The final decades of the Ottoman empire witnessed a furious debate among intellectuals and religious scholars over the place of Islam in modern society and its role in any in the state's demise relative to the strength of European powers. The victory of Kemalist secular nationalism seems to have been responsible for a tendency among historians to marginalize Islamic thought at this time, despite its importance for the emergence of the Turkish Islamist movement decades later and the evolution of political Islam more broadly. I review here some of the key figures, the debates they engaged in, and the implications for how we think of Islam and secularism modernity.
About the Speaker
Andrew Hammond is Senior Lecturer in Islamic and Middle East Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is the author of the Late Ottoman Origins of Modern Islamic Thought (2022), Popular Culture in North Africa and the Middle East (2017) and The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia (2012). He has published in journals including the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Die Welt des Islams, International Journal of Middle East Studies, and Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. His work looks at early Islam, Late Ottoman Islam, modern Islamic thought, Salafism, and Arabic media.
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies