Ibrahim Edhem was a prominent Turkish statesman and political figure. He held the office of Grand Vizier in the beginning of Abdulhamid II's reign.
Background
He was of Greek origin, born in a Christian Greek Orthodox village on the island of Chios in about 1819. He is said to have been taken into a Turkish household at the time of the Chio massacre in 1822, and to have been brought up as a Mussulman.
Education
Edhem attended schools in the Ottoman Empire. He also was dispatched to Paris to pursue his studies under state scholarship.
Career
He entered the Turkish government service and rose to high office, being successively minister of public works, grand vizier for eleven months (1878), ambassador at Vienna (1879) and minister of the interior.
He served numerous administrative positions in the Ottoman Empire including minister of foreign affairs and then ambassador to Berlin. Besides, he became Turkey's first mining engineer in the modern sense, and he started his career in this field.
Personality
He was quick-tempered, but of kindly disposition, intelligent and patriotic, and he left a reputation of unblemished honesty and uprightness.