On May 31, 2025, Prof. Dr. Nurullah Ardıç was invited to deliver a seminar in Skopje, North Macedonia, titled Eurocentrism, Islam and the Ottoman Modernization. The seminar examined the complex relationship between religion and politics in the context of Ottoman modernization, with a particular focus on the late-Ottoman and early-Republican periods.
Beginning with a critical discussion of Eurocentrism, Prof. Dr. Ardıç explored how Western-centric frameworks have influenced the historiography of the Middle East and shaped understandings of secularism and political reform in Turkey. He highlighted how these perspectives often portray the Ottoman experience as a delayed or incomplete version of Western modernization, overlooking indigenous intellectual, religious, and institutional developments.
The seminar proceeded with a panoramic and chronological overview of the modernization process in the Ottoman Empire, particularly from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Ardıç focused on the evolving role of Islam during this transformative period, analyzing the ways in which religious institutions, legal reforms, and state policies interacted with broader socio-political change.
A key part of the seminar involved a comparison of two dominant interpretive frameworks in existing scholarship: the conflict paradigm, which views religion and modernization as inherently antagonistic, and the accommodation paradigm, which emphasizes negotiation, adaptation, and continuity between Islamic tradition and modern political structures. Prof. Dr. Ardıç critically engaged with both approaches, suggesting that a more nuanced understanding must account for the multiplicity of positions within Ottoman thought and governance, rather than reduce the narrative to a binary opposition.
The seminar concluded by calling for a reassessment of modernization in non-Western contexts through decolonial and locally grounded frameworks. Prof. Dr. Nurullah Ardıç’s contribution offered a timely and critical intervention in debates on secularism, religion, and political reform in the modern Middle East.