Yalçınkaya|273and wrote about the characteristics of European societies. But discussions on
Ottoman society and identity were also part and parcel of such assessments. In
fact, in their discussions on science, Ottoman authors proposed a variety of por-
trayals of the characteristics of Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman communities
themselves. Thus, the nineteenth-century Ottoman debate on science can also be
seen as a debate on Ottoman identity—a debate that was not simply shaped by
but contributed to the broader debates on the social and political structure of the
Ottoman Empire.
In this chapter my goal is to show how the Ottoman debate on science was
inevitably a debate on Ottoman identity in the nineteenth century. But a caveat is
in order here: precisely because of the multidimensionality of the topic, I choose
to focus only on the writings of Turkish-speaking Ottoman Muslims. As a result,
what follows is an inevitably partial analysis. To avoid tedious repetition, I com-
monly refer to “Ottomans” in this discussion, but what is intended is only this
specific group.
Science and Ottoman Identity in the Nineteenth Century
The Ottomans were not alone in the world of the nineteenth century in terms
of the issues they found themselves having to debate. The political and cultural
elites of numerous societies such as India, Iran, China, Japan, and Russia gener-
ated arguments about the status of their societies vis-à-vis the dominant colonial
empires of Europe. One of the key topics of discussion was the reasons behind
the hardships these once-great civilizations of the world were experiencing, and
a commonly offered answer had to do with the scientific knowledge produced by
the Europeans. The details of the explanations differed perhaps—as there is no
“correct” way of defining science and identifying its products anyway—but the
idea that European men of science produced uniquely beneficial knowledge that
gave European economies and militaries their strength was a common argument.
But what these elites debated did not simply involve the material conse-
quences of science and the appropriate ways to import them. This is primarily
because the institutions and products of the new sciences of the Europeans were
accompanied by an ideology regarding science. This ideology was expressed in
a discourse that emerged in Europe and defined science as a key component of
human progress itself. Societies that lacked the ability to contribute to this al-
legedly universal science could hardly count as dignified, civilized members of
humanity according to this discourse. As a result, finding a place in this so-called
history of human progress became crucial for the elites of societies that presently
lagged in scientific achievement. Past contributions proved that the community
in question was salvageable, so to speak, and not inherently uncivilized. Locat-
ing a legacy comprising these contributions—that is, interpreting the history of