Abstract:

In the period between the end of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, many dream narratives were written in Ottoman Turkish literature. These narratives carried the features of utopia, a genre that is considered to be of a more western literature, in many ways. The so-called texts’ common feature is to provide solutions for pulling the state through the bad conditions and/or their efforts to convey indirect criticism of statesmen. In this respect, it can be argued that the ideal structures presented in the dream narratives reflect the changes occurred in the Ottoman social structure in the period between the end of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, as well. The aim of this article is to discuss the concept of community and individual in the ideal social structure fictionalized in a text, which was written in the demise of the Ottoman Empire. This text is one of the mentioned above and called “Envisioning Progress and Islamic Civilization in Dream” (Rüyada Terakki ve Medeniyet-i İslamiyeyi Rü’yet), written by Molla Dâvûd-zâde Mustafa Nâzım Erzurumî. Both the emphasis placed on technology in the text and its putting Islam as an order in the centre of the text makes it striking from different aspects.

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