Early life Abdullah Cevdet was born on 9 September 1869 (or 1867) in
Arapgir,
Malatya. He was born to a family of Kurdish origin. He would always describe himself as a Turk of Kurdish origin. After completing his primary education in
Hozat and Arapgir, he went to
Harput with his family. He graduated from Ma‘mûretülazîz (
Elâzığ) Military Junior High School in 1885. At the age of fifteen, he went to Istanbul to attend the
Kuleli Military Medical Preparatory School. He graduated three years later and continued his education in the Imperial School of Medicine. Cevdet was initially a pious Muslim and received a religious education, but was influenced by Western
materialistic philosophies which turned him against institutionalized religion.
Years in Medical School During his student years in the
Imperial School of Medicine, he was influenced by biological materialism, the ideology which dominated the school. He translated a section of
Ludwig Büchner’s work
Kraft und Stoff, which greatly influenced him, under the title
Fizyolociya-i Tefekkür (1890) "
Physiology of Contemplation". In the same year, he published
Dimâğ ("
The Brain") on brain functions. In 1890 he prepared the first draft of his work
Fünûn ve Felsefe ("
Science and Philosophy"), which attempted to reconcile the ideas of Islamic scholars and biological materialist philosophers. Cevdet published two more books on biological materialism and brain functions,
Fizyolociya ve Hıfz-ı Sıhhat-i Dimâğ ("
Physiology and the Preservation of Mental Health") and
Melekât-ı Akliyye ("
The Angels of Reason") in his last year at school, and wrote articles on the same subjects in the magazines
Maârif,
Musavver Cihan and
Resimli Kitab. As Cevdet developed his political beliefs, he identified with the
Young Ottomans before him, especially
Ali Suavi. The overall goal of
Young Turks such as Cevdet was to bring to end the absolutist regime of Sultan
Abdul Hamid II. He was arrested several times during his education due to his political activities and was expelled from school for a while. While in medical school he joined the literature scene, and upon the request of
Abdülhak Hâmid, he compiled his poems into a book. In these early works published under the name of Ömer Cevdet, the influences of
Namık Kemal,
Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem, Hâmid and
Halid Ziya can be felt. After his first poetry book
Hiç, published in 1890, he also published the poetry books
Tuluat (1891) and
Masumiyet (1893). He eventually completed his medical education in July 1894 and became an ophthalmologist. After finishing school, he practiced in Haydarpaşa Numune Hospital in Istanbul. He was sent to
Diyarbakır on a temporary duty in November of the same year due to a cholera epidemic, on the side organizing among those in the city to establish a CUP branch there. He saved
Ziya Gökalp from his suicide attempt and initiated him into the CUP. He also took the opportunity to translate
Büchner’s
Natur und Geist under the pen name Goril.
As an activist "When he returned to Istanbul in 1895, he was arrested on charges of subversion and he was assigned to the ophthalmology department of the
Tripoli (of Libya) Central Hospital, which was essentially an exile. However, he continued his work on behalf of the CUP there. After serving one and a half years, he was again imprisoned. When he was released four months later, he learned that he was to be deported to
Fezzan, so he fled to France via
Tunisia 1897. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for this. For now though, together with
İshak Sükûti in Geneva, he published the
Osmanlı newspaper, a new CUP organ, in Turkish and French, and wrote articles denouncing autocracy.
