Ahmed Riza Bey was a prominent Young Turk, an activist, scientist and the minister of Education from the Liberal Union

Liberal Union (Ottoman Empire)

Liberal Union was the second biggest party in the Ottoman parliament of 1909. It had managed to organize covering most of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire...

 party during the second Constitutional Era

Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)

The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...

 in the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. In 1908, his name was among the possible Grand Vizier

Grand Vizier

Grand Vizier, in Turkish Vezir-i Azam or Sadr-ı Azam , deriving from the Arabic word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...

s. He was the leading negotiator of the failed agreement of coalition between the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 for World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Ahmed Rıza has also been viewed as a polymath

Polymath

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...

 by some authors.

He had been concerned with the conditions of the farmers and wanted to implement agricultural methods. He believed in and supported the ideas of the French sociologist, Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

. He was hostile to colonialism, as were European progressives. He was also opposed to class privilege.

Biography

Rıza had graduated from Galatasaray High School in Constantinople. He had also studied agriculture in France. As an idealistic young man ("Young Turk"), he sought to improve the condition of the Ottoman peasantry in the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

.

In 1894 he published a series of publications on unification of Islamic and Ottoman traditions of consultation. In 1895, Meşveret, the journal that he published became a locus of the exile Young Turk. Rıza opposed the radical Prince Sabahettin's calls for revolution and European intervention in the empire at the 1902 Congress of Ottoman Opposition in Paris. At the Second Young Turk Congress in 1907, Rıza at first reluctantly endorsed the use of violence to depose the sultan, but later reversed his position.

Sources