(Neslihan Cevik (Auth.) ) Muslimism in Turkey and B (B-Ok - Xyz)

Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond
T HE MODERN MUSLIM WORLD
Series Editor: Dietrich Jung of the Center for Contemporary Middle

East Studies, University of Southern Denmark
The modern Muslim world is an integral part of global society. In
transcending the confines of area studies, this series encompasses
scholarly work on political, economic, and cultural issues in modern
Muslim history, taking a global perspective. Focusing on the period
from the early nineteenth century to the present, it combines stud-
ies of Muslim majority regions, such as the Middle East and parts of
Africa and Asia, with the analysis of Muslim minority communities in
Europe and the Americas. Emphasizing the global connectedness of
Muslims, the series seeks to promote and encourage the understand-
ing of contemporary Muslim life in a comparative perspective and as
an inseparable part of modern globality.
Migration, Security, and Citizenship in the Middle East: New Perspectives

Edited by Peter Seeberg and Zaid Eyadat
Politics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Islam, Youth, and Social Activism

in the Middle East
Dietrich Jung, Marie Juul Petersen and Sara Cathrine Lei Sparre
Transnational Islam in Interwar Europe: Muslim Activists and Thinkers

Edited by Götz Nordbruch and Umar Ryad
The International Politics of the Arab Spring: Popular Unrest and Foreign Policy
Edited by Robert Mason
Regional Powers in the Middle East: New Constellations after the Arab Revolts
Edited by Henner Fü rtig
Tablighi Jamaat and the Quest for the London Mega Mosque: Continuity
and Change
Zacharias P. Pieri
Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World

Neslihan Cevik
Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond
Religion in the Modern World
Neslihan Cevik
MUSLIMISM IN TURKEY AND BEYOND
Copyright © Neslihan Cevik 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-56527-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this
publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written
permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited
copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10
Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The author has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One
New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
ISBN 978-1-349-56723-2 ISBN 978-1-137-56154-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-56154-1
Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave
Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cevik, Neslihan, 1980–
Muslimism in Turkey and beyond : religion in the modern world /
Neslihan Cevik.
pages cm.—(The modern Muslim world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “This book identifies a new Islamic form in Turkey at the turn
of the century, Muslimism. Neither fundamentalism nor liberal religion,
Muslimism engages modernity through Islamic categories and practices.
Cevik draws implications of this new form for discussions of democracy
and Islam in the region, for similar movements across religious traditions,
and for social theory on religion”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-349-56723-2
1. Islam—Turkey—21st century. 2. Islam—21st century. 3. Islamic
sociology. 4. Religion—21st century. I. Title.
BP63.T8C487 2015
297.09561⬘09051—dc23 2015019835
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
To my late Grandmother, Hayat Dagistanli
May her soul rest in peace
C on ten t s
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Turkey’s Muslimists:

From Veil-Chic Women to a New Political Ethos 1
1 From Forbidden Modern to Guiltless Modernity 29
2 Muslimism versus Islamism: On the Triad of Politics,
Religion, and Everyday Life 63
3 Muslimist Religious Temperaments 95
4 Muslimist Cultural Orientations and Everyday Life 127
5 Muslimist Political Ethos 169
Conclusion: Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond 201
Notes 219
Bibliography 245
Index 259
Ack now l ed gmen t s
This book, and years of research that preceded it, were made possible
by contributions of many people and institutions.
I met a large number of people and Islamic organizations through-
out my fieldwork. I would like to thank each and every one of them
for trusting me, for being patient with days of interviews and observa-
tions, and for giving me answers that are not generic but genuine and
straightforward, even when those questions touched upon sensitive
and uncomfortable issues. Those genuine engagements introduced
me to a living Islam that challenged existing theoretical frameworks
and needed a new accounting. The concept of Muslimism, as a new
religious type that is neither liberal nor fundamentalist, emerged in
this empirical context. It is, however, important to note that discus-
sions and conclusions in the book are my own, and neither inter-
viewees nor others who provided me feedback or comments are
responsible for them.
I was able to transfer this research into a book through a post-
doctoral fellowship funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies in
Culture, University of Virginia. At Watson Mansor, I have found,
however, more than financial support; I have found a vibrant com-
munity of intellectuals and scholars. (In fact, I think of the Watson
Manor as an incubator for social sciences.) I was most fortunate that I
was able to consult James Davison Hunter, the director of the IASC,
and benefit from his exceptional scholarship and knowledge during
the write up of the book. Our conversations on religions and the
world stimulated new ideas for me, and I am grateful for his ongoing
support.
Chuck Mathews, Slavica Jakelic, Asher Bieman, Daniel Doneson,
Murray Milner, Krishan Kumar, John Owen, Carl Bowman, Ethan
Schrum, Daniel Tureno, Alon Confino, and Jay Tolson read parts or
versions of my work on Muslimism and provided me with feedback
that improved the project. Jenny Geddes, Edward Gitre, Josh Yates,
Joe Davis, and Tony Lin engaged me in lively intellectual discussions.
My thanks are also due to IASC staff, particularly, Samantha Jordan,
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Suzan Witzel, and Jenny Gladding for making my residence at Watson

