ABSTRACT
In 1912 Abdullah Cevdet, an Ottoman medical doctor of Kurdish origin and a fierce defender of Western values, presented a vision which looked like utopia. In his dreamland,
the Committee of Union and Progress, the political association (only later did it tum into a regular party) that revolted against Sultan Abdiilhamid in 1908 and, following a year of compromises, forced his abdication after which its leaders held on to power until the end of the First World War. Abdullah Cevdet's dream-like vision for the future appeared in two articles entitled "A Very Wakeful Sleep", published in
j~tihad [Interpretation]? a magazine he edited from 1894 until his death in 1932. That Abdullah Cevdet's wild and provocative dream was largely realized only a decade after its publication hints at the speed with which changes took place during this period.
