Said Halim | |
|---|---|
سعيد حليم | |
 | |
| Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire | |
| In office 12 June 1913 – 4 February 1917 | |
| Monarch | Mehmed V |
| Preceded by | Mahmud Shevket Pasha |
| Succeeded by | Talaat Pasha |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 18 or 28 January 1865 or 19 February 1864 |
| Died | 6 December 1921(1921-12-06) (aged 56) |
| Nationality | Ottoman |
| Party | Committee of Union and Progress |
| Relations | Muhammad Ali Pasha (grandfather) |
Mehmed Said Halim Pasha (Ottoman Turkish:سعيد حليم پاشا;Turkish:Sait Halim Paşa; 18 or 28 January 1865 or 19 February 1864[1] – 6 December 1921) was a writer and statesman who served as theGrand Vizier of theOttoman Empire from 1913 to 1917. He is said to be one of the perpetrators of theArmenian genocide and later assassinated byArshavir Shirakian as part ofOperation Nemesis, a retribution campaign to kill genocidiers. It is unsure if he was actually involved, as he did not hold much political power and was kept in the dark on most matters of state by members of the Central Committee of theCUP.
Mehmed Said Halim was born at the palace ofShubra inCairo,Egypt toMuhammad Abd al-Halim Pasha [tr], one of the sons ofMuhammed Ali Pasha, the founder of the Khedivet of Egypt. He was of Albanian origin.[2][3] In 1870, he and his family settled in Istanbul.[4] He was educated by private teachers, and learned Arabic, Persian, English, and French. He later studied political science inSwitzerland.[5]
In 1890[5] or 1895,[6] he married Emine İnci Tosun, daughter of Mehmed Tosun Pasha.
In the late 1890s thePrince Said Halim Pasha Palace inDowntown Cairo was built for him by the Italian architectAntonio Lasciac.
In 1888, Said Halim was appointed a member of theCouncil of State with the rank of Mir-i Mîran, making him a civilPasha. In 1900 he becameBeylerbeyi of Rumeli. During this time he had good relations with SultanAbdul Hamid II. Jealous courtiers spread rumors of Halim's disloyalty and propensity to read dangerous literature. Falling out of favor, he retired to his mansion, though his position in the Council of State was never officially terminated,[4] only being dismissed from the council in September 1908. In 1903, he was exiled from the capital for establishing relations with theYoung Turks. He went first toEgypt and then to Europe and established direct relations with the Young Turks, giving them material and intellectual support. In 1906, he was appointed a leading role in theCommittee of Progress and Union. Following the1908 revolution, he returned to Istanbul.[4]
He was appointed as the chief of theYeniköy city council after its municipal election. He later became the Second Chief of the General Association of Municipalities (Cemiyet-i Umumiye-i Belediye İkinci Reisliği), and in 1908 he was appointed a member of theOttoman Senate. He was made a member of the administrative council of theDarüşşafaka. From January to July 1912, he was President ofCouncil of State inSaid Pasha's cabinet. Halim was sent toLausanne to negotiate a peace treaty to end theItalo-Turkish War in July 1912, but the change in government spelled his fall from cabinet and he had to return home.[4]
Following his resignation, he was elected as the General Secretary of theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP), and was appointed to the Council of State for the second time in 1913 duringMahmud Şevket Pasha's viziership, and to theMinistry of Foreign Affairs three days later. After the assassination of Şevket Pasha on 11 June 1913, he was first given the rank ofvizier and was appointed to the Grand Vizier's Office, and the next day (12 June 1913) to the office of theGrand Vizier (Prime Minister). He was a compromise candidate for the CUP; Said Halim was more conservative andIslamist than the central committee would have wanted, however the prestige of his ancestry and his lack of agency made him an acceptable Grand Vizier to the CUP.
In September 1913, he was honored with theOrder of Distinction by SultanMehmed V for his service in signing the achieving apeace deal with the Bulgarians, and anchoring the border to theMaritsa river, beyondEdirne.
He was one of the signatures ofOttoman–German Alliance, which was signed in his mansion in Yeniköy with the German ambassador,Baron Wangenheim. Yet, he attempted to resign after the incident of thepursuit ofGoeben andBreslau, an event which served tobring the Ottoman Empire into the Great War. It is claimed that Sultan Reşad wanted a person in whom he trusted as Grand Vizier, and that he asked Said Halim to stay in his post as long as possible. WhenBritain annexed Egypt in 1914, Halim Pasha claimed the throne of the Egyptian monarchy based on afirman which changed Egyptian succession law half a century ago.
