Keeping the Old, Favoring the New: The World of the Tractates of the Madrasah Reform

Abstract

This article concerns Sheikh Ali Efendizade Hodja Muhyiddin’s Medreselerin Islahı (Madrasah Reform), which is significant as the first and only tractate written before the Proclamation of the Second Constitutional Period. The tractate, which was published in 1897 in Egypt, is compared with the other published tractates of the madrasah people/the ulema of the Second Constitution. These include the works of Mehmed Faik Efendi of Diyarbekir, Vildan Faik Efendi, Aydın’s deputy Mehmed Ubeydullah Efendi, Halim Sabit Efendi of Kazan, and Mehmed Şevketî Efendi. By emphasizing the similar and different proposals and criticisms included in the tractates, self-criticism that was done by these writers who had madrasah roots or madrasah connections in one way or another is shown to be a sign of their knowl- edge on the topic in the process leading to Islah-ı Medâris Nizamnâmesi (October 1, 1914). Although none of the aforementioned tractates can be qualified as an ideal reform text, a good joint text can be produced by considering all these tractates together, and this is partially apparent in the 1914 Regulations.