“The commander of the fortress of Nicaea surrendered ... Orhan Ghazi, who delivered the fortress, allowed those who wished to leave with their belongings. In addition, he declared that the people of Nicaea could preserve their traditions & customs, provided that they gave jizya. The majority of people agreed on remaining under the administration of the Ottoman.”

[The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Page 18]

۔۔۔ لیکن بروصہ کے باشندوں کی طرح یہ لوگ بھی بکثرت اسلام میں داخل ہوگئے اور اپنے وطن میں مقیم رہے۔

[تاریخ سلطنتِ عثمانیہ، مصنف ڈاکٹر محمد عزیر، 71]

As the empire expanded, the need for a military force also increased.

Alp soldiers were members of various tribes, loyal to their clans.

Janissary Corps was formed by Murad I as a permanent force with salary and pension.

The benefits including education and training became a goal rather than a punishment.

“The Ottoman conquest of Macedonia was completed in the same year (1395) ... On 25 September 1396 the crusading armies met the Ottoman forces under Bayezid’s command at Nikopol (Nicopolis) on the Danube ... but the outcome was victory for the Ottomans ... The Ottoman success at Nikopol gave Bayezid control over the Balkans south of the Danube. After the battle he crossed the river into Hungary for the first time ...”

[Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, Page 25]

۔۔۔ اُس (بایزید) نے مصر کے عباسی خلیفہ کی اجازت سے سلطان کا لقب اختیار کر لیا، خلیفہ کو عملاً اگرچہ کوئی اقتدار حاصل نہ تھا، تاہم اسلامی دُنیا میں اس کی مذہبی حکمرانی ان بھی تسلیم کی جاتی تھی ۔۔۔

"اپنے آقا سے کہہ دو کہ باوجود اس کے کہ ہم ضعیف و ناتواں ہیں، ہم خدا کے سوا کسی دوسری طاقت سے نہیں ڈرتے، وہی کمزور کی حفاظت کرتا ہے اور طاقتور کاغرور توڑتا ہے، سلطان کو اختیار ہے، جو چاہے کرے۔"

[تاریخ سلطنتِ عثمانیہ، مصنف ڈاکٹر محمد عزیر، 87 اور 91]

“... because I knew that your troops were always at war with the infidels. I have used all possible ways of mildness; and my intention was, if you had harkened to my counsels, and consented to a peace, to have given you powerful succours, both of money and troops, to carry on the war for religion with greater vigour, and to exterminate the enemies of Mohammed.”

[Tamerlane by Justin Marozzi, Page 336]

Time-tested Defence

The city naturally protected from three sides by the sea.

Multiple layers of walls from the time of Greeks & Romans.

Well supplied to last any siege.

“... (Sultan) Mehmed II ordered the preservation of the representations of ‘angel’s faces’ in Hagia Sophia ...”

[Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, Page 53]

“Let the curse of Allah and the angels & all mankind be upon them. Let them dwell in hell forever and their punishment shall not be eased. No mercy for them forever. Whoever changes it after hearing it & seeing it, his sin shall be upon those who change it. Indeed, he is the hearing, the knowing.”

[Daily Sabah, Opening of Hagia Sophia, 15 July 2020]

میرے فقہا کی اکثریت نے یہ فتویٰ صادر کیا ہے کہ میرے جانشینوں میں سے جو تخت پر بیٹھیں وہ دنیا کے امن و امان کی غرض سے اپنے بھائیوں کو قتل کر سکتے ہیں، ان کا فرض ہوگا کہ اس پر کار بند ہوں۔

[تاریخ سلطنتِ عثمانیہ، مصنف ڈاکٹر محمد عزیر، 135]

“Execution as a means of dynastic control was not an Ottoman invention. Thirty of eighty-eight Byzantine emperors had died by strangulation, poison or torture in Constantinople itself. Edward V and his brother were murdered in the Tower of London ... The annals of the Mogul emperors in Delhi are stained with blood ... Only the Ottoman dynasty made fratricide ... into a rule.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 86-87]

From the start of 16th century, Islam was outlawed from Spain. Many had already fled to North Africa.

