The desert wind carried the smell of fire, but not from torches or burned villages. This fire bled from the earth itself, black and heavy, bubbling in stagnant pools that shimmered under the Mesopotamian sun. For centuries, nomads cursed these tar pits as a nuisance, an omen of corruption. But Abdulhamid, with the memory of centuries yet to come, saw something else in that slick darkness.
Coal had forged Britain's navy. Coal had fed German steel. But the 20th century—his century remembered—had belonged not to coal, but to oil. The empires that mastered it had ruled the skies and seas. Those who had failed had been broken. And here, in the very veins of Mesopotamia, the empire's salvation seeped to the surface.
Abdulhamid stood at the edge of a shallow pool, flanked by Selim and a circle of Crescent Eyes. Local sheikhs lingered behind, their expressions torn between reverence and suspicion. One of them, gray-bearded and robed in white, spat quietly.
"This filth poisons wells, Majesty. Nothing grows near it. What good is it?"
Abdulhamid bent, scooping a drop of oil with his gloved hand. The black sheen dripped slowly, sticking to his fingers like tar. He raised it toward the sun, where it caught the light with an oily gleam.
"It is the blood of the world," he said softly. "With this, ships will cross oceans without sails. Armies will march faster than horses. Factories will roar with fire greater than coal. This is Allah's hidden gift to us, buried beneath our soil until the empire was ready to wield it."
The sheikh looked doubtful, but Selim stepped forward with quiet authority. "Our Sultan has seen further than we. Already his engineers have burned this black fire, and machines have bowed to it."
The murmur of the crowd turned uneasy. They believed in Abdulhamid's foresight, whispered already in Baghdad's coffeehouses as something divine. If he declared this black liquid holy, then perhaps it was.
Abdulhamid pressed on. "But secrecy is life. No word of this reaches the French or the Russians. If they learn of this gift, they will swarm here like locusts. From this moment forward, the Crescent Eyes guard these fields. Every sheikh who swears loyalty will share in the bounty. Every man who whispers to foreigners will be treated as a traitor, his blood poured into the desert like wasted oil."
The desert fell silent. Then, slowly, one sheikh bent and kissed the Sultan's hand. The others followed.
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The refinery rose in secret, a squat cluster of furnaces and barrels disguised as a tar-works for roads. Crescent Eyes labored beside common men, armed under their cloaks. At night, the refinery glowed with strange fire, its flames tinged blue and yellow as oil was tested in crude engines.
One evening, Abdulhamid stood with his engineers as they poured the refined liquid into the boiler of a small locomotive. The machine hissed, coughed—and then roared to life, wheels grinding against the track with startling force.
"It burns hotter," the chief engineer stammered, astonished. "Hotter than coal, and cleaner. Majesty, with this fuel, our locomotives can run twice the distance without rest."
Abdulhamid closed his eyes. In his mind he saw decades ahead: tanks rolling across Europe, planes soaring above deserts, fleets of oil-fueled ships dominating seas. All of it had been built upon the same black fire that now hissed beneath his hands.
He opened his eyes, voice hard as iron. "Then this is our future. Guard it as you would guard the Kaaba itself."
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Yet while fire rose in Mesopotamia, the empire's assimilation policies advanced across Anatolia and beyond.
In Ankara, classrooms echoed with the new Latin letters, children of Turkish peasants seated beside sons of Circassians and Greeks. A teacher tapped her stick against the board, her voice stern:
"Repeat after me. Vatan. Sultan. Millet."
The students echoed her, some with pride, some with reluctance. But every voice spoke Turkish.
In Baghdad, a stern imam recited his Friday sermon in Turkish for the first time. Some old men muttered, but the youth listened carefully, repeating words they had once never spoken at prayer. A Crescent Eyes agent scribbled in his notebook: The mosque teaches faster than the schoolhouse. The youth embrace what the elders resist.
In Konya, a regiment drilled on the parade ground. Turks, Kurds, Arabs, and Albanians marched side by side. Their commander barked orders in Turkish, and when a few hesitated, the sergeants lashed them into line. By sunset, the whole regiment chanted a single rhythm, their boots striking earth in unison:
Bir millet! Bir sultan! Bir gelecek!
One nation! One Sultan! One future!
Abdulhamid observed from a balcony, Selim at his side. "The army," the Sultan said, "is the forge of the nation. They may enter as Greeks or Kurds or Arabs. But when they leave, they will all be Turks."
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But the empire's enemies moved just as swiftly.
In Central Asia, the Tsar's fury deepened. Russian patrols executed entire families for hiding Turkish primers. Villages were torched, their people scattered. Crescent Eyes retaliated by assassinating officers in their sleep, torching supply wagons, spreading fear where they could.
Reports poured into Istanbul: blood on both sides, villages erased, children taken as hostages. Selim laid the parchment before the Sultan one night.
"If we do not move openly," Selim said grimly, "the Tsar will grind these people into dust."
Abdulhamid's hand lingered on the reports. His face was shadowed in the candlelight. "We cannot move openly, not yet. Europe would use it as pretext to strike us before we are ready. But we will bleed the Russians until their empire rots from within. Keep the shadows moving, Selim. Keep their officers afraid of the dark."
Selim bowed. "As you command."
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Yet the shadows did not come only from the east. In Basra, British agents bribed sheikhs with sacks of silver, whispering that the Sultan meant to erase Arab names and steal their lands. In Beirut, French consuls printed pamphlets promising Christian communities protection against "Turkification." In Samarkand, Russian agitators spread rumors that Abdulhamid's reforms were nothing but lies to enslave Turkic peoples anew.
