umumiye Nezaretі Tarihçe- і Te şkilat ve İcraatı. XIX. Asır Maarif Tarihi, Article #129, 493. 14. Koçer, Türkiye’de Modern Eğitimin Doğuşu ve Gelişimi, 158; Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 96. 15. Fortna,”Education for the Empire,” 79–82. 16. BOA IM 1310 C 15, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 188 (From the Minister of Education Zühdü Paşa to the Grand Vizier) 22 Cemaziyelevvel, 1310 (12 December 1892). 17. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 105. 18. BOA IM 1310 C 15, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 188 (From the Minister of Education Zühdü Paşa to the Grand Vizier) 22 Cemaziyelevvel, 1310 (12 December 1892). 19. Such annals, called Salname-i Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, were published in Istanbul. There are five of them available for Hijri years of 1316, 1317, 1318, 1319, and 1321.

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20. BOA IM 1310 C 15, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 188 (From the Minister of Education Zühdü Paşa to the Grand Vizier) 22 Cemaziyelevvel, 1310 (12 December 1892). 21. For the education-specific offices and their development in Hamidian era, see Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (1980 edition), 59. For an overall administrative structure during the Hamidian era, see Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 221. Findley’s chapter on the Hamidian era examines the changes in the administrative organization of the Ottoman Empire. 22. BOA IM 1310 C 15, Meclis-i Mahsus # 1623, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1310 (4 January 1893). 23. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 211, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1311 (25 December 1893). 24. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 211, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1311 (25 December 1893). 25. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 211, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1311 (25 December 1893). 26. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi #4473, 10 Ramadan 1312. 27. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiyye, Official Report from the Governing Council of Aleppo, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1312 (14 December 1894). 28. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi, A copy of the Ministry of Education’s letter was included in Minister of Foreign Affair’s 10 Ramadan 1312 letter to the office of the Grand Vizier. 29. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi 4472, 10 Ramadan 1312. 30. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 211, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1311 (25 December 1893). 31. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 211, 16 Cemaziyelahir 1311 (25 December 1893). 32. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükelâ 3203, 24 Zilkade 1312 (19 May 1895). 33. BOA IM 1312 Z 6, 5 Z 1312 Grand Vizier’s letter for Sultan’s approval. 24 Zilkade 1312 (19 May 1895). 34. Çetin, “Maarif Nazırı Ahmed Zühdü Paşa’nın Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’ndaki Yabancı Okullar Hakkında Raporu,” 202. 35. This sort of resistance by local councils occurred in other countries, as well. Similar cases were evident in early nineteenth-century France when local notables serving on councils used their own moral guidelines to deny appointments of teachers thought to have a “bad reputation.” See Gemie, “What is A School?” 36. Barr, The Unchanging East, vol. II, 191.

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37. Barr, The Unchanging East, vol. II, 193. 38. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2, 216. 39. IM 1312 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, Mektubî Kalemi # 229, 28 Şaban 1312. 40. IM 1312 Za 5, Special Inspecton Committee’s Cover Letter for their Report to the Ministry of Education. Attached to the Ministry of Education’s Letter to the Grand Vizier. Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, Mektubî Kalemi # 28 Şaban 1312. 41. Unfortunately the list of those forbidden books was not among the documents in this folder. 42. In recent decades scholars started examining the connection between geography, map making, and imperialism. For an excellent analysis, see Godlewska, “Napoleon’s Geographers.” 43. IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-yi Sadaret, , Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun. There is no date or number listed. The List of changes made by the special committee was submitted to the Ministry of Education’s Letter to the Grand Vizier’s office. From there it was sent to the Council of the Ministers. The document is a copy of what the Grand Vizier’s office received. 44. IM 1312 Za 5, Meclis-i Mahus # 2991, 6 Zilkade 1312. 45. IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 2991, 6 Zilkade 1312 (1 May 1895). 46. IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 2991, 20 Zilkade 1312 (15 May 1895). 47. IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 6 Zilkade 1312 (1 May 1895). This cover letter of the Grand Vizier to submit the decision of the state to the Sultan received a lengthy response from the Sultan (dated 20 Zilkade 1312 (15 May 1895). He dictated to his scribe the reasons why the Grand Vizier should be more careful about protecting the empire by reminding that a small problem, if left unchecked, could cause a major disease that could no longer be cured. 48. IM 1312 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 2991, 20 Zilkade 1312 (15 May 1895). 49. The application of law created resentment among the missionaries operating in the empire. James L. Barton mentions that the printing press they set up in Harput closed and there was much scrutiny over the missionary print houses operating in Beirut and Istanbul. He further complains about the strict regulations in transmitting those books by mail. Barton, Daybreak in Turkey, 201–203. 50. “High school, Aleppo,” LOT 9525, no. 3, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

