Biography Of Sultan Abdul Hameed The Second

And The Fall Of The Islamic Khilafa

The Rest Of The Story

After the construction of the first home site we recieved a lot reactions and comments. Many of these ractions insisted that we should tell the rest of the story on this site so we decided to add a new section. This section was a contribution of brother Hakan Doganer, many thanks to him.

Until the end of the Independence War of Turkey against the Europeans who occupied the Ottoman land after WWI, Mustafa Kemal seemed an observant Muslim. He was praying in mosques with Muslims.. He was giving sermons at Friday prayers in mosques.. He was swearing he would fight to save the Khilafah (Califate). He was praising Islam and the Prophet all the time.. He was calling the Qur'an "the most Perfect Book." He was saying that the Qur'an was the Constitution.. And he was saying all these in the newly opened National Grand Assembly in Ankara during the Independence War...

So the Muslims trusted him... And he was given full power during the War.. After Turkey was liberated, he was elected as the President of Turkey by the Assembly..

After a while, he started, slowly, his anti-Islamic reforms.. The man who had been saying that "The Qur'an was the Constitution" was now saying "We do not receive our laws from the sky" referring to the Qur'anic revelations... In order to achieve his anti-Islamic reforms, he did not hesitate to use force, terror, gallows, torture, prison, etc...

How could that happen?.. How could a man who had been praising Islam abolish the Khilafah and start his anti-Islamic reforms suddenly?..

If you compare the words and actions of M. Kemal during the Independence War to those of M. Kemal after the Indepence War until he died (1923-1938), you will notice that the two M. Kemals are 180 degrees opposite of each other.. How is this possible?..

It doesn't make sense, does it? How can a person change that much overnight?..

But if you go back, further back, and look at M. Kemal's roots, his background, etc., it perfectly makes sense.. Everything makes sense.. And you will realize that the 180-degree-change in his words and actions is very natural, and it would have been unnatural if he hadn't changed 180 degrees..

So now let's first look at M. Kemal's background, the family he came from.. And then we will look at his anti-Islamic reforms.. Then we will be able to explain the motivation behind all his anti-Islamic reforms ...

The Secret Jews, Joachim Prinz, 1973, pp. 111-122

..... In December 1686, more than three hundred families converted to Islam in Salonika. Like Shabtai and other Marranos, they continued to attend Jewish services secretly and observed certain Jewish customs in their homes.

This was the origin of the most important group, numerically and historically, of Islamic Marranos. The faithful Mohemmedans call these hidden Jews 'doenmehs', the renegades. ..... Over the years the 'doenmeh' movement became firmly established in Asia Minor. In the nineteenth century the sect was estimated to have twenty thousand members. Salonika remained its main seat until that city became Greek in 1913. Although the Jewish community remained there under Greek rule, the 'doenmehs' moved to Constantinople.

In Salonika in the early days of the movement the ten commandments "of our Lord King and Messiah Shabtai Zvi" were proclaimed by the 'doenmehs'. They still form the credo of the surviving 'doenmehs' of our time.

I shall meticulously adhere to the customs of the Turks so as not to arose their suspicion. I shall not only observe the Fast of Ramadan but all the other Muslim customs which are observed in public.

I shall not marry into a Muslim family nor maintain any intimate association with them, for they are to us an abomination and particularly their women.
From time to time the Turkish governors of Salonika, who received complaints about the sect from the Mohammedan clergy, tried to investigate the strange existence of the 'doenmehs'. Their clannishness, their refusal to mingle with Mohammedan families, and their marital restrictions had become a well-known fact, difficult to hide from the majority of the people among whom they had lived for many generations. Socially, they seemed impenetrable, although in their Moslem religious practices they were beyond reproach. In fact, they often seemed even more devout followers of the Prophet Mohammed and more sincere worshipers of Allah than the rest of the community. They fasted during Ramadan, and their leaders and adherents were found in large, even conspicuous numbers among the pilgrims to Mecca. It was well known that in the seventeenth century Joseph Zvi, one of the immediate followers of Shabtai Zvi and one of his inner circle, died on the way from his pilgrimage to Mecca, and the day of his death is still commemorated.

The revolt of the Young Turks in 1908 against the authoritarian regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid began among the intellectuals of Salonika. It was from there that the demand for a constitutional regime originated. Among the leaders of the revolution which resulted in a more modern government in Turkey were Djavid Bey and Mustafa Kemal. Both were ardent 'doenmehs'. Djavid Bey became minister of finance; Mustafa Kemal became the leader of the new regime and he adopted the name of Ataturk. His opponents tried to use his 'doenmeh' background to unseat him, but without success. Too many of the Young Turks in the newly formed revolutionary Cabinet prayed to Allah, but had as their real prophet Shabtai Zvi, the Messiah of Smyrna.

