CEVAP:

Between 1913 and 1918, significant innovations took place in our political life under the leadership of the İTC management. To shortly list some of these, it is essential to remember the steps taken to improve the army under the control of Liman von Sanders. In this context, the elderly commanders were purged. Secondly, steps were taken to make the provincial administrations effective on the one hand, while on the other hand, decentralist tendencies were encouraged in order to overcome the separatist Arab movements. Thirdly, judicial and educational systems are secularized and the Ulama lost their traditional roles. In this context, sheykh ul-islam was removed from the Parliament in 1916 and the power of sheykh ul-islam was restricted. In addition, the religious courts were attached to the Ministry of Justice. It is essential to
mention the attempts to attach the Madrasahs to the Ministry of Education, to revise the curricula and eventually to establish an Evkaf Ministry for managing the foundations. The fourth one relates to reforms in the legal field. The adoption of a new
law of inheritance was the first major initiative in this context. Furthermore, legal arrangements that extended the right of divorce of women in relation to family law, that prohibited polygamy, that encouraged women’s participation in social life, and made it compulsory for girls to finish primary education could be listed among legal reforms. Another development that concerns women is related to encouraging women to work. The negative effects of long-lasting wars on male employment were certainly influential in this. Apart from all these, encouraging the political participation of the public was another characteristic point of this.