ABSTRACT
The salient characteristic of late Ottoman materialism is the belief in science as the exclusive foundation of a new Ottoman society. Mid-nineteenth-century materialism, a Weltanschauung placing science at the core of a new and rational civilization, usually entailed rejection of all competing truths, both philosophieal and religious. In the Ottoman context, the conception of a new society strictly regulated by scientific truth logically led to the rejection of the old basis of society – the revealed truth of Islam. To the many Ottoman intellectuals who passionately shared this world-view, religion was the most dangerous type of philosophy, and a major obstacle to social progress. So powerful was the attraction of the doctrine of materialism to Ottoman thinkers that it became the mainstream approach to philosophy in the late Ottoman Empire.
