1800

1800
{1214/1215 A.H. - MAY 25}

MUSLIM HISTORY

The 1800s saw the gradual disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the European colonization of many previously Muslim lands.

From Morocco to Indonesia, the Muslim states came under increasing pressure from such imperialist powers as Russia, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.  Although some Muslim states such as Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan were able to maintain their independence, such independence was purchased by making concessions both economic and strategic to the prevailing imperialist powers. 

India, Indonesia, the states of central Asia and North Africa were not as fortunate as Iran and Afghanistan.  These land came under direct colonial-style administration that allowed for self-rule but only with the extraction of resources by the dominant colonial power.

In virtually all of the Muslim countries, there was a growing awareness of the fact that the Muslim people had become a technologically backwards people.  This technological backwardness began also to cast aspersions upon the perception of Muslim religious thought, politics and philosophy.

Throughout the 1800s, modernist movements and reformist tendencies would appear.  These movements and tendencies would often be accompanied by a growing nationalism and fundamentalism that would blossom more fully in the century that was to follow.

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Ottoman Empire

*The Convention of El Arish concluded by Napoleon Bonaparte with the Ottoman Turks (January 24) provided for French withdrawal from Egypt.  British Admiral George Keith Elphinstone rejected the terms of the treaty.  French General Kleber defeated the Turks at Heliopolis on March 20 with a force of 10,000 men that was outnumbered six to one, but Kleber was assassinated by a fanatic at Cairo on June 14.

*The Ionian Islands entered the Ottoman realm (March 21).

*Construction of the Selimiyye Barracks by Krikor Amira Balian was completed.

The Balian family was an Armenian family that produced architects in the service of the Ottoman dynasty.  During the 19^th century, architects from this family constructed numerous palaces, pavilions, and mosques in Istanbul.  They played leading roles in the Westernization of Ottoman architecture, synthesizing Western forms with Ottoman style. 

(1)       Krikor Amira Balian (1764-1831) served as the court architect of Selim III and Mahmud II.  His works included the barracks of Selimiye (1800) and Davutpasa (1827), the Aynalikavak Palace, the Besiktas Palace, the old Ciragan Palace, and the Nusretiye Mosque.

(2)       Senekerim Balian (?-1833) was the younger brother of Krikor Balian.  He constructed the Bayazid fire tower.

(3)       Garabet Amira Balian (1800-1866) was the son of Krikor Balian.  He replaced his father as the court architect and served Mahmud II, Abdulmecid, and Abdulaziz.  Garabet Balian constructed the Armenian hospital (1832-1834), three Armenian churches (1834-1838), the mausoleum of Mahmud II (1840), two factories (1842-1843), the Ortakoy Mosque (1854), and the Dolmabahce Palace (1853-1855).

(4)       Nkogos Balian (1826-1858) was the son of Garabet Balian.  He received an education in architecture in Paris (Ecole Sainte Barbe).  Later he acted as adviser of Sultan Abdulmecid on arts and founded a school in order to introduce Western architectural information to Ottoman architects.  Nkogos Balian assisted his father with the construction of the Ortakoy Mosque and the Dolmabahce Palace.  He built the Ihlamur Palace and the Kucuksu Palace in his own right.

(5)       Sarkis Balian (1835-1899) was the son of Garabet Balian.  He went with his brother to Paris to continue his education in architecture at the Ecole Sainte Barbe.  After returning to Istanbul, Sarkis Balian worked as a contractor on his younger brother Agob Balian’s projects.  The death of his brother and the reign of Abdulhamid II interrupted his professional life.  Political accusations forced him to go to Paris.  He returned to Istanbul only toward the end of his life.

(6)       Agob Balian (1838-1875) was the son of Garabet Balian.  He graduated from the Ecole Sainte Barbe.  Agob Balian designed the Beylerbeyi Palace (1865), the Ciragan Palace (1863-1871), the Palace of Valide Sultan, the Dolmabahce Mosque (1876), the Zeytinburnu Gunpowder Factory (1874), the residential blocks of Akaretler (1874), the buildings of the Ministry of War, the Imperial Medical School and the Makrukian School.  Agob Balian played an important role in Armenian communal life.  He acted as a patron of Armenian authors and musicians and was a member of the Patriarchal Assembly.

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Asia

Western Asia

‘Abd al-Aziz and his son Saud made their first hajj.

During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Sharif Musaid bin Said II (r. 1752-1759, 1760-1770) held a weak grip on power in the Hijaz.  Late in his reign, Mecca was threatened with the loss of autonomy granted under the Ottomans.  In 1769, Ali Bey, ruler of Cairo, declared Egypt free from Ottoman rule, and proclaimed Egypt’s annexation of Hijaz.  However, his efforts to win control of the region were unsuccessful.  Diriya tried to forge closer ties to Hijaz, as well. In the early 1770s, ‘Abd al-Aziz and ‘Abd al-Wahhab exchanged gifts with the sharif. 

Weakness persisted in the sharifate.  By the time Sharif Surur ibn Musaid (1744-1788; r. 1773-1788) died, his eunuchs and other slaves wielded the majority of the office’s power, a prerogative they retained into the rule of Surur’s successor, Sharif Ghalib ibn Musaid (1750-1817; r. 1788-1813). But the slaves’ policies aroused opposition, which helped Ghalib consolidate control.  Seeking at least to lessen tensions with Najd, he requested ‘Abd al-Aziz to dispatch an alim to explain Wahhabism to him.  However, like previous pedagogical expeditions, the mission failed, and soon concern about the Wahhabis’ westward thrusts incited the sharif to take arms against them.  In 1790, Ghalib sent a force of 10,000 soldiers and 20 artillery guns into Najd with the goal of invading Diriya and ending the Wahhabi “heresy.”  Joined by Hijazi Bedouins and Najdi tribes opposed to the Wahhabis, their effort bogged down in an unsuccessful siege and attacks on a small fortified town, Qasr Bassam, after which they returned to Mecca.  The following year, Saud ibn ‘Abd al-Aziz attacked and defeated the sharif’s tribal allies in Najd. The booty of their victory included a reported 100,000 sheep and 11,000 camels.  Further attacks on allies of the sharif in western Najd followed.

In 1792, Sheikh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement and then about 89 years old, died.  Little ceremony was invested in his funeral, in keeping with the traditions he championed.  The Arabia he departed was developing a far different spiritual landscape than the one he was born into, due to his efforts.  His brother and major critic, Sulaiman ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, took over his position as the Wahhabis’ chief alim.  No change in policy accompanied the shift, which was not surprising given that Sulaiman was living in Diriya under the watchful eye of the Saudi regime, as he had been since his capture more than a decade before and as he would until his death.

Diriya’s campaign for Hijaz took a decisive step in 1795, when Wahhabi forces laid siege to Turaba, a key city on the way to Hijaz.  In response, Sharif Ghalib mounted another invasion of Najd in 1795-1796, but was soundly defeated by an alliance of tribes loyal to Diriya.  Ghalib agreed to a truce.  The rulers of Mecca, mindful of the threat posed by the Ottoman Empire, could not devote all their resources to the battle with the Wahhabi forces of the Najd.  But within a year Meccan forces were again attacking Najdi Bedouin.  The sharif was meanwhile losing critical support within Hijaz as tribes switched allegiance from Mecca to Diriya. 

Worried about an attack by the French, who had landed forces in Egypt in 1798, the Ottomans strengthened the defenses throughout the towns of Hijaz.  That same year a British squadron under Admiral Blanquet attacked Suez and later anchored in Jeddah, demanding that Hijaz end its trade with Egypt, as the commerce was seen as assisting France.  Though Sharif Ghalib agreed, trade was undisturbed.

Ghalib had by this time gathered a large force – including mercenaries from Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey – to attack the Wahhabi controlled towns of Khura and Bisha, but the sharif’s forces were defeated at Khura in 1798 with a loss of more than 1,200 men.  Following this defeat, the sharif made an offer of peace to ‘Abd al-Aziz and invited him to perform the pilgrimage.  In 1800 ‘Abd al-Aziz and his son Saud made their first hajj, accompanied by Wahhabi ‘ulama’ who came to engage in theological debate.  ‘Abd al-Aziz was treated with respect and honor by Sharif Ghalib.  The pilgrimage was repeated the next year, though ‘Abd al-Aziz had to turn back, due to infirmity.  He was, after all, almost 80 years old.  

