[Niyazi Berkes] the Development of Secularism in T(Bookos.org) (1)

The Development of Secularism in Turkey NIYAZI BERKES

with a new introduction by FEROZ AHMAD

Hurst & Company, London

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preface

First,pnhlislwrl in 1%4 by Mc(,J!l Unvcrsily l'n:ss Puhl,islwd in a f:tcsimill: edition in I ~l!lH (,;Hur~l & Co. (l'uhlishers) Lid., .l,''i, l~tng Stt·;:ct, London v\'C2E ~JI. 0 ( • Jl) ttghl '''Mrs Atnu: lkrkcs, 1!l!lH l'nl roducl ory essay "Niyazi Berkes (I DOH-I !),'il-l). I hl' Ldt!Cilton of an lntdlt'Citnl" 'l1f' . \1 · .· ·Jt · ' '· 'CI OZ I llll:td, J !l!lH j\ll 11g 1 s rl'scrved. l'nmcd in India

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ISBNs J-,'i!JO(iri-.'l:t. Ahmnd

XV

• Introduction !)

T\\'0 CONCEPTS OF SEC!IL\RISM

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TilE MEDIEVAL VIEW OF SOCIETY TilE O'ITOMAN-TlJRKISH IIIER.\R< :I IV l't\lll~i\11

AND lll.EM,\:

TE~Il'ORi\1.

10

;\Nil Sl'IR!Tl I AI.

I:~

AlJT!IORITY 1\RE;\l\llOWN OF TilE TRAiliTIONi\1. OIWF.R

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THE GUMMERJNGS l7HI-I H2!) L

SillwltcUc of a Renaissance TURKEY AND Tl IE POWERS OF El 'ROI'E NEW \\'ORLilLINESS RECO( ;NIZINsed to be separated from the ruled. They could be recruited from among certain categories of the ruled, but the recruits were detached from their original social classes. The system was believed to have collapsed when the common people entered the ranks of the administrative, military, and clerical orders, and when they were no longer divested of their original social identity.

The Ottomtm-Turkisb Hiet~~rcby The fifth ruling principle, the ·~..Q{J!~~!II~~ of this system, was th~J>.!~~!Y~lionoLorder, Galled.t,z~.~.This meant maintaining a proportional distribution and, hence, a balance among the various status groups. This principle derived from the belief that all the prerogatives and privileges granted to the groups were bestowed by the grace of God for the sake of the happiness and order of the world ( nizdm-t diem). The modern concept of natural rights and equality of citizenship had no place in the medieval system since ~ere was 'l!L!9.~~.2fJ~eyhul-Islam was appointed by the Padi~ah from among

15

INTRODUCTION

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the highest ranking Ulema and could be dismissed by the ruler's .will, but a fetva of the f;ieyhul-Islam could depose the Padi~ah. However, the f;ieyhul-Islam had no power to carry out his judgement and, therefore, had to rely upon the administrative and 111ili:tary orders. As long as he and the Ulema sided with the ruler and legitimized his decisions, other holders of power were kept at bay. When the Padi~ah attempted to introduce an innovation not supported by ::he Ulema he was powerless and in most cases lost his sovereignty. ~ The Ulema order differed from the Christian clergy in its nature, \, function, and organization. The hierarchy which developed within {that order bore no resemblance to the Catholic or Orthodox \ ; clerical hierarchy. They did not constitute a spiritual corps orr;, \ganized through a church. Religious matters were organized not /through an autonomous church but by the state through the order i of Ulema which constituted an official and temporal body. Only I the mystic orders, referred to above, remained outside this regiLmentation and close to the artisan corporations and to the people. Only these constituted specifically religious institutions indifferent to temporal affairs. The Ulema's specific concern was to see that the ruler's legislation, administration, and justice agreed with the f;ieriat. As such their supreme aim was the preservation of the traditional order, not change or reform. Their emphasis on order (nizam) was so influential that eventually those attempting reforms (for which no generally established term came into being) were forced to claim that they were attempting to restore the nizam. As we shall see later, the major reform attempts were called by such terms as New Nizarn, Tanzimat, nizamat-t esasiye, which were all cognates. Political power was completely detached from all social strata. The peasantry, artisans, and merchants were outside the elite (khawass). Not only the masses of people ('awamm), but even the elite had no legally defined position in the constitution of the state; their status was held only by tradition. The doctrine of election (bai'a, or in the Turkish form blat) of the Padi~ah by the "men of binding and loosening" (ahl al-'aqd wa al-hall) was maintained only as a traditional ceremony of allegiance. There is no evidence to show that those in attendance at the ceremony represented the people or the estates; the people played no role in the appointment of the electors. The exclusion of the people from the government was not incompatible with the f;ieriat. Long before the establishment of the Ottoman-Turkish state at the end of the

