Middle Eastern Studies
ISSN: 0026-3206 (Print) 1743-7881 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmes20
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
Ahmet Serdar Akturk
To cite this article: Ahmet Serdar Akturk (2010) Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography,
Middle Eastern Studies, 46:5, 633-653, DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2010.504553
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2010.504553
Published online: 06 Sep 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 267
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fmes20
Download by: [Yalova Universitesi]
Date: 20 September 2016, At: 04:31
Middle Eastern Studies,
Vol. 46, No. 5, 633–653, September 2010
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish
Historiography
AHMET SERDAR AKTURK
Arabs occupy a special place in the Turkish national imagination as they are closely
identified with Islam. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), the founder of the
modern Turkish republic, intended to construct a new secular Turkish national
identity free from all religious connotations of the Ottoman-Islamic past. Thus,
examining the treatment of Arabs and Islam in Kemalist Turkish historiography
could tell us much about the new Turkish identity shaped within the context of the
Kemalist nation-state building process of the 1930s. I will argue that examining the
official publications other than the Kemalist history textbooks of the 1930s along
with those textbooks indicates that the image of Arabs and Islam is not as coherent
as it has been presented by the existing scholarship. In Kemalist Turkish historical
writings we see multiple and diverse depictions of Arabs and Islam rather than a
single and consistent one.
Turkish nationalism had two distinctive forms in the 1920s and in the 1930s. When
the Turkish Republic was founded on 29 October 1923, the initial form of Turkish
nationalism was a territorial nationalism. In other words, all the people living in
Turkey were considered Turks. Even non-Arab Muslim communities living in exOttoman territories were welcome to live in Turkey. Soner Çagaptay indicates that
this flexible definition of Turkish nationalism following the foundation of the
Turkish republic gave way to a narrower one in the 1930s, ‘the High Kemalist Era’,
when ethnicity became a defining element of Turkish national discourse. This
reorientation of Turkish nationalism into an ethnic one coincides with strong oneparty governments in Europe following the 1929 global economic crisis. In that
context, the Turkish state, tightly controlled by the Kemalist Republican People’s
Party, stressed the Turkishness of the people of Turkey in the past and in the present.
The quality of the Turkish race was praised through historical, archaeological and
anthropological research.1 The other basic tenet of the Kemalist Turkish state,
secularism, had already taken shape by the 1930s. By the late 1920s, Mustafa Kemal
(Atatürk) gave up the religious rhetoric through which he had mobilized the
Anatolian population for the Turkish War of Independence.2 As a part of his topdown modernization project, the new Turkish state abolished the Caliphate,
secularized the institutions of law and education, and outlawed the popular dervish
ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/10/050633-21 ª 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2010.504553
634
A.S. Akturk
orders.3 The goal was to end the role of religion in the public sphere. Thus, under the
tight control of a one-party state, Turkey was facing a nationalist and secularist
cultural transformation in the 1930s.4
Atatürk was aware of the power of history-writing to legitimize what he had
already achieved and to create a new vision for the future generations of Turkey. He
encouraged and directed the writing of a new version of Turkish history as a part of
his modernization project. Teaching national history, without much emphasis on the
recent Ottoman-Islamic past and with a strong emphasis on pre-Islamic history, was
seen as a necessary step to make Turkey a modern nation-state.5 For this purpose,
the Kemalist state founded institutions such as the Turkish Historical Society (15
April 1931); the Turkish Language Society (12 July 1932);6 and the Faculty of
Language, History, and Geography of Ankara University (14 June 1935). The
underlying motive for re-writing history was to secularize and nationalize the past.
Turkish ‘patriot scholars’ created the Turkish history thesis, a Kemalist metanarrative to prove the importance of the Turkish race in world history. This was a
necessary step because European scholars had presented Turks as a secondary race
within their racial scheme. Turkish people, indeed, were the members of a
brachycephalic7 race and the descendants of the founders of the Iraqi, Anatolian,
Egyptian and Aegean civilizations.8
Scholars employed directly by the Kemalist state formalized the Turkish history
thesis in elementary textbooks in the early 1930s. Later they elaborated it with
‘scientific’ research and evidence and presented it to the public through a series of
historical congresses. In 1929–30, historians from the Turkish Historical Society
wrote Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları, the first history book based on the Turkish history
thesis.9 This book was not approved, as Büşra Ersanlı indicates, because of the
weakness of its presentation of the thesis. In 1931, the Ministry of Education
published an abridged edition of the book. In the same year, they published a fourvolume history textbook for high schools and a three-volume condensed edition for
secondary schools. These textbooks would be used for the following two decades to
teach children the role the Turkish race played as one of the primary movers of
history.10
In order to elaborate and validate the Turkish thesis presented in the textbooks,
the Ministry of National Education and Turkish Historical Society organized
historical congresses in 1932 and 1937. Since there was an urgent need for teaching
tools, the scholarly debate over the thesis began after the product of the thesis, the
textbooks, had already been published. In the First Historical Congress, held in
1932, some scholars timidly criticized several aspects of the Turkish history thesis.
However, in the Second Congress in 1937, opposition was silenced and the thesis was
accepted as a validated truth. Turkish scholars presented their research in which they
applied anthropological, archaeological and linguistic methods to prove the
influence of the Turkish people on the great world civilizations. Besides Turkish
scholars and high school professors, European scholars11 attended the Second
Historical Congress to present their findings supporting the thesis.12
The Kemalist state was also determined to modernize the Turkish language. The
first step was to replace Arabic letters with the Latin alphabet in 1928. In 1932, the
Society for the Study of the Turkish Language (later the Turkish Language Society)
was established. The second step to reform the Turkish language was purifying
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
635
Turkish by purging all Arabic and Persian vocabulary and grammar rules. Between
1932 and 1935 linguists tried to eliminate all foreign words and replace them with
pure Turkish words. However, purification of language through the elimination of
the Arabic and Persian words used for centuries created a linguistic instability. Thus,
in order to solve this problem, at the Second Historical Congress linguists presented
the Sun Language theory. According to this theory all languages derived from one
ancient language, spoken in Central Asia. Turkish was the closest of all languages to
this origin, thus it was the mother of all languages in accordance with the Turkish
history thesis. If all languages originated with Turkish, there was no need to
eliminate words with Arabic or Persian origin after all.13
Considering the nationalist and secularist rhetoric of Kemalist Turkish
nationalism in the 1930s, one can say that the depiction of Arabs and of Islam
constituted an important place within new secular and national historiography. So
far only Etienne Copeaux has made a lengthy analysis of the image of Arabs and
Islam in Turkish historiography. Copeaux dedicates a chapter to the topic in his
Espaces et temps de la nation Turque: Analyse d’une historiographie nationaliste,
1931–199314 which examines the evolution of Turkish historiography from the 1930s
to the 1990s. He cites only textbooks and does not refer to other sources, arguing
that school discourse (discours scolaire) and nationalist discourse (discours
nationaliste) are repetitive.15 However, a broader examination of Turkish
historiography of the 1930s which would include official scholarly journals, the
proceedings of the conferences organized by the Kemalist state, and official history
textbooks, give us a more complex image of Arabs and Islam than has been
previously considered. The multiplicity of their depiction in the official Turkish
historiography can be understood through reading and analyzing these different
texts rather than only focusing on the textbooks.
I have examined a body of official publications including textbooks, scholarly
books, journals, and published conference presentations from the 1930s and 1940s.
The textbooks include Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları (1930); its abridged edition, Türk
Tarihinin Ana Hatları-Methal Kısmı (1931); a four-volume high school level history
textbook, Tarih I: Tarihtenevelki Zamanlar ve Eski Zamanlar (1931); Tarih II:
Ortazamanlar (1931); Tarih III: Yeni ve Yakın Zamanlar (1933); Tarih IV: Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti (1931); and two volumes of a three-volume secondary school level
_
_
history textbook, Ortamektep Için
Tarih I (1938); Ortamektep Için
Tarih II (1936).
