Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, one of the pioneers and representatives of German orientalists, lived in Istanbul, in the capital of the Ottoman Empire for several years and held a position in the Austrian Embassy at the turn of the 18th century. One of his principal works, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (10 vols., 1827–1835), not only became a major source on the Ottoman Empire for Europeans but also for Ottomans. Throughout the 19th century many an Ottoman chronicler and historian engaged with this text, translated it, used it as a source but also took issue with what he wrote. In many ways, Hammer-Purgstall's work was influential in changing the form and content of history writing in the Ottoman Empire, which included universal histories written by a variety of Ottoman historians in the second half of the19th century. I argue that through such works that highlighted the clear connection between the rise of the modern world and the concept of the history of mankind, a reconfiguration of world history and a new kind of self-representation metamorphosed into a realignment of Ottoman history vis-a-vis orientalist writings. As such, orientalist very much became part and parcel Ottoman universal history writing as a genre that correlated with European universal histories. Indeed engaging with the particular texts of Europeans on the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman universal history writing meant a re-appraisal of the Empire and its modern practices. In this paper, I analyze this relationship through Ottoman universal histories that used the work of Hammer-Purgstall to discuss how the Orient wrote into Orientalism, became part of it and how it re-appropriated it.