The Ottomans and Modernization

1770: revolution of AL-KABIR (Mamluk): he was able to impose his power in Egypt and moved to conquer the Middle East (Syria and finally in Mecca, but there the Ottoman empire stopped him because of the importance of the Holy City).

Even if the Ottoman sultan was not any longer interested in being the caliph, the revolt of al-Kabir made the Ottomans think that the caliphate would be the way to fight and support Muslim people of their empire. The importance of the caliphate ended in XIII century (with the arrival of the Mongols), but in such a period of crisis (XVIII century) the sultan wanted to use this title again as a political slogan in order to unite all the Muslims against the Christians coming from West, because of the risk to lose territories and power.

the Muslims started to perceive the menace of the Christians because they had the example of the Christian Millet, made of powerful (and rich) traders.

When the first school of translation was created, they sent young students to Europe (to Paris) -> they found the European way of life fascinating and knew the topics of Western culture.

MODERNIZATION:
- cultural modernization;
- economical modernization -> e.g. railway Istanbul-Baghdad, English cotton in Egypt, French wine in Algeria, harbours, etc.

Problem: the cost of the modernization was too high for the Ottomans -> they were taking taxes by the countryside even if no innovation was introduced in the production of the countryside, that therefore became more and more poor.