The Concept of ideal Muslim Commonwealth After the Novel French Letters by Ismail Gaspraly

Abstract

Ismail Gaspraly or Gasprinsky (1851-1914) was a prominent Turkish-Muslim thinker, educator, writer and publicist. He was the ideological leader of the Jadid movement for emancipation of Muslims in Imperial Russian and throughout the World. He believed that that social and cultural progress of peoples professing Islam is only possible while preserving the Muslim religion and spirituality, as well as the perception of the achievements of European science and technology. For Muslims of the Russian Empire he advocated not revolutionary but evolutionary way of modernization through the development of traditional Islamic education (creating of newspapers, new-method schools-madrasah), governmental enlightenment, solution of the women's question and moral renewal of society. In literary form he expressed his concept in the first modern Turkic novel Frenkistan Mektyupleri (“French Letters”).