1. Abdullah Cevdet Bey was a Young Turk intellectual and physician of Kurdish origin.
45 Facts About Abdullah Cevdet
1. 2.
Abdullah Cevdet was an ideologue of the CUP until 1902, when he became an opponent of the organization he founded as it embraced Turkish nationalism.
3.
Abdullah Cevdet was briefly active in support of Kurdish independence in the early 1920s.
4.
Abdullah Cevdet introduced to the Ottoman public Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and the Baha'i Faith.
5.
Abdullah Cevdet was born on September 9,1869 in Arapgir, Malatya.
6.
Abdullah Cevdet was born to a family of Kurdish origin.
7.
Abdullah Cevdet graduated from Ma'muretulaziz Military Junior High School in 1885.
8.
Abdullah Cevdet graduated three years later and continued his education in the Imperial School of Medicine.
9.
Abdullah Cevdet was initially a pious Muslim and received a religious education, but was influenced by Western materialistic philosophies which turned him against institutionalized religion.
10.
Abdullah Cevdet thought that "although the Muslim God was of no use in the modern era, Islamic society must preserve Islamic principles".
11.
Abdullah Cevdet translated a section of Ludwig Buchner's work Kraft und Stoff, which greatly influenced him, under the title Fizyolociya-i Tefekkur "Physiology of Contemplation".
12.
The overall goal of Young Turks such as Abdullah Cevdet was to bring to end the absolutist regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
13.
Abdullah Cevdet was arrested several times during his education due to his political activities and was expelled from school for a while.
14.
Abdullah Cevdet eventually completed his medical education in July 1894 and became an ophthalmologist.
15.
Abdullah Cevdet saved Ziya Gokalp from his suicide attempt and initiated him into the CUP.
16.
Abdullah Cevdet took the opportunity to translate Buchner's Natur und Geist under the pen name Goril.
17.
Abdullah Cevdet was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for this.
18.
Abdullah Cevdet translated Western works; among the works he translated was Friedrich Schiller's drama William Tell.
19.
Abdullah Cevdet later published the preface he wrote for the work as a book titled Iki Emel.
20.
Abdullah Cevdet translated Vittorio Alfieri's essay Della Tirannide under the title Istibdad.
21.
In 1899 Abdullah Cevdet softened his publications so 72 of his friends imprisoned in Fezzan and Tripoli could be released.
22.
Abdullah Cevdet's poetry was linked with the movement, and he received accolades from leading French authors like Gustave Kahn.
23.
Abdullah Cevdet's position was suspended in 1903 after an incident where he slapped the ambassador who informed the palace that he was secretly continuing his political activities.
24.
Abdullah Cevdet was deported from Switzerland, but he was able to move to Egypt.
25.
From 1904 to the end of his life in 1932, Abdullah Cevdet published the periodical Ictihad and stayed out of politics, writing articles to promote Westernization and secularism.
26.
Abdullah Cevdet moved to Cairo and joined Prince Sabahaddin's Private Enterprise and Decentralization League.
27.
Abdullah Cevdet wrote articles in support of the 1906 Erzurum Uprising and called for constitutional monarchy along with the abolition of certain taxes.
28.
Abdullah Cevdet believed the Ottoman Empire was backwards and not competitive because of the role of religion in society.
29.
Abdullah Cevdet claimed that he translated the work to allow Muslim historians to correct Dozy's mistakes.
30.
Abdullah Cevdet thanked and met Theodor Herzl for publishing one of his poems in Neue Freie Presse in 1903.
31.
Abdullah Cevdet established his own printing house, Ictihad Evi, or the Idjtihad House, where he published the Kutuphane-i Ictihad series.
32.
Abdullah Cevdet was an advocate for the teaching of biological materialism in schools and for opening schools in the countryside to educate peasants, which would eventually happen in 1940.
33.
Abdullah Cevdet emphasized the concepts of citizenship and general will expressed by Rousseau in The Social Contract.
34.
Abdullah Cevdet was subject to political pressure due to his critical stance against the CUP which at this point established a dictatorship, and Turkey's participation in World War I, and was forced to stop writing in 1914.
35.
Abdullah Cevdet wrote anonymous editorials in the Ikdam for a while.
36.
Abdullah Cevdet was initially in favor of Turkey becoming a mandate.
37.
Abdullah Cevdet immediately took Ankara's side upon the opening the Grand National Assembly, and worked to provide health services in the provisional government.
38.
Abdullah Cevdet spent the rest of his life writing poetry, translating, and publishing Ictihad.
39.
Abdullah Cevdet was put on trial several times because some of his writings were considered blasphemous against Islam and Muhammad.
40.
Abdullah Cevdet was impressed by Ataturk's library and the two held mutual admiration.
41.
Abdullah Cevdet dedicated its first copy Ataturk, who ordered the book be printed in the new Latin derived alphabet in 1929.
42.
Abdullah Cevdet's body was brought for religious funeral service to Hagia Sophia, which was still used as a mosque at that time.
43.
Abdullah Cevdet's body was then taken by municipal workers to the Merkezefendi Cemetery for burial.
44.
Abdullah Cevdet wanted to fuse religion and materialism, that is, under the influence of Victor Hugo and Jean-Marie Guyau, discard God but keep religion as a social force.
45.
In 2005 there was an attempt to rename a street in Ankara after Abdullah Cevdet which received intense reaction from Islamist newspapers.