The limits of going global: The case of “Ottoman Enlightenment(s)”

Abstract

The paper seeks to summarize the discussions of the lasttwo decades on the existence of a phenomenon that can benamed “Ottoman Enlightenment.” It discusses the Germandebates on Reinhardt Schulze's suggestion of an “IslamicEnlightenment,” as well as more recent studies on theemergence of a different view of the nature and the worldin Istanbul during the first decades of the 18th century.These debates are analyzed in the context of differentdefinitions of “Enlightenment,” as well as of the relationsbetween different ethnolinguistic groups within theOttoman Empire. The paper emphasizes the axes of a“democratization of knowledge” or the “massive diffusionof individual reasoning as a legitimate source of truth,” onthe one hand, and the procedure of a “disenchantment ofthe world” as it is connected with the Enlightenment phe-nomenon, on the other. It suggests that, whereas we maytrace certain parallels of such procedures between theOttoman and the Western and Central European model, thelack of integration of such ideas in the curriculum of institu-tional education in the Ottoman Empire might have beenthe most important obstacle that kept these ideas frombeing transformed into a real “Ottoman Enlightenment."