Fatma Aliye Topuz, often known simply as Fatma Aliye or Fatma Aliye Hanım, was a Turkish novelist, columnist, essayist, women's rights activist and humanitarian. Although there was an earlier published novel by the Turkish female author Zafer Hanım in 1877, since that one remained her only novel, Fatma Aliye Hanım with her five novels is credited by literary circles as the first female novelist in Turkish literature and the Islamic world.

Ahmed Cevdet Pasha or Jevdet Pasha in English was an Ottoman scholar, intellectual, bureaucrat, administrator, and historian who was a prominent figure in the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire. He was the head of the Mecelle commission that codified Islamic law for the first time in response to the Westernization of law. He is often regarded as a pioneer in the codification of a civil law based on the European legal system. The Mecelle remained intact in several modern Arab states in the early and mid-20th-century. In addition to Turkish, he was proficient in Arabic, Persian, French and Bulgarian. He wrote numerous books on history, law, grammar, linguistics, logic and astronomy.