A “YOUNG TURK” ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL: FILIBELI AHMED HILMI AND THE DIVERSE INTELLECTUAL LEGACIES OF THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Bein
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

Among the late Ottoman thinkers and writers who laid the foundations of intellectual life in modern Turkey, Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi (1865–1914) is a prominent figure. His intellectual legacy survived the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Virtually all his books have been republished in recent years in simplified modern Turkish versions accessible to present-day readers, and some have also been the subject of academic studies. His oeuvre includes dozens of historical, philosophical, theological, and political works, as well as novels, poems, satirical pieces, and plays. All were produced in a six-year period, between the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and his death by poisoning in 1914. The overtly modernist underpinnings of his works on the one hand, and his Sufi piety and firm rejection of materialism and positivism on the other, have earned him recognition as an early exponent of a modernist, nonliteralist Islamic agenda of a kind that has been conspicuous in a variety of Turkish-Islamic movements in recent decades. His untimely death, later attributed to a Freemason–Zionist conspiracy, added further to his mystique in some Islamic circles. Modernist yet deeply devout, Islamist yet uninterested in scripturalist paths of religious revival, Ahmed Hilmi stands out as a representative of an important intellectual trend that has often been overlooked in studies of the late Ottoman period.

A “YOUNG TURK” ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL: FILIBELI AHMED HILMI AND THE DIVERSE INTELLECTUAL LEGACIES OF THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 625a-625a
Author(s):  
Amit Bein
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

Ahmed Hilmi (1865–1914) was a prominent figure among the late Ottoman thinkers and writers who laid the foundations of intellectual life in modern Turkey. His oeuvre includes dozens of historical, philosophical, and political works, as well as novels and poems. The overtly modernist underpinnings of his works on the one hand, and his Sufi piety and firm rejection of materialism and positivism on the other hand, have earned him recognition as an early exponent of a kind of modernist, nonliteralist Islamic agenda that has been conspicuous in a variety of Turkish Islamic movements in recent decades. His untimely death, later attributed to a Freemason–Zionist conspiracy, added further to his mystique in some Islamic circles. Modernist yet deeply devout, Islamist yet uninterested in scripturalist paths of religious revival, Ahmed Hilmi stands out as a representative of an important intellectual trend that has often been overlooked in studies of the late Ottoman period.

Education and Change in the Late Ottoman Empire and Turkey

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Fortna
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

This article addresses the interrelated changes taking place in education during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which schools altered their approach to space, time, and economic priorities in order to align themselves with the shifting conditions of the period. It proceeds by examining a series of tensions between the desiderata of state and society, the collective and the individual, the secular and the religious, the national and the supranational, before assessing the diverse range of responses they elicited.

Ottoman Muslim and Turkish women in an international context

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLE A. N. M. VAN OS
Keyword(s):  
Women's Movements ◽  
Turkish Women ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
International Context ◽  
Turkish Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

Women's movements in the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey are explored in an international context. The international contacts of individual and organized women in both the first and the second waves of ‘feminist’ activism are considered. It is necessary to determine the influence, on the one hand, of Turkish women on the international scene of the women's movement and, on the other hand, the influence of the international organizations on Turkish policies vis-à-vis women. In this way a little light can be shed on the indirect ways Turkish women, through international networks, were and are able to exert influence on the changing policies of the Turkish government regarding the position of women in their society.

Medieval Turkey

2020 ◽  
pp. 148-172
Author(s):  
Scott Redford
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Islamic Archaeology ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Historical Periods

In this chapter, Islamic archaeology of the medieval (11th–14th centuries) period in Turkey is related to international as well as national developments in the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey in areas like cultural policy, economic development, and tourism. These and other factors directly impacted the choice of sites to be excavated, thereby affecting the archaeological record. The author also examines Islamic archaeology in Turkey in relation to that of other historical periods there and raises cases in which the archaeology of this period can address the cultural and economic shift that accompanied the establishment of Turco-Islamic states in former Byzantine lands.

