The map of Europe was thick with pins, but Abdulhamid's eyes no longer lingered there. The shadows of Vienna and Paris were silenced, for now. His gaze moved eastward, across the Caspian, into the deserts of Turkestan, the valleys of Bukhara and Samarkand, the windswept steppes where Turkic tribes had long lived divided.
He unrolled a fresh map in his chamber — not marked by borders, but by rivers, mountains, and caravan routes. To the untrained eye, it was empty space. To Abdulhamid, it was destiny.
Selim entered quietly with a leather satchel filled with reports from Crescent Eyes agents stationed along the eastern frontier. He laid them on the desk and opened the first.
"Majesty," Selim said, "our agents in Tabriz, Baku, and Khiva bring word. The Turkic peoples whisper of you. They hear tales of the Sultan who rides iron horses, who commands factories that breathe smoke, who builds schools where faith and science are taught together. They say you are chosen to unite them."
Abdulhamid's face softened. "They should whisper. They should hope. For they are Turks, as we are Turks. Allah did not make us many peoples scattered, but one people divided. Europe I fight with shadows. But Asia…" He pressed his palm against the steppe on the map. "…Asia I will awaken with light."
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The awakening began not with swords, but with letters.
For months, Abdulhamid had wrestled with the question of language. Across the empire and beyond, Turks spoke in dozens of dialects, often unintelligible to one another. Worse still, the Arabic script bound them in chains of complexity. A child could spend years learning to write a verse, but never grasp the wider world. It was a cage — beautiful, but a cage.
But Abdulhamid carried the memory of the 21st century. He remembered how the Latin alphabet had unlocked literacy, how it simplified and spread faster than fire. And he remembered, too, how in his first life the Turks had only embraced it too late, after empire had fallen.
Not this time.
He summoned scholars, reformers, and young intellectuals loyal to him — among them certain Young Turks he had drawn to his side with promises of true reform. In the council chamber he laid down his decree.
"From this day forth," he declared, "there shall be one written Turkish, and one script. The Latin letters will be our vessel, simple and sharp. A child will learn them in months, not years. A farmer will read them as easily as a scholar. And from Anatolia to Samarkand, every Turk shall read the same words."
Gasps filled the chamber. An elderly imam rose, trembling with anger. "Majesty! The Arabic letters are the script of Qur'an! To abandon them is to abandon our faith!"
Abdulhamid's reply was calm but carried the weight of thunder. "The Qur'an is eternal, written in the language Allah revealed. That is unchanging. But letters are tools, nothing more. Do you say the axe of a Turk is less sharp than the axe of an Arab? No. The axe is judged by its cut. So too the letters. If Allah gives us a tool to awaken millions, shall we reject it? To refuse knowledge is to refuse His gift."
The chamber fell silent.
The reform passed.
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Weeks later, the first Yeni Türkçe Alfabe — the New Turkish Alphabet — rolled off Ottoman presses in Istanbul. Children's primers were distributed free: simple lessons, each page stamped with the crescent and star. The letters were bold, clear, easy to learn.
A boy in Erzurum read aloud, "Biz Türküz. Biz bir milletiz." (We are Turks. We are one nation.) His father, a shepherd, listened with tears in his eyes — for the first time, he could read along with his son.
In villages along the frontier, children crowded around teachers sent by the Crescent Eyes in disguise, repeating the new letters aloud. Women, who had often been left in silence, now learned alongside their sons and brothers. Within months, literacy spread like wildfire.
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But the alphabet was not only a tool of learning. It was a weapon of unity. Pamphlets in the new script crossed borders in caravans. In Samarkand, an imam held up a small book printed in Istanbul and declared, "See, my brothers! The Sultan gives us one tongue! No longer Uzbek, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Anatolian — but Turk!"
Russian officers quickly noticed. In Bukhara, they confiscated a shipment of primers, burning them in the square. A Tsarist colonel sneered, "The Turk thinks he can change the world with children's books. Fool." But even as he spoke, a Russian recruit of Turkic blood watched the flames with quiet rage, lips moving as he remembered the words inside. Biz Türküz. Biz bir milletiz.
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Selim brought these reports to Abdulhamid. "Majesty, the Russians burn your books, but they cannot burn memory. Already, whispers grow stronger. The new letters spread faster than their soldiers can stamp them out."
Abdulhamid nodded, his gaze fixed eastward. "Good. Russia can crush men with rifles, but it cannot crush letters once they are in the minds of children. The sword kills one man. The alphabet awakens thousands. This is the true jihad — not of blood, but of knowledge."
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In Istanbul, opposition simmered. Some clerics denounced the reform. Some nobles muttered that it was dangerous to break from tradition. But in the streets, the people embraced it. The poor, the illiterate, the forgotten — for the first time they could read signs, count coins, write their names.
Abdulhamid often walked the city in disguise, watching silently as shopkeepers painted signs in the new letters, as newspapers published in both old script and new, as children corrected their elders with laughter. The city itself seemed to hum with change.
And beyond, the horizon stirred. In the bazaars of Tashkent, in the madrassas of Bukhara, in the caravanserais of Kashgar, whispers carried the message eastward:
The Sultan has given us one tongue. One alphabet. One destiny.
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Yet even as hope spread, danger thickened. Russian patrols arrested teachers, executed preachers, burned shipments. In Bukhara, an imam who preached unity under the new script was hanged in the square, a warning to all.
Abdulhamid read the report without a word. Then he set it aside. "They try to stop a river with their hands," he murmured. "It will only spill over."
But in his heart, he knew. The horizon would not stay peaceful. The war of letters would one day become a war of steel.