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Chapter 6 Educational Politics in the Iraqi Provinces of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

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Longrigg, Iraq, p. 1–3. Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 4–7. Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 24–25. Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, “The Transformation of Land Tenure and Rural Social Structure in Central and Southern Iraq,” 493. Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq, 306. Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. 8, 212. Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 10. Tripp, A History of Iraq, 15. Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, p. 13. Litvak, “Continuity and Change in the Ulama Population of Najaf and Karbala,” 59–60. Tripp, A History of Iraq. Çetinsaya, “The Caliph and the Mujtahids,” 561. Tripp, A History of Iraq, 12. Gokhan Çetinsaya argues that Abdülhamid II’s preoccupation with the Great Powers of his time was the main reason for neglecting Iraq. Çetinsaya, “The Ottoman View of British Presence in Iraq and the Gulf.” Nakash, “The Conversion of Iraq’s Tribes to Shiism,” 449. Nakash, “The Conversion of Iraq’s Tribes to Shiism,” 449–451. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 200. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 200. Kia, “Pan-Islamism in Late Nineteenth-Century Iran,” 34. Kia, “Pan-Islamism in Late Nineteenth-Century Iran,” 48. Deringil, “The Struggle against Shiism in Iraq,” 53–54; Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 63. Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 63–65. Somel, Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 227; Deringil, “The Struggle against Shiism in Iraq,” 58–59; Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 200–201. Yılmaz, Belgelerle Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid Han, 140. Nakash, “The Conversion of Iraq’s Tribes to Shiism,” 454. BOA IM 1310 IM 1310 Ş 3, Şura-yı Devlet Dahiliye Dairesi # 2657, 22 Receb 1310 (9 February 1893). Deringil, “The Struggle against Shiism in Iraq,” 55. Document is cited in Yılmaz, Belgelerle Sultan İkinci Abdülhamid Han, 150–151.

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304 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47.

48. 49. 50.

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Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq, 211. Algar, Religion and State in Iran, 237. Litvak, “Money, Religion, and Politics,” 9. Litvak, “A Failed Manipulation,” 69–72. BOA IM 1313 L 2, Şura-yı Devlet, Dahiliye Dairesi # 3238, 15 Şaban 1313 (30 Janaury 1896). Issawi, The Fertile Crescent, 33. Çetinsaya, “The Caliph and the Mujtahids,” 561. In 1894–1895, Mosul had 147, Basra 104, Baghdad 12 Islamic elementary schools for boys and girls. Alkan, Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Modernleşme Sürecinde Eğitim İstatistikleri, 95. BOA IM 1325 Ş 4, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi, Umumî # 87903, Hususî # 133, 11 Receb 1325 (21 August 1907). IM 1326 Ş 27, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Meclis-i Kebir-i Maarif, Daire-i İdare # 241, 23 Şaban 1326 (19 September 1908). BOA IM 1325 C 29, Yıldız Saray-ı Hümayun, Başkitabet Dairesi # 3204, 29 Cemaziyelevvel 1325 (10 July 1907). BOA IM 1312 M 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîyye # 17, 22 Şevval 1311 (28 April 1894). Somel, Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 121. BOA IM 1327 Ca 4, Şura-yı Devlet, Maliye Dairesi # 1219, 19 Safer 1317 (28 June 1899). BOA IM 1327 Ca 4, Şura-yı Devlet, Maliye Dairesi # 1219, 19 Safer 1317 (28 June 1899). BOA IM 1327 Ca 4, Şura-yı Devlet, Maliye Dairesi # 1219, 19 Safer 1317 (28 June 1899). It is interesting to note that, although Shields provided a detailed description of the relevance of sheep-related taxes to the fiscal wellbeing of Ottoman Mosul, this particular tax was not mentioned. For her excellent description, note Shields, Mosul before Iraq, 176–181. BOA IM 1327 Ca 4, Şura-yı Devlet, Maliye Dairesi # 1219, 19 Safer 1317 (28 June 1899). BOA IM 1327 Ca 4, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 1163, (Sultan’s approval at the bottom of the Grand Vizier’s cover letter) 4 Cemaziyelevvel 1317 (September 10, 1899). Only Baghdad had an idadî that was established in 1309 (1883–1884) BOA IM 1322 Z 17, Şura-yı Devlet, Maliye Dairesi # 2913, 19 Zilkade 1322 (25 January 1905). BOA IM 1318 L 5 Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi, Umumi # 38679, Hususi # 196, 3 Ramadan 1318 (December 25, 1900). The sultan donated 1,327 Lira for the establishment of an idadî in Medina.

