Employing rhetoric all too familiar to Turks today, major metropolitan newspapers in Turkey in December 1952 and January 1953 raised the specter of widespread Islamic or religious “reaction” (irtica). Staunch defenders of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's policy of secularism, or laiklik, journalists in Istanbul and Ankara identified the existence of a “black press” (kara basın) manipulated by religious “reactionaries” (mürteci) determined to use print media to challenge the very secular foundations of the modern Turkish nation and to upset the established order. To prevent this, the time had come to prosecute vigorously both individuals and organizations that used newspapers or journals to exploit religion and promote obscurantist propaganda. Chief among these was not a metropolitan publication but, rather, an incendiary religious newspaper produced in the Black Sea city of Samsun—the very same city in which Mustafa Kemal had first set foot in 1919 in his efforts to lead what became the Turkish War of Independence. This black newspaper was Büyük Cihad, “The Great Struggle.”

The immediate catalyst for declarations of crisis and denunciation of Büyük Cihad had been the attempt by a young man in the southeastern city of Malatya to shoot and kill the owner and editor of the prominent Istanbul daily Vatan on 22 November. Ahmet Emin Yalman was among the most ardent proponents of laiklik, and he had used Vatan to draw attention to the alleged threat that the forces of religious reaction posed to the nation. The assailant—Hüseyin Üzmez—reportedly had connections to the previously influential but now defunct “reactionary” Great East Association (Büyük Doğu Cemiyeti). It is not surprising that Vatan led the way in connecting events in Malatya with moments of religious reaction both in recent years and over the history of the Turkish republic.Footnote ¹ Newspapers across the country followed suit, reporting extensively on the widespread investigation and arrests related to the failed assassination. Consensus held that it had not been an isolated incident; instead, it was part of a broad reactionary movement throughout the country inspired by the black press, supposedly supported by the Association of Martyrs of Islam (Fedaiyani İslam Cemiyeti) in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood (Müslüman Kardeşler Cemiyeti) in Egypt.Footnote ²

Since the onset of political liberalization following World War II, Turkish printing and publishing had witnessed rapid expansion, particularly unprecedented growth in the number of periodicals that promoted religious perspectives. The owners and editors of this so-called black press had entered into a vigorous public and political debate concerning laiklik. They pointed to the injustices associated with its harsh implementation during Mustafa Kemal's presidency (1923–38) and argued that as a result of laiklik the Turkish nation had become spiritually impoverished. It was essential not only to reassess the application of laiklik but also to recognize the importance of Islam to the nation.

At the same time, they resolutely rejected allegations that their activities encouraged religious reaction. Moreover, they evinced little or no remorse concerning events in Malatya and used the ensuing controversy to take public debate to a new level of intensity. Büyük Cihad had been prominent in the debate, and it continued in the same vein, condemning Yalman as a Zionist and Freemason who had no respect for the country's religious traditions. It argued that Yalman himself was among the real “reactionaries”—those whose very purpose was to destroy the Muslim identity of the people. Büyük Cihad vowed to continue the fight against such enemies of the nation.Footnote ³

Faced with this increasingly acrimonious debate as well as with charges that it did not take seriously the threat of religious reaction, Turkey's ruling Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi) had little choice but to act. These were years of considerable turmoil throughout the Middle East, and the extent of the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement in Arab politics—both in cooperation with and in opposition to established governments—did not go unnoticed.Footnote ⁴ Nor did the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood had gained significant influence by producing a variety of popular periodicals.Footnote ⁵ Although there was no proven connection between the attempt on Yalman's life and organizations beyond Turkey, the government did not want to take any chances. As a result, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes moved to suppress elements suspected of nurturing religious reaction, chief among which were religious periodicals. The owners and editors of so-called black-press publications soon found themselves subject to investigation, arrest, and prosecution. With this, the majority of religious periodicals ceased to publish, and a brief but important moment in Turkish history came to an end. This moment has been all but absent from the historical narrative, if only because these religious periodicals themselves have not been the object of study.

The years from 1945 to 1953 were significant because they constituted the first opportunity for Turks to participate in increasingly free public debate that had been ushered in by the introduction of multiparty politics in 1945 and the subsequent relaxation of restrictions on the press. Turks debated many topics, but none had as deep a resonance as laiklik, for Mustafa Kemal had imposed it on the people without permitting the slightest dissent. Two decades after its initial implementation, Turks began, for the first time, to discuss publicly a defining aspect of the modern Turkish state. To date, however, scholars have not examined closely this debate or its implications for modern Turkish history.Footnote ⁶ They have ignored that it was joined by Turks across the country because in these same years remarkable growth occurred in periodicals produced in and circulating throughout the provinces. Instead, the accepted historical narrative of these years derives from the pages of major metropolitan newspapers such as Vatan, publications that consistently presented only one perspective on Islam and laiklik in Turkey.

To understand the complexity of developments from 1945 to 1953 and to appreciate the actual argument about religious reaction, it is necessary to identify new sources and to consider perspectives other than the secular Kemalist narrative that has dominated the history of Turkey so far. I do so through an examination of Büyük Cihad and the debate to which it contributed.

THE “PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER” AS A SOURCE FOR TURKISH HISTORY

A distinctive feature of the historiography of republican Turkey has been the persistence of an elite, centrist perspective derived from the secular nationalist historical narrative that Mustafa Kemal and the political elite fostered during the interwar period. This Kemalist narrative intentionally casts secular modernity and progress in opposition to religious conservatism and reaction. It takes for granted that the former, inevitably associated with the political “center,” must necessarily triumph over the latter, which is an inherent characteristic of the “periphery.”Footnote ⁷ As a consequence, in histories of Turkey, developments associated with the three metropolitan centers of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir receive overwhelming attention, but the provinces—where the majority of the people live—typically are dismissed as backward and irrelevant. In the same vein, alternative perspectives to secular Kemalist nationalism—whether promoted in the center or the periphery—rarely receive the respect and recognition that their popularity suggests they deserve. This is particularly evident in the treatment accorded Islam: despite its undeniable continued relevance to Turkish history, more often than not it is sacrificed on the altar of secularism.