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*At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Iran experienced an increased influence by the Shi‘a clergy. Fath ‘Ali Shah depended on support from the clergy.  During this time a schism developed among the Shi‘a.  The schism developed between the traditionalist usulis against the Shaykhis and the schism centered on diverging views concerning the hidden imam.

The Usuli positions were systematized by Agha Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani and definitively elaborated by Shaikh Murtaza Ansari (d. 1864) and Akhund Khurasani (d. 1911).  The Usulis hold that the Shi‘ite community (in the continuing absence of the twelfth imam) consists of mujtahids -- those technically qualified to practice ijtihad -- and muqallids -- those who, unable to do so, are obliged to follow the rulings of the former. This analysis has bestowed on the Shi‘ite religious scholars a claim to loyalty and obedience that has been decisive for the history of Iran.

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*The Al Bu Said entered into a treaty with the British.

The Al Bu Said have been the ruling dynasty of Oman for almost two and a half centuries. In 1744, following years of civil war and Iranian intervention in Oman, the governor of Sohar in northern Oman, Ahmad bin Said, gained control of the country and shortly thereafter established his family’s rule.  By the late 18^th century, his descendants had created an impressive trading empire with territorial outposts that included enclaves in Iran and what is now Pakistan, as well as Zanzibar and coastal settlements in East Africa.  The Al Bu Said, themselves members of the Ibadi branch of Islam, followed the pattern of Ibadi Muslim rule, established for a thousand years in Oman, whereby the ruler combined religious and political authority as imam.  The dynasty, however, developed an increasingly secular character with its commercial success as reflected in both the adoption of the title sayyid, the sultan, and the transfer of the political capital from the interior, the heart of Ibadi tribal power, to Muscat on the coast, where the bulk of the population is Sunni Muslim.  A series of treaties with the British beginning in 1800 secured external help against the Qawasim of Ras al-Khaimah and the Wahhabi forces of the Saudi state.  By the late 18^th century, the Al Bu Said no longer claimed the imamate, which lapsed until it was revived in the later 19^th century.  Only British military support at critical junctures made possible the sultanate’s survival.  In 1920, the division between imamate and sultanate was made formal and an uneasy truce lasted until 1954. 

In that year, Sultan Said bin Taimur, with British assistance, moved against the interior to reunite Oman and Muscat.  Full political control of the interior was not established until the accession of his son, Sultan Qabus, who was only briefly married without issue, given no indication of producing an heir, presumably leaving the succession to a collateral branch of the Al Bu Said.

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*Pirate fleets dominated the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean as far as Bombay.

Pirates were present in Persian Gulf waters from earliest historical times, and by the 18^th century their numbers even included a few American buccaneers.  By the early 19^th century the fleet of the Qawasim federation, centered on Ras al-Khaimah, dominated the waters of the Gulf and Indian Ocean as far as Bombay.  The contemporary British, whose India trade was severely disrupted, denounced the depredation as piracy, but today’s Arab historians, including descendants of the Qawasim themselves, view it as maritime warfare carried out in the spirit of Arab nationalism.  This distinction derives from cultural perspectives, not from the facts of the case.  Whichever viewpoint one takes, the depredation probably derived from at least three causes: a desire to seize some of the rich Indian Ocean trade long dominated by the neighboring Omanis, Wahhabi sectarian enthusiasm carrying over from the Qawasim’s landward alliance with the first Saudi state, and reaction to European intrusion.  What is significant is that British intervention, initially in the form of naval expeditions, had by 1819 checked the Qawasim, and subsequently in treaties between 1820 and 1853 established a largely self-enforcing truce in the Gulf that benefited all parties by permitting peaceful conduct of trade and pearling.  The name “Trucial Coast” derived from this treaty system, which created a British imperium in the Gulf for a century and a half, and the basis for the Gulf Arab states that exist today.

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*Saudis occupied the al-Buraymi oasis.

With the religious impetus given them in the mid-18^th century by the appearance of the Muwahhidun or Wahhabis (more correctly called Unitarians, a fundamentalist school of Sunni Islam), the Saudi dynasty of the Najd of central Arabia embarked on a program of expansion that eventually swept across much of Arabia and left its mark on Eastern Arabia.  By 1800, the Saudis had established a garrison at the strategic oasis of al-Buraymi, a gateway to Eastern Arabia and this was subsequently used as an advance base for further incursions into the area (although Saudi sovereignty over the oasis was never firmly established).

In 1803, a Saudi expedition to the Batinah Coast on the Gulf of Oman sacked the town of al-Suwayq and successfully staged a siege on Suhar.  Only with the payment of Zakat (used by the Saudis as a type of tribute but paid by the Omani Sultans as a form of protection) did they withdraw. By 1807, the Saudis had established a garrison further north at Khawr Fakkan in league with the Qasimi shaykh of Ra’s al-Khaymah, and three years later they beat back a joint Anglo-Omani expedition against the town of Shinas, which the Saudi-Qasimi forces had captured.  The latter coalition even drove the Omanis back down the coast to Muscat, capturing Nakhl and Sama’il on the way.  In 1812, the Omanis asked for and received help from the Persians.  The aid received proved ineffective, as the joint Omani-Persian army was nearly annihilated near Izki. The next year the Saudis plundered Matrah and cut a path through Ja’lan (southeastern Oman) with the help of the Bani Bu ‘Ali tribe.  The withdrawal of the invaders in 1814 followed the death that year of the Saudi commander, Mutlaq al-Mutayri, and the death of the Saudi Emir in Dara’iyah (the Saudi capital).  The Egyptian sacking of Dara’iyah in 1818 and the destruction of Ra’s al-Khaymah by the British in 1819 provided a decade of respite for Eastern Arabia.  However, the Saudi threat was resurrected in 1830 and was appeased only by annual payment of zakat.

Al-Buraymi was recaptured in 1845, and once again only zakat eased the spectre of invasion on the Batinah, as did similar payments in 1853. In 1864, an alliance between the Saudis and ‘Azzan bin Qays al Bu Sa’id was instrumental in boosting his bid for control of Oman but once he captured Muscat he turned foe. ‘Azzan’s forces captured al-Buraymi from the Saudis in 1869, the last time they were to see the oasis until the mid-20^th century. 

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*Russia annexed Georgia.

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Central Asia

*Mahmud, the brother of Zaman Shah, first captured Kandahar and then Kabul. The forces of Mahmud were led by Fath Khan.

Fath (Fateh) Khan was the oldest son of Painda Khan (head of the Muhammadzai branch of the Barakzai tribe).  Born in 1777 in Kandahar, Fath Khan was a skillful politician and soldier.  He helped Shah Mahmud gain the Afghan throne, capturing Farah and Kandahar from the forces of Zaman Shah. He was given the position of grand wazir and established law and order and conducted the government for Mahmud with great skill.  When Shah Shuja succeeded to the Kabul throne, Fath Khan was again appointed grand wazir, but he remained loyal to Mahmud and helped restore him to power.  Fath Khan consolidated Afghan control over Kashmir and established order in Heart.  Kamran, son of Shah Mahmud, was jealous of Fath Khan’s power and had him blinded and, in 1818, killed.  The Barakzai chiefs rebelled, and the ensuing conflict led to the overthrow of the Sadozai dynasty and the assumption of power by the Barakzai/Muhammadzai branch of the Durrani.

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*Mahmud Shah deposed Zaman Shah.  He would rule for three years. 

Shah Zaman was born in 1772, one of twenty-three sons of Timur Shah, and Timur Shah’s successor to the Afghan throne in 1793.  During most of his reign he was engaged in intermittent warfare with his brothers Mahmud and Humayun.  He wanted to win over the British for a concerted war against the Maratha confederacy in India.  Instead the British concluded an alliance with Persia to keep the Afghans out of India.  Shah Zaman appointed Ranjit Singh governor of Lahore, in spite of the fact that he had previously rebelled.  He abolished the hereditary posts established by Ahmad Shah Durrani and carried out bloody executions, antagonizing many Afghans.  While he was in the Panjab, Mahmud captured the Kabul throne.  Shah Zaman was blinded and imprisoned but eventually escaped and lived in Indian exile until his death in 1844.

