In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire and the Qajar Empire both started reforms. The reforms' purpose was to modernize each empire, because both had started to have less power than the Great Powers of the Western world. The reforms meant that the governments took away the autonomy of the Kurdish rulers and the existence of the Kurdish emirates ended. Muslims, including Kurds, feared the successes of the Western powers, and feared the power that Christian empires had. The Tanzimat reforms were part of a new, secular nationalism, in the Ottoman Empire, and this made many traditional Muslim Kurds unhappy. Nationalism among the Ottoman Empire's Christian Armenian people also caused unhappiness to grow among the Kurds. The power of Sufism grew among the Kurds. As a result of the reforms, a social class of Kurdish intellectuals and professionals came into existence with the development of Western education. Many of this new class were descendants of the families that had been the rulers of emirates. Many of these Kurds joined the new institutions of the Ottoman state, including the army. For these Kurds, there was some cultural assimilation with the other people who formed the empire's government social class. Among these Kurds too was also the start of Kurdish political nationalism.