In the last century of the Ottoman Empire, the answers to the question “how can the state be saved?” gathered into four intellectual movements: Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkism and Westernism. They did not arise as alternatives to one another; each gained ground when the problem its predecessor could not solve came to a head.
Four movements, four answers
| Movement | Core idea | Period of strength | Leading figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ottomanism | A common Ottoman citizenship regardless of religion or ethnic origin | Tanzimat to the First Constitutional Era (1839–1878) | Namık Kemal, Ziya Pasha, Midhat Pasha, Şinasi |
| Islamism | Uniting Muslim subjects around the caliphate | Reign of Abdulhamid II (1876–1909) | Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Said Halim Pasha, Eşref Edip |
| Turkism | National unity based on the Turkish element | After the Second Constitutional Era (1908–1918) | Ziya Gökalp, Yusuf Akçura, Ömer Seyfettin |
| Westernism | Modernising by adopting Western institutions and science | Tanzimat to the Republic | Abdullah Cevdet, Tevfik Fikret, Celal Nuri |
Ottomanism
Ottomanism aimed to gather all subjects of the empire under a single identity of Ottoman citizenship, without distinction of religion, language or race. The Tanzimat Edict of 1839 and the Reform Edict of 1856 were the legal steps of this idea; the Kanun-ı Esasî, proclaimed in 1876, is counted as its high point.
The movement’s strongest advocates were the Young Ottomans. We examine their world of ideas in who were the Young Ottomans?
Why did it weaken? The nationalist risings in the Balkans and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 showed that common citizenship could not stop separatist nationalism. The territorial losses of the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 effectively finished the movement.
Islamism
Once Ottomanism failed to hold the non-Muslim subjects, the idea of uniting the remaining Muslim population came to the fore. Islamism argued for using the sultan’s title of caliph as a political bond and making the empire the centre of the Islamic world.
Under Abdulhamid II this became deliberate policy: the Hejaz Railway was built, envoys were sent across the Islamic lands, and the emphasis on the caliphate was strengthened. We look at the debates of the period in the reign of Abdulhamid II: despotism or modernisation?
Why did it weaken? The call to jihad declared in the First World War drew far less response than expected, and the Arab Revolt that began in 1916 showed that the religious bond could not balance ethnic nationalism either.
Turkism
Turkism proposed relying on the largest and most loyal element the empire had left — the Turks. Yusuf Akçura’s essay Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset (“Three Kinds of Policy”), published in 1904, is the turning point: it compares the three movements and argues for Turkism.
Ziya Gökalp gave the movement a systematic frame: Turkish in culture, Islamic in morality, Western in civilisation. After the Second Constitutional Era, the Turkish Hearths and the journal Türk Yurdu became its centres.
What followed: once the empire dissolved, Turkism was the movement that prepared the road to the Republic’s understanding of the nation-state.
Westernism
Westernism was not a proposal about identity but about method: the cure for backwardness is to adopt the science, law and institutions of the West. That is why it could coexist with the other three — an Islamist or a Turkist could be partly a Westernist as well.
The movement split internally. Moderate Westernists argued for taking only technical and institutional innovations, while the full Westernists represented by Abdullah Cevdet held that cultural transformation was required too.
The most concrete product of Westernism is the Tanzimat reforms; we take up the beginning of that process in what was the Tanzimat Edict?
The movements in chronological order
- Ottomanism — state policy from the Tanzimat onwards; strongest between 1839 and 1878.
- Islamism — after the 1877–78 war and the Treaty of Berlin, above all 1878–1908.
- Turkism — theorised from 1904, dominant after 1908.
- Westernism — ran in parallel with the others from the Tanzimat to the Republic.
This order does not mean one movement ended as the next began. All three were being argued out on the same newspaper pages during the Second Constitutional Era; what changed was which of them shaped state policy.
Frequently asked questions
How many intellectual movements were there in the Ottoman Empire?
Textbooks count four main movements: Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkism and Westernism. Narrower currents such as decentralism can be added to these.
Which movement appeared first?
Ottomanism. It was the first to become state policy, with the Tanzimat Edict.
What is Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset?
An essay written by Yusuf Akçura in 1904. It compares Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism and argues that the workable option is Turkism.
Why did the movements follow one another?
Each came to the fore after a loss its predecessor could not prevent: Islamism gained ground once the non-Muslim subjects separated, and Turkism once the Arab provinces were lost.
Sources
- Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought.
- Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey.
- Yusuf Akçura, Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset.
- Erik Jan Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History.
- TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam (DİA), entries “Osmanlıcılık”, “İslamcılık”, “Türkçülük”.
