Ahmed Şefik Midhat Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: احمد شفيق مدحت پاشا, romanized: Aḥmed Şefīḳ Midḥat Pāşā; 1822 – 26 April 1883) was an Ottoman politician, reformist, and statesman. He was the author of the Constitution of the Ottoman Empire.
Midhat was born in Istanbul and educated from a private medrese. In July 1872, he was appointed grand vizier by Abdulaziz (r. 1861–1876), though was removed in August. During the First Constitutional Era, in 1876, he co-founded the Ottoman Parliament. Midhat was noted as a kingmaker and leading Ottoman democrat. He was part of a governing elite which recognized the crisis the Empire was in and considered reform to be a dire need. He clashed with Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909), who in 1881 had him convicted of the alleged murder of Sultan Abdulaziz. In 1883, Midhat was killed in the prison of al-Ta'if, reportedly on the Sultan's orders.
Ahmed Shefik Midhat Pasha was born in Istanbul in the Islamic month of Safar in 1238 AH, which began on 18 October 1822. His family consisted of well-established Muslim scholars. His father, Rusçuklu Mehmed Eşref, was a native of Ruse. The family seem to have been professed Bektashis. Born into an Ilmiye family, he received a private and medrese education.
He spent his youth in his parents' home in Vidin, Lovech and later Istanbul, where his father held judicial office.
In 1836 he worked in the secretariat of the grand vizier, and in 1854 the Grand Vizier Kıbrıslı Mehmed Emin Pasha gave him the task of pacifying the province of Adrianople, and he succeeded in putting down banditry in the Balkans in 1854–1856. In 1858 he spent six months traveling in western Europe for studies, including in Vienna, Paris, Brussels and London. While he was second secretary of the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances, he took part in the investigation of the Kuleli Incident.
In 1861 he was appointed governor of Niš, where he was instrumental in introducing the vilayet system in the Balkans. Fuad Pasha, in order to implement the 1864 Vilayet Law, began with a pilot program in the form of the model and experimental vilayet of the Danube, in which Midhat Pasha was appointed its first Vali. He was governor of the Danube Province from 1864 to 1868. He played a major role in the accommodation of Muslim refugees from Serbia, who were expelled by the government in 1862. During his governorship, he built countless schools and educational institutes, built hospitals, granaries, roads and bridges, paying for these projects through voluntary contributions from the people. Within two years Midhat Pasha restored order, introduced the new reformed hierarchy, provided agricultural credits (through the first agricultural credit co-operatives), extended roads, bridges, and waterways, started industries, opened schools and orphanages, founded a newspaper, and increased the revenues of the province from 26,000 to 300,000 purses. He clashed with the Grand Vizier Mehmed Emin Ali Pasha, which led to his appointment as governor of Baghdad in 1869, as the appointment to such a remote posting was intended as a punishment.
After his arrival in Baghdad in 1869, he opened a series of government schools, as the city previously had no state educational institutions. He also emphasized reforming the Sixth Army, and to that end he opened military schools. The military schools were to have the more lasting impact: by 1900, the civil preparatory high school was attended by only 96 students, compared to 256 for the military preparatory school, and 846 for the military middle school in the same year.
He helped modernize the province, and he re-established Ottoman rule in al-Hasa. He enacted the vilayet system in Baghdad, and applied the 1858 land decree under which miri land could be granted to individuals, under a system known as nizam tapu.
As one of the modernization efforts carried out by Midhat Pasha, the newspaper al-Zawra was published bilingually (Turkish and Arabic) as the official mouthpiece of the governorate. al-Zawra is known as the first newspaper of Iraq, and was continued until the British takeover.
Sir Henry Dobbs recognised the three years of Midhat Pasha's governorship as the most stable and secure period of Ottoman rule in the region. He left the post in 1872, returning to Istanbul.
In 1872, he was appointed grand vizier by Abdulaziz (r. 1861–1876). His first tenure came to an abrupt end, mainly due to his clashes with Abdulaziz over financial and economic issues. He was dismissed after two months. He also served as Minister of Justice in 1873 and 1875, but his tenure in these offices was short-lived, owing to his inclination towards a constitutional regime.
The emerging internal, financial and diplomatic crises of 1875–1876 provided him with a chance to lead the 1876 Ottoman coup d'état and introduce a constitution, beginning the First Constitutional Era which he dominated as chair of the constitutional committee.
On 15 June 1876, an Ottoman infantry officer named Çerkez Hasan assaulted a meeting in the mansion of Midhat Pasha, where all the chief ministers were present. The minister of war Huseyin Avni Pasha was shot, and the foreign minister Rashid Pasha was killed, as was one of Midhat's servants, named Ahmed Aga. In total, 5 were killed and 10 were wounded, and Hasan was sentenced to death for the crime, in an incident known as the Çerkez Hasan incident.
Midhat Pasha was again appointed Grand Vizier, in place of Mehmed Rushdi Pasha, on 19 December 1876. When he was appointed, he promised to continue on the path of reform, and announced on 23 December 1876 that a constitution would be promulgated and a representative parliament established. Though not a member of the commission that drafted the constitution, he played an important part in its adoption. The constitution guaranteed equal rights for all citizens without distinction of race or creed; the abolition of slavery; an independent judiciary based on civil (rather than religious) law; universal elementary education; and a bicameral parliament, with a Senate appointed by the Sultan and a directly elected Chamber of Deputies. Midhat Pasha asserted in the Nineteenth Century that "in Islam the principle of government rests upon bases essentially democratic, inasmuch as the sovereignty of the people is therein recognized."
Popular support for the constitution began to plummet when it became known that it was to grant equal rights for non-Muslims. The softas, which had been Midhat's supporters just months earlier, became largely opposed. Midhat Pasha managed to pressure Abdul Hamid II into approving the constitution, but the Sultan was able to include the notorious article 113, which gave him the power to banish anyone from the empire without trial or other legal procedure.
Abdul Hamid had no real interest in constitutionalism, and on 5 February 1877, he exiled Midhat Pasha. Sent to Brindisi on the imperial yacht, from there he visited France, Spain, Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom, where he wrote memoranda supporting the Ottoman cause in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, and a pamphlet defending Ottoman reforms. Midhat's popularity in Europe, coupled with British pressure, led Abdul Hamid to allow him to return from exile, and he arrived in Crete on 6 September 1878.
After the war ended, Sultan Abdul Hamid II dismissed the government and returned to despotic rule.
The intervention of the British led to his appointing as governor again, and he became governor of the Vilayet of Syria in November 1878, a post he held until 31 August 1881. During his tenure he endeavoured to reform the province. He used a charitable association for education, which had been formed by some of Beirut's prominent Muslim citizens, into a centrepiece of his educational reform, and encouraged the formation of similar associations in Damascus and elsewhere.