This elite, centrist perspective perpetuates a dichotomy that fails to explain the complex dynamics that underlie Turkish history, if only because it depends almost exclusively on a narrow corpus of sources produced by the secular Kemalist elite in the center. For all that historians recognize the limitations of the Kemalist narrative, the exploitation of new sources for republican Turkish history has been limited: texts of Mustafa Kemal's speeches, elite memoirs, Grand National Assembly records, and select newspapers of record remain the predominant sources. It hardly needs saying that these shed little light on the origins of contemporary social, cultural, and political developments in Turkey that a new generation of social scientists is currently engaged in studying. There is a clear need for new sources and new approaches to republican Turkish history if the present is to be effectively understood in relation to the past.

One possible and intriguing new source, so far all but ignored, is the “provincial newspaper.” Despite historians' dependence on the printed text, newspapers produced in provincial centers for a local readership have received very little attention from scholars not only of Turkey but also of other countries in the modern Middle East.Footnote ⁸ To be sure, it is difficult to reach conclusions about the importance of provincial newspapers, for typically we know even less about their circulation and readership than we do about major metropolitan titles. Nevertheless, provincial newspapers do provide important insight into what people in a particular region might have read and thought. Even more important, they constitute a critical means of assessing just how representative major newspapers were of opinions and debate beyond metropolitan centers. Without juxtaposing metropolitan publications with those produced in the provinces, conclusions regarding developments in a country as a whole must remain tentative.

Alas, all too often provincial newspapers simply did not exist or were established far later than those in metropolitan centers, and for historians to obtain copies of provincial publications long after the fact can be extremely difficult. In republican Turkey, a clear line exists in terms of the availability and usefulness of provincial newspapers produced before and after 1945. Prior to the introduction of multiparty politics, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir dominated the printing and publishing industry, and throughout the single-party period (1925–45) successful private newspapers in the provinces were the exception rather than the rule. Those newspapers rarely managed to survive unless they were official government gazettes or had a connection to the ruling Republican People's Party (RPP, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi). In 1940, for instance, only fourteen of all sixty-three provinces had a private daily newspaper. In addition, although some twenty more provinces had a private paper published once or twice a week, these were extremely limited in scope, their content reflecting the dominance of Kemalist ideology in these years.Footnote ⁹

Printing and publishing in Anatolia predated the establishment of the Turkish republic even if it did not compare to the rich print culture that dated back to the mid-19th century in Istanbul and Izmir. In the capitals of Ottoman Anatolian provinces—far larger than subsequent republican Turkish provinces—state-owned printing presses and gazettes were gradually established in the latter decades of the 19th century, but very little (if any) private publishing occurred. It was only following the Young Turk Revolution (1908) that serial publications began to flourish in Anatolia: in Ankara, for example, eleven periodicals were established between 1908 and 1914.Footnote ¹⁰ This vitality proved short-lived, however, and Ottoman provincial publishing suffered throughout World War I. Then, during the War of Independence between 1919 and 1922, printing and publishing again became prominent in Anatolia. In this brief period, because Istanbul was subject to foreign occupation, Anatolia's press superseded Istanbul's in importance, mobilizing popular support and encouraging resistance to the provisions laid out in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920).

Once again, however, printing and publishing in Anatolia did not continue at a high level. Despite Mustafa Kemal's commitment to the thorough modernization of the new Republic of Turkey, throughout the single-party period the newspaper industry in particular struggled under adverse economic and political conditions. Only after 1945 did this change. As a result of political liberalization and improved economic circumstances following World War II, publishing and printing throughout the country began to flourish; the provincial newspaper in particular became an important institution. Supported by a dramatic increase in private printing houses, the number of provincial periodicals jumped from 112 in 1945 to a total of 359 in 1952. Over the same period of seven years, the number of private daily newspapers increased more than fourfold, from twenty-seven to 114; only twenty-two provinces lacked a daily newspaper, and only two provinces lacked any publication at all.Footnote ¹¹ At a time when metropolitan newspapers did not reach provincial towns and cities in a timely manner, but when villages were becoming increasingly connected to provincial centers, the provincial newspaper constituted the core of an emerging national print culture.

The emergence of newspapers as a vital aspect of provincial society marked the beginning of a process by which people throughout the country were incorporated into political and social debate hitherto restricted to the metropolitan political elite. To be sure, provincial newspapers did not match those produced in Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir in either circulation or content. As Istanbul's major dailies were beginning to attain circulation figures in excess of 100,000, provincial newspapers were doing well if their numbers reached 1,500. In comparison to metropolitan newspapers full of color, glamour, and in-depth reporting, provincial papers were rather rudimentary. Their printing was poor often in quality and only in black, pictures were few, and a paper might comprise only two sides of one sheet. Nonetheless, the emerging print market in provincial cities—which ranged in population in 1945 from a small city such as Giresun at 12,481 to a large center such as Eskişehir at 80,030—gave rise to increasing competition among the new publications. Often a provincial city had two or three daily newspapers and a number of weekly or biweekly publications. In 1952, Eskişehir boasted sixteen newspapers, including seven dailies and five journals; smaller Giresun was home to eight newspapers, of which five ran daily.

To capture a share of these growing markets, local editors modeled their products on metropolitan publications. They often published cartoons and devoted columns—even entire sections—to history, serialized novels, fashion, sports, and religion.Footnote ¹² Provincial newspapers were only just beginning to establish a presence that expanded and developed in subsequent decades as technology and market conditions allowed, but in contrast to the irregular, thoroughly doctrinaire publications of the single-party period, those produced after 1945 marked an important development in the history of Turkish printing and publishing. Moreover, they constitute a valuable source for historians seeking to develop a deeper understanding of developments in these years.

