Halet Efendi

Halet Efendi was an Ottoman statesman who rose from the secretarial class to the posts of ambassador, chief of the secretaries and keeper of the seal. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says his abilities gave him a dominant position in the early years of the reign of Mahmud II. ²

He was born in Istanbul about 1175/1761, the son of a qadi, Huseyn Efendi, who came from the Crimea. He was educated in the house of the Shaykh al-Islam Sherif Efendi, served under several governors in Rumeli, and was steward to the deputy judge of Yenishehir Fener, which is Larissa. ¹

Back in Istanbul he became closely attached to Ghalib Dede, shaykh of the Mevlevi convent at Galata, a link that let him complete his literary education. He worked as secretary to dignitaries such as Kassab-bashi Mehmed Agha and the Phanariot Kallimakhi, and the favour of the keeper of the sultan's stirrup, Mustafa Reshid Efendi, then won him a place among the khwajegan, the senior clerks. ¹

On 4 Ramadan 1217/29 December 1802 he was appointed ambassador to France with the rank of chief accountant. The article calls the mission a failure but says it taught him about the Western world. After his return in late 1806 he became deputy for the chief of the sultan's privy accounts, and on 23 Rabi' II 1222/31 May 1807, two days after the revolution that deposed Selim III, he was made chief of the secretaries, the re'is al-kuttab. ²

The French ambassador Sebastiani alleged that he was pro-British, and he was dismissed on 5 March 1808 and exiled to Kutahya. The article calls this a fortunate accident, because Mustafa IV was dethroned on 28 July of that year. He was allowed to return to Istanbul in Sha'ban 1224/September 1809. ²

Mahmud II sent him to Baghdad, where he arrived on 25 Jumada I 1225/28 June 1810. His task was to persuade the quasi-independent governor, Kuchuk Suleyman Pasha, to pay sums owed to the sultan. When Suleyman refused, Halet withdrew to Mosul, and with the help of the governors of Mosul and Baban prepared a military expedition. It succeeded: Suleyman Pasha was murdered and his former steward, Abd Allah Agha, was installed in his place. ²

In early 1811 he became keeper of the sultan's stirrup, the ketkhuda-i rikab-i humayun, and on 5 Shawwal 1230/10 September 1815 keeper of the seal, the nishandji. He enjoyed the sultan's confidence, who asked his advice on affairs of state. He supported the sultan's policy of subduing the provincial notables, the derebeys, but did not favour the plan to abolish the Janissary corps and used the Janissaries to keep his own influence. For a time, says the article, he controlled appointments to the posts of Grand Vizier and Shaykh al-Islam. ²

The traveller Slade, as the article reports, thought his closeness to the Phanariots had made him suspect, and that he tried to clear himself by showing as much hatred of the Greeks as he was believed to have friendship for them. ²

His fall came from his part in securing the deposition, in 1820, of Ali Pasha of Tepelena, governor of Yanya. As his rival Djanib Efendi had predicted, the expedition against Ali Pasha set off the Greek revolt in the Morea in March 1821, and Halet was accused of being its cause. He was exiled to Konya in Safar 1238/November 1822 and strangled there a few days later. His head was brought to Istanbul and buried in the Mevlevi convent at Galata, near the fountain and library he had founded. ²

The article describes him as a man of great intelligence and eloquence who kept his position by placing his own men in key posts and sending opponents to exile or death. It calls him a conservative, opposed to westernization, and says that his part in provoking the Greek insurrection was disastrous for the empire. This is the author's assessment, not a verdict of the museum. ²