OSMANLIDA İLK PROTESTAN MİSYONERLER: QUAKERLAR
THE FIRST PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: THE QUAKERS

Summary/Abstract: Although the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries to the Ottoman Empire is dated to the nineteenth century, the date of the arrival of the first missionaries is, in fact, the seventeenth century at the latest. Founded by George Fox, the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers –one of the millennialist dissident Christian movements that emerged in the chaotic political and religious atmosphere of seventeenth-century England- was the earliest large-scale missionary movement of Protestantism. Missionaries, who set out with the “Inner Light” doctrine that God exists in every human being irrespective of religion, language, race, or nationality, aimed to awaken everyone to the light within them. With this purpose in mind, missionaries who came to Ottoman lands attempted to convey their message not only to Muslims and non-Muslims, but also to the sultan. Although they did not succeed in their efforts, they often left the country with the satisfaction of having fulfilled their duties. This article gives an inventory of first-generation Quakers’ activities towards Ottomans, from Mary Fisher who managed to personally meet Sultan Mehmet IV, to the Quakers who set out with the same purpose but could not accomplish their goal, to the missionaries who came to the empire with more modest purposes. It deals with the relations of Quaker missionaries with the local people and officials, as well as their tense and conflictual relation with British merchants, consuls and ambassadors operating in the country.

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