***

Mahmud Shah was one of the twenty-three sons of Timur Shah who were engaged in an internecine struggle for power.  He was governor of Herat and from this base successfully fought his brother Zaman Shah for the Kabul throne.  He became Afghan king in 1800 but did not show great interest in the conduct of state affairs and delegated much authority to his Baraksai ministers Fateh Khan and Shir Muhammad.  However, internecine warfare continued and, in 1803, Shah Shuja, the seventh son of Timur Shah, captured Kabul and made Mahmud his prisoner. Mahmud managed to escape and, with the help of Fateh Khan, moved against Kandahar and subsequently on Kabul, regaining the throne in 1809, where he ruled until 1817 when he was again driven from Kabul.  He fled to Herat where he enjoyed all the “honors of sovereignty” while his son Kamran held all real power.  Mahmud was poisoned by his ambitious son in 1829.

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*Haydar became the khan of Bukhara (Uzbekistan).  Haydar would reign until 1826.  During his reign, Haydar fought against ‘Alim Khan.

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Southern Asia

*Fath ‘Ali Shah signed a treaty with the British East India Company against France and Afghanistan.

 

Fath ‘Ali Shah (b.1771) was the ruler of the Qajar dynasty (r.1797-1834).  Much of his long reign was spent in military expeditions against internal rebels, against Russia, the Ottoman sultan, and against Afghanistan.

The Qajars, a tribe of Turkish origin, ruled Iran from 1779 until 1925.  The first ruler of the dynasty was the fierce tribal leader Agha Muhammad Khan who conquered the Zands and established Qajar hegemony on the Iranian Plateau.  Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar had great strength of character, but his kingly successors were less spirited and quickly became enmeshed in the web of European Great Power politics.  The next century and a half was a period of pervasive foreign influence which changed the face and focus of Iranian society.

Only several decades into the nineteenth century the Babi Movement sprung up as a result of widespread social unrest, attributable to the disrupting socio-economic transformation which Iran was undergoing in response to the impact of the West.  This religious movement, with its roots in Sufism and Shiah political thought, was started by Mirza Ali Muhammad, who in 1844 declared himself the forerunner of the Hidden Imam.  The movement later evolved into Bahaism which established itself first in Iran and eventually attained international influence as a universalistic religion.  It was during the Qajar period that the influence of the Islamic clergy began to be more pronounced in secular matters, a shift which would have a profound impact on future political administrations.

Iran was considered a “backward” nation by the standards of the rapidly industrializing Western countries.  It was underdeveloped, economically weak, and easily manipulated by the superpowers that recognized its enormous potential.  Russia and Great Britain competed to exploit Iran and its resources for their own benefit. Through a series of agreements and treaties the Qajar kings seriously compromised Iranian sovereignty.  In return for large loans, many spurious in nature, they virtually turned internal development over to these two great powers of Europe.

Russia made inroads into Iran after the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmanchai.  They annexed territory in the Caucasus and secured navigation rights on the Caspian Sea, as well as favorable trade and tariff agreements, and even extraterritorial privileges.  They further infiltrated Iran by annexing the formerly Iranian territories of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bokhara, and Khiva east of the Caspian Sea.

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*Agha Khan, the leader of the Isma‘ili Shi‘a Muslims of India and Pakistan, was born. {See Notable Births below.}

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       Southeastern Asia

*The Dutch East India Company was dissolved (January 1).

The Dutch East India Company – the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) -- was formed in 1602 by the merger of several separate companies founded in the 1590s for trade in the Indian Ocean.  It was a joint stock company, that is, the separate holdings of the shareholders were not distinguished in the operations of the company; profit and loss were shared equally according to stock holdings.  Under its charter from the States-General, the company had an official monopoly of all Dutch trade east of the Cape fo Good Hope and west of the Magellan Straits and the right to exercise sovereignty in that region on behalf of the Dutch state.  General company policy was set by the Heeren XVII (Seventeen Gentlemen), who met in turn in the different provincial cities of the Netherlands and appointed a governor-general to govern the company in Asia.  From 1619, the company’s headquarters in Asia was at Batavia. 

The Dutch East India Company aimed from the start to gain a monopoly of the spice trade in Maluku using military force to impose restrictive treaties on indigenous states, to exclude foreign competitors, and to destroy spice trees outside Dutch territories.  In 1641, the company seized Melaka from the Portuguese and in 1666-1669 conquered Makassar to deny it as a base for competitors, while in 1682 it successfully excluded foreign traders from Banten.  The Dutch East India Company also sought to control the so-called inter-Asiatic trade, especially between the archipelago and India; they established major interests in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast for the purchase of cotton cloth to be exchanged for spices.  Java became important for the supply of rice and wood.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch East India Company expanded its territorial holdings in the archipelago, making use of wars of succession, especially in Java, to extend its control.  In the eighteenth century, however, the spice trade declined and, with it, the company.  The increased costs of administering a land based empire, together with rampant inefficiency and corruption, led the company to bankruptcy, and the States-General allowed its charter to lapse on December 31, 1799.  All debts and possessions were taken over by the Dutch government.

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*The Dutch gained control of the Islamic sultanates on Java and Sumatra.

Unassimilated communities of Muslims probably existed in the trading ports of the Indonesian archipelago from soon after the emergence of Islam, but extensive conversion to Islam did not begin until the fourteenth century of the Christian calendar, when the Sumatran port city of Pasai converted, followed by Melaka in the fifteenth century, Aceh, Banten, and the Java Pasisir in the sixteenth century and Makassar, Minangkabau, and central Java in the seventeenth century. The reasons for conversion were complex, varied, and not wholly clear.  Muslim authorities stress the missionary element, especially the role of the so-called Nine Saints on Java.  Islam first attracted sizeable numbers of Indonesians in the form of Sufism, whose mystical elements fitted easily with the existing blend of Hinduism, Buddhism, and traditional religion on Java. Political and economic factors, however, also seem to have been important.  The fall of the sultanate of Melaka dispersed Muslims to other parts of the archipelago.  Especially under threat from the Portuguese, rulers found that conversion to Islam brought valuable alliances; there was no evidence of Islamic revolutions from below playing any role in the conversion of states. Several kingdoms, such as Pontianak, were founded as Muslim states; in others, such as Aceh and Minangkabau, Muslim hegemony was established or strengthened at various times by civil war.  Perhaps more important, Islamic commercial law provided a sounder framework for conducting trade than did traditional and Hinduistic law, while individual traders found that conversion made them part of an extensive trading diaspora within they could more easily obtain credit, information, and other facilities and perhaps also that it released them from otherwise costly community responsibilities which made capital accumulation difficult.  Those who had made the haj to Mecca were often well placed to use contacts made there to commercial advantage and in parts of Java the word haji became more or less synonymous with “wealthy trader.”

There are no strict denominational divisions within Indonesian Islam, but scholars have found it useful to see a number of broad categories of adherence to Islam.  The Islam of parts of Java, whose adherents are sometimes called abangan, is a strong blend of Islam with pre-Islamic practices, especially the recognition of spirits and emphasis on ascetic practice and meditation and a corresponding disregard for the pillars of Islam, such as fasting and making the pilgrimage to Mecca. Abanagan religion on the whole is not publicly practiced but is a matter of personal devotion, and in the twentieth century at least this category has also tended to encompass nominal Muslims as well as pious adherents of the abangan religion.

The term Islamic traditionalism is generally applied to followers of the four traditional schools of Sunni jurisprudence. Although sultans were the protectors of religion, religious authority lay with Islamic scholars, called ulama and kyai (learned men), who devoted their lives to studying not just the Qur’an and hadiths but the enormous body of supplementary literature, and to teaching in Islamic schools, called pesantren or surau. Indigenous traditional law in many cases became entwined with this corpus of religious and legal doctrine, so that pious Islamic observance was often combined with acceptance of customs not recognized in the Islam of the Middle East, such as the matriliny of the Minangkabau.  Within this category are various groups influenced by successive waves of Islamic reformism, especially Wahhabism.  On Java one finds many abangan elements in the belief and practice of Islamic traditionalists, but adherents share a much stronger sense of being Muslim and of being part of a religious community. 

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*British forces occupied Melaka, West Sumatra, and Dutch possessions in Maluku.

The English East India Company was the main agent for British involvement in the archipelago during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  In 1800, after the Dutch colonial administration had recognized the pro-French Batavian Republic, British forces occupied Melaka, West Sumatra and Dutch possessions in Maluku.  A British fleet appeared before Batavia but lacked forces to take the city. The colonies were restored under the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802.

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*Sultan Muhammed I (of Kelantan descent) assumed control in Kelantan.