Those who could not were forced to become Christians.

“... the peace treaty provided that the Moslems living in Spain were to be permitted to continue practicing their religion ... Spanish government soon violated this agreement.”

[The 100, Queen Isabella I (68), Page 357-358]

“... in 1492 ... all Spanish Jews to either convert to Christianity or leave the country within four months, leaving property behind. For the roughly 200,000 Spanish Jews ...”

[The 100, Queen Isabella I (68), Page 357]

“... in Andalus, Muslims & Jews were killed or expelled ... perhaps 30,000 came directly to Istanbul ... more than 8,070 Jewish households ...”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 426]

Vasco Da Gama was the Portuguese explorer who discovered the direct sea route from Europe to India by sailing around Africa.

Da Gama set out on July 8, 1497, with four ships under his command and a total crew of 170 men, including interpreters who could speak Arabic.

After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, he stopped at a few Muslim cities including Malindi (Kenya).

On May 20, 1498, Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut.

Shah Ismail of Safavid Empire actively supported Shi'ism in Ottoman Lands & formed a political alliance with the Mamluk Sultanate.

“That was the last great event in the career of Kheyr-ed-din, and he died in 1548 at Constantinople as one of the wickedest and cruellest murderers of history, the greatest pirate that has ever lived, and one of the cleverest tacticians and strategists ... his death was received by Christian Europe with a sigh of the greatest relief.”

[Pirates & Piracy by E. Keble Chatterton, 68-69]

“... Nader Shah attempted to integrate a redefined Shi'ism into the Sunni tradition. He rejected the Shi'i condemnation of the first three caliphs and enforced that position within his realm. In addition, he tried to secure Ottoman recognition of Twelver Shi'ism as a fifth Sunni school of law, to be called the Ja'fari school after the sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq. The whole pattern of Shi'ism as built on the idea of the imamate was to be replaced.”

His Vision for Islam

Sultan Osman III
(r. 1754-1757)

Napolean invades Egypt in 1798.

The British fleet takes control of the Mediterranean, cutting supplies for the French while the Ottomans fight.

Knowing that he has little left to win, he secretly left for France leaving behind his army.

After a long struggle, the Ottoman-British reached an agreement with France allowing their return.

Wahhabi Movement

“... raided Kuwait and occupied it in 1788, then ... besieged Baghdad.”

[How the Khilafah was Destroyed, Page 6]

“The cruellest blow was the emergence of a fundamentalist sect, the Wahhabis, in Arabia. In 1803 they conquered Mecca from the Sherifs, and prevented the arrival of the pilgrim caravan from Constantinople.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 231]

“... Mecca reverted to the dominion of the Sherifs and the Sultan in 1813. In 1818 rebellious Wahhabi sheikhs were paraded through the streets of Constantinople, then killed and their heads exposed ...”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 235]

“Sick Man of Europe”

“He promulgated the first Ottoman constitution ... the most far-reaching of his reforms were in education: 18 professional schools were established; Darülfünun, later known as the University of Istanbul, was founded (1900); and a network of secondary, primary, and military schools was extended throughout the empire. Also, the Ministry of Justice was reorganized, and railway and telegraph systems were developed.”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Abdulhamid II]

“Istanbul had been called the world’s
spy capital.”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 553]

Hijaz Railway

“Abdülhamid used pan-Islamism to solidify his internal absolutist rule and to rally Muslim opinion outside the empire, thus creating difficulties for European imperial powers in their Muslim colonies. The Hejaz Railway, financed by Muslim contributions from all over the world, was a concrete expression of his policy.”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Abdulhamid II]

“A perfect master of nearly all the Muslim languages of the world ... his restless soul migrated from one Muslim country to another, influencing some of the most prominent men in Iran, Egypt and Turkey. Some of the greatest theologians of our time, such as Mufti Muhammad Abduh of Egypt, were his disciple ... no man in our time has stirred the soul of Islam more deeply than he.”

