Well the new palace is certainly fit for a sultan.
Why is Turkey reviving an Ottoman sultan?
In Turkey, there has been an unmistakable revival of the image of Sultan Abdulhamid II. The powerful Ottoman monarch who ruled the empire single-handedly from 1876 to 1909 is praised with a flood of articles in the pro-government press, endless messages on social media and various conferences and panels. The speaker of the Turkish parliament, Ismail Kahraman, a confidant of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even hosted an “International Symposium on Sultan Abdulhamid II and His Era,” at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, a relic from the latter-day Ottoman Empire. The great sultan, Kahraman said, “is a mariner’s compass to give us direction and enlighten our future.”
Summary⎙ Print A great Ottoman sultan-caliph is being re-popularized in today’s Turkey with a clear political intention: legitimizing authoritarian rule.
Author Mustafa AkyolPosted September 29, 2016
On the one hand, there must be no big surprise in the love affair for Sultan Abdulhamid II by Turkey’s new ruling elite — the religious conservatives. For as the last great Ottoman sultan, as he has been dubbed, Abdulhamid II has been a cultural icon for decades for Turkey’s Islamic circles. Popular Islamist writers such as Necip Fazil Kisakurek praised him as “the exalted sultan,” for he was a pious Muslim, a caliph worthy of his name and the defender of Muslims. It became a legend that Abdulhamid II refused to sell Palestinian lands to the nascent Zionist movement despite the economic bankruptcy of his state. The great sultan, in fact, has been Turkey’s Islamist alternative to Ataturk as a source of historical inspiration.
However, the new pro-Abdulhamid II wave has an additional line, which actually seems to be its main point: Abdulhamid II was an authoritarian ruler, heavily opposed by most Ottoman intellectuals of his time. His career had actually begun by proclaiming the first Ottoman Constitution and assembling the first elected Ottoman parliament in 1876. However, in less than two years, in the midst of a disastrous war with Russia, Abdulhamid II suspended the constitution and closed the parliament for the next three decades. Ottoman liberals and even some Islamic figures, who saw constitutional rule as the only way to save the empire, turned against Abdulhamid’s authoritarianism, only to be silenced or exiled by him.
Read more:
Why is Turkey reviving an Ottoman sultan?
Why is Turkey reviving an Ottoman sultan?
In Turkey, there has been an unmistakable revival of the image of Sultan Abdulhamid II. The powerful Ottoman monarch who ruled the empire single-handedly from 1876 to 1909 is praised with a flood of articles in the pro-government press, endless messages on social media and various conferences and panels. The speaker of the Turkish parliament, Ismail Kahraman, a confidant of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even hosted an “International Symposium on Sultan Abdulhamid II and His Era,” at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, a relic from the latter-day Ottoman Empire. The great sultan, Kahraman said, “is a mariner’s compass to give us direction and enlighten our future.”
Summary⎙ Print A great Ottoman sultan-caliph is being re-popularized in today’s Turkey with a clear political intention: legitimizing authoritarian rule.
Author Mustafa AkyolPosted September 29, 2016
On the one hand, there must be no big surprise in the love affair for Sultan Abdulhamid II by Turkey’s new ruling elite — the religious conservatives. For as the last great Ottoman sultan, as he has been dubbed, Abdulhamid II has been a cultural icon for decades for Turkey’s Islamic circles. Popular Islamist writers such as Necip Fazil Kisakurek praised him as “the exalted sultan,” for he was a pious Muslim, a caliph worthy of his name and the defender of Muslims. It became a legend that Abdulhamid II refused to sell Palestinian lands to the nascent Zionist movement despite the economic bankruptcy of his state. The great sultan, in fact, has been Turkey’s Islamist alternative to Ataturk as a source of historical inspiration.
However, the new pro-Abdulhamid II wave has an additional line, which actually seems to be its main point: Abdulhamid II was an authoritarian ruler, heavily opposed by most Ottoman intellectuals of his time. His career had actually begun by proclaiming the first Ottoman Constitution and assembling the first elected Ottoman parliament in 1876. However, in less than two years, in the midst of a disastrous war with Russia, Abdulhamid II suspended the constitution and closed the parliament for the next three decades. Ottoman liberals and even some Islamic figures, who saw constitutional rule as the only way to save the empire, turned against Abdulhamid’s authoritarianism, only to be silenced or exiled by him.
Read more:
Why is Turkey reviving an Ottoman sultan?