Kelantan has been a center of human activity and settlement since pre-historic times, and has existed as a political entity for over a thousand years.  Important pre-historic remains of Stone Age men have been found a Gua Cha, Gua Musang and at other sites in the interior of the state.  Kelantan was probably a vassal of Sri Vijaya.  The state was converted to Islam during the period of fifteenth century Melaka, and the modern Sultanate can trace its origin back to this period.  Kelantan enjoyed a long period of autonomy after the fall of Melaka, but was inevitably affected by the relentless pressure of Thailand into Kedah and neighboring Patani. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the state was the most populous in the peninsula, but its politics were dominated by the Thais and the Malays of Trengganu.

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Africa

North Africa, Egypt and Sudan

*On January 24, Napoleon's field commander, Jean-Baptiste Kleber, signed the Convention of El Arish with the Ottoman Turks.  Under this convention, the French agreed to withdraw from Egypt.

In Egypt, the treaty of El Arish was agreed to between Bonaparte's Kleber and the English under Sir Sidney Smith (January 24).  On March 20, following the formal denunciation of the treaty by the British government, fresh hostilities erupted in Egypt.  Kleber was able to suppress the rebellion, but after doing so was assassinated (June 14).

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*British Admiral Keith refused to accept the Convention of El Arish and continued pressing his campaign against the French on behalf of the Ottomans (March).

*A French army under the command of Jean-Baptiste Kleber defeated the Turks at Heliopolis (March 20) and recaptured Cairo (April 21). However, Kleber was stabbed to death in Cairo on June 14, 1800.  Baron de Menou assumed command of the French forces.

*The crew of the American ship George Washington was humiliated at Algiers, where the ship was anchored to pay tribute as insurance against piracy.  The Ottoman governor ordered Captain William Bainbridge to carry not only gifts to the Turkish sultan in Istanbul but also an Algerian emissary.  To add insult to injury, he was ordered to fly the Ottoman flag until he left the harbor.  It had been American and European policy to make payments to Barbary states to guarantee the safe passage of ships.  However, this humiliation sparked talk in Washington of reprisals (October 19).

*France paid Algeria three million francs out of the seven million that it owed.  France then announced that it would pay no more.  This debt renunciation led to growing tensions between Algeria and France.

*Muhammad Fadhl became the Sultan of Fur.  He would reign until 1840.  During his reign, Kordofan would be recovered.

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Western Africa

*By 1800, a Muslim state was fully established in Futa Jalon.

The jihad that led to the establishment of the Muslim state of Futa Jalon was the work of the settled Muslim communities allied with Fulani pastoralists.  Both the settlers and the Fulani had been migrating into the region since the thirteenth century, with an additional influx of Fulani in the seventeenth century.  Both groups were subordinated to the dominant Jalonke landlords to whom they paid taxes on trade and cattle.  In the eighteenth century both the Muslim settlers and the pastoralists improved their economic position as a result of a growing trade in cattle and hides with Europe, and allied against their Jalonke landlords.  Islam became the banner of their solidarity and their resistance to the non-Muslim elites.  In 1726, Ibrahim Musa, known as Karamoko Alfa, proclaimed a holy war – a jihad – and took the title of almami.  The new state was divided into several provinces, which formed a council to elect a ruler.  The almami was selected alternatively from among the descendants of Ibrahim Musa and Ibrahim Sori; the former tended to represent the more pacific tradition of Muslim learning, the latter the more aggressive tradition of jihad.  Under the authority of the almamis, the provinces were ruled by appointed governors while the family hamlets were ruled by local chiefs and councils of elders.  The most important state activity was jihad, which was the source of slaves for export and for use on agricultural plantations.  The central power, however, was gravely weakened by the emergence of landowning aristocracy who descended from the original jihad warriors and by succession disputes between the two families that provided the almamis. Futa Jalon eventually came under a French protectorate in 1881 and recognized French suzerainty in 1896.  

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*Around 1800, the Susu, Yalunka, Koranko and Mende reached their present homelands in Sierra Leone.

One of the two largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone is the Mende, who comprise some 31 percent of the population.  The other is the Temne, who are perhaps 35 percent.  Less than one-third of the Mende are Muslim.  Mende inhabit roughly 12,000 square miles of coastal bush and central forest country in southern Sierra Leone, where they are grouped into more than sixty chiefdoms.  A few thousand live in Liberia, most in Guma Mendi chiefdom.

The Mende, like most Sierra Leone peoples, welcomed itinerant Muslims, often traders, who settled among them.  Known as mori men, they provided a valued service such as in making charms and divining for the Mende, especially chiefs and warriors.  These traders were Sunni Muslims of the Maliki rite, but prior to the twentieth century there seem to have been few converts.  In this century, the spread of Islam among the Mende and other Sierra Leone peoples is probably related to anti-colonial feelings.

The Ahmadiya sect of Islam was introduced to Sierra Leone in 1937 and into the Mende area in 1939 at Baomabun, then a gold-mining center.  By 1945, the Ahmadis moved to Bo, which remains their base.  A 1960 estimate indicated about 3,000 Ahmadis in Sierra Leone, the majority being Mende.

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Eastern Africa

*Around 1800, the Galla kingdom of Enarea was founded by Bofo (Abba Gomol).

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Central Africa

*Around 1800, the Afro-Arab slave trade began to flourish in eastern Zaire.

Between 1500 and 1888, when slavery was ended, as many as 30 million Africans may have been shipped against their will from ports on the central Atlantic coast to “markets” primarily in Brazil, Central America and the Caribbean.  An estimated three million persons were shipped from what is now Zaire and during the height of the trade, 50,000 were shipped annually.  Meanwhile, in eastern Zaire and central Africa, Arab and African slave traders exported an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 slaves per year to markets in Arabia and the Middle East.  Territorial wars and the battles fought to capture slaves destroyed a large portion of the region’s population.  Entire villages were often wiped out in order to capture a few dozen “exportable” slaves.  In the late eighteenth century, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands abolished slavery. England abolished the trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833.  Portugal followed in 1835 and French in 1848.  By the mid-nineteenth century, all European countries had abolished the practice, although it continued unofficially for decades afterwards.  The importation of slaves was prohibited by the United States Congress in 1808 and the United States abolished slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, although it was not until the Civil War was ended in 1865 that abolition came into force throughout the nation. 

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Europe

*The Ionian islands came under the control of the Ottoman Empire (March 21).

*Francois Boieldieu composed The Caliph of Baghdad.

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The United States

*A treaty with Tunis, negotiated in 1797, was ratified by Congress (January 10).

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Notable Births

*Agha Khan, the leader of the Isma'ilis, was born.

Agha Khan (Hasan Ali Shah Mahallati) (1800-1881) is believed to have been a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.  Agha Khan was governor of the province of Kerman, Iran, until 1840, when he fled to India after an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in Iran. Agha Khan then helped the British government in India in its attempts to control frontier tribes.  Agha Khan became leader of the Isma‘ilis in India, Pakistan, Africa, and Syria.

Agha (Aga) Khan I, personal name Ḥasan ʿAlī Shāh (b. 1800 — d. April 1881), was the imam, or spiritual leader, of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīte sect of the Shīʿite Muslims. He claimed to be directly descended from ʿAlī, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad, and ʿAlī’s wife Fāṭimah, Muḥammad’s daughter, and also from the Fāṭimid caliphs of Egypt.

Agha Khan I was the governor of the Iranian province of Kerman and was high in the favor of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh. The title Agha Khan (Aga Khan - -chief commander) was granted him in 1818 by the shah of Iran.  Under Moḥammad Shāh, however, he felt his family honor slighted and led a revolt in 1838 but was defeated and fled to India. In India, he helped the British in the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42) and in the conquest of Sindh (1842–43) and was granted a pension. After he had settled in Bombay, he encountered some opposition from a minority of his followers, who contested the extent of his spiritual authority and in a lawsuit challenged his control over the community’s funds, but he won his case (1866).

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*Garabed Balian (Garabet Balyan), an Armenian Ottoman architect, was born.

Garabed Amira Balian (1800-1866), the son of Krikor Balian, was the most prolific builder of the Balian family, the imperial Ottoman architects.  In 1836, he was conferred all of his father’s court privileges.  In keeping with the modernization efforts in the Ottoman Empire, Garabed became the architect of new schools, hospitals, barracks, reservoirs, and factories.  The factory buildings he designed testify to the program to introduce industrial manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire.  The Imperial Textile Mill at Hereke was originally built for the Armenian brothers Ohannes and Boghos Dadian in 1843 before Sultan Abdulmejid (1839-1861) acquired it.  A year earlier, in 1842, Garabed had built the broadcloth mill at Izmit for Ohannes Bey Dadian, who held the office of director of the state gunpowder factory, and who was one of Turkey’s first industrial entrepreneurs.  Garabed also built the iron and steel foundry at Zeytinburnu, which Sultan Abdulmejid had instructed Ohannes Dadian to construct.  Similarly, Garabed raised the cotton mille at Bakirkoy for Ohannes Dadian in 1850.

