Mehmet Akif’s ummah-nation dilemma

What the Misir Apartment reminds me of

Every time I see the Misir Apartment while walking from Taksim to Tünel, a few things come to mind. I think of Atatürk as a young general. He had come to the office of dentist Sami Günzberg. Günzberg was a very famous dentist; it seemed everyone was his patient. Atatürk took Shah Pahlavi to Dr. Günzberg for treatment when he came to Turkey in 1934. I remember Mithat Cemal Kuntay, the author of "Three Istanbuls." He lived there for a long time. The office of one of our former parliamentary speakers, Hüsamettin Cindoruk, is also there.

And then, a funeral that was carried out of this apartment comes to mind. In December 1936. This was Mehmet Akif Ersoy. He had returned to his country, which he had left in resentment, as a very sick man and passed away in this apartment.

Why did Akif leave? How did he return?

Mehmet Akif is the symbol of our war of independence and the author of our national anthem, the İstiklal Marşı. He was a member of parliament for Burdur in the First Grand National Assembly. Although no legal proceedings were ever taken against him, the fundamental reason he left his country was the Turkish Revolution.

Despite all the care of his friend and patron Abbas Halim Pasha in Egypt, where he went after the Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükun), Akif lived an unhappy life filled with longing for his homeland. Upon his return, he was kept under treatment at the Şişli Şifa Yurdu for a while, and then stayed at the Baltazzi Farm in Alemdağ for a change of air. The farm also belonged to Abbas Halim Pasha. When his condition worsened, he was brought back to the city. His treatment continued in the Misir Apartment, where he passed away.

The perception created around his funeral

There is a perception created on the right wing regarding Akif’s funeral. There is a literature of "single-party persecution" in Turkey. I will briefly mention only two examples here.

According to this literature, for instance, when Fevzi Pasha, who was unfairly retired, passed away, the radio continued its music broadcast; the state did not claim the marshal. A large nationalist and conservative crowd carried the marshal on their shoulders like a flood all the way to Eyüp Sultan and buried him. İsmet Pasha was also punished by the national will shortly after and fell from power. The CHP, which does not value the sacred things of the nation, has not seen the face of power since that day.

Another conservative legend concerns Mehmet Akif. His funeral was brought to the Bayezid Mosque in a lonely manner, and upon university students noticing the situation, our poet was buried in the Edirnekapı Martyrs' Cemetery in a state of national fervor. The single party tried to trivialize him, but the nation claimed him.

In both of these narratives, the exaggeration far outweighs the truth. First of all, after his retirement, Fevzi Pasha adopted a hostile attitude toward İsmet Pasha and severed all ties. He was exploited by the Democrats and eventually accepted the honorary presidency of the Nation Party, where all counter-revolutionaries gathered. In the spring of 1950, Fevzi Pasha became the symbol of the anti-İnönü front. In the upcoming election (1950), Fevzi Pasha was the candidate of the Nation Party, and İnönü was the candidate of the CHP. The attitude of the government should be evaluated in the light of this fact.

As for the Mehmet Akif issue, the regime itself had no problem with him. But Akif had an inner, persistent problem with the regime. There was no open confrontation, but there was resentment and hurt.

The assignment of the Quran translation to Mehmet Akif

Akif was not a member of the Chamber of Deputies during the constitutional era. His membership in the First Assembly happened later through the mediation of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He did not have an active parliamentary life. The Gazi nominated loyal religious deputies—such as Hoca Rasih Kaplan and Hoca Esat Efendi—to the Second Assembly. Among those elected, there were about 10 candidates from the ulema who were in the Kemalist group. But Mehmet Akif was not among them. However, by the decision of the TBMM, he was given a very important task: the translation of the Quran into Turkish. The proposal was officially conveyed to him by the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), headed by Börekçizade. The person who took the proposal was Ahmet Hamdi Akseki. Akif accepted the task of Turkification on the condition that the work of interpreting and translating the Quran be given to Elmalılı Muhammed Hamdi Yazır.

The fate of Akif’s translation

As is known, Yazır’s interpretation was published under the title "Hak Dini Kuran Dili" (The True Religion, The Language of the Quran). The fate of Akif’s translation is well-known. It was destroyed. It is possible to interpret the event as follows: After the Republican revolution, conservative intellectuals were divided regarding the regime. Börekçizade, Yaltkaya, and Akseki took positions in the regime’s religious affairs organization. İzmirli İsmail Hakkı Bey also accepted the position offered at the Institute of Islamic Studies and became an honorary professor.

