By the second half of the nineteenth century Istanbul had become an important social and political environment for many Iranian activists and politicians who had been exiled from Iran. This community formed a highly active opposition base involved in Iranian politics from abroad. Although a certain amount of background material can be found in the literature concerning this community, no significant work has yet been carried out on its impact on political, social and literary reform in Iran. The publication

Published for thirteen years (1895-1908), Hanımlara Mahsûs Gazete (Newspaper for Ladies), with its articles and news about education, family, household, household management, child-rearing, hygiene, health, beauty, embroidery, leisure and fashion is a precious source reflecting not only the ideal everyday life of an ideal Ottoman woman of the upper and middle classes of Ottoman society in an era of modernization and westernization but also Sultan Abdülhamid II's oppressive censorship policies as imposed on