How did the Ottoman Empire and Egypt try to modernize themselves, and what were the most important results?

Stretching from West Africa into southeastern Europe and across Southwest Asia to the East Indies, Islamic civilization competed successfully with western Europe for centuries. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, however, the rising absolutist states of Austria and Russia began to challenge the greatest Muslim state, the vast Ottoman Empire, and gradually to reverse Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe. In the nineteenth century European industrialization and nation building further altered the long-standing balance of power, and Western expansion eventually posed a serious challenge to Muslims everywhere.

Ruling elites both in the Ottoman Empire and in Egypt, a largely independent Ottoman province, led the way in trying to survive against constant European political, cultural, and military pressure. The ongoing European military threat required, first of all, wrenching army reforms along Western lines in order to defend and preserve the state. These military reforms then snowballed into a series of innovations in education, which had a powerful cultural impact on Ottoman and Egyptian elites.

Efforts to defend against Western expansion and adapt to a rapidly changing world brought about momentous transformations that were profound and paradoxical. On the one hand, the Ottoman Empire and Egypt achieved considerable modernization along Western lines. On the other hand, these impressive efforts came about too slowly to offset the West’s growing power and imperial appetite. The Islamic heartland in Southwest Asia and North Africa increasingly fell under foreign control.