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Ideology and Religion in the Turkish Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Şerif A. Mardin
Şerif A. Mardin
Affiliation:
Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
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Extract

Much of the meaning we commonly attach to the term ‘revolution’ grows out of our image of the French Revolution.1 The social upheavals we associate with the latter have been deeply etched in the history of thought by Taine's accounts of bloodshed and terror, and later generations have only broken the spell with difficulty.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , July 1971 , pp. 197 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 197 note 1 For a recent treatment of revolutions see Chalmers, Johnson, Revolutionary Change (Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1966),Google Scholar from whom I take Arthur Bauer's definition of revolution: ‘Les révolutions sont les changements tentés ou réalisés par la force dans la constitution des sociétés.’ Also, Revolution, ed. Carl, J. Friedrich (New York: Atherton Press, 1969).Google Scholar

page 197 note 2 For Tocqueville, see Alexis, de Tocqueville, L'Ancien régime et la révolution, ed. Mayer, J. P. (Paris: Gallinard, 1967).Google Scholar

page 197 note 3 See Melvin, Richter, ‘Tocquevile's Contribution to Theory of Revolution’, in Revolution, ed. Friedrich, C. J., p. 81.Google Scholar

page 197 note 4 ibid. p. 82.

page 197 note 5 ibid. p. 83.

page 197 note 6 ibid. p. 84.

page 197 note 7 ibid. p. 83.

page 198 note 1 ibid. p. 84–5.

page 198 note 2 ibid. p. 82.

page 198 note 3 Carl, J. Friedrich, ‘An introductory Note on Revolution’, in Revolution, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 198 note 4 In Turkey there was no systematic disestablishment and banishment of an entire class of the ancien régime, a feature of the French Revolution which Tocqueville found highly objectionable. See Melvin, Richter, loc. cit. p. 83.Google Scholar

page 199 note 1 See Halit, Ziya Uşakligil, Saray ve Ötesi (Istanbul: Inkilâp ve Aka, 1965), pp. 55, 104, 110–11.Google Scholar

page 199 note 2 See George, V. Taylor, ‘Non-capitalist Wealth and the Origins of the French Revolution’, American Historical Review, vol. 72 (01, 1967), pp. 469–96. Especially page 495 on the Kaplow thesis.Google Scholar

page 200 note 1 Weber, Max, ‘Class, Status and Party’, Class, Status and Power: Social Stratification in Comparative Perspective, ed. Reinhard, Bendix and Seymour, Martin Lipset (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

page 200 note 2 See Halil, Inalcik, ‘The Nature of Traditional Society: Turkey’, Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, ed. Robert, E. Ward and Dankwart, A. Rustow (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 42–63.Google Scholar

page 200 note 3 See Şerif, Mardin, ‘Power, Civil Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History (06 1969), pp. 258–81.Google Scholar

page 200 note 4 Stanford, Shaw, ‘Some Aspects of the Aims and Achievements of the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Reformers’, in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century, ed. William, R. Polk and Richard, Chambers (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 32–5.Google Scholar Also Stanford, J. Shaw, ‘The Central Legislative Councils in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Reform Movement Before 1876’, IJMES, vol. 1 (1970), pp. 51–84.Google Scholar

page 200 note 5 See my Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, 1962), passim.Google Scholar

page 201 note 1 See Ed. [ouard] Engelhard, , La Turquie et la Tanzimat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1882). Especially on the military reforms of 1868–1869, vol. II, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

page 201 note 2 See Enver, Ziya Karal, Osmanli Tarihi VIII: Birinci Meşrutiyet ve Istibdat Devirleri 1876–1907 (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1962), pp. 383–401.Google Scholar

page 201 note 3 Richter, , op. cit. p. 87.Google Scholar

page 202 note 1 ibid. p. 82.

page 203 note 1 See Gibb, H. A. R., ‘The Evolution of Government in Early Islam’, in Studies in the Civilization of Islam, ed. Stanford, Shaw and William, Polk (London: Routledge, 1962), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

page 203 note 2 Raphael, Patai, Golden River to Golden Road (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), pp. 286–302.Google Scholar

page 203 note 3 Wittek, P., The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London: Luzac, 1958, first published 1938).Google Scholar

page 203 note 4 See Halil, Inalcik, ‘Kutadgu Bilig'de Türk ye Îran Siyaset Nazariye ve Gelenekleri’, in Reşid Rahmeti Arat Için (Ankara, 1966), p. 270.Google Scholar For the concept of ‘redistribution’ see Walter, C. Neale, ‘Reciprocity and Redistribution in the Indian Village’, in Trade and Market in the Early Empires, Economics in History and Theory, ed. by Karl, Polanyi, Conrad, M. Arensberg and Harry, W. Pearson (New York: Free Press, 1957), pp. 218–36.Google Scholar

