Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

My dissertation, entitled “Science versus Religion: The Influence of European Materialism on Turkish Thought, 1860-1960,” is a radical re-evaluation of the history of secularization in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. I argue that European vulgar materialist ideas put forward by nineteenth-century intellectuals and scientists such as Ludwig Buchner (1824-1899), Karl Vogt (1817-1895) and Jacob Moleschott (1822-1893) affected how Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals thought about religion and society, ultimately paving the way for the radical reforms of Kemal Ataturk and the strict secularism of the early Turkish Republic in the 1930s. In my dissertation, I challenge traditional scholarly accounts of Turkish modernization, notably those of Bernard Lewis and Niyazi Berkes, which portray the process as a Manichean struggle between modernity and tradition resulting in a linear process of secularization. On the basis of extensive research in modern Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and Persian sources, I demonstrate that the ideas of such leading westernizing and secularizing thinkers as Munif Pasha (1830-1910), Besir Fuad (1852-1887) and Baha Tevfik (1884-1914) who were inspired by European materialism provoked spirited religious, philosophical and literary responses from such conservative anti-materialist thinkers as Sehbenderzade Ahmed Hilmi (1865-1914), Said Nursi (1873-1960) and Ahmed Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-1962). Whereas the westernizers argued for the adoption of western modernity in toto, their critics made a crucial distinction between the “material” and “spiritual” sides of western modernity. Although the critics were eager to adopt the material side of western modernity, including not only the military and economic structures but also the political structures of Europe, they had serious reservations when it came to adopting European ethics and secular European attitudes toward religion. The result was two different and competing approaches to modernity in Turkish intellectual (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carter V. Findley PhD (Committee Chair); Jane Hathaway PhD (Committee Member); Alan Beyerchen PhD (Committee Member); Douglas A. Wolfe PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; European History; History; Islamic Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Literature; Middle Eastern Studies; Near Eastern Studies; Religion; Religious History; Science Education; Science History; World History