Abstract
This chapter offers a novel reading of the removal of the Ottoman Caliphate. This chapter is partly devoted to the uprising of (another) Sheikh Said (1865–1925) and addresses the contemporary debates over the abolishment of the caliphate within Turkey. The abolition of the caliphate, for some major Turkish political figures and groups (religious or secular), was a national imperative. Secular groups such as the Kemalists (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s camp who favored abolition) argued that this was consistent with the teachings of Islam. Yet, Turkish figures and groups on the opposing side argued that abolition was a misguided policy, regardless of its consistency with Islamic teachings. Nonetheless, for a Kurd like Sheikh Said, the leader of 1925 uprising, the removal of the caliphate was an event that unmasked what he called the “true face of the Turks” in their historical “misuse of Islam” for political gains.
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Notes
- 1.
Erik-Jan Zürcher documents the connection of Turkish nationalism and Islam well into the 1980s. See Zürcher, “The Importance of Being Secular: Islam in the Service of the National and Pre-National State.”
- 2.
Because of his strict reliance on British documents, Olson too confuses Sheikh Sa’id with Nursi. See Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Saîd Rebellion, 1880–1925. For Russian documents, see Hewrami, Şorşi Şex Saʿidi Piranu Sovyet: Le Belgename U Çapemeniyekani Sovyet Da/the Revolt of Sheikh Sa’id and the Soviet Union—And for Persians Nezamali Dehnavi, Documents of Iran and Turkey Relations (1922–1937) (The Center for Documentation and Diplomatic History: Tehran, 2007).
- 3.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 13–14.; Ferzende Kaya, Mezopotamya Sürgünü Abdülmelik Fırat’ın Yaşamöyküsü/the Mesopotamian Exile: The Life Story of Abdülmelik Fırat (Istanbul: Anka Yayınlari 2003), 33.
- 4.
Quoted in Ahmet Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression (Istanbul: Evrensel, 2003), 64.
- 5.
According to Masud Barzani, Mustafa Barzani’s task was to convince Sheikh Abdulqadir to take up the role of leading all the Kurds regardless of their geographical locations. See Barzani, Al-Barzani wa-l- H akah al-Taharruriyah al-Kurdiyah/Barzani and the Kuridish Libaration Movement, 1, 28.
- 6.
Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression, 63.
- 7.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 15–17. See also, Kaya, Mezopotamya Sürgünü Abdülmelik Fırat’ın Yaşamöyküsü/the Mesopotamian Exile: The Life Story of Abdülmelik Fırat, 33.
- 8.
Mezopotamya Sürgünü Abdülmelik Fırat’ın Yaşamöyküsü/the Mesopotamian Exile: The Life Story of Abdülmelik Fırat, 33.
- 9.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 15–17.
- 10.
Dersim, “Sorsi Sex Saidi Piran/Sheikh Sa’id’s Uprising” Roji Nuwê 1, no. 2 (1960/2010): 59.
- 11.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 15–17.
- 12.
Sabriya Ahmad Lafi, Al-Akrad fi Turkiya/The Kurds in Turkey (Baghdad: al-Jamiʿa al-Mustansariya, 1985), 85.
- 13.
Ismail Hekki Shaweys, “Komitey Istiqlali Kurdistan/Society for Kurdish Independence” Roji Nuwê 2, no. 1 (1961/2011): 20. See also, Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression 54–56. Yusuf Ziya was former MP from Bitlis.
- 14.
Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925, 91.
- 15.
Ismail Hekki Shaweys, “Şorşî Koçgirî/Koçgirî uprising-1,” in Roji Nuwê, ed. Sediq Salih and Refiq Salih (Suleimani: Bnkey Jin, 1961/2011), p. 93.
- 16.
