655 OTTOMAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE MILITARY REFORMS OF TIPU SULTAN AND Ş AHİ N G İ RAY Kahraman Şakul1* e question of military reform in Ottoman history is a highly tendentious issue. As the story goes, several unsuccessful attempts at Western-style military reform finally culminated in the mass destruction of the Janissaries in Istan- bul in 1826. e abolition of the Janissaries proved to be a new departure, for it enabled the state to establish a modern army with European uniforms, drill and discipline. However the question of possible non-Western models for the Ottoman military has not been sufficiently addressed up to now. e Egyptian Muslim army of Muhammad Ali Pasha, which fought the Greek revolutionaries successfully in 1825, was such a model. Its influence on the Ottoman reformers is vaguely known. For one thing, it persuaded the public opinion in Istanbul of the permissibility of imitating European military organization, and Mahmud II capitalized the change when abolishing the Janissaries. However, neither the Egyptians nor the Ottomans were the first Muslim powers to experiment with Western-inspired military reforms in the 18 th century. Şahin Giray, the Khan of the short-lived independent Crimean Khanate, as well as Hyder Ali and his son, Tipu Sultan, who ruled over the Kingdom of Mysore, undertook serious mili- tary reform along Western lines with a certain degree of success. So it is inte- resting to take a look on the Ottoman reactions against the military reforms undertaken by these two Muslim states. e Ottomans had mixed feelings about these rulers and their endeavors. ey regarded Şahin Giray as a puppet of the Russian tsarina, Catherine II, and detested his military reforms as a means of Russianizing the Tatars. Con- * Assistant Professor, İstanbul Şehir University, Department of History, kahramansakul@sehir.edu.tr