Islam and Secularism in Turkey

Islam and Secularism in Turkey

Author: Umut Azak

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2010-04-07

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0857713779

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Kemal Ataturk's Republic of Turkey was set up in 1923 as a secular state, sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms followed. Islam was no longer the official religion of the state, the Sultanate was abolished and all Turkish citizens were declared equal without reference to religion. But though, in Azak's phrase, 'secularism was the central tenet of Kemalism', fear of a resurgent, even fanatical, Islam, continued to haunt the state. Azak's revisionist and original study sets out the struggle between religion and secularism but shows how Ataturk laboured for an idealised 'Turkish Islam' - the 'social cement' of the nation - stripped of superstition and obscurantism and linked to modern science and positivist philosophy. 'Turkish Islam' has retained its traditional forms in the modern state and Ataturk's Mausoleum dominates the capital and continues to inspire a popular, quasi-religious devotion.


Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey

Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey

Author: Soner Cagaptay

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-05-02

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1134174470

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It is commonly believed that during the interwar period, Kemalist secularism successfully eliminated religion from the public sphere in Turkey, leaving Turkish national identity devoid of religious content. However, through its examination of the impact of the Ottoman millet system on Turkish and Balkan nationalisms, this book presents a different view point. Cagaptay demonstrates that the legacy of the Ottomon millet system which divided the Ottoman population into religious compartments called millets, shaped Turkey’s understanding of nationalism in the interwar period. Providing a compelling examination of why and how religion shapes national identity in Turkey and the Balkans the book covers topics including: * Turkish nationalism * the Ottoman legacy * Kemalist citizenship policies and immigration * Kurds, Muslims and Jews and the ethno-religious limits of Turkishness. Incorporating documents from untapped Turkish archives, this book is essential reading for scholars and students with research interests in Turkey, Turkish nationalism and Middle East history.


Muslims in Modern Turkey

Muslims in Modern Turkey

Author: Sena Karasipahi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2008-12-18

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 085771497X

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Modern Turkey is the site of a powerful Islamic revival, with a strong intellectual elite dedicated to the overthrow of secular modernism. Why have modern Muslim intellectuals turned against the ideals of Kemalism on which the modern Turkish nation-state is founded? What does this reveal about the future of Turkey? And how are Islamic intellectuals in Turkey affected by developments in the Middle East? Muslims in Modern Turkey is the first book to analyse this phenomenon, tracing the evolution of Muslim intellectual thought from the 1980s to the present day. It focuses on six leading Muslim thinkers - Ali Bulaç, Rasim Özdenören, ?smet Özel, ?lhan Kutluer, Ersin Nazif Gürdo?an and Abdurrahman Dilipak - who belong to a single school and share a novel understanding of Islam. They act as public intellectuals, who aim to reform and enlighten society by educating them and raising their awareness of Islamic values, arguing not for the compatibility of Islam and European values but the fundamental superiority of Islam over secular democracy. Sena Karasipahi places the Turkish experience in its broader international context and shows how Turkish Islamic intellectuals are affected by the earlier Muslim intellectuals and revivalists in the Arab world and in Turkey. This important study makes connections with the Islamic revival process throughout the contemporary Middle East as well as with comparable movements in Turkey's own past, making this a crucial contribution to an understanding of contemporary Islamic political thinking.


Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey

Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey

Author: Andrew Davison

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780300069365

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In this new interpretation of the modernisation & secularization of Turkey, Andrew Davison demonstrates the usefulness of hermeneutics in political analysis, illuminating the complex relations between religion & politics in post-Ottoman Turkey.


The JDP and Making the Post-Kemalist Secularism in Turkey

The JDP and Making the Post-Kemalist Secularism in Turkey

Author: Pinar Kandemir

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-07-21

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 3031076052

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This book is an analytical study of secularism in contemporary Turkey by tracing its historical trajectory within the context of political transformation in a country that experienced a social and cultural rupture in its formative years. Its principal focus is on the policies and practices of the current ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), which has influenced the process of change, evolution, and transformation with regard to secularism and state policies toward religion. Following its foundation in 2001, the JDP developed a unique approach to conceptualising the relationship between state and religion. In contrast to other mainstream parties and political positions both in the past and present, it offers an alternative vision and model to that of inherited Kemalist secularism, as formulated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey) and refined by his close associates in the formative period of the Republic. The project draws its findings from in-depth interviews with members of political parties, civil society activists and religious leaders.


Democracy, Islam, & Secularism in Turkey

Democracy, Islam, & Secularism in Turkey

Author: Ahmet Kuru

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-02-14

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0231159323

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While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several policy choices have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing social, historical, and religious context for Turkey's singular behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state's position on religion and diversity to its involvement in the European Union. Written by experts in a range of disciplines, the chapters explore the Ottoman toleration of diversity during its classical period; the erosion of ethno-religious diversity in modern, pre-democratic times; Kemalism and its role in modernization and nation building; the changing political strategies of the military; and the effect of possible EU membership on domestic reforms. They also conduct a cross-Continental comparison of "multiple secularisms" as well as political parties, considering the Justice and Development Party in Turkey in relation to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. The contributors tackle central research questions, such as what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire's ethno-religious plurality and how can Turkey's assertive secularism be softened to allow greater space for religious actors. They address the military's "guardian" role in Turkey's secularism, the implications of recent constitutional amendments for democratization, and the consequences and benefits of Islamic activism's presence within a democratic system. No other collection confronts Turkey's contemporary evolution so vividly and thoroughly or offers such expert analysis of its crucial social and political systems.


Political Islam and the Secular State in Turkey

Political Islam and the Secular State in Turkey

Author: Evangelia Axiarlis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-06-20

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0857724320

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How safe is Turkey's liberal democracy? The rise to power in 2002 of the right-leaning Islamic Justice and Development Party ignited fears in the West that Turkey could no longer be relied upon to provide a buffer against the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Once hailed by the West as a model of secularism and moderation in the Muslim world, Turkey is now seen to be under the influence of the 'creeping Islamisation' of the JDP (or AKP as it is known in Turkey). Yet to what extent has this affected the lives of Turkish citizens? Evangelia Axiarlis here explores the contribution of the JDP to civil liberties and basic freedoms, long suppressed by secular and statist Kemalist ideology, and how this has remained unexamined despite more than a decade in government. In this - the first detailed study of the policies and ideology of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's government - the author examines the extent to which the JDP has worked to improve civil life in Turkey and critically addresses whether a government built on Islamic principles can champion political reform. Exploring how Islam and democracy are neither monoliths nor mutually exclusive, this is a timely contribution to the wider understanding of political Islam.


Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey

Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey

Author: M. Hakan Yavuz

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-02-19

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0521888786

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The Islamist Justice and Development Party swept to power in Turkey in 2002. Since then it has shied away from a hard-line ideological stance in favour of a more conservative and democratic approach. This book asks whether it is possible for a political party with deeply religious ideology to liberalise and entertain democracy?