Faysal Dabbagh, Aḍwaʾ ʿala al-Kitab: Al-Jamʿiyat wa-l-Munaẓamat wa-l-Ahzab al-Kurdiya fi Nisfi al-Qarn (1908–1958)/Kurdish Associations, Organizations, and Political Parties in Half a Century (1908–1958) (Arbil: Thaqafa, 1997), 53. Sever, 1925 Hareketi Ve Azadî Örgütü/Azadi and the 1925 Movement, 133.
- 17.
Shaweys, “Şorşî Koçgirî/Koçgirî uprising-1,” p. 92. Also, Hamit Bozarslan, “Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” in Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, ed. Abbas Vali (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2003), 165.
- 18.
Shaweys, “Komitey Istiqlali Kurdistan/Society for Kurdish Independence,” 20.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Ibid., 21.
- 21.
Ibid., 21–22.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 15.
- 24.
For more on this, see Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925.
- 25.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do,” 16.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
This is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays.
- 28.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Said Did What He Was Required to Do,” 16.
- 29.
Bozarslan, “Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” 176–77. For the complete text, see no. 7, 1960 in “Roji Nuwê,” ed. Sediq Salih and Refiq Salih (Slimani: Bnkey Jin, 2011).
- 30.
“Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” 172, 81.
- 31.
H. Hisyar cited in ibid., 176. Emphasis added.
- 32.
See Chap. 6.
- 33.
Cf. Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do.”
- 34.
Ibid. See also, Hamid Bozarslan, “Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” in Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, ed. Abbas Vali (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2003).
- 35.
See Chap. 4.
- 36.
See Khalid, “Pan-Islamism in Practice: The Rhetoric of Muslim Unity and Its Uses.” Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State. Özcan, Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain, 1877–1924. Naeem Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics: A Study of the Khilafat Movement, 1918–1924, Social, Economic, and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 1999).
- 37.
Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, 251.
- 38.
M. Hasratiyan quoted in: M.S. Lazarov, Al-Nidal wa-l-ʾIkhfaq; Al-Masʾalah al-Kurdiya fi Sanawat 1923–1925/Resistance and Opression: the Kurdish Question: In the Years between 1923–1945, transl. Sadiq al-Jallab (Slimani: Bnkey Jin, 2006), 83.
- 39.
Faik Bulut, Devletin Gözüyle Türkiye’de Kürt Isyanları/Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey from the State’s Perspective (Istanbul: Yön Yayıncılık, 1991), 14–15.
- 40.
Strohmeier, Crucial Images in the Presentation of a Kurdish National Identity: Heroes and Patriots, Traitors and Foes, 89.
- 41.
Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression 144.
- 42.
Bozarslan, “Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” 185.
- 43.
Bozarslan rightly notes that the abolition of the Caliphate was just one among many factors for the Kurdish opposition to the Kemalists. Ibid., 180.
- 44.
Uğur Mumcu, Kürt İslam Ayaklanması 1919–1925/Kurdish Islamc Revolt, 1. baski ed. (Istanbul: Tekin Yayinevi, 1991), 58.
- 45.
Ibid., 57.
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
Ibid., 58.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Çevik, “Şex Seîd Ew Wezîfe Ku Daye Sere Xwe Bi Ferdi U Cemaeti Aniye Cih/Sheikh Sa’id Did What He Was Required to Do.”
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression 89.
- 52.
See Ahmad Fakhri Amin, “Mıjuy Neteweket/the History of Your Nation,” Roji Nuwê 2, no. 2 (1961/2011): 6.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
An important Kurdish city in Northern Kurdistan/Turkey.
- 55.
Amin, “Mıjuy Neteweket/the History of Your Nation,” 6.
- 56.
After he was forced to watch the execution of 47 or 48 of his comrades one by one, the Sheikh wrote a sentence in Kurdish stating: “I don’t regret witnessing the end of my ephemeral life as it is a sacrifice for my own nation.” Kaya, Mezopotamya Sürgünü Abdülmelik Fırat’ın Yaşamöyküsü/the Mesopotamian Exile: The Life Story of Abdülmelik Fırat, 43.
- 57.
Amin, “Mıjuy Neteweket/the History of Your Nation,” 6. According to Bulut, in the courtroom, the Sheikh declared that he “had started his movement as response to Kurdish aspirations for securing an independent Kurdistan.” See Bulut, Devletin Gözüyle Türkiye’de Kürt Isyanları/Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey from the State’s Perspective, 57.
- 58.
For a critique of the Kemalist influence on Kurdish nationalist historiography, see Houston, Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves. Also, Cemil Gündoğan, Beytüşşebap İsyanı Ve Şeyh Sait Ayaklanmasına Etkiler/the Beytüşşebap Rebellion and Its Impact on Sheikh Said’s Revolt (Istanbul: Komal, 1994).
- 59.
For a great study on the impact of Kemalism on Kurdish historiography, see Hamit Bozarslan, “Kürd Milliyetçiliği Ve Kürd Hareketi (1898–2000)/Kurdish Nationalism and Kurdish Movement.”
- 60.
Walter R. Fisher, Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action, Studies in Rhetoric/Communication (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1987), 47.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Cf. Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression 57–58.
- 65.
It should be indicated that van Bruinessen’s assertion is in principle applicable to non-Kurdish ethnic groups’ religiosity as well. This phenomenon is not sui generis or uniquely Kurdish. It should be viewed within the general topic of reciprocal influence of religion and ethnicity that might manifest itself differently in different contexts.
- 66.
Van Bruinessen, “The Kurds and Islam.”
- 67.
See TBMM zabıtları (Turkish Grand National Assembly’s minutes): [VII, 1 Mart 1340 (1924)] p. 53. (Emphasis added.) http://www.tufs.ac.jp/common/fs/asw/tur/htu/data/HTU2136%28ZC%29-35/index.djvu.
- 68.
See Bulut, Devletin Gözüyle Türkiye’de Kürt Isyanları/Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey from the State’s Perspective 15–16.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Cf. Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation, 146. Also, Bulut, Devletin Gözüyle Türkiye’de Kürt Isyanları/Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey from the State’s Perspective 13–16.
- 71.
Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation, 146.
- 72.
Ibid., 146–47.
- 73.
The report was prepared by Mustafa Abdühalik Renda. As indicated earlier, Inönü commissioned Renda the special investigator for a close study of the 1925 Revolt in Kurdistan. In addition to his work as the Prime Minister’s special investigator, Renda held various major governmental positions at different times. He was the speaker of the National Assembly, held a number of positions in different cabinets, and was the Minister of Şark Islahat Plani (the Eastern Reform Plan) in Inönü’s cabinet. See Bayrak, Şark Islahat Planı Kürtlere Vurulan Kelepçe/the Eastern Reform Plan and Shackling the Kurds, 107.
- 74.
Ibid., 91–107.
- 75.
Ibid.
- 76.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 453–58.
- 77.
The newspaper Vatan was closed on August 11, 1925 allegedly for being one of the newspapers that incited Sheikh Sa’id’s Revolt. In one of its short reports, Vatan informed its readers that there had been clashes between the gendarmerie and the supporters (ʿavnesi) of Sheikh Sa’id. The same article indicated that the day before Mustafa Kemal had a meeting with the Interior Minister and the Chief of joint forces with regard to sending a military contingent to the region. Vatan (No: 666. Feb. 16. 1925). In issue 669 of the same paper, there is only a single paragraph, titled “Punishing Sheikh Sa’id.” In that article, Vatan reports that the state had created a national organization to root out such criminal activities. Vatan (No: 669. Feb. 19. 1925). In the ninth day of the revolt, the language of reporting about the revolt changed. The political aspect of the revolt slowly came to the open. In a news piece that is entitled “The issue of Genç is the battle of feudalism against the state”, Vatan reported that Sheikh Sa’id made prophetic claims. The Sheikh was said to have claimed that God has been ordained him to implement Shariʿa. The Report added that because of inaccessibility of the region and the enormous amount of snowfall, the instantaneous suppression of the revolt was not possible. Then it went on to quote a member of parliamentarians claiming that “the revolt lacks any significance; Genç [where the revolt started] is located in a remote corner of the country whose residents are only about a hundred of families.” Ahmad Amin, the reporter, even confuses this Sheikh with Mullah Selim whom CUP had executed eleven years earlier. Vatan (No: 674. Feb. 23. 1925).
