Prince Sabahaddin

Prince Sabahaddin

Prince Sabahaddin ,صباح الدين / Ṣabāḥ ad-Dīn ; (Born February 13, 1879 in Istanbul ; † June 30, 1948 in Neuchâtel , Switzerland ) was a Turkish thinker and politician from the Osman family . In the field of sociology he broke new ground in what was then Turkey.

The Ottoman Empire was in a political crisis at the turn of the century. Sabahaddin's uncle Abdülhamid II had effectively suspended the Ottoman constitution in 1878 and the opposition was in exile in Paris. Several models for saving the empire were presented. For example, Prince Sabahaddin, who fled to Paris in 1899, advocated decentralization (عدم مركزيت / ʿAdem-i merkezīyet ) of the empire and for the introduction of Western standards in education and social life.

In 1908 the constitution was reinstated and the Second Ottoman constitutional period began. Back in Istanbul, Prince Sabahaddin founded the Association for Private Entrepreneurship and Decentralization ( Turkish Teşebbüs-i Şahsi ve Adem-i Merkeziyet Cemiyeti ) in 1906 . A year later he rallied with the liberal wing of the Young Turks in the new Liberal Party ( Fırka-ı Ahrar ), of which he became chairman. But Prince Sabahaddin later fell out with the ruling Committee for Unity and Progress and had to flee abroad a second time.

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I in 1918, the Turkish Liberation War broke out, which ended with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Sultan was deposed and sent into exile, and as a member of the Sultan's family, Prince Sabahaddin, who had returned a little earlier, also had to leave the country again in 1924. He died in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1948, his body was transferred to Turkey in 1952 and buried in Istanbul.

Prince Sabahaddin was married twice.

relationship

He was born the son of the Sultan's sister Seniha Sultan and Damad Mahmud Cemaleddin Pasha . Since the succession to the throne only went through the male line, he was not a prince, despite his title of prince, but a sultanzade instead of a Şehzades. On his mother's side, he was a grandson of the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I and the nephew of Murads V , Abdülhamids II, Mehmeds V and Mehmeds VI. Because of his political attitudes he was banished from the Osman house.

literature

• Otto Depenheuer : Between secularity and laicism (= German-Turkish forum for constitutional law. Volume 2). Lit Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8615-8 (on October 29/30, 2004, the second colloquium of the German-Turkish forum for constitutional law took place in Cologne).