page 203 note 5 See Gibb, H. A. R. and Harold, Bowen, Islamic Society and the West: A study of the impact of Western civilization on Moslem culture in the Near East, vol. I, Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century, Part ii (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 77, 102, 127, 138, 156, 183. Also ‘Ghazi’ EI2, vol. II, p. 1043.Google Scholar

page 203 note 6 See Ismail, Hüsrev [Tökin], Türkiye Köy Iktisadiyatz (Ankara, 1934), p. 163.Google Scholar

page 204 note 1 Mustafa, Akdaĝ, Celali Isyanlart (Ankara, 1963), p. 63. This system was replaced by that of secular administrative employees during the Tanzimat.Google Scholar

page 204 note 2 In the city the administrative link was the guild; see Gabriel, Baer, ‘The Administrative, Economic and Social Functions of Turkish Guilds’, IJMES, vol. 1 (01 1970), p. 33.Google Scholar

page 204 note 3 Mustafa, Akdaĝ, Celali Isyanlari, pp. 118, 150–1.Google Scholar

page 204 note 4 ibid..

page 204 note 5 Sabahattin, Selek, Millî Mücadele I: Anadolu Ihtilali (Istanbul, 1963), pp. 62–5, esp. p. 65.Google Scholar

page 204 note 6 ‘Yet the paradox remains of a government, generally apathetic, unprogressive, and careless of the welfare of its subjects, and often arbitrary and violent in its dealings with them, and a society upon whose institutions and activities such government had little or no effect. The explanation is to be found in the very lack of a complex, all-embracing political organization. As we have already suggested, we may visualize Moslem society as composed of two coexisting groups, the relations between which were for the most part formal and superficial. One group formed the governing class of soldiers and officials, the other the governed class of merchants, artisans, and cultivators. Each organized internally on independent lines and neither group interfered with the organization of the other in normal circumstances. From time immemorial the governing class had lived on a percentage of the produce of the land, supplemented by various duties on goods, and the social structure of the other class had accommodated itself to this situation’ (Gibb, and Bowen, , Islamic Society and the West, vol. 1, 1, p. 209).Google Scholar

page 205 note 1 ‘Another Egyptian (and perhaps Near Eastern) legacy is the tension between the local community and the central government. The village has fiercely resisted the advent of national or imperial authorities even where economic necessity has dictated it. Paralleling this tension has been a pervading difference in the pattern of social control between the periphery and the center. The village, especially in Egypt, is loosely structured, practically barren of formal controls and those it has have been administered informally by the umda, the notable or mayor. The central government, in contrast, has been highly organized and has claimed control (on either secular or religious grounds) over the most minute and private aspects of life, although usually in effect it has scarcely touched the local community. Thus, in the village authority has been wielded by the heads of the patriarchal families and by notables. The absence of formal, political controls, however, has had a curious concomitant: a tendency to ‘politicize’ interpersonal relations. Individuals tend to judge and assess one another in terms of social position and social power. The result is a pattern of ingratiation and manipulation which is political in motivation and effect but which proceeds on a level of interpersonal relations which virtually excludes concern with politics as a struggle for, and the exercise of formal governmental controls’ (Morroe, Berger, Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt (Princeton, N.J., 1957), pp. 17–18).Google Scholar

page 205 note 2 Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (New York: Free Press, paperback ed. 1969), p. 25.Google Scholar

page 205 note 3 ibid.. p. 303.

page 205 note 4 Turks were prepared for such a function in so far as their own polity gave very great importance to tribal law which no doubt had the same function in Central Asia. See Halil, Inalcik, op. cit. pp. 268–9.Google Scholar Weber distinguishes between two basic processes in the formation of ‘imperatively coordinated groups’; one he calls the political and the other the hierocratic (Max, Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization). Politicalassociations are based on the use of physical force, whereas hierocratic associations are based on the use of ‘psychic’ coercion and enforced by ‘psychic’ sanctions. Weber thought of these two principles as polar opposites or as alternative principles of organization. In terms of his terminology, then what we have in Islamic society is that the hierocratic works as part of political and not as an alternative to it. But although Weber allows us to name the processes connected with Islamic society, he does not indicate why they do take the special form that they assume here.Google Scholar

page 206 note 1 Reinhard, Bendix, ‘Social Stratification and the Political Community’, in Class Status and Power: Social Stratification in Comparative Perspective, op. cit. p. 82.Google Scholar

page 206 note 2 See Şevket, Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam (Istanbul, 1967, 5th printing), pp. 37–9, for a description of this integrative function.Google Scholar

page 206 note 3 This is the truest for the populations of towns and cities. Aydemir recounts how in the less-developed parts of Turkey many peasants could not even identify their religion. Many believed in obscure heterodox cults which were cut off from the main stream of Islamic culture in the empire (ibid.. p. 112).

