Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy

412 Pages·2011·3.63 MB·English

by  Elisabeth Özdalga

Late Ottoman Society
This volume brings together a fascinating set of essays dealing with intellectual
developments in late Ottoman society. Under the impact of European
expansionism and modernization the Ottoman Empire underwent profound
transformations. Important features were the development of a market economy
and modern political and administrative structures; the splitting up of the empire
into separate nation-states; and the coming into being of a professional middle
class and various groups of modern intellectuals.
Addressing a rapidly modernizing period in late Ottoman history, which so far
has been under-explored, this book considers the relative diversity of intellectual
streams of thought of the decades preceding the 1908 Young Turk revolution.
Through the chapters the reader will make the acquaintance of the following:
• outstanding personalities such as the Ottoman historian, Ahmed Cevdet, the
radical atheist, Abdullah Cevdet, and the nationalist/socialist, Ziya Gökalp;
• intellectual movements like the Westerners (Garpçιlar), part of the larger
Young Turk opposition; • ideologies like pan-Islamism, constitutionalism and
liberalism;
• religious institutions like the state mufti;
• educational institutions like the Mülkiye (School of Public Administration) and
the Christian community schools; • printing and publishing activities,
including the women’s magazine Hanιmlara mahsûs gazete (the Ladies’ Own
Gazette).
The discussion of the cultural and intellectual legacy of late Ottoman society is
not limited to modern Turkey but includes former Ottoman provinces such as
Albania and Syria.
Elisabeth Özdalga is Professor of Sociology at the Middle East Technical
University in Ankara. Özdalga, who is also affiliated to Göteborg University in
Sweden on a part-time basis has also been the director of the Swedish Research
Institute in Istanbul. She is the editor of The Naqshbandis in Western and Central
Asia: Change and Continuity (1999) and the author of The Veiling Issue (1998).
Late Ottoman Society
The Intellectual Legacy
Edited by Elisabeth Özdalga
First published 2005
by RoutledgeCurzon
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Transferred to Digital Printing 2005
© 2005 Editorial matter and selection, Elisabeth Özdalga; individual chapters, the contributors Typeset in
Times by
Taylor and Francis Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN 0–415–34164–7
Contents
List of illustrations
Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
ELISABETH ÖZDALGA
1 Ottoman sources of Kemalist thought
ERIK-JAN ZÜRCHER
2 Blueprints for a future society: late Ottoman materialists on science,
religion, and art
ŞÜKRÜ HANIOĞLU
3 Whom did Ahmed Cevdet represent?
CHRISTOPH K. NEUMANN
4 Women in late Ottoman intellectual history
ELIZABETH B. FRIERSON
5 Turban and fez: ulema as opposition
İSMAIL KARA
6 Pan-Islamism in practice: the rhetoric of Muslim unity and its uses
ADEEB KHALID
7 ‘Kütüp ve Resail-i Mevkute’: printing and publishing in a multi-ethnic
society
JOHANN STRAUSS
8 Christian community schools during the Ottoman reform period
AKŞIN SOMEL
9 Levantine state muftis: an Ottoman legacy?
JAKOB SKOVGAARD-PETERSEN
10 Albanian students of the Mekteb-i Mülkiye: social networks and trends
of thought
NATHALIE CLAYER
Appendix: Biographies of Albanian students of the Mekteb-i Mülkiye
NATHALIE CLAYER
Index
Illustrations
Cover: A postcard from the year of the Young Turk Revolution. The person in the middle is Sultan
Abdülhamid II. Source: The Archive of the Turkish Historical Society, Ankara.
1.1 Yusuf Akçura (1876–1935; second from left) during the War of Independence. Source: The Archive of
the Turkish Historical Society, Ankara.
4.1 Schoolgirl prizewinners. This image from Resimli Gazete 16 (31 January 1895) shows five schoolgirls
who had won awards from the magazine whose name is inscribed on the placards in their hands, with
the caption Five little students from among the girls who, in a bounty of learning and acquiring skill
and knowledge in the Boarding and Daytime Girls’ Crafts Schools under the protection of His
Highness the Padishah, investor in knowledge, are signs of Islamic sharpness of intelligence’. Source:
Private collection of author.
4.2 Advertisements in Greek and faux Japanese styles. These two advertisements from Hanimlara mahsûs
gazete show the sorts of ordinary goods advertised in family magazines, olive oils and ‘exotic’ but
inexpensive Japanese imports. The Greek lettering in the one and the faux Japanese in the other show
the cosmopolitanism aspired to by Istanbul’s editors and readers, even as the Greek advertiser is at
pains to point out his Ottoman trademark, signalling that his is a local Ottoman product.
(Pappadapoglou olive oil, 2 June 1904, p. 6; Nakamura dry goods, 25 June 1903, p. 356). Source: Istanbul
University Library.
4.3 Woman at a writing desk. This illustration from the November 1896 issue of Hanimlara mahsûs gazete
bears the caption: ‘This woman (kadιn) is very advanced in the art of writing: thinking very hard
about what she will write, she puts it down on paper. She writes, thinking and thinking. Imagine what
beautiful works she is creating!’ Hanιmlara mahsûs gazete 87 (19 November 1896), p. 4. Source:
Istanbul University Library.
