When I attended a conference in Crawfordsville, Indiana, I never imagined I would return with an unexpected historical memory and discovery. Since the conference lasted about a week, our hosts, wishing to introduce us to the small town, began listing places that might interest out-of-town guests. Among them was the study and library of Lew Wallace (1827–1905)—a soldier, statesman, painter, musician, and, most famously, the author of the classic novel Ben-Hur, which has been staged and adapted into films numerous times. They told us that this building had now been converted into a museum and was located just half a mile away. I thought that visiting the workspace of the author of Ben-Hur and getting a closer look at American literary and popular culture would not be a bad idea. However, when I learned from the conference organizers that Lew Wallace had served as the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1881 and 1885, I said to myself, “Well, now it’s a must.”
I visited the museum at my earliest opportunity, hoping to find traces of Turkey in the belongings of a statesman and man of culture who had spent nearly five years in Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid. The museum, which Wallace personally commissioned and whose original architecture has been preserved, was within walking distance from where we were staying—and it did not disappoint. Though small, the hall was densely packed with historical artifacts. Numerous objects related to Wallace’s military, political, and literary life were displayed: paintings, medals, documents, diplomas, books, musical instruments, author’s copies, personal and official letters, and both old and new editions of his published works filled the hall and adorned its walls. The arched ceiling was decorated with Turkish motifs.
On the wall to the right of the main entrance hung a large oil painting depicting one of Sultan Abdulhamid’s princes. In a glass cabinet on the left side, there were items Wallace had brought from Turkey: a pair of slippers, a coffee cup, a porcelain teapot, and several engravings. At the center of these artifacts was a medium-sized charcoal portrait of Sultan Abdulhamid, drawn before he had even reached the age of forty. According to Wallace’s own memoirs—which I will touch upon later—these portraits were personal gifts from the Sultan himself. In a nearby display case, there was also a Mecidiye medal dated 1268 AH (1852 CE), which Sultan Abdulhamid had bestowed upon Wallace as an honorary decoration. The Mecidiye, with its golden center and exquisite craftsmanship, stood out as one of the most dazzling pieces in the Ben-Hur Museum.[1]
Although this pleasant discovery had no direct connection to the topic of the conference I was attending, it sparked my curiosity to delve into Wallace’s autobiography and explore his relationship with Sultan Abdulhamid. My interest was further piqued by an anecdote shared by one of the museum staff members. According to this account, which is recorded in Wallace’s autobiography and narrated by E.B. Grosvenor—a history teacher at Robert College in Istanbul at the time—Wallace, as was customary, was invited to appear before the Sultan in his capacity as the newly appointed U.S. ambassador [2].
This visit took place on either the 3rd or 4th of September, 1881. Wallace, accompanied by Grosvenor and S.S. Cox—a member of the U.S. Congress who happened to be visiting Istanbul—proceeded to the Dolmabahçe Palace. However, the actual audience with the Sultan was to be held at Yıldız Palace. After resting briefly at Dolmabahçe, the American delegation, escorted by a group of Ottoman soldiers, made their way to Yıldız Palace, where they began to wait.
According to Grosvenor’s account, ten or fifteen minutes passed, yet the gifts intended for the Sultan had not arrived, delaying the audience accordingly. Grosvenor explains that keeping foreign guests waiting was an old Ottoman court tradition, intended to demonstrate the empire’s power and grandeur. He adds that Wallace was aware of this custom but also knew that, in recent years, it had largely fallen out of practice.
Encouraged by this knowledge, Wallace approached İbrahim Bey, one of the Sultan’s attendants, and said, “Please inform His Majesty that I do not wish to wait any longer.” A few minutes later, Wallace and his entourage were ushered into another room where notable Ottoman figures such as Osman Pasha—the hero of Plevna—Foreign Minister Asım Pasha, Osman Bey, and Münir Pasha were present.
Shortly thereafter, Wallace and his companions were received by the Sultan. Through the interpreters, the formal introductions were made. After congratulating Wallace on his new post, Sultan Abdulhamid asked several questions about America. At the conclusion of this seemingly “routine” meeting, Wallace expressed his desire to “shake the hand of His Majesty the Sultan as a representative of the American people.” However, the interpreters, well aware that such a gesture was contrary to the diplomatic customs of Istanbul—and fearing that it might be perceived as an insult to the Sultan—hesitated to translate Wallace’s request. Asım Pasha, having become aware of the situation, also remarked that such a request was inappropriate.
