Istanbul, 1893
The year 1893 dawned gray and cold over Istanbul. The Bosphorus steamed with fog, ships groaned in the harbor, and the first snow of January frosted the domes of mosques and ministries alike. In the heart of Yıldız Palace, Abdulhamid sat upon his throne, not as a monarch of velvet but as an architect of authority.
A decade of steel had given the empire new bones: factories, railroads, refineries, and swelling schools. But bones required sinews to move. And sinews required a nervous system — a centralized will. Abdulhamid intended to become that will.
The grand hall was crowded with ministers, provincial governors, military commanders, and clerks bearing endless ledgers. Before them stood the Sultan's latest decree, spread across a gilded lectern:
The Imperial Order of Administration, 1893.
It was a vision both vast and precise:
-Every province was to report directly to Istanbul through appointed governors loyal only to the Sultan, not local elites.
-All taxes, once gathered by local lords, tribes, or clerics, would now flow into a unified treasury.
-The judiciary, long fractured between sharia, custom, and local authority, would be restructured under a single imperial court system — with Turkish as the language of law.
-Education ministries in every province would answer not to local councils, but to the central Ministry of Instruction.
-Crescent Eyes were officially integrated into the state apparatus, "an unseen hand ensuring loyalty to the Sultan."
The hall buzzed with murmurs as the decree was read. Some governors bristled, for it stripped them of patronage. Some clerics paled, for it tethered schools and courts to Istanbul's will. But none dared voice dissent aloud.
Abdulhamid rose slowly, his robe sweeping across the marble floor. His eyes burned like twin lamps as they scanned the assembly.
"You mutter," he said quietly, "as though central authority is a thief. But what is chaos, if not a thief greater still? For too long, the empire has bled from ten thousand cuts — each governor a king, each sheikh a sovereign, each priest a law unto himself. No more. The empire is one body, and it shall have one head. From this day, the arteries of law and coin will flow through Istanbul, and no other. Who resists me resists Allah's chosen Caliph."
The silence was absolute. Then, reluctantly, they bowed.
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Bureaucracy Forged in Iron
Weeks turned into months, and the machinery of centralization ground into motion. Clerks flooded the provinces with new ledgers. Governors received orders signed directly by Abdulhamid himself. Provincial treasuries were sealed, their revenues redirected to Istanbul. Judges were retrained, some dismissed, others executed quietly if they resisted too loudly.
At the Ministry of Instruction, vast registers catalogued every schoolchild, every orphan, every stipend family. Turkish was enforced with iron precision: teachers who failed to use it were dismissed, sometimes exiled. New primers were printed in tens of thousands, stamped with the imperial seal.
The Crescent Eyes, once shadows in the alleys, now became shadows in every office. Posing as clerks, scribes, and translators, they recorded every whisper of dissent. Governors who dragged their feet found their mistresses exposed, their bribes uncovered, their reputations shredded in days. Priests who defied the Turkish schools were found dead in alleys, their deaths reported as "banditry."
Selim, ever at Abdulhamid's side, delivered weekly dossiers. "Majesty," he would say, placing parchment after parchment on the desk, "this bishop in Skopje resists still. This sheikh in Basra speaks against Turkish prayers. This Albanian chief refuses taxes. What is your command?"
And Abdulhamid, with the coldness of steel, would choose: bribe, threaten, exile, or kill. It became a rhythm, as systematic as the ticking of a clock.
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Assimilation Hardened
The centralization decree brought assimilation into sharp relief. The Balkans burned under it, for priests saw their ancient autonomy shattered. Arab lands too trembled, as courts and mosques bent beneath Turkish law.
In Damascus, sermons thundered that "the Sultan has betrayed the Arabs to Turkic pride." In Kosovo, villagers rioted when their local judge was replaced by a Turkish-speaking magistrate. In Mosul, oil tribes muttered that they were being turned into mere peasants of Istanbul.
But Abdulhamid answered not with concessions, but with policy.
-In the Balkans, children were forcibly enrolled in Turkish schools. Crescent Eyes ensured priests who resisted vanished. Villages that complied received grain and tax relief. Villages that resisted saw their stipends cut, their young conscripted into the army.
-In Arab lands, Turkish-language Qur'ans were distributed free of charge. Imams who led prayers in Turkish received stipends. Those who refused found their mosques closed "for repairs" — indefinitely.
-In Mesopotamia, orphans of tribes slain in border skirmishes were seized and raised in Turkish orphanages, taught to forget the tongues of their fathers.
Abdulhamid explained it to Selim one night as they walked the palace gardens.
"You cannot kill every rebel," he said softly, watching the snow melt on the fountain. "If you kill one, ten will rise. But if you take his child, and teach him to pray in Turkish, to read in Turkish, to dream in Turkish… then in one generation, there are no rebels left. Only sons of the empire."
Selim bowed his head. "And those who resist still?"
Abdulhamid's gaze hardened. "Then they are fuel for the Crescent Eyes. Shadows must eat, Selim."
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The Palace as Machine
By the end of 1893, Yıldız Palace had transformed into a machine of order.
Long corridors echoed with the scratching of pens, as clerks copied decrees day and night. Pigeon posts and telegraph lines pulsed like arteries, carrying commands to distant provinces. Crescent Eyes slipped silently among them, eyes behind every curtain.
Abdulhamid worked tirelessly, his reborn mind driven by a vision few could fathom. He saw the empire not as a patchwork of peoples, but as a machine — a great engine of faith and steel, powered by discipline. And he, reborn by Allah's secret mercy, was its engineer.
But outside the palace walls, storm clouds gathered. Russian agents whispered in the Balkans, British consuls in Baghdad fanned clerical rage, French envoys stirred Syrian Christians. They saw Abdulhamid's new order for what it was: not reform, but iron dominion.
And so, as 1893 drew to a close, Selim laid another dossier upon the Sultan's desk.
"Majesty. Foreign hands grow bolder. They mean to test your new order. The question is — shall we wait for their strike, or strike first?"
Abdulhamid looked up from his papers, his eyes as cold and sharp as a sword.
"We built the Palace of Order to rule the empire," he said softly. "Now we shall see if it can stand against the world."