The background

By the end of the sixteenth century, three Muslim empires ruled large and prosperous territories throughout Asia, Europe and Africa. To the east stood the Mughal Empire, to the west, the powerful Ottoman Empire, and at the center, stretching over the Iranian plateau, the Ṣafavids. Between 1709 and 1739, the Ottomans engaged in four relatively successful wars that seemed to prove their military competence against Russia and the central European states. The peace that prevailed during the next three decades also seemed to convince the Ottomans of the superiority of their military power, even as Europe during this very period was embarking on one of the most rapid advances in military technology, military discipline and organization. However, the ensuing three wars with Russia, ending in 1774, 1792 and 1812, resulted in crushing Ottoman defeats, as well as the loss of the northern shores of the Black Sea and Crimea. By the last of these wars, Arabia and Egypt had defected, the former taken by the Wahhābites and the latter by Muḥammad ʿAlī. The Empire appeared on the verge of crumbling.

The stunning military defeats starting during the last third of the eighteenth century spurred a new wave of Ottoman concessions (imtiyāzāt) that were to continue, and build upon, the benevolent capitulations granted to a number of European states during the preceding centuries.