Islam and the Age of Ottoman Reform

Anscombe challenges the concept of a 'taint' that has precluded consideration of religion in the nineteenth-century Ottoman empire, by means of a reinterpretation of the domestic context of reform. It focuses primarily upon the last decade in the reign of Sultan Mahmud 11(1808-39), the ruler heretofore credited with committing the empire to modernization, westernization and secularization. After disastrous losses in wars with European powers, especially Russia, Mahmud and his advisers embarked upon a plan to centralize authority in Istanbul, but their motivation was less emulation of Europe than strengthening the state's defense of the Abode of Islam against Christian enemies.