Padi,~ah

a:nd Ulema

fourteenth century, conditions had tended not only to systemati~e the f;ieriat as a private law based on the tradition of the Islamic communitv sanctified by the authority of the Kur'an, the holy scripture, ~nd Sunna, the tradition of. the Prophet, b~t .to furth~r a political authority that did not denve from ~he r~hgwus tradition. The acceptance of the Sultanate, the patnmorual1~l~, as the legitimate state authority with the. ~eriat .a~ a non-p.ohr:cal law ruled out the possibility of legislatmg political constitutiOn. . Thus, neither the Ulema and the ruling orders nor the social classes such as peasantry, artisans, and merchant~ develop~d constitutional rights to limit the ruler's power or to extend their own. This did not mean, however, that the Padi~ahs became more autocratic or absolute with the disruption of the traditional order and balance. Had this been the case, there might have been better chances for modern reforms in the military, political, fiscal, commercial, and scientific fields such as occurred earlier under the absolute monarchs of some Western European countries. A part from a few capable rulers who tended to become a~solutc. ~uto­ crats, the actual power of the Padi~ah had almost entirely cl!smtegrated by the end of the eighteenth century. By the~ ~he struggle for power was waged among groups that wei~e traditionally subservient to the ruler and detached from the social classes and knew no law other than tradition, whose sanctity was waning.

Breakdown of the Traditional Order When the traditional order reached the stage of complete disorder at the end of the .~ighteGnth cent:ury, as we shall sec lat~I: in more detail, there were some efforts to establish a legal defimtiOn of the relationship between the Padi~ah and the ~lema, the army and the feudalized landed power holders. The aun was never to limit or alter the supreme authority of the Padi~ah. Therefore, while a document of 1 8o9 defined contractual relations bctwc~n these groups in legal terms, the Padi~ah was not seen as a P.arty to the pact. The document, thus, in no way resembled a cons.titu.tiOn, nor did it ever serve as a step in the development of constitutional government. . . It is, therefore, not possible to see a genume tr~nsformation from a traditional to a legal constitutional system until much later

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.. INTRODUCTION

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·times. We shall trace the steps in this direction during the nineteenth century. Any such transfonnation is usually initiated by the disintegration of the medieval estates and their evolution into social classes. In Turkey this pattern, common in Western Europe, was missing largely because of the continued existence of a tradition of sovereignty based on the unity of religion and state. ·How far c,a~ a. tracliti?f1alist. system. allow.5:h~g~?, Although anythilig which deviated from the St'inria, referred to above, was considered a ~ovelty (bid'a or in Turkish bid'at) and rejected, the Ulema w'Ci=et!:ee to accept what they re~arded as "goodor pf.~Isewori:hv" ii1riovations. Many such innovations which had bepari: a:'nd parcel i:he medieval order and civilization were approved by the Ulema as necessities of the time. They exhibited a good degree of ela.•;ticity within the limits of the order and tradition. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the order began to feel that it was being shaken, there developed the type of fundamentalists, referred to before, who regarded a.ny innovation as contrary to the $eriat. These came mostly from the lc::rwer ranks of tl1e Ulema or outside that order and regarded it as a mere interest group, corrupt, mundane, a.nd no longer genuinely representative of religion. These fundamentalists opposed not only all contemporary and future changes but even those innovations introduced in the past. They no longer cared for the temporal nizdm of the Ulema and the kanun of the rulers; they preached a return to the pristine injunctions of the Kur'an a.nd the Sunna of the Prophet. The opposition of the fundamentalists to any form of innovation drove a wedge into the medieval union of religion and state and contributed to the rJ!E!!!re between tl1e two, which finally occurredinthe nineteenthcenrury~-Butatreaclyat the end of the sevent~~·ntllcentury, no level of religiosity remained untouched by the effects of the disruption of the traditional order. While the fundamentalist upsurge agitated popular fanaticism, the religious life of the urba.n a.nd rural masses turned increasingly to magic and superstition. The mystic orders, which so far remained outside the influence of the political powers, skidded more and more towards a.ntinomia.nism a.nd free-thinking, and this, in tum, furthered the fundamentalist reaction against rational or spiritual liberalization. The earliest symptoms of the disruption of the traditional order coincided with the approach of the Muslim millenium ( corresponding to 1590 A.D.). Its coming had long been anticipated with grave apprehension. Many expected the event to signal the end of