[Hundred Great Muslims by K. J. Ahmad, Page 313]

“The Zionist leader Theodore Herzl, who made six visits to Constantinople under Abdulhamid in his attempts to buy Palestine ...”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 319]

“Herzl ... offered the Sultan enough money to free the Ottoman Empire from the Debt Control Commission, in return for an autonomous Zionist entity in Palestine. The Sultan ... to Zionism: ‘I cannot sell even a foot of land for it does not belong to me but to my people ... The Jews may spare their millions. When my empire is divided, perhaps they will get Palestine for nothing ...’”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 321-322]

Zionist Movement

Poisonous Seeds of Turk Nationalism

“Intellectuals in Constantinople began to believe ‘We are Turks and we need Turkish’, and to substitute Turkish words for words of Arabic and Persian origin. They considered the name Ottoman no more appropriate for Turks than the dynastic name Umayyad for the early Arabs: ‘There can be neither an Ottoman nation nor an Ottoman language.’”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 359]

“A force potentially more deadly for the Ottoman Empire and its capital than Kurdish or Arab nationalism was Turkish nationalism.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 358]

“... the British hinted at support for a religious regime-change, when ‘an Arab of true race will assume the Caliphate at Mecca or Medina’”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 563]

“After a hesitation of four hundred years ... Sherif Huseyin ... tempted by British offers of gold and recognition, launched an Arab revolt in Mecca on 10 June 1916.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 376]

“In 1919, in order to protect 400 years' worth of gifts to Mecca and Medina sent out from Istanbul, the golden caskets, the jewelled swords and cloths stitched with silver were brought back into the city on the Bosphorus, itself a jewel within Dar al-Islam - the Abode of Islam. Today they are popular exhibits in the Topkapi Palace.”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 570]

“Britain had already provided arms and money to Ibn Saud during the First World War, signing a treaty with him in 1915 and recognising him as the ruler of the Nejd province under British protection. By the end of the war, he was receiving a British subsidy of £5,000 a month - considerably less than the £12,000 a month doled out to Hussein ...”

“It was by force that the sons of Osman seized the sovereignty and sultanate of the Turkish nation; they have maintained this usurpation for six centuries. Now the Turkish nation has rebelled and has put a stop to these usurpers and has effectively taken sovereignty and sultanate into its own hands.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 405-406]

“The Seyhulislam left for India; his predecessor, the Durrizade who had delivered the fatwa against Kemal, died in the Hejaz in 1923.”

“A proposal for Mustafa Kemal to adopt the title of caliph fell on deaf ears and others, such as the Imam of Yemen and the King of Afghanistan, were put forward as possible candidates.”

[Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, Page 546]

“On 3 March the Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the Caliphate. Dolmabahce was surrounded by troops. Abdulmecid was reading the Koran ... late at night when Adnan Bey and the Prefect of Police came to tell him that he had to leave at dawn ... The freedom of life in the West was offered as consolation. The Caliph’s beloved daughter Durushehvar ... remarked in tears: ‘I do not want that kind of freedom.’”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 413]

“The Caliph took his immediate family (six people), three officials & two servants. For fear of demonstrations, the government obliged the Caliph to leave from outside the city. At 5:30 a.m., having bidden farewell to a small crowd at the palace gate, they were taken ... At 11, tired, hungry and sad, the party arrived at Catalca railway station. The Caliph tried to smile when the police and gendarmerie gave him his last salute. All day they remained at the railway station ... The station manager tried to make them comfortable in his family’s private quarters. He was Jewish ...”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 414]

“Banks were first established ... from the 1840s as trade with Europe grew ...”

[Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, Page 478]

“Abdulmecid’s hope that Ottomans would lose their identity in their empire, like immigrants in the United States, was not fulfilled.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 297]

“... money borrowed to fund dams and railways was spent on the construction of further palaces, in addition to Dolmabahce.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 299-300]

“After 1856, for the first time since 1453, church bells rang in Constantinople ... Many Greeks preferred the former superiority of Islam to the unwelcome novelty of equality with Jews.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 274]

“In 1869 the school system was reorganized and began to be secularized ...”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 293]

“By AD 1875 the state was bankrupt.”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 548]

“... over half Ottoman expenditure went to servicing debts.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 300]

“In Istanbul and in Balkan cities like Salonica, the reform movement led to the formation of an exceedingly Westernized Muslim upper class.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 12]

“Ali Riza and Zubeyde named their fourth child Mustafa ... first three children had died in infancy ... and only one of the two daughters born after Mustafa survived ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 17]

“... his father reportedly drank alcohol ... Mustafa’s pious mother ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 19 & 20]

Khilafat Movement

“The Khilafat movement’s handsome donation of £125,000, kept as emergency reserve by the nationalist government in Ankara, and its consistent pressure on the British government throughput the years 1920-22, depended on an understanding of the Anatolian struggle as a jihad to free the caliph-sultan from the hands of Christian crusaders.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 104]

Views of Jinnah

At the League Session meanwhile, Jinnah tactfully explained his own position. Whilst deploring the British policy of having used “India’s blood and India’s gold” to “break Turkey and buy the fetters of the Rowlatt legislation”, and warning that this might force Indians to take up non-cooperation, he added: “though not necessarily the programme of Mr. Gandhi”.

[Secular Jinnah & Pakistan, Page 7-8]

“The opening was deliberately scheduled for a Friday, following prayers at the central mosque ... Before they entered the building, which contained replica of the Prophet’s banner and a piece of hair from his beard, clerics completed a recitation of the full text of the Quran.”

“The Grand National Assembly also issued a law banning the production, sale, and use of alcohol throughout the country and mandating beatings for offenders.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 102 & 103]

Secular Turkey

“In November 1922 ... the Sultanate was to be abolished ...”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 580-581]

“On 3 March 1924 ... Assembly voted to abolish the caliphate and ordered the Ottoman dynasty ... into exile.”

[Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, Page 546]

“In March 1925 it was also made illegal in Turkey to show support for the Caliphate.”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 589]

“... demoted Islam from its place as the state’s official religion in 1928.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 19]

“The government duly requested the entire bureaucracy to participate in gathering and submitting ‘pure Turkish words’ to the authorities.”

“Official declarations had become virtually incomprehensible, and even the educated public could not follow many newspaper articles. Pocket Ottoman-Turkish and Turkish-Ottoman dictionaries were published in 1935 in the hope of helping people find pure Turkish synonyms ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 173 & 175]

“... the Surname Law of June 21, 1934. This ruling required all citizens of the Turkish Republic to adopt a family name by January 1, 1935.”

[Ataturk, A Note on Transliteration]

“In 1934, Mustafa Kemal decided not to use his birth name, Mustafa, on the grounds that it was not Turkish.”

“... not Kemal ... but Kamâl, allegedly an old Turkish term meaning ‘fortification’.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 176]

“In November 1934 the Turkish Grand National Assembly bestowed upon him the surname Atatürk ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 185]

“Legal changes made ... required the use of Turkish at three stages of the ritual prayer: the call to prayer, the invitation to prayer at the mosque, and the recitation of the phrase ‘God is Great’ ... closed down the madrasahs in 1924 ... dervish lodges in 1925.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 155]

“... Tanri, an old Turkish word also used for pagan Turkic deities, replaced the customary Allah ... Nevertheless, the early Republican press often referred to Islam as an ‘Arab religion’.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 62-63]

“The veil was discouraged, although not explicitly forbidden. Within a few years, so strong was the pressure of the state that it was hard to find a veiled women in Istanbul. In 1925 the fez, symbol of Ottoman Empire and Islam, was outlawed ...”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 417]

“Yet despite his apparent nationalist and scientistic proclivities, Mustafa Kemal did not confront Islam openly. He paid lip service to religion ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 63]

“He placed a premium on findings that highlighted Turkish involvement in the origins and evolution of human civilization.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 163]

“... early Republican textbooks ... provided a different explanation of the latest phases of human evolution and history. Skipping from the appearance of mammals and the start of tool-making to the emergence of civilized life in the Turkish homeland in 9000 BC ...”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 162]

“In 1923, Mustafa Kemal dismissed the Islamic prohibition of sculpture as obsolete.”

