Muslims and Young Turks in Shūmei Ōkawa’s Fukkō Ajia Shomondai

Authors : Habibe Salğar

Pages : 285-307

Doi:10.37697/eskiyeni.1790739

View : 98 | Download : 238

Publication Date : 2025-12-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The prominent Pan-Asianist intellectual Shūmei Ōkawa (1886 – 1957), distinguished for his extensive scholarship on Islam, articulated his vision of Asia in the comprehensive treatise Fukkō Ajia Shomondai 復興亜細亜諸問題 (The Problems of the Revival of Asia). In this work, he examined a wide range of Asian polities within their historical contexts. Ōkawa’s initial interest in India—stimulated by Sir Henry Cotton’s New India, or India in Transition (1904)— gradually evolved into a broader engagement with the Asian continent as a whole. His concurrent studies of Hinayana Buddhism also fostered a sustained interest in Islam, which he regarded as integral to the spiritual and political landscape of Asia. Ōkawa advanced the view that the defining condition uniting the peoples of Asia was their shared subjugation to Western domination—manifested in forms of enslavement, colonization, and exploitation. This claim was explicitly extended to Muslim societies, most of which, with the exception of Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, had been incorporated into European imperial domains. Therefore, from Ōkawa’s perspective, the “Asian Question” is essentially reduced to a question of liberation from the West. Within this analytical frame, Ōkawa devoted sustained attention to the Young Turk movement, which he interpreted as a paradigmatic instance of anti-Western resistance. While he acknowledged their dual commitment to modernization and the preservation of Islamic tradition through the selective appropriation of Western civilization, his appraisal was far from uncritical. He regarded their Pan-Turkist project— particularly the precipitous drive to unify disparate Turkish populations and to elevate Turks to a position of primacy—as problematic. In Ōkawa’s estimation, the Turks were neither culturally nor politically superior to other Asian peoples; thus, the Young Turks’ attempts to pursue their ideals without due consideration of domestic and international realities represented a significant structural weakness of the movement. More broadly, Ōkawa underscored that Asia’s struggle for freedom and equality could not be conceived solely in political or material terms but required a profound grounding in spiritual principles. The sacral dimension—namely, the internalization of values and the cultivation of a distinctive cultural identity—was, for him, indispensable. On these grounds, he contended that Asian peoples were in no respect inferior to the West. Accordingly, this study situates Fukkō Ajia Shomondai within the intellectual and political debates of its time, analyzing not only Ōkawa’s general critique of Western colonialism but also his reflections on the place of Muslim societies and Turkey within Asia’s emancipatory project, and, ultimately, his articulation of Japan’s pivotal role in shaping the future of Asia.
Keywords : İslam, Müslümanlar, Jön Türkler, Shūmei Ōkawa, Fukkō Ajia Shomondai

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