SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation deals with madrasa education in Istanbul during the late Ottoman period. It mainly focuses on the period between 1839 when the Tanzimat was promulgated and 1908 when the Young Turk Revolution took place. The subject has usually been neglected by the existing literature and treated within the general assumptions relying on dichotomous and simplistic analyses. This study aims to demonstrate that the history of Istanbul madrasas is more complex than the existing literature has suggested, primarily using the archival documents from the Prime Ministerial Ottoman Archives (Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivleri) as well as the Seyhulislamate Archives (Mesihat Arsivi) in Istanbul, memoirs and biographical works. The subject has been dealt with in two main parts. Each part is composed of two chapters. In the first part, madrasa teachers are the focal point of analysis. The first chapter examines the professional, institutional and intellectual aspects of madrasa teachers. In the second chapter, the social, cultural and educational composition of Istanbul dersiams has been explored statistically through the information extracted from their personnel files. The third chapter attempts to draw a comprehensive picture of madrasa students in the period in Istanbul. Taking into account their educational activities as well as career patterns in nonreligious fields, it is also aimed to demonstrate their responses/reactions to shifting circumstances that occurred as a result of the reforms and some other factors such as international relations in the period. The last chapter mainly concentrates on the state perception of madrasa education and thus the relationship between the rise of modem state apparatus and madrasa education chiefly through disciplinary cases and imperial integration policies.