Fıkıh ve sosyal bilimler arasında son dönem Osmanlı aydını

The cultural, institutional and political space, traditionally filled by Fiqh, was claimed and then conquered in Ottoman society by the newly imported Western social sciences at the turn of the 20th century. The contest ensuing from this encounter continued on the intellectual and political levels. For the contesting intellectual groups and politicians, social science and Fiqh served as tools of political opposition, cultural deconstruction and reconstruction. The Ulema and Fiqh lost this contest while the new secular intellectuals and social science claimed victory. The expansion of central bureaucracy towards religious, educational and intellectual domains played the most decisive role in this confrontation. This paper explores the cultural and political dynamics of this curious social scientific revolution which brought to an end seven hundred years of superiority for the Ottoman Ulema class.