Making a Revolution, 1908 education as their fathers?” Muslims who surpassed Europeans in atheism
might have Muslim names, but how can they be trusted with the fate of
the empire? The fact that the minister of justice and many notables and
members of parliament had attended the opening of a Masonic lodge in
Istanbul should serve as a wake-up call for pious Muslims, Vahdetî felt,
warning of the threat within.^122
Masonic lodges were considered the centers of atheism in the empire,
and Vahdetî was outraged that the government had given Freemasons
permission to build them in the seat of the caliphate, even participated in
their opening ceremonies, and was horrified that the ulema also became
members. He was worried that this was a sign of the return of despotism
and hoped it was not a big trick, and that the justice minister, a supporter
of the Constitutional Revolution, was not being duped. Members of the
elite and parliamentarians had hailed the opening of a lodge of Freema-
sons, who were allegedly diametrically opposed to Islam, and Vahdetî re-
peatedly called on the ulema not to fall for their ruse.^123
One suspects that Vahdetî had the Dönme in mind in his description
of Freemasons as secret followers of a mystic path who diverged from a
major monotheist religion and had surreptitiously formed a new religion.
According to Vahdetî, Freemasonry had emerged in the eighteenth cen-
tury out of Christianity but, separating from Christianity, became like
a Sufi order. He did not consider it to be a political movement; rather,
uniting peoples of different nationalities, it had become an organization
trying to establish freedom of religion—code for apostasy—and was sub-
sequently banned as heretical. Freemasons had been trying to be accepted
as a religious order, trying to establish freedom of religion for themselves,
“but have not been successful and have never been spared attacks, have
had to hide themselves, but developed signs and codes as a way of recog-
nizing each other.” In this way, Freemasons had become like “a Sufi order,
a religious sect” “complete with their own holidays,” although Dönme
denied that they had gone from being a Sufi order within Islam to being
a separate religion.^124
Volkan also attacked the CUP, regarded as being in league with immoral
atheists and Freemasons: “because Freemasonry spread in Salonika and
acquired strength and power, as a result, the CUP was established easily
and without being noticed.”^125 The CUP was in fact an arm of the Free-
masons, whose oaths and ceremonies it had adopted. Both Freemasons
and CUP members, like the Dönme, came from Salonika. Furthermore,