Yoruba
Yoruba. The term “Yoruba” is used to identify a people having, with considerable dialectic variation, a common language (of the Kwa group of the Niger-Congo family) and a common culture, which is remarkably persistent in spite of great political, geographical and religious differences that have arisen over the past three centuries. The language and culture are found as far from their West African origin as Brazil and Cuba, while substantial Yoruba communities are found in most West African states, especially in Sierra Leone and Ghana. The greatest number are in southwestern Nigeria, adjacent areas of Benin and beyond in Togo. Nearly one-half are Muslim, largely Sunni.
Recent interpretations of Yoruba traditions of origin agree in identifying Yoruba as a Sudanic people who successfully imposed their rule on an indigenous population in the forest belt of present day Nigeria. All traditions confirm Ile-Ife as the first city of the Yoruba and the Ooni of Ife as the spiritual head from whom all other Yoruba kings derive their sanction to rule. Urbanization among Yoruba is both basic and traditional, they have “always” lived in cities. Prior to the wars of the nineteenth century, farming communities extended out from the cities, and hunters served as guardians of boundaries while establishing and maintaining routes for trade. Fulani pressures from the north and colonial changes in the south forced the creation of strategic and defensible towns, such as Ibadan and Abeokuta, as well as the shifting of major cities to the south, notably Oyo. These new cities were built in patterns which can be seen today, substantially walled, largely windowless, large family compounds with internal courtyards, the whole built along intricate access paths.
Although some Yoruba felt the influence of Islam in earlier centuries, it was not until the early nineteenth century, following the Fulani jihad in the north, that old Oyo came within Muslim influence and Ilorin fell to Muslim rule under a line of emirs that persists to the present. By the time Fulani military pressure forced the resettlement of Oyo to the south, Islam was firmly entrenched in the Yoruba savannas -- as far, indeed, as the horse could safely go. Thereafter, the advance of Islam in Yoruba country was peaceful. By the 1830s, Hausa traders, some of whom were also religious teachers, had established themselves in the new city of Ibadan. As British colonial influence grew, freedom of trade movement further facilitated proselytization. During the second quarter of the present century, British “indirect rule,” which reinforced powers of emirs and obas (kings), led to Islamic domination in the north and a consequent rapid growth in the south. In the forty years between 1913 and 1953, the proportion of professed Muslims in Ibadan alone increased from thirty-five to sixty percent. Simultaneously, Christian missionaries -- many of them returned slaves from America -- were active in the south, and eventually it could be said without great exaggeration that throughout the Yoruba territories fewer than one-seventh of the people remained professed traditionalists, while the remainder divided fairly equally between Islam and Christianity.
The Yoruba numbered more than 20 million at the turn of the 21st century. They speak a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Most Yoruba men are farmers, growing yams, corn (maize), and millet as staples and plantains, peanuts (groundnuts), beans, and peas as subsidiary crops. Cocoa is a major cash crop. Others are traders or craftsmen. Women do little farm work but control much of the complex market system—their status depends more on their own position in the marketplace than on their husbands’ status. The Yoruba have traditionally been among the most skilled and productive craftsmen of Africa. They worked at such trades as blacksmithing, weaving, leatherworking, glassmaking, and ivory and wood carving. In the 13th and 14th centuries Yoruba bronze casting using the lost-wax (cire perdue) method reached a peak of technical excellence never subsequently equaled in western Africa. Yoruba women engage in cotton spinning, basketry, and dyeing.
The Yoruba have shared a common language and culture for centuries but were probably never a single political unit. They seem to have migrated from the east to their present lands west of the lower Niger River more than a millennium ago. They eventually became the most urbanized Africans of precolonial times. They formed numerous kingdoms of various sizes, each of which was centered on a capital city or town and ruled by a hereditary king, or oba. Their towns became densely populated and eventually grew into the present-day cities of Oyo, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Ibadan, Ilorin, Ijebu-Ode, Ikere-Ekiti, and others. Oyo developed in the 17th century into the largest of the Yoruba kingdoms, while Ile-Ife remained a town of potent religious significance as the site of the earth’s creation according to Yoruba mythology. Oyo and the other kingdoms declined in the late 18th and 19th centuries owing to disputes among minor Yoruba rulers and invasions by the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin) and the Muslim Fulani. The traditional Yoruba kingships still survive, but with only a hint of their former political power.
In a traditional Yoruba town the large and elaborate palace of the oba lies at the center, and grouped around it are the compounds of the patrilineages. The palace and the compounds are now often modern structures.
There is much diversity in social and political organization among the Yoruba, but they share many basic features. Inheritance and succession are based on patrilineal descent; members of the patrilineage live together under the authority of a headman, share certain names and taboos, worship their own deity, and have rights in lineage lands. The Yoruba also have several kinds of voluntary associations, including the egbe, a male recreational association; the aro, a mutual-aid association of farmers; and the esusu, whose members contribute a fixed amount of money and from which they can receive loans. Political authority is vested in the oba and a council of chiefs. Constituent towns each have their own ruler, who is subordinate to the oba. The oba is also a ritual leader and is considered sacred.
Many Yoruba are now Christians or Muslims, but aspects of their traditional religion survive. The traditional Yoruba religion has an elaborate hierarchy of deities, including a supreme creator and some 400 lesser gods and spirits, most of whom are associated with their own cults and priests. The Yoruba language has an extensive literature of poetry, short stories, myths, and proverbs.
Recent interpretations of Yoruba traditions of origin agree in identifying Yoruba as a Sudanic people who successfully imposed their rule on an indigenous population in the forest belt of present day Nigeria. All traditions confirm Ile-Ife as the first city of the Yoruba and the Ooni of Ife as the spiritual head from whom all other Yoruba kings derive their sanction to rule. Urbanization among Yoruba is both basic and traditional, they have “always” lived in cities. Prior to the wars of the nineteenth century, farming communities extended out from the cities, and hunters served as guardians of boundaries while establishing and maintaining routes for trade. Fulani pressures from the north and colonial changes in the south forced the creation of strategic and defensible towns, such as Ibadan and Abeokuta, as well as the shifting of major cities to the south, notably Oyo. These new cities were built in patterns which can be seen today, substantially walled, largely windowless, large family compounds with internal courtyards, the whole built along intricate access paths.
Although some Yoruba felt the influence of Islam in earlier centuries, it was not until the early nineteenth century, following the Fulani jihad in the north, that old Oyo came within Muslim influence and Ilorin fell to Muslim rule under a line of emirs that persists to the present. By the time Fulani military pressure forced the resettlement of Oyo to the south, Islam was firmly entrenched in the Yoruba savannas -- as far, indeed, as the horse could safely go. Thereafter, the advance of Islam in Yoruba country was peaceful. By the 1830s, Hausa traders, some of whom were also religious teachers, had established themselves in the new city of Ibadan. As British colonial influence grew, freedom of trade movement further facilitated proselytization. During the second quarter of the present century, British “indirect rule,” which reinforced powers of emirs and obas (kings), led to Islamic domination in the north and a consequent rapid growth in the south. In the forty years between 1913 and 1953, the proportion of professed Muslims in Ibadan alone increased from thirty-five to sixty percent. Simultaneously, Christian missionaries -- many of them returned slaves from America -- were active in the south, and eventually it could be said without great exaggeration that throughout the Yoruba territories fewer than one-seventh of the people remained professed traditionalists, while the remainder divided fairly equally between Islam and Christianity.
