Mehmed Said Halim Pasha (; ; 18 or 28 January 1865 or 19 February 1864 – 6 December 1921) was a writer and statesman who served as the

Grand Vizier Grand vizier (; ; ) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. It was first held by officials in the later Abbasid Caliphate. It was then held in the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Soko ...

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

from 1913 to 1917. He was one of the perpetrators of the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

and later assassinated by Arshavir Shirakian as part of

Operation Nemesis Operation Nemesis () was a program of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation to assassinate both Ottoman Empire, Ottoman perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and officials of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic most responsible for the massacre o ...

, a retribution campaign to kill perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.

Early life

Mehmed Said Halim was born at the palace of

Shubra Shubra (, ; also written Shoubra or Shobra) is a district of Cairo, Egypt and it is one of eight districts that make up the Northern Area. Administratively it used to cover the entire area of the three districts of Shubra, Rod El Farag, and El Sa ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

to , one of the sons of Muhammed Ali Pasha, the founder of the Khedivet of Egypt. He was of Albanian origin. In 1870, he and his family settled in Istanbul. He was educated by private teachers, and learned Arabic, Persian, English, and French. He later studied political science in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. In 1890 or 1895, he married Emine İnci Tosun, daughter of Mehmed Tosun Pasha. In the late 1890s the Prince Said Halim Pasha Palace in

Downtown Cairo Downtown Cairo ( "middle of town") is the colloquial name given to the 19th-century western expansion of Egypt's capital Cairo, between the historic medieval Cairo, and the Nile, which became the commercial center of the city during the 20th c ...

was built for him by the Italian architect Antonio Lasciac.

Political career

In 1888, Said Halim became a member of the

Council of State A council of state is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head ...

with the rank of Mir-i Mîran, making him a civil

Pasha Pasha (; ; ) was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman political and military system, typically granted to governors, generals, dignitary, dignitaries, and others. ''Pasha'' was also one of the highest titles in the 20th-century Kingdom of ...

. In 1900 he became the Rumeli Beylerbeyi. During this time he had good relations with Sultan

Abdul Hamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...

. Jealous courtiers spread rumors of Halim's disloyalty and propensity to read dangerous literature. Falling out of favor, he reduced his interest in his duty in the Council of State and retired to his mansion. In 1903, he was exiled from the capital for establishing relations with the

Young Turks The Young Turks (, also ''Genç Türkler'') formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (). The most powerful organization of the movement, ...

. He went first to

and then to Europe and established direct relations with the Young Turks, giving them material and intellectual support. In 1906, he was appointed a leading role in the Committee of Progress and Union. Following the 1908 revolution, he returned to Istanbul. While exiled, his position in the Council of State was never officially terminated, but he was finally dismissed by the council on September 3, 1908. He was appointed as the chief of the Yeniköy city council after its municipal election. He later became the Second Chief of the General Association of Municipalities (''Cemiyet-i Umumiye-i Belediye İkinci Reisliği''), and in 1908 he was appointed a member of the Ottoman Senate. He member of the administrative council of the Darüşşafaka. Between January 23, 1912 and July 23, 1912, he was chief of the Council of State in Said Pasha's cabinet. Halim was sent to

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

to negotiate a peace treaty to end the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...

on 3 July 1912, but the change in government spelled his fall from cabinet and he had to return home. Following his resignation, he was elected as the General Secretary of the

Committee of Union and Progress The Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, also translated as the Society of Union and Progress; , French language, French: ''Union et Progrès'') was a revolutionary group, secret society, and political party, active between 1889 and 1926 ...

(CUP), and was appointed to the Council of State for the second time in 1913 during Mahmut Şevket Pasha's viziership, and to the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

three days later. After the assassination of Şevket Pasha on 11 June 1913, he was first given the rank of

vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...

and was appointed to the Grand Vizier's Office, and the next day (12 June 1913) to the office of the Grand Vizier (Prime Minister). He was a compromise candidate for the CUP; Said Halim was more conservative and Islamist than the central committee would have wanted, however the prestige of his ancestry and his lack of agency made him an acceptable Grand Vizier to the CUP.

Grand Viziership

In September 1913, he was honored with the

Order of Distinction The Order of Distinction (OD) is a national order in the Jamaican honours system. It is the sixth in order of precedence of the Orders of Societies of Honour, which were instituted by an Act of Parliament (''The National Honours and Awards Ac ...

by Sultan

Mehmed V Mehmed V Reşâd (; or ; 2 November 1844 – 3 July 1918) was the penultimate List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1909 to 1918. Mehmed V reigned as a Constitutional monarchy, constitutional monarch. He had ...

for his service in signing the achieving a peace deal with the Bulgarians, and anchoring the border to the Maritsa river, beyond

Edirne Edirne (; ), historically known as Orestias, Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the Edirne Province, province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second c ...

. He was one of the signatures of Ottoman–German Alliance, which was signed in his mansion in Yeniköy with the German ambassador, Baron Wangenheim. Yet, he attempted to resign after the incident of the pursuit of ''Goeben'' and ''Breslau'', an event which served to bring the Ottoman Empire into the Great War. It is claimed that Sultan Reşad wanted a person in whom he trusted as Grand Vizier, and that he asked Said Halim to stay in his post as long as possible. When Britain annexed Egypt in 1914, Halim Pasha claimed the throne of the Egyptian monarchy based on a firman which changed Egyptian succession law half a century ago. During the

, Said Halim signed the deportation orders for the Armenian population. The Armenian Patriarch Zaven I Der Yeghiayan appealed to him to cease the terror being committed against Armenians, which Said Halim replied to by claiming reports of arrests and deportations were being greatly exaggerated. Der Yeghiayan himself was later deported. As the war went on, he was increasingly sidelined by Talaat Bey and

Enver Pasha İsmâil Enver (; ; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922), better known as Enver Pasha, was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish people, Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and Istanbul trials of 1919–1920, convicted war criminal who was a p ...