“In 1924 the first stamps bearing his image were issued. In 1927 banknotes with his portrait entered circulation.”

“Buildings in which he had stayed, places he had visited, and spots where he had delivered speeches became shrines, and objects that he had used acquired the status of sacred relics.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 185-187]

“By the time of his death, Mustafa Kemal had unintentionally, though not accidentally, become the revered founder of a new religion, Kemalism.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 192]

“The final goal was for every Turk to stand up and proudly declare, ‘My Turkishness is my religion.’”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 181]

“In a book titled Kamâlism (1936) ... called it ‘a religion for living.’”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 193]

“The president of the republic and the parliamentary deputies are sworn into office with a pledge to ‘remain faithful to Ataturk’s principles and reforms.’”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 198]

“In 1934 Turkish Pres. Kemal Atatürk secularized the building, and in 1935 it was made into a museum.”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Hagia Sophia]

“In the early stages of the reform period, the Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghunaymi al-Taftazami expressed the fear that the Quran would soon be seen in Turkey only in museums.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 224]

اگر عثمانيوں پر کوہ غم ٹوٹا تو کيا غم ہے
کہ خون صد ہزار انجم سے ہوتی ہے سحر پيدا

[علامہ اقبال، طلوع اسلام]

“His penchant for late-night debates fuelled with liberal quantities of rakı, his favorite drink, took a terrible toll, and by the late 1930s it was obvious that his health was failing. On November 10, 1938, at 9:05 in the morning, Mustafa Kemal, Atatürk, died in the last palace of the Ottoman sultans.”

[Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, Page 60]

“He passed away at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul on November 10, 1938 at 9:05 a.m. due to liver cirrhosis.”

[Official Website of Turkish Military Academy NDU]
www.kho.edu.tr/eng_about_tma/ataturk/biography.html

“In the 1650s Mehmed IV went around the markets incognito ... Government policy, and the system of feeding the poor through the mosques, kept Constantinople one of the best fed cities of Europe.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 119]

“Ottoman Jews, being one of the largest Jewish communities in the world ...”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 15]

“... Rabbi Tsarfati of Edirne ... to European Jewry, described the Ottoman Empire not merely as a place of refuge but also as a land of economic opportunity where, unlike anywhere else, Jews could live and practice their religion freely ... (Elijah) Capsali ... likened Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to King Solomon, as an emancipator and protector of the Jews.”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 21-22]

“... Ashkenazi emigration to the empire took place in those years as well. These emigrants came as refugees or prisoners from Eastern Europe ... chose to remain in the empire.”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 17]

“Jews were often persecuted and even forced to convert in the neighboring Safavid Empire in the mid-seventeenth century, but this communal threat had no effect on the Jews of the Ottoman Empire.”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 77]

“Sabbatai’s growing popularity, coupled with his public displays of antinomian behavior, such as the pronouncing of the Ineffable Name and eating forbidden food, greatly upset the established Jewish authorities.”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 47]

“Through a Christian lens, ... the Antichrist, wrote letters to Jews all around the world when he was in Izmir, and that he called himself the First Created, the only Son of God, the Messiah and Redeemer of Israel.”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 48]

“Sabbatai was brought from Izmir to Istanbul in chains ...”

“In the presence of the sultan ... given the choice of converting to Islam or facing execution on September 16, 1666. His choice of converting to Islam ...”

[The Burden of Silence by Cengiz Sisman, Page 55-60]

“These schools were opened by Semsi Efendi ... most famous attendees were Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) ...”

“... Osman Tevfik ... was a calligraphy and history teacher in the Military High School where he became Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s second Donme teacher after Semsi Efendi (there were four in total).”

