The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 425
3 The Last Round: from Selim III to Mahmud II
Until 1826, it seemed that the general climate in the Ottoman government had
undergone an almost total reversal. Mehmed Said Halet Efendi, an ambassador
in Paris from 1802 to 1806 and afterwards a high official of the palace bureau-
cracy (chancellor of the Imperial Council from 1815 until his execution in 1822)
who played a prominent role in decision-making, was known as a conservative
thinker who detested European influence and had very close relations with
the janissaries.85 In fact, it seems that Halet Efendi was instead a representa-
tive of what was labeled in the previous chapter the “traditionalist” trend of
the reformist discourse. Even in his contempt for the Europeans, he essentially
repeats Behic Efendi’s optimism; indeed, the similarities are striking:86
I am of the opinion that if ... five factories for snuff, paper, crystal, cloth,
and porcelain, as well as a school for languages and geography set up,
then in the course of five years there will be as good as nothing left for
[the Europeans] to hold on to, since the basis of all their current trade is
in these five commodities.What was perhaps more typical of Halet Efendi’s views in regard to his era
was his marked Khaldunism, which found an impressive moment of glory at
the beginning of the Greek War of Independence (1821), when the Ottoman
government proclaimed a return to the “nomadic state” as a remedy for mili-
tary defeats. Indeed, under Halet Efendi’s influence an imperial order stated
that, although Muslims have turned to a settled way of life (which is “a second
nature to man’s disposition”), they have now to revert to their ancestors’ no-
madic (and hence war-like) customs and fight back. A few months later, an-
other decree also urged Muslims to take up arms and abstain from luxury and
pomp, “adopting the shape of nomadism and campaign” (bedeviyyet ve seferi-
yyet suretini istihsal). The Muslim inhabitants of Istanbul roamed about in full
battle-dress and mounted attacks upon Christians (including foreign subjects)
until such behavior was strictly prohibited a few months later.87 This was the
culmination of Ottoman Khaldunism, which had been a recurrent leitmotif in a
large part of political and historical thought from the mid-seventeenth century
85 See Karal 1940; Lewis 1961, 69 and elsewhere.
86 Karal 1940, 32–33; Lewis 1961, 128.
87 Şânizâde – Yılmazer 2008, 1084, 1169, 1238ff. This rather failed experiment in social engi-
neering was recently studied in detail by Ilıcak 2011. Erdem 2005, 76 notes the measures
taken but fails to grasp their Khaldunist underpinnings.