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51. “High school, Baghdad,” LOT 9525, no. 15, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

Chapter 7 Confronting Italian Educational and Imperial Ambitions in Tripoli 1. Tripoli here is used to refer to the Ottoman province of Trablusgarb that included both the regions of Tripolitania (Tripoli) and Cyrenaica (Bingazi). When referring to the central sanjak of Tripoli, it will be specified, otherwise, it refers to the entire province. 2. Editorial Comment, “Tripoli” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 1912):149–155, 150. 3. “Mediation in the Turco-Italian War,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 6, No. 2 (April 1912):463–467, 465. 4. Collins, “Imperialism and Revolution in Libya,” 5. 5. Many late Ottoman activists and intellectuals were sent to Tripoli as exiles. M.N. Slousch was noted for coining the “sunny Siberia” euphemism for Tripoli; Koloğlu, 500 Years in Turkish-Libyan Relations, 128. 6. L. Anderson, “Nineteenth-Century Reform in Ottoman Libya,” 337. 7. L. Anderson, The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 110. 8. L. Anderson, “Nineteenth-Century Reform in Ottoman Libya,” 325. 9. Tripoli had four sanjaks (districts): central sanjak of Trablusgarb (Tripoli), Khoms (Kkhoms), Cebel (Jabal), and Fizan (Fazzan). Salname-yi Vilâyet-i Trablusgarb. Onikinci Def’a. Tripoli: Vilâyet Matbaası, 1312 (1894). 10. L. Anderson, “Nineteenth-Century Reform in Ottoman Libya,” 331–332. 11. Alkan, Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Modernleşme Sürecinde Eğitim İstatistikleri, 117. 12. BOA IM 1319 B 16, Şura-yi Devlet, Maliye #1402, 9 Cumadelula 1319 (24 August 1901). 13. Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 114. 14. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 559. 15. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 559. 16. Lowe and Marzari, Italian Foreign Policy, 53–54. 17. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 457. 18. Sury, “Modern Education in Trablusgarp (Tripolitania) 1835–1911,” 361. 19. Lowe and Marzari, Italian Foreign Policy, 81. 20. Clark, Modern Italy, 154. 21. McClure, Italy in North Africa, 15. 22. Benghazi was designated as a mutasarrıfıya (district). As such it was governed by a mutasarrıf and directly communicated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Istanbul.

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23. Koloğlu, 500 Years in Turkish-Libyan Relations, 124. 24. BOA Im 1320 Za 5, Benghazi Mutasarrıflığı # 90 (from Benghazi Mutasarrıflığı to the Ministry of Internal Affairs), 23 Receb 1320 (26 October, 1902). 25. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî Kalemi # 4311, 23 Receb 1320 (26 October 1902). 26. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî Kalemi # 4311, 23 Receb 1320 (26 October 1902). 27. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî Kalemi # 4311, 23 Receb 1320 (26 October 1902). 28. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî Kalemi # 4311, 23 Receb 1320 (26 October 1902). 29. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî Kalemi # 4311, 23 Receb 1320 (26 October 1902). 30. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Benghazi Mutasarrıflığı # 91, 27 Receb 1320 (30 October 1902). 31. BOA IM 1320 Za 5. A Copy of the Letter dated 13 Teşrinievvel 1318 and submitted to Italian Consulate in Benghazi. 32. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Ministry of Internal Affairs (from the Minister of Internal Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 8 Şaban 1320 (10 November 1902). 33. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliyye, Mektubî Kalemu # 4912 (from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to Grand Vizier) 28 Şaban 1320 (30 November 1902). 34. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 35. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 36. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 37. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 38. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 39. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 40. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi # 241, 12 Şevval 1320 (12 January 1903). 41. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 34. 42. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 41. 43. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 39. 44. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 43–45.

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45. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi #592 (From the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Internal Affairs), 13 Şevval 1320 (13 January 1903). 46. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumîye, Mektubî Kalemi #592 (From the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Internal Affairs), 13 Şevval 1320 (13 January 1903). 47. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 48. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 49. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 50. Eraslan, II. Abdülhamid ve İslam Birliği, p. 253. 51. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (December 30, 1902). 52. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 53. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 54. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Hariciye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3192 (from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 29 Ramazan 1320 (30 December 1902). 55. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Dahiliye, Mektubî # 5420 (From the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Grand Vizier) 14 Şevval 1320 (14 January 1903). 56. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Umur-u Hariciyye, Mektubî Kalemi # 3399 (from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Grand Vizier), 18 Şevval 1320 (18 January 1903). 57. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükela # 2236, 22 Şevval 1320 (22 January 1903). 58. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Meclis-i Mahsus-u Vükela # 2236, 22 Şevval 1320 (22 January 1903). 59. For a detailed account of the Lorando-Tubini affair that led to the occupation of Mitylene, see Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 23–32.

