Ottoman Salonika
up close, because the decision they are going to make about me is very
important, even bearing historic import.”^4 The bride is a member of a
Dönme family, “and the Dönme do not allow their daughters to marry
outsiders. If her family approves, it will be the first time a Dönme girl
has married a Turk.” Word got out that “I was about to marry a Dönme
girl.”^5 One day, Dr. Nâzım of the Central Committee of the Committee
of Union and Progress [CUP—the formerly secret society of Young Turks,
which since the 1908 revolution had been transformed into a political
party and at the time of this marriage was running the empire ] called me
to appear before him. He congratulated me, saying: “Do you know the
significance of what you have done? You may not be aware of it, but you
are opening the gates to the unification and mixing of two societies that
have looked askance at each other for centuries. You are delivering the
fatal blow to the Dönme caste. We must analyze this event as it deserves
and must celebrate the union of Turks and Dönme now enabled by your
action. This should be regarded as a national and historic event.”
Mehmet Zekeriya was surprised and asked Dr. Nâzım what he
should do.
“We’ll conduct your marriage ceremony,” Dr. Nâzım replied. “We’ll
pay all the expenses. We’ll announce it to the press. In this way, we’ll turn
it from being merely a marriage between two families into a national and
historic event.’”
“The marriage of Sabiha and myself did indeed become an example
to the Dönme,” Mehmet Zekeriya wrote later. “After us, the number of
Dönme men and women marrying outsiders increased greatly. And in this
way, the Dönme caste was destroyed and became a thing of the past.”^6At this point, around the beginning of World War I, at least in this cir-
cle, Dönme were not seen as a racial group, and their mixing with other
Muslims was seen as a positive action. The wedding was announced and
hosted by the CUP, whose secretary-general at the time the influential
Mehmet Talat Pasha, minister of the interior during World War I, and
Dr. Tevfik Rüştü (Aras), a future foreign minister ( 1925 – 38 ), who mar-
ried Dr. Nâzım’s sister, gave away the bride and groom, respectively,
during the ceremony.^7
Mehmet Alkan argues this marriage reflected ongoing attempts
by Dönme at that time to resolve conflicts between the three Dönme
sects—in part, through committees set up to try to unite them—and,
concomitantly, to improve their relations with Muslims. Neither effort
was successful. The marriage of Sabiha and Mehmet Zekeriya was an im-