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| 1788–1840 |
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| Rule of Bashir II of the Shihab family as emir of Mount Lebanon. He emerged as one of the dominant Middle Eastern leaders of the period. | 1 |
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| 1788 |
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| Ali Pasha of Janina began his rise to power in central Albania. In the following three decades he built an impressive autonomous base extending from northern Albania to the Gulf of Corinth, with a pretentious court and direct diplomatic relations with European powers. An Ottoman force eliminated him in 1822. | 2 |
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| 1789–1807 |
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| SULTAN SELIM III. The death of Abdulhamid brought to the throne his nephew Selim, who recognized the urgent need to reform the empire. Insubordination in the provinces had reached new heights, while on the battlefield the Ottoman military showed itself to be no match for the European armies. Once peace was reached with Russia in 1792, Selim launched a reform program focused largely on reorganizing the military. The Janissaries, ulama, and others with vested interest in the existing system sabotaged the reforms and finally undid them and their author. Despite his failure and the limited scope of his effort, Selim was an important transitional figure who opened the way for the vigorous modernization pursued by his successors. He was also a patron of music and an accomplished composer. | 3 |
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| 1791 |
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| Death of Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi (b. 1760), a Damascene scholar who compiled biographies of distinguished Muslims of the 18th century (Silk al-durar). | 4 |
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| 1792–1807 |
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| SELIM'S “NEW ORDER” AND OTHER REFORMS. Military reorganization was Selim's main focus. He tried, with limited success, to upgrade the Janissary troops and the cavalry, and he greatly improved the artillery corps and the navy. He also established an entirely new corps, the Nizam-i Jedid (New Order), which at the end of 1806 had 24,000 men armed with new weapons and trained and commanded by European officers. Selim's administrative reforms primarily involved the reorganization of the scribal service according to higher standards of honesty and efficiency. In the area of diplomacy Selim made genuine innovations by stationing Ottoman ambassadors permanently in European capitals for the first time. All these changes proved too piecemeal and narrow to address the underlying weaknesses in the Ottoman system. | 5 |
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| 1798–1801 |
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| THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT (See 1798). As part of a French global strategy in the war against Britain, a large expedition led by Bonaparte landed in Alexandria (July 1, 1798) and, after defeating the Mamluk army in the Battle of the Pyramids (July 21), occupied Cairo and proceeded to consolidate its control of the Nile Delta. The adventure encountered several setbacks. The British fleet destroyed the French ships off Abukir (Aug. 1), isolating the troops from France. The sultan declared war on France (Sept. 11) and signed a triple alliance with Russia and Britain (Jan. 1799). Napoleon's attempt to take Syria failed after Acre held out, and plague decimated the French troops, forcing them to retreat to Egypt (Feb.–May 1799). The French defeated an Ottoman force at Abukir (July 1799) and then at Heliopolis (March 20, 1800), but a joint Ottoman-British force finally obtained French surrender and evacuation (Sept. 1801). | 6 |
| The short-lived occupation left the power of the Mamluks much weakened and various groups in the Egyptian population exposed for the first time to European modes of warfare, administration, taxation, and scientific inquiry. In Middle Eastern historiography the episode is often taken as the symbolic beginning of the modern era. | 7 |
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| 1799 |
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| Death of Galip Dede (b. 1757), the last of the great traditional poets of the Ottoman Empire. A mystic who headed the Mevlevi lodge of Galata, he displayed a religious intellectualism and a literary virtuosity that won him the patronage of Sultan Selim III. His masterpiece was a long allegorical poem, Husn ve ashk (Beauty and Love). | 8 |
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| 1799 |
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Osman Pasvano lu (1758–1807) rose in Vidin as a powerful autonomous notable, spreading his rule over much of northwestern Bulgaria and into Serbia and Wallachia. He refused to pay taxes to Istanbul and was among the chief opponents of Selim III's reforms. | 9 |
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| 1799 |
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| Ibrahim Pasha Qattar Aghasi became the first native of Aleppo to win appointment to the governorship of the province in the 18th century. His son Muhammad succeeded him in 1804, but the attempt to create a dynastic line was aborted almost immediately when he was attacked and defeated by the rebellious Janissaries and ashraf. | 10 |
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| 1802, June 25 |
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| The Treaty of Amiens with France, ending the war over Egypt. It provided for peace and friendship between the two countries as well as mutual assistance in case of war. All prewar treaties and capitulations were renewed. | 11 |
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| 1803 |
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| Fall of Mecca to the Wahhabis, followed by the fall of Medina in 1804. The loss of the two Holy Cities of Islam and the suspension of the annual pilgrimage posed a challenge to Ottoman authority and to the sultan's role as guardian of the Holy Cities. An Egyptian expedition on behalf of the sultan recovered the two cities in 1812–13. | 12 |
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| 1804, April |
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| Death of Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, the ruthless governor of Sidon. The news was greeted with open joy by the population. | 13 |
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