RELIGIOUS PRINT MEDIA AND THE NATIONAL PRINT CULTURE

The new national print culture that emerged after 1945 was characterized not only by the prominence of newspapers published in provincial centers but also by a diversity of opinion not witnessed in Turkey since the onset of single-party rule in 1925. Istanbul had long been home to a diverse print culture prior to the establishment of the Turkish republic, and the fluorescence of print media advocating various ideologies during the Young Turk period (1908–18) is well recognized. With the introduction of the Law for the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükun Kanunu) on 4 March 1925, however, Mustafa Kemal moved to suppress the expression of ideas at odds with his own vision for a modern Turkey. Although some diversity of opinion continued to be expressed in Istanbul print media, Kemalist ideology became increasingly dominant in the 1930s. Then, with the introduction of multiparty politics in 1945, Istanbul again became the center of an increasingly vibrant and diverse print culture: for a short while, print became the primary venue for a debate between leftists and Pan-Turkists. Seizing on new freedoms, they published their own newspapers and journals—only to find that the government did not countenance extreme ideologies. By 1950 they had all but ceased their public activities. It was another decade before leftists and Pan-Turkists were truly able to turn print to their advantage and set the tone of national debate.Footnote ¹³

By contrast, in the years immediately after World War II, far more numerous and successful were religious periodicals. This was the black press so central to public debate concerning laiklik and Islam between 1945 and 1953. The very existence of publications that might be identified as “religious” in broad terms marked an important moment in the history of Turkish print culture. Throughout the single-party period, print media addressing matters of Muslim faith and practice had been almost completely absent, with the exception of a small number of government-produced books.Footnote ¹⁴ There was an absolute dearth of serials following the closure of the two most prominent publications, Tevhid-i Efkar (The Unity of Thoughts) and Sebilürreşad (The Straight Path), upon passage of the Law for the Maintenance of Order. Thereafter, no newspaper or journal deserving of the adjective “religious” appears to have been published until after the death of Mustafa Kemal in 1938.

Then, during World War II, there appeared three publications foreshadowing the rapid growth of religious periodicals after 1945. The first was Nurettin Topçu's Hareket (Action), which first appeared in February 1939. Extremely critical of President İsmet İnönü (successor to Mustafa Kemal in 1938) and the RPP, Topçu took pains to stress the importance of the historic relationship between Turks and Islam.Footnote ¹⁵ Then in 1940, a group of intellectuals led by Eşref Edib began to produce the Türk-İslam Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopaedia of Turkish Islam) in the form of a periodical. This was a deliberate effort to produce an alternative to the İslam Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopaedia of Islam) published by the Ministry of Education at the same time.Footnote ¹⁶ Finally, Necip Fazıl Kısakürek established the first of many publications that bore the name Büyük Doğu (The Great East). The first issue appeared on 17 September 1943, and, like Hareket, it proved extremely critical of the government. Over time it also adopted the distinctly religious emphasis with which it was associated over the next two decades.Footnote ¹⁷

The years immediately following political liberalization in 1945 witnessed a marked increase in the religious print media, including books and pamphlets. Indeed, the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Işleri Bakanlığı) established its own printing house in 1950 for the explicit purpose of publishing popular works related to Muslim beliefs, practices, and morals. Moreover, although book publication in provincial centers was hardly common after 1945, many of those books concerned Islam. In 1950, religious books were published in Mardin, Eskişehir, Düzce, Adana, and Kayseri and in 1952, in Maraş, Malatya, Bursa, Eskişehir, Giresun, Samsun, Bafra, and Mersin.Footnote ¹⁸ The ease and affordability of printing evidently offered new opportunities, and a local vaiz (preacher), M. Lutfullah Baydoğan, was not alone in publishing a number of treatises and instructional booklets for his readers in and around Izmir.Footnote ¹⁹

It is no coincidence that Baydoğan also owned and edited his own religious newspaper, Müslüman Sesi (The Voice of the Muslim), also published in Izmir. Although the increase in religious books and pamphlets was certainly noteworthy, more significant was the proliferation of journals and newspapers devoted to addressing people's religious needs. Published in Istanbul or Izmir, many were devoted to educating Turks in their faith as Muslims. They included a variety of titles such as Hakikat Yolu (The Path of Truth), Ehli Sünnet (The Sunnis), İslam Yolu (The Path of Islam), İslamiyet, Hakka Doğru (Toward Truth), Allah Yolu (The Path of God), and İslam Nuru (The Light of Islam). To these must also be added the writings of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi: his Risale-i Nur (Letters of the Light) gained considerable popularity in these years, and both handwritten and printed copies circulated throughout the country with increasing frequency.Footnote ²⁰

At the same time, there appeared another distinct strain of religious periodicals—those that arrogated to themselves the terms “religious” and “nationalist” (mukaddesatçı ve milliyetçi). These did not neglect their responsibility to teach Turks about their faith, but they also aggressively engaged in public debate concerning laiklik. Perhaps the best known of these are Sebilürreşad, owned and published by Eşref Edib and dating back to 1908, and Büyük Doğu, owned and published by Necip Fazıl Kısakürek.Footnote ²¹ In Istanbul, however, there were many other almost forgotten publications of similar ilk: these included Hür Adam (The Free Man), İslam Dünyası (The World of Islam), and even Volkan, a short-lived journal that evoked memories of the controversial journal by the same name associated with the 31 March counterrevolution of 1909.Footnote ²²

It is significant that religious-nationalist newspapers also appeared in the provinces in the early 1950s. Two of these appeared only briefly: Yeşil Bursa (Green Bursa) published but a single issue on 28 February 1952, advertising itself as an official organ of the local Islam Democrat Party branch (İslam Demokrat Partisi). Also short-lived was Büyük Dava (The Great Petition), a monthly paper apparently distributed in various cities throughout western Anatolia. It was published in Izmir by Hasan Üçışıklar Kanburoğlu, and its first edition was dated 7 March 1952. Both Hürriyet and Anadolu reported on 5 December, following the attempt on Ahmet Emin Yalman's life, that the house of Büyük Dava's editor had been searched and that he had been arrested. The last and fifth issue of the paper that I have been able to locate is dated 15 October 1952.

