The Constitution, Parliament, and Arab Representation

As domestic and international crises intensified in the mid-1870s, a group of high-level bureaucrats, influenced by Young Ottoman thought and led by former grand vizier and president of the State Council, Midhat Pasha, saw a constitutional regime as the new hope for reform, revival, and indeed survival.^[36] Emboldened by their ability to manipulate the sultans in the crisis of succession in 1876, they prevailed upon the new sultan Abdülhamid to approve a constitution that called for a parliament.^[37]

The new charter was not the product of a popularly elected representative assembly. The members of the First Parliament, which convened in March 1877, were determined, as stipulated in the provisional electoral regulations, by previously elected provincial administrative councils instead of popular suffrage.^[38] Once Parliament opened, the outbreak of war with Russia and the defeats incurred paralyzed the government machinery and also required that caution and restraint be exercised in parliamentary proceedings.^[39] The constitution had left Parliament at the mercy of the sultan, and the war provided him with the excuse to prorogue the assembly in 1878.

Despite its shortcomings, the constitutional experiment of 1876–78 was a landmark in late Ottoman history. It whetted appetites for constitutional rule that Abdülhamid could neither satisfy nor successfully suppress. Until 1908 the demand for the restoration of the constitution and Parliament served as a focal point that crystallized and unified the liberal opposition to the sultan.

The Parliament of 1877–78 deserves attention on the basis of its own merits, notwithstanding its short life and lack of concrete achievements. It served as a forum in which the Ottomanist ideal found expression. Elite and upper-middle-class provincial representatives from diverse parts of the empire came together for the first time to discuss issues varying from the appropriate official language of the empire to provincial reorganization, freedom of the press, tax collection, and Westernization.^[40] Blocs not tied to religious and ethnic lines emerged. It was the scene of sophisticated deliberations on imperial and local issues in which government policy could be criticized—at times vehemently. The deputies from the Arab provinces were some of the most vocal, and often critical, in the Chamber of Deputies.^[41]

Parliamentary government inducted the Arab provincial elites into the political vicissitudes of the capital. This first rudimentary experiment with participatory politics provides a reference point to situate the Arab provinces and Arabs in the imperial context toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Of the 232 incumbencies during the two terms of the First Parliament,^[42] 32 belonged to Arabs.^[43] The Arab provinces of Aleppo and Syria, historically better incorporated into the empire because of their proximity to the center and their commercial importance, were slightly overrepresented in relation to their respective populations. In contrast, Baghdad, Basra, and Tripoli (Libya) were underrepresented.^[44] The sancak (subprovince) of Lebanon was invited to send deputies, but declined to do so to underscore the special autonomous status (mümtaz mutasarrıflık) that it had obtained in the aftermath of the civil strife of 1860–61. There is no evidence that any of the Muslim deputies from the Arab provinces were not Arab,^[45] although at least one of the Christian deputies representing the Arab provinces was not.^[46]

The Arab deputies were among the youngest members of the Chamber.^[47] This suggests that the Arab notables in the provinces viewed parliamentary government as an experimental venture, one for which local position should not be sacrificed. The choices of administrative councils fell on younger members of leading families, who often had a modern education and familiarity with the new order in İstanbul. At the beginning of the second session in December 1877, Nafi‘ al-Jabiri of Aleppo was twenty-nine; Khalil Ghanem, now a deputy from Beirut, was thirty-two; and Ziya al-Khalidi, who had left his position as the head of the Jerusalem municipality to come to İstanbul, was thirty-five.^[48] Khalidi vehemently attacked in one of the earliest meetings of the Chamber the principle of seniority so entrenched in the Ottoman social and political tradition.^[49] He argued that the ablest rather than the oldest should be brought to leadership positions within Parliament, and he added that the young were better educated and more predisposed to liberal and constitutional ideas than the old, who held on to outmoded ones.

