The Social Anxiety in the Religious Perception of Abdullah Cevdet

Abstract

Abdullah Cevdet is in a position to prepare the Westernist approach to thinking of the Second Constitutional Era. Moreover, the author formed the intellectual infrastructure of the official thought program of the Republican Era. In this study, the social anxiety which is thought to affect the religious perception of Abdullah Cevdet’s literary and intellectual writings between 1908-1918 is discussed. In this regard the semantic field of concept of social anxiety is explained. Expressions like “seyl-i hurûşân” which reflects the emotions felt against Western modernization is also discussed. Accordingly the effect of aforementioned expressions in the works of contemporary Turkish literature and the religious perception of Abdullah Cevdet’s poems and writings is interpreted. His approach which is shaped according to social anxiety suggests serious change on religious field and belief. In this regard his emphasis on the requirement of a new materialist ethic is remarkable.