- 78.
Cf. Tahir Kodal, Paylaşılamayan Toprak: Türk Basınına Göre (1923–1926) Musul Meselesi/the Unshareable Land: The Mosul Question in the Turkish Press (1923–1926) (Istanbul: Yeditepe Yayınevi, 2005), 298.
- 79.
Okyar was the Prime minster at the time and he was soon replaced by İnönü.
- 80.
Mumcu, Kürt İslam Ayaklanması 1919–1925/Kurdish Islamic Revolt, 74.
- 81.
See, for example, the official documents reproduced in ibid., 69–77.
- 82.
Cf. Ibid.
- 83.
For the full text, see Kahraman, Kürt İsyanları: Tedip Ve Tenkil/Kurdish Revolts: Discipline and Repression 66.
- 84.
Ibid.
- 85.
Ibid.
- 86.
Here I am borrowing Walter Fisher’s phrase; see Fisher, Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action.
- 87.
Cf. Bulut, Devletin Gözüyle Türkiye’de Kürt Isyanları/Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey from the State’s Perspective 42–44.
- 88.
At the time Karabekir was the head of the Party of Progress and Freedom.
- 89.
Mumcu, Kürt İslam Ayaklanması 1919–1925/Kurdish Islamic Revolt, 74. Emphasis added.
- 90.
Cf. Abdulhaluk Çay, Her Yönüyle Kürt Dosyası/the Kurdish File (Ankara: Boğaziçi Yayınları 1993), 394–95.
- 91.
See ibid.
- 92.
See Özoğlu, From Caliphate to Secular State: Power Struggle in the Early Turkish Republic, especially Chap. 4.
- 93.
See ibid., 93–94.
- 94.
Ibid., 119–20. Emphasis added.
- 95.
The minutes from the closed sessions of the Turkish Grand National Assembly show that the Kurds were perceived quite differently before the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. For instance, in one of those sessions on August 3, 1922, Mustafa Kemal was cognizant of Kurdish rights and once uttered the following:
The principle of right to self-rule for nations is now universally accepted. We have also accepted that principle. As expected, the Kurds have perfected their local administration. If we win over their leaders and influential figures they should declare that they want their lives to be administered by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey when they express views to determine their fates (mukadderatlarına zaten sahip olduklarını).
TBMM Gizli Celse Zabıtları 6 Mart 1338 (1922) quoted in Yuksel, “Dengbej, Mullah, Intelligentsia: The Survival and Revival of the Kurdish-Kurmanji Language in the Middle East, 1925–1960. Unpublished Dissertation” 20–21.
- 96.
For more on this, see Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925; Bozarslan, “Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919–1925),” See also Mesut Yeğen’s introduction to Bayrak, Şark Islahat Planı Kürtlere Vurulan Kelepçe/the Eastern Reform Plan and Shackling the Kurds.
- 97.
Mumcu, Kürt İslam Ayaklanması 1919–1925/Kurdish Islamc Revolt, 47.
- 98.
Ibid.
- 99.
Musul Tahkik Komisyonunun Cemiyet-i Akvam’a Verdiği Rapor, Ayın Tarihi, vol. 17 (Ankara 1926), 316–17.
- 100.
Ibid.
- 101.
F.O./9060/E 959, cited in Kürt İslam Ayaklanması 1919–1925/Kurdish Islamic Revolt, 31.
- 102.
