prestige or position. The Committee of Union and Progress in Salonica were a `mixed bunch', what unified them was their patriotism and desire to save the crumbling Empire. The majority of them being army officers, they had little experience of politics and political administration, and even when they forced the proclamation of the Constitution, they had no political plan or programme. For the most part, their attitude towards Islam was positive; and not only as the main politically unifying factor of the Empire. Even the secular theorists from among the Young Turks such as Ahmed Riza and Abdullah Cevdet accepted the positive function of Islam in society. Bediuzzaman himself later wrote:
"At the beginning of the Constitutional Period I saw that there were atheists who had infiltrated the CUP who accepted that Islam and the Seriat of Muhammed contained exalted principles extremely beneficial and valuable for the life of society and particularly Ottoman policies and who supported the Seriat with all their strength..." But while a majority of them were in any event not hostile to Islam, due to their secular backgrounds and education, they had been influenced in varying degrees by European ideas; many were uninformed about their religion and were lax in the practice of it. An important reason, therefore, in Bediuzzaman associating with the Young 'Turks before the Constitution was proclaimed was to persuade them that for the Empire's future progress and well-being, Freedom must be established on the Seriat and Islam adhered to, as well as for himself to be able to serve this end. But again it must be stressed that while he continued to support those Young Turks who shared this end, he became a strenuous opponent of those of them who deviated from it. For their part, the leading members of the CUP in Salonica were impressed by the calibre of this famous young scholar, and, as a man of religion and an unswerving supporter of Freedom, were keen to employ him in the propagation of his ideas on Freedom.
The second point to make about Bediuzzaman and politics will perhaps illuminate this further. Bediuzzaman was a realist; he accepted the current situation, and, looking to the future, sought ways of directing the trend of events into Islamic channels. For