[Recommended Reading: Turkey: “Was It Devoured the Day the White Bull Was Devoured?” – Dr. Bassam Abu Abdullah]
Published by naram.serjoonn
This article aims to present a scientific–academic comparative reading of the policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876–1909) and those of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in contemporary Turkey, by tracing three interrelated trajectories: the management of international balances; personal and behavioral similarities in styles of rule; and the use of Islam as a political instrument—with particular focus on Syria and the Levant as a central arena for these policies in both experiences. The comparison does not proceed from a logic of condemnation or glorification, but rather from an attempt to understand recurring patterns in political history, and how similar choices—despite differing eras—can lead to comparable outcomes.
First — Abdulhamid II faced a world dominated by rising imperial powers: Britain, Russia, France, and Germany. After the heavy defeat in the Russo–Ottoman War (1877–1878), and what followed with the Treaty of San Stefano and then the Congress of Berlin, the Sultan realized that direct confrontation was no longer possible. He therefore shifted to a policy of managing balances in order to delay collapse. He sought to prevent any single power from monopolizing dominance over the Ottoman state, drew closer to Germany as a rising power perceived as less hostile, attempted to neutralize Britain and France through calculated concessions, and invested in European fears of Russian expansion toward the straits and warm waters. At its core, this policy was an attempt to buy time, not to build sustainable internal strength.
By contrast, Erdoğan operates in a multipolar international system and relies on a similar logic: remaining within NATO while purchasing the Russian S-400 system; coordinating with Moscow in Syria while supporting Ukraine; using the refugee card to pressure Europe; leveraging the energy file; and signaling openness toward the East as a tool of political blackmail. In both cases, foreign policy is not based on stable alliances, but on constant maneuvering aimed at maximizing room for action—even at the expense of accumulating strategic trust.
Second — In relations with Russia, that power constituted the most dangerous structural threat to the Ottoman state. Abdulhamid attempted to contain it by avoiding confrontation and accepting territorial losses in exchange for preserving what remained of the Sultanate, especially in Anatolia and the Levant. Erdoğan, meanwhile, deals with Russia as a tactical partner: cooperation in energy and economics and field coordination in Syria, while Turkey remains within the Western camp. In both experiences, the relationship is based on managing risk rather than building a long-term strategic partnership, making it vulnerable to reversal at the first major shift in the balance of power.
Third — In relations with Germany, Abdulhamid wagered on the rising European power, embodied in the Berlin–Baghdad Railway project, which carried strategic dimensions beyond economics and aimed to balance British and French influence in the Mashreq, the Levant, and Iraq. Yet this bet increased the suspicions of other powers and tied the fate of the Sultanate to a power that later entered a comprehensive global conflict. In parallel fashion, Erdoğan today bets on a multipolar world and on expanding a network of partners outside the traditional Western framework—without guarantees that these bets will provide real protection for Turkey at a moment of major testing.
Fourth — In relations with Britain and France, the Levant was a central محور. After occupying Egypt, Britain viewed the survival of a weak Ottoman state as a barrier to Russian expansion, while simultaneously working to undermine Ottoman influence in the Mashreq. Abdulhamid attempted to control conditions in Syria and Palestine to avoid direct intervention and rejected Zionist settlement projects, but he was compelled to make political and economic concessions. France, for its part, invested its role as “protector of Catholics” to enhance its cultural and economic influence in Syria and Lebanon, paving the way for the later mandate. Today, Turkey experiences sharp political confrontations with Paris and Washington over the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, and Syria, with a clear inability to neutralize these powers or impose a final settlement that serves its interests.
Fifth — The comparison would be incomplete without noting the personal and behavioral similarities between the two men. Both incline toward individual rule, display deep suspicion of institutions and intermediaries, and rely on narrow circles. Abdulhamid effectively suspended the constitution and parliament and ran the state from the palace through extensive surveillance apparatuses. Erdoğan restructured Turkey’s political system toward an executive presidency, abolishing the government as an institution, marginalizing parliament, and weakening the judiciary. In both cases, the ruler was not merely a manager of power but its embodiment, viewing himself as the guarantor of historical continuity.
Sixth — The similarity appears most clearly in the sacralization of politics. Abdulhamid used the Islamic Caliphate as a tool of mobilization and control rather than as a reformist project, to compensate for national fragmentation within the empire. Religion was a means to prolong the life of the state, not to build a just political contract. In this context, the Levant was used as a human and symbolic reservoir, reaching its peak during the Safarbarlik, when tens of thousands of Syrians were forcibly conscripted under the banner of defending the Caliphate—resulting in famine, displacement, and social collapse.
Today, Erdoğan has reproduced the same logic using modern tools. Islamic-Ottoman rhetoric has been used to recruit and deploy thousands of Syrians in wars that do not serve Syria: in Nagorno-Karabakh, in Libya, and even within Syria itself against their own state. Once again, the Syrian is turned into a tool, his blood invested in the name of religion, then abandoned without political or national horizons. As in the Hamidian experience, religious slogans do not translate into real protection for people, but into their exhaustion. This background may clearly explain why the de facto authority in Damascus abolished Martyrs’ Day on the sixth of May.
Seventh — Regarding language and symbolism, the use by the new Turkish ambassador in Damascus of the term “Sham Sharif” instead of Damascus carries deep significance. The expression is Ottoman-religious, referring to a province and a civilizational domain rather than the capital of a sovereign state. Its use today reflects a mindset that views Syria as a dependent symbolic space, not as an independent political entity— the same mindset that prevailed in the late Ottoman era, when the Levant was seen as the depth of the Caliphate rather than as a full political partner with equal rights.
Eighth — Bringing these dimensions together—international balances, personal similarity, and the sacralization of politics—reveals the essence of the comparison: managing crises instead of resolving them, and using religion, geography, and people as bargaining tools, alongside an inability to build reliable alliances or sustainable internal power. Abdulhamid delayed the fall of the state but did not prevent it, leaving behind exhausted societies. Erdoğan achieves tactical gains, but places Turkey on a path of regional attrition and cumulative isolation.
Ninth — The picture is incomplete without considering what came after Abdulhamid II. His removal in 1909 did not open a door to salvation; rather, it exposed the depth of the vacuum left by individual rule and balance-management policies. The Committee of Union and Progress inherited an exhausted state, a mortgaged economy, and fragmented societies, and entered World War I alongside Germany—turning the German wager into a comprehensive catastrophe. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) came as the legal expression of Ottoman collapse, stipulating the dismemberment of Anatolia itself and the imposition of foreign tutelage, at a moment when the Sultanate found no ally to defend it. This ending was reversed only through the rise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the War of Independence, which led to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic on the basis of a clear rupture with the Hamidian legacy: a national, secular state that withdrew from the Ottoman sphere and redefined its place in the international system. This rupture was not merely ideological, but a historical response to failed balance politics and the sacralization of politics.
Tenth — Conclusion — This article does not claim that history repeats itself verbatim, but it affirms that when patterns of rule resemble one another, their outcomes tend to resemble as well. In both experiences, the Levant was a testing ground: a human reservoir, a religious symbol, and a sphere of influence—but rarely a true partner. From here, the question becomes legitimate: Is Turkey today moving down a path that may lead it to be “devoured on the day the white bull was devoured”—that is, the day others were consumed in the name of religion, history, and balances, before the turn reached the state itself? Reading history here seems highly useful for understanding the present and the future. This question will be the محور of a subsequent article under the same title, addressing current Turkish developments and whether there remains room to learn the lesson of Abdulhamid, or whether history is reproducing itself in contemporary language.
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