Two other provincial religious-nationalist newspapers were more significant: Yeşil Nur and Vicdan Sesi. The first provincial religious-nationalist newspaper, Yeşil Nur (The Green Light), appeared in Eskişehir on 18 November 1949, but for reasons that are unclear, it was limited to four issues. After a hiatus of nearly eighteen months, Yeşil Nur reappeared on 1 May 1951 and was published on a biweekly basis, first as a “political” and later as a “religious, social, and political” (dini, içtimai ve siyasi) newspaper.Footnote ²³Yeşil Nur was clearly popular: according to Vatan (bitterly resentful of Yeşil Nur's attacks on Ahmet Emin Yalman), with a circulation of 5,000 in early 1953, it posed a threat to the nation. Ads in Yeşil Nur on 9 January 1953 confirm that the paper's circulation was between 4,000 and 5,000; in April, Yeşil Nur announced it had printed 7,000 copies and intended to increase this to 10,000 in the near future.Footnote ²⁴ Its last and twenty-sixth issue is dated 3 April 1953.

Vicdan Sesi (The Voice of Conscience) was owned and edited by Kemal Bülbül, who, as we shall see, had been intimately involved with Büyük Cihad. Vicdan Sesi first appeared in Samsun at the end of October 1952. Published weekly, it advertised itself as a “moral and political” (ahlaki, siyasi) newspaper informed by the “religious sciences” (ʿilm). According to Bülbül himself, Vicdan Sesi had a circulation of between 2,000 and 2,500 and was distributed in many Anatolian cities.Footnote ²⁵ Although far less polemical and combative in tone than Yeşil Nur, Vicdan Sesi ceased temporarily after only fifteen issues, when Bülbül published a provocative article criticizing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on 6 January 1953.

By far the longest lived and most important provincial religious-nationalist newspaper, however, was Büyük Cihad. It was published continuously over two years, producing a total of 100 issues. A challenge facing historians of the Turkish press is determining accurate circulation figures for any one publication: no official records were kept in this period, and one is forced to rely either on anecdotal evidence or on claims made within the press. In the case of Büyük Cihad we have the benefit of the rather vague memories of its most important managing editor, Kemal Bülbül: fifty years after the newspaper's publication he recalled in an interview that Büyük Cihad had printed roughly 5,000 copies that had been distributed throughout the country. Bülbül remembered that the paper had been immensely popular due in large part to its anti-Communist stance and later its association with the Islam Democrat Party.

Bülbül may have underestimated the actual circulation. In November 1952, the Istanbul daily Cumhuriyet ran an exposé on the reactionary press it held responsible for the attempt on Ahmet Emin Yalman's life. In this article it claimed that Büyük Cihad enjoyed a circulation of 8,000.Footnote ²⁶ Regardless of whether either estimate is correct, it seems clear that when compared with provincial newspapers at the time, Büyük Cihad was unusually popular not just in Samsun but also in other provinces to the point that it—and not religious-nationalist publications produced in Istanbul—topped the “black-press” lists compiled by newspapers concerned with protecting the secular Kemalist legacy in late 1952 and early 1953.

BÜYÜK CİHAD: A PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

Büyük Cihad was the product of both the unprecedented vitality in provincial publishing and printing and the new opportunity Turks enjoyed to engage in public debate concerning laiklik. On the one hand, Büyük Cihad was a special provincial newspaper because it circulated throughout the country and contributed to a debate of national importance. On the other hand, in many regards it was typical of provincial newspapers across the country. Büyük Cihad appeared as a broadsheet, printed entirely in black on four sides of two sheets. An individual copy initially sold for 5 kuruş; however, the rising cost of newsprint forced its owner to raise the price to 10 kuruş on 4 May 1951. An annual subscription was advertised at 5 lira. Early on, Büyük Cihad carried a number of private advertisements, largely for local businesses and organizations, but these became extremely rare after its fourteenth issue. The newspaper often carried advertisements for periodicals of a similar bent, such as Volkan, Hür Adam, Mefkure, Islam Nuru, Sebilürreşad, and Ehli Sünnet, or books written by the paper's most prolific author, Cevat Rifat Atılhan. On occasion it carried official advertisements on behalf of the city of Samsun's müftülük (office of the mufti). Official advertisements were priced at 50 kuruş per column while the rates for private advertisements were negotiated.Footnote ²⁷

At that time Samsun was home to one long-established twice-weekly newspaper, Samsun. The first issue of Büyük Cihad appeared on Friday, 16 March 1951. Only two days later, a daily newspaper, Samsun Postası, began with the specific goal of filling the need for a daily newspaper in the province. Over the next two years, Samsun Postası and Büyük Cihad advocated diametrically opposite perspectives regarding laiklik and engaged in bitter polemics with each other, even though both were produced at the same printing house.Footnote ²⁸

The founder and owner of Büyük Cihad was Mustafa Bağışlayıcı, about whom we know very little. Unlike the owners of many other papers, Bağışlayıcı evidently did not wish to draw attention to himself, and unfortunately the pages of Büyük Cihad reveal nothing about him personally. He likely was a young man, a follower of the mystic Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, and perhaps even a şeyh in the Nakşibendi Sufi order. Although he was not a founding member of the Islam Democrat Party, evidence in Büyük Cihad suggests that he was active in its leadership.Footnote ²⁹

We are fortunate to know something about two men who made significant contributions to Büyük Cihad, and their biographies shed light on some of the dynamics involved in the publication of a popular religious newspaper. Men of very different backgrounds, they shared a commitment to using print as a means to extend public debate concerning laiklik throughout Turkey. The first was the newspaper's most prominent managing editor, Kemal Bülbül,Footnote ³⁰ who held this position between 10 August 1951 and 26 September 1952.Footnote ³¹ Bülbül does not appear to have been connected with any particular religious movement or political party and certainly did not possess a national reputation. Within the Black Sea region in his latter years he became known as something of a wandering minstrel (aşık) who performed moving songs and poetry.

