GÖKALP, ZİYA (1876–1924), Turkish sociologist influential in the modernization of religious thinking and in the development of Turkish nationalism. He was born Mehmed Ziya in the small town of Diyarbakır in southeastern Turkey. After a traditional Muslim primary education and a secular secondary education in Diyarbakır, he went to Constantinople to continue his studies in 1895. Five years later he was arrested and banished to his hometown for his involvement with the Young Turks, then a secret organization.

Following the successful Young Turk revolution of 1908, he went to Salonika as a delegate to the Society (later Party) of Union and Progress. There he contributed to a journal of philosophy (Yeni felsefe mecmuasi) and a literary review (Genç kalemler) published by the Young Turks. It was at this point that he adopted the pen name...