The Beginning of Secularisation
Although the Turks chose to turn a blind eye to much of the growing evidence of deterioration of their empire, the one aspect they could not ignore was the weakness of their armed forces.
To remedy this they had no alternative but to look to the West. But it was not possible to retrain and re-equip the armed forces in isolation. The new army and navy needed personnel with qualifications the traditional schools and medreses could not provide. Inevitably contacts with the West, particularly with the French, increased. Equally inevitably, French ideas on political philosophy and the place of religion in the state began to penetrate Turkey. These ideas and growing European interference in Ottoman affairs sparked off a soul-searching debate among Turkish intellectuals on what should be the Ottoman response to the challenge of the West.Different possibilities were examined. In 1822 Akif Efendi said Muslims would have to choose between vigorously defending the whole of their territory, withdrawing to Anatolia, or being reduced to slavery. He urged the first choice, and it is significant that his words were addressed to Muslims not to Turks', the concept of Turkish nationality had not by then arisen. Soon after this many Muslim subjects felt their privileges were being eroded by the nineteenth-century Tanzimat reforms that introduced some limited secularisation. Moreover, through their French contacts some Turkish intellectuals became familiar with the idea that religion could be regarded as a matter for the private belief of the individual. Since this concept was totally at variance with the traditional teaching that Islam should govern every aspect of life and form the foundation of the state and society, it met fierce resistance. Once Turks had also grasped the concept of nationalism, three rival remedies were offered for the empire’s ills, each offering a different basis on which unity might be achieved.
In 1904 these were listed as: Ottomanism—a common citizenship and loyalty of all subjects of the empire without regard to religion or race; Islamism (or pan-Islamism)—the union of all Muslim peoples; and Turkism (or pan-Turkism)—the unity of peoples speaking Turkic languages. The Young Turks who came to power after the 1908 Revolution wrestled with these concepts, but in the event neither Ottomanism nor Islamism could prevail against the rising tide of nationalism even amongst the Muslim subjects.The Young Turks introduced limited secularising measures that offended the religious conservatives. The power of secular courts was increased at the expense of the religious courts, kadis and religious employees came under closer state control, a Family Code and new educational and work opportunities brought changes to the position of women. In response to such developments members of the Nakjibendi tarikat led three uprisings in 1919-20 in Anatolia aimed at enforcing the reimplementation of the serial. The place of the serial in Turkish life was actually to remain the subject of fierce controversy in Ataturk’s day and even now the argument rumbles on.