Islam and Secularism in Turkey: Kemalism, Religion and the Nation State

✍ Scribed by Umut Azak

• Publisher: I. B. Tauris
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 251
• Series: International Library of Twentieth Century History 27
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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 labored for an idealized "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.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
Introduction......Page 18
1. Reactionary Islam: The Menemen Incident (1930)......Page 38
Reactionary rebels: deeds and words......Page 42
Restoration of authority and the specter of irtica......Page 48
The single-party regime, opposition and reactionaries......Page 40
Mobilization for secularism and resistance......Page 55
2. Turkish Islam: The Reform of Turkish Ezan (1932-33)......Page 62
Kemalism and reform in religion......Page 66
The birth of the Turkish ezan......Page 71
Resistance to the Turkish ezan......Page 75
The pre-republican background of worship in Turkish......Page 63
3. Turkish Islam Contested: The Ezan Debate and Secularism (1950)......Page 78
Early debates on secularism......Page 79
Debate on the Turkish ezan (1947-50)......Page 85
The ending of the Turkish ezan in May 1950......Page 90
Kemalist secularism versus alternative secularism......Page 93
Nostalgia for the Turkish ezan after 1950......Page 99
4. Reactionary Islam as Violent Threat: The Malatya Incident (1952)......Page 102
Disassociating the Democratic Party from irtica......Page 124
Conservative nationalism and the Malatya Incident......Page 106
Civil Kemalism and the specter of irtica......Page 114
Irtica as a threat in everyday life......Page 128
Irtica: a contested concept......Page 103
5. Reactionary Islam as Creeping Threat: Said Nursî and his Disciples (1959-60)......Page 132
Said Nursî, the Nurcu movement and the DP in the 1950s......Page 133
The specter of irtica: December 1959-January 1960......Page 139
Secularism for or against Said Nursî......Page 145
The Nurcu movement in the 1960s......Page 148
6. Turkish Islam Reappropriated: Alevism in Alliance with Kemalism (1966)......Page 156
Alevism in Turkey......Page 158
Alevis and the secular state in the 1950s and 1960s......Page 167
Alevism and Kemalist secularism in the 1960s......Page 171
A debate on Alevi-Sunni conflict in 1966......Page 173
A magazine for Alevis: Cem......Page 179
Conclusion......Page 192
Notes......Page 196
Bibliography......Page 230
Index......Page 248