Mehmed Said Pasha

Mehmed Said Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: محمد سعيد پاشا ‎‎; 1830–1914), also known as Küçük Said Pasha ("Said Pasha the Younger") or Şapur Çelebi or in his youth as Mabeyn Başkatibi Said Bey, was an Ottoman statesman and editor of the Turkish newspaper Jerid-i-Havadis.

He became first secretary to Sultan Abdul Hamid II shortly after the Sultan's accession, and is said to have contributed to the realizations of his majesty's design of concentrating power in his own hands; later he became successively minister of the interior and then governor of Bursa, reaching the high post of grand vizier in 1879. He was grand vizier seven more times under Abdul Hamid, and once under his successor, Mehmed V Reşat. He was known for his opposition to the extension of foreign influence in Turkey.

In 1896, he took refuge at the British embassy at Istanbul, and, though then assured of his personal liberty and safety, remained practically a prisoner in his own house. He came into temporary prominence again during the revolution of 1908. On 22 July he succeeded Mehmed Ferid Pasha as grand vizier, but on the 6 August was replaced by the more liberal Kâmil Pasha, at the insistence of the Young Turks. Also during 1908, Mehmed Said Pasha bought the famed Istanbul arcade in the Beyoğlu district, today known as Çiçek Pasajı ("Flower Passage"). The modern name became common in the 1940s; during Mehmed Said Pasha's ownership in the 1900s and 1910s, the arcade was known as Sait Paşa Pasajı ("Said Pasha Passage").

During the Italian crisis in 1911–12, he was again called to the premiership. He was again removed from power by the Savior Officers (who backed the Freedom and Accord Party (Liberal Union) against the Committee of Union and Progress) and replaced by a new cabinet supported by the Officers and the Freedom and Accord Party. The CUP would return to power, however, the next year after the Bab-ı Ali coup of 1913.