Islam e mobilitazione alla guerra nell'Impero ottomano

The relationship between Islam and mobilization in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War is a topic still little explored by scholars. Especially in Turkey, the limited space allotted to religion from kemalism is the cause of the lack of studies in this field, although the situation is changing in recent years. At the end of nineteenth century there was in the Ottoman Empire a growing process of secularization and politicization of Islam, used as factor of unity among ottoman Muslim populations. In the 1914, the Ottoman government went to war trying to save the Empire from dissolution. The Young Turks saught to defend the State and to recover the territories lost in recent decades. At the center of their policy was the State and not religion. However, the religious factor was used to mobilize the Muslim masses. Rather than a “holy war” was a use of religion to “sanctify” the war and justify the military effort required by a “total war”.