Muslim Modernism in Turkish: Assessing the Thought of Late Ottoman Intellectual Mehmed Akif

Abstract

Late Ottoman intellectual Mehmed Akif (1873–1936) was for decades depicted in Turkish public discourse in generic terms as an Islamist radical opposed to the secular nation state. Through Akif’s poetry, articles, translations, correspondence from his exile in Egypt, and biographical detail revealed in the scattered memoirs of students and colleagues, this article offers a reappraisal of his thought as a leading Muslim modernist who adapted the thinking of Egyptian religious scholar Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) to an Ottoman and then Turkish audience in the formulation of an early, prescient compromise between religion and nationalism. The article also notes remarkable similarities between Akif and Indian thinker Muḥammad Iqbāl (1877–1938), whom Akif was instrumental in introducing to Arab audiences, and suggests that, once political Islam had later gained currency across all fields of public life, Akif became an alternative to nationalist icon Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924) as an intellectual symbol of the republic.