The Yoruba numbered more than 20 million at the turn of the 21st century. They speak a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Most Yoruba men are farmers, growing yams, corn (maize), and millet as staples and plantains, peanuts (groundnuts), beans, and peas as subsidiary crops. Cocoa is a major cash crop. Others are traders or craftsmen. Women do little farm work but control much of the complex market system—their status depends more on their own position in the marketplace than on their husbands’ status. The Yoruba have traditionally been among the most skilled and productive craftsmen of Africa. They worked at such trades as blacksmithing, weaving, leatherworking, glassmaking, and ivory and wood carving. In the 13th and 14th centuries Yoruba bronze casting using the lost-wax (cire perdue) method reached a peak of technical excellence never subsequently equaled in western Africa. Yoruba women engage in cotton spinning, basketry, and dyeing.
The Yoruba have shared a common language and culture for centuries but were probably never a single political unit. They seem to have migrated from the east to their present lands west of the lower Niger River more than a millennium ago. They eventually became the most urbanized Africans of precolonial times. They formed numerous kingdoms of various sizes, each of which was centered on a capital city or town and ruled by a hereditary king, or oba. Their towns became densely populated and eventually grew into the present-day cities of Oyo, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Ibadan, Ilorin, Ijebu-Ode, Ikere-Ekiti, and others. Oyo developed in the 17th century into the largest of the Yoruba kingdoms, while Ile-Ife remained a town of potent religious significance as the site of the earth’s creation according to Yoruba mythology. Oyo and the other kingdoms declined in the late 18th and 19th centuries owing to disputes among minor Yoruba rulers and invasions by the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin) and the Muslim Fulani. The traditional Yoruba kingships still survive, but with only a hint of their former political power.
In a traditional Yoruba town the large and elaborate palace of the oba lies at the center, and grouped around it are the compounds of the patrilineages. The palace and the compounds are now often modern structures.
There is much diversity in social and political organization among the Yoruba, but they share many basic features. Inheritance and succession are based on patrilineal descent; members of the patrilineage live together under the authority of a headman, share certain names and taboos, worship their own deity, and have rights in lineage lands. The Yoruba also have several kinds of voluntary associations, including the egbe, a male recreational association; the aro, a mutual-aid association of farmers; and the esusu, whose members contribute a fixed amount of money and from which they can receive loans. Political authority is vested in the oba and a council of chiefs. Constituent towns each have their own ruler, who is subordinate to the oba. The oba is also a ritual leader and is considered sacred.
Many Yoruba are now Christians or Muslims, but aspects of their traditional religion survive. The traditional Yoruba religion has an elaborate hierarchy of deities, including a supreme creator and some 400 lesser gods and spirits, most of whom are associated with their own cults and priests. The Yoruba language has an extensive literature of poetry, short stories, myths, and proverbs.
Yoruba slaves
Yoruba slaves. The Yoruba Kingdom was an ancient black kingdom located in central western Nigeria, apparently originating in the northern fringes of the forest. Before the Europeans arrived, it was already a highly urbanized and industrialized state, experienced in the art of working iron, copper, and glassware. It traded with the Mediterranean cities across the Sahara. The slave trade in the area reached a high development when the Portuguese reached the Guinea or Gold Coast around 1510. Yoruba slaves were brought in great numbers to the New World, especially to Cuba and Brazil, where they were known as Lucumi in Cuba and Nagos in Brazil. They were usually exported through the port of Lagos on the Slave Coast. In Brazil, they were thought to be robust, courageous, hard-working, and better tempered than other races, and they were noted for their intelligence. In 1826, the Yoruba slaves of Bahia set up a quilombo in the hinterland at Urubu, not far from the city. They fought valiantly against the government troops but were ultimately subdued.
A significant percentage of Africans enslaved during the Atlantic slave trade in the Americas managed to maintain the Yoruba tradition of 'Orisha' (also spelt, 'Orisa') veneration, as well as their continual belief in God, the Supreme Being, who they refer to under different names such as 'Olorun', 'Olodumare', 'Eleda', 'Olofin-Orun' and 'Eledumare'.
During the 19th century, the term 'Yoruba ' or 'Yariba' came into wider use, first confined to the Ọyọ. The term is often believed to be derived from a Hausa ethnonym for the populous people to their south, but this has not been substantiated by historians.
As an ethnic description, the word 'Yoruba' first appeared in a treatise written by the Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba (1500s) and is likely to derive from the indigenous ethnonyms Ọyọ (Oyo) or Yagba, two Yoruba-speaking groups along the northern borders of their territory. However, it is likely that the ethnonym was popularized by Hausa usage and ethnography written in Arabic and Ajami. Under the influence of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Creole (of Aku origin) clergyman, subsequent missionaries extended the term to include all speakers of related dialects.
Aside from "Yoruba" and its variant "Yariba", this ethnic group was in different times and places known by a variety of other names, including "Yorubo", "Akú", "Okun", "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" and "Lucumi".
Before the abolition of the slave trade, some Yoruba groups were known among Europeans as Akú, a name derived from the first words of Yoruba greetings such as Ẹ kú àárọ? 'good morning' and Ẹ kú alẹ? 'good evening.' A variant of this group is also known as the "Okun", Okun being also a form of "A ku". These are Yorubas found in parts of the states of Kogi - the "Yagba", Ekiti and Kabba.
The terms "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" were widely used in Spanish and Portuguese documents to describe all speakers of the language. They derive from the name of a coastal Yoruba sub-group in present-day Benin. Yoruba in Francophone West Africa are still sometimes known by this ethnonym today.
In Cuba and Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking America, the Yoruba were called "Lucumi" after the phrase "O luku mi", meaning "my friend" in some dialects. This term is at present used mainly to refer to an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from the traditional Yoruba religion, more often known as Santería now becoming popular in the United States.
The origin of the Yoruba, who often refer to themselves as "Omo O'odua" (Children of Oduduwa), revolves around a man called Oduduwa who became the first Oba (meaning 'king' or 'leader' in the Yoruba language) at the Yoruba kingdom of Ile-Ife (also known as Ife), under the title of the Ooni of Ife. It was from Ile-Ife that the descendants of Oduduwa went on to find other Yoruba kingdoms such as Oyo and Ketou. One of them even managed to rule over a famous non-Yoruba-speaking kingdom towards the east of Ife as the Oba of Ile-Ibinu, which later became known as Ubini, the Edo, and finally Benin (not to be confused with the country called the Republic of Benin which was previously known as Dahomey).
Yoruba slaves. The Yoruba Kingdom was an ancient black kingdom located in central western Nigeria, apparently originating in the northern fringes of the forest. Before the Europeans arrived, it was already a highly urbanized and industrialized state, experienced in the art of working iron, copper, and glassware. It traded with the Mediterranean cities across the Sahara. The slave trade in the area reached a high development when the Portuguese reached the Guinea or Gold Coast around 1510. Yoruba slaves were brought in great numbers to the New World, especially to Cuba and Brazil, where they were known as Lucumi in Cuba and Nagos in Brazil. They were usually exported through the port of Lagos on the Slave Coast. In Brazil, they were thought to be robust, courageous, hard-working, and better tempered than other races, and they were noted for their intelligence. In 1826, the Yoruba slaves of Bahia set up a quilombo in the hinterland at Urubu, not far from the city. They fought valiantly against the government troops but were ultimately subdued.