Born into a Black Sea village in 1928, Bülbül lost his father in 1938 and much of his remaining family a year later in a terrible earthquake. Unable to continue his education beyond primary school, he moved to Samsun as a teenager and found work writing for a number of Black Sea newspapers and journals while beginning to write poetry under the tutelage of a local high school literature teacher. At eighteen he headed to Istanbul, where, befriended by a journalist from Son Posta, he briefly found work in the city's thriving publishing sector. While in Istanbul he managed to publish two books—one a compendium of moral advice for children, the other a collection of poetry devoted to Istanbul. Following his military service, Bülbül resumed life in Istanbul, where he published numerous pamphlets and tried his hand at producing his own satirical people's newspaper, Torun. This did not promote a religious perspective, and it failed after only two issues.Footnote ³²

Bülbül then returned to Samsun, where as managing editor of Büyük Cihad he joined growing public debate concerning laiklik. As a result of his controversial editorials, he came to be revered among some as the “fiery one willing to risk his life” (ateşli serdengeçti); secular Kemalists writing for metropolitan papers preferred to ridicule him as the “super şeyh” (murşid, or guide).Footnote ³³ For reasons that are not clear, Bülbül left Büyük Cihad in the fall of 1952 and opened Vicdan Sesi on 29 October, not coincidentally the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

As did others involved in the religious press of the time, Bülbül found himself defending his writings before the courts on numerous occasions in 1952 and 1953. Vicdan Sesi published only fifteen issues before Bülbül appears to have been imprisoned. Upon his release he revived Vicdan Sesi on 29 October 1954, after which it took a distinctly more moderate tone until in 1956 changing laws concerning publishing and printing forced Bülbül to close the paper. Under the new law he did not possess the necessary education to own and run an independent newspaper, although his experience to that point suggested otherwise.

If Bülbül provided Büyük Cihad with a competent editor familiar with the immediate region around Samsun, the second prominent individual associated with Büyük Cihad—Cevat Rifat Atılhan—brought with him a national, controversial reputation. An “old Ottoman” rather than a child of the republic like Bülbül, Atılhan had fought in both World War I and the War of Independence, although in the latter he had been an aide to Mersinli Cemal Paşa, a potential rival to Mustafa Kemal's leadership over the Anatolian resistance movement. Later Atılhan become a critic of Mustafa Kemal's regime, writing articles to this effect in the Istanbul daily Yarın (Tomorrow) in 1929–30.Footnote ³⁴ Then, in 1945, Atılhan became a prominent proponent of political liberalization. He cofounded the first opposition party allowed to form in the summer of 1945, the National Development Party (Milli Kalkınma Partisi), and in 1951 he established the Islam Democrat Party.

Atılhan was also perhaps Turkey's most prominent anti-Semite. In the interwar period he gained a reputation for his intense anti-Semitism and personal interest in Nazi Germany. He further developed these prejudices after World War II. In 1948 he was at the center of public controversy concerning efforts to organize a volunteer Turkish force to fight alongside Arab armies opposing the establishment of Israel. At the same time, he used print media to engage in a vitriolic campaign against Zionism and Freemasonry: he produced numerous translations of the falsified Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as such books as Zionism and the Danger Surrounding Islam, Turkish Son: Know Thine Enemy, Jewish Spies on the Palestinian Front, and Freemasons: How They Have Conspired to Destroy Turkish Nationalism and Islam.Footnote ³⁵

It is not surprising that Atılhan used the pages of Büyük Cihad for similar purposes. His name was first attached to an article in Büyük Cihad in its eleventh issue on 25 May 1951. Thereafter he regularly wrote articles until, on 25 July 1952, a brief article announced that Atılhan had just established a new newspaper in Istanbul under the title Yeni İstikbal (The New Future). He also took over editorial responsibilities for the Istanbul paper Hür Adam while its editor, Sinan Omur, was in prison between December 1951 and August 1952. In both newspapers, Atılhan engaged in the public debate concerning laiklik and Islam while continuing to maintain that Freemasonry was but a front for “Zionist imperialism” that, since the French Revolution, had been determined to conquer the world.

BÜYÜK CİHAD AND THE GREAT STRUGGLE

Atılhan was not alone in inveighing against the supposed threat that Zionists and Freemasons posed to the Muslim Turkish nation. Although not a theme common to the mainstream press, these concerns were raised by other religious periodicals from these years, particularly in terms of the plight faced by fellow Muslims in “Palestine.”Footnote ³⁶ Yet for all the vitriolic rhetoric to this effect, the determination to combat Zionism and Freemasonry did not constitute the real struggle in which Büyük Cihad was engaged. Rather, religious periodicals in general, and especially those advocating a more aggressive religious nationalism, primarily were determined to force public recognition of the importance of Islam to the Turkish nation and to insist that laiklik be thoroughly revised. They consistently challenged the allegation that they promoted religious reaction against the state and hence threatened the stability of the nation. Instead they accused secular Kemalists of being “reform fanatics” (inkılap yobazları) while their own pages were devoted to both educating people in their faith and combating the enemies of both democracy and the Muslim Turkish nation. In short, this was the great struggle.

Perhaps intentionally, there was some ambiguity as to the identity of those against whom Büyük Cihad really struggled. This was evident when Mustafa Bağışlayıcı introduced the newspaper in its first issue. He explained to readers that the paper's purpose was not to engage in political games or character assassination and not to lend itself to “red and black”—presumably Communist and impure—desires.Footnote ³⁷ Rather, Büyük Cihad would remain above the fray and pursue the lofty goal of encouraging devotion and loyal service to God (tanrı). The newspaper, he declared, was committed to struggling against every idea and action that was opposed to the nation's “sacred values” (mukaddesatımız). Almost certainly this would entail facing fierce opposition from those who were “red and black faced,” as well as suffering personal slander. However, in comparison to such a sacred mission, personal reputation was worth nothing.

