Modern Islam and Reform in the Late Ottoman Empire

Abstract

Abstract This chapter is a selective survey of Islam in the late Ottoman Empire with a particular focus on Islamic modernism in Istanbul. It covers a couple of views of reform, the new Muslim press, and reforms of the Meșîhat (the office of the şeyhülislam) and medreses (institutions of Islamic learning). Some of the contours of modern Islam emerge, such as the emphasis on institutions, the engagement with the public, and the impact of the West. Islam provided an important source of legitimization in the earlier and later periods of the empire, but changing global and domestic politics changed the state’s relationship to Islamic institutions. In order to examine some of the changes related to Islam in the late Ottoman period, this chapter focuses on Istanbul because of the central role it played in the religious landscape. In addition to its limited geographic focus, this chapter only looks at modernism—just one of several facets of modern Islam.