Along with these textbooks, Türk Tarih Kurumu Belleten, the journal of Turkish
Historical Society (issues from the 1930s and 1940s); Türk Dil Kurumu Türk Dili
Belleten, the journal of the Turkish Language Society (issues from 1930s and 1940s);
and Ülkü, the journal of Turkish Hearts (issues from the 1930s and 1940s) are used in
this study. Moreover, I have also examined the proceedings of the first two history
congresses, and the third language congress in which the Sun Language theory was
elaborated which were published under the titles: Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi:
_
Konferans ve Müzakere Zabıtları (1932); Ikinci
Türk Tarih Kongresi: Istanbul, 20–25
Eylül 1937, Kongrenin Çalışmaları, Kongreye Sunulan Tebli
gler (1943); Türk Dil
Kurumu Üçüncü Türk Dil Kurultayı, 1936: Tezler, Müzakere Zabıtları (1937). Lastly,
this study cites a very important book by Naim Hazım Onat, Arapçanın Türk Diliyle
Kuruluşu (1944), which is about the ‘Turkish sources of Arabic’. These sources
include important information about the Arabs.
636
A.S. Akturk
These publications, conveying the official history thesis, yield insights on official
perceptions of Arabs, their customs and culture. Thus, I first investigate how the
official publications depict the Arabs as a people, and also cover the treatment of
Arab history through the career and death of the Prophet Muhammad. Then I
examine how Kemalist historiography presents the problematic relations of the
Turks and the Arabs from the time of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632–660) until the
Ottoman Empire (founded in 1299), which according to the books and journals
starts with ‘a bloody encounter’ and then takes the form of ‘Turkish domination in
the Islamic world’. In this context, we see the Turks as the main actors in Islamic
statecraft, military achievements, culture, and civilization. Next, I look at the
depiction of Arabs under Ottoman domain: the Ottoman conquest of the Arab
lands, Arab nationalism, the Caliphate issue, and the Arabs’ ‘betrayal’ of the Turks
in the First World War. Finally I deal with the justification for abandoning the
Arabic alphabet, numerals and calendar as a part of Turkish modernization reforms.
This final part introduces an example of the Sun Language theory, that is ‘the
foundation of Arabic language by Turkish’.
Kemalist sources portray Arabs and their culture as primitive, archaic, and
backward. The main factors behind that backwardness, according to these
publications, were the geography and the climate of Arabia. The Arabs’ nomadic
lifestyle is emphasized and the deserts are shown as if they were their only social
landscape. Moreover, based on their diet, a very strange image of the Arab
emerges.16 For example in a high school textbook, Tarih II, Arabs are defined thus:
‘The rough climate and environment of Arabia preserved and continued the
primitiveness in the life and traditions of those nomads. The Bedouins live in tents.
They make a living with milk, boiled and pounded wheat, and, in places where they
are available, with dates, barley bread, and bread baked in ash. They also eat lizards
and grasshoppers.’17 Without ignoring exceptional areas like Yemen, another
textbook explains the vulnerability of the Arabs due to the climate of Arabia in this
way: ‘In the Arabian deserts, sometimes, a kind of wind called simoom18 blows and
Arabs are very much afraid of that wind. When a simoom starts to blow, the sand on
the ground arises into the air, and they are swept far away in the form of big waves.
Sand waves take a form that can choke people and animals.’19
In terms of social organizations, Turkish historiography focuses on tribal life as
the only binding tie among the Arabs who, according to the historians, always
quarrel among themselves.20 Moreover, according to Turkish historiography, unlike
the Turks Arabs do not like order and are not good at establishing states. Türk
Tarihinin Ana Hatları expresses this ‘fact’ by juxtaposing the Turks with the Arabs
and Persians: ‘The Turks do not like anarchy; they have always wanted order and
stability wherever they lived21 . . . The Arabs and Persians, however, liked to live in
endless quarrels within the Islamic world.’22 As for religious life, Turkish
historiography depicts the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period as a people who were
indifferent and disrespectful to their idols. Tarih II explains the situation as follows:
‘Arabs, especially the bedouin, were indifferent to and mockers of religion. In a
fearless way, they swore to their idols and stoned them when they got angry.’23 Thus
the textbook implies a connection between civilization and respect to religion.
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
637
Considering the secular emphasis of Kemalist Turkish nationalism, this point is very
significant.
Etienne Copeaux, taking his examples from the textbooks, says even though the
Arabs were caricatured in the Turkish books, as the examples above prove, we
cannot find extremely offensive statements about them.24 However, negative
representation of Arabs goes beyond caricaturization in sources other than
textbooks. Miraç Katırcıo
glu’s article in Ülkü, in which he harshly criticizes ‘the
Arab mind’, can be an example of a negative portrayal of the Arabs which is hard to
find in the textbooks of the 1930s. He says ‘The Semite, who does not have a
scientific brain . . . is ambitious . . . Religion, for both the Arabs and the Jews, is the
foundation of the state, the essence of the military, and the law of invasion. Semites
think that they would be destroyed without religion. Actually, they do not have faith
in God. They have faith in Allah, who is a bigger form of a Semitic totem.’25 One can
ask how representative Katırcıo
glu’s ideas were for Kemalist historiography. I think
since his ideas about Arabs were published in an official journal, they were, then,
acceptable to the Kemalist elite.
Even though, as Etienne Copeaux indicates,26 Kemalist Turkish historiography
never provides the Arabs with a Turkish origin, a textbook explains Turkish
influence on Arabs through the Sumerians whom, the textbooks claim, were Turkish
in origin: ‘The majority of Arabia was subject to Sumer in ancient times (2600–2800
BC) . . . Even after the end of the Sumerian state, the influence of Sumerian
civilization continued through tribes that moved to Yemen from Mesopotamia, and
through Babylon, which succeeded Sumer.’27 However, in sources other than
textbooks we can find implications of the affinity between the Arabs and the Turks
_
beyond the interaction between them. At the Second Historical Congress, Ismail
_
Hakkı Izmirli,
a professor of Islamic Studies at Istanbul University, asserted: ‘the
tribes of Avs and Hazrec came from Mesopotamia, the land of Sumer, to Yemen
where the Sumerian civilization had already spread, and from there they migrated to
Medina. Since Turkish culture was observed among them, they were supposed to be
Turks. The word Avs may have been arabized from us or uz, and the word Hazrec
may have been arabized from Hazer.’28 This statement by a Kemalist historian
implies a close connection between the Arabs and the Turks.
Furthermore, Turkish historiography regards the Prophet Muhammad as a
reformer and his religion as a reform movement for the primitive and backward preIslamic Arabs. The textbook Tarih II describes it in this way: ‘Muhammad did not
appear suddenly by declaring himself as the prophet of God. He had understood that
Arabs’ morals and traditions were very bad and primitive and they needed
reformation. . . . Muhammad was honourable and came out without any benefit for
himself. His intention was to reform the morality, religion and social life of his
environment.’29 As a secular tendency, Kemalist Turkish historiography leaves a
distance between itself and the prophet of Islam by presenting him as ‘a social
reformer’ for the people of the Arabia rather than a person with a divine mission.