At that moment, Sultan Abdulhamid asked, “What is happening? What are you discussing?” Upon hearing the situation explained, the Sultan, showing no sign of anger or surprise, took a few steps forward and shook Wallace’s hand. According to one of Wallace’s biographers, this marked the first time in the six-century history of the Ottoman dynasty that a Sultan shook hands with a gavur—a non-Muslim [3].
Following this incident, Sultan Abdulhamid developed a friendship with Wallace that went beyond the formal boundaries of diplomatic protocol. Thanks to the Sultan’s personal favor, Wallace visited Abdulhamid on numerous occasions, during which they frequently shared “Turkish tobacco and coffee.” On one such occasion, Abdulhamid referred to Wallace as “the honest American.” Grosvenor, in one of his letters, quotes this phrase exactly as it was spoken, in Turkish, and laments how difficult it is to convey the depth and seriousness of this expression in English.
There is no doubt that behind this compliment lay not only Abdulhamid’s personal affinity for Wallace but also the Sultan’s broader desire to maintain favorable relations with the United States. At that time, the Ottoman administration, engaged in a major diplomatic struggle against Britain and France over Egypt and the Balkans, highly valued America’s neutral stance.
If we are to believe Wallace’s memoirs and letters—and there is no reason to doubt them—the friendship and mutual trust between Abdulhamid and Wallace developed remarkably quickly. During this period, Abdulhamid closely followed American domestic politics and regularly sought information from Wallace regarding developments in the United States. In return, Wallace expressed his disappointment that the 1885 U.S. presidential elections barely made headlines in Türkiye or Europe, remarking: “Now we have a new president. The newspapers in this city noted the event, and, much like our British cousins, dedicated only seven lines to this revolution. Look at how significant our influence is!” [4]
At the time, it was common practice in American foreign service for ambassadors to resign when a president from the opposing political party was elected. As a member of the Republican Party, Wallace followed this tradition after Democrat Grover Cleveland won the presidency in 1885, submitting his resignation from the post in Istanbul.
Sultan Abdulhamid responded by saying, “The elections in your country did not conclude as we had hoped,” expressing his desire for Wallace to continue his ambassadorship in Istanbul. In one of their meetings, the Sultan even commented that this practice was misguided. Wallace replied, “Your Majesty, I completely agree with you,” but nevertheless explained that he could not override this long-standing tradition. Ultimately, Wallace submitted his letter of resignation and returned to his hometown of Indiana a few months later [5].
The close relationship between Wallace and Sultan Abdulhamid, as reflected in Wallace’s memoirs, is full of intriguing anecdotes. A few months after assuming his post in Istanbul, Wallace presented Abdulhamid with a signed copy of his novel Ben-Hur. (One wonders where that particular copy might be today.) The Sultan accepted the book with pleasure and expressed his wish for it to be translated into Turkish, as he intended to read it. We do not know whether the book was ever translated at that time. However, considering that the subtitle of Ben-Hur is “A Tale of the Christ,” it is noteworthy that Wallace saw no issue in presenting a religiously themed work to the Ottoman Sultan [6].
One of the most remarkable events mentioned in Wallace’s memoirs is Abdulhamid’s desire to appoint Wallace as an official within his own service. After Wallace submitted his resignation following the election of the Democratic Party candidate as U.S. President, Abdulhamid said to him: “Once you have completed your service to your country, why not come serve me?” The Sultan added: “I will appoint you as ambassador to Paris or London.” According to Wallace, the Sultan was entirely sincere and serious in making this offer. Wallace replied politely, stating that while he was infinitely honored by such a proposal, it would not be possible for him to accept such a position.
Upon hearing this, Abdulhamid remarked: “In that case, I will write a letter to President Cleveland and request that you remain here as your country’s representative.” Nevertheless, Wallace declared that he could never explain such an arrangement to the Republican Party to which he was deeply devoted, and thus he apologized to the Sultan.
Wallace did not remain indifferent to this extraordinary gesture from Abdulhamid. Instead, he told the Sultan that he could be of service to him from within his own country, the United States. It remains unclear whether Wallace and Abdulhamid maintained any formal or informal relationship after Wallace returned to America in 1885. However, according to Wallace’s memoirs, Abdulhamid instructed the U.S. ambassador to send him a letter every month after Wallace’s return, providing news about developments in America.
Meanwhile, during his return journey to America, Wallace stopped in England, where he acquired a dog described as possessing “strength, loyalty, good character, and courage” and sent it as a personal gift to Abdulhamid.