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60. Koloğlu, 500 Years in Turkish-Libyan Relations, 125. 61. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret, Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun #2226, 22 Şevval 1320 (22 January 1903). 62. BOA IM 1320 Za 5, Daire-i Sadaret Amedi-i Divan-ı Hümayun # 2226, 5 Zilkade 1320 (3 February 1903). 63. “The grand gate of the school Sultani,” LOT 9544, no. 26, Abdül Hamid II photo collection, Library of Congress.

Chapter 8

Summary and Conclusions

1. A theme also noted in Li’s analysis of governmentalities of development in the late twentieth century, The Will to Improve. Beyond violence, however, states demonstrate their capacities to engender consent among their citizens through the provision of services like education, public health, and others. On this theme, but involving public health in republican Turkey, note Evered and Evered, “Governing Population, Public Heath, and Malaria in the Early Turkish Republic.” 2. Musul Vilâyeti İçin Birinci Def’a Olarak Tertib Olunan Salnamedir, Mosul, 1308/1890, 98–100. 3. BOA IM 1311 R 3, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, Mektubî Kalemi #125, 18 Rebiyulevvel 1311(29 September, 1893). 4. BOA IM 1311 R2, Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye, Mektubî Kalemi #153, 18 Rebiyulevvel 1311(29 September, 1893).

Appendix 1. This section of the Education Act of 1869 conveys the broad categories of schools that were envisioned for the Ottoman Empire in 1869. Each of the specialized terms employed herein are defined in the footnotes (and in the glossary) but are employed as specific terms throughout – as opposed to rendering an English equivalent. This use of the original terms is due to the fact that many categories of schools and/or levels in Ottoman education have a breadth of meanings, or because several such terms might be included in their English approximate terms (e.g., both sıbyan and rüşdiye might be regarded as “primary schools”). It is also worth noting that, in other instances, some categories of schools listed in the Education Act of 1869 (esp. that of the sultanîye and, to an even greater degree, that of the âliye) scarcely appear in the text of my book – which covers more thoroughly that period coinciding roughly with the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909). To a large extent, we might note that the actual means of the empire to construct such schools of

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

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secondary and higher education throughout the Hamidian era either were deferred as primary and lower secondary schooling was prioritized, or that they failed to match the ambitions of 1869. The sıbyan (also written as sıbyan mektebi) were primary schools; after the 1880s, the term was used in reference mostly to Qur’anic schools (as the ibtidaî became the common reference for modern primary schools). The rüşdiye were basic secondary (or, perhaps more appropriately, advanced primary or middle) schools, and classes at the rüşdiye followed those offered at the primary (i.e., the sıbyan or, later, the ibtidaî ) schools and preceded training at the advanced secondary or post-secondary (or preparatory schools (e.g., the idadî ). As defined in the glossary as idadî, idadîye (as written in the Education Act of 1869) were advanced or postsecondary (or preparatory) schools which functioned much like the lycée or high schools found in the West; schooling at idadî followed the training provided in advanced primary or basic secondary schools (i.e., the rüşdiye). Defined in the glossary as sultanî, the sultanîye were comparable to lycée or secondary schools in the West. Functioning as something of a gymnasium (or even junior college) in the Ottoman context, they were preceded ideally by training at the idadîye. Defined in the glossary (and listed hereafter simply) as âliye, mekâtib-і âliye were the highest of secondary/post-secondary schools (to include many vocational and teacher-training colleges and the university in Istanbul). The term tecvit refers to lessons on how to recite from the Qur’an with the proper pronunciation. Listed in an adjacent column, this notation appeared to refer to just the courses “Concise Ottoman history” and “Concise geography,” though it was unclear if that was the exact intention. A muhtar was (and still is in rural Turkey) a village head person. A mubassır was a school official charged with overseeing the conditions and conduct of the student body. Şevval (alternately written as Shawwāl) is the tenth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Note that this number is larger than the figure stipulated in Article 18; either it was an error, or the establishment of girls’ rüşdiye necessitated a larger community population. The Darülmuallimin was a teacher-training school for boys and men. The first was established in Istanbul in 1846. The haricî (i.e., “external”) students constituted a third category of students in what was envisioned as a three-part categorization; boarding students, daytime students (who ate their meals at the school), and haricî students (who did not eat their meals at the school).