Then there were those who had been in the same circle since the constitutional era and had no civil service or official duty after the republic. Those with public duties indirectly protected the second group. The fact that the translation work was referred to Akif and the interpretation work to Elmalılı was due to a friendship that dated back to the past.

Akif had finished the Quran translation, which he started in Turkey and continued to work on in Egypt, close to his return to the country. This means approximately 10 years of intellectual labor.

However, other developments were taking place in the country Akif missed so much that made him uneasy. After the call to prayer (ezan) and the iqamah began to be recited in Turkish, there were rumors that worship (the prayers themselves) would also be performed in Turkish. Although this was an idea that was never implemented, I believe Atatürk wanted to create a "Turkish Islam." In my opinion, the Turkification of the language of worship was intended to take the religion of the Turks out of the Arab cultural sphere and make it the national religion of the national state.

This can be interpreted as the idea of a "Turkish Protestantism" in Islam based on good morals and good citizenship. The Republican government aimed for this by establishing the Institute of Islamic Studies at Istanbul University. The goal was reform in Islam. In clearer terms, it was Turkish Islam. In this regard, Fuat Köprülü also had suggestions that were not taken into account, such as placing pews in mosques—as in churches—and using printed, Turkified surahs for worship.

When looking at the Diyanet publications of those years, a search for a national Islam for Turks is clearly visible. Although these remained at the level of thought, they created great anxiety in the silent Islamist wing. This is how the period now called the "Turkish ezan persecution" began. When the Turkish Revolution brought the option of worship in the mother tongue to the agenda for Turks, the outrage that continues to this day began. Interestingly, the recitation of the ezan, which is a call to prayer, in Arabic is perceived today as a fundamental pillar of Islam. According to the devout, Arabic is an indispensable part of Islam. Akif became uneasy at the prospect that the prayer surahs might also be read in Turkish after the ezan. The possibility that the Quran translation he had spent years completing might be used in prayer terrified him.

While returning to his country with illness and longing for his homeland, he said the following to Mehmet İhsan Efendi (the father of the CHP’s joint candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu): "If I can return, we will work on it a little more together. If I cannot return, burn the translation!" Akif received great care from his close circle in Istanbul. But he could not find healing. He passed away in Abbas Halim Pasha’s Misir Apartment.

Yozgatlı İhsan Efendi, who had been teaching theology, Arabic, and Turkish in Cairo for many years, did not want to carry out Akif’s "will" to destroy the work. He even transcribed it in his own handwriting. He made another copy. He told his son Ekmeleddin about Akif’s will, to be carried out after his own death. Sources indicate that the Akif translation was burned upon the suggestions of Ibrahim, the son of Mustafa Sabri Efendi—one of the last Ottoman Sheikh-ul-Islams, who was also among the 150 exiles. Probably at a very late date, such as the 60s.

Akif and the Committee of Union and Progress

There were two important magazines in the intellectual environment that emerged after the constitutional revolution, alongside numerous newspapers. The publication organ of the Islamist circles was *Sırat-ı Müstakim*, and the publication organ of the Turkists was *Türk Yurdu*. *Sırat-ı Müstakim*, where Akif was the editor-in-chief, would later be named *Sebilürreşad*.

Because Akif was anti-Abdülhamit and anti-despotism to the point of hostility, he took part within the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki) circle. However, this was not a partisan Unionism. Although Akif was not in a very close relationship with the Unionists, he accepted the civil service positions offered because the state was in the hands of the Unionists. He gave lectures and conferences at the Darülfünun and in associations. During the reign of Sultan Reşat, he would have an official duty on the High Council of Religious Affairs (Darül Hikmeti İslamiye). During these times, the Committee of Union and Progress was experiencing fluctuations between Turkism, Islamism, and Ottomanism policies.

Akif against Westernism, Turkism, and biological materialism

The constitutional period was a time of feverish political conflict. In intellectual life, many schools of thought that found a place for themselves under the umbrella of the Young Turk revolution and the Committee of Union and Progress soon fell into discord. Deep fault lines emerged.

Intellectuals like Tevfik Fikret, Dr. Abdullah Cevdet, and Celal Nuri İleri were against the idea of Islamism. According to them, "Islam is an obstacle to progress." Mehmet Akif came face to face with them. The response to the Turkists and Westernists came from his friend Babanzade Ahmet Naim with a pamphlet titled "There is no cause for nationalism in Islam."