Manor very pleasant.
Conversations and exchanges with Bill Quandt, Jocelyn Cesari,
Christian Smith, John Boli, Anna Marta Gonzalez, Steve West,
John Brewer, Barin Kayaoglu, Aytul Kasapoglu, Kemal Silay, Ravza
Kavakci, Merve Kavakci, and Jean-Francois Mayer were informa-
tive. These exchanges connected me to an interdisciplinary and
intercultural body of scholarship. I am thankful to Halil Ibrahim
Yenigun and Abdullah An-Naim for their robust criticisms, which
helped me to see where the project needed further clarification and
thinking.
Discussions with Omer Taspinar, Henri Barkey, Don Wallace,
Issam Saliba, Nuh Yilmaz, Kadir Ustun, Norton Mezvinsky, Bulent
Ali Riza, and M. Yaser Tabbara inspired me to further think through
practical and policy implications of my work on Muslimism.
I extend my thanks to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Sabanci
University (Istanbul), The Center for the Study of Religion and
Conflict and School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State
University, Philosophy Department at the University of Navarra
(Spain) and Social Trends Institute (New York and Barcelona),
Political Science Department at TOBB University (Ankara), Istanbul
Dusunce Evi (IDE), Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Germany), SETA
(Washington, DC), and International Center for Terrorism Studies at
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (Virginia) for hosting stimulat-
ing sessions or providing feedback on different aspects of my work on
religion in the contemporary world.
Amy Graser did an excellent job for early copyediting. I would
also like to thank Palgrave MacMillan editorial team, and to Dietrich
Jung, the series editor of The Modern Muslim World book series, for
his support and feedback.
There is one person without whom I could not have written this
book, my former mentor, George M. Thomas. He has ever patiently
guided me from the conception of the project to the very end. I am
a beneficiary of his strong sociology and vast knowledge on social
theory on religion. He has read various drafts, and each time he
charitably provided me with precise feedback that steered me away
from some errors and advanced the project tremendously. Moreover,
he encouraged and guided me to think of what I observed in Turkey
and identified as Muslimism as a potential general type of religious
engagement that can usefully explain similar religious patterns and
forms across religious traditions. The concept of “new religious
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
orthodoxies” was a product of our joint work. I am forever indebted

to George, a man of integrity and compassion.
I am most enormously indebted to my family, especially to my
mother and father. I thank them for understanding what this project
has meant to me, for tolerating my inattention to our lives at times,
and for their selfless moral support for the duration of my work. This
project is a result of their effort as much as mine.
Introduction: Turkey’s Muslimists:
From Veil-Chic Women to a
New Political Ethos
In 2008, during New York Couture Week, one of the most prestigious
fashion events in the world, “the most innovative fashion designer
award” went to Rabia Haute Couture Line, owned by Rabia Yalcin.
Rabia is a veiled Turkish woman and a mother of a young veiled girl.
In the West, Rabia is renowned as a “gown guru.” In Turkey, how-
ever, she is a fashion authority on “veil-chicness,” advising Muslim
women how to combine Islamic modesty with contemporary design
and aesthetics. This new combination, according to Rabia, is very
easy to attain and requires neither lavish expense nor the sacrifice of
Islamic modesty; one simply needs to observe some basic rules:
Don’t use bright colors; otherwise, you would look like a walking ball
of fabric . . . If you have an orange veil and orange shoes, no way you
would look aesthetic; unless you want to look like a fruit! . . . Wear the
bone under your scarf, so your hair won’t show, but loosen the scarf
to lessen the claustrophobic affect . . . Instead of square scarves, prefer
rectangular ones. Hang down your scarf underneath your jacket and
create a Grace Kelly effect . . . Be careful with your diet. Extra pounds
are the enemies of tesettur chic-ness!1
In Turkey, a growing number of Muslim women across classes and

ages, including the first lady and prime minister’s wife, self-style their
veil in observance of contemporary trends and in accord with their
unique individual features: body figure, age, and personality. There
are various Turkish companies specializing in modish Islamic wear,
and some of these companies, like the high-fashion brands of Milan
and New York, have their own catwalks introducing new lines for
every season.
Beyond catering to personal preference for color and style, the veil-
chic companies provide veiled women with a whole new wardrobe,
redefining what a Muslim female body can do under the veil: office
2 MUSLIMISM IN TURKEY AND BEYOND
wear for work, dry-fit textured, Islam-proper workout clothes (hesof-

