ATATÜRK: His revolution outraged many
pious Muslims
Oct. 29, 1923
Turkey Forced
Westward
By Howard
Chua-Eoan
General Mustafa Kemal, who had repelled the British at Gallipoli in 1915 and had just recently done
likewise to invading Greeks, now planned a civil takeover of his own country. Just hours before he
did it, Kemal was telling a journalist that popular Islam had become a morass of superstitions that
would destroy those who professed it. He declared, "We will save them," according to biographer
Andrew Mango. A 101-gun salute greeted the announcement: Turkey had ceased to be an Islamic empire.
It was a republic, and its leader, Kemal, became President—not Sultan, not Caliph, the titles
that Ottoman monarchs paraded for 600 years, the first as despots who once made Europe cower, the
second as "Commanders of the Faithful," leaders of Sunni Muslims everywhere. Soon Western clothing
was enforced and Roman letters replaced the Arabic-based script. The man who would adopt the name
Atatürk ("father of the Turks") inaugurated an era in which nationalism, not Islam, would be seen
as the solution to the troubles of Muslim peoples. But by the 1980s, a reaction would set in, and
the cause of the caliphate eventually would be taken up by, among others, Osama bin Laden.
TIME Cover Collection: Click here to see covers from
1923
Previous: 
