The Rise of Muslim Collective Emotions in the Ottoman Empire during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century : 1850s through 1880s

Abstract

This paper aims at describing the ascent of Muslim collective emotions in the Ottoman Empire between 1850s and 1880s mostly based on secondary literature and thereby giving Korean academic audience general information regarding why the Ottoman reforms and the domestic and international situations of the time led to hostilities and violence, while reflecting the rapidly changing research trends of the Ottoman Studies field. Ottoman Muslims who felt they were becoming second-class citizens in their Muslim Empire by the promulgation of the reform edict (Islahat Fermani) of 1856, economic advancement of Christians, activities of Protestant missionaries and European powers’ increasing hostility, found expression of their sense of deprivation and identity crisis in the slogan of “unification of Islam” (Ittihad-i Islam) suggested by the Young Ottomans, such as Namik Kemal. Such collective emotions became more and more hostile toward Christians home and abroad through many unfortunate events such as ill-explained reform measures, coup attempts, violent riots and suppressions during the Tanzimat period (1839-1876). The Ottoman Muslims’ anger and frustration built up so much so that during the reign of Abdulhamid II, the sultan could promote his policy lines and political propaganda appealing to such Muslim sentiments. The Ottoman and Turkish self-consciousness as Muslims shaped under Abdulhamid II lasted long time, through the Young Turk Era and even in the Turkish Republic. This self-definition as Muslim nation tacitly supposed the enemy as “Christian,” based on the fact that the foreign enemies of the empire were all Christians and there were communications and resonance between them and Ottoman Christians. Although conflicts between Muslims and Christians in real life were not necessarily based on religious hostilities but were often provoked by local, economic, and diplomatic issues, but the problem was that with each new conflict and incident the mutual negative perception between Muslims and Christians accumulated and congealed. Such escalation of collective emotions resulted in repeated violence and tragedy, the culmination of which was the Armenian “Genocide” in Eastern Anatolia in 1915 in the middle of World War I. Although historical trauma cannot ever justify violence or massacre, it would be impossible to understand the inner structure of enormous tragic events of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century unless the context of historical experience that Ottoman Muslims underwent gets considered.