A significant percentage of Africans enslaved during the Atlantic slave trade in the Americas managed to maintain the Yoruba tradition of 'Orisha' (also spelt, 'Orisa') veneration, as well as their continual belief in God, the Supreme Being, who they refer to under different names such as 'Olorun', 'Olodumare', 'Eleda', 'Olofin-Orun' and 'Eledumare'.
During the 19th century, the term 'Yoruba ' or 'Yariba' came into wider use, first confined to the Ọyọ. The term is often believed to be derived from a Hausa ethnonym for the populous people to their south, but this has not been substantiated by historians.
As an ethnic description, the word 'Yoruba' first appeared in a treatise written by the Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba (1500s) and is likely to derive from the indigenous ethnonyms Ọyọ (Oyo) or Yagba, two Yoruba-speaking groups along the northern borders of their territory. However, it is likely that the ethnonym was popularized by Hausa usage and ethnography written in Arabic and Ajami. Under the influence of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Creole (of Aku origin) clergyman, subsequent missionaries extended the term to include all speakers of related dialects.
Aside from "Yoruba" and its variant "Yariba", this ethnic group was in different times and places known by a variety of other names, including "Yorubo", "Akú", "Okun", "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" and "Lucumi".
Before the abolition of the slave trade, some Yoruba groups were known among Europeans as Akú, a name derived from the first words of Yoruba greetings such as Ẹ kú àárọ? 'good morning' and Ẹ kú alẹ? 'good evening.' A variant of this group is also known as the "Okun", Okun being also a form of "A ku". These are Yorubas found in parts of the states of Kogi - the "Yagba", Ekiti and Kabba.
The terms "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" were widely used in Spanish and Portuguese documents to describe all speakers of the language. They derive from the name of a coastal Yoruba sub-group in present-day Benin. Yoruba in Francophone West Africa are still sometimes known by this ethnonym today.
In Cuba and Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking America, the Yoruba were called "Lucumi" after the phrase "O luku mi", meaning "my friend" in some dialects. This term is at present used mainly to refer to an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from the traditional Yoruba religion, more often known as Santería now becoming popular in the United States.
The origin of the Yoruba, who often refer to themselves as "Omo O'odua" (Children of Oduduwa), revolves around a man called Oduduwa who became the first Oba (meaning 'king' or 'leader' in the Yoruba language) at the Yoruba kingdom of Ile-Ife (also known as Ife), under the title of the Ooni of Ife. It was from Ile-Ife that the descendants of Oduduwa went on to find other Yoruba kingdoms such as Oyo and Ketou. One of them even managed to rule over a famous non-Yoruba-speaking kingdom towards the east of Ife as the Oba of Ile-Ibinu, which later became known as Ubini, the Edo, and finally Benin (not to be confused with the country called the Republic of Benin which was previously known as Dahomey).
Yoruk
Yoruk (Yuruk). The Yoruk of Turkey are a distinct ethnic-tribal grouping, found widely throughout Turkey but primarily along the Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines. Unlike many groups with a unique cultural heritage in the Middle East, the Yoruk are not linguistically distinct from most of the rural populations among whom they live. They speak the Western Turkish dialect standard in Anatolia.
The Yoruk are Sunni of the Hanafi school of law. What distinguishes the Yoruk is their recognition of a common history in the form of membership in, or descent from, an assortment of Turkic tribes which are presumed to have moved to Anatolia from Iran or Central Asia in the eleventh century.
As early as the reign of Bayazid I, there are accounts of Yoruk tribes in Macedonia, Thrace and elsewhere in the Balkans. Following the conquest of Cyprus by Selim II, Yoruk groups moved to that island, where they may be found today as settled villagers. Most historians regard the Yoruk as closely related to Turkmen tribes who came in large numbers after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, but it is also likely that indigenous nomadic pastoral populations along the coast became Turkified during the early period of Islamic rule in Anatolia.
The term “Yoruk” is often thought to be derived from yurumek, “to walk.” The Yoruk themselves do not make this the case, but regardless of the merits of the etymology, it is a fitting image for a nomadic people moving with their flocks of sheep and goats.
During the Ottoman period, Yoruk tribes were important politically since they were recognized by the government for purposes of taxation, the raising of military levies and local administration. Tribal leaders, for example, supplied 52,000 troops in the eighteenth century. Today Yoruk people contine to speak of tribes, and most of the 88 listed in 1898 as then living in Aydin and Smyrna (Izmir) provinces still can be located readily. However, the Turkish government now does not recognize tribes or tribal leaders for administrative purposes.
Yuruk see Yoruk
Yoruk (Yuruk). The Yoruk of Turkey are a distinct ethnic-tribal grouping, found widely throughout Turkey but primarily along the Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines. Unlike many groups with a unique cultural heritage in the Middle East, the Yoruk are not linguistically distinct from most of the rural populations among whom they live. They speak the Western Turkish dialect standard in Anatolia.
The Yoruk are Sunni of the Hanafi school of law. What distinguishes the Yoruk is their recognition of a common history in the form of membership in, or descent from, an assortment of Turkic tribes which are presumed to have moved to Anatolia from Iran or Central Asia in the eleventh century.
As early as the reign of Bayazid I, there are accounts of Yoruk tribes in Macedonia, Thrace and elsewhere in the Balkans. Following the conquest of Cyprus by Selim II, Yoruk groups moved to that island, where they may be found today as settled villagers. Most historians regard the Yoruk as closely related to Turkmen tribes who came in large numbers after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, but it is also likely that indigenous nomadic pastoral populations along the coast became Turkified during the early period of Islamic rule in Anatolia.
The term “Yoruk” is often thought to be derived from yurumek, “to walk.” The Yoruk themselves do not make this the case, but regardless of the merits of the etymology, it is a fitting image for a nomadic people moving with their flocks of sheep and goats.
During the Ottoman period, Yoruk tribes were important politically since they were recognized by the government for purposes of taxation, the raising of military levies and local administration. Tribal leaders, for example, supplied 52,000 troops in the eighteenth century. Today Yoruk people contine to speak of tribes, and most of the 88 listed in 1898 as then living in Aydin and Smyrna (Izmir) provinces still can be located readily. However, the Turkish government now does not recognize tribes or tribal leaders for administrative purposes.
Yuruk see Yoruk
Young Egypt Party
Young Egypt Party (Hizb Misr El-Fatah) (Misr El-Fatah Party). Egyptian nationalist movement having strong Fascist leanings.
The Young Egypt Party is a small Egyptian political party. The Party platform calls for:
* Establishing a parliamentary/presidential ruling system.
* Enhancing the Egyptian-Arab ties.
* Achieving integration with African countries.
* Adopting non-alignment policies.
* Establishing the so-called socialist Islamic economic system and boosting the role of the private sector.
The Party fielded seven candidates to run for the 2000 legislative elections.
The Party was formed October 1933 by its leader Ahmed Husayn. During the 1930s the fascist Young Egypt Party had a youth movement name the "Green Shirts" who had some violent confrontations with the Wafd party's "blue shirts". One member even tried to assassinate Mustafa el-Nahas Pasha in November 1937. Under government pressure, the Green Shirts were disbanded in 1938. The group was renamed the Nationalist Islamic Party in 1940, when it took on a more religious, as well as, anti-British tone. After the war it was renamed yet again, now the Socialist Party of Egypt. The groups one electoral success came when it sent Ibrahim Shukri, its vice-president to parliament in 1951. However, the military government that came to power in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 disbanded it, and all other parties, in 1953.
