Lt. Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay and the Menemen Incident
The Menemen Incident refers to a chain of incidents which occurred in Menemen, a small town in the Aegean region of Turkey, on 23 December 1930.Following the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the Republican People's Party of Turkey pursued a somewhat liberal policy towards Islam, promoting secularism while not taking a hard line against Islamic institutions and practices, believing that the secularism of their ideology was already taking root. This confidence was shaken on 23 December 1930, when Dervish Mehmed Efendi, a member of the Naqshbandi order, created a disturbance by rallying a crowd against secular government and calling for the restoration of Sharia rule and the Caliphate. A contingent of Turkish Gendarme from the local garrison was sent to quell the demonstration. The soldiers wihch had blank rounds loaded in their rifles opened fire on the demonstartors to scare them off, but the crowd did not scatter. As Lt. Kubilay came close to the crowd, unarmed and with the will of negotiation, he was shot by one of the demonstrators. The crowd then beheaded Lt. Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay, and placed his severed head on a pole with a green flag before parading through town with it.With the reactions of the Turkish government and M.K. Ataturk, the next few months Menemen was ruled with martial law, and Dervish Mehmed Efendi and his henchmen were executed with the decision of special military courts.