conl.e

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Breakdown of tbe Tmditional Order

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the world. The signs of disorder following the tum of the millenium confirmed such fears and produced a psychological state which lasted far beyond the event itself and hampered all ideas of reform or progress. These were looked upon as vain and doomed. In the seventeenth century, Turkey began to be exposed to the 1 earlv effects of the changes occurring in the Western economy, and contemporarv Turkish statesmen and writers were able to ·~~t\ note down the political symptoms of these effects upon basic \ ' institutions of the traditional orcler. 1 Unaware of the novelty of the new forces from which the influences originated, they made a series of recommendations for political reform. These invariably/ insisted upon the retention or the restoration of the traditionpi institutions.

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Most famous of these were Kavani'u-i Al-i Osman by Ayn-1 Ali written about 16o7, Risrile of Koc;i Bey written about I63o, Diistil1·-iil Amel bv IGtip of a national spirit.:! The new secular spirit manifested itself also in the sudden rise of an interest in secular learning. We may note at least two important developments in tllis connection: the tramlation of foreign works and the introduction of the printing press. As Gibb stated, the Grand Vizir [Sadrazam] encouraged letters by every means in his power. On at least two occasions he formed committees consisting of the most learned and accomplished men in Constantinople for the purpose of translating some of the great Arabian and Persian classics which had hitherto never appeared in a Turkish dress:1 a E. J. W. Gibb, A Histm·y of Ottoman Poet1·y (London, 1905), IV, 4, I 2-IJ. 4

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Ibid., IJ·

It is also reported that there were some Western works among the books to be translated. This is significant because, just a few years earlier, a Sevhul-Islilm had issued a -·fetva ~wainst endowino·h "' , .r b the library of a deceased Sadrazam because it contained boolZs (possibly some of them in European languages) dealing with astronomy, philosophy and history. 5 As the literature of the transition period represented a turn from Persianism, so this new scholarly interest marked a transition from interest in the religious to interest in the mundane; all of the books translated were on nonreligious subjects. We find examples of parallel trends in music and architecture. Oriental music found its characteristically Turkish forms of expression from this period to the end of the centurv. This music was an indispensable part of the literary revival desc~·ibed by Gibb and had essentially the same spirit. The main concern of earlier Turkish patrons of architecture had been to build mosques, buildings of religious endowments, and the like. The taste of the Tulip Era in architecmre showed itself in small palaces and pleasure houses (koflcs-the origin of the English word kiosk), pools, fountains, and gardens. A touch of French design was apparent in these. It was in tlus period that the first items of European furniture began to appear in the miniature palaces of the rich. \N e find other indications of the loosening of the traditional patterns of behaviour. One source of information in this respect is the chr01ucles of foreign observers. These writings abound in prejudices and errors in interpretation; their authors were not aware that they were observing symptoms of the disintegration of an older system, and they thus accepted what they saw as part of what they called the "Turkish character"; they presented their observations as a natural product of the Turkish or Muslim culture which, for them, was inherently "wicked." And yet, read with care, these sources show that there were unmistakable signs of a breakdown in traditional values. They depict this periotl as one of cynici5111, moral turpitude, selfishness, and materialism on the part of the higher classes. It was also a t.ime when moral restrictions among the common people were greatly relaxed. The coffee house, the tavern, and the brothel appear to have become established places of pleasure. The time was gone when even coffee drinking and coffee houses had been resisted severelv. Public houses were still repressed, but, none the less, they existe~l.

