Here’s a fourth portion of an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:
In partial reaction, the Ottoman government attempted to establish “Ottomanism” as the legal basis of the empire—as reflected, for example, in the law of nationality and citizenship promulgated in 1869 and the Constitution of 1876. The related concept of hubb ül-vatan, “love of country” or patriotism, had already appeared in Turkish by 1841; thinkers connected with the Young Ottoman movement (formed in 1865) were promoting the “fatherland” (vatan; Arabic watan) and the Ottoman “nation.” Ottomanism, however, was somewhat ambivalent with regard to the weight to be placed upon Islamic faith as a component in individual, societal, and political identity. The new constitution also included a formal declaration that the “high Islamic caliphate” belonged to the Ottoman ruling house, thus staking a claim to universal Muslim authority. And the writings of Namik Kemal, the Young Ottomans’ intellectual leader, show interest neither in the history of Anatolia prior to the arrival of the Muslim Turks nor in the history of the Turks before their conversion. In fact, he seldom uses the word Turk at all. Instead, he emphasizes the term Ottoman, which, although it sometimes designates all of the sultan’s subjects, of whatever religion, often denotes only the sultan’s Muslim subjects.
Ottomanism was, in fact, incoherent, torn between particularistic loyalty to the multiethnic, multifaith empire as it was and a dream of Muslim unity similar to that which motivated the famous pan-Islamic activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897). Of course, despite his own public piety, al-Afghani himself seems to have been a natural-law deist and rationalist, and to have valued Islam primarily as a civilization rather than a religious faith. Clearly indicating that he recognized its power as a political force, however, he insisted on orthodox Islam for the masses.
Ottomanist ambivalence did not escape the non-Muslim minorities. Understanding that they were not, and could not be, incorporated into the empire as full equals, sharing a common culture, they could not truly be Ottoman patriots in the same sense that English, Spanish, or French patriots were loyal to a country and a unified nation-state. On the other hand, the separatist ethnic nationalism that had already arisen in the polyglot empires and small principalities of eastern and central Europe was fully available to them. Thus, when, in 1875, the Ottoman treasury declared insolvency, nationalist revolts broke out among the Christians of the Balkans, leading to bloody ethnic and religious confrontations. Responding, the European powers pressured Ottoman leadership to grant autonomy to Christians. And, in fact, the short-lived legislative assembly established by the Constitution of 1876 included deputies from all the peoples of the empire.
Posted from Ucluelet, British Columbia
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