The Anglican Church Affair: A New Window on the Brief Rise and Fall of the Late Ottoman Islamists

Abstract

The Anglican Church Affair:A New Window on the Brief Rise and Fall of the Late Ottoman Islamists Andrew Hammond (bio) KEYWORDS Occupied Istanbul, Ottoman caliphate, Said Nursi, political Islam, Turkish war of independence On 21 December 1918, several weeks after the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, a letter from a civil servant of the British government's Charity Commission arrived at the office of the Grand Mufti in Istanbul with a special request: an authoritative book explaining Islam to the West, to be authored by a prominent personage, and placed in a special collection of the Anglican Church library. This book should address four questions: what is the religion of the Prophet, what is this religion's contribution to thought and life (fikir ve hayat), what is its solution to the various troubles of our times (zamanımızın mezahimi), and what does it have to say about the political and spiritual forces currently transforming the world for good or bad?1 No copy of the original English letter has been found in the Müftülük archives in Istanbul, in the Church of England archives, or among the private papers of the man who sent the letter, an English public intellectual by the name of Arthur Boutwood (1864–1924). Previously we only knew of Boutwood's name through Ottoman translations published separately in 1919 and 1923 by two members of the Darü'l-Hikmeti'l-İslamiye, the Islamic research academy that then Grand Mufti Haydarizade Ibrahim charged with providing a reply. Boutwood's book request was taken seriously by the Ottoman religious establishment for two reasons: it was misunderstood to have come from the head of the Anglican Church himself, and it came at the onset of the British occupation of Istanbul. After long deliberations over who should author the response, the Mufti chose the devout intellectual İzmirli İsmail Hakkı (1869–1946) [End Page 443] and from Boutwood's private papers held at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, we now know that sometime in 1920 Boutwood received a first section of Hakkı's planned book.2 However, not all members of the research academy were happy with acceding to the British request. Said Nursi (1877–1960), the religious scholar who was to become a seminal figure of Turkish republican Islam, saw it as an attempt by the occupying power to co-opt Muslim authorities. Though Nursi later stated in his Risale-i Nur compendium that he had refused any involvement from the outset, he provided a retort of sorts in a section of his 1920 pamphlet Rumuz (Signs) titled Bir Papaza Cevap (Response to a Priest). "A man tries to kill you, throwing you to the ground and putting his foot on your throat. Then he asks you contemptuously about your religion. The way to silence him is to go quiet in anger then spit in his face. 1. What is the religion of Muhammad? The Qur'an. 2. What did it give to thought and life? The unicity of God and guidance. 3. What is its cure for the troubles (mezahim)? Prevention of usury and obligatory alms (zekat). 4. What does it say about this turmoil (şu zelzele)? That man will be judged by his efforts, as will those who amass wealth [laysa li-l-insan illa ma saʿa wa-lladhina yaknizun al-dhahab]."3 There is some evidence in Boutwood's papers that appears to justify Nursi's concerns. In separate correspondence with academy member Eşref Efendizade Şevketi (1877–1934) in 1921, Boutwood seemed worried about how Istanbul would react to communist Russia. As working-class consciousness rises in the West, "Lenin has friends in every land" (Lenin'in her memlekette dostları var), he states.4 In letters to acquaintances in Britain, written in January and May 1921, Boutwood also hoped the Islam book would help change the views of Prime Minister Lloyd George, who was strongly pro-Greek in the divided British government during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. Boutwood wanted him to realize that the caliph was not a pope with authority in matters of faith, and thus Turkey's retention of the caliphate as well...