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'' Adnan-Acltvar, Osmmilz Tiir/.:lcrinde ilim (Istanbul, 1943), pp. 139 ff.

SILHOUETTE OF A RENAISSANCE

New J17 orldliness

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Other types of behaviour indicative of laxity in observing religious prohibitions appear to have been seen openly; for example, the rulers felt it necessary to issue fermans from time to time prohibit~ ing changes in women's attire and their appearance in public places. The foreign observers of the age were prone to pass harsh judgments on the people about whose history they knew so little. Sir James Porter, a relatively careful and fair observer, who describes with astounding frankness the immoral means used by the European diplomats and traders to obtain their aims and profits, makes a number of generalizations which, although incorrect, may be taken as indices of the decline of traditional values among the officials. 6 The following generalizations of a former Greek dragoman are too sweeping, but may be taken as indicative of striking features of the Turkish scene: Notwithstanding the great appearance of devotion amongst the Turks, the principle of whose religion is Deism, yet its very opposite, Atbeiwn, has generally prevailed of late years. Let this be a lesson for deists in Christian countries .... As no people on earth entertain snch doubts of their religion as the Turks do of theirs, it is not in the least surprising, that they have proceeded one step farther, and embraced Atheism. This fundamental error has penetrated the most private recesses of the Seraglio, and infected all parts of the empire .... We arc now to mark the decline of the empire .... All these circumstances seem to denote an approaching revolution in the Turkish system of religion and civil government, or a total subversion of the once formidable empire of the Ottomans. 7

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who lived in Turkey during 1716-I8 :md whose Letters on Turkey became classic in English

literature, says in one of her letters: The Turks are not so ignorant as we fancy them to be .... They have no more faith in the inspiration of Mahomet, than in the infallibility of the Pope. They make a frank profession of Deism

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Sir James Porter, Obscr11ations on tbe Religion, Law, Government and Manners of tl.>e Turks ... (md ed.; London. 177!), particularly

P· 7

among themselves, or to those they can trust; and never speak of their law but as of a political institution .... 8

All the above tend to show that there was an incipient crisis in moral life alongside the changing economic conditions, the declining military organization, and the transformation in administrative and political practices. The new interest in material life was in sharp contrast with the old Ottoman rigourism, which had been the dominant Ottoman ethos in the milita1y and religious zeal of the past. It was also in sharp contrast with another and rival tradition-mvsticism and unworldlv asceticism. The old moralitv was under the onslaught of new forces; it was proving itself inadequate to the challenge. Concomitant with the changes in the religiously oriented outlook there was an observable change in attitude toward the European, designated by the term Frenk. To call this a softening would be erroneous because one could argue readily that the attitude towards the European became more unfriendly from this period onward and that the relations between Turks and Europeans became increasingly bitter, especially as the latter became more widely identified as a factor of change in social life, or of economic impoverishment. The point that should be noticed here is that the European began to gain importance in the eyes not only of government officials, but also of the people. The European could no longer be ignored, or looked upon with contempt. Theretofore, the dealings of Muslims with Europeans were carried out only at the levels of warfare, diplomacy, and trade. Religion was the creator of the iron curtain which neither the necessities of common diplomatic interests nor the lures of commercial profit could remove. This curtain barred all exchange on a cultural level. The European resident in the Turkish territories did not provide an important vehicle of cultural contact. No Muslims resided in any European country, either for the purpose of carrying on trade or as diplomatic representatives. No need was felt to have permanent representatives at the European capitals although Western European nations had representatives of their trade companies and governments not only at the Turkish capital, but also in the major commercial towns. It was only in the eighteenth century that the Turks began to send special envoys to visit /

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12J.

