Beginning from 18th century, nonmuslim Ottoman subjects beganto go under protection of foreign states. In time, these protectionsincreased inexorably. People who could get foreign passports claimedthat they were not Ottoman citizens anymore. Ottoman State trieddifferent methods in order to solve these kinds of abuses which causedsubjection arguments with foreign states. Some of these attempts wereto warn the foreign states, to create a privileged class called AvrupaTüccaris among Ottoman reaya and to try to make all the Ottomoncitizens equal to each other through the Tanzimat reforms. The commonpoint of these formulas was to eliminate the attraction of getting foreignprotection. But these attempts couldn’t be successful. Nationalityproblems increased rapidly after the emigrations, territorial loss, andfoundation of new states on the Ottoman land. In this period lack of anationality law was felt. In order to solve the subjection problems,Ottoman State set out a new policy by introducing a nationality law in1869. Thereby the definition of ‘Ottoman nationality’ was made in themodernization process and on the international stage.Our study contains the process which leads to legislation ofOttoman Nationality Law, the first secular nationality law in the Islamicworld, reactions to the law and observations on applications of the law.