TIME, July 2, 1928, p. 17

Awful Desecration

Enough to set hairs a-standing on pious Mohammedans heads would be a proposal to cover the broad, flat floors of mosques with hateful, heathen pews.

Pews would prevent squatting in the traditional attitude of prayer. Pews would obstruct reverent foreheads from bending down to touch the floor of the House of Allah. Pews would be an awful desecration -as awful as though heathen Christians should not don slippers before entering a mosque, and thus pollute the floor.

However, since the present ruling class of Young Turks are not pious Mohammedans, it was natural, last week, that the Commission on Religious Reform, recently appointed by President Mustafa Kemal Pasha should recommend:

1) Pews to cover the floor of every mosque;
2) abolition of the mosque slipper and prayer rug;
3) installation of organs, choirs.

Observers of the Young Turks' successful occidentalization of Turkey marveled, once more, at the docility of the Turkish masses, which have abandoned the fez, ceased to contract polygamous marriages, and now seem prepared to alter the fundamental rites of their religion - all this within ten years.

The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Bernard Lewis, 1965, p. 408

The recommendations of the committee, for the achievement of this purpose, was grouped under four headings. The first, 'the form of worship', speaks of the need for clean and orderly mosques, with pews and cloakrooms. 'People must be urged to enter into them with clean shoes.' The second, on 'the language of worship', insists that this must be Turkish, and that all prayers and sermons should not be in Arabic but in the national language. The third, on 'the character of worship', seeks to make worship beautiful, inspiring, and spiritual. For this the mosque needs trained musicians and also musical instruments. 'The need is urgent for modern and sacred instrumental music.' The fourth, and last, deals with 'the thought side of worship'. Printed, set sermons must be replaced by real religious guidance, which only preachers with the necessary philosophic training would be competent to give.

TIME, January 9, 1933, p. 64

Squinting skyward last week, Turks looked for the new moon. When they should see it Ramadan would begin. Ramadan the mystic month in which the Koran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed. This year the first glint of the new moon had a special, dread significance. Turks had been ordered by their stern dictator, Mustafa Kemal Pasha who made them drop the veil and the fez (TIME, Feb. 15, 1926 et seq.), that beginning with Ramadan they must no longer call their god by his Arabic name, Allah.

No godly man, Dictator Kemal considers that there is no reason why Turks should not call Allah by his Turkish name Tanri. There is no reason except centuries of tradition, no reason except that Turkish imams (priests) all know the Koran by heart in Arabic while few if any have memorized it in Turkish. Strict to the point of cruelty last week was Dictator Kemal's decree that muezzins, calling the faithful to prayer from the top of Turkey's minarets, must shout not the hallowed "Allah Akbar!" (Arabic for "God is Great!") but the unfamiliar words "Tanri Uludur!" which mean the same thing in Turkish.

When imams threatened to suspend services in the mosques and hide the prayer rugs, the Government announced that it was holding 400 brand-new prayer rugs in reserve, threatened to produce "newly trained muezzins who know the Koran in Turkish and are ready to jump into the breach."

Nearer & nearer crept the moon to crescent. Ramadan was almost upon Turkey when officials of the Department of Culture (which includes religion) screwed up their courage and told Dictator Kemal that he simply could not change the name of Turkey's god - at least not last week. Already several muezzins had been thrown into jail for announcing that they would continue to shout "Allah Akbar!" The populace was getting ugly, obviously sympathized with the Allah-shouters.

Abruptly Dictator Kemal yielded "Let them pray as they please, temporarily" he growled. Beaming, his Minister rushed off to proclaim the glad respite only a few hours before the new moon appeared. "On account of the general unpreparedness of muezzins and imams," they suavely declared, "prayers may be offered and the Koran recited in Arabic during the present month of Ramadan, but discourse by the imams must be in Turkish."

During Ramadan all Moslems are especially irritable because they eat nothing during the hours of daylight. After the fasting is over Turks will be more tractable, may accept from their Dictator a new name for their God.

TIME, February 20, 1933, p. 18

Word for God

A hard father to his people, Mustafa Kemal told his Turks last December that they must forget God in the Arabic language (Allah), learn Him in Turkish (Tanri). Admitting the delicacy of renaming a 1300-year-old god, Kemal gave the muezzins a time allowance to learn the Koran in Turkish. Last week in pious Brusa, the "green city," a muezzin halloed "Tanri Uludur" from one of the minarets whence Brusans had heard "Allah Akbar" since the 14th Century. Raging at Kemal Pasha's god, they mobbed the muezzin, mobbed the police who came to save him.