Elias Habcsci, The P1"escnt State of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1784),

PP· 135-41·

B

"Original letter said to be wrote by L-y M-y W-t-y M-t-ge, from Constantinople to a Venetian nobleman, translated from the French," Annual Register, Year 1766 (London, 1767), pp. 216-18.

Recognizing the Necessity of Change

SILIIOUETTE OF A RENAISSAl'\CE

European countries. Also Europeans began to visit the Turkish territories in greater number and to enjoy greater freedom of movement.

30

Recognizing tbe Necessity of Change The earliest documentary clue to the realization that something new should be done comes from the year of the Treaty of Passarovitz, r7r8. It was a clear reaction to the tested and proven inadequacy of the traditional military institution in the face of the modern European military techniques already in usc by the Russians. The document is a record of a real or imaginary conversation between a Muslim and an unnamed "Christian officer." 0 The question put to the Christian was simple and direct: What is the reason for our defeats? The Christian's immediate response was: First of all, your failure to observe the prescriptions of the $eriat, and secondly, your ignorance of your traditional laws. He continued, however, to describe the decline of the old military organization and the nse of outmoded methods of warfare and concluded that it was mandatorv for the armv to be reformed and for new officers to be trained. Since the training of officers in modern sciences and techniques was a time-consuming process, it would be permissible temporarily to employ Christian oflicers. The Muslim conversant stopped agreeing with the Christian after the latter's introductory remark. The Muslim continually defended the traditional institutions against criticism. He frequently reaffirmed his conviction that, "perfection and truth arc on the side of the Muslims," an opinion which the Christian critic did not contradict. This document contained in embryonic form the whole eighteenth-centurv debate on refom1. The two convcrsants svmbol' ' ized the eighteenth-century reformer and the conservative or traditionalist. As the discussion indicates, the reformer had no doubt that there was anything amiss in the basic Islamic-Turkish economic, political, social, religious, and cultural institutions. He recognized only that new techniques of military art needed to be ~

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Pnhlishctl by F:1ik Rc5it: Unat:, "Ahmcr III Dcninc Air Bir isUhar Takriri," T,Jri/.J Vcsi!:,J!an, r, 1\:o. 2 (.\nbra, Aug. 19-fl)' !Oj-2 I' from Vol. III of rhc 1\ISS of "Vcbyinamc" by J\lchmcd Esad.

introduced. He perceived tllis to be a simple matter and not one implying widespread consequences. As we shall see later, the boldest pr~ject of reform produced during the eighteenth century, bv Ibrahim Mi.iteferrika, was nothing more than an elaborati~n this theme. The conservative, on the other hand, seems to have realized intuitively, as traditionalists everywhere and at all times apparently do, that even a seenlingly insignificant innovation would destroy the harmony of the whole. Hence, he onlv conceded tl1e desirability of polishing up tl1e traditional svsten~. We cannot help but be interested in the sources of inspiration for, a:;.d authors of, this document. A nineteenth-century historian says, It seems to have been written bv a foreign officer,"lo whereas an earlier chronicler presents it ~"a document written in the form of a discussion by certain thinking men and submitted to Sultan Ahmed III through the Sadrazam Ibrahim Pa~a."ll The document does not seem to have been written by a foreign observer. However, we can safely guess that it was inspired bv the re~ommendations of some European observers who happened to be m Turkey at the time. According to von Hammer, one of them was a French officer named De Rochefort who submitted to tl:e Ot:oman government in 17 17 a report entitled "Pro jet pour l'estabhssement d'une troupe d'ingenieurs au service de Ia Porte."12 Thi~ proje~t s~ems to have constituted the second part of a larger pro}ect wluch IS worthy of description because its basic ideas were revived some twenty-five years later. De Rochefort visited the Ottoman capital wi~h a group of French Protestants to seck the Turkish government?s permission to s~ttle a Huguenot colony in the European territories of the Emprre. In ord~r to show the reciprocal advantages of having such a colony a~tted to ~~rkey, he proposed certain undertakings for the economic and military benefit of tl1e country. He suggested

