Islams Turkish Rollercoaster Ride

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Islams Turkish Rollercoaster Ride
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Overview

• 1800s - Turkey (Ottoman Empire) moved from the
  head of much of the Muslim world towards being a
  secular state
• 1876-1908- Abd al-Hamid II attempts to revive
  Islam
• 1908-1960s -Role of political Islam greatly
  diminished over this period
• 1970s-2006 - Resurgence of Islam How far and
  how fast

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Overview

• Two centuries of westernization and decades of
  radical policies in favor of secularism make
  Turkey the firstand up to now probably the
  onlyMuslim country where a total separation of
  the political and the sacred has been implemented
  with success. Yet today, we are witnessing the
  resurgence of Islam and its pervasive influence
  in all spheres of the social and political arena.
  This is not a new phenomenon in this region.

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The Decline Under the Ottomans

• Under the latter Ottoman Sultans their function
  as Caliph began to deteriorate as their secular
  power waned.
• European expansion and internal decline led to
  the gradual weakening of the Sultan/Caliph and
  the power of Islam as a political force.
• Although they were still officially the
  protectors of Islam, their inability to raise
  armies that could stem European Colonialism led
  to their inability to protect Muslims in the
  empire.

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The Decline Under the Ottomans

• The Empire was also beginning to westernize
  during the 1800s in an attempt to keep up with
  its western neighbors
• Tanzimat - Reform Period 1839-1876
• There was an adoption of the structure of the
  government, educational and legal patterns of
  society based on the European model
  non-communal ideals, constitutional monarchy, and
  individual liberties.

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The Decline Under the OttomansTanzimat - Reform
Period 1839-1876

• Although focused on politics and economics, a
  number of legal reforms were instituted which
  although they followed the outline of Sharia
  (Islamic Legal code), in effect they began
  supplementing and then replacing Sharia courts
  with secular courts.
• Because of this, allegiance to the
  Sultan/Caliph and to Islamic authority in
  general, began to decline.

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The Decline Under the Ottomans

• Other reforms attempted to move the educational
  system, and local political control away from
  dominance by the Muslim clerics and into the
  hands of secularists and the army.
• These reforms further weakened the power of the
  Islamic State.

Ottoman Coat of Arms
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The Young Ottomans

• By the 1860s -1870s a group of young men
  dedicated to preserving Ottoman heritage,
  revitalizing Islam and modernizing the state had
  risen to power.

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LIBERALISM OF THE YOUNG OTTOMANS

• Westernization from the heads of state to the
  lower ranks of the privileged classes the
  Liberals looking for personal liberties among all
  humankind.
• Wanting to establish a democracy they were
  distrustful of European friends.

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THE ISLAM OF YOUNG OTTOMANS

• Islam could be purified of some of the rigidity
  imposed by the Ulama.
• Islam if properly understood contained essential
  principles of Western liberalism exaltation of
  freedom and justice, and the love of ones
  country.
• The Quran and Hadith were in full accordance
  with modern liberal view, if interpreted
  correctly.
• Islam is appropriate for a modern people.

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The Young Ottomans

• In 1876 they staged a coup détat and forced a
  constitutional monarchy on Abd al-Hamid II.
• He responded by suspending parliament and
  establishing an authoritarian conservative regime
  with himself as caliph.

Ottoman Style Houses
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Islamic Resurgence 1876-1908

• Abd al-Hamid II reinstated himself as Caliph and
  began a Pan-Islamic movement to counter European
  imperialism.
• The Pan-Islamic movement was somewhat successful
  and for about 30 years there was a resurgence of
  Islamic power throughout the region.
• Yet pressures from foreign powers and from within
  eventually brought his reign to an end.

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PAN-ISLAMISM, Abd al-Hamid II STYLE

• A sentiment to rally conservative Muslim opinion
  He wanted to establish political solidarity of
  Muslims under the Ottoman caliph.
• A caliph with spiritual authority over Muslims
  everywhere would be an authority more important
  than immediate political power.
• This was partially founded upon the enthusiasm of
  the Young Ottomans for Islam as a religion.

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ABD AL-HAMID IIS USE OF CALIPHATE

• Diplomatic advantage Sultan claimed to be a
  universal Muslim caliph with a right to religious
  over lordship of the Muslims everywhere.
• European understanding Commander of all Muslim
  faithful Papacy
• One Muslim state under the Sharia fulfilled the
  essential requirement of the Muslim conscience.

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ZIYA GOK-ALP, WRITER, SOCIOLOGIST
Father of Turkish Nationalism
1876-1924

• Rejected the idea of an Ottoman nation
• Humanity articulated into nations, each nation
  with its own culture, common memories and
  customs, language
• Civilizations incidental to the nation, it can
  adopt or cast them off or change
• Islam not tied with Perso-Arabic tradition
• Popularized the idea of Turkish nationalism
• Major Influence on the Young Turks

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The Young Turks

• Those men who came to power in the 1880s and
  1890s (Now called the young Turks) were
  disillusioned by the inefficiency, corruption and
  military defeats suffered under the existing
  system and called for the reestablishment of
  parliament and the Constitution of 1876.
• A military coup in 1908 led by army officers
  infiltrated by the Young Turks forced the
  reestablishment of parliament and the
  constitution.

