HIST 1681 Midterm Group 1 Terms

Ottomans

Sunni Muslim empire centered in Istanbul that ruled much of the Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe from about 1300 to 1922. Its nineteenth-century weakening and collapse after World War I opened the way for European mandates and new Middle Eastern states.

Safavids

Ruled a Persian/Iranian empire from 1501 to 1736 and made Twelver Shi‘ism the state religion of Iran. They were a major Ottoman rival and help explain the historical Sunni Ottoman–Shi‘a Iranian political and religious divide.

Alaouites / Alawites of Morocco

The Moroccan royal dynasty, ruling Morocco from the seventeenth century to the present. They represent a local North African monarchy that faced growing European imperial pressure and should not be confused with the Alawite religious community in Syria.

Mehmet Ali Pasha

Mehmet Ali Pasha ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848 as an Ottoman governor who became Egypt’s de facto independent ruler and founded a hereditary dynasty. He centralized Egypt and modernized its army, administration, and economy, showing how an Ottoman province could become powerful enough to challenge the Ottoman center.

Nizam-i Cedid — “New Order”

Nizam-i Cedid was Sultan Selim III’s late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Ottoman reform program, especially known for building a European-style army and strengthening central government. It showed the Ottoman effort to preserve independence through modernization, but also provoked opposition from groups threatened by reform.

Khedive Ismail

Ruled Egypt from 1863 to 1879 and pursued major modernization and development projects using extensive foreign borrowing. Egypt’s resulting debt gave European creditors influence over its finances and helped set up later British intervention.

Nahda — “Awakening” / “Renaissance”

The Nahda was a nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Arab cultural and intellectual revival centered especially in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. It expanded Arabic education, print culture, and political thought, helping lay intellectual groundwork for later Arab nationalism.

Sanusi movement

A Sufi Islamic reform movement founded by Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi in the nineteenth century and centered in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya. It built religious and political networks that later became a major source of resistance to European, especially Italian, colonial rule in Libya.

Wahhabism

An Islamic reform movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in eighteenth-century central Arabia that called for a return to a strict understanding of the Qur’an and Sunna. Its alliance with the Al Saud family made it a central religious foundation of the Saudi state.

Ikhwan

Wahhabi Bedouin fighters settled into agricultural communities in Arabia during the early twentieth century and allied with Ibn Saud. They helped Ibn Saud conquer and unify much of Arabia, but later rebelled when he limited their expansion and was defeated by him.

Salafism

An Islamic reform movement that called for returning to the practices of the salaf, the early generations of Muslims. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it offered a way to argue for Islamic renewal and reform in response to European power and internal Muslim decline.

1876 Ottoman Constitution

The 1876 Ottoman Constitution created a constitutional monarchy and parliament under Sultan Abdulhamid II. It was an attempt to strengthen and legitimize the empire through reform, but Abdulhamid suspended the constitution and parliament in 1878.

Russo-Ottoman War, 1877–78

A conflict in which Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire and forced it to accept major territorial losses, especially in the Balkans. The war exposed Ottoman weakness, increased European influence over Ottoman territory, and helped Abdulhamid II justify suspending constitutional rule.

Abdulhamid II

Abdulhamid II was Ottoman sultan from 1876 to 1909 who initially allowed the 1876 Constitution but suspended it in 1878 and ruled autocratically. He tried to preserve the empire through centralization, modernization, and Pan-Islamic legitimacy, but his repression helped fuel opposition from the Young Turks.

Public Debt Administration

Created in 1881, and Egypt’s Caisse de la Dette, created in 1876, gave European creditors direct control over designated state revenues after both governments accumulated major foreign debts. They showed how modernization through foreign borrowing undermined Ottoman and Egyptian sovereignty and expanded European influence before formal colonial rule.

Urabi Revolt

An Egyptian nationalist and military movement led by Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi from 1879 to 1882 against the Khedive, foreign financial control, and elite domination. Britain invaded Egypt in 1882 and defeated the revolt, beginning a long British occupation that followed Egypt’s debt crisis.

Baghdad Railway

A German-backed rail project begun in the early twentieth century to link the Ottoman Empire toward Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. It increased German influence in Ottoman lands and heightened imperial rivalry with Britain, which feared threats to its interests in India and the Gulf.

Hijaz Railroad

An Ottoman railway built under Abdulhamid II from Damascus to Medina between 1900 and 1908. It was meant to facilitate the pilgrimage and strengthen Ottoman control over Arabia, but it became a target during the Arab Revolt in World War I.

Majlis

The elected parliament created in Iran during the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11. It represented demands to limit the Qajar shah’s power and establish constitutional government, although Russian and British intervention weakened the constitutional movement.

Young Turks

Ottoman reformers and opponents of Abdulhamid II who demanded restoration of the 1876 Constitution and representative government. Their 1908 revolution restored the constitution, but their movement later became increasingly centralized and authoritarian under the CUP.

Persian Constitutional Revolution

A movement from 1905 to 1911 in which merchants, clerics, intellectuals, and others demanded a constitution and elected parliament from the Qajar shah. It established the Majlis and attempted to limit royal authority, but internal conflict and foreign intervention weakened its achievements.

Committee for Union and Progress — CUP

The leading Young Turk political organization that became dominant in the Ottoman Empire after the 1908 revolution and especially after 1913. It promoted centralization and increasingly Turkish nationalist rule, and its leaders—Cemal, Talaat, and Enver Pasha—led the empire during World War I.

Moroccan Crises, 1905 and 1911

Confrontations in 1905 and 1911 in which Germany challenged growing French influence in Morocco. France ultimately prevailed, and Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912, showing how European rivalry turned North Africa into an arena of imperial control.

Italo-Ottoman War

Fought from 1911 to 1912, when Italy invaded Ottoman Libya and seized control of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The Ottoman defeat exposed its weakness and encouraged further attacks on Ottoman territory, while Libyan resistance continued under Sanusi leadership.

Balkan Wars

Conflicts in which Balkan states drove the Ottoman Empire out of most of its remaining European territories. The losses produced refugees, intensified Ottoman insecurity and nationalism, and helped radicalize leaders in the CUP before World War I.

Ahmed al-Sharif al-Sanusi

The leader of the Sanusi movement in Libya during the Italian invasion and early years of World War I. He organized resistance to Italian colonial rule and later fought British forces near Egypt, linking Islamic reform networks to anti-colonial resistance.

Goeben and Breslau

The Goeben and Breslau were German warships that escaped into Ottoman waters at the beginning of World War I and were formally transferred to the Ottoman navy. Their attack on Russian ports in the Black Sea in late 1914 helped bring the Ottoman Empire into the war on Germany’s side.

Cemal Pasha

One of the CUP’s “Three Pashas” and commanded the Ottoman Fourth Army in Syria during World War I. He tried unsuccessfully to attack the Suez Canal and harshly repressed Arab nationalist activity, making him a symbol of wartime Ottoman centralization in the Arab provinces.

Talaat Pasha

Talaat Pasha was one of the CUP’s “Three Pashas,” serving as Ottoman interior minister and later grand vizier during World War I. He was a central architect of wartime Ottoman policies, including the Armenian genocide, and represents the CUP’s increasingly authoritarian and nationalist rule.

Enver Pasha

One of the CUP’s “Three Pashas” and Ottoman minister of war during World War I. He pushed for alliance with Germany and led the disastrous Sarikamis campaign against Russia, making him closely associated with the Ottoman decision to enter the war and its military failures.