Geç dönem Osmanlıda hukuk modernleşmesi: Fıkha yaklaşımların yeniden değerlendirilmesi (1908-1915)

This thesis aims to comprehend late Ottoman Modernization by focusing on the analysis of the approaches and discourses, argued by the limited circle of the ulema, on the Islamic tradition of fıqh between the years 1908 and 1915. The scope of this study is bounded by how the ulema problematized the Islamic tradition of fıqh, and how they reinterpreted its concepts, such as örf, maslahat, istislah, istihsan, during the Second Constitutional Era, in which the idea of law began to be transformed. Within the context of the Islamic tradition of fıqh, the transformation in the way fıqh was approached and how it impacted the intellectual climate will be the main focus of attention throughout the thesis to make sense of the wisdom of the Ottoman legal experience of post-Second Constitutional Revolution. The new conception of fıqh of the ulema also resulted in the reassessment of the capacity of making law, the capacity of interpreting law, and of those that were entitled to the right of having a say in legal and religious matters, as well as the determination of the boundaries of this authority. This study will also dwell upon to discuss the comprehensiveness of fıqh in contrast to the modern sense of law. Accordingly, discourses of the ulema analyzed throughout the thesis, tell us that the modern sense of law brought a new perception of fıqh without disregarding it. Hence, what the ulema intended was to prove the adequacy of fıqh.