“At one point the Donmes were the only group active in the Young Turk movement in Salonica.”

[The Burden of Silence, Page 217-227 & 243]

“According to Cemal Granda, who served him for twelve years, Mustafa Kemal is reported to have said: ‘Some people seem to think that I was of a Salonican and therefore Jewish origin. Don’t forget that Napoleon was of Corsican origin, Italian, as well. But he died as a French man and history remembers him as being French. Everyone needs to work for the society in which they live.’”

[The Burden of Silence, Page 268-269]

“Accordingly, in his major theological work, a Quranic commentary called the ‘Risale-i Nur’ (Epistle of Light), which he wrote between 1910 and 1950, Nursi advocated a kind of civic activism - referred to as ‘muspet hareket’ (positive action) - that was both non-political and non-violent ... quite different from the open political activism ... other Islamist thinkers ...”

“Nursi thus recognised ... relationship between religion and modern science.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 3]

“... attempted in his own lifetime to establish a university ... encountered opposition from the State and was never realised ...”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 17]

“... imprisonment for his ‘anti-secular’ activities ... spent considerable periods of time in detention ...”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 37]

“Nursi considered that a grass-roots social and religious transformation of the individual was required first, and that broader social transformation would come later on, when the time and circumstances were right ... he encouraged his followers to vote and to remain active participants in the Turkish political process.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 41]

The Nursi Movement

“He sought rather to encourage in his followers a kind of faith based on reasoning and individual conviction (tahkiki iman) rather than blind adherence to the precedent of tradition (taklidi iman).”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 39]

Promise of Kurdistan

“After 1923 the Turkish republic denied Kurds freedom & identity. Although initially the nationalists favoured ... 1925 the rebellion ... in favour of ... Caliphate as well as the Kurdish nation was crushed.”

[Constantinople by Philip Mansel, Page 420-421]

“The military conflict between the PKK (Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the Turkish military began in 1984.”

“By 1990 ... the PKK had already become a second authority, a rival state-like organisation in the region ...”

“... their rebellion is not based on Islamist principles, but on Marxist and other secular references ... the majority Kurdish ... of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq have been suppressed by all four countries ...”

[Turkey Reframed, Page 24-25 & 107]

Clash with Armenia

“Armenia was converted to Christianity about 300 CE, becoming the first kingdom to adopt the religion ...”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Armenia]

“... Armenia was formally under Arab control in 645 ...”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 284]

Cyprus Divided

“... British, who assumed control of Cyprus in 1878.”

[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Page 548]

“In 1960 Cyprus became independent of Britain ... as the Republic of Cyprus. The long-standing conflict between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority and an invasion of the island by Turkish troops in 1974 produced ... partition of the island and led to the establishment in 1975 of a de facto Turkish Cypriot state in the northern third of the country. The Turkish Cypriot state made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1983 and adopted the name Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ... recognized only by Turkey.”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cyprus]

“... 1950 was to mark the end of the religious reforms, and the return of the Arabic call to prayer in Turkey.”

[Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography, Page 157]

“Having won three straight elections - in 1950, 1954, and 1957 - the DP (Democrat Party) ...”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 25]

“... one of its first actions after its election victory was to permit the Islamic call to prayer (ezan) to be made in Arabic.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 28]

“... Ataturk cultivated pragmatic ties with the Soviet Union and Turkey stayed out of World War II. But soon ... Moscow demanded territory ... Ankara rushed into the open arms of the West. After sacrificing precious blood and treasure to the war effort in Korea, Turkey attained NATO membership in 1952.”

“The DP also initiated Turkey’s EU ambitions by applying to join the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC), in 1959.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 169 & 41]

“... on 27 May 1960, had led to the then president, prime minister and others being tried for treason and hanged.”