The progression of subtitles that appeared as part of the masthead under the title Büyük Cihad in early issues provides further insight into the nature of this struggle. The first issue's subtitle, “Moskof ve Moskofcularla Savaş” (The War Against Moscow and the Muscovites), signaled that an important purpose of Büyük Cihad was to combat the possible spread of Communism in Turkey. Indeed, in the second issue Bağışlayıcı explained his reasons for choosing the newspaper's name. According to him, the world was divided into two realities: one was faithless, cruel, and inhumane; the other was characterized by faith, morality, virtue, and freedom.Footnote ³⁸ Although the latter was represented by the United Nations, to which Turkey and all free nations belonged, the former was manifest in “Russia, the center of Communism.” Conflict between these two sides was inevitable, as evidenced by the war in Korea. “Russia,” however, was not content to exploit innocent people already under its control but was intent upon destroying other nations by employing insurgents to sow the seeds of destruction from within: these individuals aimed to seize on every opportunity and means—including print media—to cause disruption and conflict within a country. Bağışlayıcı identified this as the greatest threat facing Turkey, against which Büyük Cihad must struggle. From a divine perspective, the struggle for morality, faith, virtue, and freedom was a great struggle.

In its sixth issue, Büyük Cihad was subtitled “Gerçek Demokrasinin Mudafii Siyasi Müstakil Gazete” (The Independent Political Newspaper Defending True Democracy). With the tenth it settled into a standard subtitle, “Müslüman Türklerin Haftalık Siyasi Müstakil Gazetesi” (The Independent Weekly Political Newspaper of Muslim Turks). Frequently beside the title, on the top right corner, appeared a hadith. These two subtitles capture well the nature of the real effort to which Büyük Cihad was devoted: the struggle to protect the freedoms associated with democracy, from which stemmed the right to identify the Turkish nation as Muslim. Indeed, in choosing the name Büyük Cihad, Mustafa Bağışlayıcı capitalized on the multiple associations Muslims had with “the great struggle.” In Shiʿi tradition, the “greater jihad” denoted a spiritual struggle, one that many Turks felt they were experiencing as a result of the nation's spiritual impoverishment, the legacy of Mustafa Kemal's policy of laiklik. Cihad is more often understood as an active struggle to spread Islam, and this applied within Turkey itself. As laiklik, according to some, had destroyed the religious fabric of the nation from within, atheist Communist forces were threatening from outside its borders.Footnote ³⁹ Turks needed to rekindle the spiritual roots of the nation and to strengthen popular Muslim identity in the face of opposition from both within and without.

This essence of the “struggle” Büyük Cihad made absolutely clear in the first issue. On the top of its front page, in bold letters, ran parts of a speech by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes in which he emphasized the Democrat Party's commitment to Islam. In this case he used the term müslümanlık and pointed to his government's policies as evidence of its commitment to the notion that “Turkey is a Muslim state and will remain Muslim.”Footnote ⁴⁰

In the early 1950s the religious press made a concerted effort to assert the Muslim identity of the Turkish nation by mounting a public campaign against the narrow interpretation and authoritarian implementation of laiklik that had characterized the single-party period under the RPP. Büyük Cihad published a plethora of articles that relentlessly attacked the party. Referring to the period of 1923–50 as the “sultanate of oppression” (zulüm sultanatı), Büyük Cihad characterized the era by its dictatorship, treachery (hainlik), and narrow-mindedness. Unlike the Tanzimat, Mustafa Kemal's reforms were not “genuine,” for the ultimate goal had not been enlightenment and liberty but a gradual restriction of freedom of conscience.Footnote ⁴¹ Yet despite secular Kemalist efforts, Büyük Cihad declared that the Turkish nation had survived the storm and managed to hold on to its Muslim faith.Footnote ⁴² The paper warned Turks, however, to beware of attempts by secular Kemalists to restore the RPP to power and vowed to carry on the battle against this possibility.

At the same time, Büyük Cihad and religious periodicals waged a conscious battle against secular Kemalists who were paranoid about the possibility that religious reaction threatened Turkey. Again on the front page of its first issue, it featured a much circulated article by prominent lawyer and professor Ali Fuat Başgil—an article that in many ways constituted the manifesto of religious nationalists at the time.Footnote ⁴³ It signaled the determination of religious nationalists to refute allegations of religious reaction that had gone unchallenged throughout the single-party period. Entitled “İrtica Yaygarası” (The Nonsense about Religious Reaction), the article condemned those responsible for raising the specter of religious reaction; Başgil argued that they did so in an effort to confuse the government as well as the public and to gain revenge for the defeat of the RPP in May 1950. Başgil defended the unease many Turks felt concerning Mustafa Kemal's reforms on the grounds that these had destroyed the very foundations on which Turkish Muslim society rested: its history, language, spirituality, and morals. Başgil asked, Was it wrong to criticize oppression and injustice? He called for a period of “restoration” by which the nation, akin to a sinking ship, might be restored to health and set on course. Başgil took pains to deny the charge that Communists were infiltrating Turkey in the guise of reactionaries and using religion to destabilize the country. This very propaganda, he argued, only divided and weakened the already fragile nation.