Khalidi’s young, urban, professional outburst took the assembly by surprise and set the tone of his radicalism in the Chamber.^[50] Nafi‘, and in the second session Khalil Ghanem, joined him. The three emerged as the staunchest supporters of the new parliamentary regime and sought to strengthen the position of the Chamber of Deputies vis-à-vis the cabinet. Yusuf Ziya proposed that an absolute majority replace the stipulated two-thirds majority to enable the Chamber to interpellate a minister.^[51] He declared that the cabinet circumvented the constitution in appealing to the sultan in the case of a disagreement between it and the Chamber.^[52] He also criticized the censorship of the minutes.^[53]

Khalil Ghanem, in turn, attacked the government for using the war with Russia to temper its parliamentary opposition. In his early speeches, Ghanem exposed the contradiction in the government’s foreign policy when he inquired why the ostensible allies of the Ottoman state, namely England and France, were not coming to its aid.^[54] On a later occasion, he pointed to procedural bottlenecks and complained that Parliament’s procrastination in passing reform legislation brought the interference and pressure of foreign powers upon the state.^[55] Khalil Ghanem did not refrain from attacking the government, and indirectly the sultan, on the sensitive issues of the banishment of Midhat Pasha and the imposition of the state of siege.^[56] He argued that the emergency powers only served the government to neutralize its domestic opposition.

Nafi‘, the only deputy elected to both the 1877 and 1908 Parliaments, was from the prominent religious family of the Jabiris and the son of the müftü of Aleppo. He thus differed in background and outlook from the other two. He was in agreement with Ghanem on most issues but was less vituperative in his criticism. He condemned the government with regard to the state of siege, disapproved of the arbitrary banishment of religious students, but made no mention of Midhat.^[57] Nafi‘ became the first deputy to offer an interpellation in Parliament when he called on the minister of finance to provide an explanation of the general conditions and the prospects of the government’s finances. In December 1877, when the Russian fleet seized an Ottoman commercial vessel in the Black Sea, Nafi‘ offered a second interpellation^[58] and took the minister of the navy to task.^[59] He displayed a militant position on the subject of interpellations, arguing that ministers should not be informed about the subject matter of the interpellation prior to their appearance in the assembly.^[60] Meanwhile, he defended the rulings of the şeriat, opposed any criticism of the sultan,^[61] and disapproved of the secularization of regulations governing property ownership, inheritance, and disposal.^[62]

While Yusuf Ziya al-Khalidi, Khalil Ghanem, and Nafi‘ al-Jabiri were among the most active and outspoken deputies in Parliament, several other deputies from the Arab provinces distinguished themselves by their extensive participation. They were Sa‘di and Manuk of Aleppo; ‘Abd al-Razzaq of Baghdad; and Nikula Naqqash, Nawfal, and ‘Abd al-Rahim Badran of Syria. It was not uncommon for the Arab deputies to dominate the floor, even in discussions that did not directly or exclusively concern the Arab provinces.^[63] The Arab representatives did not act as a bloc,^[64] but the deputies from Aleppo and from Syria taken as a group participated in the proceedings more actively than perhaps any other provincial contingent. Even the Hijazi deputies, unlike their counterparts thirty years later, expressed themselves frequently.^[65]

The deputies representing the Arab provinces articulated local concerns regularly and elaborately. A petition submitted by Manuk Karaja shows the specific nature of the demands that were made for reform in a province: the opening of a bank in Aleppo, the building of a road between two locations in the province, the elimination of swamp lands in Alexandretta, the setting up of a commercial court in the same town, and even the transportation of a broken bridge from İstanbul’s Galata district to Birecik (near Aleppo) for installation over the Euphrates.^[66] On different occasions the Iraqi deputies pointed to the exceptional land regime of Iraq and questioned the applicability of land reforms in their province.^[67] Further appeals of Arab deputies for their constituencies often applied to other provinces as well. For instance, Nawfal voiced the Syrians’ concern about personal security after the mobilization of the police forces for the war effort and asked for a local militia to be formed as a security force.^[68] Badran referred to the same problem, asserting that the common people were indifferent to most legislative issues, such as the press law then before Parliament, but were first and foremost worried about their security.^[69]

There were no clear common interests or an “Arab idea” that unified and distinguished the Arab deputies. They seemed to perceive themselves as the representatives of the empire in its entirety, and beyond that their interest was for their immediate constituencies. The issue of the creation of a new province of Beirut underscored the primacy of parochial rather than “Arab” or regional (e.g., Syrian) concerns. Beirut’s deputies demanded the carving out of a province, with its center in Beirut, from the existing province of Syria (Suriye or Şam [Damascus]), pointing to the commercial and diplomatic importance of the city and to its distance and separation from Damascus, the Syrian provincial center. The remainder of the deputies of the province of Syria and Aleppo’s deputies indicated that the creation of a new administrative center, sought by the Beiruti delegates in the expectation of boosting local commerce, would be costly for the imperial treasury. They also played down the distance between the two cities, especially now that the two were telegraphically linked.^[70] Parliament closed without resolving Beirut’s bid, as it had with most matters that had come before it.

