Münif Pasha

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Münif Pasha

Mehmet Tahir Münif Pascha ( Ottoman محمّد طاهر منيف پاشا Mehmed Tahir Münif Paşa , İA Meḥemmed Ṭāhir Münīf Paşa ; * 1828 / 1829 in Antep ; † 1910 in Istanbul ) was a high- ranking Ottoman statesman and reformer of the Ottoman education system during the Tanzimat period.

Life

Münif Pascha came from an Ulema family in Antep. There, as well as in Cairo and Damascus, he received traditional Ottoman medrese training. He began his career as an official in the provincial administration of Vilayet Damascus. In 1852 he took up a position as a Persian and Arabic translator in the translation office (ترجمه اوداسى Tercume Odası ) of the Sublime Gate . Here he made contact with reform-oriented Ottomans. He learned French in Istanbul. He also learned German while working as deputy embassy secretary at the Ottoman embassy in Berlin .

On his return to Istanbul he was featured in his newspaper articles in the جريده حوادث Cerīde-yi Ḥavādi s known. He was subsequently appointed chairman of the translation office in 1862.

In 1859 he published the anthology محاوراتِ حكميه Muḥāverāt-ı Ḥikemiyye , German 'Philosophical speeches' , in which he translated quotations from Voltaire , François Fénelon and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle . In 1861 he founded the Ottoman Scientific Society and published its magazineمجموعه فنون Mecmūʿa-yi Fünūn , German 'Journal of [secular] Sciences' .

Münif took the view that the Arabic script used in the Ottoman Empire had to be reformed. He saw the Arabic script as inferior to Latin and as a factor in the spread of illiteracy in the empire. He complained that he could not have carried out any reforms in this regard.

After Münif became Chairman of the Education Council for some time (مجلسِ معارف Meclis-i Maʿārif ), he was appointed Ottoman ambassador to Tehran for five years .

From 1877 Münif was three times Minister of Education of the Ottoman Empire. During his second term of office (1878-1880) Abdülhamid II became Sultan. Münif taught Sultan Abdülhamid in political economy . Abdülhamid was keen to extend modern education to his entire realm. Nevertheless, he mistrusted Münif due to his zeal and blocked his career a few times. When Münif rose to vizier and from then on was Münif Pasha, he was assigned to the Health Council ( Meclis-i Sıhhiye ) by the Sultan . From 1885 to 1891 he was Minister of Education for the last time. He did not hold a post until 1895, but continued to receive payments. In 1895 he was sent to Tehran as a special envoy of the Ottoman Empire on the anniversary of Shah Naser al-Din , where he stayed as ambassador for a short while after the assassination attempt on Naser al-Din. Münif Pascha retired in 1896 and spent the years up to his death in 1910 in his country house in Erenköy, outside of Istanbul (now a district in the Kadıköy district ). The country house became a popular meeting place for Ottoman and foreign scholars.

Act

Münif Pascha was brought up in Islamic culture and at the same time admirer of Western civilization, as was common in the Tanzimat period. He was considered a poet, although he did not publish much literature. His main poetic work isداستانِ آل عثمان Dāsitān-i Āl-O s mān , German 'epic of the house of Osman ' from 1881. He also published translations such as the above-mentioned work with quotations from Voltaire. Other books by him are editions of his lectures in law and political economy at the Darülfünun in Istanbul. He is considered a reforming, western-oriented statesman and one of the founding fathers of Turkey's modern education system .

literature

  • Âdem Akın: Münif Paşa ve Türk kältür tarihindeki yeri. Ataturk Kültür Merkezi, Ankara 1999, ISBN 975-16-0989-5 (Turkish).
  • Niyazi Berkes: The development of secularism in Turkey. Montreal 1964 (English).
  • Ali Budak: Münif Paşa. Batılılaşma Sürecinde Çok Yönlü Bir Osmanlı Aydını. Kitabevi Yayınları, Istanbul 2004, ISBN 978-975-6403-24-2 (Turkish).
  • Ali Fuad: Münif Paşa. In: Türk tarih encümeni mecmuası. 1930 (Turkish).
  • F. Samime İnceoğlu: Münif Paşa: intişar-ı ulûm u maarife adanmış bir ömür. In: Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatur Dergisi , Vol. 6.2 / No. 12 (2008), pp. 629–652 ( online ) (Turkish).
  • Bernard Lewis : The emergence of modern Turkey. Oxford 1961 (English).
  • Andrew Mango : Münīf Pa sh a . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. 7, Brill, Leiden 1993, p. 573 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Andrew Mango : Münīf Pa sh a. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. 7, Brill, Leiden 1993, p. 573 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Münif Pasha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mehmet Tahir Münif Pasha; Mehmed Tâhir Münîf Paşa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ottoman statesman and reformer of the Ottoman education system during the reform era (Tanzimat)
DATE OF BIRTH 1828 or 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Gaziantep
DATE OF DEATH 1910
Place of death Istanbul