Political views of Ulema in the Second Constitutional Monarcyperiod: The case of the Beyanülhak Journal

Although the concept of development is seen as an economic concept, it is evident that it is a concept that needs to be examined from different perspectives in our recent history. Since the end of the eighteenth century, the events as a result of the significant challenges faced by the Islamic world have been analyzed by politicians, scholars and thinkers who graduated from modern schools. Muslims have criticised the reform movements by governments in social life in a wide range. The colonisation of the Islamic world, major military defeats, social depressions, and financial and economic problems resulted in European hegemony. In line with this, the Ottoman Empire focused on understanding what happened as a result of the new scientific imagination that took place in Europe with the reforms and the European-based actions, and its practical implementation both in social and state level, and to be able to respond in kind against European states. These issues, which were handled from the perspective of the concept of development, are tried to be expressed by the thinkers of the period not only from the economic but also from the social, political and intellectual aspects. Within the framework of study, the concepts put forward by the thinkers, who were among the Islamists and writers of Sıratımüstakim and Sebilürreşad magazines during the Second Constitutional Monarchy period, who expressed their ideas around a concern for survival, and the attitudes they adopted in response to the concept of development were examined. Although the issues quoted from Europe have rational and positivist features on the intellectual ground, how an Islamist group overcame them is the main question that the study seeks to answer.