After returning to the United States, Lew Wallace attempted to balance his military and political career with his literary identity. However, after a period of time, he gradually withdrew from political life and immersed himself once again in the world of books. His ultimate goal was to write another monumental novel, one that would secure his place in the world of culture, much like Ben-Hur had done. Although not directly related to his personal literary projects, Wallace submitted a proposal to the U.S. Congress advocating for the Library of Congress to be opened for public access [7].
Wallace ultimately realized his ambition of writing a major literary work with the publication of his historical novel The Prince of India or Why Constantinople Fell in 1893. Yet, this novel also reflected Wallace’s desire to repay his debt of gratitude to Sultan Abdulhamid. Beneath its fictional and imaginative structure, the novel is, in many ways, a portrayal of the Ottoman dynasty. Through this work, Wallace not only presents an engaging literary text to the American reader but also seeks to educate them about the Ottoman Empire and its people. He reminds his audience that, while the spirit of chivalry and futuwwa was in decline in the West during the 15th century—the historical setting of the novel—it was, in contrast, reaching its zenith in the East. The Prince of India contains numerous references to this tradition.
Wallace recounts that while serving his official post in Türkiye, he gathered historical and cultural material for this book and, with the special permission of Sultan Abdulhamid, consulted certain archives in Istanbul. (According to a report published in The New York Times on December 24, 1893, a Protestant minister named Stephen Ludlow accused Wallace of plagiarizing The Prince of India, claiming that Wallace had based the book on a Hebrew manuscript found in the Hagia Sophia archives. Wallace vehemently denied the allegation, providing as evidence a letter from the director of the library in Istanbul. Later, the same minister became involved in another fraud case and was prosecuted by his own church.)
As Wallace recounts in his memoirs, he received a second invitation from Sultan Abdulhamid in 1890 to enter his service. By that time, however, Wallace had entirely withdrawn from political life and devoted himself to writing. For this reason, he also declined the offer to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Brazil. Returning to the literary and intellectual life he had long yearned for was, for him, more meaningful than any political appointment.
In a speech delivered in New York on July 19, 1893, Wallace declared: “The true American spirit manifests itself in four things: art, literature, invention, and music. Therefore, every American should aspire to paint a picture, write a book, create a new invention, or compose a musical work.” [8]
In a letter dated January 14, 1890, Wallace informed Sultan Abdulhamid of his forthcoming novel The Prince of India and expressed his desire to dedicate the book to the Sultan, should His Majesty deem it appropriate. According to Wallace, “the essence of this book is to demonstrate that the God whom Christians call Father, and who is so beautifully depicted through the names al-Rahman and al-Rahim in the Surah al-Fatiha, is an idea comprehensible to all people—a belief around which all humanity can unite in worship.” [9]
However, perhaps taking into consideration the political developments in America at the time, or believing that dedicating a novel to the Sultan might be deemed inappropriate, Wallace ultimately abandoned the idea of dedicating The Prince of India to Abdulhamid. Nevertheless, the notion—emphasized in his letter—that all humankind could gather around the belief in one God seems to have left a deep and lasting impression on Wallace, especially in the later years of his life.
Indeed, after Wallace’s death in 1905, it was his wife who completed and published the second volume of his autobiography. In concluding the thousand-page work, she wrote: “He found the new world, the universal religion, the One God.”
The second phase of Wallace’s expression of gratitude toward Abdulhamid can be observed in various speeches he delivered in the United States. During the 1890s, when the activities of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire—and particularly the so-called Armenian question—occupied a significant place in American public discourse, Wallace repeatedly declared in his speeches and statements that the genocide allegations were baseless. He insisted that the Ottoman Sultan was “a noble, courteous, kind, thoughtful, and respectable ruler.”
An article published on June 2, 1895, in The New York Times (p.4) compared Wallace’s defense of the Ottomans with the allegations of oppression and genocide brought forward by missionaries and Armenians in Türkiye. The newspaper’s correspondent posed the question, “Whom should we believe now?” and concluded that the most reliable reports were coming from the co-religionists residing in Türkiye.
It is known that Wallace maintained a certain relationship with American Protestant missionaries during his time in Istanbul. Nevertheless, Wallace’s firm stance in rejecting Armenian allegations suggests that he himself was, to some extent, uncomfortable with the activities of these missionaries.