In his book, Etienne Copeaux explains the secular attitude towards the Prophet
Muhammad which was expressed in textbooks from the 1930s. He compares the
textbooks under the influence of the Turkish history thesis with those written after
1945 under the influence of the newer Turk-Islam synthesis, a Turkish nationalistic
movement with religious connotations. After 1945 textbooks began to use the
638
A.S. Akturk
Turkish honorific title ‘Hazret’ before the name of the Prophet Muhammad, and he
was referred to as ‘Our Prophet (Peygamberimiz)’ rather than the simpler ‘Prophet
(Peygamber)’ which had been used in the 1930s books.30 This change in official
historiography’s view of the Prophet Muhammad, as explained by Copeaux, is
significant again if we just read the textbooks. However, when we look at other
sources we can see that the secular trend of standoffishness toward Islam and Arabs
does not seem very strong in the 1930s. For example, at the Second History
_
Congress, Izmirli
summarized the evidence of the close relations between the Turks
and the prophet Muhammad as:
1) The Prophet, most probably, may have been a Turk, in terms of oruk
(lineage); 2) Avs and Hazrec tribes may have come from Turkish oruk; 3)
Among the companions of the Prophet, there were three Turks known to us; 4)
The Prophet stayed in a Turkish tent during Ramadan; 5) The Prophet wrote a
letter in Turkish; 6) The Prophet had a hadith about the Turks; 7) There are
Turkish words in the Quran; 8) the known high Turkish savant, Mübarek O
glu,
was at the level of a companion of the Prophet Muhammad.31
_
Izmirli
also claims that one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad was a Turk.32
Moreover, at the same historical congress, in comparing Atatürk with the Prophet
Muhammad, Sadri Maksudi Arsel, a recognized scholar in the fields of law, history
and linguistics, said ‘As the intellectual Arabs had been awaiting a hanif before the
appearance of Muhammad, likewise the intellectuals of the Turkish race were
awaiting the appearance of a hero, a saviour and a chief.’33 These statements clearly
show how some Kemalist historians, if not all, expressed their regard for Prophet
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and constitute a challenge to any generalization
about the secular characteristic of Kemalist historiography.
The main information on the Arabs in the new Turkish historiography is about
their long-time contacts with the Turks beginning in the seventh century. According
to Turkish historiography, the first confrontation of Turks with Arabs who wanted
to conquer their lands and convert them to Islam was brutal; Turks eventually would
adopt Islam, dominate the Islamic world politically, save it from external threats,
and be the main contributors to Islamic civilization. All the positive aspects of the
Islamic civilization after the Turks’ conversion to Islam are attributed to the Turks.
Thus, the Turks’ conversion to Islam is seen as an achievement for Islamic
civilization.
According to the textbooks, the first Turk–Arab contact began through the Arabs’
Iranian expedition at a time when the Turks were disunited as a result of internal
struggles.34 Tarih II explains the Arabs’ indifference to the other high civilizations as
the Arabs adopted the belief that Islam voided everything that was established before
itself and believed that reading anything other than the Quran was not religiously
permissible. Because of that belief, they did not see any harm in burning and
destroying works written in Turkish, Persian and Greek along with religious works
and monuments when they invaded Iran, Syria, Egypt and later the lands of the
Turks.35 Here we can see how Kemalist historiography carefully differentiates
between Islam and the Arabs by presenting the Arabs’ destructive policies as their
abuse of the Islamic message.
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
639
During the Umayyad period, Arab–Turk contact is depicted in a more negative
way than in the period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. Even though Turkish
historiography claims that some successful commanders involved in the Umayyad
conquests were Turks, such as Tariq Bin Ziyad, under whom the Islamic army
conquered Spain, the textbooks introduced the Arabs under Umayyad rule as
plunderers and the Umayyads as Arab nationalists in their relations with non-Arab
people. Moreover, the religious motives of the Umayyad conquests are denounced
because of their mistreatment of the conquered peoples.36 Qutayba bin Muslim, who
was responsible for the conquest of Central Asian lands including Turkic territories,
appears as ‘a bloody commander’37 in the textbooks.
The only positive aspects of the Umayyad era were credited to Turks. The
conquest of Spain by the Umayyad army, for example, is presented as a work of
‘Berber-Khazar Turks’. The Arab commander Uqba ibn Nafi formed an army from
those Berbers whom Turkish historians claimed to be Turks. The book hints at the
affinity between the Turks and the Berbers in a very interesting way:
The success of Uqba ibn Nafi took place thanks to the help of the courageous
warrior Berber-Khazar tribes over North West Africa whom he attracted into
his army, and especially those of Tevariqs among them. In general these tribes
called Berbers believed in the superiority of their race. . . . Berbers, like Turks,
pronounced the name of the Prophet Muhammad as Mehmet. Those pure
heroic tribes after a short period of time revolted because they could not easily
accept Islam.38
After that, the book addresses the conquest of Spain by the Umayyad army under
the title ‘The Turk in Spain’ because they claimed the commander of the army, Tariq
Bin Ziyad, as a Turk.39 In the same context, a very interesting incident is mentioned
in the textbook that is interpreted as a racial issue by the Turkish historians. This
incident is the dismissal of Tariq bin Ziyad by Musa bin Nasir, a higher-ranking
Arab commander. The textbook says that
Musa bin Nasir thought that the fame of Tariq, gained through many battles
and conquests, overshadowed his own fame and since he was jealous of him, he
treated Tariq badly. There was no reason for his treatment of Tariq other than
jealousy of his fame and honour. And that was the race issue. In reality, while
Musa Bin Nasir was an Arab, Tariq was a Turk.40
This is a good example of one of the shortcomings of the nationalist
historiographies: looking back to a distant past from a nationalist point of view.
In this case, Kemalist historians present an eighth century incident in nationalist
terms.
The end of the Umayyad dynasty, according to Turkish textbooks, was brought
about by the same people, the Turks, despite the fact that this time they were from
the Khurasan region, south of Anatolia. Turks constituted the core of the non-Arab
reaction against the Umayyad dynasty. Even the leader of the Abbasid revolution
that brought an end to Umayyad rule is claimed to be a Turk: ‘In Khurasan, a
Turkish youth called Abu Muslim became the leader of the revolutionary
640
A.S. Akturk
organization. Eventually, the event that the Arabs could not have realized by
themselves would happen and a great result would be achieved.’41 In other words, a
Turk, according Kemalist historiography, again played a vital role in Islamic history.
The Kemalist Turkish historiographic view of the Abbasids is more positive than
of the Umayyad dynasty, even though the so-called Turkish leader of the Abbasid
revolution, Abu Muslim, was killed by that dynasty. The focal point of information
about the Abbasids is the domination of the Turks in Abbasid statecraft, military
and civilization. Tarih II explains the role of Turks in the Abbasid state:
The first task of Mansur was to kill Abu Muslim who brought the Abbasid
dynasty to the position of caliphate. The best thing that Mansur did was to give
Khalid bin Barmak from the Balkh Turks, who had served the Caliph al-Saffah,
a high position in the state government. In this way, the government of the
Islamic Empire was organized and its fiscal affairs were reformed.42
The Abbasids’ preference for Turks in governing positions is also explained by the
Arabs’ incompetence in governing. More interestingly, the history books justify the
destabilizing acts of Turkish commanders that would eventually bring about the end
of the Abbasid Empire. They claim that the Turkish soldiers were devoted to free
thinking, as in Tarih II:
Mutawakkil (847–861) who came after Wathiq started to act against the
Mutazila and free thinking. This event accelerated the fall of the Abbasid state.
After being silenced by the Turkish soldiers under his command, Mutawakkil
was killed and Muntasir (861–862) succeeded him. After that, in ten years ten
caliphs were deposed and replaced by the Turks. In this period Turkish
commanders and soldiers brought the caliphs down to the level of their
subjects.43
Turkish historiography explains the Turks’ conversion to Islam in terms of their
desire to dominate the Islamic world rather than the efforts or pressures of Arabs.