page 207 note 1 For a much clearer form of this dichotomy, see Geliner, , Saints of the Atlas, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar I am not taking up the further problem of the bifurcation between urban and rural Islam described by Gellner in ibid.. pp. 7–8. A political theory transposing the legitimizing values of the lower classes into modem dress is that of Ali, Suavi; see my Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, 1962), pp. 365–84, esp. p. 384.Google Scholar

page 207 note 2 Some parallels to the Western quarrels between Church and State showed up in the Ottoman rivalry of the slave bureaucracy with the religious organization. But religion was both a more bureaucratic and a more popular institution than in the West. For the special characteristics of the Church in the West, see Reinhard, Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship: Studies of our changing social order (New York, London and Sydney: John Wiley, 1964), p. 34.Google Scholar Notice also, as Ernest Gellner points out that dervish Islam is much more liberal in its compromises with social structures than ‘central’ Islam, see Ernest, Geilner, Saints of the Atlas (London, 1969), p. 11.Google Scholar

page 207 note 3 For early development, see Gibb, and Bowen, , Islamic Society, vol. 2, p. 109.Google Scholar For a case study of a hoca (priest) as a small capitalist owning and operating a bus in the 1930s, see Reşat, Nuri Güntekin, Anadolu Notlari (Istanbul, 1965), pp. 37–42.Google Scholar

page 207 note 4 Not only modernists but the Sultan himself could show contempt for the ulema. On the occasion of a ceremony where homage was due to the Sultan Abdülmecid (1839–61), a Doctor of Islamic Law, the Minister of Public Instruction Vehbi Efendi kissed the Sultan's feet instead of the hem of his coat. ‘This is how it is done,’ said the Sultan, showing the edge of his frock. Turning to his ministers, he added after the man had retreated in confusion, ‘A fine imitation of a cleric’. See Cevdet, Paşa, Tezakir 1–12 (Ankara, 1953), p. 46.Google Scholar

page 208 note 1 Helmuth, von Moltke, Moltke'nin Türkiye Mektuplari, trans. Örs, H. (Istanbul, 1969), p. 282.Google Scholar

page 208 note 2 Fred, W. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries (Boston, 1964), pp. 267–72.Google Scholar

page 208 note 3 Around the turn of the century fights between boys of the Moslem quarters of Edirne and those of the Christian quarters were high-lighted by the same cries when Moslem boys charged their opponents (Aydemir, , Suyu Arayan Adam, p. 19).Google Scholar

page 209 note 1 This appears for example in Kamenka's argument: ‘The Indonesian rebellion against the Dutch was utterly different from the Jewish rebellion against the Romans; it was not merely a movement of national liberation from foreign masters, but a struggle for control over political, social and economic processes that were now recognized as the key to the future. In this sense, it seems to me, the movement of national liberation and the more or less peaceful transfer of power in Asian, African and Pacific countries have to be seen not only as revolutions, but as revolutions within the history of Europe, the transfer of social power from one governing class to a new class. It is only because Asia, Africa and the Pacific have entered the history of Europe that such true revolutions have become possible to them. It is because Turkey had entered the history of Europe that Kemal Pasha Atatürk's coup d'état aspired to become a revolution.’ See Eugene, Kamenka, ‘The Concept of a Political Revolution’, in Revolution, op. cit. p. 132.Google Scholar

page 209 note 2 See Clifford, Geertz, ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’, in Ideology and Discontent, ed. David, Apter (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), p. 67.Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 Richter, , ‘Tocqueville's Contribution…’, loc. cit. p. 80.Google Scholar

page 210 note 2 John, R. Gihis, ‘Political Decay and the European Revolutions 1789–1848’, World Politics, vol. 22 (04 1970), pp. 344–70.Google Scholar

page 210 note 3 See Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, I, 1, i, 492,Google Scholar cited by Runciman, W. G., Social Science and Political Theory (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 32–3.Google Scholar