Ahmed Rıza

Ahmed Rıza (born in Istanbul in 1858 by the English and Turkish articles, 1859 by the Arabic article and Wikidata – died there on 26 February 1930) was an Ottoman-Turkish politician and author, a leading Young Turk who ran the Paris branch of the Committee of Union and Progress for nearly twenty years, founded the journal Meşveret, carried Auguste Comte's positivism into Turkish thought, became the first President of the restored Chamber of Deputies after the 1908 revolution — hailed as the "Father of Liberty" — and was among the few politicians who condemned the Armenian genocide while it was happening. ^{1 2 3}

Ahmed Rıza was born in Istanbul — in 1858 by the English and Turkish articles, in 1859 by the Arabic stub and Wikidata, while the Atatürk Encyclopedia entry cited inside the English article is itself headed "1858/1859" — the eldest of seven children of a family in public service for generations; his father Ali Rıza Bey, a senator nicknamed "İngiliz" for his English and his admiration of Britain, his mother a Munich-born woman of Hungarian origin who converted to Islam to marry him and took the name Naile Sabıka, and his youngest sister Selma Rıza became the first Turkish woman journalist. ^{1 2 4} He attended the Mekteb-i Sultânî (Galatasaray High School), worked at the Porte's Translation Office, accompanied his exiled father to Ilgın, then studied agriculture in France, graduating from Grignon in 1884, and became director of education at Bursa before deciding to return to France to build an opposition movement. ¹

He settled in Paris in 1889, attended Pierre Laffitte's lectures on positivism at the Sorbonne, and became an active member of the Société Positiviste, serving as its Muslim or Ottoman representative at international conferences. ¹ He led the Paris branch of the Committee of Ottoman Union, soon the Committee of Union and Progress, and with Doctor Nâzım founded Meşveret in 1895, the society's first official publication; the French government banned the paper in April 1896, he moved it to Switzerland and then Belgium, which deported him in 1898, and continued it in French. ¹ His stubborn secularism, his attempt to merge the committee with the Paris Positivist Committee and his refusal of revolution cost him the leadership to Mizancı Murad at the December 1896 congress, and at the First Congress of Ottoman Opposition in 1902 his non-interventionists were the minority; his group then founded the Committee of Progress and Union and the journal Şûrâ-yı Ümmet. ¹

He returned to Istanbul on 25 September 1908 after the constitution was restored and was welcomed as the "Father of Liberty", elected deputy for Istanbul and then President of the Chamber of Deputies, and in the 31 March Incident of 1909 stood at the top of the Islamist rioters' hit list for his alleged atheism, resigning and hiding under German protection until the Action Army arrived; the Minister of Justice, mistaken for him, was lynched. ¹ Re-elected president in late 1910 — the year he nominated the CUP itself for the Nobel Peace Prize — he grew disillusioned with the committee's assassinations of journalists and authoritarian turn, left its Central Committee in 1910 and the presidency in 1911, and was appointed Senator by Mehmed V on 18 April 1912, becoming President of the Senate from October 1918 to April 1919. ¹ In the First World War he was the leading negotiator in the failed alliance talks with France and Britain, and one of the only Ottoman politicians to condemn the Armenian genocide as it proceeded, telling parliament that confiscated Armenian property could not be classed as abandoned because its owners "did not abandon them willingly, they were exiled, expelled forcefully". ¹ After the armistice he prosecuted his former Unionist comrades, fell out with Damad Ferid Pasha, returned to France where he supported Mustafa Kemal's Nationalists, came back to Turkey after the Treaty of Lausanne, and died in Istanbul on 26 February 1930. ¹

His organisational works were Meşveret (1895), the CUP's first official paper, the revival of the movement around his group after its 1899 collapse, and the Cairo-based Şûrâ-yı Ümmet after the 1902 congress. ¹ Intellectually he was Turkey's leading positivist: from Comte, Robinet and Laffitte he took the doctrine that progress comes by organised evolution, not revolution, preached a "United States of Europe", and spread positivism internationally as its Ottoman representative. ¹ He wrote on agriculture, sociology, education and women's freedom — a conference lecture on Ottoman women in 1891 drew an order from Constantinople to return, which he refused — and his sister Selma joined his society in Paris as its first woman member. ¹ In the war and armistice years he was a rare moral voice: he had condemned the Hamidian massacres, in Suny's summary as reported by the English article, as contrary to "the traditions of Islam and the precepts of the Quran", and he condemned the Armenian genocide while it was ongoing. ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

His supporters saw the Father of Liberty, a principled ideologue who refused every generous amnesty the Sultan's agents offered him in exile; his opponents saw a stubborn secularist whose internationalist positivism split the Young Turks, and conservative Young Turks and supporters of Abdülhamid II accused him of atheism — the alleged atheism that put him at the top of the 31 March rioters' hit list, on whose first day the Minister of Justice was lynched in mistake for him. ¹ The Unionists he had led later drew his own harshest criticism — the assassinations of the journalists Hasan Fehmi and Ahmet Samim and the party's authoritarian turn — and he resigned from the committee he had founded in exile. ¹

On his religion: no article read for this record names a religion or a school for him. The Turkish infobox religion field is empty, the Arabic stub names no religion, and Wikidata carries no religion value at all. ^{3 2 4} What the sources give is a philosophy, not a school: his professed positivism in the line of Comte and Laffitte and his service as the Société Positiviste's Muslim/Ottoman representative — Wikidata likewise records only the movement, positivism, and the influence of Comte — while the atheism attached to him is an opponents' accusation, not a self-description, and the same article reports him condemning the Hamidian massacres as contrary to Islam and the Qur'an. ^{1 4} Positivism is a philosophy, not a legal school, and an accusation is not an attestation; his faith is therefore recorded as unknown, with all readings preserved in the record's faith note. ¹

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