formation of the modern arab identity muhammed kurd ali

204 Pages·2015·19.11 MB·English

FORMATION OF THE MODERN ARAB IDENTITY
MUHAMMED KURD ALI: A REFORMIST THINKER

EMRAH KEKİLLİ

İSTANBUL BİLGİ UNIVERSITY
2015
FORMATION OF THE MODERN ARAB IDENTITY
MUHAMMED KURD ALI: A REFORMIST THINKER

Thesis submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts in History

by
Emrah Kekilli

Supervisor
Asst. Dr. M. Erdem Kabadayı

İSTANBUL BİLGİ UNIVERSITY
2015

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This thesis is dedicated to
muhterem validem Müesse Kekilli.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I owe a debt of gratitude to names I will mention below for their participation in my
thesis, during the writing phase. I should start with my thesis supervisor, Associate Professor
Erdem Kabadayı, for taking a close interest in my thesis and his contribution to my academic
discipline. I also benefited from experiences of Professor Zekeriya Kursun, in my readings on
the Ottoman Empire’s Arabic provinces, and from Professor Bulent Bilmez, on nationalism
and national identity.
I would add some distinguished names and voice my gratitude to Ali Ozcan for
discussions on historiography and my thesis, to Professor Ergun Yildirim for his intellectual
sharing on Islamism, to Professor Ihsan Fazlioglu for benefiting from his lectures and works
on Islamic Thought, to Professor Gulay Ogun Bezer and Associate Professor Baki Asilturk
for their support in the beginning of my master degree.
Also, Serhan Ozcan shared his comments after reading the thesis, Hakan Erdem
participated to the thesis in terms of academic form and my dear brother, Yakup Kekilli, gave
countenance to me during the writing phase.
I would like to express my thankfulness to my dear mother, Muesse Kekilli, for her
moral and material support in all my university experience, and to my wife, Hatice Kekilli, for
all her support during the writing phase of the thesis.

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ABSTRACT
In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire went through a deep political, social,
economic, bureaucratic and religious transformation and transformed many of its traditional
institutions and practices within the context of ‘reform.’ A new type of intellectual emerged as
a product of the transformation experienced within the context of the ‘reform' process which
characterizes the last century of the Ottoman Empire. They criticized politics and bureaucracy
through a new mean of communication, press, and expressed their opinions about society,
history and religion. Throughout the process, many different movements of thought including
Islamism and nationalism emerged. They also ascribed different meanings to important
subjects of that period, such as ‘reform,’ ‘Islamic civilization,’ ‘Western civilization,’
‘education,’ ‘caliphate,’ the ‘Unification of Islam,’ ‘Abdulhamid II’ and ‘the Committee of
Union and Progress.’ Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire, which is a state with multiple
religions, languages, nationalies, and cultures, were heavily influenced from this
transformation. In Syria, one of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire which was influenced
from the ‘reform’ process, different movements of thought discussed the same subjects, but
put forward different ideas. Muhammed Kurd Ali, a Kurdish journalist who originated from
Damascus published a journal called Al-Muqtabas in Cairo between 1906-1908 and in
Damascus between 1908-1914, got into contact with all movements of thought of that period
and expressed his opinions about that period’s discussions. The publication policy of Al-
Muqtabas aimed to recover Arab culture and civilization and to express the intellectual and
political accumulation of the modern European civilization in Arabic. Moreover, it also
served as a platform for many important thinkers, who played significant roles in the
formation of an Arab national identity, to express themselves. Although Kurd Ali had close
relationships with many prominent intellectuals of Islamist movement, and although he partly
brought the same topics with Islamists into agenda considering the content, regarding the
publication policy of Al-Muqtabas and his opinions expressed in the journal, as the point of
view, it is seen that, he stayed closer to the nationalist movement.
Keywords: Muhammed Kurd Ali, Al-Muqtabas, the Ottoman Empire, Syria, Islamism,
Reform, Islamic civilization, Western civilization, Education, Caliphate, Islamic Union,
Abdulhamid II, the Committee of Union and Progress, Formation of Arab National Identy and
Arab nationalism.

