Abdul Hamid II (Ottoman)

Abdul Hamid II became Ottoman sultan in August 1876 and ruled from Istanbul until he was deposed in April 1909. His reign covered the First Aliyah and the start of the Second. In 1882 his government announced that Jewish immigrants could settle anywhere in the empire except the Land of Israel, and from the late 1880s Jewish visitors were given permits to stay for only a few months. Land purchases and building by Jews needed permits that were often refused. In 1896 Theodor Herzl was told the sultan's answer to his first approach: he would not sell even a foot of land, for it belonged to his people. At an audience in May 1901 Herzl offered to help settle the Ottoman debt in return for a charter for Jewish settlement; the sultan would allow only scattered settlement elsewhere in the empire.

The restrictions were widely evaded through foreign consuls and local officials, and the Jewish population and its moshavot kept growing. The Young Turk revolution of 1908 curtailed his power, and he died in 1918.