4.4 Effects of corsetry. Two sets of images here convey ambivalence towards Western fashions and
practices, the three illustrations on the top and right show a corseted women and the dreadful effects
of the corset on her ribs and internal organs, meant to illustrate an article from June 1904 on the
dangers of corsets; the image of a woman clothed at the bottom left is a standard type of illustration
for a son moda libaslar (clothes in the latest fashion) section, appearing in April 1904. Hanιmlara
mahsûs gazete 16 (30 June 1904), pp. 245, 7 (28 April 1904), p. 105. Source: Istanbul University Library.
4.5 Women boating. Front cover of the 1 April 1919 issue of İnci (Pearl) magazine. Note that while one
woman is being helped into the boat in her high heels, the other woman has taken the oars to row.
Rowing as a sport practised in American and British girls’ schools and women’s colleges was a
frequent topic of discussion in the family press from the 1890s onward, as an argument for women’s
physical fitness – within the bounds of femininity and propriety, of course. Source: Private collection
of author.
5.1 Turban and fez. Photographs of four ulema, members of the second 1908 Parliament: 1. Ahmet Mahir
Efendi from Katamonu (sheikh of a Sufi order); 2. Abdulaziz Mecdi Efendi from Balikesir (member of a
Sufi order); 3. Nasuhîzâde Asιm Efendi (member of a large Sufi family); 4. Hayri Bey from Niğde, who,
in spite of the fact that he belonged to the ulema was dressed in fez and necktie, a practice for which
he was criticized. He became seyhülislam in 1914.
5.2 The cover of the pamphlet İkinci Hutbe, written by Tunali Hilmi.
6.1 Title page of Islam Dünyasι, a journal published in Istanbul by Abdürreşid İbrahim
6.2 Abdurauf Fitrat in Bukhara, c. 1920. Photo courtesy of Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
kinofonofotodokumentov Respubliki Uzbekistan, Tashkent.
10.1 1888’s Mülkiyeli graduates. Source: Ali Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler, vol. III, Ankara,
1968–69, p. 286.
10.2 1893’s Mülkiyeli graduates in the physics class in 1891. Source: Ali Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve
Mülkiyeliler, vol. III, Ankara, 1968–69, p. 500.
10.3 Shahin Kolonja’s newspaper Drita (The Light). The caricature depicts Sheikh Yahya of Yemen flooring
Sultan Abdulhamid II.
10.4 Excerpt from a biography of Rauf Fico in a Foreign Office Document maintained by Bardhyl Fico.
11.1 Shahin Kolonja. Source: Leskovikli Mehmed Rauf, İttihat ve terraki ne idi, Istanbul, 1911; 1991, 2nd
edn, p. 18.
11.2 Nexhip Draga. Source: Ali Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler, vol. III, Ankara, 1968–69, p.
513.
11.3 Iljaz Vrioni. Source: Kaliopi Naska, Këshilli kombëtar 1920, Tirana, 2000, p. 113.
11.4 Bahri Omari. Source: Sejfï Vllamasi, Ballafaqime politike në Shqipëri, 1897–1942 (Kujtime dhe vlerësime
historike), Tirana, Marin Barleti, 1995, p. 505.
11.5 Mehdi Frashëri. Source: Një rrugë ende pa krye, Tirana, 2000, cover.
11.6 Ali Asllani. Source: Bardosh Gaçe, Ali Asllani në kujtimet dhe studimet letrare, Tirana, 1997, p. 39.
11.7 Mustafa Kruja. Source: Mustafa Kruja, Anthologji historike, Tirana, Sejko, Elbasan, 2001, cover.
11.8 Sulejman Delvina. Source: Kaliopi Naska, Këshilli kombëtar 1920, Tirana, 2000, p. 53.
11.9 Abdurrahman Dibra. Source: Sejfi Vllamasi, Ballafaqime politike në Shqipëri, 1897–194), Tirana, 2000,
2nd edn, p. 517.
11.10 Nezir Remzi Leskoviku. Source: Ali Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler, vol. III, Ankara,
1968–69, p. 627.
Contributors
Nathalie Clayer, Directrice de recherche at the CNRS, in Paris, is a specialist in
Islam and cultural identity in the Balkans. Her recent publications include: Le
nouvel islam balkanique (Paris, 2001, edited together with Xavier Bougarel);
and Religion et nation chez les Albanais, XIXe–XXe siècles (Istanbul, 2003). She
is currently working on a book on Albanian national identity at the end of the
Ottoman period.
Elizabeth B. Frierson is Associate Professor of Middle East and North African
Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She has published several articles on
Hamidian women, the press, and censorship, including the Ömer Lütfi Barkan
prize-winning article, ‘Unimagined communities: educational reform and civic
identity among late-Ottoman women’, Critical Matrix 9:2, Fall 1995.
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu is a Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at
Princeton University, NJ, USA, and author of The Young Turks in Opposition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Preparation for a Revolution:
The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
İsmail Kara is Associate Professor of History of Turkish-Islamic Thought at the
Faculty of Theology, Marmara University, Istanbul. He is a specialist in the
history of ideas of late Ottoman and modern Turkish society. Among his main
publications are: Türkiye’de İslâmcιlιk Düşüncesi: Metinler/Kişiler (Islamist
Thought in Turkey: Texts and Personalities), 3 vols (Istanbul 1986, 1987, 1994);
İslâmcilarιn Siyasî Görüşleri: Hilafet ve Meşrutiyet (Islamist Political Thought:
Caliphate and Constitutionalism) (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 2001); and Din
ile Modernleşme Arasιnda Çagdaş Türk Düşüncesinin Meseleleri (The Problem
of Modern Turkish Thought in between Religion and Modernity) (Istanbul:
Dergâh Yayınları, 2003).