Accordingly, the real motives behind the Turks’ conversion to Islam were more
political:
The Turks gained a victory against the Arabs with Abu Muslim’s revolution,
and against the Chinese at the battle of Talas. The course of history opened two
doors for them. One of them, as they had done for centuries, was to go down to
China and to establish an empire over there; the other one was to return to the
west and to control the Islamic empire. The Turks preferred the second course.44
According to Ekrem Akurgal, an internationally famous archaeologist, even their
choice of the Sunni sect of Islam instead of Shiism was not a coincidence, and there
were political reasons for it. He says that
the Turks becoming Sunni Muslims instead of supporting the Shiites was not a
result of coincidence or of religious feeling. Here, before everything, we should
look for a political meaning. In this way, in other words by becoming Sunni,
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
641
they would enter the command of the Caliph and as a result they would lead the
big forces. That is why all of them accepted that sect.45
Thus, Kemalist historiography justifies Turks’ conversion to Islam since, they argue,
it was the rational choice which helped Turkish political power.
Along with political domination, the Turks rather than the Arabs or Persians,
according to Turkish historiography, would form the foundations of Islamic
civilization. In its encounter with Islam, Turkish civilization would not be
assimilated. By comparing it to the native Americans’ assimilation by Western
culture, Ali Rıza Seyfi, a novelist, historian and a poet, says:
American natives, losing ground in the face of Western civilization, today face
the danger of extinction. The powerful indigenous generation of Patagonia,
despite its having physical and material powers, could not adjust to the weak
Latin civilization of South America, and it has ended up by being hunted in
Patagonia’s deserts. However, the Turkish nation did not go back to the
Taklamakan and Gobi deserts when it faced the great event that opened Islamic
civilization in the Middle East.46
Rather, Turkish historians believe that Turks were the real founders of Islamic
civilization.
Etienne Copeaux, based on his reading of textbooks, claims that the theme of ‘the
service of the Turks to Islam’ is rare before 1945.47 Examining other sources,
however, gives us contrasting evidence. In the First History Congress, Şemsettin
Günaltay, a historian and a politician, proclaimed:
If the Turks had not entered the Islamic circle, a civilization called Islamic
civilization would not have existed, advanced to such a degree, and spread into
such vast regions. In fact, historical research shows us that during the long
period when the Turks were not agents and influencers in Islamic social life, in
other words during the period that lasted until the end of the Umayyad period,
there was no scientific movement in the fields of ideas and culture of the Islamic
world.48
Ekrem Akurgal, in his article in the journal Ülkü, claims that Islamic architecture
was influenced by Turkish art and it spread all the way to Egypt through Turkish
military commanders.49 In another depiction of the Turks as the civilizers of the
Arab world, Davut Celal gives the example of apiculture:
Arabs adopted apiculture from the Turks. . . . Arabs may have taken the bees
from the Hittites. Arabs called a bee asel or arı. Thus, Arabs made a mistake
while they were adopting the words of honey (bal) and bee (arı) from Turkish
into their language and instead of calling honey as honey they called honey as
bee.50
These statements indicate that the theme of ‘the service of the Turks to Islam’ was
apparent, if not dominant, in Kemalist historiography in the 1930s.
642
A.S. Akturk
In terms of the role of the Turks in the development of Islamic civilization,
Turkish historians criticize the fact that those Turks who wrote their works in Arabic
are mistakenly known as Arabs. Süheyl Ünver, a medical doctor and scholar of the
history of medicine, complains that:
The Turkish nation preserved its morality and tradition during the Islamic
civilization, spoke Turkish among themselves, and taught in Turkish; however,
their language of science was Arabic. Thus, the Western world assumed that
most of the authors of these works written in Arabic were Arabs because of
the language. As the scientists who wrote in Latin in the middle ages were
not Latins, likewise most of the authors who wrote in Arabic were not
Arabs.51
As an example, Ali Rıza Seyfi tries to prove the Turkishness of al-Khawrazmi, the
mathematician, by arguing that Europe and even Turks believe that the science
known as ‘Cebir’ was created by the Arabs because the person who created that
science was called Cebir or Cabir. However according to Seyfi this assumption is
completely false and he corrects that misunderstanding thus: ‘The word ‘‘Algorithm’’
that entered into the western languages along with the science of arithmetic is a
distorted form of the title of the ‘‘Al-Harezmi’’. . . . The most important aspect of the
issue is that . . . the one who brought the essence of the mathematics to the Europe
was a Turk.’52
Ironically, another scholar uses an opposite logic for Ahmet Haşim (1884–1933),
an author who was originally an Arab but wrote his works in Turkish. On this
matter Abdülhak Şinasi, a novelist, writes:
Ahmet Haşim was born in Baghdad in the year of 1885 or maybe a little bit
earlier. . . . Ahmet Haşim never needed to return to Baghdad and retrace his
memories in his birth place. He preferred to end his connections with that place
completely by selling the lands that used to bring him a small income.
Then he adds,
Although I do not know in terms of race, in terms of nationality he was such a
great Turk that the expression of a few of the most elegant feelings of
Turkishness were in his work. The one thing that made him very angry, even
crazy was to call him an Arab. . . . To call Ahmet Haşim an Arab meant to
separate him from a world that assured his existence and throw him away in a
world that would transform him into nothing.53
Thus, considering Ali Riza Seyfi’s and Abdülhak Şinasi’s conflicting arguments, it
may be difficult to determine the ethnic origins of the scholars or authors. Unlike Ali
Riza Seyfi, Abdülhak Şinasi adopts a more flexible definition of Turkishness for
practical reasons in a period when ethnicity was supposed to be a dominant element
of Turkish nationalism.
Kemalist historiography also deals with the Arab-populated lands in the postAbbasid period and emphasizes two topics. The first is the importance of the Seljuk
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
643
Turks for the Islamic world and Turkish domination in Egypt and Syria. The Seljuks
are presented as the saviours of the Sunni Islamic world both against the Shiite
danger (the Fatimids and the Buwayhids) and European Crusaders. The Caliph AlQaim’s request to the Seljuk Sultan Tughrul Beg to end the Shiite domination in
Baghdad is explained in Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları.54 The same book explains the
importance of the Seljuks in the confrontation against the Crusader armies: ‘If the
Turkish Muslim state established by the Seljuks had not existed, the Islamic world
would have lost its existence in the 11th Century and Christian sovereignty would
have been established firmly in the east.’55
Moreover, in response to claims by Europeans and their Arab counterparts that
Seljuk domination caused setbacks for Islamic civilization, in the Second Historical
Congress Şemsettin Günaltay identified the claim by saying:
The Islamic scientific movement had been accelerated in the Muslim East in the
9th and 10th centuries; however, its halt in the following centuries . . . was
presented as a result of the Seljuk invasion. This claim, which was once asserted
by Ernest Renan, has been strongly defended by some young Arab authors
recently.56
His response is that, ‘by resisting the Crusaders who flowed passionately to the east
to choke Islam in proto-Asia and to take the Arabs back into the desert, the Seljuk
Turks saved the Arabs of Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia’.57 Günaltay’s argument is a
significant example of how some Kemalist historians differentiate between the
Islamic civilization and the Arabs. By presenting the Turks as the saviours of Islam
and the main players of Islamic civilization, he differs from the ardent secular stance
of some other Kemalist historians.
Following the weakening of the Seljuks, some Turkish commanders who had been
appointed to Egypt and Syria as provincial governors eventually became
independent rulers over Syria and Egypt. During this episode, according to Turkish
historians, Turks and Turkish culture became very influential in Egypt and Syria and
Turkish historiography ignores Arab civilization at the time. Tarih II explains this
influence: ‘In Egypt, the Fatimid state was demolished and a big Turkish state
controlling Egypt and Syria was established by Salahadin Ayyubi. During Ayyubid
rule and during the following period of the Mamluk empire, Turkish ascendancy
controlled Syria and Egypt physically and spiritually.’58
Within the Istanbul-centred presentation of Ottoman history, Arabs and the
issues related to Arab-populated lands appear several times. The most important
of these occasions are the conquest of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha and the
Wahhabi movement, Arab nationalism during the second constitutional period
(1908–18), and especially the Arabs’ betrayal of the Turks and of the Caliphate.