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15. Though somewhat unclear, this lottery that students are exempted from through successful examination seems to imply the lottery used to assign prospective teachers to teaching assignments in the empire. 16. The Darülmuallimat was a teacher-training school for girls and women. The first was established in Istanbul in 1870. 17. The Darülfünun, or “house of sciences,” referred to that institution which we would regard as the university of the late Ottoman era and that was located in Istanbul, later emerging as Istanbul University. 18. Regarding the mülâzemet rüûsu, see Article 158 for a description of its related examination and associated privileges (also note, the term rüûs means “certificate”). 19. For an elaboration as to the content of the course titled “Useful knowledge,” note the glossary in Akyüz, Türk Eğitim Tarihi. 20. A mezuniyet rüûsu was the certificate conferred upon those graduating, varyingly, from a sultanîye, the Darülfünun, or their equivalent. 21. A müderris was a teacher (sometimes, in alternate contexts, the term would imply either a religious teacher in traditional/religious schools, in contrast with the muallim of secular schools, or what we might regard as a university professor). 22. A şehâdetnâme was a certificate of qualification. It may refer to one awarded upon successful completion of the entrance (or qualifying) examination for the Darülfünun, one awarded upon successful defense of one’s thesis, or one awarded by a board or council of education to attest to one’s qualifications. 23. A certificate authorizing one to work as a müderris. 24. This article specifies payment in a particular type of Ottoman currency. The mecidiye were a type of Ottoman coin first minted during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839–1861). 25. The nâzır was the director of the Darülfünun, as appointed by imperial order. 26. The term mefkûfât referred to endowed properties. 27. A kise was a term in Ottoman Turkish sometimes translated literally as a “purse” but generally referring to a sum of money (esp. five-hundred kuruş). In this context, the article seems to imply that a sum of two-thousand (likely kuruş) could be awarded. 28. A muvazzafa was an official employed by the state. 29. A muhakkık was an inspector of special cases; in this legislation, the position might best be understood as a chief inspector. 30. An elviye-і mülhaka was an administrative subdivision. 31. A müfettiş was a routine inspector; in this case, one serving at a grade below (but not necessarily subordinate to) the authority of the muhakkık. 32. A sanjak was a regional administrative division (above that of a kaza, but below that of the vilâyet, or province).

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33. The mutasarrıf was a governor of a state’s geographic administrative division (i.e., a mutasarrıfiye). 34. This was identified as a rüûs imtihanı. 35. Specified at this stage as a sınıf şehadetnamesi. 36. Specified at this stage as a mekteb şehadetnamesi. 37. A vakıf (alternately written as waqf in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa) is a charitable endowment.

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INDEX

Abdülaziz I, Sultan x Abdülhamid II, Sultan xi, 6, 11–18, 23, 25, 26–31, 33, 40–41, 58, 62–64, 66, 68, 77, 80, 82, 86–87, 90, 101, 103, 106, 110, 120–121, 123–126, 132, 135–136, 137, 145–146, 149, 151, 153, 156, 162–164, 171, 176, 193, 194, 196, 198, 201, 204 Abdülmecid I, Sultan x, 279 Agriculture Bank 59–60 Ahmed Cevdet Paşa 41–46, 53, 55, 57, 81, 112, 164 Ahmed Hamdi Paşa 110–115 Ahmed Mithat Paşa 30 Ahmed Zühdü Paşa 118, 120–124, 139, 143–147, 149–150 Albania xii, 28, 37–67, 88–89, 91–92, 97, 185 Albanian language 27, 38, 44, 49–55, 65, 201 Albanians 19, 27–28, 37–67, 69–71, 73–75, 87, 88, 91–92, 97, 101, 197, 201 Aleppo 105, 107, 127, 129, 131, 137–158, 167, 171, 203–204 Algeria x, 176 Ali Rıza 166 Ali Rıza (Müfti Ali Rıza Efendi) 39 âliye schools 217–220, 277 Alûsizâde Şakir Efendi 169 American Medical School in Beirut— see medical schools

Index.indd 328

Anglo-Ottoman Convention xii Arab provinces 3, 25, 63, 85, 105, 111, 135, 136, 168, 171, 198 see also Aleppo, Iraq, Syria Arabic language 27, 127, 135, 165 Arabs xiv, 19, 25, 27, 29, 87, 116, 122, 135, 136, 161 Armenia/Armenians 2, 25, 79, 161 Aşiret Mektebi 30, 35, 160–161, 177, 277 Assyrians 161 atabat 162 Austria-Hungary xi, 16, 27–28, 46, 52–54, 70, 78–80, 82, 101, 176 Awadh (Oudh) 166–167 Baalbek 113 Bahrain xii Balqa 115 Baqa’ul-Aziz 118–119 Baghdad 116, 117, 130–131, 159–173 Balkans 3, 16, 36, 37–67, 68–104, 112, 130, 131, 141, 160, 163, 180–182, 192, 198, 200–204 Balkan Wars xii, 70 Barr, Robert 150–151 Basra 131, 159, 165, 168–169 Benghazi 174, 177, 179, 180, 182, 183–193 Beirut 107, 112, 114, 127–129, 131–136 Bingazi—see Benghazi

