Ottoman adventures: researching pan-Islamism
In 2010 I went to Istanbul, Turkey, to do research in the Ottoman archives for my master thesis in Middle Eastern studies. The topic of my thesis was the Pan-Islamic movement of Sultan Abdulhamid II. In most academic literature, the rise of Pan-Islamism in the nineteenth century has been interpreted as a movement that was invoked, if not spread by the Sultan’s attempts to unify all Muslims against the colonizers. This call was not limited to the Ottoman territories, but extended far beyond to India and Indonesia where Muslims “recognized” Sultan Abdulhamid II as their caliph, and even started crowd funding’s to support their caliph financially and recover the strength of the once powerful center of Islam. My interest in this movement was provoked by the alleged involvement of a controversial figure: Djamal ad-Din al-Afghani. Al-Afghani is known to be the founding father of Islamic revivalism that started in the 19^th century. Islamic revivalism can be considered the starting point of the Salafi movement and Islamism.  

The link between al-Afghani and Sultan Abdulhamid II
I was mostly interested in the link between al-Afghani and Sultan Abdulhamid II, and whether the latter was inspired by and tutored by al-Afghani in his new political direction. A research in intellectual and political history is inspiring, especially if it concerns the nineteenth century. It is a tumultuous century when many things changed rapidly with significant impact on people on many places in the world. Nonetheless, doing research in a monumental building that served as the basis of Ottoman administration (called Bâb-ı Âlî), touching and reading manuscripts dating back to the nineteenth century was even more fascinating. Reading Ottoman Turkish that contained many Arabic and Persian words was like discovering an old language. A close contact with history. Unfortunately, the Ottoman archives moved to a new building in 2013.

My research lasted for almost eight months. I collected a lot of valuable data from the archive that were relevant for my master’s thesis. It provided me with a new insight in the political and intellectual struggles in the Middle East. One of my conclusions was that Sultan Abdulhamid II was not interested in al-Afghani because of his Pan-Islamic policies. It was rather because the Iranian Shah appealed to the Sultan to remove al-Afghani from Basra, where he was settled. In the previous years, al-Afghani had caused uproar among Iranians and a revolt against the Shah, known as the Tobacco revolt. Despite of being dispelled from Iran, he interfered in the politics of the country from the other side of the border, which was Ottoman territory back then.

The role of mass media
This research also provided me with an insight in the role of mass media in the region. Despite the low literacy in the whole Middle East (numbers varying per region), newspapers and journals were produced in high numbers. They were used as a tool in the politics of opposition, and distributed clandestinely. It was interesting to see how, for example, Iranian political refugees in Istanbul published oppositional newspapers and journals that were illegally distributed in Iran, while the Ottoman sultan banned Turkish oppositional newspapers and controlled what was published and written by Turks living abroad.

The study abroad experience
There is of course also another dimension of studying abroad, which is the experience of daily life of the people in Istanbul. Discovering “the other” is such a problematic term. Who is the other? In a city like Istanbul, one can only talk about the others. Or is it rather a journey to discover oneself? Nonetheless, I was very much interested in the diversity of the city and how segregation allows for interaction. Istanbul hosts various ethnic groups like the Greek orthodox, Russians, Jews, and Arabs. Those groups are concentrated in different neighborhoods that have become known as the “Arab” or “Russian” neighborhood. Often times, an Israeli friend and I walked through the various authentic neighborhoods of Istanbul where one can experience the historicity of the city and have a small chat with the locals.

Living abroad in a different country and being on your own gives you the opportunity to develop yourself and to get to know yourself better. I noticed that not holding the door for someone or jumping the queue was quite common and normal in Istanbul: things that annoyed me the most. Another minor problem was the absence of vegetarian food. Sometimes you just want to eat vegetables or something without meat. Hopefully things have changed by now. Before I moved, I was already fluent in Turkish, but my accent changed and I broadened my vocabulary due to reading Ottoman manuscripts almost every day.

Pursuing a PhD
Nowadays I am doing a PhD research on the relationship between Islam and modern natural sciences, with evolutionary theory as a case study. I am looking at the tension between the legitimacy of the primary sources of Islam (the Koran and Hadīth) and science. Which source has more legitimacy and authority in the life of Muslims? As in the USA evolutionary theory has become a synonym of atheism among Muslims, the subject has been politicized. It enables “true” believers who deny the theory to disregard believers who accept it. However, it is impossible to have a proper and critical analysis of this subject, without taking the late nineteenth, early twentieth century and the colonial history of the Middle East into consideration. The dominance of European “non-believers” who question the legitimacy of Islam in the modern world and call it a religion that is hostile to reason, is still actual in this debate. 

My advice to students
Dear students who have read this boring piece: don’t read pieces like this again. Read good books. Yes, do read fiction and poems. Good books by excellent writers. Read Dostoyevsky, Forough Farrokhzad, Naguib Mahfouz, and Franz Kafka among others. When doing so, you will notice that you are not discovering the world of literature or abroad, but your inner self. You will not only discover “who you are”, but rather what you are standing for. Keep broadening your horizon by exploring the real and fictive world.