But the real rival, as the fever of war increased, would be Turkism and Pan-Turkism. The permeability between the *Sebilürreşad* circle and the Turkish Hearths (Türk Ocakları) at the beginning of the constitutional period would disappear over time, and their paths would separate.

Akif at the Crescent Camp in Berlin

With the World War, our ally Germany took Muslim prisoners from the Entente front. A significant portion of these were Turks and Tatars who were forced to fight in the Tsarist Russian army. In the British and French armies, there were Senegalese and Indian Muslims.

A large prisoner-of-war camp was established for them in Berlin. These camps were called "Crescent Camps" (Hilal Ordugahları) in reference to the prisoners' Islam. These camps were tried to be presented as a kind of guesthouse. Perhaps there was even the idea of making these soldiers fight against the states they were citizens of. A delegation was requested from the Ottoman government to give advice to these soldiers. Mehmet Akif and his friends went to Berlin on a train departing from Sirkeci. They stayed among these prisoner soldiers for a long time. Religious and national speeches were made. Sermons were read. Lectures were given. Islamic solidarity (uhuvvet-i İslamiye) and the prisoner Turks were the main themes.

Akif with the Special Organization agents in the Arab Deserts

The Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa) agents loyal to Enver Pasha (the special warfare department of that time) were assigned to incite uprisings in regions under British occupation, in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia. They achieved partial success.

Interestingly, toward the end of the war, we see Rauf Bey (Orbay) on a mission in Iran. The Special Organization carried out espionage, intelligence, and guerrilla activities together. The Special Organization had been working actively since the Provisional Government of Thrace initiative. The most influential figures of the organization were Süleyman Askeri and Kuşçubaşı Eşref. The Special Organization would be questioned during the armistice at the Aliye Divanı Harbi Örfi (Martial Law Tribunal), where the Unionists were tried, especially regarding the "Armenian relocation" issue.

Meanwhile, Sharif Hussein, in cooperation with Lawrence, rebelled for Arab independence. He took the Arab tribes behind him and crossed to the side of the British. According to Sharif Hussein, the Ottoman Empire had usurped the Caliphate. The Caliphate is the right of the Quraish. The property, life, and blood of the usurper Turk are lawful.

The Committee of Union and Progress government organized the "Heyeti Nasihası" (Advisory Board) of Kuşçubaşı Eşref and Mehmet Akif to keep the Arab tribes still loyal to the capital. Instead of Sharif Hussein, they traveled the Najd deserts for months with the new Mecca sheriff appointed by Sultan Reşat. They gave advice. Mehmet Akif preached sermons on Islamic solidarity, the Caliphate, and the banner of the Prophet to the Arab tribes. It would be seen in a very painful way during the defense of Medina that the Arab element of the ummah was not behind the Caliph.

As he entered the armistice, Akif saw in a very painful way that political unity based on religious brotherhood had no meaning beyond abstraction. The delegation returned to the capital in deep sorrow. The empire had been defeated, and the state was on the verge of collapse.

Joining the Assembly

Mehmet Akif crossed into Anatolia via the Geyve Strait together with Trabzon deputy Ali Şükrü Bey during the days the assembly opened. He had not been elected as a deputy. He had set out to join the national cause. Since some of the elected deputies preferred civil service, there were vacant seats. They elected Akif as a deputy from Burdur—at the request of Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

Together with Mehmet Vehbi Bolak (Balıkesir deputy) and Ali Şükrü Bey (Trabzon deputy), they stayed at the Taceddin Dergah until the summer of 1921. The National Anthem was written there. The dervish lodge is today one of the most visited places in Ankara due to the figures buried in its treasury.

Mehmet Akif was not an active parliamentarian. Starting from the period when the occupations began in Anatolia until the Liberation, he tried to support the fronts, towns, and villages spiritually. He was effective with the speeches, sermons, and lectures he gave. Among these sermons, the two that were printed are the most famous: the sermons he gave at the Balıkesir Zağanos Pasha Mosque and the Kastamonu Kadı Nasrullah Mosque. These sermons were published in *Sebilürreşad*, which was now being printed in Anatolia by Eşref Edip Fergan. Although his close circle mostly consisted of opponents of Mustafa Kemal, I can say that I have not encountered any active opposition stance by Akif in the Assembly records.

Akif until he went to Egypt

After the victory, Akif was not nominated in the Second Assembly elections. He also had no desire to be elected as a deputy. In a picture taken in the Misir Apartment in 1925, his close circle is visible. Süleyman Nazif, the author of the article "A Black Day"; Cenap Şahabettin; Sami Paşazade Sezai, the Ambassador to Madrid; Abdülhak Hamit Tarhan; and Mithat Cemal Kuntay, the author of the novel "Three Istanbuls"—the Beyoğlu Notary. With a strong probability, Abbas Halim Pasha, who returned from the Malta exile, must also have been in Istanbul in those days.