Quick to defend his new word for God, quicker to show new Turkey the fate of the old-fashioned, Kemal the Ghazi, "the Victorious One," pounced on Brusa, had 60 of the faithful arrested, ousted the Mufti (ecclesiastical judge) of the Ouglubjami mosque and decreed that henceforth God was Tanri.

TIME, February 15, 1926, pp. 15-16

"Turkey presents today the most promising and challenging field on the face of the earth for missionary service." Thus wrote James L. Barton, missionary executive, in last week's issue of 'Christian Work.' But first he summarized the revolutionary changes in Turkey since 1923. The changes:

For a hundred years Christian missionaries have struggled hopelessly to capture the hearts of the Calif-awed Turks. They had come, said Mr. Barton, to suspect that "the Moslem was outside the sphere of the operation of divine grace."

Turkey, Emil Lengyel, 1941, pp. 140-141

During the early days of Kemal's career, many of his followers were under the impression that he was a champion of Islam and that they were fighting the Christians. "Ghazi, Destroyer of Christians" was the name they gave him. Had they been aware of his real intentions, they would have called him "Ghazi, Destroyer of Islam."

Grey Wolf, Mustafa Kemal, An Intimate Study of a Dictator, H.C. Armstrong, 1934

He was drinking heavily. The drink stimulated him, gave him energy, but increased his irritability. Both in private and public he was sarcastic, brutal and abrupt. He flared up at the least criticism. He cut short all attempts to reason with him. He flew into a passion at the least opposition. He would neither confide in nor co-operate with anyone. When one politician gave him some harmless advice, he roughly told him to get out. When a venerable member of the Cabinet suggested that it was unseemly for Turkish ladies to dance in public, he threw a Koran at him and chased him out of his office with a stick.

p. 241:

"For five hundred years these rules and theories of an Arab sheik," he said, "and the interpretations of generations of lazy, good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and the criminal law of Turkey."

"They had decided the form of the constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping, the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learnt in his schools, his customs, his thoughts, even his most intimate habits."

"Islam, this theology of an immoral Arab, is a dead thing." Possibly it might have suited tribes of nomads in the desert. It was no good for a modern progressive State.

"God's revelation!" There was no God. That was one of the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the people down.

"A ruler who needs religion to help him rule is a weakling. No weakling should rule.."

And the priests! How he hated them. The lazy, unproductive priests who ate up the sustenance of the people. He would chase them out of their mosques and monasteries to work like men.

Religion! He would tear religion from Turkey as one might tear the throttling ivy away to save a young tree.

p. 243

Further, it was public knowledge that he was irreligious, broke all the rules of decency, and scoffed at sacred things. He had chased the Sheik-ul-Islam, the High Priest of Islam, out of his office and thrown the Koran after him. He had forced the women in Angora to unveil. He had encouraged them to dance body close to body with accursed foreign men and Christians.

Turkey, Emil Lengyel, 1941, p. 134

Kemal cared nothing about Allah; he was interested in himself and in Turkey. He hated Allah and made him responsible for Turkey's misfortune. It was Allah's tyrannical rule that paralyzed the hands of the Turk. But he knew that Allah was real to the Turkish peasant, while nationalism meant nothing to him. He decided, therefore, to draft Allah into his service as the publicity director of his national cause. Through Allah's aid his people must cease to be Mohammedans and become Turks. Then, after Allah had served Kemal's purpose, he could discard him.

Ataturk, The Rebirth of a Nation, Lord Kinross, 1965, p. 437

For Kemal, Islam and civilization were a contradiction in terms. "If only," he once said of the Turks, with a flash of cynical insight, "we could make them Christians!" His was not to be the reformed Islamic state for which the Faithful were waiting: it was to be a strictly lay state, with a centralized Government as strong as the Sultan's, backed by the army and run by his own intellectual bureaucracy.

p. 470:

The cleavage in his musical tastes emerged in Istanbul, where he once had two orchestras, one Turkish and one European, brought to the Park Hotel. He listened with constant interruptions, commanding one to stop and the other to play in turn. Finally, as the raki took effect, he lost patience and rose to leave the restaurant, saying, "Now if you like you can both play together." Another evening, incensed by the sound of the muezzin from a mosque opposite, which clashed with the dance-band, he ordered its minaret to be felled - one of those orders which was countermanded next morning.

Ataturk, The Rebirth of a Nation, Lord Kinross, 1965, p. 365

Some confusion as to his identity persisted, however, for some years to come. Inspecting some soldiers in Anatolia, Kemal once asked, "Who is God and where does He live?"

The soldier, anxious to please, replied, "God is Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He lives in Angora."

"And where is Angora?" Kemal asked.

"Angora is in Istanbul," was the reply.

Farther down the line he asked another soldier, "Who is Mustafa Kemal?"

The reply was, "Our Sultan."

-Irfan Orga: Phoenix Ascendant.

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