And already, the horizon trembled. Even as new schools opened and children learned their letters, the empire's enemies struck back. Russia, enraged by the spread of Abdulhamid's alphabet and his vision of unity, sharpened its claws. What began as whispers of hope would soon be answered with fire, rope, and iron.
The gallows in Bukhara still swayed when the reports reached Istanbul. The imam who had dared to preach unity in the new Latin script was dead, his body left hanging as a warning. The Russians made sure the spectacle was seen by all. Soldiers dragged children from schools, torched pamphlets, even forced villagers to spit upon the new letters.
But fear, Abdulhamid knew, was a double-edged sword. The imam's death was not silence — it was fire. His name was whispered in markets, sung in secret prayers, scrawled in chalk on walls in the very letters the Russians had tried to burn. The Crescent Eyes reported graffiti appearing in Samarkand: Biz Türküz. Biz bir milletiz.
Selim laid these accounts before the Sultan. His face was hard, but his voice steady. "Majesty, their crackdown is ruthless. They strike at teachers, preachers, even children. The Tsar's men think brutality will smother your fire."
Abdulhamid looked up from the map of Asia. His eyes, sharp as drawn steel, fixed on Selim. "And what do you think?"
"I think," Selim replied, "they only scatter sparks into the wind. The more they punish, the more the people believe. But Majesty, their garrisons grow stronger. They are deploying new regiments in Tashkent and Bukhara. They mean to choke this awakening before it grows into revolt."
The Sultan stood and walked to the window, where the chimneys of Istanbul's factories coughed black smoke into the sky. "Then we must prepare the ground. Not with open war. Not yet. But with patience and shadow. For every teacher they hang, I will send ten more. For every pamphlet they burn, I will print a thousand. And when the time comes, the people will already be awake."
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Crescent Eyes operatives moved deeper into Central Asia. They smuggled books in caravans, hidden inside grain sacks. They disguised primers as Qur'anic commentaries to pass through Russian inspections. They bribed local guards with Ottoman coin, or replaced them with men loyal to the cause.
But Abdulhamid ordered something new as well — not only pamphlets, but tools. Small steam engines, simple looms, hand-cranked printing presses designed to be dismantled and carried on a mule's back. Factories were still far away, but workshops could bloom in secret courtyards, churning out books and uniforms.
"Knowledge must not depend on Istanbul alone," Abdulhamid told Selim. "It must root itself in the steppe. Let them print their own words, in their own towns. Then Russia will find it is not fighting Istanbul, but a people."
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Russia did not remain idle. In St. Petersburg, reports of "pan-Turkic agitation" reached the Tsar's desk. Advisers urged harsher measures: mass arrests, stricter censorship, deportations. Some called for eliminating Turkic identity entirely, forcing Russian language in schools. The Tsar approved.
Soon, Russian officers stormed madrassas, replacing teachers with Orthodox clergy. Turkic recruits in Russian regiments were flogged for speaking their language. Villages that harbored Ottoman pamphlets were burned.
The brutality was meant to crush, but instead it hardened resolve. Crescent Eyes reported that Turkic tribes who once fought among themselves now looked to Istanbul as their unseen guardian. Leaders began to send secret envoys, pledging loyalty if the day of liberation came.
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Selim brought one such envoy to the palace — a young man from the steppes of Kazakh land, thin but burning with conviction. He knelt before Abdulhamid and spoke in accented Turkish:
"Sultanım, our fathers say the Russians are stone, unbreakable. But the young say otherwise. We hear your words, we learn your letters, and we see your iron trains. We know you are the one to unite us. Give us the order, and we will rise."
Abdulhamid placed a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Your time will come, evlat. But not yet. A flame burns brightest when the wood is dry. Let your people learn. Let them grow strong. When the moment arrives, you will not rise alone — you will rise with an empire behind you."
The young man bowed, tears in his eyes.
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In the meantime, Abdulhamid balanced the sword with the pen. He expanded the network of schools within Ottoman lands, ensuring frontier children learned the new alphabet first. Crescent Eyes guarded teachers as zealously as soldiers guarded forts. Imams loyal to the Sultan were instructed to frame the new letters as divine clarity: "Every sign Allah created is written simply. The sun, the moon, the stars — plain to see. So too are these letters, plain for every believer."
Opposition within Istanbul persisted. Some clerics accused the Sultan of heresy, some nobles of betraying tradition. But Abdulhamid did not silence them with executions. Instead, he flooded the city with results. Within a year, thousands of peasants could write their names for the first time. Market signs were painted in bold Latin letters. Newspapers printed dual editions, but readers increasingly bought the new script. The people voted with their eyes and tongues, and the old guard found themselves outnumbered.
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In Europe, newspapers carried conflicting tales. Some mocked the "barbarian Sultan" for discarding his heritage. Others praised him as a visionary, claiming the Ottoman Empire was leaping a century forward. Russian papers seethed, denouncing the alphabet reform as "a dagger pointed at the heart of the Tsar."
And in London, the Foreign Office debated quietly. One clerk observed: "If the Sultan binds Central Asia to him with literacy and faith, he will create not merely an empire, but a civilization. That is far more dangerous than any army."
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One evening, Abdulhamid stood with Selim on the balcony of Yıldız Palace, watching the city lights glow against the Bosphorus.
"Selim," the Sultan said softly, "we are planting seeds. They may not bloom tomorrow, nor next year. But when they do, they will crack the stones of empires. Russia does not yet see it, but their foundations are already weakening. Our true victory will not be a battle won in a day. It will be the awakening of a people across horizons."
Selim bowed. "Majesty, then the Crescent Eyes will watch the horizon until it burns with dawn."
Abdulhamid's eyes narrowed, gazing eastward. "Yes. And when that dawn comes, no Tsar, no empire, no shadow of Europe will be able to put it out."