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The Young Turks

• From 1908-1912 a three way struggle between the
  Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) (Led by
  reformist Young Turks), the army and conservative
  Muslins struggled for power.
• The army wound up in control and ruled with the
  CUP issuing decrees until 1918 when the victors
  of WWI occupied Istanbul and much of what was to
  become Turkey.

Gallipoli Monument
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The Young Turks

• The CUP was forcefully secular after the Islamic
  oppression that they experienced under Abd
  al-Hamid II.
• Their reforms included secularization of schools,
  courts, law codes and emancipation for women.
• During this time CUP members began to conceive of
  their reforms in light of Turkish Nationalism and
  not Ottoman reforms.

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The Young Turks

• By 1917 a complete system of personal law, based
  on the European model, replaced the Sharia and
  made a huge break from the Muslim past.
• The Young Turks believed that it was the
  antiquated Sharia and its law codes that was
  partially responsible for the downfall of the
  Ottoman Empire.

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World War I and the New Republic

• In 1918 at the end of WWI the Ottoman Empire had
  been defeated and was disintegrating under
  attacks from the French, Armenians and Greeks
  with its capital of Istanbul being occupied by
  foreign powers.
• Mustafa Kemal led the national elite to mobilize
  the masses to expel all of the foreign armies and
  establish a new nation that was formally
  recognized with the treaty of Luasanne in 1923.

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Ataturks Six Arrows

• Republicanism
• Populism
• Secularism

• Reformism
• Nationalism
• Statism

Ataturk considered state sponsored and supported
Islam to be an impediment to all of these.
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AtaturkFather of Modern Turkey
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WESTERNIZATION OF ISLAM

• Ataturk felt that he also needed to reform
  Turkish Islam to bring it into line with his
  western reforms.
• The State would be separated from religion in all
  spheres.
• Islam would become a lay institution.
• Religion would become a private matter for
  individuals.

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WESTERNIZATION OF ISLAM

• Ataturk pushed for the Disestablishment of
  Islam hoping that Islamic piety would take the
  form of Reform Jewish piety.
• He forced the change from Arabic to Turkish when
  calling the faithful to prayer.
• Islam would be the test case for reforming the
  whole traditional Ottoman/Turkish heritage.
• Sufism was banned and Madrasa colleges were
  suppressed.

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WESTERNIZATION OF ISLAM

• There was an attempt to Turkify the Islamic
  faith.
• The Quran was translated into Turkish.
• Secular education became required at the expense
  of Islamic schools.
• The Ministry of Religious Affairs was abolished.
• All of the Sharia courts were closed and new
  secular courts were established.

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WESTERNIZATION OF ISLAM

• Turkish Islam, once a central pillar of life
  was now a mere legacy for the rural masses and
  the urban underprivileged. It was relegated to
  Anatolia, the repository of religious and
  mystical traditions. Banished from political
  life, Islam was pushed to the background of
  Turkish society.

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RELIGION AND STATE ARE SEPARATED IN THE TURKISH
REPUBLIC

• For the first time in any Muslim country,
  church and state were separated. The Turkish
  Republic declared religion a matter of private
  belief. All religions were to be tolerated. The
  government was reorganized on secular lines. New
  laws were written, based on a European modelthe
  Swiss Coderather than on the Quran. For the
  Islamic world, this alone was a revolutionary
  change.

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THE TURKISH REPUBLIC

• The Kemalist reformers who founded the Republic
  thought that secularism had to be the pillar of
  the new regime. Religion, in particular Islam,
  was considered to be a force capable of shaping
  minds and souls to oppose modernization.
• The secularizing elite contended that although
  religion in general and Islam in particular
  represented the main source of meaningfulness for
  individuals, it had to be pulled out of the
  public sphere.

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THE TURKISH REPUBLIC

• The new Republican state thought that the
  embryonic civil society that they were developing
  had to be watched and kept under surveillance in
  order for it to remain docile and subdued.
  Kemalist elites were to be the custodians of such
  political correctness.
• They duly applied their new approach to state
  structures, adopted a modern constitution and
  successfully created the first secularist state
  in a Muslim society.

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THE TURKISH REPUBLICOther Reforms Aimed at
Subduing the Influence of Islam

• Mustafa Kemal Ataturk outlawed polygamy.
• He urged women to stop wearing veils and called
  for them to seek public office.
• He called for his people to wear Western clothes,
  and he made the use of the Western alphabet the
  law.
• Turks who could read and write with the Arabic
  alphabet now had to learn to do so with the new
  alphabet.
• At the same time illiteracy was greatly reduced.

