Accession to the Ottoman throne

Abdul Hamid ascended the throne after his brother Murad was deposed on 31 August 1876.[1][13] At his accession, some commentators were impressed that he rode practically unattended to the Eyüp Sultan Mosque, where he was presented with the Sword of Osman. Most people expected Abdul Hamid II to support liberal movements, but he acceded to the throne at a critical time. Economic and political turmoil, local wars in the Balkans, and the Russo-Turkish War threatened the Empire's very existence.

First Constitutional Era, 1876–1878[edit]See also: First Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire) and Young Ottomans

Abdul Hamid worked with the Young Ottomans to realize some form of constitutional arrangement.[14] This new form could help bring about a liberal transition with an Islamic provenance. The Young Ottomans believed that the modern parliamentary system was a restatement of the practice of consultation, or shura, that had existed in early Islam.[15]

In December 1876, due to the 1875 insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ongoing war with Serbia and Montenegro, and the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the cruelty used in stamping out the 1876 Bulgarian rebellion, Abdul Hamid promulgated a constitution and a parliament.[1] Midhat Pasha headed the commission to establish a new constitution, and the cabinet passed the constitution on 6 December 1876, allowing for a bicameral legislature with senatorial appointments made by the sultan. The first ever election in the Ottoman Empire was held in 1877. Crucially, the constitution gave Abdul Hamid the right to exile anyone he deemed a threat to the state.[16]

The delegates to the Constantinople Conference[17][18] were surprised by the promulgation of a constitution, but European powers at the conference rejected the constitution as a too-radical change; they preferred the 1856 constitution (Islâhat Hatt-ı Hümâyûnu) or the 1839 Gülhane edict (Hatt-ı Şerif), and questioned whether a parliament was necessary to act as an official voice of the people.

In any event, like many other would-be reforms of the Ottoman Empire, it proved nearly impossible. Russia continued to mobilize for war, and early in 1877 the Ottoman Empire went to war with the Russian Empire.