Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002 Mission as Factor of Change in Turkey (nineteenth to rst half of twentieth century) HANS-LUKAS KIESER ABSTRACT This article explores the complex role Protestant missionaries played in late Ottoman Asia Minor. For several generations they were important, even if today almost forgotten, actors of social and mental change. They succeeded in establishing autonomous schools, hospitals and factories not only in the capital, but also in the provinces. They had a vision of integrating minorities into an egalitarian pluralist society which was diametrically opposed to the ideas of the ruling groups and the nationalists. Instead of homogenizing society and strengthening its (Turco-)Muslim unity, missions were differentiating society in religious, ethnic and social terms. Protestant missions supported religious minorities such as the Arme- nians and Assyrians, heterodox groups such as the Alevis and Yezidis and the poorer classes, but could not win over the state, which was based on the support of the Sunnõ ¯ majority and saw the missions’ successful puritan and liberal modernity as a threat. Even if during and after World War I the missionaries’ human networks and social visions tragically broke down, their strong contribution to modern education in Turkey remained. The missionary impact on Turkey during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been strong and complex and is far from having been satisfactorily researched. There are many published and unpublished contributions on this theme, including historiographical sketches, but hitherto there has been no modern monograph on this fascinating subject. Mission in Turkey is a delicate topic for several reasons, not only because of its real or supposed link with Western hegemony, but especially—and this is our point— because mission was concerned with minorities and had a vision of integrating them into a new form of society which was in some ways diametrically opposed to the ideas of the ruling groups. Instead of homogenizing society and strengthening its unity, missions were differentiating society in religious, ethnic and social terms. Missions worked with religious minorities such as the Armenians and Assyrians, heterodox groups such as the Alevis and Yezidis and with the poorer classes. For many mission- aries, notably for the Protestant internationalists, the pursuit of human rights meant making visible the existing discrimination against individuals and groups—and against the female sex—and ghting for their advance and equal rights in society. Exploring unknown geographical regions and ethnic or social particularities was the imperative condition for a successful approach to ‘unreached peoples’. The Turkish historian Uygur Kocabas ¸og Ï lu has stated correctly that: …when the Ottoman intellectuals in the rst quarter of the twentieth century began to discover Anatolia and wonder about it, we can say that American missionaries already knew it well. And because they did so, they probably knew much better than the Ottoman rulers the values, patterns of behaviour, ISSN 0959-6410 print/ISSN 1469-9311 online/02/040391-20 Ó 2002 CSIC and CMCU DOI: 10.1080/0959641022000016384