First of all, the conquest of Egypt by the Ottomans, without any reference to the
Arabs, is presented as a transfer of power between the two Turkish empires: the
Mamluks who had ruled the region up to the conquest and the conquering
Ottomans.59 As for Mehmet Ali Pasha, the governor and eventually ruler of
Egypt, after giving brief information about him, the book focuses on how the
644
A.S. Akturk
Ottoman Empire employed him against the Wahhabi rebellion led by Mehmet60
bin Abdulwahhab.61
Arabs reappear in Turkish historiography within the context of the internal affairs
of the second constitutional period (1908–18), when Arab national sentiments are
presented as one of the divisive factors for the Ottoman Empire along with other
national movements. Arabs along with other non-Turkish Muslims and non_
Muslims sided with Freedom and Unity Party (Hürriyet ve Itilaf
Partisi) against the
_
Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad
ve Terakki Partisi). The above-mentioned
textbook indicates
The quarrels between parties carried beyond the walls of parliament and took
the form of Albanian, Armenian, Arab and even Kurdish questions. The
government of Union and Progress found it necessary to send an army against
the Albanians and Armenians, and Armenian rebellions were repressed
violently. The Arab leaders who desired independence and intervention were
also punished.62
The question of the Caliphate is the major issue that brings the Arabs into the
picture in the late Ottoman period. First of all, the nature and history of the title is
explained in order to justify its abolition by the Turkish Republic in 1924. According
to a textbook, Tarih II,
in both religious and social issues Muhammad did not see himself bound to
anything when there was a need for reform. He always followed evolution. His
death ended that evolution. The reason behind the stagnation and decline in the
Islamic world was not Muhammad himself, but the fact that his successors
followed the text of his pronouncement instead of the spirit of his
pronouncement. This great reality was understood and applied only during
the Turkish Republican period.63
Another textbook, Tarih IV, indicates that when Islam became powerful and
acquired towns, cities, and provinces, a new responsibility appeared for the Prophet
besides his religious leadership. Thus,
a new post was added and that was the post of governing these new lands with
the title of national leader of the Arabs of Hijaz. Those who were elected to the
imamate after the prophet were called Caliph. Thus, the term Caliph took the
form of a title expressing the leader of the Arab Empire rather than religious
leadership.64
The same textbook then blames the Umayyads and Abbasids by using the Caliphate
as a tool to spread Arab political domination. It says ‘The Caliphate in Baghdad
ended with the execution of the last Abbasid ruler, Mutasim, by Hulagu.
The Caliphate later became a good to buy and sell for those who claimed to be of
Abbasid descent for almost two and a half centuries (1258–1527).’65
By explaining the evolution of the Caliphate, textbooks imply that the office of
Caliphate had lost its raison d’être by 1258. That cleverly prepares readers for the
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
645
next step which is the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate. Kemalist Turkish
historiography criticizes the Ottoman Sultan Selim I for revitalizing the Caliphate. A
textbook explains that
when he captured Egypt he found there an Arab, called al-Mutawakkil, who was
making a living on the alms of the Egyptian government. If he had not tried to
take the title of Caliph, rented to the Egyptian government by that poor guy for a
nominal fee, to use as a tool of imperial politics, this matter would have been
closed at that time. An institution preventing the evolution of the Ottoman state
based on the necessities of the time would not have been established, and
Turkishness would not have been harmed because of the holding of that empty
title.66
The manipulation of the idea of the Caliphate, its politicization, and especially the
Arabs’ indifference to the Caliphal office and their betrayal of the Ottoman Empire
during the First World War are other important arguments made by the historians
to demonstrate the corruption of the position. The textbooks explain these points
thus:
Even Muslims who were direct subjects of the Ottomans, and especially Arabs,
took the side of their enemies by betraying the Caliphate and becoming involved
in the war against the Ottoman Empire. The leading figures amongst them were
the Sharif of Mecca and his sons who claimed to come from the lineage of
Prophet Muhammad!67
Textbooks harshly criticize Sharif Husayn as he
preferred the gold of the enemy to the honour of being a Muslim, and kingship
under the British patronage to the sharifdom under caliphal patronage,
and . . . he competed with non-Muslim enemies in killing the Turks, who
courageously let his pure blood in their vessels for centuries to save Islam from
oppression and slavery . . . Nobody showed up except the Turkish soldiers under
the ‘Holy Flag’ that the Caliph took out from its many-centuries-old cover and
waved before the Islamic world.68
These incidents, according to the textbook, ‘showed clearly that the idea of the
caliphate did not have any value and importance in the life of Muslims. This weapon,
that had never proven seriously useful for the Ottomans, consisted of a futile and
harmful weight that should have been voided.’69 Thus, these statements imply that
the Turkish Republic did the right thing by abolishing the non-functional institution
of Caliphate.
Adopting the western-style calendar, numerals and alphabet required justification
since the ones already in use, borrowed from the Arab-Islamic world, had been used
for centuries. First of all, the textbooks explain the necessity of adopting the westernstyle calendar by speaking of the awkward character of the Arabic-Islamic calendar
646
A.S. Akturk
which was a lunar calendar (based on the moon) and thus very complicated. Tarih IV
says:
For example, the month of Ramadan coincides sometimes to the summer
season and after a period of time to the winter season; or if a child who was
born in summer wants to celebrate his birthday twenty years later, according to
the system and course of this calendar, he will see that his birthday coincides
with winter.70
Furthermore, the calendar change is justified through the necessity of synchronization with other ‘civilized nations’, thus not with Arabs. Tarih I says:
Today, almost all the nations of the world have accepted the birthday of the
Christ as the beginning point of the calendar. These years are called miladi71
years and are only calculated through solar years. Turks, like all the other
civilized nations, since the foundation of the Turkish Republic
accepted the miladi year as the origin of time and the solar year as the measure
of time.72
The change in numerals in 1928 is, again, justified through the necessity of making
relations with the western world easier. Moreover, as mentioned above, Kemalist
historians claim that the western numerals, which Europeans called Arabic
numerals, are Turkish in origin. This complex issue is explained in Tarih IV: ‘Our
current numerals, which are called Arabic numerals by the Europeans, in reality,
were transmitted to Europe through the Latin translation of a work written by a
Turk, called Harzemli Mehmet (Muhammad ebu Musa al-Khawrazmi).’73 Thus, by
adopting European numerals, mistakenly called Arabic numerals, Turks adopted
purely Turkic numerals.
The alphabet revolution had symbolic importance for the Turkish revolution. This
is because the abolition of the Arabic alphabet and the adoption of the Latin one cut
an important link with the unwanted Ottoman past: the books in Ottoman Turkish
written in the Arabic alphabet. Thus, the justification of the alphabet revolution has
an important place within Turkish historiography. Turkish historians emphasize the
‘difficulty’ and ‘complexity’ of the Arabic alphabet along with its ‘inappropriateness’
to the Turkish language. According to the Turkish historiography, the spread of
Islam among the Turks beginning in the tenth century resulted in the utilization of
the Arabic alphabet among them. However, the Turkish alphabet, the Uighur
alphabet, did not disappear suddenly; it lived on until the end of the sixteenth
century among many Turks.74
Textbooks describe the Arabic alphabet as ‘one of the most obscure alphabets of
the world’75 since ‘every letter had three forms and the letters are connected to each
other in writing. These aspects made this alphabet hard to learn.’76 Tarih IV also
claims that the Arabic alphabet is inappropriate for the Turkish language because of
Arabic’s lack of vowels: ‘Although the Turkish language needed eight vowels, there
were only three vowels in the Arabic alphabet.’77 Despite all these difficulties, the use
of this alphabet by Turks and especially by Turkish calligraphers for centuries,
according to the textbooks, made the Arabic alphabet a valuable decorative element
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
647
in drawing and architecture. However, because of the difficulty in learning it, it
caused a narrowing of the area of general education and knowledge.78
Thus, there was a pressing need to reform the alphabet and make it appropriate to
the structure of the Turkish language. But, according to Turkish historians, a reform
of the Arabic alphabet in terms of the writing of Turkish was impossible since
there was no benefit in trying the remedy again for years and centuries after
Turkish genius had not been able to realize it for a thousand years. It was not
impossible to invent and use one more completely new form for the Turks who
invented many alphabets in their great history. However, in this age in which
world relations are really very necessary and close, such an attempt would not
create any actual advantage.79
At this point, the textbooks legitimize the adoption of the Latin alphabet ‘which is
proper to Turkish and used in the modern world as a medium of writing’. That is
why ‘based on the Latin alphabet, a new Turkish alphabet was created’.80
Information about the Arabic language itself within Turkish historiography is
extensive. Based on the Sun Language theory, the influence of Turkish on Arabic
constituted an important topic for historians and linguists. As a result of the initial
attempt at purification of language, Turkish faced a problem due to the elimination
of many Arabic words that had been used for centuries. Moreover, the linguists
could not invent new pure Turkish words to replace those words. Thus, the failure of
the purification required the adoption of the Sun Language theory claiming the
Turkish origin of all Arabic words along with other foreign words in Turkish.
However, supporters of the Sun Language theory rejected this practice by saying, ‘It
is no longer necessary to sacrifice the words that people know and understand, based
on the assumption that they are coming from foreign languages’ and they also add a
disclaimer by indicating that ‘those who think that the Sun Language theory was
formed as a result of an effort to keep some Arabic, Persian, and French words
which are necessary and for which no equivalent could be found were careless and
wrong’.81
The relation between Turkish and Arabic, in reference to the Turkish history
thesis and the Sun Language theory, would be an important topic for Turkish
historians. Tadeusz Kowalski, a Polish orientalist, remarked in the journal Ülkü in
1934 that the details of that relation were not yet explored by the historians and
linguists at that time. He indicated that although the influence of Turkish on the
languages of the nations living outside Turkey throughout the West, as well as on
the languages of the nations living inside Turkey, were studied, the influence of
Turkish in Arabic and Persian still waits as work to be done.82 The person to deal
with this issue was Naim Hazım Onat (1889–1953). A linguist and a member of
parliament from the city of Konya, he devoted his research to proving and
explaining the importance of Turkish in the evolution of Arabic. Along with his two
books, he wrote articles and gave speeches on this topic. The title of one of his
books, the Foundation of Arabic Language by Turkish, clearly reveals his claims.
Based on his research, Onat explains the structural influence of Turkish on Arabic
and the historical context of that influence. In the journal of the Turkish Language
Society, he explains the structural influence in this way: ‘except the main Semitic
648
A.S. Akturk
remnants and the words coming from the foreign languages, the words that formed
and developed this language were the roots given by the Turkish language family’.83
Onat specifies that these two languages are not related, but in fact Arabic borrowed
many characteristics from Turkish. In other words, the closeness between the Arabic
language and Uralic Altai language group was a fusion based on borrowings rather
than an affinity.84
In order to clarify the extent of the influence of Turkish on Arabic in the minds of
his readers, Onat uses the example of Maltese and compares it with Arabic. He
explains that Maltese is a Semitic language. However today its Semitic character is
no more than its form and grammar, and its fundamental characteristics were
replaced by foreign languages. Maltese came to Malta as a pure Arabic language
and, as a result of the overwhelming invasion of the Italian language, today it is the
only language among the Semitic languages written in Latin and has taken a form
completely different from Arabic. Maltese today resembles a hybrid Italian language
in the Arabic form. For Onat, likewise, the old Arabic that is supposed to be pure
and lucid is nothing other than a form of Turkish. He makes further comparisons
between the two cases. As some Italians who settled in Malta and transformed
Maltese into an inflected form of Italian absorbed that language more than their own
language, during the domination of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish people living in
lands like Iraq and Syria slowly lost their national identity and started speaking in
Arabic by inflecting many Turkish words.85
Onat also gives the historical context of the encounter of these two languages
and the strong influence of Turkish on Arabic. He argues that the connection
dated back to the pre-Islamic period since proto-Asia was occupied by the protoSumerians and by other migration waves from Central Asia before Semitic people
had come there. He claims that there was a close relationship between bitiş, the
language of the Sumerians and Arabic. He mentions the existence of Turkish tribal
and personal names in the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya period and then the existence of
Turkish words in the Quran and the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet
Muhammad. He argues that Turks were mentioned in the poems of the preIslamic Jahiliyya poets. Onat also claims that the best dictionary of the Arabic
language was written, by Cevheri, a tenth–eleventh century Turkish scholar from
Transoxiana who studied Arabic in Iraq and Hejaz.86 The cultivation of Arabic by
the Turks for centuries is an important argument of the Turkish historiography
mentioned in another source. For example, Tarih II says, ‘Arabic is the richest of
the Semitic languages. This is the result of the cultivation of Arabic by Muslim
poets and orators, and especially by those Muslim Turks. The one who created the
Arabic dictionary was a Turk.’87
Onat tries to prove his thesis through etymological analysis of many Arabic words.
In other words, he shows the Turkish sources of the Arabic words.88 For example, in
an article in which he focuses on the religious and cultural words that Arabic
borrowed from Turkish, he chooses an Arabic word meaning prostrations and gives
its Turkish root as
the verb yükün-, which was common in the Turkish language group and in our
old sources meant to prostrate, to bend, to respect, to go down on one’s knee,
and to pray, and it was used in our dialects in a similar meaning with different
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
649
forms in our phonetics. In agreement with its pronunciation in Yakut as sügütand in Mongolian language as sögüd-, this verb entered Arabic as
- suc
ud
(suj
ud).89
As an another example, in the second part of the same article, Onat tries to give the
etymology of the word ‘vatan’, meaning homeland, and he says:
Both vatan and avtan are a different pronunciation of our Turkish word
otan 5yurt4 (in the Kirgiz language). [Compare with üten, in the Yakut
language, which means hunting lodge and utan, in the Tungus language, which
means a kind of dwelling made for winter and summer.]
Most of the irregular plurals in Arabic language that we see in different forms
are Turkish singular form of nouns.90
As a last example, he also gives the Turkish root of an Arabic word meaning
medicine. For that, he says
The Turkish root tap- originated in the action of offering a deer-sacrifice to the
sky-sun God, and it gave the explanation of religious and magical ceremonies,
and was later used for scholarship and smartness. It entered into Arabic and
was the old and real origin of the Arabic words,
and
(tabb, tabib,
and tababa).91
Finally, in the context of the foundation of Arabic by Turkish he also mentions
something that he calls ‘Ottoman Arabic’, in other words, how Turks created new
words out of Arabic origins and lent them to the Arabs. He explains that the
Ottoman intellectuals educated in traditional institutions (madrasas) were also
those who introduced the positive sciences to the Ottoman Military Academy,
Engineering Academy, and Medical Academy. Since they were under the influence
of traditional Islamic education, they were making up the concepts related to
those disciplines within the narrow frame of classical Arabic, which they knew.
They coined the words from Arabic roots that had not existed in the Arabic
language which Onat calls Ottoman Arabic, and later Arabs had to adopt and
use these words because although at that time the language of culture among the
Turks was Arabic, for Arabs the source of culture was Turkey. Since those
Arabic words used in Turkish were coined by Turks, Onat claims ‘the language
army that purged Turkish words from our language was not composed of those
who came from the outside with their guns. In fact they were those whom we
prepared and bred with our hands.’ He gives examples of Ottoman-Arabic words
which, he thinks, ‘were so abundant that they could form a dictionary’. As an
example,
there is a root, resim, in Arabic. In the past this word had not meant picture,
photograph, or description. We gave it a new meaning, and after that we
derived new words from it, like ressam (painter), tersim, teressüm, irtisam,
mürtesem, and later resim, rüsum and merasim (ceremony) that had not been
known to the Arabs or used in different meanings by the Arabs.92
650
A.S. Akturk
Thus overall Onat claims that Turkish played a vital role in the development of
Arabic throughout the history. His thesis was acceptable at the time for it was in
accordance with the Sun Language theory.
In the history textbooks and the scholarly writings of the 1930s based on the Turkish
history thesis, depictions of Arabs, their culture, their language, and their history in
reference to the Turkish history thesis constitute an important example of the
construction of an image of an ‘other’ by means of a national historiography. In
order to legitimize Turkish reforms in the field of alphabet, numerals, calendars, and
law, early Republican historians depict a very backward image of Arabs and Arab
lifestyle. Thus, the depiction of Arabs and Islam is not solely about the Arabs; it is
also about the Turks, and it reflects and justifies secular modernizing reforms of the
new Turkish republic. However, making generalizations about the depictions of
Arabs and Islam in Kemalist Turkish historiography is not as easy as has been
thought because the Arab image is very complicated. A wider reading of the official
publications from the 1930s and the 1940s show that publications other than
textbooks include more astonishing information about the Arabs in both positive
and negative senses such as the Turkishness of Prophet Muhammad or attacks on
the Arab way of thinking.
Asserting an unfavourable image of the Arabs and the religion of Islam is a very
important way to attest to the superiority of the Turks throughout history. Anything
positive in Arab history or the Arab language becomes Turkish. Moreover, since the
Turkish historiography of that period had secular tendencies; it presents the Prophet
Muhammad as a reformer for the Arabs, without any reference to metaphysical or
supernatural forces such as a divinity. At the same time, since the majority of Arabs
are Muslim, the Prophet of Islam was an Arab, the Quran was revealed in Arabic,
and Islam was a binding tie between Turks and Arabs for centuries, in some of the
official publications other than textbooks we can see an attempt to differentiate ‘what
is Islam’ from ‘what is Arab’ despite the strong secular tendencies of the Turkish
revolution. Thus, the next step in studying the images of Arabs and Islam in the
Kemalist Turkish historiography should be the close analysis of those intellectuals
who wholeheartedly believed in the Kemalist Turkish history thesis but at the same
time differed from each other in their portrayal of the Arabs and Islam.
Notes
I would like to thank Dr. Joel Gordon, University of Arkansas, for his thoughtful review of the early draft
of this article.
1. S. Ça
gaptay, ‘Reconfiguring the Turkish Nation in the 1930s’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol.8,
No.2 (Summer 2002), pp.67–82 and ‘Race, Assimilation and Kemalism: Turkish Nationalism and the
Minorities in the 1930s’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.40, No.3 (May 2004), pp.86–101.
2. E.-J. Zürcher, ‘The Vocabulary of Muslim Nationalism’, International Journal of the Sociology of
Science, Vol.137 (1999), pp.81–92.
3. Ş. Mardin, ‘Religion in Modern Turkey’, International Social Science Journal, Vol.29 (1977), p.287; Ş.
Mardin, ‘Turkey, Islam, and Westernization’, in C. Caldarola (ed.), Religion and Societies: Asia and
the Middle East (Berlin: Mouton, 1982), and N. Mert, ‘Cumhuriyet Türkiyesi’nde Laiklik’ [Secularism
_
in Republican Turkey], in A. Insel
(ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce; Kemalizm, Vol. 2
_
(Istanbul: Iletişim,
2001), pp.197–209.
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
651
4. M. Tunçay, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek Parti Yönetiminin Kurulması, 1923–1931 [Foundation of
Mono-Party Government in the Turkish Republic, 1923–1931] (Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, 1981).
5. Graham E. Fuller calls this a ‘national amnesia’ about Turkey’s Islamic and Ottoman past: G.E.
Fuller, The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World (Washington DC:
United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008), p.17.
6. Y. Taşkın, ‘Kemalist Kültür Politikaları Açısından Türk Tarih ve Dil Kurumları’ [Turkish Historical
_
and Language Institutes in Terms of Kemalist Cultural Policies], in Insel
(ed.), Modern Türkiye’de
Siyasi Düşünce; Kemalizm, pp.419–24.
7. ‘The cephalic index, developed by Anders Retzius (1796–1860), is the ratio of the length to the width
of the skull. When the ratio falls below 75 the skull is called dolichocephalic, or long-headed, when it is
between 75 and 80, it is mesocephalic, or medium headed, when it exceeds 80 it is brachycephalic, or
broad-headed. These three categories are also indicators of different levels of mental superiority. Based
on the size and the shape of the skull, brachycephalic is the most superior.’ N. Maksudyan, ‘The
Turkish Review of Anthropology and the Racist Face of Turkish Nationalism’, Cultural Dynamics,
Vol.17, No.3 (Nov. 2005), p.317.
_
8. B. Ersanlı, Iktidar
ve Tarih: Türkiye’de ‘Resmıˆ Tarih’ Tezinin Oluşumu (1929–1937) [Power and History:
_
The Formation of the ‘Official History’ Thesis (1929–1937)] (Istanbul: Iletişim,
2003), pp.103–38; H.
Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent; Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (New York:
New York University Press, 1997), pp.101–14; and E. Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), Türk
_
Tarih Tezinden Türk Islam
Sentezine [From Turkish History Thesis to Turk-Islam Synthesis in History
Textbooks (1931–1993)] (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998), pp.15–53.
_
9. Ersanlı, Iktidar
ve Tarih, pp.103–38, Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.15–53, and
Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent, pp.101–14.
_
10. Ersanlı, Iktidar
ve Tarih, pp.103–38; Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.15–53.
11. M. Ergin, ‘Cultural Encounters in the Social Sciences and Humanities: Western Émigré Scholars in
Turkey’, History of the Human Sciences, Vol.22, No.1 (Feb. 2009), pp.105–30; Copeaux, Tarih
Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.32–5.
_
12. Ersanlı, Iktidar
ve Tarih, pp.139–229; Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.15–53.
13. G. Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999); Y. Çolak, ‘Language Policy and Official Ideology in Early Republican Turkey’, Middle
Eastern Studies, Vol.40, No.6 (Nov. 2004), pp.67–91; U. Heyd, Language Reform in Modern Turkey
(Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society, 1954).
14. E. Copeaux, Espace et Temps de la Nation Turque: Analyse d’Une Historiographie Nationaliste, 1931–
1993 (Paris: CNRS, 1997). I have used a Turkish translation of Copeaux’s book: Copeaux, Tarih
Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.201–42.
15. Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), p.9.
16. Ibid., pp.201–7.
17. Tarih II: Ortazamanlar (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1931), p.80.
18. Italics in the quotations are used in the original texts in order to emphasize the words italicized.
_ Tarih II (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1936), p.51.
19. Ortamektep Için
20. Tarih II, p.80.
21. Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1930), p.547.
22. Ibid., p.548.
23. Tarih II, p.84.
24. Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), p.206.
25. M. Katırcıo
glu, ‘Sami Felsefenin Irkçı Vasfı [The Racist Characteristic of Semite Philosophy]’, Ülkü,
Vol.7 (June 1936), p.268.
26. Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.204–5.
27. Tarih II, p.80.
_
_
28. I.H.
Izmirli,
‘Şark Kaynaklarına Göre Müslümanlıktan Evvel Türk Kültürünün Arap Yarımadasında
_
Izleri’
[The Footprints of Turkish Culture in the Arabian Peninsula Before the Coming of Islam
_
According to the Eastern Sources], in Ikinci
Türk Tarih Kongresi (Istanbul: Kenan Matbaası, 1943),
_
p.281. Izmirli
believes that these well-known Arab tribes of Medina (al-Aws and al-Khazraj)
originated in Mesopotamia prior to their migration to Yemen and later to Medina. He argues that
there were cultural elements that the Turkish historians saw rooted in ‘Turkish culture’ and the names
of the tribes were derived from Turkish roots.
