İslam Mecmuası was established in 1914 and financed by the Committee of Union and Progress.[1] Its first issue was published on 12 February 1914.[1] Kazanlı Halim Sabit served as its editor.[3] The magazine came out biweekly and was headquartered in Constantinople.[1][4] İslam Mecmuası had thirty-two pages, but then it was reduced to sixteen pages due to paper shortage during World War I.[1] It was printed by different publishing houses throughout its existence.[3]
The magazine aimed at producing a synthesis of the nationalism and Islamism[1] and at presenting a reformist and liberal version of Islam which would be much more compatible with modern lifestyles.[2][5] Unlike other Islamist publications it focused on the social roles and functions of Islam.[1] İslam Mecmuası published the announcement of jihad in November 1914.[4] It ceased publication on 30 October 1918 after producing a total of sixty-three issues.[3][5]
Notable contributors of İslam Mecmuası included Ahmet Ağaoğlu, Besim Atalay, Aka Gündüz and Ömer Seyfettin.[1] They were from three different groups: ulemas such as Shaykh al-Islām Musa Kazım Efendi, İzmirli İsmail Hakkı and Şerafeddin Yaltıkaya, Islamic reformers such as Şemsettin Günaltay and Halim Sabit, and pan-Turkists such as Ziya Gökalp and Mehmet Fuat Köprülü.[6]
Contributors of İslam Mecmuası often confronted with the conservative Islamists whose media outlet was Sebilürreşad journal.[5][7] The debates were mostly about the reform in Islam and began just after the publication of Ziya Gökalp's article entitled Fıkıh ve İçtimaiyat (Ottoman Turkish: Fiqh and Sociology) in İslam Mecmuası.[7] The tensions between two camps increased in 1915 when İslam Mecmuası openly supported the restrictions on the authority of the Shaykh al-Islām.[5][7]
İslam Mecmuası was the first publication in the Empire which introduced the views of Ibn Taymiyyah, a Salafi thinker, through the articles of Şerafeddin Yaltıkaya.[6]