During theArmenian genocide, Said Halim signed thedeportation orders for the Armenian population. TheArmenian PatriarchZaven I Der Yeghiayan appealed to him to cease the terror being committed against Armenians, which Said Halim replied to by claiming reports of arrests and deportations were being greatly exaggerated. Der Yeghiayan himself was later deported.[7] As the war went on, he was increasingly sidelined byTalaat Bey andEnver Pasha.
He lost his Foreign Ministry toHalil Menteşe in 1915. Said Halim's premiership lasted until 1917, cut short because of continuous clashes between him and the CUP. Talaat, who wasInterior Minister, succeeded him.
Said Halim was accused of treason during thecourt martial trials after World War I in the Ottoman Empire for his role in deporting Armenian civilians and signing a secret alliance with Germany. He was exiled on 29 May 1919 to a prison onMalta.[8] He was acquitted from the accusations and set free in 1921, and he moved to Sicily. He wanted to return toIstanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but this request was rejected. He wasassassinated soon after in Rome byArshavir Shirakian, an agent of theArmenian Revolutionary Federation, for his role in the Armenian genocide.[7] According toEşref Kuşçubaşı, who was involved in the planning of the Armenian death marches, Said Halim Pasha knew nothing of the genocide.[9]
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Under thenom de plume "Mehmed", Said Halim Pasha wrote several works of social commentary, comparative politics, and political philosophy during the Hamidian Era and Second Constitutional Era.[5] He was a frequent contributor toSebîlürreşâd, a pro-CUP Islamist journal.
In a historical analysis, he claimed Islam was appropriate in theWestern world's movement for equality due to (Sunni) Islam's lack of clergy and aristocracy, therefore in a civilizational sense, Islamic civilization was more egalitarian than the West. Indeed, he believed the West suffered from inherent inequalities inherent to their social structure, while Islamic civilization suffered from too much equality, leading to an Islamic civilization turning increasingly elitist and exclusive. He identified the origin ofmaterialism emerged from the gap between the Church and the new discoveries of science and technology. The idea that Islam essentially discouraged technological innovation was refuted by Halim, though he did identify western materialism for having destroyed family values. Using the framework ofhistorical materialism, he identified the cause offeminism appropriate among bourgeois women in developed Western-European societies, in contrast to upper-class Ottoman women which he believed were uninterested in further rights.[5]
In 1916 he publishedBuhrân-ı İçtimaîmiz, where he castigates Ottoman society for leaving behind their past religion and culture.[5]
While Westernnation-states feature homogeneous societies of different classes that are always in conflict with each other, the Ottoman Empire's heterogeneity meant anOttoman nationalism did not exist.[5]
In the 1911 essayMeşrutiyet, he gave a retrospective analysis of the failures of theFirst Constitutional Era, particularly blaming the lack of a civic political culture developed by many peoples in the Empire. A desire among theTanzimat statesmen for westernization for the sake of westernization veiled the fact that the Empire didn't much resembleFrance, Turkey's model. Despite the modern cosmopolitanism of the cities like Constantinople, Smyrna, or Salonica, much of the empire was still in a socio-economic state of feudalism, and not sufficiently "enlightened" for representative and constitutional government.[5]
He was skeptical of the CUP's governance following the31 March Incident, noting that the people toppling a dictator does not guarantee freedom.
Any administration is not the product of one person or even party; rather, it is almost the product of a particular generation. The sultan Abdulhamid was not the founder of the harsh rule that went by the name of the 'Hamidian' administration. Even if sultan Hamid had never been born, conditions would have been such that that generation would have produced another such sultan. The National Assembly, filled by members of the Committee of Union and Progress, was fired by patriotic zeal and revolutionary dreams, which foundered on the rocks of ignorance and inexperience.
Iqbal writes in hisJavid Nama howRumi guides him toMercury, where he sees Said Halim Pasha andJemaluddin al-Afghani in prayer.[5]
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| Preceded by | Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 12 June 1913 – 4 February 1917 | Succeeded by |
Muhammad Ali dynasty (1805–1953) | ||
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