Tercüman-i Hakikat, published between 1978-1921, was the longest running daily paper in the history of the Ottoman Empire, and Ahmet Midhat Efendi—its owner-editor till his death in 1912-- was an influential popularizer and disseminator of all sorts of materials, from theories of political economy to language reform to Darwinism. At the same time, he was a defender of Muslim beliefs and an advocate of the importance of religion in the creation and maintenance of the good society. All these activities earned him the sobriquet “First Teacher” in his day. This paper examines how Ahmet Midhat Efendi, through proscriptive works, apologia, and works of fiction, outlined in the pages of Terüman-i Hakikat the correct way to interpret and live out Islam while embracing what he viewed as economic, social, and technological “progress.” Despite not belonging to the ulema or having had high-level religious education, Ahmet Midhat unabashedly engage in religious discussion and debate in dozens of articles and hundreds of pages over the years, articulating a vision of a modern faith that was highly influential.

The late Ottoman intellectual world was substantially occupied with debating Islam---disputing the definition of religion, its value and function, and historicity. The debates are studied in this paper through the lens of Mustafa Sabri Efendi (1869-1954), a sheikh al-Islam (head of the religious establishment), politician, and journalist. While Sabri Efendi engaged in controversial debates throughout his life, the primary focus of this study is his essays published in the journal Beyanul Hak. As the editor-in-chief of the journal Beyanul Hak (Expression of Truth), Mustafa Sabri wrote between 1908 and 1912 a series of essays, under the master title of Matters of discussion about the religion of Islam (din-i Islam’da hedefi munakasa olan mesail), on polygyny, the veil, divorce, inheritance and charity, insurance and gambling, effort and capital, depiction, and music. Also under scrutiny is his two books: Musa Carullah Bigiyef’e Reddiye (the Refutation of Musa Jarullah Bigiyev) in which he rejected the well-known Muslim Tatar reformist Jarullah’s ideas about divine mercy and the terminableness of the hell for nonbelievers; and Dini Muceddidler (Religious Innovators) where he offered a broader critique of the advocacy of religious reform. Although Mustafa Sabri is acknowledged as a foremost conservative and traditionalist figure, his writings in this study are examined primarily to find out his method of reasoning rather than to present his thoughts. That is to disclose on what grounds he disputed with others about religious matters and what kinds of argument he deployed to defend his views. His writings, this paper argues, can be analyzed as his manifesto to teach Muslims how to think about religion, Islam in particular. Mustafa Sabri underlined the importance of logic and the deployment of both rational and traditional proofs (the Prophetic sayings and Quranic verses) in explaining religious matters. However he also denied the dominant thought that religion has to be reasonable, easy and useful, and harmonious with human nature. The debates M. Sabri had with others reflect the tension embedded in the formation of religious orthodoxy and reform. They reveal how particular ideas and practices come to be authorized as the proper way of thinking and living Islam in the face of existing past and present rival formulations, which is formed out of the challenge to distinguish between the essence and minimum thresholds of the religious tradition and that which is not exempt from change.

Popular scientific journals in the Ottoman Empire, which started to be published in the second half of the nineteenth century, have rarely been used as a source to capture attempts of religious reform. Instead, religious reform has been widely considered as a subject that was part of studies on reformist ulama. That predisposition against using popular scientific journals as a source for understanding religious transformation is further amplified inasmuch as the main goal of these journals – i.e. disseminating science – has long been seen as a ‘secularist’ endeavor naturally undermining religion. As a result of these two trends in Ottoman intellectual history, the highly complex social nature of religious reform has been limited to debates happened among experts of religion and their ‘progressivist’ critiques, meanwhile marginalizing popularizers. Rather unusually, in my paper, I used the famous journalist ?emsettin Sami’s popular scientific journal Hafta with the aim of understanding how popular attempts to disseminate modern sciences might have affected the process of transformation of religious imaginations about God, nature, and man. My research indicates that popular scientific journals like Hafta should not be categorized as merely science-promoting journals. By virtue of relying on religious symbolism and religious forms of justification of modern natural sciences, Hafta responded to a demand to envision religion in a modern way that would largely meet the needs of the middle classes concerning their existential sense of belonging, cultural and social identity, as well as an insuppressible appetite for technological and social progress. Regarding science and religion, Hafta provided a resolution that alternated between a deistic and natural theological view of nature. While modern natural sciences rendered nature transparent and demystified, Hafta tried to redefine the base of the sense of awe for the Creator within the boundaries of the scientific worldview. In this process, the journal constructed a popular language that related science and religion in a particular way. In short, along with disseminating modern natural sciences, Hafta also contributed to popular religious discourses, which were more open to elastic and eclectic resolutions than their expert counterparts. My research is a first step towards introducing Ottoman popular scientific journals not only as agents of ‘secular reforms’ but also as major providers of popular imaginations of religion in a modern world.

The Qajar period in Iran was a watershed in terms of intellectuals’ conceptions of the modern state, secularism, constitutionalism and the relationship of state and society. The gradual extension of state protection for religious minorities, developing notions of citizenship, and a newfound emphasis on the potential of pre-Islamic Iran as a template for a modern state, combined to fundamentally alter the status of Zoroastrians in Iran. State actions and nationalists’ focus on the pre-Islamic period accompanied the Zoroastrian community’s own burgeoning educational, institutional and religious reforms. Within one generation the Zoroastrian community went from living in rural isolation in the villages surrounding Yazd and Kerman to emerging as a prosperous, increasingly respected, and increasingly powerful minority in the capital. Kay Khosrow Shahrokh’s lifetime spanned these transformations. He was influenced by, participated in, and instigated many of the changes in Zoroastrian community organization and national political participation, as well as educational and religious reform. He was a man of his age. Shahrokh’s interest in religion went beyond that of championing minority legal rights against Islamic restrictions and local prejudices. In his memoirs he describes himself as a religious seeker. In his memoirs, Shahrokh testifies to an almost Deist conception of religion, one based firmly on the centrality of ethics and morality. Shahrokh accumulated the tools of religious inquiry, including English and Arabic, and took seriously his quest for understanding religion in a comparative framework. In addition to his study of Christianity, he read the Quran and learned the entire Avesta by heart. His time in Bombay and his important government positions in Tehran that sometimes required travel abroad put him in intimate contact with leading currents of religious thought. He was conversant with Zoroastrian religious debates in India, as well as with the larger field of religious studies in the West. Shahrokh understood modern religion to be defined by the following four characteristics: monotheism; the individual’s spiritual relationship with God; a de-emphasis on ritual and a corresponding re-emphasis on ethical behavior in society. This paper explores Shahrokh’s essays on religion, underlining in particular his conception of modern religion and its relationship to his understanding of the role of the citizen in the modern state.