Holy mountain and supreme council: Mount Athos at the beginning of a new era

Abstract

The establishment of the Supreme Council of Judicious Ordinances, itself a product of modern Ottoman reform begun by Mahmud II (1808–39), added to the establishment of a new framework for an increasingly centralised concept of ‘Beneficient Re-Orderings’ (tanzimat-i hayriye) in the Ottoman Empire. Created on 27 Zilhicce 1253 (24 March 1838) as part of Mahmud's strategy to dismantle the Grand Vizirate and shift the locus of power closer to himself, the Meclis-i Vala-yi Ahkam-i Adliye consequently figured prominently also in the famous Hatt-i ?erif (imperial decree) of Gülhane of 3 November 1839, by which date the Tanzimat are usually understood to have begun 'officially’.