AHMED VEFIK, PASHA (1819-1891), Turkish states man and man of letters, was born in Stambul and educated in Paris. He was appointed to a post in the bureau de traduction of the ministry for foreign affairs, and devoted his leisure to the translation of Moliere's plays into Turkish and to the compilation of educational books (dictionaries, historical and geographical manuals, etc.) for use in Turkish schools. In 1847 he brought out the first edition of the . Salnameh, the official annual of the Ottoman empire. Two years later he was appointed imperial commissioner in the Danubian principalities, and in 1851 am bassador to Persia. After his return he was appointed a member of the Grand Council of Justice, and was entrusted with the revision of the penal code and the code of procedure.
In 186o he was sent as ambassador to Paris, to avert the inter vention of France in the affairs of Syria. Ahmed Vefik held various important posts in the Turkish Government during the next two decades, and was twice minister of public instruction, but the position in which he rendered his most distinguished service was as vali of Brusa (1879-82). The drainage of the pestilent marshes, the water-supply from the mountains, the numerous roads, the suppression of brigandage, the multiplication of schools, the vast development of the silk industry through the substitution of mulberry plantations for rice-fields, the opening out of the mineral springs of Chitli, the introduction of rose trees and the production of attar of roses—all these were Ahmed Vefik's work. A few days after his return he was again appointed prime minister (Dec. 1, 1882), but he made conditions which were unacceptable to the sultan, and Said Pasha was appointed in his place. For the rest of his life Ahmed Vefik, by the sultan's orders, was practically a prisoner in his own house.
Ahmed Vefik was a great linguist. He spoke and wrote French perfectly, and thoroughly understood English, German, Italian, Greek, Arabic and Persian. From all these languages he trans lated many books into Turkish, but wrote no original work. His splendid library of 15,000 volumes contained priceless manu scripts in many languages. In his lifetime he appreciably aided the progress of education; but, as he had no following, the effects of his labour and influence in a great measure faded away after his death.