Plekhanov,
Axelrod, and
Lenin were also in Geneva at the same time and were busy publishing
Iskra. He translated Western works; among the works he translated was
Friedrich Schiller's drama
William Tell. He later published the preface he wrote for the work as a book titled
İki Emel. He also translated
Vittorio Alfieri's essay
Della Tirannide (1789) under the title
İstibdâd (
Despotism). In one of the poetry books he published in Geneva,
Kahriyât, he included poems written with political aspirations rather than artistic concerns, themed on freedom and patriotism, almost all of which were directed against Abdul Hamid II, accusing him of hostility towards liberty. Eventually, Abdul Hamid took notice of the dangerous literature Cevdet was publishing. In 1899 Cevdet softened his publications so 72 of his friends imprisoned in Fezzan and Tripoli could be released. His poetry was linked with the movement, and he received accolades from leading French authors like
Gustave Kahn. His position was suspended in 1903 after an incident where he slapped the ambassador who informed the palace that he was secretly continuing his political activities. He returned to Geneva and founded the Ottoman Union and Revolution Committee [
Osmanlı İttihat ve İnkılap Cemiyeti] and published the
Osmanlı again as the organization's organ. The government organized a false flag operation to extradite him from Switzerland, by claiming his authorship of a pornographic booklet that targeted the sultan, though it was actually published by a government agent. Cevdet was deported from Switzerland, but he was able to move to Egypt. He moved to
Cairo and joined
Prince Sabahaddin's Private Enterprise and Decentralization League. He wrote articles in support of the 1906 Erzurum Uprising and called for constitutional monarchy along with the abolition of certain taxes. After the
Young Turk Revolution and the return of constitutional monarchy he did not return home immediately, but stayed in Egypt for a while longer until 1910. In Cairo he sought to reconcile the
Eastern and the Western literary traditions. Within the framework of this goal, he translated
Shakespeare,
Schiller,
Hugo, and
Byron, as well as
Saadi,
Rumi, and
Khayyam. He believed the Ottoman Empire was backwards and not competitive because of the role of religion in society. and existing copies were thrown from the
Galata Bridge after catching the attention of the
Sheikh-ul-Islam. Cevdet claimed that he translated the work to allow Muslim historians to correct Dozy's mistakes. He thanked and met
Theodor Herzl for publishing one of his poems in
Neue Freie Presse in 1903. After this acquaintance, he started to help Herzl by translating his letters into Turkish.
After 1910 In 1908, he joined the Ottoman Democratic Party () which was founded against the CUP. His house in
Cağaloğlu became something of a salon for intellectuals in the capital. Among those Abdullah Cevdet hosted included
Yusuf Akçura,
Hasan Âli Yücel,
Nazım Hikmet,
Mehmet Emin Resulzade,
Prof. Karl Süssheim, and Madam Corrine. He was an advocate for the teaching of
biological materialism in schools and for opening schools in the countryside to educate peasants, which would eventually happen
in 1940. He emphasized the concepts of citizenship and
general will expressed by
Rousseau in
The Social Contract. He immediately took
Ankara's side upon the opening the
Grand National Assembly, and worked to provide health services in the provisional government. He spent the rest of his life writing poetry, translating, and publishing
İctihad. Cevdet was put on trial several times because some of his writings were considered
blasphemous against
Islam and
Muhammad. For this reason, he was labelled as the "eternal enemy of Islam" and called "Aduvullah" (the enemy of God). His most famous court case was due to his defense of the
Baháʼí Faith, which he considered an intermediary step between Islam and the final abandonment of religious belief, in his article in
İctihad on 1 March 1922.
One-party era Abdullah Cevdet's translations, compilations, articles, books, and projects on educational reform were said to be the secret program of
Atatürk's reforms. He published the program of the utopian plan in a work called
Uyanık Bir Uyku, which was developed with Kılıçzade Hakkı in İctihad. He dedicated its first copy Atatürk, who ordered the book be printed in the new
Latin derived alphabet in 1929. In 1934 his family would
take the surname Karlıdağ. Left alone in his final years, Abdullah Cevdet died of a heart attack in Istanbul at the age of 63 on 29 November 1932. His body was brought for religious funeral service to
Hagia Sophia, which was still used as a
mosque at that time. However, nobody claimed his coffin due to his alleged atheism, and it was expressed by some religious conservatives that he "did not deserve" an
Islamic funeral prayer. Following an appeal from
Peyami Safa, a notable writer, the funeral prayer was performed. His body was then taken by municipal workers to the
Merkezefendi Cemetery for burial. After his death, his personal library and archive were preserved by his daughter Gül Karlıdağ. The rare works are kept together with the furniture and other items he used on the top floor of the İctihad House in
Cağaloğlu, which still stands today. == Views ==