mans) for fitness, and suits that cover the whole body (hashemas)
for swimming. The message that these designs suggest is revolution-
ary: a woman can keep the veil on but still be career-oriented and
look professional, or go to yoga classes, or even swim. These Islam-
observant designs and the message they convey are now becoming
trans-Islamic, followed by veiled women in other Muslim countries
and in the West.
Going well beyond the Islamic fashion industry and its veil-chic
apparel, however, Turkey today is a host for much more curious engage-
ments between Muslims and modernity. Since the 1980s, Muslims
in a broad strata of society in Turkey have formed human rights
associations that refer both to the United Nations Human Rights
Convention and Islamic theological sources to define human rights;
women’s organizations that aim to empower women by retrieving
progressive Islamic concepts (particularly “masalih ”2 and “ijtihad,”3
both simply referring to adaptation to contemporaneous currents);
and business associations that embrace the free market while drawing
Islamic moral limits to commercial activity.
Such unconventional Muslim engagements of modernity have
moved into the political sphere as well, generating a new Islamic polit-
ical ethos that embraces modern political values, especially individual
rights and pluralism. Although rooted in broad Muslim segments
coming from across spheres of society, this new political ethos gained
its greatest public visibility by the formation in 2001 of a new Islam-
inspired party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP or AKP). The
founders of the JDP were a group of self-defined devout politicians
coming from the National Vision Movement cadres marked with a
strong anti-Western and anti-secular discourse. These politicians,
however, many of whom defined themselves a reformists, claimed to
break all past ties with the Movement, refused any affiliation with
Islamism, and, instead, identified the new party with conservative
democracy. This new political language was critical both of secularist
and Islamist formations, and was able to present the party as a new
political actor committed and able to advance a liberal national polity
and a conciliatory foreign policy, while not refusing but using Islam
to promote these elements.
The JDP was able to maintain this image throughout its early
terms in office (2002–2007 and 2007–2011), acquiring remarkable
electoral success. This aspect of the party led many to debate whether
it built an exceptional “Turkish model” of Muslim-democracy that
could possibly be transferred to the region, or whether it was a mere
INTRODUCTION 3
façade for Islamism. This broad policy of the party in fact was not
unchangeable but historically contingent. Since its third term in
office (2011–), the party seems to have moved to a top-down, statist
approach, and thus away from the broader new political ethos, raising
the question of whether the “Turkish model” has failed, or whether
the party is revealing its true self. Nevertheless, the party’s earlier
liberal, pro-European Union (EU), and pluralist style, and associ-
ated electoral successes, functioned to bring the emerging Muslim
engagements with modern political values and contemporary institu-
tions in Turkey to the surface. It is this period of the party and its
resonance with the new Islamic ethos that was emerging that is the
focus of this study.
In response to these puzzling developments, many scholars
as well as secularists have suggested that there is not much to cel-
ebrate. Muslims’ engaging markets, human rights, or liberal political
notions were neo-fundamentalist attempts upgrading the old formula
of “Sharia plus electricity4” from technology to modern fashion or
democracy. Or, as with the JDP, a mere front for Islamism.
Yet, what many discard as neo-fundamentalist encounters or a
façade for political Islamism is for steadfast Islamists in Turkey and
beyond a degeneration of Islam. For Niyazi, a former congressman
of Turkey’s Welfare Party closed down by the army in 1998 for pro-
moting radical Islam, for example, the JDP does not have an Islamic
identity. Describing modernity “as a furious bull attacking Islam,” for
him, the JDP not only failed to protect the society against this bull,
but it also turned Turkey away from Islam and allied it with the West.
While under the AKP, Turkey seeks to enter the EU, he contends:
“The EU will eventually demand the banning of ezan [the public call
for the five-time prayer] . . . This is the information we got from the
very inside of the EU.” Niyazi, for whom the JDP is degenerate, also
sees the emerging Islamic fashion as “the biggest measurement that
illustrates . . . the deformation among the Islamic community.” Similar
to him, a group of conservative merchants in Iraq displayed manne-
quins wearing colorful and stylish veils on the street as examples of
degenerate Muslim women who “will burn eternally for turning men
into voracious monsters.”5
Despite the fact that secularists and Islamists use opposite
approaches, they arrive at the same conclusion: Islam and modernity
are not compatible and any attempt by Muslims to go beyond this
divide is a mere façade for political Islamism, or the degeneration
of Islam. What I have found in the field, however, did not replicate
any of these accounts. Instead, my empirical research introduces
pious Muslim men and women who moved away both from Islamist
and secularist approaches and engaged modernity in a distinctive
or alternative way in markets, in everyday life, and in politics. This
book aims to examine, understand, and introduce this alternative
form.
A Distinctive Form: Muslimism

