Durin late 19th century and to the collapse of the state in 1923, there were four currents of thought in Ottoman Empire: 1. Islamism, 2. Ottomanism, 3. Westernism 4. Turkism. Sırat-ı Müstakim and then Sebilürreşad magazine represented the view of Islamism. Writers such as İzmirli İsmail Hakkı, Babanzade Naim, Bursalı Tahir, Aksekili Hamdi, Mehmet Akif, and Şemsettin Günaltay dreamed of Islam as a populist religion. The Islamists were advocating the adoption of western technique but not being influenced in the spiritual realm. According to them, the west was finished spiritually. They rejected all remaining political ideas because they broke the unity of Islam. Muhammed Abduh claimed that jinn are microscopic creatures, Said-i Nursi said that everything brought by science was stated in the Qur’an.
Said Halim Pasha (1863-1921), who also served as the Grand Vizier, claimed that democracy would not work because there was no class difference in the Ottomans. He said that equality and freedom are experienced in a different sense from the West and that the equivalent of foreign freedom in Islam already exists. İsmail Fenni Ertuğrul (1855-1946) prepared the dictionary called Lugatçe-i Philosophy. He advocated omnitheism. Mehmet Ali Ayni wanted to bring a contemporary interpretation to Sufism. The book İsmail Hakkı- Philosophe Mystique, written in French on Bursalı İsmail Hakkı, was published in Paris (1933).
Contemporary Islamists have tried to reconcile religion and science. They claimed that Islam progressed not by dogmas but by ijtihad. İzmirli İsmail Hakkı (1868-1946) made remarkable studies in the contemporary Islamic view. He studied Islamic law, Darwin, and wrote books on logic and philosophy. Şehbenderzade Ahmet Hilmi (1865-1913) criticizes materialism and says that there has been no innovation since the first materialists. According to him, everything is energy and neither time nor space consists of matter. He said that a society without philosophy cannot develop. He criticized materialists such as Baha Tevfik and Celal Nuri.
People with materialistic or positivist views are generalized under westernism. They advocated the full adoption of Western civilization. They wrote about religious concerns, women’s rights, private enterprise, creativity. Magazines such as Servet-i Fünun, Ulum-ı İktisadiye and İçtimaiye were sharing western articles. Kılıçzade Hakkı compiled westernist views in his article titled “A Very Awake Sleep”. They were against the Islamists en masse and also criticized the Turkist theses. They mostly defended the unity of the Ottoman Empire. But social life had to change. Writers such as Abdullah Cevdet and Celal Nuri wrote about their understanding of materialism. According to this view: Attire will be renewed and domestic goods will be used. Women will dress in the way they want, but they will not waste. The cops, the lads, and the coachman’s macabre will never interfere with women’s clothing. Shaykh al-Islam Masters will not write or sign declarations regarding the chadors. Women and young girls will not run away from men, as is the case with Muslim Bosniaks and Circassians. Every man will marry the girl whom he has seen, studied, liked and chosen with his own eyes. The showdown must end. Lodges and lodges should be removed. Madrasahs should be closed. All laws should be reformed. Sharia courts will be abolished and Nizami courts will be reformed. Mecelle will be abolished or at least changed to that extent. The Latin alphabet will be accepted instead of the Ottoman alphabet. With the adoption of the European Civil Code, today’s marriage-divorce conditions will be changed completely. The methods of marrying more than one woman and divorcing the wife with a single word will be abolished.
The view of Turkism appeared for the first time in Russia and the Balkans. Muslims who remained under Christian rule from the 1860s felt the need to define their own identities. Turkism and Ottomanism tended to occur. Foreigners such as Arthur Davids, Arminius Vambery and Leon Cahun worked in the field of Turcology. They went so far as to describe the Turks as world conquerors. Ahmet Vefik Pasha (1823-1891) made the first efforts on Turkish history and language in the Ottoman Empire. He wrote the first Turkish-Ottoman dictionary, Polish-i Osmanî (1876), and considered Ottoman Turkish a dialect of Turkish.
Mustafa Celaleddin Pasha (Count Borzecky) and Ali Suavi (1838-1878) became the pioneers of Turkism by referring to the leadership qualities of the Turks. Süleyman Pasha wrote about the Asian origin of the Turks. Şemseddin Sami suggested that the national Turkish would be formed with the dissolution of the Ottoman language. Yusuf Akçura criticized Islamism and Ottomanism and saw Turkism as the only way.
Yusuf Akçura and those around him founded the Turkish Association. Ömer Seyfettin and his friends also published Genç Kalemler magazine. In 1911, the Türk Yurdu Cemiyeti was established and merged with the Türk Ocağı. Intellectuals such as Ziya Gökalp, Hüseyinzade Ali, Yusuf Akçura, Ahmet Ağaoğlu and Fuat Köprülü were writing in the journal Türk Yurdu. They aimed to gain national consciousness by leaving Ottomanism and to teach pre-Ottoman Turkishness. During the journey for the preservation of language and culture, the national uprisings of the imperial elements and political Turkism came to the fore.
