In fact...

In fact, we find the first manifestations of an interest in philosophical thinking in literary publications in the middle of the thirteenth/nineteenth century. These were occasioned by the acquaintance of the Turkish intellectuals with the European philosophy of Enlightenment. Thinkers like Fenelon, Bayle, Newton, d’Alembert, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Volney became known, and full or partial translations of their works began to be made.

The philosophical manifestation of the new mode of thinking and con­tacts with the European philosophy were seen in the rise of interest in two philosophical tendencies. One was scientism and materialism, the other the philosophy of natural rights and social contract. We find the first expressed by a former member of the ‘ ulama ’ corps, Tahsin Hoca, and the second by Namik Kemal, one of the leaders of the constitutional movement in Turkey. Neither, however, can be called genuine philosophy.

The first was a kind of creed, an expression of revolt against old ideas. Its exponents, far from being the founders of a philosophical tradition, were viewed as eccentrics or atheists. The second served as an ideological instrument in proving the necessity of a constitutional government in Islam. However, even that meant great progress and an unmistakable sign of the liberation of mind from tradition.

A severe reaction against both came with the establishment of what was known as Abd al-Hamid’s regime. Both materialism and the theory of natural rights and social contract were declared incompatible with Islam and dangerous to morality, and were severely suppressed. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani's Refuta­tion of the Materialists did a great service in the suppression of these ideas under the Hamidian regime.

Presented personally by the author to Abd al-Hamid, this work served as a model for several books written to refute the naturalists, materialists, constitutionalists - in short, all the manifestations of philosophical revolt against traditional obscurantism. Neither Afghani nor his Turkish imitators, however, left any philosophical tradition of their own to take the place of those rejected.

Furthermore, the suppression of Western materialism failed to stop the infil­tration of European philosophical thinking, this time in a subversive manner.