Mehmed Namık Pasha

Mushir Mehmed Emin Namık Pasha
Viceroy of Baghdad
In office 1861–1867
Monarch	Abdülaziz I
In office 1851–1852
Monarch	Abdülmecid I
Viceroy of Jeddah
In office 1856–1860
Monarch	Abdülmecid I
Ottoman Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office 1834–1836
Monarch	Mahmud II
Personal details
Born	Mehmed Emin Namık 1804 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Died	1892 (aged 88) Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Religion	Islam
Military service
Allegiance	Ottoman Empire
Service/branch	Army
Rank	Mushir

Mehmed Emin Namık Pasha (1804 – 1892) was a major Ottoman statesman of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. He served under five sultans and acted as counsellor to at least four of them. He founded the Mekteb-i Harbiye (The Ottoman Military Academy), was twice viceroy of the province of Bagdad, was the first ambassador of the Sublime Porte at Saint-James's Court, was appointed Serasker (Commander-in-chief / Minister of War), became a Cabinet minister, and was conferred the title of Şeyh-ül Vüzera (Head of Imperial Ministers). During a long career that spanned a long lifetime (he lived to be eighty-eight), he was one of the personalities who shaped, as well as were themselves shaped by what historian İlber Ortaylı called “the longest century” of the Ottoman state (see his İmparatorluğun En Uzun Yüzyılı, 1983).

His son, Hasan Riza Pasha, was a general in the Ottoman Army.

Namık was born in Istanbul, the son of Halil Ramis Agha, an instructor at the Ottoman Court, whose grandfather, Ümmeti Konevî (Ümmet from Konya) had migrated from Konya. He was taught privately by his father until the age of fourteen, when, in 1816, he was appointed (as şakird - student apprentice) to the secretariat of the Divanı Hümayun (Imperial Cabinet) where he polished his education with courses in Arabic, Persian, grammar, Turkish elocution, and religious studies, as well as in French and English. He was sent to Paris when Sultan Mahmud II (1785-1839, reign 1808-1839). selected him as one of the Divanı Hümayun şakirds to be sent to study in Europe, and attended the École Militaire there, improving at the same time the French he had already acquired.

On his return, one of the duties of Namık Efendi, as a member of the secretariat of the Divanı Hümayun, was to join as second interpreter the Ottoman delegation which signed in 1826 the Akkerman Convention with the Russians. In 1826 also, the Order of Janissaries was dissolved, and in preparation for the restructuring of the military, he was given the job of translating French texts concerning military rules and regulations. As he did a good job, Sultan Mahmud II, who gave great importance to these texts, rewarded him in 1827 with the rank of alayemin, an act which, beyond being a token of appreciation, signaled Namık Efendi's entry into the ranks of the military. A year later Namık Bey was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was sent to Saint-Petersburg as military attaché with the duty first and foremost of studying the organization of the Russian army. He returned a year later, to be appointed as colonel to a regiment which he succeeded to turn into an exemplary regiment. He was made brigade-general for his efforts in 1832.

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