The empire stood at a crossroads—its heart filling with oil and steel, its tongue unifying under Turkish words, but its borders fraying with enemies' hands tugging at every seam.
Abdulhamid understood better than anyone: shadows were growing long. And where shadows spread, knives followed.
Yet the knives did not wait only in deserts and steppes. As the Crescent Eyes fought silent duels with Tsarist patrols and hunted foreign agents in the souks of Basra, the empire's own ministers gathered in Istanbul, heavy with doubt. The Sultan had bound his future to oil and steel, but around him lingered men still chained to the past—men who whispered of concessions, of foreign loans, of compromises that tasted like surrender. And so, while the shadows deepened abroad, another battle began within the gilded halls of the capital.
The Imperial Council chamber smelled faintly of ink and wax, its gilded walls glimmering in lamplight. Ministers gathered around the polished table, their faces grave. Before them lay reports from Mesopotamia: the refinery disguised as tar-works, barrels of oil secretly shipped north, engines tested with new fire.
Grand Vizier Halil Pasha cleared his throat, hesitant. "Majesty, we must be cautious. Oil is powerful, yes, but its discovery cannot remain hidden forever. Already British agents circle Basra like hawks. If they learn what we possess…" He trailed off, unwilling to say aloud what all were thinking: war, blockade, intervention.
Another minister, an aging conservative, slammed his palm on the table. "And what of our own people? Arabs already whisper that you seek to erase their tongue. If they learn this oil is seized for the crown alone, rebellion will follow. Better to sell concessions quietly to Europe—let them invest, let them shoulder the burden."
A murmur of agreement rippled around the table. But Abdulhamid's gaze was cold, cutting through them like a blade. He rose slowly, each word deliberate.
"Sell concessions? To foreigners? Did Allah place this gift beneath our soil so we might hand it to the infidel? You speak of rebellion—yet what greater rebellion is there than ministers who would sell their Sultan's lifeblood to strangers?"
The chamber fell silent. Abdulhamid stepped to the window, looking out over Istanbul's glowing chimneys, the smoke of factories black against the moon.
"Coal belongs to Britain. Steel belongs to Germany. But oil…" His voice dropped to a whisper, yet every man heard it. "Oil will belong to us. To the Turks. To the empire reborn. We will keep it secret, we will guard it with steel and blood, until the day comes when Europe wakes to find itself chained by our black fire."
Selim, standing at the edge of the chamber, bowed his head. None dared argue further.
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In the weeks that followed, the empire's propaganda machine roared to life.
Posters appeared in cities and villages, bold in the new Latin Turkish script. They depicted a shining sun rising over smokestacks, oil wells, and locomotives, with the words:
Allah'ın ikinci hediyesi: Kara Ateş
Allah's second gift: the Black Fire.
Children in schools repeated it as catechism. Newspapers told stories of miraculous engines, of a Sultan chosen to awaken Allah's hidden blessings. Even sermons began weaving the phrase into prayers. Oil was no longer a curiosity or filth—it was sanctified, nationalized, bound to faith and identity.
But propaganda alone could not stop Europe.
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In Beirut, French consuls distributed pamphlets in Arabic, claiming that the Sultan's new policies meant the death of local languages and customs. In Basra, British officers posed as merchants, bribing dockworkers to report on strange shipments bound for Istanbul. In Samarkand, Russian agitators spread forged leaflets saying Abdulhamid had abandoned Central Asia, that his so-called "assimilation" was nothing but a mask for tyranny.
The Crescent Eyes countered relentlessly. Pamphlets were confiscated, agitators disappeared, and ships carrying British "merchants" were found drifting mysteriously unmanned in the Gulf. Still, for every fire they stamped out, another seemed to rise.
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Then came the warning.
Selim entered the Sultan's private study at night, his face grim. He laid a coded message on the desk. "From our men in Basra, Majesty. The British know."
Abdulhamid read swiftly. The message spoke of crates of explosives shipped under false names, of agents bribing tribesmen along the river. Their target was clear: the refinery at Mosul.
Abdulhamid's jaw tightened. The refinery was still fragile, its defenses incomplete. If it were destroyed now, the empire's secret might vanish in smoke.
Selim waited. "What are your orders?"
The Sultan's eyes gleamed with the fire of a man who had lived two lives. "We will not only protect the refinery. We will set a trap. Let them come with their dynamite and their arrogance. They think us blind. Instead, we will show them that the Crescent Eyes see in the dark."
Selim bowed. "It will be done."
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Preparations began in silence. Crescent Eyes disguised themselves as workers, patrolling at night with hidden rifles. Engineers built false storage sheds, filled with barrels of sand disguised as oil. Secret passages were dug beneath the refinery floor, allowing assassins to move unseen.
And all the while, Abdulhamid waited in Istanbul, outwardly calm, but inwardly aflame.
He remembered the 20th century, when foreign powers carved oil-rich lands like butchered carcasses, when Turks and Arabs alike were pawns in their games. Not this time. Not in this life.
This time, when the foreigners reached for oil, their hands would come back burned.
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The night drew near.
In Mosul, the refinery's fires burned low, its chimneys sighing smoke into the desert wind. Crescent Eyes lay hidden in shadows, eyes sharp, blades sharper. Somewhere in the dark, horses approached. Foreign tongues muttered. Metal scraped against crates.
The trap was set.
And as the first infiltrators crept toward the refinery walls, the Sultan in Istanbul raised his head, as though he could feel the threads of fate tightening across the empire.
"The age of shadows is ours," he whispered. "Let them learn it in blood."