Making a Revolution, 1908 sumed that people such as Mehmet Cavid, rather than being motivated
by commitment to revolutionary ideals, which would later be devalued
anyway by associating them with Dönme religion, acted out of a separate
(Masonic-Bektaşi-Jewish) Dönme interest. It seems to have escaped their
attention, and that of many of today’s Turkish observers, that the fact
that revolutionaries “formed themselves into secret societies and made use
of Freemasonic ritual does not mean that they sold their souls to occult
powers dabbling in world revolution.”^108
The Dönme played a role in modern transformation in part because
their values are associated with bringing about new ways of thinking
about and being in the world, not least political reforms. What Margaret
Jacob explains for the second half of the eighteenth century is accurate
for the nineteenth and twentieth as well: “The habit of border crossings,
be they over lines of birth and breeding, or religion, or national group-
ings, created a predisposition to imagine reform and possibly embrace the
revolutionary impulse,” promoting progress and morality in the face of
tyranny.^109 Such people find that revolution and democracy are more in
their interests than monarchical absolutism. They find, unlike the major-
ity, that the solution lies, not in nationalism, but in transcending it.^110 By
1908 , the Dönme sense of political radicalism meant deposing the sultan
and installing a liberal constitution and parliament. This made them a
real and perceived danger to monarchs and those who defended them.^111
Not without substantiation, after the fall of the empire, such progressives,
many of whom were members of Masonic orders, were accused of not
identifying solely with their country, and thus were considered incapable
of being good citizens.^112 Freemasons were viewed as sinister, secret politi-
cal societies became suspect, and most prominent leaders were executed.
Muslims Take Notice of the Dönme after 1908
Sparked by their involvement in politics, the public identity and pri-
vate beliefs of the Dönme began to concern Muslims after the revolu-
tion of 1908. Half a year after the Constitutional Revolution, members
of the Committee of Muslim Unity were furious. Freemasons had just
established a lodge in the imperial capital. Their opponents needed an
organ to attack what they considered atheism and its fake Muslim propo-
nents. They approached Dervish Vahdetî, a pious Muslim from Cyprus
and muezzin (caller to prayer), who had been frequently exiled and jailed