Khayr al-Dīn

…its talented, reform-minded prime minister, Khayr al-Dīn, in 1877, Tunis responded to these pressures with the Ahd al-Amān, or Fundamental Pact, in 1856 and the short-lived constitution of 1860, the first in the Arab world. The Fundamental Pact guaranteed the equality before the law of all subjects—Muslim, Christian, and Jew—while…

…during the reformist ministry of Khayr al-Dīn (1873–77), one of the most effective statesmen of the 19th-century Muslim world. However, enemies from within and European intrigues from without conspired to force him from office. The final blow to Tunisia’s sovereignty came at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, when Britain…