Paper long abstract:

The Young Turks opened up the doors of intense activities for Turkish nationalists in the Ottoman context. While Ziya Gokalp approached Turkish nationalism as a sociological phenomenon, his protégés, such as Halim Sabit, justified nationalism and secularism from an Islamic legal perspective. This research aims to study the reflections of these debates on Islamic law in the Tatar context. How did the reformist Tatar intellectuals respond to and contribute to the reformist interpretation of Islamic law? This research looks into the Tatar journals of early twentieth century to explore the utilization of Islamic law for reformist purposes. It investigates the connections between the reformist debates on Islamic law in the Ottoman and Central Asian contexts. Reviewing journals such as Islam Mecmuasi, Shura, and Ulfet it aims to identify how Islamic law was interpreted in different ways to accommodate reformist arguments on issues such as education and the role of women.