Ibriham Shukri formed a group, the Socialist Labor Party in 1978, despite its name it took much of the populistic and nationalistic ideology of the Young Egypt Party. Its organ (publication) was Al-Sha'ab (The People).
Another Young Egypt group, this one keeping the original name, was founded in 1990. It was led by Abdallah Rushdi.
Young Egypt Party (Hizb Misr El-Fatah) (Misr El-Fatah Party). Egyptian nationalist movement having strong Fascist leanings.
The Young Egypt Party is a small Egyptian political party. The Party platform calls for:
* Establishing a parliamentary/presidential ruling system.
* Enhancing the Egyptian-Arab ties.
* Achieving integration with African countries.
* Adopting non-alignment policies.
* Establishing the so-called socialist Islamic economic system and boosting the role of the private sector.
The Party fielded seven candidates to run for the 2000 legislative elections.
The Party was formed October 1933 by its leader Ahmed Husayn. During the 1930s the fascist Young Egypt Party had a youth movement name the "Green Shirts" who had some violent confrontations with the Wafd party's "blue shirts". One member even tried to assassinate Mustafa el-Nahas Pasha in November 1937. Under government pressure, the Green Shirts were disbanded in 1938. The group was renamed the Nationalist Islamic Party in 1940, when it took on a more religious, as well as, anti-British tone. After the war it was renamed yet again, now the Socialist Party of Egypt. The groups one electoral success came when it sent Ibrahim Shukri, its vice-president to parliament in 1951. However, the military government that came to power in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 disbanded it, and all other parties, in 1953.
Ibriham Shukri formed a group, the Socialist Labor Party in 1978, despite its name it took much of the populistic and nationalistic ideology of the Young Egypt Party. Its organ (publication) was Al-Sha'ab (The People).
Another Young Egypt group, this one keeping the original name, was founded in 1990. It was led by Abdallah Rushdi.
Hizb Misr El-Fatah see Young Egypt Party
Misr El-Fatah Party see Young Egypt Party
Misr El-Fatah Party see Young Egypt Party
Young Ottomans
Young Ottomans (Yeni Osmanlilar). The libertarian movement known as the Young Ottomans (Yeni Osmanlilar) developed the first constitutionalist ideology to appear in the Ottoman Empire. It was influential from around 1860 to 1876. In the first half of the nineteenth century Ottoman officials embarked on a policy of reforms that came to be known as the Tanzimat (Regulation). The first political expressions of this reform policy were contained in two documents: the Hatt-i Humayun of Gulhane (1839), a semi-constitutional charter that promised security of person and property to all Ottoman subjects, and the Reform Edict of 1856, which covered a more diverse catalog of rights and made a special point of guaranteeing protection to the non-Muslim population of the empire. The Reform Edict had extensive negative repercussions among Ottoman Muslims; one of its outcomes was the so-called Kuleli Conspiracy (1859). The leader of the conspiracy was a Naqshbandi (in Turkish, Naksibendi) shaykh, and some younger officials took part in it. This alliance of disgruntled clerics and young officials shifted during the 1860s into a more clearly liberal constitutionalist stance inspired by Western liberalism. At that time the religious component was relegated to a secondary role, possibly because the democratic ideals expressed in recently founded journals by the young officials could reach a wider audience through their use of demotic Turkish, although at least one newspaper represented the conservative strain.
In 1865, some young civil officials in Istanbul established a secret society, the Patriotic Alliance. With one foot in officialdom and another in journalism, these men began systematically to criticize the policy of the architects of the Tanzimat. Among their targets were two Ottoman officials, Ali Pasa and Fuad Pasa, who had shared the direction of Ottoman internal and foreign policy. These statesmen were accused of using westernization to establish the autocratic rule of a bureaucratic elite, of undermining Ottoman culture through their neglect of Islam as a guideline for social and political values, and of having failed to defend the interests of the Ottoman Empire against the encroachments of Western powers. Two leaders of the Young Ottoman movement, the poet Mehmet Namuk Kemal and the administrator Ziya Bey (later Pasa), eventually had to flee from Istanbul into exile in 1867. They organized an opposition movement in Paris and London, funded by an Ottoman-Egyptian prince who expected to use the movement for his own narrower aims. The exiles were joined by the cleric Ali Suavi, who represented the earlier Islamic reaction to the Tanzimat and who seemed to support constitutionalism.
Kemal and Ziya soon perceived that Suavi’s ideas of democracy had a very different foundtion from theirs; Ziya himself was more conservative than Kemal. The newspaper they published, Hurriyet (Freedom), boldly expressed democratic ideals in Turkish, but it soon had to cease publication owing to conflicts among the movement’s leaders. After 1870, the Young Ottoman leaders returned to Turkey and continued their defense of libertarian ideals, with repeated interruptions by censorship and exile. Their ideas were partially instrumental in inspiring civilian and military officials to dethrone Sultan Abdulaziz (r. 1861-1876), although the Young Ottomans themselves had never opposed the monarchic principle in theory.
The Young Ottomans were in part responsible for the elaboration of the first Ottoman Constitution (1876) and the short-lived Ottoman parliament it created. Namuk Kemal’s impassioned defense of liberty as well as his fiery patriotism -- both strongly influenced by European Romanticism -- continued to be an inspiration for the Young Turks who emerged in the 1890s.
A forerunner of other Turkish nationalist groups (see Young Turks), the Young Ottomans favored converting the Turkish-dominated multi-national Ottoman Empire into a more purely Turkish state and called for the creation of a constitutional government. By 1867 the Young Ottomans had expanded from the original six (6) members to 245, including the noted poets Namık Kemal and Ziya Paşa. They were further supported financially and materially by the Egyptian prince Mustafa Fazıl and had attracted the attention of the Ottoman princes Murad and Abdülhamid.
Exiled for revolutionary activities by the grand vizier Âli Paşa in 1867, the society established itself in Paris. There it made European contacts and began publishing Hürriyet (“Freedom”), an inflammatory newspaper, subsequently smuggled into Turkey, calling on the Turkish people to demand a constitution. The return to Istanbul of Mustafa Fazıl and Namık Kemal weakened the Young Ottomans, and in 1871–72, during the amnesty declared after the death of Âli Paşa, most of them returned to Turkey. The movement, however, had lost its impetus and, except for the isolated activity of such individuals as Namık Kemal, ceased to be a factor in national affairs.
The failure of the "Young Ottoman" policies (Ottomanism) in reverting the decline of the Ottoman Empire led groups of intellectuals to search for other means. One of these groups was the Young Turks, which brought the Empire to the Second Constitutional Era and then to World War I, with the policies developed under the Three Pashas.
Young Ottomans (Yeni Osmanlilar). The libertarian movement known as the Young Ottomans (Yeni Osmanlilar) developed the first constitutionalist ideology to appear in the Ottoman Empire. It was influential from around 1860 to 1876. In the first half of the nineteenth century Ottoman officials embarked on a policy of reforms that came to be known as the Tanzimat (Regulation). The first political expressions of this reform policy were contained in two documents: the Hatt-i Humayun of Gulhane (1839), a semi-constitutional charter that promised security of person and property to all Ottoman subjects, and the Reform Edict of 1856, which covered a more diverse catalog of rights and made a special point of guaranteeing protection to the non-Muslim population of the empire. The Reform Edict had extensive negative repercussions among Ottoman Muslims; one of its outcomes was the so-called Kuleli Conspiracy (1859). The leader of the conspiracy was a Naqshbandi (in Turkish, Naksibendi) shaykh, and some younger officials took part in it. This alliance of disgruntled clerics and young officials shifted during the 1860s into a more clearly liberal constitutionalist stance inspired by Western liberalism. At that time the religious component was relegated to a secondary role, possibly because the democratic ideals expressed in recently founded journals by the young officials could reach a wider audience through their use of demotic Turkish, although at least one newspaper represented the conservative strain.
