The college reform of 1933 modified the panorama of the Turkish mental and educational scene without end. Under the so-called reform, greater than half of the earlier professors of Darülfünun (actually “home of sciences,” the one greater training establishment in Turkey earlier than 1933) – to be exact, 157 out of 240 – have been fired as a symbolic transfer supposed to point out that their sciences and information have been out of date and needs to be deserted.
As the Kemalist administration geared toward a complete Westernization in greater training, they exploited the scenario of the German students, many of whom had a Jewish lineage, operating from their homeland in self-exile after the nationwide socialists gained the elections that yr. Indeed, the Kemalists had been offended with the earlier professors of the Darülfünun. Reşit Galip, the minister of training and the architect of the college reform of 1933, had stated: “The Darülfünun didn’t give any assist to the Alphabet Revolution nor did they scratch their pens for the brand new historiography or economical insurance policies. The Darülfünun of Istanbul finally was silenced, deserted the world in a medieval isolation of themselves.” These ferocious phrases have been typical for the Kemalist understanding of the conflict between the scientists and thinkers of the early Republican period and the rulers of the state. The regime, pleased with firing probably the most distinguished professors in Turkey, changed them with the newcomers, the Germans.
The 1933 reform triggered many professors to search out themselves in oblivion and devastating silence. Today, we don’t have a powerful reference to what they knew, thought and wrote earlier than and after the college reform. Endeavors to save lots of their philosophical, literary and scientific heritage have been unable to switch the information to youthful generations. Only specialists within the historical past of greater training are accustomed to their works. However, some are well-known for his or her status in Islamic information. Ömer Ferit Kam was one of the few students of Islamic philosophy and Sufism who’ve been cited greater than the various Germans of Reşit Galip.
Early life
Kam was born in Istanbul on Jan. 11, 1864, to an upper-class household. His father, Ahmet Muhtar Pasha, was a navy doctor who served because the non-public physician of Sultan Abdülhamid II for some time. His ancestry was initially from central Çankırı province.
Kam was first schooled in Beylerbeyi Rüştiyesi secondary college apart from non-public classes he obtained from numerous tutors. In order to satisfy his father’s needs, he enrolled on the Mekteb-i Tıbbıye-yi Mülkiye, a faculty of drugs for civilians. Yet, he left the varsity of drugs after just one yr and enrolled on the Mekteb-i Hukuk, a faculty of legislation, for one more probability in greater training. Unfortunately, he needed to depart that faculty, too, upon the sudden dying of his father two years later.
Kam confirmed nice enthusiasm for studying. He tried his finest to study something and every part from his non-public tutors, thereby studying Arabic, Persian and French. He additionally had an important information of the Hadiths, Prophet Muhammad’s life and phrases. Kam had ample gratitude for his non-public tutors, largely for Mehmet Nüzhet Efendi, a poet and the director of the state’s printing home. He additionally obtained an icazetname, an Islamic license to show a particular course, from the teachings of Mustafa Asım Efendi on the Fatih Mosque in 1905.
A couple of years after his father’s dying, Kam started to work as a translator on the Government Translation Office. In 1888, he grew to become a French trainer on the Beylerbeyi Rüşdiyesi, from which he was an alumnus. His huge information of languages would lead him by means of his complete profession. He was granted a royal order by the Iranian authorities after translating a poem by Mirza Rıza Danış Han, the Iranian ambassador to Istanbul, into Turkish.
Professor of literature and philosophy
In 1914, Kam was appointed because the professor of Turkish language and literature on the Darülfünun after Mehmet Akif Ersoy, his buddy and religious chief, left the identical place. Though he labored exhausting as a literary professor and wrote a guide on learning classical Turkish literature, which continues to be printed below the title “Asar-ı Edebiyye Tedkikatı” (“Studying Literary Works”), he left the Darülfünun and transferred to the Süleymaniye Madrasah to show historical past and philosophy in 1917.
Kam was among the many regular writers of the Islamic journals “Sırat-ı Müstakim” (Right Way) and “Sebilürreşad,” each printed by Eşref Edip and edited by Ersoy, the good poet. He wrote knowledgeable articles on Islamic philosophy and Sufism. In 1913, Kam was despatched to Europe to check the methods of the European “ulema ve felasife” (students and philosophers). He wrote his impressions in Sebilürreşad below the “European Letters” headline.
Kam labored as a professor of philosophy on the Süleymaniye Madrasah and Darülfünun earlier than the Kemalist regime banned the madrasahs. After that, he was appointed to the Darülfünun because the professor of Persian literature in 1924. After 9 years’ work, he was fired in 1933 because of the conditions we’ve cited earlier than.
Islamist and/or Sufi
Kam was among the many Islamists of the II. Meşrutiyet (Second Constitution) period. He was befriended by and labored along with Ersoy and different distinguished Islamists of that point. The Islamists of the Second Constitution period have been primarily students and literary individuals working as public servants or lecturers. Like his friends, Kam additionally had double-sided information. He knew each Eastern and Western languages. He was an knowledgeable in Western philosophy and jap Sufism.
However, once more, like his Muslim comrades, he was reduce from his enterprise and status by the secularist regime. Kam spent his time after the fierce reform of 1933 in loneliness and frustration. He did a couple of insignificant jobs for the federal government, however the outdated days when he was the respected scholar of the information of the East and the West have been gone for good.
On the opposite hand, Kam turned his path to Sufism, this time in a extra private and existential manner. He studied, contemplated and wrote on Ibn Arabi and Rumi’s texts, which led him to a person Sufism, which he introduced into the sunshine in two volumes named “Vahdet-i Vücud” (“Unity of Existence”) and “Dinî ve Felsefi Musahabeler” (“Conversations on Religion and Philosophy”). His different works embrace “Türrehat” (“Early Poems”), “Şerh-i Mütun” (“Commentary on Classical Texts”), “İran Edebiyatı Tarihi” (“History of Iranian Literature”), “Sabit ve Baki Hakkında İnceleme” (“Study on Two Turkish Poets, particularly Sabit and Baki”), “Felsefe Tarihi Notları” (“Notes on the History of Philosophy”) and “İlm-i Ahlak” (“The Knowledge of Ethics;” a translation by Emile Boirac).
Kam was the primary writer to defend spiritualism and metaphysics within the title of Islam in the course of the Republican period, particularly against the positivism and materialism defended by Celal Nuri İleri. Kam largely interpreted Islamic Sufism, notably that of Ibn Arabi, within the phrases of trendy metaphysics.
Kam died on May 22, 1944, in Ankara.
