Religious and Moral Education death, the solar system, the transfer of heat, earthquakes, and the mean-
ing of true help.
Gonca-i Edeb did not only include work that one might have found in
many publications in that era. Contrary to what is asserted by the Turk-
ish historian İlber Ortaylı, the authors did not refrain from writing about
religion or using Muslim and Sufi approaches to life.^74 The articles are
peppered with religious language. For example, Suleiman, a fourth-year
student at the state Ottoman Secondary School of Salonika, wrote an
essay praising the fact that students learned Islamic languages (Arabic and
Persian), together with professional skills (accounting) and science (geog-
raphy). He compares school to a garden adorned with the shoots of edu-
cation. A page of every book taught in it “demonstrates God’s greatness
and divine nature.” When a person enters the garden (i.e., the school),
he cannot help saying that “it is as if it is a piece of paradise placed on
earth.”^75 In an article entitled “Ma’muriyet” (Prosperity), Abdi Fevzi ex-
plicitly links good morals to education and prosperity: “just as waste-
ful squandering causes prosperity’s ruin, education brings it to life,” and
“education is a necessity for prosperity; the two are inseparable. In fact,
education and prosperity are twins born of good morals.”^76
Reflecting educational values of the Terakki and Feyziye schools,
Gonca-i Edeb also carried pieces on Sufi and Islamic themes. This dis-
played the continued interplay between being open and closed, distin-
guishing between who was a Dönme and who was not, while remaining
open enough to cross the threshold into Mevlevi Sufism. Religious and
Sufi expression in the journal include an essay discussing exertion on the
ritual pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj), a poem by an official in the Min-
istry of Tithes based on a Sufi work, a piece by the head of the Sufi lodge
located in Salonika’s marketplace, and a poem written on the signboard at
the Mevlevi lodge in Salonika.^77
The Mevlevi connection is not surprising. Mevlevi Sufis appeared at
ceremonies held at the two Dönme schools, such as at the opening of the
Terakki Commerce School, and the children of Mevlevi sheikhs received
free education at the Terakki.^78 Mustafa Fazıl ( 1854 – 1935 ) and Osman
Ehat ( 1855 or 1859 – 1895 or 1899 ) were two of the founders of the Terakki
school. I interviewed a descendant of Osman Ehat’s.^79 In the genealogy he
provided, Mustafa Fazıl (fig. 2. 2 ) is referred to as “Dede Bey,” a name with
Mevlevi Sufi connotations; “Dede” is the title given to a Mevlevi master.
Hasan Akif ’s descendant Esin Eden, a distant relative of this family, makes