An Ottoman ambassador first recommended meritocracy over patronage in 1790

Evidence

One of the interesting features of his report is his description of the Prussian system as what would now be called a meritocracy, and his recommendation that this be adopted in place of the traditional Ottoman system of patronage and clientage. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1088

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marks one of the earliest documented deployments of the meritocracy concept, decades before its standard 20th-century coinage — worth chasing antecedents.
• QUESTION: Chronology check: term ‘meritocracy’ is usually dated to Michael Young 1958; what did ‘Azmi call the concept in Ottoman Turkish, and is he an earlier explicit advocate?
• XREF: connects to: Ottoman reformers proposed replacing patronage with Prussian-style meritocracy