While these early factories were first constructed by private Armenian industrialists and later acquired by the state, most of the other structures designed by Garabed were government commissions.  The new building of the Imperial War Academy for the training of military officers went up in 1846.  That same year the sultan himself inaugurated the opening of the Imperial Medical School, the first modern medical facility in the Ottoman Empire.  Abdulmejid also attended the 1849 opening ceremonies of the Gumushsuyu military hospital of the artillery corps.  The new Imperial Engineering College for the training of artillery officers was constructed in 1850.  Earlier in 1837-1839, at the command of Sultan Abdulmejid, Garabed had re-constructed in stone the Kuleli cavalry barracks, so-called for the spired towers, which stand at the two ends of the building.  Garabed also reconstructed in stone the Gumushsuyu imperial barracks which housed the military music school where the court musicians were trained.

Garabed Balian’s greatest architectural achievements, however, were reserved for the imperial family.  The mausoleum of Mahmut II, completed in 1840, while Ottoman in form, was wholly European in spirit with its large round arched windows and pilasters topped with Ionic capitals.  Like the elegant Dolmabahche Bezmialem Valide Sultan mosque was an exercise in neo-classical restraint.  On the other hand, Garabed’s developed style, which was heavily influenced by contemporary French architecture, acquired its grandest expression in the imperial residences he constructed.  The first of these was the old Chiraghan palace built between 1835-1843 with a colonnaded façade and a central neo-classical portico. In 1855, Garabed also designed a pair of comparatively modest residences for the Abdulmejid’s daughters known as the Jemile Sultan and Munire Sultan Palaces.

The residences of the imperial household paled in comparison to the Dolmabahche Palace, Garabed Bey Balian’s architectural triumph.  Built between 1849 and 1856 at the command of Sultan Abdulmejid, the Dolmabahche is the grandest structure designed in the Ottoman Empire during the 19^th century.  Its opulence stood as much as a symbol of Ottoman power and the empire’s entry in the Concert of Europe as of the profligacy of the sultan whose extraordinary expenditure on the palace bankrupted the state treasury. Sitting astride the Bosphorus, the main building of the palace consists of a large central structure whose façade is articulated with a flourish of detail and a series of both freestanding columns and pilasters.  Extending from both sides are two lower wings whose length is used to advantage by a pattern of recesses alternating with porticoes with windows stretching end to end to capture the light of the sun and the glimmer of the sea.  Reflective of the contemporary French Empire style, the ornateness of the palace made it wholly unique.

The real splendor of the palace, however, was to be found in the interior.  Its sumptuous halls brought the art of palatial design to an unequaled level of intricate and colorful ornamentation.  While the walls and ceilings of numerous reception rooms were given detailed attention, none surpassed the exceeding grandeur of the audience hall. A dome covers the great space of the throne room.  Resting upon a set of arches supported by 56 columns arranged in pairs and quadruplets bearing Corinthian capitals, it rises 36 meters from the floor.  It was in this hall on December 23, 1876, in the presence of the eminencies of the empire that 34 year old Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Abdulhamit II) (1876-1909) proclaimed the Ottoman Constitution.

Garabed relied on the services of many Armenians for the construction of the Dolmabahche palace.  His son Nigoghos Balian worked together with him in the design and construction of the palace.  The grand audience hall was Nigoghos’ feat.  Bedros Nemtse (1830-1913) served as the assistant architect.  The iron gates of the fantastic portals that guard the palace grounds were the products of Krikor Malakian.  Neshan Tashjian shipped the marble used for the palace from Malta.  Bedros Sirabian, known as Monsieur Pierre, did the gilded decorations of the interior.  The chief court painter, Haji Megirdich Chrakian, designed the wall paintings.  Ohannes Ajemian and David Triantz accomplished the wall and ceiling decorations.  Kapriyel Kalfa Megirdichian did the painting of the ceiling of the audience hall.

Garabed was also the architect of a number of Armenian churches, including Surp Sarkis in the Armenian village of Bandirma, Saint Mary’s in Beshiktash, Holy Cross in Kurucheshme, Holy Trinity in Galatasaray, and Saint James in Zeytinburnu, all in an Italianate Baroque style.  He was also active in Armenian community affairs.  He and his brother-in-law Ohannes Amira Serverian, who worked with Garabed as part of the team consisting of his sons, met the expenses of the Jemaran Armenian school, which they established in Uskudar in 1838. In 1854, he opened a school for agricultural technicians beside the Armenian Church of Holy Savior in Yedikule. In 1858, he and Boghos Bey Dadian were instrumental in opening Saint James Monastery and a seminary for the education of priests. He also built and contributed to the financing of the Yedikule Armenian Hospital, which had been established by Kazaz Artin Amira Bezjian in 1832-1834.  He also financed the publication of books by several authors and established endowments for churches and an educational foundation.

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*Mikha'il Mashaqqah (Mikhail Mishaqa), a Lebanese writer and historian, was born.

Mikha’il Mashaqqah (1800-1888) was born to a family of Greek origin in Dayr al-Qamar.  He was taught the principles of secondary education by his father, Jirjis, and then traveled to Egypt, where he studied music.  He returned to Mount Lebanon and worked for the Shihabi family.  He later relocated to Damascus, where he established ties with the British and American delegations.  In 1845, in Cairo, he studied medicine on his own, passed a state exam, and earned a medical degree.  He returned to Damascus and worked as a deputy to the American Council while practicing medicine.  He wrote a detailed chronicle of the 1860 events in Syria.  The book was translated into English.

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*Mirza Muhammed Ibrahim, an educator who traveled from his native Persia to Britain in 1826, is believed to have been born in this year.

Mirza Muhammed Ibrahim (c. 1800 - July, 1857) was an educator who traveled from his native Persia (now Iran) to Britain in 1826. In Britain, Mirza took up a permanent appointment to teach oriental languages at the prestigious East India Company College, where he remained until 1844. While there, he also worked as an official translator, becoming friendly with Lord Palmerston. He was the author of an English and Persian grammar textbook.

There were rumors that Mirza left Persia because of religious differences with the establishment. However, while abroad, he remained a faithful Muslim, despite the prevailing British social climate in favor of Christianity.

After returning to Persia in 1844, he became a tutor to the future Shah.

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Momin Khan (Momin Khan Momin), an Indian poet known for his Urdu ghazals, was born.

Momin Khan (1800-1851) was an Indian poet known for his Urdu ghazals and used "Momin" as his takhallus (the Urdu word for nom de plume). He was a contemporary of Mirza Ghalib and Zauq.  Today his grave lies near the parking area near Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi.  

Momin Khan Momin was born in Delhi.  He was also called "Hakeem Khan" because he was a physician.  Hakeem is an Urdu word for physician.

Momin is known for his particular Persianized style and the beautiful use of his takhllus.

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*Mustafa Resid Pasha (Mustafa Reshid Pasha), an Ottoman grand vizier and the architect of the Tanzimat reform, was born.

Mustafa Resid Pasha (1800-1858) was born in Istanbul.  He studied at medreses but did not complete his education in them.  In 1821, Mustafa Resid entered the Secretarial Office of the Grand Vizierate.  He took part, as a secretary, in the Russo-Ottoman peace talks in Edirne (1829) and joined the Ottoman delegation to Egypt (1830).  When Egyptian troops defeated the Ottomans and reached Kutahya (northwest Anatolia), Mustafa Resid negotiated the peace treaty of Kutahya (1833).  Between 1834 and 1837 he served as ambassador in Paris and London.  In 1837, he became minister of foreign affairs, negotiating a trade agreement with Great Britain that gave British merchants advantageous conditions (1838).  He was again ambassador in London in 1838-1839, but he returned to Istanbul following the death of Mahmud II and encouraged the new sultan Abdulmecid to issue the Imperial Rescript of Gulhane (1839).

In all, Mustafa Resid Pasha was appointed grand vizier six times.  In this office, he attempted administrative, financial, judicial, and military reorganization of the empire.  However, he was unable to prevent corruption and mismanagement.  A skillful diplomat, he succeeded in dragging Great Britain and France into the Crimean War (1853-1856), which resulted in Russian defeat and the inclusion of the Ottoman Empire in the Concert of Europe.