File: 21; folder: 49; no. 113, 1926 in Dehnavi, Documents of Iran and Turkey Relations (1922–1937), 154.
- 103.
Ibid.
- 104.
(Tā quvveh d ā rand az h usūl intiq ā m nad ā rand).
- 105.
File: 21; folder: 49; no. 113, 1926 in Dehnavi, Documents of Iran and Turkey Relations (1922–1937), 152.
- 106.
Ibid., 152–53.
- 107.
Ibid.
- 108.
Ibid.
- 109.
Ibid., 153–54.
- 110.
Ibid., 154.
- 111.
Ibid.
- 112.
For a great survey of the literature on this subject, see Lazarov, Al-Nidal wa-l-Ikhfaq: al-Masʾalah al-Kurdiya Fi Sanawat 1923–1925/Resistance and Opression; the Kurdish Question: In the Years between 1923–1945, 72–112.
- 113.
Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925.; Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development.; Sever, 1925 Hareketi ve Azadî Örgütü/Azadi and the 1925 Movement.
- 114.
For instance, see the pro-British Kurdish journal Tigeyshtnii Rastii, which was published in 1918–1919.
- 115.
Tigeyshtnii Rastii, (no. 28; May 13, 1918). Emphasis added.
- 116.
“The Turkish rule is in direct contradiction with Shariʿa”. Ibid, (no. 29; May 20, 1918). Emphasis added.
- 117.
Online. “Mesopotamia (Review of the Civil Administration). Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia,” 64. Emphasis added.
- 118.
See Özcan, Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain, 1877–1924.
- 119.
Ibid., 53–58.
- 120.
Ibid.
- 121.
Ibid.
- 122.
See Chap. 4.
- 123.
See Chap. 4.
- 124.
FO 371/41,772, 13,592 quoted in Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 58.
- 125.
FO 371/7771, E 4827/33/65 cited in ibid., 72.
- 126.
Ibid., 62.
- 127.
Ibid., 61.
- 128.
IOR/L/PS/10/853 Part 4, F202, cited in Oliver-Dee, The Caliphate Question: The British Government and Islamic Governance, 93–94.
- 129.
Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 60–61.
- 130.
Ibid.
- 131.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 367.
- 132.
Ibid., 368.
- 133.
İsmail Beşikçi, Kürdistan Üzerinde Emperyalist Bölüşüm Mücadelesi, 1915–1925/the Imperialist Fight over Dividing Kurdistan (Ankara: Yurt Kitap-Yayın, 1992), 283–95.
- 134.
Ibid.
- 135.
Ibid.
- 136.
See Celîl, Kürt Halk Tarihinden 13 İlginç Yaprak/Thirteen Interesting Pages from Kurdish People’s History.
- 137.
Cf. Cevat Dursunoğlu, Milli Mücadelede Erzurum/Erzurum (Istanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, 2000), Especially 15–25.
- 138.
Beşikçi, Kürditan Üzerin Emperyalist Bölüşüm Mücadelesi, 1915–1925/the Imperialist Fight over Dividing Kurdistan.
- 139.
Ibid.
- 140.
Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 185.
- 141.
Ibid.
- 142.
FO 371/1010, E1199/2029/65; cited in ibid.
- 143.
Sheikh Safvet was a member of Parliament; see ibid., 210.
- 144.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 202.
- 145.
Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp ([London]: Luzac, 1950), p. 133.
- 146.
It must be indicated that, unlike Mustafa Kemal, Gökalp did not believe in the fusion of power. See Taha Parla, Türkiye’de Anayasalar/Constitutions in Turkey (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları 2002). In his belief in the fusion of power, Kemal was mostly influenced by Rousseau and the Jacobins of the French Revolution. See Şerafettin Turan, Atatürk’ün Düşünce Yapısını Etkileyen Olaylar, Düşünürler, Kitaplar/the Thought, Events, and Books Affected Atatürk Views (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2006); Ahu Tunçel, Bir Siyaset Felsefesi Cumhuriyetçi Özgürlük/Republicanism Liberty as a Political Philosophy (Istanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları 2010). See also Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 39–65.
