This paper examines the diplomacy surrounding Hungarian and Polish revolutionaries from 1848/1849 who requested—and received—international protection from the Ottoman Empire according to European international law and traditions of political asylum. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the practice of political asylum became institutionalized in European international law. Based largely on treaties, political asylum began as an effort to depoliticize the protection or extradition of political agitators and revolutionaries, but quickly acquired an idealized veneer as an expression of universal human values. This paper looks at how the Ottoman Empire invoked European legal traditions in its assertion of the right to offer asylum to the refugees of 1848/49 and how the Ottoman Sultan inserted the language of “humanity” into his diplomatic negotiations over the refugees with Europe’s great powers. The paper argues that it was in fact because of the Ottoman Empire’s subordinate position in international law that “humanity” and “humanitarianism” became a central and enduring feature of the diplomatic discourse of political asylum. The exact number of individuals who fled to Ottoman territory after the failed revolutions of 1848-1849 is unclear; Ottoman and European sources broadly agree on around 5,000 Hungarian soldiers, a figure that does not seem to include dependents and other civilians, let alone up to 6,000 Poles. Both Russia and Austria submitted extradition requests, basing their demands on existing bilateral treaties that the Ottomans argued were being tendentiously misinterpreted. The Ottoman’s refusal to extradite precipitated an international crisis, leading Britain and France to move their Mediterranean fleets to protect Istanbul from a potential Russian attack. The apparently small question of political asylum brought Europe’s great powers to the brink of war. Using sources in Turkish, German, French, and English, this paper will show how the Ottoman’s success in repulsing Russian and Austrian extradition demands enabled the Ottoman Empire to lay claim to the “standard of civilization” and membership in the European family of nations. Ottoman diplomacy inserted the language of “humanity” into the laws of asylum. The Sultan described this as an “effect of the sentiments of humanity,” while diplomats invoked humanity to articulate concerns over likely punishments should the revolutionaries be extradited. Throughout, the concept of humanity informed and buttressed the idea of an “honourable” policy that elevated European sympathies for the Ottoman Empire while reifying and universalizing a central aspect of European international law.