Research Information System
Bilig, vol.95, pp.27-46, 2020 (SSCI)
© 2020, Ahmet Yesevi University. All rights reserved.State is a fact on which human sciences have mostly produced problems in theoretical context. This study is intended to deal with the views of Namık Kemal, a philosopher of Tanzimat, on the state from political, cultural and literary perspectives. While examining Namık Kemal’s view of the state, especially Ibn Haldun, who tried to determine the theoretical foundations of the state on the basis of Islamic civilization, would offer a chance for a sample comparison. Determining a five-step anthropomorphic theoretical framework that would affect the western world, Ibn Haldun qualifies the state with the process of rise-and-fall like a natural human life. In this sense, the state is designed as a finite organic structure and is supposed to face a natural process of death or fall in the course of time. On the contrary, Namık Kemal suggests that the state could as well be sustained if man kept his conditions along with sustainable cultural and spiritual foundations. In a sense, the political theory that the state could keep alive with man is worth thinking over within the context of Namık Kemal.