Akif was in Istanbul from the opposition of the Progressive Republican Party until the Law on the Maintenance of Order. He was being protected by Abbas Halim Pasha. With the Law on the Maintenance of Order, *Sebilürreşad*, published by his friend Eşref Edip, was closed. Although the Republican government did not include him in any investigation, he was in a state of anxiety that he would be politically victimized.

After going to and from Egypt a few times, he decided to live there permanently. He accepted the project offered by the Republican government to bring the Quran into the Turkish language. In this voluntary exile, which he went to on his own, he mostly spent his time at the Mahmudiye Madrasa, where Yozgatlı Mehmet İhsan Efendi was a professor near Al-Azhar. He worked in his room. In the Egyptian pictures remaining from that period—for example, in pictures taken on a trip to the pyramids with camels—we see Akif with an unhappy expression right next to Abbas Halim Pasha (the brother of Sait Halim Pasha). He was busy. He had no financial hardship. But he had a very unhappy facial expression in lands where he did not belong.

For 10 years, he did not occupy himself with anything other than religious matters. Nearby—in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon—there were the "150 exiles." They had been stripped of their citizenship due to their attitudes during the National Struggle period. For example, Refik Halit Karay was in Beirut, Çerkes Ethem in Jordan, the voluntary exile Rıza Nur in Alexandria, and Rıza Tevfik in Jordan. He had no contact with them.

Although Akif was opposed to the reform movements, especially the idea of reform in religion, he did not take an opposing stance from the front and continued to live in Egypt in a reclusive and unhappy manner. Until he got cirrhosis and returned to Istanbul in June 1936. Meanwhile, until he returned to his country, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha had established a contemporary state based on secular law.

Where should we place Mehmet Akif in history?

Akif’s fundamental issue was that he thought the state could be kept alive with an ideology based on Islamic unity and solidarity (uhuvvet-i İslamiye) in the age of nationalisms. He was not a Republican. He preferred a system based on constitutionalism and consultation.

His thought structure was probably close to the analyses Sait Halim Pasha showed in his "Buhranlarımız" (Our Crises). It is worth remembering. Sait Halim was the older brother of Abbas Halim Pasha. Abbas Halim had also served as the Minister of Pious Foundations in the Sait Halim cabinet.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, like all multinational empires, the Ottoman Empire also disintegrated. Within 10 years, the lands of Rumelia and North Africa were lost. Egypt, the country of his close friends the Kavalalı Dynasty, was occupied by England.

The Sayyids, whom the Ottomans held in high esteem as the "prophet’s lineage," became the leaders of the Arab Independence movement and began to say that the Ottomans had "usurped the Caliphate."

Toward the end of the war, neither Fahrettin Pasha’s Defense of Medina nor Mehmet Akif’s efforts to enlighten the Arab people from Palestine to Najd with Special Organization agents would be of any use.

When he joined the ranks of the Anatolian Revolution during the armistice, he understood this as the liberation struggle of the ummah. However, the assembly that carried out the war of independence was the Grand National Assembly of Turkey—the country was Turkey. The state was also—as shown in the 1921 Constitution—the State of Turkey.

Akif was not a person who could take his place on the side of the Republican revolutions in terms of his beliefs. He also did not have a nature that could take a position against them.

I do not estimate that he was in serious financial distress during the years he spent in Egypt. However, I am sure that the state of being under the protection of the Kavalalı Dynasty did not do him much good. This is the reason why there is a distinct expression of anxiety on his face in the pictures taken with the Abbas Halim Pasha circle, despite their sincere friendships.

It is said that he was hurt because he was not granted a pension. In all likelihood, his service was not sufficient according to the Retirement Law. There were others close to his situation. For example, a pension could not be granted to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Ahmet Rıza Bey, either. Even if he had not legally qualified for retirement, the TBMM could have granted Mehmet Akif Ersoy a salary from the national service fund. The state, which granted a salary to Talat Pasha’s widow Hayriye Hanım, should have protected Mehmet Akif instead of leaving him dependent on Abbas Halim. This was a mistake. Mehmet Akif Ersoy, whom Nazım remembered in his "Kuvayı Milliye" epic by saying "Akif is a man of faith, a great poet," deserved this.