In 1865, some young civil officials in Istanbul established a secret society, the Patriotic Alliance. With one foot in officialdom and another in journalism, these men began systematically to criticize the policy of the architects of the Tanzimat. Among their targets were two Ottoman officials, Ali Pasa and Fuad Pasa, who had shared the direction of Ottoman internal and foreign policy. These statesmen were accused of using westernization to establish the autocratic rule of a bureaucratic elite, of undermining Ottoman culture through their neglect of Islam as a guideline for social and political values, and of having failed to defend the interests of the Ottoman Empire against the encroachments of Western powers. Two leaders of the Young Ottoman movement, the poet Mehmet Namuk Kemal and the administrator Ziya Bey (later Pasa), eventually had to flee from Istanbul into exile in 1867. They organized an opposition movement in Paris and London, funded by an Ottoman-Egyptian prince who expected to use the movement for his own narrower aims. The exiles were joined by the cleric Ali Suavi, who represented the earlier Islamic reaction to the Tanzimat and who seemed to support constitutionalism.
Kemal and Ziya soon perceived that Suavi’s ideas of democracy had a very different foundtion from theirs; Ziya himself was more conservative than Kemal. The newspaper they published, Hurriyet (Freedom), boldly expressed democratic ideals in Turkish, but it soon had to cease publication owing to conflicts among the movement’s leaders. After 1870, the Young Ottoman leaders returned to Turkey and continued their defense of libertarian ideals, with repeated interruptions by censorship and exile. Their ideas were partially instrumental in inspiring civilian and military officials to dethrone Sultan Abdulaziz (r. 1861-1876), although the Young Ottomans themselves had never opposed the monarchic principle in theory.
The Young Ottomans were in part responsible for the elaboration of the first Ottoman Constitution (1876) and the short-lived Ottoman parliament it created. Namuk Kemal’s impassioned defense of liberty as well as his fiery patriotism -- both strongly influenced by European Romanticism -- continued to be an inspiration for the Young Turks who emerged in the 1890s.
A forerunner of other Turkish nationalist groups (see Young Turks), the Young Ottomans favored converting the Turkish-dominated multi-national Ottoman Empire into a more purely Turkish state and called for the creation of a constitutional government. By 1867 the Young Ottomans had expanded from the original six (6) members to 245, including the noted poets Namık Kemal and Ziya Paşa. They were further supported financially and materially by the Egyptian prince Mustafa Fazıl and had attracted the attention of the Ottoman princes Murad and Abdülhamid.
Exiled for revolutionary activities by the grand vizier Âli Paşa in 1867, the society established itself in Paris. There it made European contacts and began publishing Hürriyet (“Freedom”), an inflammatory newspaper, subsequently smuggled into Turkey, calling on the Turkish people to demand a constitution. The return to Istanbul of Mustafa Fazıl and Namık Kemal weakened the Young Ottomans, and in 1871–72, during the amnesty declared after the death of Âli Paşa, most of them returned to Turkey. The movement, however, had lost its impetus and, except for the isolated activity of such individuals as Namık Kemal, ceased to be a factor in national affairs.
The failure of the "Young Ottoman" policies (Ottomanism) in reverting the decline of the Ottoman Empire led groups of intellectuals to search for other means. One of these groups was the Young Turks, which brought the Empire to the Second Constitutional Era and then to World War I, with the policies developed under the Three Pashas.
Yeni Osmanlilar see Young Ottomans
Young Turks
Young Turks (Jöntürkler) (Jön Türkler) (Jeunes Turcs). Name of a revolutionary group of Turkish nationalists, whose center was the Ittihad we Teraqqi Jem’iyyeti. They initiated the rebellion against the regime of Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1908, took control of the Ottoman government, restored its constitution, and instituted westernizing reforms. The main organization of the Young Turks was the Committee of Union and Progress.
Europe designated as the “Young Turks” the opposition to Sultan Abdulhamid II’s regime (1876-1908) that restored the constitution on July 23, 1908, and ruled the Ottoman Empire until its destruction in 1918. This opposition movement was the successor to the “Young Ottomans” who had been responsible for the promulgation of the first constitution in December 1876. But after Abdulhamid shelved the constitution in February 1878 and dissolved the New Ottoman Association, the movement went underground or into exile.
In 1889, a new body was formed calling itself the Committee of Ottoman Union. It soon became famous as the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). It was active mainly in Europe and Egypt, and its members came from virtually every ethnic and religious community in the empire. Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Armenians, and Greeks united under the umbrella of Ottomanism in opposition to Hamidian autocracy. In 1906, certain officials and military officers formed the secret Ottoman Freedom Society in the port city of Salonika. The following year, the two bodies merged under the established name of the CUP, but it was the Salonika group that led the revolution and forced the sultan to restore the 1876 constitution.
After July 1908, the Young Turks were divided into two broad groups, both determined to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but by rather different methods. The Unionists emphasized unity and modernization under a centralized state as the way to progress. The liberals, who formed the Liberal Party (Ahrar Firkasi) in 1908 and the Liberal Union in 1911, favored a decentralized polity with substantial autonomy for the non-Turkish, non-Muslim communities. Both groups stayed away from religion as much as they could, a difficult task in an empire still organized on essentially religious lines in millets or religious communities. In fact, the Young Turks had to undermine the traditional privileges enjoyed by the non-Muslim millets in order to create a modern state. One such privilege permitted foreign states to act as protectors of particular permitted foreign states to act as protectors of particular millets. Thus, Russia protected the Greek Orthodox community and France the Catholic, giving these nations power to interfere in Ottoman affairs and violating the state’s sovereignty.
The goal of maintaining a multinational, multireligious empire forced the Young Turks to adopt a dynasty based ideology of Ottomanism and to shun both nationalism and religion. There were, however, both nationalists and Islamists in their ranks: Said Halim Pasha was an Islamist and Ziya Gokalp a nationalist, and both were prominent in the CUP. Initially they were kept in the background, and Islam became the instrument of the conservative and reactionary opposition. Yet even the liberals exploited it during the insurrection of April 1909 led by the Ittihad-i Muhammadi Cemiyeti.
After this traumatic event, the Unionists became more cautious about fostering social reform that might alienate Islamist opinion influenced by such journals as Sebilurresad and Sirat-i mustakim. Thus they emphasized the religious element in the ceremony of girding the sword of Osman when Sultan Mehmed V succeeded the deposed Abdulhamid. On May 10, 1909, Mehmed Resad was taken to the mausoleum of his ancestor at Eyub and, in the presence of civil and religious notables, Abdulhalim Efendi, the leader of the Mevlevi order who traced his line to Mevlana Jelal ed-Din Rumi (in Arabic, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi), girded the sword on the new sultan.
After the abortive insurrection of 1909, the two factions of the Young Turks competed for political supremacy under the watchful eye of the military high command under Mahmud Sevket Pasha, the general who had crushed the rebellion. In July 1912, while Istanbul ws at war with Italy over Libya, a military coup brought the liberals to power, and it seemed that the CUP’s days were numbered. But the Unionists took advantage of the defeats suffered by Ottoman armies at the hands of the Balkan states (Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece) in the war that broke out in October 1912. In the political chaos in the capital they seized power in January 1913 and consolidated it in June by destroying the liberal opposition.
