Teaching European mathematics in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: between admiration and rejection

The purpose of this study is to examine the modernizing process in the teaching of mathematics in three countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire, namely Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In each case, a permanent state of war and continued European pressures made the need of reforms of military structures a vital necessity for the preservation of the state. Some of the military reforms proposed, although they met with rejection and resulted in revolts and in the dismissal of most of their initiators, did sow wholesome seeds into the educational system which would be transformed first in Muhammad Ali??s Egypt, then in Mahm??d II??s Turkey and finally in Khayr al-D??n??s Tunisia who introduced important and comprehensive reforms under which the teaching of modern mathematics played a non-negligible part. The second part outlines the transformations of the educational institutions and their role in the introduction of the new imported Western mathematics. Finally, we detail the type of mathematics taught into the newly founded military and engineering schools and insist on the efforts made by the Egyptians for translating into Arabic French textbooks.