The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire was the first and only constitution of the Ottoman Empire. Written by members of the Young Ottomans, particularly Midhat Pasha, during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the constitution was in effect from 1876 to 1878 in a period known as the First Constitutional Era, and from 1908 to 1922 in the Second Constitutional Era. After Abdul Hamid's political downfall in the 31 March Incident, the Constitution was amended to transfer more power from the sultan and the appointed Senate to the popularly-elected lower house: the Chamber of Deputies.

The Young Ottomans were a secret society established in 1865 by a group of Ottoman intellectuals who were dissatisfied with the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, which they believed did not go far enough. The Young Ottomans sought to transform the Ottoman society by preserving the Empire and modernizing it along the European tradition of adopting a constitutional government. Though the Young Ottomans were frequently in disagreement ideologically, they all agreed that the new constitutional government should continue to be at least somewhat rooted in Islam. To emphasize "the continuing and essential validity of Islam as the basis of Ottoman political culture" they attempted to syncretize an Islamic jurisprudence with liberalism and parliamentary democracy. The Young Ottomans sought for new ways to form a government like the European governments, especially the constitution of the Second French Empire. Among the prominent members of this society were writers and publicists such as İbrahim Şinasi, Namık Kemal, Ali Suavi, Ziya Pasha, and Agah Efendi.