. He lost his Foreign Ministry to

Halil Menteşe Halil Menteşe (1874–1948) was a Turkish government minister and politician, who was a well known official of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the President of the Chamber of Deputies in th ...

in 1915. Said Halim's premiership lasted until 1917, cut short because of continuous clashes between him and the CUP. The

Interior Minister An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a Cabinet (government), cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and iden ...

Talaat succeeded him.

Arrest and assassination

Said Halim was accused of treason during the court martial trials after World War I in the Ottoman Empire for his role in deporting Armenian civilians and signing a secret alliance with Germany. He was exiled on 29 May 1919 to a prison on

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. He was acquitted from the accusations and set free in 1921, and he moved to Sicily. He wanted to return to

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but this request was rejected. He was

assassinated Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

soon after in Rome by Arshavir Shirakian, an agent of the

Armenian Revolutionary Federation The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (, abbr. ARF (ՀՅԴ) or ARF-D), also known as Dashnaktsutyun (Armenians, Armenian: Դաշնակցություն, Literal translation, lit. "Federation"), is an Armenian nationalism, Armenian nationalist a ...

, for his role in the Armenian genocide. According to Eşref Kuşçubaşı, who was involved in the planning of the Armenian death marches, Said Halim Pasha knew nothing of the genocide.

Political writings and views

Under the ''nom de plume'' "Mehmed", Said Halim Pasha wrote several works of social commentary, comparative politics, and political philosophy during the Hamidian Era and Second Constitutional Era. He was a frequent contributor to '' Sebîlürreşad'', a pro-CUP Islamist journal.

As a social scientist

In a historical analysis, he claimed Islam was not as much in need of an equality movement as in the West due to (

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

) Islam's lack of clergy and aristocracy, therefore in a civilizational sense, Islamic civilization was more egalitarian than the West. Indeed, he believed the west suffers from inherent inequalities inherent to their social structure, while Islamic civilization suffered from too much equality, leading to an Islamic civilization turning increasingly elitist and exclusive. He identified that materialism emerged from the gap between the Church and the new discoveries of science and technology. The idea that Islam essentially discouraged technological innovation was refuted by Halim, though he did identify western materialism for having destroyed family values. Using the framework of

historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...

, he identified the cause of feminism appropriate among bourgeois women in developed Western-European societies, in contrast to upper-class Ottoman women which he believed were uninterested in further rights. In 1916 he published ''Buhrân-ı İçtimaîmiz'', where he castigates Ottoman society for leaving behind their past religion and culture. While Western nation-states feature homogeneous societies of different classes that are always in conflict with each other, the Ottoman Empire's heterogeneity meant an Ottoman nationalism did not exist.

As a commentator

In the 1911 essay ''Meşrutiyet'', he gave a retrospective analysis of the failures of the

First Constitutional Era The First Constitutional Era (; ) of the Ottoman Empire was the period of constitutional monarchy from the promulgation of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 (, , meaning ' Basic Law' or 'Fundamental Law' in Ottoman Turkish), written by members ...

, particularly blaming the lack of a civic political culture developed by many people's in the Empire. A desire among the

Tanzimat The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...

statesmen for westernization for the sake of westernization veiled the fact that the Empire didn't much resemble

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, Turkey's model. Despite the modern cosmopolitanism of the cities like Constantinople, Smyrna, or Salonica, much of the empire was still in a socio-economic state of feudalism, and not sufficiently "enlightened" for representative and constitutional government. He was skeptical of the CUP's governance following the 31 March Incident, noting that a people toppling a dictator ultan Abdul Hamid IIdoesn't mean freedom is automatically attained.

Cultural depictions

Iqbal writes in his '' Javid Nama'' how

Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi '' faqih'' (jurist), Maturidi theologian (''mutakallim''), and Sufi mystic born during the Khwarazmian Empire ...

guides him to Mercury, where he sees Said Halim Pasha and Jemaluddin al-Afghani in prayer.

Works

Essays

* ''Mukallidliklerimiz'' – 1910 * ''Meşrutiyet'' – 1911 * ''Buhrân-ı İçtimaîmiz'' – 1916 Kubbealtı Sahaf * ''Ta'assup'' – 1917 * ''İnhitât-i Islam Hakkinda bir Tecrübe-i Kalemiyye'' – 1917 * ''İslâmlaşmak'' – 1918 * ''İslâm da Teşkîlât-ı Siyâsiyye''/''Les Institutions politiques dans la société musulmane''/''The Reform of Muslim Society'' – 1921

Other

* ''Buhranlarımız ve Son Eserleri'' – İz Yayıncılık * ''Said Halim Paşa'' – Bütün Eserleri Anka Yayınları 2003

Footnotes

Literature

* * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Said Halim Pasha 1860s births 1921 deaths Armenian genocide perpetrators Exiles from the Ottoman Empire Malta exiles People from the Ottoman Empire murdered abroad Muhammad Ali dynasty People murdered in Lazio Deaths by firearm in Italy Assassinated people from the Ottoman Empire 20th-century grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire People acquitted of treason Albanian grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire Albanian people from the Ottoman Empire Ottoman people of the Balkan Wars Ottoman people of World War I Murdered Turkish criminals Ministers of foreign affairs of the Ottoman Empire Recipients of the Order of the Star of Romania Members of the Senate of the Ottoman Empire People assassinated by Operation Nemesis People murdered in 1921 World War I political leaders People of the July Crisis Turkish people murdered abroad 20th-century Albanian people