The Making of the Modern Ottoman Monarchy, 1820-1920

In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman monarchy was transformed. The sultan, a remote and formidable figure of absolute power in the 1820s, was, by the 1920s recast as a modern monarch attuned to new norms of governance. In the process, the Ottoman imperial court voluntarily embraced emerging European models of so-called 'enlightened' monarchy.

To explore this shift for the first time, Hakan Karateke interrogates nineteenth-century Ottoman court rituals and their layered symbolism. Following an introductory chapter that situates the Ottoman drive to modernize in the 1830s and 1840s within the wider European context, the book devotes each subsequent chapter to a distinct type of ceremony. The chapters on enthronement and the ritual of girding the sword trace these traditions from their premodern roots to their nineteenth-century adaptations. Other ceremonies examined include the celebration of the two major Muslim festivals (the Feast of Ramadan and the Feast of Sacrifice), the sultan's Friday procession to the mosque, and his receptions of guests at the imperial court. Another chapter focuses on the dynasty's veneration of sacred relics and the rituals surrounding them.

Taken together, these ceremonial practices show how the court and the sultan guided the dynasty through a period of acute crisis for monarchies, when their prestige was in decline. In doing so, the Ottoman imperial court laid the foundations of a liberal empire that redefined sovereignty, reshaped governance, and transformed the very role of the monarch in a globalizing world.