Polygamy and Religious Polemics in the Late Ottoman Empire: Fatma Aliye and Mahmud Es‘ad’s Ta‘addüd-i Zevcât’a Zeyl

Abstract

Although Ottomans accepted polygamy according to the tenets of Hanafi Islamic law, they argued over its social and legal aspects throughout the classical period. In the late 19th century these debates became explicitly connected to contemporary political events. Authors supported or opposed polygamy by referencing marriage and divorce rates in Europe, Protestant missionary activity in Africa, and their belief in the civilizational superiority of the Islamic world over the West. Polygamy was not only contested through modern politics. It was also discussed in light of the genre of Muslim religious polemics. In 1898 three modernist authors debated these issues in the journal Malûmât: Fatma Âliye, legal scholar Mahmud Es‘ad and Russian Muslim educator and reformer Ismail Gasprinskii. Their correspondence, entitled Ta‘addüd-i Zevcât’a Zeyl, deliberated polygamy with regarded to modernist political reform, European colonialism, capitulation agreements, and international trade. They also used arguments from anti-Christian religious polemics. By arguing these issues within the integrated field of religion, these authors used a Hamidian-era discourse describing an Islam compatible with Ottoman notions of modernity.

Keywords

• osmanlı tarihi
• poligami
• fatma aliye
• mahmud esad
• taaddüd-i zevcat zeyli