Tanzimat

A series of reforms in the Ottoman Empire undertaken between 1839 and 1876 that introduced administrative measures that laid the groundwork for the modernization of the Ottoman state. Their impact on the status of Jerusalem was significant insofar as the centralized system of government that they entailed destroyed the grip of local sheikhs, introduced administrative order, and helped to establish the prominence of Jerusalem over its surrounding rural countryside. A small number of local Jerusalem families emerged as power centers in this period, notably the Khalidis and the Husaynis, and they became the new elite.