While creating the Ottoman intellectual movement, it was based on social foundations. He wanted to develop ideas that society needed. Political thoughts have also developed to save the society and the state, which is the political organization of the society. Being aware of the difficult situation of the Ottoman Empire against the West and taking action formed the basis of these thoughts.
The currents of thought in this period flourished with the desire to save the state. There are also points of convergence in their discourses. For example, Turks and westerners unite in the national economy. The difference of the westerners is that the economy is handed over to the Ottoman nations, not to the Turks. Turkists and Islamists argue that the society is within the Islamic civilization. Only Turkists want to establish Turkish unity through Islam, while Islamists focus on Islam without dividing nations. Westerners and Islamists are against the pure Turkishization of the language. Arabic and Persian words are part of the language, but westerners are especially against Arabic and Persian education.
The convergence of Turkists, westerners and Islamists is increasing over time. It is a common point to ensure integrity by bringing together the ethical elements that have begun to break. All thought movements, including the westerners, have developed a common language for the disintegration and separation of the state. In addition, in this period, all currents are allied in the need for modernization, that is, modernization. All three are against imitation. All three currents stated that socialism is makeshift to Turkish society and that the systems brought from the west should not be attached to society. All three currents are united in the axis of democracy. The ones who suffered the most in the rule of Abdulhamid were westerners. These are deep democrats and liberals. Turkists do not advocate liberalism, because they are focused on culture, not the regime. Islamists have also based everything about democracy in the Qur’an. Freedom and equality are among the greatest rules of Islam.
During the Union and Progress period, he approached the currents of thought with tolerance and did not interfere with scientific publications. Thought publications also did not broadcast against the government. Until the World War II, the movements were useful think tanks for the state. Imperial politics encouraged all three currents under its patronage. The fact that the Arabs were still dependent on the Ottoman Empire and the attempt to dominate the trade routes in the Near East led to the encouragement of Islamism. The fact that foreign elements were active in the state and the culture was in danger with missionary activities enabled Turkism to be encouraged. In order to keep up with the development in the West, support was given to western movements such as the adoption of the western calendar and the granting of rights to women in the calendar.
Enver Pasha aimed to dominate the Islamic world by choosing Islamism. The situation during World War II discredited Islamism. The Arabs revolted. When Tsarist Russia collapsed, they desperately clung to the idea of a great Turkish Union. When the war was lost and the opposition to the Unionists came to the government, the Turkism movement fell out of favor in the eyes of the government. For the Turks, all currents had lost their appeal. Islamism collapsed when Muslim Arabs rebelled against the state. Westernism began to become a negative view because of the west trying to exploit the Ottoman Empire. The enthusiasm of the Unionists for Turkish unity, which ended in defeat, also evoked painful events such as the Sarıkamış disaster. However, it was necessary to adhere to an idea, and the ideas attacked by the western servant government, Islamism and Turkism continued to be in demand. Turkish nationalism was established for the sake of Turkishness, which imperialism attacked. The Ankara government represented this.
It is seen that Turkism is dominant in the final stage among the currents. We can see this a lot in literature. Hamdullah Suphi said, “In addition to the thousands of bonds of life, blood and language that bind all members of a nation together, we are bound to each other by the bond of disaster and faith, and we have sworn an oath. The Turkish unity of Thrace, Anatolia and Istanbul cannot be broken up,” he said. Rıza Nur “They say; Turks are uncivilized. This is a lie, the Turks have a great past. See Central Asia. Before establishing civilization in the East, in the West, the Turks established civilization there. While most of the other nations were illiterate, the Turks created the first writing. he said. İshak Refet wrote in one of his poems, “I am happy that I was created Turkish, This is the highest pride of my heart; I was neither captured nor sold, this is the Turkish self, the consciousness of being Turkish.” says.
Turkism and westernism remained from the currents of thought in the state. However, they were clipped from their Ottoman state and took on national forms. Turkish revolutions were based on the currents in the Ottoman Empire and led to developments originating from Turkism and westernism. However, it is seen that the boundaries between the currents are still not clear. Turkism and pro-Westernism still exist, but it is not clear which trend is Turkist and which is westernist. As a matter of fact, Turkism on the axis of Islamism has been mixed with westernism for a long time. It is also noteworthy that the society is still Islamist and tries to dissolve all other currents in the Muslim understanding for modernization. Although Turkish people seem to be divided into currents of thought in order to modernize, it is seen that common goals unite the currents.
Resources
Peyami Safa, Perspectives on the Turkish Revolution, Ötüken Publications, Atatürk Research Center Pub., Ankara, 2010
Şerif Mardin, The Birth of New Ottoman Thought, Communication Pub., Istanbul, 1996
Hilmi Ziya Ülken, History of Contemporary Thought in Turkey, İşbank Culture Publications, 2014.
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Constitutional article, Religious Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 24, pp. 388-393.