382 chapter 9
funded by specially allocated revenues, the irad-i cedid (“new revenues”).5 In
addition, recent research has shown that, the new army apart, Selim’s reforms
also had a centralizing aspect, specializing in population control and what has
been called the “statistical” state, which was very much in line with features of
“modernity” without being introduced from the West.6
Unfortunately for Selim, earlier troubles did not cease. In the Balkans, the
power of the provincial notables reached new heights with Ali Pasha in Yanya
and Pasvanoğlu Osman Pasha in Vidin creating nearly autonomous territories.
On the other hand, the rearrangement in European alliances brought about
by the French Revolution soon reached the Ottoman Empire with Napoleon’s
invasion of Egypt (1798–1801), which ultimately resulted in enhanced power for
provincial notables in Syria and Arabia and increased the role of Russia in the
Balkans. What was perhaps more important was that the opposition to Selim’s
military reforms, led by dispossessed members of the janissary corps (which,
by that time, had come to represent a huge number of urban dwellers),7 fi-
nally brought about his demise. After a first conflict in Edirne in 1806, which
ended with Selim dismissing the commanders of the new troops that he him-
self had selected, the following year a revolt erupted among the auxiliary forces
of the janissaries ( yamak) who were guarding the fortresses of the Bosphorus,
under Kabakçı Mustafa.8 As had happened before, the rebels were soon joined
by janissaries, ulema, and urban dwellers; Selim was forced to dismantle the
Nizam-i Cedid and soon after to abdicate in favor of his cousin Mustafa IV. In
response, the ayan of Ruşçuk and a former opponent of Selim, Bayraktar (or
Alemdar) Mustafa Pasha, marched on Istanbul; in 1808 he entered the city with
his army, as the chief of a committee of notables. He did not manage to rescue
Selim, who was killed in the palace, but he overthrew Mustafa IV and put on
the throne the young prince Mahmud II (1808–39).
Mahmud’s reign began with an impressive document, the famous Sened-i
ittifak or “Deed of alliance” (1808), which was signed by the sultan, the rep-
resentatives of the government, and a group of provincial ayan, officially de-
scribed as “great families” (hanedân), who had assembled in Istanbul. With this
document, the latter had their local powers guaranteed in exchange for their
support for the dynasty, and thus for the first time had their role in imperial
5 On Selim’s reforms see Shaw 1971; Karal 1988; Kenan 2010.
6 Başaran 2014, 82–105; Başaran – Kırlı 2015.
7 Quataert 1993; Sunar 2006; this process had begun in the mid-seventeenth century (Tezcan
2010a; Yılmaz Diko 2015).
8 On this rebellion see the detailed analysis in Yıldız 2008; Yıldız 2012. The analysis in Argun
2013, 271ff., argues that this was “much more about the collision of two rival elite cliques for
apportion of human and material resources than that of reformist-conservative struggle”.