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INDEX Bismarck, Otto von 15 Bitola—see Monastir Bosnia xi, 42, 64 Britain/British 15, 18, 45, 46, 74, 78, 85, 110–112, 114, 117, 122, 138, 150–151, 159–160, 166–168, 175–176, 179, 182, 187, 203 missionaries 111–114, 122, 137–138, 150–151, 166–168 Bulgaria (Principality of and Kingdom of) xi, 41–42, 47, 50, 69–70, 72–74, 75, 77, 80 Bulgarians 72–74, 77 Caliph/Caliphate xii, 9, 15, 29, 50, 106, 116, 125, 126, 154, 162–166, 186, 277 Capitulations 111–113 Cebel Druz 123 Celâl Paşa 95–99 Censorship—see Press Law, the Cevdet Paşa, Ahmed—see Ahmed Cevdet Paşa Chaldeans 161 cizye 43, 277 Committee of Union and Progress—see CUP Congress of Berlin xi, 16, 48–49, 69 Constantinople—see Istanbul Cretan Revolt x-xi, 55 Crete xi, 55, 131 Crimean War x, 41, 46 Crispi, Francesco 178 CUP 33, 80, 135, 136, 278 CUP (Young Turk) Revolt xi, xiii, 12, 16 131, 142, 169, 196, 204 Cyprus Convention xi Cyrenaica—see Benghazi Damascus 81, 105–107, 109, 110–115, 116–123, 126, 127–136, 159, 166, 170 Damascus Imperial Medical School 126–136

Index.indd 329

329

Darna 180 Darülfünun 217, 223–229, 277 Darülmuallimat 217, 221–223, 277 Darülmuallimin 91–97, 217–220, 277 Darülmuallimin-i ibtidaî 91, 93, 94, 277 de Torcy, Louis 112–113 Draç 99, 100, 180, 181, 193 Druze 112–113, 202–203 Eastern Question 41, 46 Eastern Rumelia xi, 280 Education Act of 1869 x, xv, 1–2, 7, 12–13, 17–18, 20, 31, 41, 45, 49, 108, 140–143, 168 196, 198– 200, (translation; Appendix 1) 205–246 Education Regulation—see Education Act of 1869 education contribution tax (of 1884) xi, 31–32, 45, 58, 61–64, 66, 83, 87–92, 95, 98–99, 102, 117–121, 126, 135, 169–173, 199–200, 279 Egypt xi, 4, 29, 105, 107, 110, 112, 117 138, 176, 179 Elviye-i Selâse—see Three Provinces of Rumelia Fortna, Benjamin xviii, 124 Foucault, Michel 1, 9–12, 197 see also governmentality Frashëri, Abdul 27, 47, 49 Frashëri, Sami 27–28, 51, 282 France/French 1, 4, 15, 18, 27, 42, 46, 81, 85, 107, 110–114, 117, 127–129, 132–133, 137–139, 146–151, 175–176, 178–179, 187, 188, 190, 191–193, 198, 203 missionaries 111–114, 117, 127– 128, 137–139, 146–151, 179–180, 188, 190, 193 French Medical School in Beirut— see Medical schools

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330

EMPIRE

AND

EDUCATION

Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanîsi 194 Germany 15, 176, 187 Ghegs 38–39, 42–43, 50, 101, 278 see also Albanians Girit Muhtacin-i Ahali-i İslamiyesi İanesi 131 Governmentality 1–15, 19, 25, 31, 32–34, 37, 39, 52, 63, 73, 87, 102–103, 106–111, 124, 145, 160–161, 176–178, 196–204 Greece (including Kingdom of) x-xi, 55, 68, 74 Greeks 2, 25, 39, 52, 54, 69, 70, 72–75, 143, 185 Greek language 50, 52, 55 Greek Orthodox Church 2, 39, 51, 52, 74–75 Greek War of Independence x Gusinye 61, 62 hajj 106 Hama 105, 115 Hamidian era 13–18 see also Abdülhamid II, Sultan Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane—see Tanzimat Hatt-ı Şerif of Hümayun—see Tanzimat Hawran 113, 115 Hazine-yi Evkaf-ı Hümayun 56, 278 Hilmi Paşa—see Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa Holy Sepulcher 187, 188 Hums 113 Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa 67, 80–103, 204 Ianina—see Yanya ibtidaî 82–101, 114, 277, 278 idadî 31, 54, 56, 57, 67, 82–83, 99–100, 114, 158, 165, 169–172, 278 idadîye 206, 213–214 Inspection 7–8, 17, 41–46, 79–103, 110, 114–116, 132, 139–155, 158, 184–193, 199, 204 muhakkık 140, 280 müfettiş 140, 280