0;1

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Mustafa Pa~a (1824-89), Nctayic-iil Vukuat (Istanbul, 1879), III, 31. 11 Mehmed Esad (!785-1847), author of the three-volume chronicle "Vckayiname"; quoted by Unat, "Ahmct III," p. 107. 10

12 Joseph vo~ }-Jammer, I-Iistoire dc.J'EmfJ~1·~ ottoman, trans. J. J.

Hellen (~ailS, 1839), XV, 68. A letter (tlnd., 348-56) written to ~he Ausrnan Emperor concerning Count de Bonneval's activities m Turkey (cf. infra, pp. 47-48) gives some details of De Roeheforr'.s earl!e~ mission. It was written by one Chenier (probably Loms Chcmer, father of .the poet, Andre), apparently himself a Protestant and an acquamtance of De Rochefort. Chenier was the c!1ancellor to the ambassador of the Two Sicilies and an Austnan agent.

Recognizing the Necessity of Chtmge

SILHOUETfE OF A RENAISSANCE

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lll Cevdet Pa:;a,

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supplying the government with a corps of military technicians, and offered to instruct young Turks in modern military methods. De Rochefort pointed out that the best artisans and tradesmen were Protestants and that their skills would be useful in the economic recovery of the country. He argued that the raw materials as well as the wealth of the country were being stolen by EuropearlS. These Europeans, he claimed, manufactured the raw materials and sold them dearly in the Empire for cash, which was the reason why there was such a dearth of specie in Turkey. He proposed, therefore, that the Huguenot colonies manufacture the raw materials locally and thus increase the wealth of the country. De Rochefort attempted to consolidate his arguments by pointing out that the religion of the Protestants was closely akin to that of the Muslims and by saying that the Huguenots, persecuted by Catholic govermnents, looked hopefully to the reputedly tolerant Turks for succour and an opportunity to live and worship freely. Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about the De Rochefort mission, about its composition or its way of approaching the government. We are told, on the one hand, that the Turkish ministers found the military and economic proposals not dissimilar to what had been proposed in the Divan (the supreme council) and that the government considered the plan seriously. The project seems to have failed chiefly through the efforts of the French ambassador, the Marquis de Bonnac, in accordance with his government's policy of preventing the Huguenots from emigrating from France and settling in fo1·eign countries. On the other hand, probably no one at the time dared launch a military reform involving the employment of foreign military experts for fear of precipitating a revolt by the Yenic;:eri corps. 13 It is difficult to believe that there \Vas no connection between De Rochefort's "Projet" and the document in question. Probably the presence of the De Rochefort mission provided an occasion and suggested the conversarjonal device. There was a small group of Huguenots settled in Istanbul; but so far as external stimuli were concerned, there were in Turkey at the time other Europeans possessing a much higher stake in the militiuy adequacy of the Empire. Chief among these were Hungarians who had taken refuge in the course of their sn·ugglcs with the Habsburg emperors, the leading adversaries of the Turks, for their Catholic persecutions; unlike the other European residents ~md transients, these Cevdet Taribi (Istanbul, 1302), I, 98.

looked to the Turkish armies for offensive power. Among these was a convert to Islam, Ibrahim Miiteferrika, who was on the wav to becoming the most significant reformist of the period. It seerri's quite possible that the document was inspired, if not prepared, by Ibrahim, perhaps with encouragement from his former compatriots, for submittal to his patron, the Sadrazam Ibrahim Pa~a. H

33

Discovery of a New World Interest in Western civilization began to evince itself from the second decade of the eighteenth century among the educated classes. This interest, which went beyond a mere diplomatic limit, can be illustrated by the writings and behaviour of a prominent father and son. In view of what has been said about the growing relations between Turkey and France, it is not surprising that the first favourable report concerning the West came as a result of a visit to France by this pair. The Turkish government sent Mehmed Faizi, known as Yirmisekiz