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To my father who instilled in me the love of reading and language FROM DECLINE TO PROGRESS: OTTOMAN CONCEPTS OF REFORM 1600-1876 Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences of Ihsan Doğramacı Bilkent University by ALP EREN TOPAL In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IHSAN DOĞRAMACI BILKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA June 2017 ABSTRACT FROM DECLINE TO PROGRESS: OTTOMAN CONCEPTS OF REFORM 1600-1876 Topal, Alp Eren Ph.D., Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Asst. Prof. James Alexander June 2017 This dissertation aims to analyse the transformation of Ottoman reform debates from the late sixteenth century to 1876 when the first Ottoman constitution was promulgated, by tracing various concepts of reform used in different periods of. In chronological order these concepts are ıslah (reform) in seventeenth century, tecdîd (renewal) at the turn of nineteenth century, tanzîmât (reordering) in the period leading up to the Tanzimat and terakki (progress) during the late Tanzimat. Using the political writing produced by Ottoman bureaucrats (memoranda, treatises, chronicles, essays) and scribes, in each era I question how order is understood, how Ottoman decline is conceptualized, how tradition is reinvented and how innovation is justified. Through such questions, I seek to understand the logic of transformation in Ottoman political vocabulary accompanying the state transformation process and challenge some basic assumptions in the literature regarding Ottoman political language, Westernization and secularization. In my analysis I employ various revisionist approaches to the history of political thought mainly including Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptual history and contextualism of Cambridge School. Keywords: Conceptual History, Order, Ottoman Political Thought, Reform, Tradition v ÖZET İHTİLALDEN TERAKKİYE: OSMANLI’DA ISLAHAT KAVRAMLARI 1600-1876 Topal, Alp Eren Doktora, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. James Alexander Haziran 2017 Bu çalışma çerçevesinde, on altıncı yüzyılın sonlarından 1876’da ilk anayasanın ilanına kadar Osmanlı’da reform tartışmalarının dönüşümü, farklı dönemlerde kullanılan reforma dair kavramlar üzerinden analiz edilmektedir. Kronolojik sırayla bu kavramlar, on yedinci yüzyılda ıslâh, Nizam-ı Cedid döneminde tecdîd, Tanzimat ve son olarak da terakki kavramlarıdır. Özellikle Osmanlı bürokrat ve katipleri tarafından yazılan siyasi metinleri (risaleler, layihalar, kronikler ve makaleler) kullanarak, her dönemde, nizamın nasıl anlaşıldığı, çözülmenin ve çöküşün nasıl kavramsallaştırıldığı, geleneğin ne şekilde yeniden üretildiği ve yeniliğin nasıl meşrulaştırıldığı sorgulanmaktadır. Bu sorular aracılığıyla devletin dönüşüm sürecinde Osmanlı siyasi dilinin dönüşümünün nasıl bir mantık takip ettiğini anlamaya çalışırken bir yandan da Osmanlı siyasi kavramlarına, Batılılaşmaya ve sekülerleşmeye dair literatürdeki bazı temel varsayımları masaya yatırıyorum. Bu çalışma çerçevesinde yöntemsel olarak Reinhart Koselleck ve Cambridge ekolünün siyasi düşünce tarihine revizyonist yaklaşımlarından ilham alıyorum. Anahtar Kelimeler: Gelenek, Kavramlar Tarihi, Nizam, Osmanlı Siyasi Düşüncesi, Reform vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although I have written this dissertation myself, it is by no means my own; it owes as much to all those companions, professors and mentors I have had throughout my education and particularly through the five years I have spent on its preparation. I have been inspired and influenced by so many contributions and conversations that it feels like an impossible task to remember everyone and give them their due thanks. Nonetheless, I shall try. First and foremost, I should express my gratitude to my advisor James for agreeing to be my supervisor and standing by me for the whole process even though he knew almost nothing about the vast field of Ottoman intellectual history. What he lacked in the knowledge of the field, he has more than made up for in his deep insights into politics and art of writing. He was able to teach me a bit of his unique approach to politics and political thought in spite of all my stubborn and single-minded resistance to learning. Again, in spite of all that bad habbits, I like to think that I was able to receive part of his inspiring wisdom on how to think analytically, how to organize one’s ideas and how to write better. I was a lazy student but he was a patient mentor, and a fair and just judge, scolding me when I often did a sloppy job and praising my rare moments of effort. Members of my progress committee and my jury have been most helpful in making this five years easier, although I may have made it harder on them unintentionally. My initial co-advisor Akif Kireççi has indirectly led me to my research question when he suggested I work on the concept of irticâ, thus giving me the idea to work on terakki instead. He was always there to listen and offer advice. I would like to thank Berrak Burçak for