652
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
A.S. Akturk
Tarih II, pp.90–91.
Copeaux, Tarih Kitaplarında (1931–1993), pp.210–13.
_
_
_
I.H.
Izmirli.
‘Peygamber ve Türkler [The Prophet and the Turks]: The First Part’, in Ikinci
Türk Tarih
Kongresi, p.1013.
_
Izmirli,
‘Şark Kaynaklarına Göre Müslümanlıktan’, p.281.
_
S.M. Arsel. ‘Beşeriyet Tarihinde Devlet ve Hukuk Mefhumu ve Müesseselerinin Inkişafında
Türk
Irkının Rolü’ [The Role of the Turkish Race in the Development of the Concepts and Institutions of
_
Law and State in Human History], in Ikinci
Türk Tarih Kongresi, p.1075.
Tarih II, p.141.
Ibid., p.124.
Ibid., pp.141–7.
Ibid., pp.143–6.
Ibid., pp.131.
Ibid., pp.133–4.
Ibid., p.136.
Ibid., pp.141–8.
Ibid., p.149.
Ibid., p.151.
Ibid., pp.155.
_
E. Akurgal, ‘Islamiyet
Devrinde Türk Sanatı [Turkish Art During the Islamic Period]: Part I’, Ülkü,
Vol.12, No.67 (Sept. 1938), pp.47–8.
A.R. Seyfi, ‘Türklerin Medeniyete Hizmetleri’ [The Service of the Turks to Civilization], Ülkü, Vol.I
(March 1933), p.120.
Copeaux, p.225.
_
Ş. Günaltay, ‘Islam
Medeniyetinde Türklerin Yeri’ [The Position of the Turks in Islamic Civilization],
in Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferans ve Müzakere Zabıtları (Ankara: TC Maarif Vekaleti, 1932),
pp.289–90.
_
_
Akurgal, ‘Islamiyet
Devrinde Türk Sanatı, Part I’, pp.45–6; E. Akurgal, ‘Islamiyet
Devrinde Türk
Sanatı, Part II’, Ülkü, Vol.12, No.68 (Oct. 1938), p.135.
C. Davut, ‘Arıcılık’ [Apiculture], Ülkü, Vol.I (May 1933), pp.334, 336.
_
_
A.S. Ünver, ‘Islam
Tababetinde Türk Hekimlerinin Mevkii ve Ibni
Sina’nın Türklügü’ [The Position
of Turkish Physicians in Islamic Medicine and the Turkishness of Ibn Sina (Avicenna)], TTK Belleten,
Vol.I, No.I (Dec. 1937), pp.271–2.
Seyfi, ‘Türklerin Medeniyete Hizmetleri’, pp.122–3.
A. Şinasi, ‘Ahmet Haşim’ Ülkü, Vol.I (June 1933), pp.377, 387.
Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları, p.502.
Ibid., p.505.
_
_
_
Ş. Günaltay, ‘Islam
Dünyasının Inhitatı
Sebebi Selçuk Istilasımıdır?’
[Was the Seljukid Incursion the
_
reason Behind the Decline of the Islamic World?], in Ikinci
Türk Tarih Kongresi, p.350.
Ibid., p.366.
Tarih II, p.248.
Tarih III: Yeni ve Yakın Zamanlar (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1933), pp.46–7.
The book uses Mehmet, the Turkish form of his Arabic name, Muhammad.
Ibid., pp.208–9.
Ibid., p.303.
Tarih II, p.118.
Tarih IV: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1931), p.156.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp.156–7.
Tarih III, p.309.
Tarih IV, pp.156–8.
Tarih III, p.309.
Tarih IV, p.239.
Miladi means to be based on the birth of Christ.
Tarih I, p.9.
Tarih IV, p.240.
Arabs in Kemalist Turkish Historiography
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
653
_ Tarih I (Istanbul: Devlet Basımevi, 1938), p.33.
Ortamektep Için
Tarih I, p.46.
Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları-Methal Kısmı (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1931), pp.39–40.
Tarih IV, pp.250–51.
Ibid.
Ibid.
In fact it is also claimed that the Latin alphabet was Turkish in origin: ‘The new alphabet, though
from a source called Latin, is neither the English alphabet nor the Italian, the German alphabet, or
any alphabet. With its characteristics, this is by itself a Turkish alphabet and since it was set up by
avoiding the defects and the errors that were not able to be corrected in other alphabets despite their
long time experiences; it was the best evolved of all world alphabets.’ Tarih IV, p.258.
Türk Dil Kurumu Üçüncü Türk Dil Kurultayı, 1936: Tezler, Müzakere Zabıtları (Istanbul: Devlet
Basımevi, 1937), pp.12–13
T. Kowalski, ‘Türk Dilinin Komşu Millet Dilleri Üzerindeki Tesiri’ [The Influence of Turkish over the
Neighbouring Nations’ Languages], Ülkü, Vol.IV (Oct. 1934), p.104.
N.H. Onat, ‘Türkçe’den Arap Diline Geçmis Din ve Kültür Kelimelerinden: 1-Secde Kelimesi ve
Arapça Sözlerin Ana Kaynagı’ [From Among the Religious and Cultural Vocabularies that Passed
into Arabic from Turkish: 1. Secde and the Turkish Source of Arabic Words], TDK Türk Dili Belleten,
Serial III, No.4–5 (Nov. 1945), pp.293–4.
N.H. Onat, Arapça’nın Türk Diliyle Kuruluşu [The Foundation of the Arabic Language by the Turkish
Language] (Istanbul: Maarif Matbaası, 1944), p.9.
Ibid., pp.13–14.
Ibid., pp.13–51.
Tarih II, p.86.
On the other hand, those linguists who tend to find the Arabic etymological origin of the words used in
Turkish are criticized. I. Necmi Dilmen’s statements are an example of that attitude: ‘Our linguists
who are in love with Arabic show the word sevda is the feminine form of the Arabic word ‘esved’,
which means ‘black’, and they assert that since a part of the heart is called ‘sevdaülkalb’, this word
_
means ‘love’. However, the Turkish verbal noun sev (to love) is apparent’: I.N.
Dilmen, ‘Güneş-Dil
Teorisinin Ana Kanunları ve Analiz Yolları’ [The main laws of the Sun Language theory and the ways
of its analysis], Ülkü, Vol.7 (April 1936), p.94. The meaning of the word is explained in an Ottoman
Turkish–English Dictionary thus: ‘Sevda (
): 1. Black 2. The black core supposed to exist in the
heart 3. The spleen, black bile of the ancients’: Sir J.W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon
(Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1996, Constantinople, 1860, Printed for the American Mission, by A.H.
Boyajian).
Onat, ‘Türkçe’den Arap Diline Geçmis Din ve Kültür Kelimelerinden: 1’, p.331.
N.H. Onat, Onat, ‘Türkçe’den Arap Diline Geçmis Din ve Kültür Kelimelerinden: 2-Vatan Kelimesi
_
ve Onunla Ilgili
Sözler’ [From Among the Religious and Cultural Vocabularies that Passed to Arabic
from Turkish: 1. Vatan and the Words Related to It], TDK Türk Dili Belleten, Vol.3, No.4–5 (Nov.
1945), p.498.
N.H. Onat, ‘Tıp ve Tabib Kelimeleri Üzerine’ [On the Words Tıp and Tabib], TDK Türk Dili Belleten,
Vol.3, No.8–9 (April–Dec. 1946), p.84.
N.H. Onat, ‘Dilde Ülkümüz ve Bugünkü Yolumuz’ [Our Linguistic Ideal and Our Current Way], TDK
Türk Dili Belleten, Vol.3, No.6–7 (March 1946), pp.615–16.