Index.indd 330

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Inspectorate of Non-Muslim and Foreign Schools 141–146, 158, 184–193 of Private and State Schools 141, 146 of the Press 146, 151–157 Ioannina—see Yanya İpek 84 Iraq 25–26, 159–173, 202 see also Baghdad, Basra, Mosul Islahat—see Tanzimat Islamism 4, 7, 15, 18, 72, 164, 165, 198 İşkodra 39, 42–46, 53–55, 57, 62, 64, 99–101, 180 Istanbul 3, 18, 22, 25, 27, 29–32, 39–43, 49, 51, 54, 58, 61, 62, 64, 66, 76, 83, 87–93, 95, 96, 99, 108, 110, 115, 117–119, 121–131, 133, 140, 142, 144, 145, 147, 149, 151, 164, 165, 169, 177, 178, 180, 182, 188–190, 194–195, 197–204 Anglo-French occupation of xii Istanbul Legation of the United States 128 Italo-Turkish War xii Italy/Italians xii, 18, 28, 46, 52–54, 85, 101, 111, 112, 114, 174–195 ittihad-ı anasır 25, 278 ittihad-ı İslam 25, 278 İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti—see CUP Janina—see Yanya Janinë—see Yanya Jesuit missionaries/Jesuits 118, 127 Jews 2, 25, 70, 147, 161 jizya—see cizye

53, 113,

Karak 122 Karbala 162, 165, 166 kaza (defined) 278 Kazimayn 162

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INDEX Khoms 179–180, 182–183, 189, 190, 192–193 Konstandini Paşa 143 Korche 54 Kosova—see Kosovo Kosovo 39, 49, 55, 58, 60–32, 64, 65, 70, 71, 75–76, 81–101 Koutzo-Wallachs—see Vlachs Kurds v161, 165, 277 Kurdish language 165 kuruş (defined) 279 Kuwait xii Land Code 161 Languages—see particular languages Lazkiye 119 League of Prizren xi, 47–48, 51 Leishman, John 128–129 Libya xii see also Benghazi, Derna, Khoms, Tripoli Maan 122 maarif ianesi—see education contribution tax (of 1884) maarif hisse-i ianesi—see education contribution tax (of 1884) maarif müdürü 279 Macedonia/Macedonians 16, 68–103, 204 see also Kosovo, Monastir, Salonica Mahmud II, Sultan x Malta/Maltese 190, 191 Manastir—see Monastir Mann, Michael 15 Marshall, Madame 146–151, 204 masjid 40, 43, 54–57, 116, 279 Mecca x, 106 Meclis-i Maarif 169 Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumi 279 Medical schools American Medical School in Beirut 127–129, 131–134

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331

Arab School of Medicine—see Damascus Imperial Medical School French Medical School in Beirut 127–129, 131–134 Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Mülkiye 129–130 Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane 129–130 Medina 106, 172 medrese 7–8, 26, 61, 91–92, 97, 125, 165, 169, 279 medrese-i muallimin 91, 279 Mehmed V, Sultan xi Mehmed VI, Sultan xii Mehmed Cemaleddin, Şeyhülislam 65 Mehmed Memduh Paşa 180–183, 192 Mehmed Rauf Paşa 118, 119, 122 mekteb 7–8, 279 Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Mülkiye—see Medical schools Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane—see Medical schools Mekâtib-i Gayri-Müslim ve Ecnebiyye Müfettişliği—see Inspectorate of non-Muslim and Foreign Schools mekâtib-i âliye—see âliye schools mezuniyet rüûsu 279 millet 3–4, 25, 51, 279 Ministry of Education 18, 55–56, 59–62, 65–66, 95–100, 118, 120, 122, 129–130, 140–148, 153–154, 169, 182–187, 189, 192–193, 200 see also Ahmed Zühdü Paşa, Münif Paşa Ministry of Foreign Affairs 77, 128, 146–149, 167, 182, 184, 186, 188–193 see also Tevfik Paşa Ministry of Internal Affairs (or of Interior) 62, 65, 80, 153–155, 170–171, 177, 180, 182–184, 189, 192 see also Mehmed Memduh Paşa

