ASIRET MEKTEBI : SULTAN ABDULHAMID II’S SCHOOL FOR TRIBES (1892-1907) In 1996, Eugene Rogan published an article about “an experiment in social engineering which sought to foster an allegiance to the Ottoman state within one of the most alienated segments of its society: the empire’s tribes”. No other academic work has been published on this unique school, The Asiret Mekteb-i Humayun, which was founded to train the sons of the Arab tribal leaders in Istanbul in 1892. One of the graduates, Abdul-Muhsin Al-Saadoun, became a four-time Prime Minister in Iraq, another, Sadullah Kologlu, was the first Prime Minister of Libya under King Idris during the transition period. Hundreds of these students pursued careers within the military and administrative apparatus in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs and Turks have been sometimes described as “Ambivalent Siblings”. Indeed, their thousand year coexistence has witnessed and is still undergoing complex interactions. For Abdulhamid II, loss of much of the European provinces in 1878 made the Arab provinces all the more significant. In addition to strengthening the bonds with the Arab urban elites, the Sultan decided to reach out the the frontiers and recruit the sons of tribal sheikhs, aged between 12 and 16, to the capital. After a five year strenuous education program, most of the graduates were further trained for one year at either the military or the civil academy. In the last decade significant investments have brought to light millions of new documents in the Ottoman archives. In addition, several contemporary newspapers are now available in digital format. My research so far has revealed the names of 156 students of the Asiret Mektebi, many of whom attained significant positions in the Empire. The evidence shows that until the end of the First World War, most of these Arab graduates supported the continued existence of a multi-ethnic, polyglot Ottoman Empire. Therefore, it can be concluded that the school was able to fulfill its mission to instill loyalty to the state and the Caliph in these representatives of the frontiers. The Asiret Mektebi embodies all the characteristics and contradictions of the late Ottoman modernization process and acts as a unique prism through which we can observe the Arab-Turkish relationship.