- 147.
Heyd translates halkci as a form of democracy. I believe populism is a better rendition. Halkci is equivalent to Persian khalqī or khalq-garāyī, Kurdish xelki, or Arabic shaʿbī: populist in a positive sense or on the side of the people or to be of the people. It is different from qawmi (nationalist).
- 148.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justic System of Atatürk, 47 (emphasis added).
- 149.
Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp, pp. 131–33.
- 150.
Ibid.
- 151.
Handan Nezir Akmeşe, The Birth of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military and the March to World War I (London; New York: I.B. Tauris; Distributed in the U.S. by Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 71.
- 152.
Ibid.
- 153.
Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 180.
- 154.
Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 204.
- 155.
Cf. Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/The Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 387–412.
- 156.
Ibid., 46.
- 157.
Ibid., 87–88.
- 158.
Ibid., 46.
- 159.
Ibid., 87.
- 160.
(imlî mahiyet-i itibarile)
- 161.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justice System of Atatürk, 86.
- 162.
Ibid.
- 163.
Fuat Dündar, İttihat Ve Terakki’nin Müslümanları İskân Politikası (1913–1918)/the CUP’s Resettlement Policy of Muslims (Istanbul: İletişim 2001), 29.
- 164.
(Avrupa medeniyetine tam bir surette girmek).
- 165.
Gökalp, Türkçülüğün Esasları, 48.
- 166.
Ibid., 49.
- 167.
Whilst I was looking for the Beloved up in,
I did not find Him there but on earth, in Turan
For more, see Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. Current Turkish history textbooks still propagate the ideas of compatibility and Universality of Islamic and European values and pre-Islamic Turkish norms. According to some recent studies, “[p]re-Islamic Turkish traditions are described as generally in accordance with Islamic principles: ‘Therefore, Turks accepted Islam willingly without force.’ Immediately following this assertion, it is stated that ‘the Turks soon grasped the leadership of Islamic religion.’”
See Thalia Dragonas, Buşra Ersanli, and Anna Frangoudaki, “Greek and Turkish Students’ Views on History: The Nation and Democracy,” in Citizenship and the Nation-State in Greece and Turkey, ed. Faruk Birtek and Thalia Dragonas (London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 175.
- 168.
Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, 120.
- 169.
Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp, 85–88.
- 170.
Ibid.
- 171.
Ibid.
- 172.
4:59. O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey His Messenger and those who are in authority among you. And if you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger if you are believers in Allah and the Last Day.
- 173.
Ziya Gökalp, Yeni Hayat, Doğru Yol/New Life, Right Path (Ankara: Cantekin Malbaası, 2006), 30.
- 174.
Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp, 85–88.
- 175.
Cf. Seyyid Muhammed Habib al-Ubeydi, Ḥabl al-Iʿtisam wa Vujub al-Khilafa fi Din al-Islam/the Necessity of Khilafa in Islam, vol. 4, Hilafet Risaleleri (Istanbul: Klasik 2004). Also, Ismail Safayihi, Iqaz al-Ikhwan li Dasias al- ad’a’i wa ma Yaqtadi Hal al-Zaman/Warning the Brethren ed. Hilâfet Risaleleri (Istanbul Klasik, 2004).
- 176.
Hâkimiyet- Milliye (no. 5; January 28, 1920).
- 177.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justic System of Atatürk, 426.
- 178.
Ibid., 425.
- 179.
For his 1924 lectures in the Turkish Parliament, see TBMM zabıtları (Turkish Grand National Assembly’s minutes): [VII, 1 Mart 1340 (1924)] pp. 55–65, http://www.tufs.ac.jp/common/fs/asw/tur/htu/data/HTU2136%28ZC%29-35/index.djvu. Also, Mehmet Emin Bozarslan, Hilafet ve Ümmetçilik Sorunu/Caliphate and the Question of Ummatism (Istanbul: Ant Yayınları, 1969).
