Mustafa Reşid Pasha in the context of "Edict of Gülhane"

The Tanzimat (Ottoman Turkish: تنظيمات, Turkish: Tanzimât, lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of 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 Pasha, Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha, and Fuad Pasha, under Sultans Abdul Mejid and Abdul Aziz, the reforms sought to reverse the empire's decline by modernizing legal, military, and administrative systems while promoting Ottomanism (equality for all subjects). Though secular courts, modern education, and infrastructure like railways, were introduced, the reforms faced resistance from conservative clerics, exacerbated ethnic tensions in the Balkans, and saddled the empire with crippling foreign debt. The Tanzimat’s legacy remains contested: some historians credit it with establishing a powerful national government, while others argue it accelerated imperial fragmentation.

Different functions of government received reform, were completely reorganized, or started from scratch. Among institutions that received significant attention throughout this period included legislative functions, trade policy, secularization and codification of the legal system, crackdowns on the slave trade, education, property law, law enforcement, and the military. Ottoman statesmen also worked with reformers of the many confessional communities of the empire, millets, to codify — and in some cases democratize — their confessional governments.

Abdul Mejid I (Ottoman Turkish: عبد المجید اول, romanized: ʿAbdü'l-Mecîd, Turkish: I. Abdülmecid; 25 April 1823 – 25 June 1861) was the 31st sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He succeeded his father Mahmud II on 2 July 1839.

Abdulmejid's greatest achievement was the announcement of the Tanzimat Edict upon his accession, prepared by his then Foreign Minister Mustafa Reshid Pasha, which effectively began the Tanzimat era, or era of reorganization, in the Ottoman Empire. He was a mild-mannered monarch, giving the Sublime Porte the autonomy needed for its reform projects. One of the main goals of the Tanzimat was to encourage Ottomanism among the millets to stop rising nationalist movements within the empire, but despite new laws and reforms to integrate non-Muslims and non-Turks more thoroughly into Ottoman society, in the long term, the movement failed.