Abstract
AHMED MİTHAT EFENDİ’S AND EGYPTIAN MUHAMMED EMİN FİKRİ BEY’S IMPRESSIONS ABOUT EUROPE
In this work, by using Ahmet Mithat Efendi's work titled Avrupa’da Bir Cevelan and Muhammad Emin Fikri Bey’s İrşâdu’l-Elibbâ ilâ Mehâsin-i Urûbbâ the views of the two oriental intellectuals who lived in the late 19th century in Europe will be examined. Many eastern and western scholars participated in the VIII. International Congress of the Orientalists which held in Stockholm in 1889, various conferences made on Eastern languages, literatures and cultures and the articles and the papers were presented at the congress. Ahmet Mithat Efendi was officially commissioned to this congress by Sultan II. Abdulhamit to participate as an Ottoman delegate. Muhammed Emin Fikri Bey was sent to Sweden by a delegation consisting of four people representing Egyptian khedivism.
It is important to reveal how one of the leading names of the Ottoman thought world (Ahmet Mithat Efendi) in the late 19th century and the intellectual who educated in the West and supported westernization ideas (Emin Fikri Bey) from Egypt which was under the sway of the Ottoman Empire saw and considered the Europe and how they compared it with the Eastern World for being able to evaluate today correctly. Aim of this study is to contribute to this purpose.
Keywords
Ahmet Mithat Efendi, Muhammed Emin Fikri Bey, Ottoman, Egypt, Congress of Orientalists.