- 180.
For his views on caliphate, see his 1915 work Seyyid Bey, Hilafet vol. 4, Hilafet Risaleleri (Istanbul: Klasik, 1915/2004).
- 181.
Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism; the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp, pp. 93–94.
- 182.
(tahsini ilâhiye mezhar olduğu halde).
- 183.
See TBMM zabıtları (Turkish Grand National Assembly’s minutes): [VII, 1 Mart 1340 (1924)] pp. 44–69, http://www.tufs.ac.jp/common/fs/asw/tur/htu/data/HTU2136%28ZC%29-35/index.djvu
- 184.
By books Kemal means fiqhi, juridical, books, not the Quran of Hadith.
- 185.
This part is almost a copy of Seyyid Bey’s speech in the Parliament. See TBMM zabıtları (Turkish Grand National Assembly’s minutes): [VII, 1 Mart 1340 (1924)] p. 56, http://www.tufs.ac.jp/common/fs/asw/tur/htu/data/HTU2136%28ZC%29-35/index.djvu
- 186.
Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought: The Response of the Shi’i and Sunni Muslims to the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1982), 53.
- 187.
FO 371/10,110, 1199/202,965 cited in Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 185.
- 188.
Quoted in ibid., 191.
- 189.
Akyol, Atatürk’ün İhtilal Hukuku/the Revolutionary Justic System of Atatürk, 371–412.
- 190.
Ibid., 370.
- 191.
Satan, Halifeliğin Kaldırılması/the Abolition of the Caliphate, 191.
- 192.
Ibid. It is worth mentioning that four years earlier, Kemal himself claimed that no one in his right mind could ignore the passion of the Indian Muslims for the Ottoman Caliphate. See Mustafa Kemal’s article “The Caliphate and the Muslim World” in Hâkimiyet-i Milliye no. 5, (January 28, 1920).
- 193.
See ibid., 180.
- 194.
Ibid.
- 195.
With the creation of this new institution that by implication outlawed any outside religious interpretations, as Houston aptly puts,
Islam is removed from the public domain and incorporated (re-inscribed) under the control of the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Directorate of Religious Affairs). Here Islam is re-politicized to support the state’s nation-building project – a classic Hobbesian solution that immediately restricts the possibility of constructing civil society. Islam, in this sense, truly becomes an official (state) religion, although we can discern some differences in state policies between the single-party period, the rule of the populist parties, and the period after the 1980 military coup.
Christopher Houston, Islam, Kurds and the Turkish Nation State (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 85. To claim that the Turkish state excluded Islam seems to be a gross simplification of the situation. Some studies of Turkish textbooks show an interesting impact of state’s re-politicization and re-presentation of Islam as the state’s religion. It is important to remember that Turkish-Islam synthesis has deep roots in Turkey’s twentieth century history. It is well known that Enver Pasha, a CUP leader, gave a much Islamic bent to his nationalism when he became aware of the effectiveness of “pan-Islamism” among the Turkic communities of central Asia. The Turkish state has been keen to preserve his Islamic image among the Turkic nation to a degree that “[…] Islam is seen as part of the Turkish political presence, particularly where today’s Turkic Republics are concerned. The Turkish Republic is not treated as one of the Islamic countries, but as the best of Islamic countries, and the best Turks are believed to be in Turkey.” Dragonas, Ersanli, and Frangoudaki, “Greek and Turkish Students’ Views on History: The Nation and Democracy,” 174.
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Soleimani, K. (2016). “Fully-fledged Nationalism in Religious Garb”: The Caliphate as the Site of Nationalist Rivalry. In: Islam and Competing Nationalisms in the Middle East, 1876-1926. The Modern Muslim World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59940-7_8
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