In our first court case from the Islamic world, we meet one of history’s greatest bureaucrats. Midhat Pasha was fantastic at taking control of troubled territories and coming up with grand new legal ideas, but he wasn’t so great at playing politics. Meet the scholar who rose to be the Grand Vizier of an empire before he became the defendant in an unwinnable show trial.
Featured image: A photograph of Midhat Pasha (Image source)
A caricature of Midhat Pasha from the June 30, 1877 issue of Vanity Fair, titled “The Turkish Constitution.” (Image source)
A newspaper from London reports on an assassination attempt that Midhat Pasha survived; one other survivor and two who were killed are also shown. The case was a big news story in Europe, and Midhat Pasha came across very sympathetically in the press. (Image source)
A statue of Midhat Pasha in Ankara, the capitol city of Turkey. (Image source)
In a grad school class we read all the classic ancient Chinese political philosophers, and I was intrigued by the fact that the Legalist, Hanfeizi, was the most disliked of all of them. Everyone preferred Confucius and Zhuangzi as well as Xunzi who directly attacked Hanfeizi. But we are ruled by legalism! Would we want to be tried in a Confucian court where sons are allowed to pardon their fathers?