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THE TURKISH REPUBLICOther Reforms Aimed at
Subduing the Influence of Islam

• Turkey adopted the Western calendar as opposed to
  the Islamic calendar.
• People were required to select a family name for
  themselves.
• Kemal himself took the name Atatürk, meaning
  Father of the Turks.
• He moved the capital to Ankara, in the center of
  the new country, away from Islamic power bases
  and the traditional seat of the Caliph in
  Istanbul.

Ankara
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TURKISH MODERNISM

• In response to these attacks some Muslims in
  Turkey believed that religion must develop new
  forms of self-expression.
• There needed to be a Turkish return to religion
  as part of a second stage in the continued
  process of the renewal of the country.
• 1946 public discussion of Islam allowed
• 1948 schools to train religious functionaries
  established

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THE TURKISH REPUBLIC

• The question still remained as to whether, having
  been rejected from the political sphere, whether
  Islam had also vanished from the people's
  conscience?
• It soon became apparent that Islam, having been
  banned by the ruling class, emerged very quickly
  as an issue of political competition and gain for
  political aspirants.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul
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Islam Makes a Come-Back

• In the 1950s and 1960s Islam was allowed to
  begin playing a more prominent role
• Four reasons
• There was a philosophic trend away from secular
  positivism.
• There was little fear of opposition led by
  traditional religious authorities.
• There was an increase in political democracy.
• There was a need to strengthen the community
  against external attack/internal disruption.

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Islam Survives in the Republic

• Religious orders and brotherhoods inspired by
  Muslim mysticism, as well as new religious
  communities, continued to have a strong hold over
  the rural population.
• They kept on recruiting new followers from among
  the masses, who were still very sensitive to
  Islamic symbolism.

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Islam Survives in the Republic

• The appeal of the religious orders, such as the
  Kadiris and the Nakshibendis, was due to the
  dissatisfaction or frustration generated by the
  "irreligiousness" of the Kemalist state.
• At the same time, this sensitivity was an
  expression of social and cultural protest the
  protest of those who once defined themselves
  within the framework of Islamic culture and who
  intended to continue to do so.

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Islam Survives in the Republic

• This sensitivity also reflected concern and
  resentment created by the invasion of Western
  mores and habits which threatened to erode their
  cultural identity.
• From the multi-party system to the slow but
  visible industrialization, to new ways of social
  behavior, everything was now occurring under the
  auspices of a new model and new codes that were
  inspired by the West.
• For decades, though, the secular project was
  unchallenged.

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Turkey Today

• The twin purposes of the Kemalist Republic,
  "Westernization" and "Development" co-existed and
  delivered their promises.
• This partially prevented the rise of strong
  Islamic movements
• By the 1970s and 1980s with increasing rates
  of rapid urbanization combined with the maturing
  of the strictly secularist regime and the
  differentiated nature of a modernizing society
  economic and social progress slowed.

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Turkey Today

• With this slowing of progress, more opposition to
  the established government and ideas has arisen.
• Over the last 10-15 years their has been an
  extraordinary growth of associations, societies
  and foundations associated with Islam.
• Each of these have a multitude of publications
  and periodicals they organize activities and
  penetrate all levels of Turkish society.
• Most claim to uphold Islamic views and ideals
  that can address the needs of Turkey in the 21st
  Century.

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Turkish Fundamentalism on the Rise?

• Although through western eyes it does appear that
  Islam in Turkey is becoming more fundamentalist,
  there are a few things that need to be taken into
  consideration
• The Sunni population in Turkey, among whom the
  rise of Islamic politics is most noticeable, has
  little affinity with what in western eyes is
  called fundamentalism.
• Sunni Islam in Turkey, even its so-called
  fundamentalist varieties, has not readily
  permitted the existence of a class of clergy that
  can turn itself into an autonomous institution
  with a highly structural and bureaucratic
  hierarchy that is capable of challenging or
  confronting the state.

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Turkish Fundamentalism on the Rise?

• The Alevi version of Turkish Islam, which makes
  up as much as 30 of the population has continued
  its long term opposition to political power based
  on religion.
• The Alevis have always declared an open and often
  militant preference for Kemalist secularism. This
  is, for them, the only counterweight against the
  reappearance of Sunni hegemony that is
  historically prone to suppress them.

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Turkish Fundamentalism on the Rise?

• It is very likely that the ongoing process of
  democratization makes it easier for the
  supporters of Islamic politics to become more
  visible and influential in the political arena,
  and increases their impact upon the political
  system.

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Turkey Today

• Westerners can be concerned by the rising
  importance of Islamic votes in Turkish political
  life, but they also have to take into
  consideration that these are legal and in-system
  votes that contribute to the consolidation of the
  Turkish political system.
• We also have to consider that the future of an
  increasingly urbanized Turkey will be shaped more
  and more in the cities where Islamic groups
  promise and provide desired change.
• Turkey may well face a long quest for recognition
  of Islam in the political landscape of Turkey, a
  country that has made the historic choice of
  remaining both Muslim and secular.

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