Rural conflicts stemming from the extraction of agrarian surplus such as over-taxation and cultivators’ resistance, as well as landowners’ violent retaliation, are normal aspects of rural politics in agrarian empires. Thus, there was nothing extraordinary about the violent encounter in Weşin in August 1848. Nevertheless, the incident triggered a long legal case that came under the eye of newly-established Tanzimat institutions. While the material and physical destruction Abdullah Beg wreaked on the village was the obvious issue, the broader question of the Palu begs’ hereditary rule also loomed. From the perspective of the Ottoman imperial state, however, confiscating Abdullah Beg’s lands and attempting to dissolve the yurtluk-ocaklık lands was premature. A year earlier, in 1847, the Ottoman armies had organised the Kurdistan campaign against the formidable Bedirkhan Beg of Cîzre, destroying the emirate and exiling him to Crete. It is telling that despite plunging a dagger into the heart of the Kurdish emirate system, the imperial state was not overly enthusiastic about a sudden change for Palu. At least, this was the sentiment voiced by the Meclis-i Vâlâ in response to the insistent calls of Mustafa Sabri, the Harput governor, to confiscate Abdullah Beg’s lands. Pointing out the region’s lack of security and discipline, the council decided to postpone the re-organisation of these lands. Advising a gradual strategy in the implementation of the Tanzimat policies, it stopped at exiling Abdullah Beg.

At the discursive level, the council justified its gradual strategy by what it called the unruly character of the population in Kurdistan. This perspective dominated Ottoman ruling elites at the time – not just towards Kurdistan or the Kurds, but towards nomadic or semi-nomadic tribal groups across the empire. In reality, however, this emphasis on gradual change was less to do with how the imperial state perceived these groups than with its elites’ still extant recognition of the hereditary privileges of the Kurdish nobility. Despite including an assault on the various types of hereditary exemptions and privileges various groups maintained, the Tanzimat was a work-in-progress involving interplay between old and new, rather than a total rejection of the imperial legacy. As such, it involved the elements of both worlds, setbacks and occasional jump-starts.