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*Mustafa Ruhi Efendi, a Naqshbandi and political leader in the Balkans during the Ottoman period, was born.

Mustafa Ruhi Efendi (b. 1800, Gokceada, Ottoman Empire – d. 1893, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire) was a religious (Naqshbandi) and political leader in the Balkans during the Ottoman period. He was based in the city of Kalkandelen, (Tetovo in today's Macedonia). Being one of the main members of the League of Prizren he was the President of the central committee of Prizren called the "close committee". 

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*Nali, a Kurdish polymath and poet, is believed to have been born in this year.

Nalî, also known as Mullah Xidir Ehmed Şawaysî Mîkayalî  (c. 1800-1873 in Istanbul, Turkey), was a Kurdish polymath, who is considered to be one of the greatest Kurdish poet of the Kurdish classical period.

Nali was born in Khaku-Khol, a village in the Sharbajer (Shahrazur or Sharazur) area in Sulaimany, Kurdistan region of Iraq.  As was the custom in the old days in Kurdistan, Nali started studying the Quran first and Arabic language in mosques in Kurdistan. He then became a Faqi.  A Faqi is a Mullah’s student, which is the name of students in mosques. During the process of becoming a Faqi, Nali visited many cities in Kurdistan, Iran and Iraq, -- cities like Sennah, Mahabad, Halabja, and Sulaimany. In Qaradakh, he studied under Shaikh Muhammed Ibn al Khayat. In Sulaimany, in the Saiyd Hasan Mosque, he studied under Mullah Abdoullah Rash.  Also in Qaradax he studied mathematics under Shaikh Ali Mullah. He spent a long time in the Khanaqa of Mawlana Khalid in Sulaimany. He also studied under Shaikh Awla Kharpani.

It is widely accepted that Nali's literature contributed significantly to bringing about a renaissance in the Kurdish language. His most famous works were written in the lower Kurmanji dialect, Sorani, within the context of the turmoil caused by the Ottoman oppression. To this day Nali's influence on Kurdish culture can be recognized as Sorani is the primary dialect of Kurdish in Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan.

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*Nasif al-Yaziji, a Lebanese scholar and writer, was born.

Nasif al-Yaziji (1800-1871) was born in Kafar Shima and educated by a priest.  His father, who was a physician, had an appreciation for Arabic poetry, which was inherited by his son.  He read voraciously and composed Arabic poetry at the age of 10.  As printed books were rare at the time, he memorized whole books, copying what he could not memorize.  Yaziji was prolific writer on Arabic literature and grammar.  One of his books, Fasl Al-Khitab, was probably one of the first useful summaries of Arabic grammar.  It has been used in many Arab countries for teaching of Arabic.  He worked with American missionaries and composed for them some religious hymns in Arabic.  He wrote a famous book of Maqamat (an old form of writing Arabic prose) titled Majma’ Al-Bahrayn.  Yaziji worked as a linguistic editor in printing houses and was one of the founders of the Syrian Scientific Society.  He left three books of poetry.  He was praised for his ability to write exactly like classic Arab poets.  By modern poets, he is criticized for his non-original forms.  His reputation extended throughout the region, and he was briefly hired as the personal writer of the patriarch of the Greek Catholics.  He later worked for Prince Bashir II.  Yaziji memorized the Qur’an and began an extensive interpretation of al­-Mutanabbi’s diwan, which was completed by his son Ibrahim.

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*It is believed that Njembot Mboj, the Queen Mother of the Kingdom of Walo, was born in this year.

Njembot Mboj (c.1800-1846) was the famous Linger, or Queen Mother, of the kingdom of Walo (Senegal) who dominated the political life of that state from about 1830 until her death in 1846. 

Njembot Mboj emerged during the civil war following French withdrawal from Walo and abandonment of the agricultural colonization scheme at Richard Toll in 1829.  Both the French and the Trarza Moors were seeking hegemony over Walo.  Her influence was decisive in the nomination of Fara Penda as Brak in 1831, instead of the French supported candidate, Xerfi Xari Daro.  The Trarza emir, Muhammad al-Habib, moved into Walo.  However, filling the vacuum left by the French Njembot and Fara Penda went into exile in Kajor.

Negotiating an already severely compromised national sovereignty, a group of the nobles proposed the hand of the most prized woman of Walo to the Emir of Trarza.  The marriage was celebrated June 18, 1933.  Suddenly, the two kingdoms north and south of the mouth of the Senegal River were united in a single family, an alarming spectacle to the French commercial colony at Saint-Louis.  Within a month, the French forces and auxiliaries invaded, raiding, pillaging, and burning crops standing in the fields to try to force the annulment of the marriage.  Linger Njembot and her allies again sought asylumin Kajor.  After two years of inconclusive warfare, Walo was barren and deserted by its inhabitants, and French trade was at a standstill.  Peace negotiations resulted in a pair of treaties in 1835.  By the first treaty, Muhammad al-Habib renounced all claims to the throne of Walo, for himself or his offspring (he and his wife were at that moment awaiting their firstborn).  By the second treaty, the exiles in Kajor were allowed to return and resume their thrones in Walo.  There were great victory celebrations in Walo, and Njembot’s authority was reinforced.  Five years later, when the Brak died, she was able to ensure the election of Mboj Malik through generosity to the electoral council. 

Njembot was never officially king, as tradition forbade a woman to reign as Brak.  However, her power was such that Mboj Malik was considered a front for Njembot, who was the real decision maker.  She died in 1846, too soon to see her son Ely Njembot accede to the throne.  Her younger sister, Ndate Yala Mboj, succeeded her and proved an equally notable personality. 

Griots still celebrate Njembot’s legendary marriage.  In one version, Njembot is the pearl of the kingdom who sacrifices herself in marriage to save Walo from the misery of the Trarza war.  In another she is a woman of overwhelming ambition, who wanted to be known in history as Kumba Linger, and to leave the two kingdoms of Walo and Trarza to her son.  In fact, her son Ely was crowned king of Trarza and throughout the late 1840s and early 1850s was the virtual ruler in Walo as well.  His pretentious to the throne were quashed only by the French conquest and partition of the kingdom in 1854.  

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Reza Quli Khan (1800-1871) was born (June 8).  Reza Quli Khan was the author of texts on political, literary and religious history.  He was known as Hidayat in poetry. Along with Furughi, Reza Quli Khan revived the tradition of the mystical ghazal. 

Reza Quli Khan (Rezā Qoli Khān Hedāyat) (June 8, 1800 - June 29, 1871) was a Persian writer and poet, and the tutor of Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar. 

Reza Quli Khan was born in 1800 in Tehran. Upon the completion of his education he entered the service of Prince Hossein Ali Mirza Farman Farma son of Fat'h Ali Shah and governor of Shiraz. He was given the title of Khan and of Amir-ol Sho'ara in 1830, when Fath Ali Shah visited Shiraz.

In 1838, Reza Quli Khan returned to Tehran. Mohammed Shah instructed him to remain at the court and in 1841 selected him as tutor to his son Prince Abbas Mirza Molk Ara. In 1847 he was appointed governor of Firuzkuh. 

In 1851, Reza Quli Khan was chosen by Naser al-Din Shah to lead the Embassy to Khiva. He was minister of education in 1852 and principal of the newly founded Dar-ol-fonoon College at Tehran.

In 1857, he was selected as tutor of Mozaffar al-Din Shah.

Reza Quli Khan died from a severe illness in 1871. He had two sons, Ali Qoli Khan Mokhber ed-Dowleh and Ja'afar Qoli Khan Nayer-ol-Molk. Reza Qoli Khan was also great-grandfather of Sadeq Hedayat.

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*Salim, a Kurdish poet, was born. 

Abdul-Rehman Begi Saheb-Qiran (1800-1866), famous by his pseudonym as Salim or Salem, was born in 1800 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan. He is one of the most significant classic Kurdish poets. He was the uncle of Nalî and the cousin of Kurdî, two famous poets. He died in 1866 in Sulaimany.  

The content of Salim's poems mainly consists of philosophy, mysticism and history. Most of his poems are in the form of ghazal, but he has some quatrains (ruba'is) and qasidas. His poems are in Kurdish, Persian and Arabic. He was influenced by Hafez and Kalim Hamedani among Persian poets and Nali among the Kurdish poets. His poetry is meterical.   He used Hazaj meter in his poetry which proved suitable for Sorani poetry. There are many Persian and Arabic words in Salim's Kurdish poems.

