Ahmed Rıza (1858 – 26 February 1930) was an Ottoman educator, activist, revolutionary, intellectual, politician, polymath,[1] and a prominent member of the Young Turks.

Following the 1908 revolution he was proclaimed as the "Father of Liberty" and became the first President of the revived Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Ottoman Parliament.

[4] He was the leading negotiator during the failed talks for a military alliance between the Ottoman Empire, France, and Britain for World War I.

Ahmet's great-grandfather was Kemankeş Efendi, Sultan Selim III's Sır Kâtibi (Secret Secretary);[5] His father was Sıddık Molla, a kadı that served in Egypt.

She moved to Vienna, where she met İngiliz while he was on a diplomatic mission, and converted to Islam to marry him, taking the name Naile Sabıka Hanım.

Ahmet Rıza received a Western style education, having attended the Beylerbeyi Rüşdiye, thereafter the Mahrec-i Aklâm and then the Mekteb-i Sultânî (modern Galatasaray High School).

The journey made Rıza concerned of their well being and he wished to introduce them to modern cultivation methods, which led him to study agriculture in France.

Two theories explain Rıza's flight: one was that he gave a pretext of participating in the exhibition organized for the centenary of the French Revolution, another indicated he simply escaped to Paris.

Ahmet Rıza became one of the most active members of the Société Positiviste, and in 1905 he appeared as a "representative of Muslim communities" in the Comité Positif Occidental, an organization established to spread positivism internationally.

He wrote a letter to the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs in Istanbul, stating that he was not a member of a secret society and that when it was necessary to defend the interests and rights of the country and nation, he could do so through articles he published in Parisian newspapers.

[8] In 1893, Ahmed Rıza sent multiple petitions to Sultan Abdul Hamid II where he outlined the benefits of a constitutional regime.

Discouraged after his sixth petition, he began writing articles in the French newsletter La Jeune Turquie published by Khalil Ghanim, and also published the reform program he had previously presented to Abdul Hamid in the form of a pamphlet under the name Lâyiha ve Mektub (Petition and Letter) in London.

[8] This made him leader of the Paris branch of the Committee of Union and Progress, a group that was centered around the newspaper Meşveret, a journal that he started publishing with Ghanim.

Rıza also published a series of articles advocating for constitutionalism for the Ottoman Empire, which he justified through the Islamic tradition of consultation.

Rıza was horrified by the Hamidian massacres, which he blamed on the sultan and condemned as contrary to "the traditions of Islam and the precepts of the Quran".

Meanwhile, Ahmed Rıza's secularism and positivism caused a rift with the conservative Young Turks which united around Mizancı Murat.

[8] During the Greco-Turkish War, Ahmed Rıza was expelled from the CUP after he refused to pull an article he published in Meşveret in support of the Cretan Rebellion.

At the end of 1899, the Young Turk movement was revived with the defections of Ismail Qemali, Damat Mahmut Pasha and his sons Prince Sabahattin and Lütfullah.

At the congress, two groups emerged which were divided on the question of foreign intervention to assist in overthrowing the regime: the "interventionists", consisting of Prince Sabahattin and the Armenian delegates, and the "non-interventionists", who were supporters of Ahmed Rıza, who remained in the minority.

After the declaration of the Constitution, Rıza returned to Istanbul on September 25, 1908 where he was welcomed with the "Father of Liberty" (ebü-l ahrar, hürriyetçilerin babası).

Rıza resigned upon the request of the Grand Vizier in the atmosphere of rebellion and escaped from the parliament as rebels stormed the building while in session.

Noting that such confiscation was contrary to the Ottoman Constitution, he added: "Strong-arm me, expel me from my village, then sell my property: this is never lawful.