Making a Revolution, 1908 wise, “we curse the newspaper” in the name of all Muslims: “You can-
not put satire and religion together. As a consequence we do not have to
think of that newspaper as an Islamic newspaper. May the one who does
so repent and ask for pardon.” Sheikh Abdurrahim identifies the origin
of such infidelity as none other than the Dönme: “I think that the Asır
and Zaman -newspapers published in Salonika belong to that well-known
element in Salonika. If this is the case, then it is incumbent as a religious
duty to ban them.”^129
Dönme writers, journalists, and newspaper publishers attempted to
counter the harsh attacks. From Volkan, we learn that Dr. Nâzım thought
that it was very shameful that people in Salonika wanted to read such
newspapers: “If we cannot hinder people from reading them, then at least
it should be known that in Europe, and even in the freest cities, such as
Paris, honorable people feel restrained by shame and abstain from read-
ing similar newspapers in public.”^130 Volkan also claimed that the owner
of Yeni Asır (New Century/Age), Fazlı Necip, and others had greeted this
statement with enthusiastic applause. Volkan was boycotted in Monastir
(Bitola), Kavala, and Salonika, and copies were sent back to distributors
by newspaper sellers with threatening letters. In response, supporters of
Volkan boycotted Dönme-affiliated or sympathetic newspapers elsewhere
in the empire. An enthusiastic pious supporter of the newspaper, writ-
ing on behalf of “the zealous and patriotic people of Bursa” (in north-
western Anatolia), who was astonished at reports of boycotts of Volkan,
announced the decision to begin a boycott of the CUP’s organ Tanin, a
journal for which Ahmet Emin Yalman later served as an editor, and its
“evil accomplices” in Bursa.^131 Boycotts by Dönme of Islamist newspapers
in Ottoman southeastern Europe and boycotts by Islamists of Dönme
newspapers in Anatolia foreshadowed anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and
anti-Muslim boycotts in the following decades in Greece and Turkey.
In one of his final articles, which appeared the third week of March 1909 ,
Vahdetî called on the army to remain neutral. Otherwise, “woe to the con-
dition of the nation if soldiers engage in military service on behalf of four
drunkards who were Westernized in Europe and then returned, believing in
their claims of patriotism.”^132 But the army did not heed his call. The gov-
ernment blamed Volkan for provoking counterrevolutionary actions, and
Vahdetî was fingered as the inciter of the attempted countercoup of March
31 , 1909. He fled Istanbul two weeks later as the “Action Army,” organized
in the CUP’s Masonic lodge, and whose gendarmerie was headed by the