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*Bona Sijabat, a chief of the Batak tribe who led the Batak to freedom from oppressive Dutch land ownership, is believed to have been born in this year.

Bona Sijabat (c.1800 – 1862) was a well-respected and long-time chief of a Batak tribe. Natives of North Sumatra, the Batak tribe was led by Sijabat into a battle that would ultimately result in many deaths, but also in freedom from oppressive Dutch land ownership. 

It is not known exactly when or where Sijabat was born, though it is believed that his family had always lived in Samosir. His father was an influential elder of a north Sumatran village at the time of King Singamangaraja, but was killed before Sijabat’s birth. His mother was said to be a strikingly beautiful woman, and as a widow devoted herself to raising her son.

Sijabat first showed an interest in leadership when he was around 8 years old. He would nominate himself to lead hunts for food and resources, despite being one of the younger children in the hunting group. He was strict in his leading, but compassionate in his manner, even for a boy, and many tribe members had beliefs of his father’s reincarnation or spirit being within him. 

As a young tribe member, Sijabat excelled in all pursuits. He was skilled with basic weaponry and was known to have a wonderful singing voice. He involved himself in many aspects of tribal life, from religious rituals to song and dance, and even weaving. Some said that without a father figure in his life – he had an inclination towards typically female-oriented tasks. This did not alienate him from his peers, but contrarily earned him respect as a motivated, diverse individual who appealed to all members of his Batak tribe.

It was not long after this time that the tribe’s chief, Sidapitu, fell gravely ill – possibly with what we would now call bowel cancer. Sijabat saw the opportunity to help his revered leader, and worked closely with the chief for many months: first attempting to rid him of his disease, then acting to ensure his comfort during his final days.  

Sidapitu had no sons, and as his death approached he asked Sijabat to take his place as the head of the tribe. Sijabat’s modest, humble nature would have him refuse the position, but other tribal elders had seen the compassion and selflessness he had shown Sidapitu and implored him to reconsider.  

Sijabat became tribal chief in 1832.

It was around this time that the Dutch began to enter inland Sumatra. They brought with them grazing animals – sheep, cattle and oxen – on the promise of large areas of habitable, vacant property. The locals, as well as nearby tribes, were forced from their homes and many were taken as slaves.

Fierce conflict over the land resulted in much bloodshed, and a great number of slaves died from starvation and widespread disease.

Passive and peace loving by nature, Sijabat felt conflicted by the unrest in Sumatra.  However, he was intensely angered by the Dutch, and was proactive in rallying fighters and leaders from several tribes to reclaim their homes. In May 1840, he led his makeshift army into a great battle, which would later become known as the Battle of Mount Simalungun. 

More than one thousand lives were lost, and countless livestock slaughtered. 

The Dutch burned tribal villages to the ground before returning to their settlements. They did not return until many decades later, after peaceful grazing had been established in particular areas of Sumatra. 

Following the war, Sijabat fathered ten children – of which only one was a son. He established groups of workers to rebuild the villages, and used his own medicinal skills to assist members of the tribes who had been injured in battle. 

When Sijabat died of natural causes in 1862, his son took his place as the tribe’s chief, and vowed always to maintain the same compassion and humility as his father. To this day, some small villages hold an annual remembrance ceremony for Bona Sijabat and the profound effect he had on his people and their future.

Bona Sijabat is now a common name given to the eldest child for families of Sumatran Indonesian descent.

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*Martha Christina Tiahahu, a Moluccan freedom fighter and a National Heroine of Indonesia, was born (January 4).

Martha Christina Tiahahu (January 4, 1800 – January 2, 1818) was a Moluccan freedom fighter and National Heroine of Indonesia.

Born to a military captain, Tiahahu was active in military matters from a young age. She joined the war led by Pattimura against the Dutch colonial government when she was 17, fighting in several battles. After being captured in October 1817, she was released on account of her age. She continued to fight, and was captured again. Sent to Java to be a slave laborer, she fell ill on the way and, refusing to eat or take medicine, died on a ship in the Banda Sea. 

Tiahahu is considered a National Heroine of Indonesia, with the date of her death celebrated as a holiday. She has also been honored with two statues, one in Ambon and one in Abubu.  Other namesakes include a warship, street, Moluccan social organization, and women's magazine. 

Tiahahu was born in Abubu village on Nusalaut Island, near Maluku, on January 4, 1800. Her father was Captain Paulus Tiahahu of the Soa Uluputi clan.  After her mother died while she was an infant, Tiahahu was raised by her father. As a child, she was stubborn and followed her father wherever he went, at times joining him in planning attacks. 

Beginning in 1817, Tiahahu joined her father in a guerrilla war against the Dutch colonial government. They also backed Pattimura's army. She saw several battles. In a battle at Saparua Island, the troops killed Dutch commander Richement and wounded his replacement Commander Meyer. In another battle, she and her troops succeeded in burning Duurstede Fortress to the ground. During battles, Tiahahu was said to throw stones at the Dutch troops if her soldiers were out of ammunition, while other accounts have her wielding a spear. After Vermeulen Kringer took over the Dutch military in Maluku, Tiahahu, her father, and Pattimura were captured in October 1817.

Carried on the HNLMS Evertsen to Nusalaut, Tiahahu was the only captured soldier not punished.  This was due to her young age. After a period of time in holding in Fort Beverwijk, where her father was executed in late 1817, Tiahahu was released.  She continued to fight against the Dutch.  

In a sweep in December 1817 Tiahahu and several other former rebels were caught. The captured guerrillas were placed on the Evertsen to be transported to Java.  They were meant to be used as slave labor on the coffee plantations there. However, on the way Tiahahu fell ill. Refusing medication and food, she died on January 2, 1818 while the ship was crossing the Banda Sea. Tiahahu received a burial at sea later that day, 

Soon after Indonesia's independence, Tiahahu was declared a National Heroine of Indonesia. January 2 was designated Martha Christina Tiahahu Day. On that day, people in Maluku spread flower petals over the Banda Sea in an official ceremony honoring her struggle. However, the ceremony is smaller than that honoring Pattimura, on May 15. 

Several monuments have been dedicated to Tiahahu. In Ambon, capital of the province of Maluku, an 8-metre (26 ft) tall statue of her holding a spear was erected in 1977; it stands in Karangpanjang overlooking the Banda Sea. In Abubu, a statue of her leading soldiers while holding a spear was erected and dedicated on the 190th anniversary of her death. She also has several items named after her, including a street in Karangpanjang, Ambon, and a warship, the KRI Martha Christina Tiahahu. 

Other organizations have also taken Tiahahu's name as a symbol of bravery and "spirit of struggle", including a social organization for Moluccans in Jakarta and a women's magazine in Ambon.

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*Yusuf Mohamed Ibrahim, a sultan of Geledi (Somalia), is believed to have been born in this year. 

Yusuf Mohamed Ibrahim (c.1800-1848) was probably the most renowned of the sultans of Geledi, a group which dominated the hinterlands of Mogadishu and Brava throughout most of the 19^th century.  Yusuf Mohamed Ibrahim is remembered as a great religious and political leader.  His most famous military expedition occurred in 1843, when he led an army of some 40,000 warriors against the religious reformers of Bardera.  In 1848, Yusuf died in a battle with the Bimal, the traditional enemies of the Geledi.

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Notable Deaths

*Abu Abd Allah Mohammed ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Sijilmasi, a Moroccan Maliki scholar, died.


Abu Abd Allah Mohammed ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Sijilmasi is especially well known for his Sharh al-amal al-mutlaq: al-musammá bi-Fath al-jalīl al-samad fī sharh al-takmīl wa-al-mutamad.  It was finished in 1782. According to al-Hajwi, Sijilmasi died of the plague in Boujad in 1800. 

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*Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III, the man who blinded and imprisoned the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur, died.

Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III, Imad-ul-Mulk (1736-1800), was the son of Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung II (the son of Nizam ul Mulk Asaf Jah). Born in 1736 (s/o Sultan Begum), his original name was Shahabuddin Muhammad Siddiqi. After the death of his father in 1752, he was, by the recommendation of Nawab Safdar Jung appointed Mir Bakhshi (Pay Master General), and received the titles of Amir ul-Umara (Noble of Nobles) and Imad ul-Mulk by the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur of Delhi.

Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (Imad-ul-Mulk) blinded and imprisoned Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur in 1754 and later authorized his death. In the year 1757 Ahmad Shah Durrani declared Imad-ul-Mulk an "apostate". This event was soon followed by the assassination of Emperor Alamgir II in 1759.

Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (Imad-ul-Mulk) was later made the Wazir ul-Mamalik-i-Hindustan. Imad-ul-Mulk also planned the death of young Ali Gauhar and even ordered Mir Jafar the Nawab of Bengal to advance as far as Patna with the motive to kill or capture the Mughal Crown Prince. Imad-ul-Mulk soon fled Delhi after the rise of Najib-ud-Daula and the Mughal Army, which eventually placed Shah Alam II as the new Mughal Emperor.

The wife of Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (Imad-ul-Mulk) was the celebrated Ganna or Gunna Begam who died in the year 1775. The year of Khan's death is unknown but according to the biography of the poet called Gulzar Ibrahim he was living in 1780 in straitened circumstances. 

The poetical name of Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III was Nizam. He went to the Deccan in 1773 and received a jagir in Malwa. Subsequently, he proceeded to Surat where he passed a few years with the English and then went on a pilgrimage (Hajj) to Makkah. He composed Persian and Rekhta poetry and left Arabic and Turkish Ghazals and a thick Persian Diwan and a Masnawi in which the miracles of Maulana Fakhr uddin are related.  He died at Kalpi on August 31, 1800, and was buried in the Shrine of Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Pakpattan (now in Pakistan).

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*Salawat Yulayev, a Bashkir national hero who participated in Pugachev’s rebellion, died.

Salawat Yulayev (b. June 16, 1754, Tekeyevo (Bashkortostan), Shaytan-Kudeevsky volost, Ufa province, Orenburg Governorate, Russia – d. September 26, 1800, Paldiski) is a Bashkir national hero who participated in Pugachev's rebellion.

The Bashkirs are a Turkic people indigenous to Bashkortostan extending on both parts of the Ural Mountains, on the place where Europe meets Asia. Groups of Bashkirs also live in the republic of Tatarstan, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Samara and Saratov Oblasts of Russia, as well as in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and other countries. They speak the Kypchak-based Bashkir language. The Bashkirs are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab. 

Salawat Yulayev was born in the village of Tekeyevo of Shaytan-Kudeevsky volost of Ufa province of Orenburg Governorate (now Salavatsky District) of Bashkortostan. Tekeyevo no longer exists, because it was burned in 1775.

Salawat Yulayev was at the head of all of rebel Bashkortostan from the very beginning of the country war of 1773-1775. He was seized by imperial authorities on November 24, 1774, and his father Yulay Aznalin was seized even earlier. Put into irons they were sent to Moscow.

In 1768 the Orenburg governor prince Putyatin appointed Yulay as the foreman of the Bashkir command. But soon the merchant Tverdyshev, granted to collegiate asessory rank, bereaved Yulay Aznalin of his land to build Simsky plant and villages. The Bashkir land was bringing to ruin, that is why Yulay Aznalin and it nineteen years old son Salawat stood up under Yemelyan Pugachev’s banners.

In ten months after Salawat’s capture, in September, 1775, he and his father were publicly punished by lashes in those places where the largest battles with the governmental armies passed. They both were branded on their foreheads and faces. On October 2, 1775 chained by hands and legs, Salawat and Yulay on two carts under protection were sent to transportation for life to the Baltic fortress Rogervik (nowadays the city of Paldiski in Estonia). The transport with convicts passed Menzelinsk, Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Moscow, and on November 14 they reached Tver. Then there was Novgorod, Pskov, and Revel and on November 29th they reached Rogervik.

The Baltic port Rogervik, was founded by Peter the Great. However by 1775, when the Rogervik participants of the Bashkir revolt turned out, the fortress was practically deserted. There was only a small garrison and small number of prisoners. Salawat and Yulay met there their brothers-in-arms: Pugachev Colonel I. S. Aristov, Colonel Kanzafar Usaev, and others. It was there that Salawat Yulayev and his father lived the rest of their lives.

Salawat Yulayev died on September 26, 1800.

Many things in modern-day Bashkortostan are named after Yulayev including a town, a hockey team, and the republic's State Prize.

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*Suleiman al-Halabi, the assassin of Jean Baptiste Kleber, died.

Suleiman al-Halabi (1777-1800), also known as Soleyman El-Halaby (Kurdish: Seleman Ous Qopar), was a Syrian student who assassinated French general Jean Baptiste Kléber. He was tortured by burning his hand to the bone before being executed by impalement.

Suleiman al-Halabi was born in 1777 in Kukan village, Afrin. His religious father, Mohammad Amin, worked in the profession of selling butter and olive oil.

In 1797, al-Halabi's father sent him to Cairo, Egypt to study Islamic sciences at Al-Azhar University. After three years of study, al-Halabi returned to Kukan. There he was surprised to learn of his father's poverty as a result of heavy fines and taxation demanded by Ottoman authorities.

The authorities offered to lift his imprisoned father's financial burden if he would assassinate French Army General Jean Baptiste Kléber. He agreed and traveled to Cairo to carry out the assassination.

On June 14, 1800, al-Halabi approached Kléber's home in the guise of a beggar seeking an audience with Kléber. After they shook hands, he violently pulled the general toward him and stabbed him four times with a stiletto. Kléber's chief engineer tried to defend him and was stabbed but not mortally wounded.

Al-Halabi subsequently hid in a nearby park where he was found by French soldiers. He was searched him and they found his stiletto. He was arrested and tortured, his right arm burnt to the bone while he denied any relationship with Sheikh Al-Sharkawi or the popular resistance movements. He was tried and sentenced to death by impalement.

Today, al-Halabi’s skull and stiletto are on display at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, under the caption, "Criminal," written in French.

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*Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), an English historian, poet, and Whig politician, was born on Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England (October 25).

Macaulay spent a part of his career in Calcutta as law member of the governor-general’s executive council.  He had earlier been a member of the Board of Control of the East India Company.  Macaulay arrived in India in 1834.  He is perhaps best known in Indian history for his “Minute on Education” of 1835.  Macaulay argued for a Western (i.e., British) system of education in English in opposition to those who espoused teaching in local languages.  Although Macaulay is criticized for this (for example, as creating a group of “brown sahibs”), his view was that Indians educated under his proposal would eventually demand representative institutions. In the interim, Britain would rule by the sword.  Macaulay, as law member, changed the legal system so that the British and Indians would be tried under a single court system.

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GENERAL HISTORICAL EVENTS

January 24

*Napoleon concluded the Convention of El Arish with the Ottoman Turks, agreeing to a French withdrawal from Egypt.

March 24

*A French army under Kleber defeated the Turks at Heliopolis.

June 4

*Austrian troops starved the Genoese into submission, but then came under attack from Napoleon, who had come through the St. Bernard Pass.

June 14 

*At the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon narrowly defeated the Austrians under Baron von Melas. Melas signed a truce, handing over to Napoleon all the Austrian forts west of the River Mincio and south of the River Po.

*In Cairo, the French General Kleber was assassinated by a Turkish fanatic.

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*The world's population reached 880 million.

*William Herschel discovered infra-red rays.

*The techniques of the Industrial Revolution spread to Europe.  Lieven Bauwens of Ghent smuggled the spinning jenny into the Low Countries from England.

*English engineer Richard Trevithick invented a high-pressure steam engine that would later power a road vehicle.

*Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery.

*Alexander von Humboldt explored the course of the River Orinoco in South America.

*In West Africa, Osei Bonshu assumed the throne of the Ashanti kingdom (Ghana) and reigned as Asantehane.  The golden throne was alleged by the prophet Okomfo Anokye to have been received "from heaven" to create and legitimize the holy empire of the Ashanti people.

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*Jean-Baptiste Kleber, age 47, a French general during the French Revolution, died in Cairo, Egypt (June 14).

Appointed governor of Egypt in 1799 by Napoleon Bonaparte, Kleber spent most of the year prior to his assassination in suppressing the many revolts against French rule.  At the same time, he negotiated with Sir Sidney Smith for the withdrawal of French troops from the country.  The convention that the two men concluded was subsequently rejected by the British who decided to maintain their formal intervention on behalf of the Ottomans.  Kleber met this challenge and defeated an Ottoman army advancing on Cairo in March 1800.  He restored order in much of Cairo, and benefitted from the decision of Murad Bey to accept the governorship of Upper Egypt on behalf of the French.  However, opposition to French control continued and in June 1800 Kleber was assassinated by a member of the Janissary corps.  He was succeeded by Baron Menou.