Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha

Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha (born in Istanbul on 5 March 1815 – died there on 7 September 1871) was one of the leading Ottoman statesmen of the Tanzimat, five times Grand Vizier and Foreign Minister seven times by the English article's count, eight by the Turkish; he was the architect of the Reform Edict (Hatt-ı Hümayun) of 1856 and the Porte's chief delegate at the Congress of Paris that ended the Crimean War. ^{1 2} From obscure origins — a doorkeeper's son in the English article, a shopkeeper's in the Arabic — he was widely credited with preventing an early break-up of the empire. ^{1 2}

Âli Pasha was born on 5 March 1815 in Constantinople, in the Mercanağa quarter according to the Turkish article's infobox, into a home of modest means; his formal schooling was three years of primary school, in which he memorised some surahs of the Qur'an, after which he educated himself and taught himself French. ^{1 3} He began public service at fourteen as a clerk in the Imperial Council and passed to the Translation Office, in 1833 by the Arabic article, which became his real school of diplomacy. ^{1 2} In 1835 he was second secretary at the Vienna embassy, then counsellor to Mustafa Reşid Pasha in London, whom he served as acting ambassador when Reşid returned to become Grand Vizier, before becoming ambassador himself; he held the foreign ministry briefly in 1840 and again in 1846. ¹

He first became Grand Vizier in 1852, the youngest ever appointed, and his rivalry with Reşid Pasha during the Crimean War ended with Reşid having him deposed and exiled to Kastamonu, from which he returned to favour. ¹ His five grand vizierates ran from August to October 1852, May 1855 to November 1856, January 1858 to October 1859, August to November 1861, and February 1867 until his death on 7 September 1871; the Turkish article totals them at eight years and three months. ^{1 3} During Sultan Abdülaziz's European tour of 1867 he remained in the capital as regent for forty-four days. ¹ After his friend Fuad Pasha died in 1869 he carried the foreign ministry and the grand vizierate together, his health broke down, and he died of tuberculosis on 7 September 1871 after three months of illness, aged fifty-six. ¹

His signature work is the Hatt-ı Hümayun, the Reform Edict of 18 February 1856, framed under European pressure after the Crimean War, which promised equality before the law to all subjects, opened civil offices to all, guaranteed the life and property of non-Muslims and promised that no one would be forced to change religion. ^{1 2} At the Congress of Paris in 1856 he was the Porte's lead delegate and signed the peace treaty ending the Crimean War, bringing the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe, whose powers undertook in Article Seven to respect the empire's territory and independence. ¹ Drawing on his experience of the French education system, he laid the foundation of the modern Galatasaray High School, where children of minority religions were taught alongside Muslim students. ¹ His political doctrine was Ottomanism: the fusion of all subjects into one Ottoman nationality with equal opportunities in education and office, so that Christians would no longer see themselves as oppressed and the empire would be stable. ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

The English article, following Roderic Davison, portrays Âli as small and frail, soft-spoken and meticulous, a conservative reformer and monarchist, fiercely protective of the Porte's independence and increasingly autocratic, and the Young Ottomans' chief opponent: they saw the Tanzimat as pandering to Europe at the expense of the sharia, and he closed their newspapers and banished them. ¹ On his death the Young Ottomans returned from exile, the Tanzimat period ended, and Mahmud Nedim Pasha's absolutist government followed. ¹ A political testament attributed to Âli, published in 1910 and said to have been written in 1871, advises the Sultan to maintain religious freedom, admit non-Muslims to the army and civil service and reform taxation; later research has cast serious doubt on its authenticity, showing it was received as a hoax when first printed in a newspaper in 1871. ¹

On his religion: no article read for this record names a school for him. The Turkish infobox religion field is empty, the Arabic infobox religion field is empty, the English infobox has no religion field, and Wikidata's religion value is the generic item Islam, naming no school. ^{3 2 4} The English article's political portrait, after Davison, calls him an Islamic supremacist in politics while insisting on equality under the law, and notes that he was a freemason; political characterisations and a lodge membership name no legal school, so his school is recorded as unknown, with the readings preserved in the record's faith note. ¹

The one disagreement worth stating is the count of his foreign ministries: seven in the English article, eight in the Turkish; both counts are reported as they stand. ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.