The wars with Italy and the Balkan states weakened the multinational, multireligious character of Ottomanism while strengthening its Islamic and nationalist elements. Italy’s attack and occupation of Libya, an Arab province, boosted Islamic solidarity. The loss of virtually all territories in the Balkans followed by the expulsions of much of their Muslim population left the empire with a predominantly Muslim/Turkish Anatolia and the Arab provinces. This trend continued during World War I with the massacre and deportation of the Armenians from eastern Anatolia as well as the arrival of Turks from the Caucasus.
In 1913, following the example of the Jacobins in the French Revolution, the nationalist faction of the CUP organized the Committees of National Defense and Public Safety to facilitate the conduct of war. To appease Arab opinion, Mahmud Sevket Pasha, who was born in Baghdad and claimed he was Arab, was appointed grand vizier in January 1913. Following his assassination in June 1913, the Egyptian prince Said Halim Pasha succeeded him and led the government until February 1917 -- the longest grand vizierate of the Young Turk period. Ottomanism strongly tinged with Islam had now become the ideology of the Young Turks.
The Islam of the Unionists, however, was ideologically different from that of the Islamists. This is apparent from articles that appeared in Islam mecmuasi (Journal of Islam), first published in February 1914. Unlike the Islamists, the Unionists argued that nationalism was not contrary to Islam but complemented it. Moreover, religion had to conform to the needs of everyday life; this idea was summed up in the word on the journal’s masthead, “A Religious Life and a Living Religion.” Islam had to be interpreted in terms of the new conditions confronting Muslims in order to be of living significance. The writers in Islam mecmuasi went so far as to propose the separation of religion from the state. Only this reform, they claimed, could make Islam a vital part of a Muslim’s everyday life; religious required taking measures to make religion a matter of conscience while subordinating the legal aspects of Islam to secular legislation. The first step was the concern of religious leaders and institutions, while the second was the job of the state. Some of these ideas were put in action by the Unionist government during the war; they were adopted wholesale by Ataturk’s republic and provided the foundations for its policy of secularization.
The Young Turks were ultimately a coalition of various reform groups that led a revolutionary movement against the authoritarian regime of Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II, which culminated in the establishment of a constitutional government. After their rise to power, the Young Turks introduced programs that promoted the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and a new spirit of Turkish nationalism. Their handling of foreign affairs, however, resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman state.
In 1889 a group of students in the Imperial Medical Academy in Istanbul initiated a conspiracy against Abdülhamid that spread rapidly to other colleges in the city. When the plot was uncovered, many of its leaders fled abroad, mainly to Paris, where they prepared the groundwork for a future revolution against Abdülhamid. Among the most notable of the liberal émigrés was Ahmed Rıza, who became a key spokesman for the influential Young Turk organization known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which advocated a program of orderly reform under a strong central government and the exclusion of all foreign influence. A major rival faction was formed by Prince Sabaheddin. His group, called the League of Private Initiative and Decentralization, espoused many of the same liberal principles as those propounded by the CUP, but, unlike the latter, it favored administrative decentralization and European assistance to implement reforms.
Although the CUP and the League played a significant role in disseminating and stimulating liberal thought, the actual impetus for the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 came from groups within the empire, particularly from discontented members of the Third (3rd) Army Corps in Macedonia. Many young officers of the corps garrisoned at Salonika (now Thessaloníka, Greece) organized to form the Ottoman Liberty Society in 1906. This secret revolutionary group merged with the CUP in Paris the following year, bringing to the Young Turk ideologists the command of the 3rd Army Corps. Later in 1907 the CUP and the League of Private Initiative and Decentralization agreed, though reluctantly, to work together to achieve their common goal.
On July 3, 1908, Major Ahmed Niyazi of the 3rd Corps led a revolt against the provincial authorities in Resna. Other conspirators soon followed his example, and the rebellion rapidly spread throughout the empire. Unable to rely on government troops, Abdülhamid announced on July 23 the restoration of the 1876 constitution and recalled parliament. The Young Turks had succeeded in establishing a constitutional government, but their deep-seated ideological differences resurfaced and prevented them from taking effective control of that government until 1913, when the CUP under new leaders—the triumvirate of Talât Paşa, Ahmed Cemal Paşa, and Enver Paşa—set itself up as the real arbiter of Ottoman politics.
While in power, the Young Turks carried out administrative reforms, especially of provincial administration, that led to more centralization. They were also the first Ottoman reformers to promote industrialization. In addition, the programs of the Young Turk regime effectuated greater secularization of the legal system and provided for the education of women and better state-operated primary schools. Such positive developments in domestic affairs, however, were largely overshadowed by the disastrous consequences of the regime’s foreign policy decisions. An overly hasty appraisal of Germany’s military capability by the Young Turk leaders led them to break neutrality and enter World War I (1914–18) on the side of the Central Powers. Upon the end of the war, with defeat imminent, the CUP Cabinet resigned on October 9, 1918, less than a month before the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros.
The Young Turk movement built a rich tradition of dissent that shaped the intellectual and political life of the late Ottoman period and laid the foundation for Atatürk's revolution. Most of their leaders believed that the state, not popular will, was the instrument by which social and political change would be achieved. They bequeathed to Atatürk the conviction that reformers should seize state power and then use it ruthlessly for their own ends, not to democratize society in ways that would weaken the centralized state.
Except for the shift in focus on nationalism, the official ideology of the early modern Turkish state was shaped during this period. The Young Turks who lived long enough to witness the coming into being of the Republic of Turkey saw many of their ideals realized – it was a regime based on a popular materialistic-positivist ideology and nationalism. The new regime worked to be included in western culture while exerting an anti-imperialist rhetoric and convened a parliament composed not of elected politicians but of virtually selected intellectuals working on behalf of the people without cooperating in any capacity with the 'ignorant' masses. The effect of the Young Turks on shaping the official ideology of early modern Turkey went far beyond the political changes they brought about.
Jöntürkler see Young Turks
Jon Turkler see Young Turks
Jeunes Turcs see Young Turks
Turkler, Jon see Young Turks
Turcs, Jeunes see Young Turks
Europe designated as the “Young Turks” the opposition to Sultan Abdulhamid II’s regime (1876-1908) that restored the constitution on July 23, 1908, and ruled the Ottoman Empire until its destruction in 1918. This opposition movement was the successor to the “Young Ottomans” who had been responsible for the promulgation of the first constitution in December 1876. But after Abdulhamid shelved the constitution in February 1878 and dissolved the New Ottoman Association, the movement went underground or into exile.
In 1889, a new body was formed calling itself the Committee of Ottoman Union. It soon became famous as the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). It was active mainly in Europe and Egypt, and its members came from virtually every ethnic and religious community in the empire. Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Armenians, and Greeks united under the umbrella of Ottomanism in opposition to Hamidian autocracy. In 1906, certain officials and military officers formed the secret Ottoman Freedom Society in the port city of Salonika. The following year, the two bodies merged under the established name of the CUP, but it was the Salonika group that led the revolution and forced the sultan to restore the 1876 constitution.