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332

EMPIRE

AND

EDUCATION

Ministry of Postal and Telegraph Services 154–155, 181–183 Missionaries—see specific countries of origin or specific orders or denominations Mithat Paşa—see Ahmed Mithat Paşa Monastir 39, 64, 65, 70, 71, 89, 98, 99, 104 Montenegro, Kingdom of xii Montenegrins 42, 46, 47, 50, 69 Mosul 159, 165, 168–173 Mount Lebanon 107, 112 muhakkık—see Inspection, muhakkık muhtar (defined) 280 mujtahids 164, 166, 280 Murad V, Sultan xi Mustafa IV, Sultan x müderris 7–8, 280 müfettiş—see Inspection, müfettiş mülâzemet rüûsu 280 Münif Paşa 143 Mytelene 193 nahiye (defined) 280 Najaf 162, 166 Napoleon Bonaparte 4 Notya 62 Nusayri 112, 113, 202–203 Osman Nuri Paşa 117 Ottoman Turkish 21, 26, 27, 38, 50, 53, 86, 97, 132, 133, 135, 165, 201 Ottomanism/Ottomanization 2, 4–6, 15, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 67, 72, 86, 87, 92, 132, 135, 198 Oudh Bequest—see Awadh (Oudh) Pan-Islamism—see Islamism Pan-Turkism—see Turkism Persian language 27 Peskaver, Antoniodi 182 Plava 61, 62 Press Law, the—see also censorship Priştine 84

Index.indd 332

UNDER THE

OTTOMANS

Prizren xi, 47–48 see also League of Prizren Prizren League—see League of Prizren Protestant missionaries 111, 112, 114, 118, 122, 127, 167–168 Provincial Law of 1864 106–110 Qatar

xii

Romania (including Kingdom of) xi, 68, 74 Romanian Macedonians—see Vlachs Romanians 69 Romanian War of Independence xi Rumeli-i Şarkî—see Eastern Rumelia Rumeli Vilâyetleri Nizamnamesi xi, 77–78 Russia/Russians 15, 16, 18, 41, 42, 46, 48, 74, 77–80, 82, 101, 112, 114, 137, 167, 190, 198 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 xi, 16, 69, 74, 77, 101, 111, 198 rüşdiye 21, 31, 82, 99–100, 109, 114, 123, 165, 170, 177, 178, 209–213, 280–281 Salonica 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 97, 127 Salonika—see Salonica Samarra 162 sanjak (defined) 281 School for Tribes—see Aşiret Mektebi Scott, James C. 11 Scutari—see İşkodra Selanik—see Salonica Selim III, Sultan x Serbia (including Kingdom of) xi, 47, 68, 74 Serbians/Serbs 69–76 Serbian Uprisings x Serbo-Bulgarian War xi Shia Islam / Shiism / Shiites 113, 159, 162–168, 172

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INDEX Şeyhülislam (office of)

65 see also Mehmed Cemaleddin, Şeyhülislam Şemsettin Sâmi Bey—see Frashëri, Sami Shkodër—see İşkodra Shkodra—see İşkodra sıbyan 206–209, 281 Sidon 107 Skadar—see İşkodra Skopje—see Üsküp Sultanate/sultans xii, 3–9, 20–21, 26, 29, 281 see also by names of specific sultans sultanî/sultanîye 146, 215–217, 281 Süleyman Hüsnü Paşa 165 Syria 25, 47, 58, 105–136, 150, 151, 160, 163, 169, 171, 203 Taşlıca 58, 61, 84, 89 Tanzimat x, 5, 12–13, 25, 38, 39, 76, 160, 281 Tevfik Paşa 128 Thessaloniki—see Salonica Three Provinces of Rumelia 70–76, 79–81, 85, 88, 95, 101, 277 see also Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa, Macedonia Tosks 39, 43, 51, 281 see also Albanians Trablusgarb—see Tripoli Traveling ulema 58, 105, 110, 114–125, 166, 169 Treaty of Berlin xi, 16, 40, 48, 74, 76, 77–79, 198

Index.indd 333

333

Treaty of Constantinople x Treaty of San Stefano xi, 16, 46–48, 69, 74, 77 Tripoli (of later day Libya) 151, 167, 174–195 Tripoli (of greater Syria) 107 Tripolitania—see Tripoli Tunisia xi, 117, 138, 175, 176, 179 Turcomans 161 Turkism 4 ulama—see ulema ulema (defined) 281 see also Traveling ulema Uskub or Usküb—see Üsküp Üsküp 83, 93, 95 usûl-ü cedîd 26, 281 vakıf 98, 281 vilâyet (defined) 282 Vlachs 69–70, 72–74 Wahhabis/Wahhabism x Wallachs/Wallachians—see Vlachs waqf—see vakıf World War I xii, 105, 135 Yanya 39, 47, 64, 67, 89, 99, 180, 181 Yenice 84 Yenipazar 61, 84, 89 Yezidi 161, 202 Young Turks—see CUP zebhiyye tax 129–132 Ziraat Bankası—see Agriculture Bank Zühdü Paşa—see Ahmed Zühdü Paşa

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Index.indd 334

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