We are pleased to announce that the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia will host a Tobunken Seminar featuring Dr. Yakoob Ahmed from Istanbul University, who has been a visiting researcher at IASA since October 2024. Dr. Ahmed's study focuses on the Ottoman ulema in the late Ottoman Empire, and in this seminar, he will examine the role of ulema during the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and the 1909 "Counter-revolution."
This seminar will be held both in person and online. To register for this event, please fill in the form.
Date and time: August 25, 2025 (Mon), 4pm~6pm
Venue: Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, Second Conference Room (302)/Zoom
https://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/access/
Speaker: Yakoob Ahmed (Istanbul University / IASA Visiting Researcher)
Title: Islamic Modernities: The Ulema Between Revolution and Reaction in the Late Ottoman Empire
Chair: Jun Akiba (IASA, U Tokyo)
Registration form: https://forms.gle/aum5dwdyVtziZDZu9 (Deadline: August 24, 2025, 6pm)
Lecture abstract:
The prevailing narrative of the 1908 Ottoman Constitutional Revolution and the 1909 "Counterrevolution" often casts the former as a secular, progressive upheaval and the latter as a reactionary Islamic backlash. This presentation challenges that binary by re-examining the role of the Ottoman ulema in both events. Far from being a monolithic or reactionary bloc, the ulema were deeply embedded in the constitutionalist and reformist currents of the time, with many supporting the restoration of the 1876 constitution in 1908. Likewise, participation in the 1909 "Counterrevolution" was not merely a rejection of modernity, but a multifaceted response that involved competing visions of Islamic governance and moral order. By highlighting the diversity of religious thought and political engagement among the ulema, this talk argues that both the revolution and the counterrevolution unfolded within an Islamic paradigm—one that accommodated contestation, reform, and authority in dynamic ways. This reinterpretation reframes the ulema not as passive relics of a crumbling empire, but as active agents in a transformative moment of Ottoman political life.
Contact: Jun Akiba j-akiba[a]ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp