Mehmet Akif İnan, a poet, thinker, and a man of action, was a writer who never hesitated to express his ideas on a wide range of social issues in various literary genres. He endeavored to approach his observations, suggestions, and proposals on specific topics from a broad historical perspective to broaden the horizons of his audience. In this context, when we examine Akif İnan’s body of work, the concept of the intellectual emerges as one of the most prominent topics he addressed. In İnan’s intellectual world, we encounter numerous typologies of intellectuals, including their competence, responsibilities to the public, and originality, as they confronted the Western world, particularly during and after the Tanzimat period. These typologies are presented in terms of their current state, critiqued, and idealized. In this study, in which we have examined İnan’s evaluations of the situation, attitudes and behaviors of intellectuals in many fields such as the concept of civilization, Islamic belief, political attitude, Westernization, Western civilization, art, historical perspective and sociology, we have tried to reveal, sometimes explain and interpret the author’s original point of view. In our study, it was observed that İnan’s thoughts, emphasizing that an intellectual who remains faithful to their own beliefs and cultural heritage can overcome the experienced civilizational crisis, come to the fore.