“As Brave as Armenak Efendi”

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-428
Author(s):  
Yaşar Tolga Cora
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Great War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Late Ottoman

This article examines the different ways in which masculinity and ethnicity were mu- tually constructed during the Great War and the Armenian Genocide by analyzing the memoirs of Armenak Melikyan, an Armenian cavalry officer in the Ottoman Army. It discusses why Melikyan emphasized in his memoirs certain values, such as dutiful- ness, resourcefulness, and hard work, which were all firmly associated with the he- gemonic masculine model of citizen-soldiers in the late Ottoman Empire. The article further examines the emphasis Melikyan laid on the public recognition he received for his qualities as an officer from Muslim/Turkish superiors, thus reflecting both ethnic and gendered hierarchies in the army. The article argues that many Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army performed according to hegemonic masculine models in order to defend their precarious masculinity against physical and psychological challenges. This allowed them to remasculinize themselves in the context of the Great War and the Genocide. The article contributes to the study of military memoirs in the late Ottoman Empire by underlining the relation between social and cultural norms and expecta- tions on the one hand and the individual self-perception of military experiences on the other, in the context of the war and ethnic violence.

The End of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Nation-States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick F. Anscombe
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Slight Variation ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Nation States ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

This chapter discusses the end of the Ottoman Empire, looking at three case studies which illustrate the pattern of change seen in the transition from the Ottoman Empire to nation-states. Greece, the first Ottoman territory to gain independence (1830), set precedents in establishing government by non-natives, introducing religious and legal institutions based on European models and working single-mindedly to instill national identity in its population. Almost a century later, King Faysal I (r. 1921–1933) of Iraq followed a similar path, albeit under British direction. The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1922 and offered a slight variation on the pattern in that it built on selected legacies from the late Ottoman Empire. It was the only post-Ottoman country founded primarily by internal effort rather than by European intervention, and the national identity it worked to entrench in the population drew upon the political ideas of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which had dominated Ottoman government from 1908 to 1918. Despite that continuity, the republican government pursued the agenda of tearing down Ottoman institutions and rebuilding state and society as national projects. Such nation-building ultimately succeeded, producing its own instabilities; in new post-Ottoman countries such as Greece, Iraq, and Turkey, social and political re-engineering aroused resistance within the population.

Modern Dance Alla Turca: Transforming Ottoman Dance in Early Republican Turkey

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arzu Öztürkmen
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
World War ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

This essay looks at the works of Selma Selim Sırrı (b. 1906) and her father Selim Sırrı Tarcan (1874–1956), who wrote on dance in the 1920s, a period that marked the transition from the Ottoman Empire to modern Turkey. The Ottoman Empire ruled across the Mediterranean world between the thirteenth and twentieth centuries, collapsing after World War I. The Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923, distancing itself from the Ottoman tradition to adopt a westernization reform program. Written in the early Republican era, the works of Selma Selim Sırrı and Selim Sırrı Tarcan mark the shift from Ottoman dance traditions to a more Western approach to dance. Inspired by Isadora Duncan, Selma Selim Sırrı (1926) explored the idea of modern dance for Ottoman women in a booklet entitled Selma Selim Sırrı Hanım'ın Bedii Raksları (The Aesthetic Dances of Miss Selma Selim Sırrı, see Fig. 1). Her father was the author of Halk Dansları ve Tarcan Zeybeği (Folk Dances and the Tarcan Zeybek, see Fig. 2), a book that focused on the process of refining folk dances, in particular the zeybek genre, to suit the tastes of an educated, urban audience.

State, Family and Anticorruption Practices in the Late Ottoman Empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Agmon
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Family ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

This chapter employs the nexus of state and family as a lens for examining the question of anticorruption in the later Ottoman Empire. More specifically, the chapter focuses on how the government sought to prevent corruption in the department that handled property inherited by orphans—thereby shining a light on the involvement of the state in the private sphere of the family. While stressing the global nature of the modernization undergone by the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century, the author also demonstrates the unique features of a political culture that shaped these processes as well. On the one hand, she emphasizes how the reforms transformed the empire into a modern centralized state and that preventing corruption was a major issue on the reformers’ agenda; but, on the other hand, she claims that anticorruption measures were also an important matter in earlier periods, albeit embedded in different historical circumstances.

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