The Tanzimat reforms begin with the Edict of Gülhane
- Date
- 3 November 1839
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Ottoman Empire
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
On 3 November 1839 the young Sultan Abdülmecid I proclaimed the Hatt-i Sharif of Gülhane (the Noble Edict of the Rose Garden), opening the Tanzimat or 'Reorganisation' era of the Ottoman Empire.
Drafted largely by the reformist statesman Mustafa Reşid Pasha, the edict guaranteed all Ottoman subjects security of life, honour and property, promised an end to arbitrary tax-farming and confiscation, regularised military conscription, and—most strikingly—asserted the equality of Muslim and non-Muslim subjects before the law. Over the following decades, reinforced by the 1856 Reform Edict, the Tanzimat reshaped Ottoman governance through new secular law codes, reformed courts, a modern centralised bureaucracy, state schools, banks, censuses and a more uniform provincial administration, all aimed at arresting imperial decline and forestalling European intervention by binding the empire's diverse peoples into a common 'Ottoman' citizenship. The reforms strengthened the central state and modernised its institutions, but the promotion of legal equality provoked conservative Muslim resentment and did not satisfy rising Balkan nationalisms. The Tanzimat ended in 1876 with the proclamation of the first Ottoman constitution, the culmination of the era's constitutionalist current.
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Empires active in 3 November 1839
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related politics & governance events
- The Slavery Abolition Act ends slavery across the British Empire28 August 1833 (in force 1 August 1834)
- The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)1848–1849
- Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
- Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and the Kingdom of ItalyMay–September 1860; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861
- Congress of Vienna and the Concert of EuropeSeptember 1814 – June 1815
Further reading
The wider story
Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire
The standard readable single-volume Ottoman history.
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