Babanzāde Ahmed Naim's criticism of kavmiyyet in the context of his treatise Da'vā-yi Kavmiyyet in Islam

It is as old as human history that people act with a sense of responsibility towards the group they are a member of and show loyalty and sacrifice. While this unity is expressed with the concepts of tribe, asabiyyah, ummah, nationality, etc., the concepts have been transformed and at some points intertwined. The idea of nationalism, which is assumed to have started with the French Revolution of 1789, expresses the basic thought system of nation states that continue to exist today. The idea of nationalism has been embraced by different ethnic communities and has also been subjected to criticism. In the 19th and 20th centuries, when nation states began to be established and empires collapsed, one of the states most affected by the idea of nationalism was the Ottoman Empire with its multinational structure. The rebellion of different ethnic groups and the resulting serious territorial losses paved the way for the emergence of intellectual movements such as Turkification (Nationalism), Ottomanization and Islamization in the Ottoman Empire. In this thesis, the thoughts of Babanzâde Ahmed Naim, the representative of Islamism, on the relationship between Islam and nationalism will be analyzed. Babanzâde Ahmed Naim, one of the Islamist thinkers and intellectuals, was a person who knew the West very well, brought French philosophical terms into the Ottoman language and engaged in translation activities. Known for his Islamic sensitivities, Babanzâde Ahmed Naim evaluated the idea of nationalism from an Islamic perspective and wrote a treatise on this subject titled Da'vâ-yı Kavmiyyet in Islam. In the treatise, the subject is discussed through points such as nationalism and racism in Islam, nationalism in Arabs and Turks, verses and hadiths on the subject, and the unity of Islam. In this study, firstly, the biography of Ahmed Naim and the general situation of the period he lived in are given, then the development of the idea of nationalism is outlined, and then the relationship between Islam and nationalism is analyzed in the context of the mentioned work. As a result, it is understood that Babanzâde Ahmed Naim's argument that nationalism is not legitimate according to Islam has some problematic aspects in terms of conceptual uses. Due to conceptual problems, it has not been possible to put forward a clear view that nationalism itself is prohibited in Islam, and it has been understood that these problems still persist and need to be researched.