Approaches to Islam in the thought of Elmalili Muhammed Hamdi Yazir (1878--1942)

This dissertation is a study of the thought of Elmalili Muhammed Hamdi [Yazir] (1878--1942), a jurist and scholar active in the politics and religious institutions of the late Ottoman Empire and early modern Turkey (ca. 1900s--1930s). The main focus of this dissertation is the intersection between modernity and traditional Islamic thought on competing imperatives to modify and preserve Islam. It approaches this history from the perspective of the ulema (religious scholars) and how they attempted to preserve their role as interpreters of Islam in an environment where the state was trying to force its own changes in the religious sphere and lay intellectuals were chipping away at their authority. Another challenge to their authority came in the form of Western knowledge, which encroached on the realm of religious knowledge and challenged claims of religious truth. Elmalili responded to these challenges over the course of his writings, which are analyzed in their historical context over the course of this dissertation in order to situate his ideas in the intellectual currents of the time.;This dissertation focuses on Elmalili's thought as it relates to three areas: politics, philosophy, and Qur'anic exegesis. In all three cases, Elmalili was responding to efforts to curb Islam's influence. Modern forms of knowledge, such as philosophy, the natural sciences, the physical sciences, and medicine, informed the challenges to Islam. Elmalili engaged with new forms of knowledge, and this dissertation views his thought in light of both the Islamic tradition and the late Ottoman intellectual tradition. This dissertation pays close attention to Elmalili's defense of Islam in order to illustrate one form in which the Ottoman and Turkish engagement with modernity took.;This dissertation demonstrates that Elmalili's engagement with modernity was due to a realization that Islam must take into account modern forms of knowledge. In order to prevent Islam from succumbing to the attacks of its critics, he adopted aspects of modern knowledge that he used to strengthen religious truths. Elmalili was very concerned with the role of Islam in public life, and this dissertation demonstrates that his various intellectual and political endeavors were his attempt to shape Islam for the modern era.