After July 1908, the Young Turks were divided into two broad groups, both determined to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but by rather different methods. The Unionists emphasized unity and modernization under a centralized state as the way to progress. The liberals, who formed the Liberal Party (Ahrar Firkasi) in 1908 and the Liberal Union in 1911, favored a decentralized polity with substantial autonomy for the non-Turkish, non-Muslim communities. Both groups stayed away from religion as much as they could, a difficult task in an empire still organized on essentially religious lines in millets or religious communities. In fact, the Young Turks had to undermine the traditional privileges enjoyed by the non-Muslim millets in order to create a modern state. One such privilege permitted foreign states to act as protectors of particular permitted foreign states to act as protectors of particular millets. Thus, Russia protected the Greek Orthodox community and France the Catholic, giving these nations power to interfere in Ottoman affairs and violating the state’s sovereignty.
The goal of maintaining a multinational, multireligious empire forced the Young Turks to adopt a dynasty based ideology of Ottomanism and to shun both nationalism and religion. There were, however, both nationalists and Islamists in their ranks: Said Halim Pasha was an Islamist and Ziya Gokalp a nationalist, and both were prominent in the CUP. Initially they were kept in the background, and Islam became the instrument of the conservative and reactionary opposition. Yet even the liberals exploited it during the insurrection of April 1909 led by the Ittihad-i Muhammadi Cemiyeti.
After this traumatic event, the Unionists became more cautious about fostering social reform that might alienate Islamist opinion influenced by such journals as Sebilurresad and Sirat-i mustakim. Thus they emphasized the religious element in the ceremony of girding the sword of Osman when Sultan Mehmed V succeeded the deposed Abdulhamid. On May 10, 1909, Mehmed Resad was taken to the mausoleum of his ancestor at Eyub and, in the presence of civil and religious notables, Abdulhalim Efendi, the leader of the Mevlevi order who traced his line to Mevlana Jelal ed-Din Rumi (in Arabic, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi), girded the sword on the new sultan.
After the abortive insurrection of 1909, the two factions of the Young Turks competed for political supremacy under the watchful eye of the military high command under Mahmud Sevket Pasha, the general who had crushed the rebellion. In July 1912, while Istanbul ws at war with Italy over Libya, a military coup brought the liberals to power, and it seemed that the CUP’s days were numbered. But the Unionists took advantage of the defeats suffered by Ottoman armies at the hands of the Balkan states (Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece) in the war that broke out in October 1912. In the political chaos in the capital they seized power in January 1913 and consolidated it in June by destroying the liberal opposition.
The wars with Italy and the Balkan states weakened the multinational, multireligious character of Ottomanism while strengthening its Islamic and nationalist elements. Italy’s attack and occupation of Libya, an Arab province, boosted Islamic solidarity. The loss of virtually all territories in the Balkans followed by the expulsions of much of their Muslim population left the empire with a predominantly Muslim/Turkish Anatolia and the Arab provinces. This trend continued during World War I with the massacre and deportation of the Armenians from eastern Anatolia as well as the arrival of Turks from the Caucasus.
In 1913, following the example of the Jacobins in the French Revolution, the nationalist faction of the CUP organized the Committees of National Defense and Public Safety to facilitate the conduct of war. To appease Arab opinion, Mahmud Sevket Pasha, who was born in Baghdad and claimed he was Arab, was appointed grand vizier in January 1913. Following his assassination in June 1913, the Egyptian prince Said Halim Pasha succeeded him and led the government until February 1917 -- the longest grand vizierate of the Young Turk period. Ottomanism strongly tinged with Islam had now become the ideology of the Young Turks.
The Islam of the Unionists, however, was ideologically different from that of the Islamists. This is apparent from articles that appeared in Islam mecmuasi (Journal of Islam), first published in February 1914. Unlike the Islamists, the Unionists argued that nationalism was not contrary to Islam but complemented it. Moreover, religion had to conform to the needs of everyday life; this idea was summed up in the word on the journal’s masthead, “A Religious Life and a Living Religion.” Islam had to be interpreted in terms of the new conditions confronting Muslims in order to be of living significance. The writers in Islam mecmuasi went so far as to propose the separation of religion from the state. Only this reform, they claimed, could make Islam a vital part of a Muslim’s everyday life; religious required taking measures to make religion a matter of conscience while subordinating the legal aspects of Islam to secular legislation. The first step was the concern of religious leaders and institutions, while the second was the job of the state. Some of these ideas were put in action by the Unionist government during the war; they were adopted wholesale by Ataturk’s republic and provided the foundations for its policy of secularization.
The Young Turks were ultimately a coalition of various reform groups that led a revolutionary movement against the authoritarian regime of Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II, which culminated in the establishment of a constitutional government. After their rise to power, the Young Turks introduced programs that promoted the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and a new spirit of Turkish nationalism. Their handling of foreign affairs, however, resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman state.
In 1889 a group of students in the Imperial Medical Academy in Istanbul initiated a conspiracy against Abdülhamid that spread rapidly to other colleges in the city. When the plot was uncovered, many of its leaders fled abroad, mainly to Paris, where they prepared the groundwork for a future revolution against Abdülhamid. Among the most notable of the liberal émigrés was Ahmed Rıza, who became a key spokesman for the influential Young Turk organization known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which advocated a program of orderly reform under a strong central government and the exclusion of all foreign influence. A major rival faction was formed by Prince Sabaheddin. His group, called the League of Private Initiative and Decentralization, espoused many of the same liberal principles as those propounded by the CUP, but, unlike the latter, it favored administrative decentralization and European assistance to implement reforms.
Although the CUP and the League played a significant role in disseminating and stimulating liberal thought, the actual impetus for the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 came from groups within the empire, particularly from discontented members of the Third (3rd) Army Corps in Macedonia. Many young officers of the corps garrisoned at Salonika (now Thessaloníka, Greece) organized to form the Ottoman Liberty Society in 1906. This secret revolutionary group merged with the CUP in Paris the following year, bringing to the Young Turk ideologists the command of the 3rd Army Corps. Later in 1907 the CUP and the League of Private Initiative and Decentralization agreed, though reluctantly, to work together to achieve their common goal.
On July 3, 1908, Major Ahmed Niyazi of the 3rd Corps led a revolt against the provincial authorities in Resna. Other conspirators soon followed his example, and the rebellion rapidly spread throughout the empire. Unable to rely on government troops, Abdülhamid announced on July 23 the restoration of the 1876 constitution and recalled parliament. The Young Turks had succeeded in establishing a constitutional government, but their deep-seated ideological differences resurfaced and prevented them from taking effective control of that government until 1913, when the CUP under new leaders—the triumvirate of Talât Paşa, Ahmed Cemal Paşa, and Enver Paşa—set itself up as the real arbiter of Ottoman politics.
While in power, the Young Turks carried out administrative reforms, especially of provincial administration, that led to more centralization. They were also the first Ottoman reformers to promote industrialization. In addition, the programs of the Young Turk regime effectuated greater secularization of the legal system and provided for the education of women and better state-operated primary schools. Such positive developments in domestic affairs, however, were largely overshadowed by the disastrous consequences of the regime’s foreign policy decisions. An overly hasty appraisal of Germany’s military capability by the Young Turk leaders led them to break neutrality and enter World War I (1914–18) on the side of the Central Powers. Upon the end of the war, with defeat imminent, the CUP Cabinet resigned on October 9, 1918, less than a month before the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros.
The Young Turk movement built a rich tradition of dissent that shaped the intellectual and political life of the late Ottoman period and laid the foundation for Atatürk's revolution. Most of their leaders believed that the state, not popular will, was the instrument by which social and political change would be achieved. They bequeathed to Atatürk the conviction that reformers should seize state power and then use it ruthlessly for their own ends, not to democratize society in ways that would weaken the centralized state.