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 171]

“His body was exhumed shorty after burial on the command of the Turkish state, which feared that the site might become a place of veneration ... secretly reinterred in the west of Turkey ...”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 39]

Necmettin Erbakan

“... son of one of the last Islamic judges of the Ottoman Empire ... elected in 1969 to the legislature as an independent ... formed an Islamic party the following year, but it was banned by the military government in 1971. He re-formed the party in 1972 and twice ... served as a deputy prime minister. In 1980 the military again banned the party and briefly imprisoned Erbakan. He was prohibited from engaging in politics from 1980 to 1987.”

[Encyclopaedia Britannica, Necmettin Erbakan]

“... proposed new international allegiances, such as a ‘D8’ ... composed of the eight most populous Muslim nations, to compete with the G7 ... suggested an Islamic security organization to rival NATO, as well as an Islamic currency ...”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 78]

“He (Erbakan) advocated a return to sharia law and argued that only purity of Islam could save Turkey morally.”

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 51]

“The left began to rise in Turkey ... with the liberal 1961 constitution allowing room for socialism.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 34]

“Erdogan participated in his early teenage years in the National Turkish Student Union ... dedicated to resisting communist ideology.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 37]

“The left began to rise ... with the liberal 1961 constitution allowing room for socialism.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 34]

“His mother was a housewife and his father an imam like himself ... In 1959 he became a cleric and was one of the founders of an ‘association for fighting communism’.”

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 54]

“Gulen ... began to visit local coffee houses to preach, and his message started to reach a wider demographic than the already religiously observant sectors of the community.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 16]

“... the 1980 coup, of which the then US national security adviser Paul Henze allegedly had said, ‘Our boys did it’.”

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 200]

“Evren ... wanted to to leave behind a country that would never have to worry about a threat from the left. He believed that injecting Islam into Turkish society and politics ... was the best way to inoculate it against ... communism.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 58]

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centres ... until the conditions are ripe, they (followers) must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will rush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 (in) Syria ... in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe ... until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey ...

... Until that time, any step taken would be too early - like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 171]

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 55]

“... unrest and social polarisation in the 1970s, during which time violent clashes between right- and left-wing factions were common and the loss of life had been considerable. The military coup of 1980 ... ushering in an intellectual doctrine called the ‘Turkish-Islamic synthesis.’ ...”

“... threat of Soviet communism on Turkey's near borders ... paved the way for Islam to re-emerge in the public sphere, and to be recognised as the key unifying feature of the Turkish nation.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 18-19]

Feminism in Turkey

“... tens of thousands of women in Ankara held a demonstration (in 1997) against Islamists, called the ‘Womens March against Sharia’ ...”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 79]

“US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explained on July 11, 1997 that ... the United States had ‘made very clear that it is essential that Turkey continue in a secular, democratic way’.”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 80]

“The EU also put its tacit blessing behind the coup, saying that ... ‘this decision [the coup] is in accordance with the provisions of the Turkish Constitution’.”

“In 1980, with an inflation rate of 107% ... foreign debt burden, Turkey was forced into accepting the loan conditions of the IMF & the World Bank ... starting with a currency devaluation of 32% ...”

“Instead, it was the military regime that was able to implement them.”

[Turkey Reframed, Page 50-51 & 14]

“When the wave of the ... economic crisis ... in 1997 ... Turkey as a country suffering from unsustainable levels of debt and inflation ... turn to the IMF again.”

“The 2001 economic crisis was the biggest in Turkish history.”

[Turkey Reframed, Page 57 & 30]

“In the post-1999 period ... majority ... saw EU candidacy as the magical device that would solve Turkey’s economic, social, political and cultural problems.”

[Turkey Reframed, Page 33-34]

“... True Path Party (DYP) upgraded ties with Israel in the 1990s ... also took Turkey into a Customs Union with the EU in 1995 ...”

[The New Sultan by Soner Cagaptay, Page 41]

“These words were included in the indictment that charged him with toppling the secular state in 1999.”

[Frontline Turkey by Ezgi Basaran, Page 55]

“Gulen left Turkey ... that his poor health & access to superior medical facilities in the USA were the reasons for his emigration.”

[The Gulen Movement in Turkey, Page 140]