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List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: On Politics
Chapter 3: The Nationalities Question
Chapter 4: Islam, Science and Modernity
Chapter 5: Women, Family, and Society
Chapter 6: Turkish Language Reform
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Summary
The Turkish journalist and intellectual Celal Nuri Ileri’s unique blend of advocacy for modernity and westernization with Turkish nationalism and Muslim reformism set him apart from his fellow “Young Turk” thinkers, politicians and publicists, all of whom sought to halt the decay of the Ottoman Empire in its competition with the European powers.
Although a supporter of the national resistance movement after World War I, his core beliefs about the need for a continued role for Islam in society, and maintenance of the Ottoman caliphate, were increasingly at odds with the secularist and Turkish-nationalist republic established by Mustafa Kemal and his circle from 1923. Here, in the first monograph in English on Celal Nuri, York Norman outlines and analyses his ideas and policies, from Nuri’s position on minorities, to women and family and Islamic reform.
Based on a broad range of primary and secondary sources, Norman reveals the prophetic qualities of and renewed interest in Nuri’s ideas after the rise of Islamist political movements in Turkey in the 1990s.
Additional text
"In this well-researched and nuanced assessment of Celal Nuri, York Norman draws a masterful portrait of one of the most original and prolific intellectuals of the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey, all the while offering fresh and incisive insights into the times and circumstances that shaped him."