Wallace’s defense of the Ottoman administration against Armenian accusations was not limited to this particular incident. By the late 1890s, Wallace’s close relationship with Sultan Abdulhamid had become publicly known, and in nearly every speech he delivered, Wallace was fiercely criticized by Armenian audiences. On April 20, 1900, the Armenian community in Boston issued a collective statement condemning Wallace. Tensions escalated significantly during one of his speeches in Chicago, which ended prematurely due to the growing unrest. Nevertheless, Wallace did not back down. In a speech he delivered in Washington on September 21, 1900, he once again defended Sultan Abdulhamid.
Beginning his address by stating, “I believe I know the Sultan of Turkey better than any American,” Wallace continued as follows: “He is an honest man, and I have never known him to break a single promise… The Christians in Turkey are under the Sultan’s protection, and without that protection, they could not remain there. There are approximately three million Greek and four million Armenian Christians in Turkey, and the Sultan considers all of them his subjects. Without them, the Turkish state would collapse, as they are the merchants and traders. The Turk is a warrior by nature. Yet, I have not seen a single Christian church burned or a missionary building destroyed that the Sultan has not ordered to be rebuilt. I know this to be true. Abdulhamid is an educated man and a respectable diplomat. Were it not for his skill, the Ottoman Empire would have been shattered long ago; for all of Europe is against him. It is he who prevents these European powers from uniting, thereby preserving his throne. He studied in Paris, and though he is a Muslim, he possesses Christian sentiments and understanding.” [10]
Wallace’s defense of the Ottoman Empire was not confined solely to Abdulhamid. In a speech delivered on February 10, 1887, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Wallace spoke in glowing terms about Türkiye and the Turks. “I never encountered a drunken Turk in Türkiye,” he declared, adding, “The Turks are exceedingly polite and devout people.” In the same speech, Wallace emphasized that popular stories about harems were largely fictional, that polygamy was not widespread, and that no man was permitted to marry more women than he could afford to support. He also rejected the notion that women were imprisoned in their homes, describing this perception as entirely misguided [11].
There is no indication that Wallace ever renounced these views prior to his death.
Lew Wallace occupies a small place in the histories of Islam-West relations and Ottoman-American interactions. Yet these seemingly minor details, figures, and events hold indispensable value for our accurate understanding of history. In an age when the terms “Islam” and “the West” have become increasingly rigid and categorical, we need to pay greater attention to the nuanced details that have shaped the historical trajectory of these two worlds. Beyond the major landmarks and boundaries etched into our minds by Edward Said’s map of Orientalism, we must also come to know the smaller currents, the modest settlements, perhaps even the districts and villages that do not appear on the map. Otherwise, we risk falling into the trap of Orientalism—but this time, from the opposite direction.
Ultimately, Abdulhamid was an Ottoman, and Wallace an American. This fact directly influences and shapes how each regarded the “Other.” However, whether in the 19th century or today, this should not stand as an obstacle to dialogue between the “Self” and the “Other.” In a world where the “I” and the “Other” endlessly transform one another, I personally found great pleasure in this story. After all, enduring a week-long conference in Crawfordsville, Indiana, would hardly have been possible otherwise!
Dergah, Volume 15, Issue 175, September 2004, pp. 16-18.
[1] Since diplomats are prohibited from accepting gifts, Wallace waited until the end of his term in 1885 to receive the gifts given by Abdulhamid.
[2] For Grosvenor’s detailed letter describing this incident, see Lew Wallace, An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906), pp. 957-963.
[3] Irvin Mckee, “Ben Hur” Wallace: the Life of General Lew Wallace (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1947), p. 199.
[4] Lew Wallace, An Autobiography, p. 970.
[5] Lew Wallace, An Autobiography, p. 967.
[6] For the preface of the book Wallace signed for the Sultan, see Lew Wallace, An Autobiography, p. 965.
[7] For a related news article, see New York Times, January 27, 1895, p. 14.
[8] New York Times, July 20, 1893, p. 8.
[9] Lew Wallace, An Autobiography, p. 998.
[10] New York Times, June 23, 1900, p. 7. Another U.S. ambassador to Turkey, A. W. Terrell, attested to the truthfulness of Wallace’s statements and claimed that Abdulhamid had no involvement in the Armenian incidents. Like Wallace, Terrell alleged that the events were caused by a group of “unruly Kurdish bandits.” See New York Times, April 26, 1900, p. 1.
[11] New York Times, February 11, 1887, p. 4.