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ÖZET
Osmanlı Devleti, 19.yy’da derin bir siyasal, sosyal, ekonomik, bürokratik ve dini
dönüşüm yaşamış, birçok geleneksel kurum ve pratiklerini ‘reform’ süreci kapsamında
dönüştürmüştür. Osmanlı’nın son yüzyılını karakterize eden ‘reform’ süreci kapsamında
yaşanan dönüşümün ürünü olarak yeni bir entelektüel tipi ortaya çıkmış, yeni bir iletişim aracı
olan basın üzerinden, siyasete ve bürokrasiye eleştiriler yöneltmiş, topluma, tarihe ve dine
dair görüşlerini ifade etmiştir. Süreç içinde İslamcılık ve milliyetçilik gibi farklı düşünce
akımları belirmeye başlamış, dönemin öne çıkan tartışma konuları olan ‘reform’, “İslam
Medeniyeti”, Batı Medeniyeti”, “Eğitim”, “Hilafet”, “İttihad-ı İslam”, “İkinci Abdulhamid”
ve “İttihat ve Terakki” kavramlarına farklı anlamlar yüklemişlerdir. Çok dinli, çok dilli, çok
uluslu ve çok kültürlü bir Devlet olarak Osmanlı imparatorluğun Arap tebaası yaşanan bu
dönüşümden derinden etkilenmiştir. ‘reform’ sürecinden etkilenen Osmanlı vilayetlerinden
“Suriye’de” farklı düşünce akımları aynı konuları tartışarak farklı düşünceler ortaya
koymuştur. 1906-1908 yılları arasında Kahire’de, 1908-1914 yılları arasında Şam’da el-
Muktebas adlı bir dergi çıkaran Kürt asıllı Şamlı gazeteci Muhammed Kürt Ali, dönemin
bütün düşünce akımlarıyla yakın ilişki kurmuş, dönemin tartışmalarına dair görüş ve
düşüncelerini ifade etmiştir. El-Muktebas dergisinin izlediği yayın politikası; Arap kültür ve
medeniyetinin ihyası, modern Avrupa medeniyetin entelektüel ve siyasi birikimini Arapça
olarak ifade etmek yönünde olmuştur. Ayrıca Arap ulusal kimliğinin inşasından önemli rol
oynayan birçok önemli düşünürün kendini ifade ettiği bir platform vazifesi görmüştür. Kürt
Ali’nin, İslamcı akımın öne çıkan birçok entelektüeliyle yakın ilişkisi olmasına ve yer yer
İslamcılarla içerik açısından aynı konuları gündeme getirmesine rağmen, el-Muktebas’ın
yayın politikası ve dergide ifade ettiği düşünceler dikkate alındığında, bakış açısı olarak Arap
milliyetçisi akıma daha yakın durduğu görülmektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Muhammed Kürt Ali, el-Muktebas, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu,
Suriye, İslamcılık, reform, Islam Medeniyeti, Batı Medeniyeti, Eğitim, Hilafet, İttihad-ı İslam,
İkinci Abdulhamid, İttihat ve Terakki, Arab Ulusal Kimliğinin Oluşumu ve Arap
Milliyetçiliği.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 10
I. OTTOMAN EMPIRE in the 19th CENTURY .............................................................. 26
I.1. Ottoman Empire and the Great Powers .................................................................... 28
I.2. Reform in the Ottoman Empire .................................................................................. 41
I.3. Syria in the Reform Process ........................................................................................ 54
I.4. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 65
II. ISLAMISM as a REFORMIST IDEOLOGY .............................................................. 68
II.1. Birth of Islamism and Islamist Thinkers .................................................................. 69
II.1.1. Young Ottomans .................................................................................................... 71
II.1.2. Arab Islamism ........................................................................................................ 77
II.1.3. Islamism in the Ottoman Capital ............................................................................ 81
II.2. The Press and Islamism ............................................................................................. 84
II.3. Basic Topics of Islamism ............................................................................................ 88
II.3.1. Reform .................................................................................................................... 88
II.3.2. Western Civilization ............................................................................................... 94
II.3.3. Islamic Civilization ................................................................................................ 98
II.3.4. Caliphate and Islamic Unity ................................................................................. 101
II.3.5. Education .............................................................................................................. 105
II.3.6. Abdulhamid II ...................................................................................................... 108
II.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 109
III. LIFE OF MUHAMMED KURD ALİ ........................................................................ 111
III.1. Where He Grew Up ................................................................................................ 112
III.3. His Education .......................................................................................................... 115
III.3. His Duties ................................................................................................................. 116
III.4. The Period He Lived in and his Contemporaries ................................................ 119
III.5. His Publications ....................................................................................................... 122
III.6. His Journeys ............................................................................................................ 126
III.7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 129
IV. POLITICAL and RELIGIOUS VIEWS of MUHAMMED KURD ALİ ................ 131
IV.1. Kurd Ali and the Political and Religious Character of Al-Muqtabas ................ 133
IV.2. Reform ...................................................................................................................... 143

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IV.3. Western Civilization ................................................................................................ 147
IV.4. Islam/Arab Civilization and Arabic Language .................................................... 153
IV.5. Caliphate and Constitutionalism ........................................................................... 160
IV.6. Education ................................................................................................................. 161
IV.7. Abdulhamid II ......................................................................................................... 165
IV.8. Political and Nationalist Discourse ........................................................................ 169
IV.9. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 172
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 175
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 186

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INTRODUCTION
The deep historical transformation, which created the ‘modern European civilization’
and which had a social and political influence on the French Revolution and had technological
and economic affects on the British Industrial Revolution, brought Europe to the center of the
world as a political, economic and technological power. When the Ottoman Empire realized
that they lost power vis-a-vis Europe - namely the ‘land of heathens’ (küffar diyarı) – they
decided to restructure the traditional system and all sustenances of this system. The 19th
century, as the era that a new diplomatic order emerged in Europe, became a resolution and
diffusion period for the Ottoman Empire. It lost most of its lands in the Balkans due to
rebellions; some of its lands in North Africa and Middle-East due to invasions and had to
withdraw from Anatolia after World War I. At the beginning of the 19th century,
administrative, economic and military problems, which started to be felt deeply in the
Ottoman Empire, made the Ottoman statesmen realize the Empire needed an extensive
‘reform.’ The first systematic expression of this ‘reform’ movement became the New Order
(Nizam-ı Cedid), and with the declaration of the Rescript of Gülhane (Tanzimat Fermanı)
‘reform’ became the definitive character of the 19th Century. In context of the ‘reform’
movement, the financial system of the Ottoman Empire was changed radically at the
beginning of 19th century, with the General Directorate of Foundations (evkaf idaresi) all
foundations were gathered under the same rule in 1826; the press was included in the Ottoman
political life in the later 19th century, the Janissaries (Yeniçeri Ocağı) were abolished and a
modern army was formed instead and modern schools of teaching in the European style were
opened instead of madrasahs. Instead of the traditional ‘millet system,’ a new political vision,
dependant on citizenship, was adopted, and with the same vision framework, Ottoman central
and rural organisations were re-designed in accordance with the European model. Power
wanted to be gathered in the center, and in this sense, the legal system evolved into a standard

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