(Turkish: "Reorganization") (1839–76) Series of reforms undertaken in the Ottoman Empire to modernize society along secular and bureaucratic lines.
The first set of reforms (1839) sought to secularize the government's treatment of people and property and to reform taxation and military conscription. Later reforms (1856) established a secular school system and a new law code. Efforts to centralize government administration, however, ended by concentrating all authority in the hands of the sultan, who often abused the power. The constitution of 1876, while promising democratic reforms, actually was intended to stave off European intervention. See also Abdülhamid II ; Young Turks.