Beirut 1892: The Ottoman Bank Heist That Funded a Revolution

In 1892, a daring robbery at the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Beirut netted 10,000 lira — and the money didn't vanish into a thief's pocket. It funded the burgeoning Young Turk movement, a shadowy network of exiles and intellectuals plotting to topple Sultan Abdulhamid II. This episode traces the heist from the bank vault to the coffeehouses of Beirut, where Lebanese and Ottoman dissidents mingled, to the secret cells in Paris and Cairo. It reveals how a single crime reshaped the political landscape of the late Ottoman Empire, and how Beirut's role as a hub of finance and sedition made it a target for imperial surveillance. Along the way, we explore the city's 1890s boom, the rise of the Committee of Union and Progress, and the forgotten figure of Mustafa Raghib, the bank clerk who turned revolutionary. This is a story of money, betrayal, and the fragile alliances that lit the fuse for the 1908 Revolution.

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