Abdullah Cevdet

Abdullah Cevdet (also spelled "Djewdet" in some sources) (1869–1932) was an Ottoman Turkish intellectual of Kurdish origin and a medical doctor by profession. He was also a poet, translator, radical free-thinker and an ideologist of the Young Turks who led the Westernization movement in the Ottoman Empire from 1908 until 1918.

Cevdet was influenced by materialistic philosophies of the West and antagonistic towards institutionalized religion. He published articles on socio-religious, political, economic and literary issues in the periodical "İctihad," which he founded in 1904 in Geneva and used to promote his modernist thoughts and enlighten the Muslim masses. He was arrested and expelled from his country several times due to his political activities and lived in Europe (e.g. London, Paris).

The overall goal of Young Turks such as Cevdet was to bring to end the despotic regime of Sultan Abdülhamid II. For this purpose Cevdet and 4 other medical students at the Military Medical Academy in Istanbul founded the secret "Committee of Union and Progress" (CUP) in 1889. Initially with no political agenda, it became politicized by several leaders and factions and mounted a revolution against Abdülhamid in 1908. However, Abdullah Cevdet was not politically involved in the CUP but promoted his secular ideas until his death.

He was tried a few times because some of his writings were considered as blasphemy against Islam and the prophet Muhammad. For this reason he was labelled as the "eternal enemy of Islam" (Süssheim, EI) and called "Aduvullah" (the enemy of God). Probably his most famous court case was due to his praising the Bahá'í Faith in his article in "Ictihad," 1 March 1922. Abdullah Cevdet was one of the intellectuals who influenced Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in his reforms of secularization in Turkey.

References

* Karl Süssheim, “Abd Allah Djewdet’, Encyclopedia of Islam (EI1; Supplement), Leiden/Leipzig, 1938, 55–60.
* Şerif Mardin, [http://www.iletisim.com.tr/iletisim/book.aspx?bid=267 Jön Türklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, 1895–1908] , Istanbul 1964 (1992), 221–50.
* idem, Continuity and Change in the Ideas of the Young Turks, expanded text of a lecture given at the School of Business Administration and Economics Robert College, 1969, 13–27.
* Frank W. Creel, The program and ideology of Dr. Abdullah Cevdet: a study of the origins of Kemalism in Turkey (unpublished PhD thesis), The University of Chicago, 1978.
* M. Sukru Hanioglu, Bir siyasal düşünür olarak Doktor Abdullah Cevdet ve Dönemi, Istanbul, 1981.
* idem, Bir siyasal örgüt olarak Osmanlı Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ve Jon Türklük, Istanbul, 1986.
* idem, [http://www.amazon.com/Opposition-Studies-Middle-Eastern-History/dp/0195091159 The Young Turks in Opposition] , Oxford University Press, 1995.
* Necati Alkan, [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=BSO&volumeId=68&issueId=01 "The eternal enemy of Islam: Abdullah Cevdet and the Baha'i Religion"] , Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 68:1, 2005, 1-20.