After Abdülhamid prorogued Parliament in the spring of 1878, ten deputies regarded as dangerous were ordered to leave İstanbul for their hometowns.^[71] Half of these were from the Arab provinces: Yusuf Ziya (Jerusalem), Ghanem (Syria), Nafi‘ (Aleppo), Manuk (Aleppo), and Ba dran (Syria). None of the ten were charged with a specific offense. The Council of Ministers sent a note to the sultan containing vague accusations about these deputies’ actions against the state and the sultan. Yusuf Ziya complained about the arbitrary action taken against him and the other deputies in a letter that he wrote to the grand vizier and former president of Parliament, Ahmed Vefik Pasha. He sent a copy of the letter to the Levant Herald with a postscript: “As you can see half of the [implicated] including myself are Arabs,”^[72] suggesting the action taken had something to do with their ethnic affiliation.

There is no indication that these deputies were regarded as dangerous because it was feared that they would foment ethnic divisiveness among Arabs. The Arab deputies did not express their criticism in Parliament in ethnic or national terms, either individually or as a group, nor did they hint at autonomist aspirations. They did at times voice regional grievances, as did deputies from other regions and provinces. The initiative coming from the Arab contingent to separate Beirut as a new provincial center could have only furthered the fragmentation of the administrative unity of Syria. In any case, Abdülhamid could hardly be accused of an anti-Arab bias. One Arab deputy, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Qudsi, representing the rival faction to the Jabiris in Aleppo, entered the sultan’s service after the closure of Parliament and subsequently became his second secretary.^[73]

Such regional and local grievances, however, if couched in strong terms, could be perceived as harmful to the integrity of the state. Indeed, such an outburst was probably responsible for the inclusion of ‘Abd al-Rahim Badran in the ranks of the banished. In January 1878 Badran began his speech on conditions in Syria by saying that the liberties guaranteed by the constitution were meaningless unless accompanied by equality, which, he claimed, existed only on paper. When he asked rhetorically, “Has anyone from Syria attained in the last six hundred years the office of the grand vizier, şeyhülislam, or minister of finance?”^[74] he was stopped by the president and accused of encouraging divisiveness.

Abdülhamid prorogued Parliament in order to eliminate political opposition to his rule. It is unlikely that he felt intimidated by the threat of separatism in the Arab provinces. The deputies had proved to be more independent and daring than he was prepared to tolerate, and he took action against the most outspoken. The Arabs among them had posed a threat, not because of any links with a potentially subversive or divisive Arab cause, but because they were articulate in their criticism of government policy at all levels. The fact that the government sent these deputies back to Syria at a time when it knew that there was a movement with separatist tendencies afoot in Beirut^[75] also demonstrates that the government regarded their presence in İstanbul to be more troublesome than their presence in Syria.

Parliament, on the whole, functioned in the spirit that the Young Ottomans had envisaged. The deputies were not submissive, as Abdülhamid no doubt had hoped that they would be once he had secured extensive royal prerogatives in the constitution; nor did they use the Chamber as a forum to pursue particularistic or separatist aims. Instead, the deputies concerned themselves with broad issues and expressed opinions on the workings of the state machinery, sharply criticizing the government, and indirectly the sultan. They pressed for legislative rights that the constitution did not accord to them and impeached ministers,^[76] in one case forcing the sultan to dismiss the grand vizier, Ahmed Hamdi Pasha.^[77]

Russian belligerence and the apparent international isolation of the empire in the aftermath of the crisis of the 1870s were partly responsible for the energy, courage, and patriotism of the deputies. Ironically, it was the war with Russia that offered Abdülhamid the pretext to prorogue the Parliament. Having disposed of it, the sultan was ready to establish his personal rule.