her patience with my arrogance, and for her constant guidance in sources, and Oktay Özel for his recent contributions and invaluable vii comments on the final draft which definitely saved me serious embarrassment. Gültekin Yıldız and Nazan Çiçek had both inspired me with their work and I should thank them both for agreeing to become external examiners of this dissertation. Beyond this, Nazan Çiçek has supported my research from the moment I consulted her five years ago, shared all his dossiers on Young Ottoman publications graciously, and she has never stopped believing in me. Kudret Emiroğlu has introduced me to Ottoman script and Özer Ergenç has led all of us gently through the frightening experience of familiarizing ourselves with the language of Ottoman documents. I learned all I know about social theory from Nedim Karakayalı and Ilker Aytürk led me to Ziya Gökalp, on whom I ended up writing my first scholarly article. Alev Çınar has shared my insistence on looking at Turkish political thought differently and I cannot thank her enough for the excitement and eagerness with which she read and commented upon my work. As our former chair, she has also done all in her power to make our time at Bilkent easier. I could not express my gratitude to Einar Wigen for sharing my passion for Ottoman conceptual history. He walked the path before me and the countless hours we have spent discussing Ottoman and Turkish politics and pondering over sources and their meaning have contributed much to shaping the arguments in this dissertation. He graciously invited me to Oslo for a workshop and two years later we organized another one on Ottoman conceptual history. It is not often one finds a perfect collaborator in academic work, much less also a friend. Einar has been both; thank you my friend. This dissertation has been possible through a TUBITAK BIDEB scholarship for doctoral students and I have had the opportunity to spend 2014-2015 academic year at Basel University in Switzerland again thanks to a TUBITAK grant for research abroad. I am indebted to Maurus Reinkowski, who invited me to Basel and has done everything in his capacity to make me feel home while I was there, besides helping viii me with my work. My colleagues and friends at Middle Eastern Studies of Basel University on Maiengasse 51 have all been more than generous with their friendship and support, making gurbet infinitely bearable. I would like to mention particularly Alp Yenen, Anna Dipert, Ileana Moroni, Murat Kaya, Noureddin Wenger, Selen Etingü, Christian Krause, Natasa Miskovic, Hülya Canbolat-Taşcı, Saadet Türkmen, Lars Jervidalo, Sarah Khayati and Joel Laszlo. I fondly remember all those coffee breaks and sweet conversations we had in the small garden of the department. I should also mention Henning Sievert, who has not spared his hospitality in Zürich, and Reda Benkirane who presented me with an opportunity to talk about my research in Geneva. Bahar Rumelili literally helped change my life by inviting me to Koç University for research assistantship within the EU project FEUTURE towards the end of my research when I was unemployed. She has been particularly understanding and accommodating even when I skipped project work to focus on the dissertation. It was a great experience to work with Johanna Chovanec, Senem Aydın Düzgit and Barış Gülmez, our FEUTURE research team. I consider myself particularly lucky for ending up with amazing people. Without my friends and colleagues at Bilkent this would be a boring and lonely journey. So I thank you all, particularly Şengül Apari, Timur and Pınar Kaymaz (especially for for hosting me at their place so many times), Efe Savaş, Okan Doğan, Yusuf Avcı, Abdürrahim Özer, Erkam Sula, Talha Köseoğlu, Betül Akpınar, Koray Özuyar, Petra Cafnik Uludağ, Reyhan Güner, Christina Hammer, Gülsen Seven, Ayşenur Kılıç, Ömer Aslan, Ömer Fazlıoğlu, Ali Açıkgöz, Eda Bektaş, Çağkan Felek, Barış Alpertan, Uygar Altınok, Murat Özgen, Anıl Kahvecioğlu, Senem Yıldırım, Selin Akyüz, Duygu Ersoy and William Coker. Our department secretary Gül Ekren deserves special credit since she has saved our bottoms so many times, by warning us about the deadlines, procedures and requirements of the PhD process. ix Several other friends and colleagues have made my life infinitely more bearable and colourful during this process. Esat Arslan, one of the few real philosophers I have met, has singlehandedly changed my understanding of Islam and taught me more than I could ever thank him for. Selim Erdin, whom I am honoured to be friends with, has put up with all my antiques and never complained when I showed up at his door in Istanbul at odd times. Nida Nebahat Nalçacı, whose (com)passion for the oppressed of the Ottoman society is unique among historians, shared generously all she had and was there in some of my darkest moments. So was Elif Çelebi, who always listened and never complained when I treated her like my private shrink. Selim Karlıtekin has inspired me with his intellectual vigor, brilliant mind and unique humor.

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