THE POLITICS OF LAIKLIK (1945–53)

When Büyük Cihad first began to publish in March 1951, it entered into a debate already prominent in Turkish society and politics—albeit in print media located primarily in Istanbul and Izmir. However, various organizations promoting a religious-nationalist perspective were already active in the provinces. Two were particularly noteworthy. The first was Necip Fazıl Kısakürek's Great East Association, first established in Istanbul in June 1949; it soon opened branches in Kayseri, Malatya, Tavşanlı, Afyon, Kutahya, Soma, and Diyarbakır.Footnote ⁴⁴ The other was the Association of Turkish Nationalists (Türk Milliyetçiler Derneği), which was established in the spring of 1951 and claimed to have some eighty provincial branches less than eighteen months later.Footnote ⁴⁵

With the advent of multiparty politics, new parties vied for influence in the provinces, and virtually every party adopted a position on laiklik, indicating recognition that Islam remained an important dimension of Turkish life.Footnote ⁴⁶ The most provocative party in this regard was the Islam Democrat Party: established in August 1951, it quickly opened 150 branches in ten provinces, and although it was not represented in the Grand National Assembly, its popularity soon prompted the government to close the party in February 1952.Footnote ⁴⁷Büyük Cihad and the other provincial religious-nationalist newspapers established in 1951–52, therefore, were responding to widespread interest on the part of Turks in the matters of laiklik and Islam.

Indeed, driven by the realities of multiparty politics, debate along these lines had been joined by the largest and most prominent political parties, not the least of which was Mustafa Kemal's RPP. Forced to respond to criticisms voiced by the opposition Democrat Party and Nation Party (Millet Partisi) between 1945 and 1950 that its interpretation of laiklik translated into outright enmity toward religion, the RPP undertook its own reevaluation. In particular, the ruling party responded to concerns that the country had been left spiritually impoverished—and hence vulnerable to the lures of Communism—by lack of formal religious education in schools.Footnote ⁴⁸

In 1948, therefore, it committed to the establishment of a faculty of divinity at the University of Ankara, to the establishment of imam-hatip schools to train men of religion, and to the introduction of voluntary classes in religion in primary schools. Subsequent to general elections on 14 May 1950, the new government formed by the Democrat Party was no less sensitive to popular concerns about laiklik: among its earliest initiatives was the introduction of legislation negating Mustafa Kemal's earlier mandate that the ezan (call to prayer) be in Turkish.Footnote ⁴⁹ Now Turks were free to perform the ezan in either Turkish or Arabic. It was a change extremely well received across the country. Not long after, the government permitted the recitation of the Quʾran on state radio and made religious lessons in primary schools mandatory.

Just as the Democrat Party had seized on the opportunity to cast the RPP as antireligious prior to 1950, now the RPP catered to those who felt that with these changes Mustafa Kemal's legacy of laiklik was at risk. It responded by alleging that the Democrat Party government was responsible for fostering the conditions within which religious reaction might flourish. Time and again, Prime Minister Menderes and President Celal Bayar went out of their way to refute such allegations but at the same time to assert the importance of Islam to the Turkish nation.Footnote ⁵⁰ Their task became all the more difficult, however, in the fall of 1952, when an aged Democrat Party deputy from Samsun, Hasan Fehmi Ustaoğlu, published a series of controversial articles in a newspaper—Büyük Cihad.

The immediate context for the controversy was a local Democrat Party congress in the province of Çorum on 14 September 1952. As had occurred at other provincial party congresses in Konya (March 1951) and in Manisa (May 1951), local delegates went further than the Democrat Party leadership was willing to go publicly in expressing concerns that laiklik had been detrimental to the nation. They claimed that as a result Turkish culture was increasingly irreligious: hence these congresses witnessed calls for the return of the fez, the enforced covering of women in public (tesettür) and women's rightful place in the home, the return of the Arabic alphabet, religious lessons at all levels, the right to form religious associations, legislation outlawing statues and Freemasonry, an end to dance and ballet performances, and an end to pictures of scantily clad women in the press.Footnote ⁵¹ The photos were a real bête noire for those Turks who opposed a “Miss Turkey” contest sponsored by Ahmet Emin Yalman in Vatan in 1952, and it was not lost on Konya residents that Vatan had labeled the Democrat Party congress in Konya reactionary. As a consequence, they publicly rallied and denounced Yalman for spreading disinformation and for unjustifiably associating Konya with reaction.Footnote ⁵²

Nonetheless, following the Çorum congress in September 1952, secular Kemalists again used the press to declare that the country was threatened by religious reaction. In an effort to control the damage, President Bayar quickly traveled to Çorum to emphasize the party's commitment to Mustafa Kemal's reforms and his conviction that the demands made by delegates did not actually reflect a reactionary tendency among the residents of Çorum as a whole.Footnote ⁵³ It was not surprising that the RPP newspaper, Ulus, reveled in the controversy and capitalized on the opportunity to embarrass the Democrat Party.Footnote ⁵⁴

In direct response to these events, Ustaoğlu wrote five articles in Büyük Cihad in September and October 1952. The first appears not to have attracted much interest even though it labeled Mustafa Kemal's commitment to reform an inappropriate effort to copy a foreign culture resulting in the deterioration of public morality in Turkey.Footnote ⁵⁵ Three weeks later, in a second article Ustaoğlu addressed matters arising from the Democrat Party congress in Çorum.Footnote ⁵⁶ He began by defending delegates' demands for social reform and argued that the intensely negative coverage of the event in the press revealed a deep malaise in Turkish society. The Turkish nation, he suggested, was fundamentally Muslim, so people were correct to expect the government to act on its behalf to eradicate those “products of reform” (inkıkap eserleri)—such as an immoral beauty contest—detrimental to that nation. Although the assertion that the Turkish nation was inherently Muslim was provocative, in proving it Ustaoğlu laid the foundation for the furor that followed. He maintained that during the War of Independence (1919–22) nobody had imagined the nature of “Atatürk's reform” to come and that the struggle had been for purely sacred causes—a battle in which the ulema had played a prominent role and in which the Qurʾan provided critical motivation. In short, Ustaoğlu asserted, any other commander could have produced the same results because the people had been prepared to sacrifice property and life in this sacred struggle. As a consequence, the nation owed nothing to Atatürk, the “father of the Turk.” More to the point, in his subsequent reform, Mustafa Kemal had imposed an unjust, authoritarian government and introduced innovations harmful to the nation's health. Elected to redress these ills, the Democrat Party was obliged to do so.

