282 | Muslims’ Contributions to Science and Identity
assumed preponderance, the challenge of identifying the contributions to science
that Ottomans could claim as their own legacy exposed the potential vulnerabil-
ity of Islam as the umbrella identity. In other words, Muslim contributions to sci-
ence proved inadequate as a narrative that could embrace all Muslim Ottomans
rather early in the nineteenth century.
While many Ottoman authors felt the need to underline that not all eminent
Muslim scholars were Arabs, this unease with the Muslim-contribution nar-
rative did not necessarily involve a rejection of the inclusive Ottoman identity.
Nevertheless, the adjustments they made to the narrative sow the seeds of an en-
tirely Turkish-centric narrative that would claim all the Muslims’ contributions
after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Equally importantly, the very
birth of the narrative of Muslims’ contributions to science entailed the adoption
of a specific way of defining science and attributing prestige and credibility to
specific types of knowledge. The political and cultural elites of the Ottoman Em-
pire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries defined the identity of the com-
munity and the meaning of prestigious knowledge simultaneously, and both of
these definitions became increasingly narrower.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Elshakry, Marwa. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2014. Elshakry analyzes the debate on European sciences and Darwin in the
Arabic-speaking world.
Hanioğlu, Şükrü. “Blueprints for a Future Society: Late Ottoman Materialists on
Science, Religion and Art.” In Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy,
edited by Elisabeth Özdalga, 28–116. London: Routledge, 2005. This chapter con-
tains insights on some of the key contributors to the nineteenth-century Ottoman
debate on science.
Ihsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin. Science, Technology and Learning in the Ottoman Empire:
Western Influence, Local Institutions, and the Transfer of Knowledge. Aldershot,
UK: Ashgate Variorum, 2004. This book provides pioneering essays on the
characteristics of science in the Ottoman Empire.
Ihsanoğlu, E., K. Chatzis, and E. Nikolaides, eds. Multicultural Science in the Ottoman
Empire. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003. The chapters in this book are studies
on Ottoman ethnoreligious communities and scientific activity.
Yalçınkaya, M. Alper. Learned Patriots: Debating Science, State, and Society in the
Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
This is a detailed analysis of the nineteenth-century debate on science in the
Ottoman Empire.
Notes
. See Humboldt, Kosmos; Draper, History of the Conflict; Leclerc, Histoire de la médecine
arabe; Le Bon, La civilization des Arabes.