2 - Ottoman Exiles

Summary

This chapter presents short biographies of Akif, Sabri, and Kevseri, describing the general lines of their thought, followed by sections looking at scholarship’s changing approach to their work, the role of Egypt as a site for intellectual discourse, and the particular engagement these three thinkers had with Ottoman, Turkish, and Arabic as modes of expression. In place of autobiography there exists a body of biographical sources in the form of their followers’ memoirs as well as letters, sermons, and photographs. Caveats apply when surveying this material: some of it is hagiographical, mistakes regarding events and dates are common, and much is left unsaid, possibly as a form of self-censorship. Still, there is a breadth of material to work with, and while there are likely more documents to be found among government records in Istanbul, Ankara, and Cairo, as well as letter caches, these are not historical figures to be recovered from the archive.