Except for the shift in focus on nationalism, the official ideology of the early modern Turkish state was shaped during this period. The Young Turks who lived long enough to witness the coming into being of the Republic of Turkey saw many of their ideals realized – it was a regime based on a popular materialistic-positivist ideology and nationalism. The new regime worked to be included in western culture while exerting an anti-imperialist rhetoric and convened a parliament composed not of elected politicians but of virtually selected intellectuals working on behalf of the people without cooperating in any capacity with the 'ignorant' masses. The effect of the Young Turks on shaping the official ideology of early modern Turkey went far beyond the political changes they brought about.
Jöntürkler see Young Turks
Jon Turkler see Young Turks
Jeunes Turcs see Young Turks
Turkler, Jon see Young Turks
Turcs, Jeunes see Young Turks
Yousafzai, Malala
Malala Yousafzai (Malalah Yusafzay) (b. July 12, 1997, Mingora, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan). A Pakistani education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She became known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. On October 12, 2012, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwa against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.
The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. The United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a United Nations petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015 – a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill. In the April 29, 2013, issue of Time magazine, Yousafzai was featured on the magazine's front cover and as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". She was the winner of Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize (which was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons). On July 12, 2013, Yousafzai spoke at the United Nations to call for worldwide access to education, and in September 2013 she officially opened the Library of Birmingham.
After her recovery from her wounds, Yousafzai became a more prominent activist for the right to education. Based in Birmingham, England, she co-founded the Malala Fund, a non-profit organization, with Shiza Shahid. In 2013, she co-authored I Am Malala, an international best seller. In 2013, she received the Sakharov Prize, and in 2014, she was the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi of India. Aged 17 at the time, she was the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.
In 2015, Yousafzai was the subject of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary He Named Me Malala. The 2013, 2014 and 2015 issues of Time magazine featured her as one of the most influential people globally. In 2017, she was awarded honorary Canadian citizenship and became the youngest person to address the House of Commons of Canada.
Yousafzai completed her secondary school education at Edgbaston High School, Birmingham in England from 2013 to 2017. From there she won a place at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and undertook three years of study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating in 2020. She returned in 2023 to become the youngest ever Honorary Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford.
Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, into a Sunni Muslim family of Pashtun ethnicity. She was given her first name Malala (meaning "grief stricken") after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan. Her last name, Yousafzai, is that of a large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she grew up. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, her parents, and two pet chickens.
Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who was a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School. She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead. Ziauddin referred to his daughter as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at night and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed.
Yousafzai started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Yousafzai asked her audience in a speech covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region.
Toward the end of 2008, the TTP (the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan; often called the Pakistani Taliban) announced that all girls’ schools in Swat would be shut down on January 15, 2009. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) approached Yousafzai’s father in search of someone who might blog for them about what it was like to live under TTP rule. Under the name Gul Makai, Yousafzai began writing regular entries for BBC Urdu about her daily life. She wrote from January through the beginning of March of that year 35 entries that were also translated into English. Meanwhile, the TTP shut down all girls’ schools in Swat and blew up more than 100 of them.
In February 2009 Yousafzai made her first television appearance, when she was interviewed by Pakistani journalist and talk show host Hamid Mir on the Pakistan current events show Capital Talk. In late February the TTP, responding to an increasing backlash throughout Pakistan, agreed to a cease-fire, lifted the restriction against girls, and allowed them to attend school on the condition that they wear burkas. However, violence resurged only a few months later, in May, and the Yousafzai family was forced to seek refuge outside of Swat until the Pakistani army was able to push the TTP out. In early 2009 The New York Times reporter Adam Ellick worked with Yousafzai to make a documentary, Class Dismissed, a 13-minute piece about the school shutdown. Ellick made a second film with her, titled A Schoolgirl’s Odyssey. The New York Times posted both films on its web site in 2009. That summer she met with the United States special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and asked him to help with her effort to protect the education of girls in Pakistan.
With Yousafzai’s continuing television appearances and coverage in the local and international media, it had become apparent by December 2009 that she was the BBC’s young blogger. Once her identity was known, she began to receive widespread recognition for her activism. In October 2011, she was nominated by human rights activist Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize. In December of that year, she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize (later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize).
On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a TTP gunman while she was en route home from school. Fazlullah and the TTP took responsibility for the attempt on her life. She survived the attack and was flown from Peshawar to Birmingham, England, for surgery. The incident elicited protests, and her cause was taken up around the world, including by the United Nations special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, who introduced a petition that called for all children around the world to be back in school by 2015. That petition led to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education bill. In December 2012, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced the launch of a $10 million education fund in Yousafzai’s honour. About the same time, the Malala Fund was established by the Vital Voices Global Partnership to support education for all girls around the world.
Yousafzai recovered, staying with her family in Birmingham, where she returned to her studies and to activism. For the first time since being shot, she made a public appearance on July 12, 2013, her 16th birthday, and addressed an audience of 500 at the United Nations in New York City, Among her many awards, in 2013 Yousafzai won the United Nations Human Rights Prize, awarded every five years. She was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013 and appeared on one of the seven covers that were printed for that issue. With Christina Lamb (foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times), Yousafzai coauthored a memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (2013). She also wrote the picture book Malala’s Magic Pencil (2017), which was based on her childhood. In 2014, she became the youngest person to win the Liberty Medal, awarded by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to public figures striving for people’s freedom throughout the world. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 but passed over that year, Yousafzai in 2014 won the prize, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate. Yousafzai shared the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist from India. She became the second Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize after 1979 Physics Nobel laureate Abdus Salam.
Her life, before and after the attack she endured, was examined in the documentary He Named Me Malala (2015). The title referenced the fact that Yousafzai had been named for the Afghan heroine Malalai, or Malala, who purportedly led her people to victory against the British in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Yousafzai continued to attend school in England—she graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020—while using her enhanced public profile to bring attention to human rights issues around the world. In July 2015, with support from the Malala Fund, she opened a girls’ school in Lebanon for refugees from the Syrian Civil War. She discussed her work with refugees as well as her own displacement in We Are Displaced (2019).
In 2015, the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation (APPSF) banned her autobiographical book, I Am Malala, at all Pakistani private schools, with the APPSF president Mirza Kashif Ali releasing his own book against her, I Am Not Malala. His book accused Yousafzai of attacking the Pakistan Armed Forces under the pretense of female education, described her father as a "double agent" and "traitor", and denounced the Malala Fund's promotion of secular education. However, Ali pointed out that the APPSF had gone on a national strike when Yousafzai was attacked by the Pakistani Taliban. Conspiracy theorists in newspapers and social media also alleged that Yousafzai had staged her assassination attempt, or that she was an agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Many Pakistanis view Yousafzai as an "agent of the West", due to her Nobel prize, Oxford education and residence in England.
On March 29, 2018, Yousafzai returned to Pakistan for the first time since the 2012 shooting. Meeting Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Yousafzai gave a speech in which she said it had been her dream to return without any fear. Yousafzai then visited her hometown Mingora in the Swat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The APPSF, representing 173,000 private schools in Pakistan, organized an "I Am Not Malala Day" on March 30, 2018, in response to what the federation said were her "anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan" views. Yousafzai responded by saying "I am proud of my religion and country."
On November 9, 2021, Yousafzai married Asser Malik, a manager with the Pakistan Cricket Board, in Birmingham, England.
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