Journal of Analytic Divinity (Dec 2017)
Efforts to Similarize Religious Groups During The Ottoman Reformation Age: Example of Tadkîk Al- Muallafat Commission
Abstract
In Ottomans, the efforts for modernization took place under external pressures trying to Westernize the dynamics of the state and society and internal difficulties presented by the historical adventure of Ottoman State. In particular, disposition of the Janizary-Bektashi spiral did not only led to significant changes and transformations in military terms, but also in religious and cultural aspects too. Rather than the insight traditions with a wide ontological and epistemological area with no borders, the state has preferred the Sunni/academic Islam which was in a more preferable condition in terms of legitimizing the secular pressures of reformation and the society was tried to be made religiously and culturally similar around it. This was done with policies limiting the faiths and minds of certain groups, trying to pull them towards academic Islam, rather than disposing those groups. These policies, also projecting to homogenise ulama and meshayeh, madrasa and monastery, started to take shape with Mahmood II, and continued in the following periods with variations. This report is about the activities of Tadkîk al-Muallafat Commission, one of the most obvious indicators of that period and established under the roof of Bâb al-Mashîhat.