In subsequent issues of Büyük Cihad, Ustaoğlu published more articles that echoed his earlier comments, insisting that the Democrat Party government had the responsibility to cleanse the country of the “filth” and immoral practices that had resulted from Kemalist reforms and single-party rule.Footnote ⁵⁷ Nevertheless, his second article had been sufficient to provoke a firestorm throughout the country.Footnote ⁵⁸ Although the mainstream metropolitan press condemned Ustaoğlu for his “denial of Atatürk” and for “spreading hatred,” in Istanbul the prominent religious-nationalist journal Sebilürreşad not only republished all of Ustaoğlu's articles but also printed an editorial agreeing with Ustaoğlu's assertion that the nation's success in the War of Independence could not be attributed to Mustafa Kemal alone.Footnote ⁵⁹Büyük Cihad published numerous telegrams received from Turks throughout the country in support of Ustaoğlu's position, and it aggressively challenged secular Kemalists who defamed Ustaoğlu in the metropolitan press. In his own defense, Ustaoğlu published a separate article in which he maintained that he had not personally attacked Mustafa Kemal and had not denied his contribution to the War of Independence. He refused to recant.Footnote ⁶⁰ He reiterated that he had felt obliged to come to the defense of reasonable demands made by the Çorum delegates, who had found themselves maligned by those who were determined to defend “Atatürk's reforms.”

AN END TO THE GREAT STRUGGLE

This, then, was the controversy that occupied many Turks on the eve of the attempt on the life of Ahmet Emin Yalman in November 1952. The Democrat Party had intentionally distanced itself from Ustaoğlu,Footnote ⁶¹ and its official newspaper, Zafer, had come out in clear opposition to his ideas. It is ironic that on 21 November—the day prior to the failed assassination—Prime Minister Menderes had addressed a crowd in Kayseri, again assuring the country that it was not in danger of being overwhelmed by a tide of religious reaction.Footnote ⁶²

Following the failed assassination in Malatya, secular Kemalists suggested otherwise, and the government had little choice but to capitulate to their demands and to guard against religious reaction by suppressing the black press. Even as religious periodicals—led by Büyük Cihad—vigorously defended themselves, there followed a wave of arrests and investigations across the country. In its ninety-eighth issue, on 30 January 1953, Büyük Cihad announced that its owner, Mustafa Bağışlayıcı, was among many, including Cevat Rıfat Atılhan, who had been arrested and sent to Malatya. Two weeks later, Samsun Postası, ardent proponent of laiklik, announced with no small degree of satisfaction that its nemesis, Büyük Cihad, “opponent of reform and laiklik and enemy of Atatürk,” had closed.Footnote ⁶³

Ahmet Emin Yalman soon recovered from his injuries, and Vatan's reputation among metropolitan newspapers determined to protect Mustafa Kemal's legacy of laiklik was only enhanced. The same cannot be said about the religious press that for a brief time had become such a prominent part of life in Turkey after World War II. The majority of metropolitan and provincial religious periodicals ceased to publish. Moreover, the government investigated and closed the Association of Turkish Nationalists and the Nation Party.Footnote ⁶⁴ In each case, the allegations were the same—that individuals or groups had manipulated religion for purposes of political gain. Already in 1949, the RPP had altered article 163 of the criminal code to prohibit organizations and publications that opposed laiklik.Footnote ⁶⁵ Then, in July 1951, the Grand National Assembly had approved the infamous “Atatürk Law,” concerned that in the midst of debate about laiklik, Atatürk's very reputation was at stake. It became a crime to publicly insult the memory of Atatürk.Footnote ⁶⁶ In the wake of events in Malatya, the government introduced one final piece of legislation designed to minimize the threat posed by religious reaction: in July 1953 the “Law to Protect the Freedom of Conscience and Assembly” specifically forbade the manipulation of religious publications for political purposes.Footnote ⁶⁷

Ultimately, in the summer of 1954 the courts acquitted Bağışlayıcı, Atılhan, and all the other journalists accused of involvement in the attack on Yalman.Footnote ⁶⁸ It was clear that Büyük Cihad had not been part of an organized movement intent on overthrowing the established order. Widespread religious “reaction” had been little more than a figment of the secular Kemalist imagination. Yet Büyük Cihad did speak to unease about laiklik. It did not simply represent conservative Muslim beliefs and practices often identified with the Black Sea littoralFootnote ⁶⁹ but rather gave voice, along with many religious publications, to widespread popular concerns that laiklik failed to acknowledge the importance of Islam to the Turkish nation. Just as Mustafa Kemal had done in the interwar period, the state now moved to suppress expression of these concerns in 1953. However, once voiced, such concerns could not be completely ignored. Within a few years the Democrat Party again found itself catering to popular religious identities in the context of multiparty politics to the point that one of the justifications for the military coup that overthrew Menderes and the Democrat Party in May 1960 was the need to protect Atatürk's reforms and prevent the use of religion for political gain.Footnote ⁷⁰

In the history of the Middle East, the years after World War II are associated with the Arab–Israeli conflict, revolution, and secular nationalism. In this context, the smooth transition to multiparty politics in Turkey sets it apart from the turmoil of the broader region. Yet scholars now recognize that political Islam, so prominent in the Middle East today, is also rooted in the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in precisely these same years in countries such as Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. In this regard, “secular” Turkey may have had more in common with its Arab neighbors in the immediate era after World War II than first meets the eye. Büyük Cihad and the broader debate to which it contributed from 1951 to 1953 testifies that strife concerning the roles of secularism and Islam in Turkey is in no way recent. Political Islam manifests itself in ways specific to contemporary Turkey, but it also is rooted in the years after 1945. To understand this, it is necessary first to break with historiographic tradition and to use sources like Büyük Cihad that do not simply reflect the elite, centrist narrative that has prevailed for so long.