Whereas Niyazi depicts modernity as a furious bull attacking Islam,
Derya, a veiled woman, and a women’s rights activist who defines
herself as a devout Muslim, talks about the virtues of modernity in
relation to Islam. For Derya, liberty is necessary for Islam because
“true faith,” she suggests, emerges “in an atmosphere of freedom
and liberty.” She continues, “modernity extends freedoms and liber-
ties . . . and by that, it enables a truly Islamic life.”
Nur and Yasemin, also veiled Muslim women, talked about other
virtues of modernity. Nur, a human rights activist, thinks that by
purifying Islam from the residues of tradition and by stimulating
an investigative mind, modernity can allow Muslims to reclaim
the essence of Islam. She explains, “in Turkey Muslims are gener-
ally traditional Muslims; this is called taklid [imitation] . . . people
imitate what they see from family and community. On the other
side, there is tahkik [enquiry]. Tahkik is when you investigate, when
you ask what it is that I believe . . . modernity . . . challenges taklid
but it encourages people to investigate and to ask. This is . . . good
and necessary.”
Similarly, for the pious but self-defined “democrat” women of
the Capital Women’s Platform (Baskent Kadin Platformu), rather
than degenerating Islamic authenticity and identity, moder-
nity enables “identity-finding and formation.” Both the new veil
designs and civil society organizations were seen through this lens
too. In our discussions on the veil, Yasemin, like other women,
complained that in her college years as a young, veiled girl she had
no alternatives. “Our veils and wardrobes looked all the same, and
all dark colors.” But the new veiling styles, she says, allow self-
expression and individual autonomy. Similarly, for these women,
the Platform, as a professional association, was a place of freedom;
unlike cemaats (religious orders), it welcomed individual difference
and self-expression.
The more I observed and engaged various Islamic groups and
organizations, both in Istanbul and Ankara, the more obvious it
became that the realities of the field were resisting the premises of
INTRODUCTION 5
classical sociological theories on religion and contemporary academic

scholarship in multiple ways.
For one, the sharp division of religion versus modernity that is built
into social science theories of religion simply did not apply to these
groups. In their engagements with modernity and modern institu-
tions and values, these groups were neither submitting to modernity
nor rejecting it. Their lifestyles, political preferences, and religious
temperaments significantly differed both from Islamists and liberal-
like religious formations, invalidating the counter-posing of religion
and modernity.
Second, these groups challenged another binary commonly used
by the scholarship on Islamic movements: a movement must be either
political or cultural. If we find even a hint of political involvement,
then a movement must be oriented toward control of the state—
hence “political Islam”—and if it is not state-oriented, then it must
be apolitical—hence “cultural Islam.”
If the current Muslim engagements of modernity in Turkey are
neither fundamentalist nor liberal, and if they are neither solely cul-
tural nor solely state oriented, then how can we make sense of them?
I argue that the new Muslim engagements of modernity in Turkey
present the emergence of a “new Islamic orthodoxy,” and I term this
form as “Muslimism.”
In using the term “orthodoxy,” rather than referring to the sepa-
ration of orthodoxical and orthopraxic religions, I denote a commit-
ment to a sacred truth. (Although, Muslimism, in fact, exhibits both
being embedded in cultural schema—doxa—and a focus on articulat-
ing practices—praxis). This orthodoxy is “new,” however, because it
rejects both the attitude that modernity and religion are absolutely
incommensurable and the attitude that there is little conflict between
global modernity and religion. In other words, it is neither a liberal
translation of religion into modernist terms nor a fundamentalist
rejection of modernity. Instead, Muslimism is a hybrid identity frame
that embraces aspects of modern life while submitting that life to a
sacred, moral order. It, moreover, is not a self-identified movement
organization, but a cultural frame and identity that inform individu-
als throughout society.
Within this hybrid framework, the main aim is not a political
takeover of the state or the Islamization of the community; it is to
construct a lifestyle in which the individual believer can be incorpo-
rated into modern life while carrying an Islamic identity. This new
form, therefore, is neither state- nor community-centered but indi-
vidual-oriented. The term “Muslim[ism]” aims to reflect the strong
individual-orientation of this new form while clearly distinguishing it

from other, particularly Islamist, types of religious orthodoxies and
formations.
My fieldwork has shown that the Muslimist individual orientation
is informed by a theological empowerment of iman (inner belief) over
external authority, be it the state or religious community. Muslimists
claim that faith is a matter of individual choice, which is voluntary
and kalbi (from the heart), and moral action flows from this heartfelt
choice. Therefore, instead of atomistic individualism, Muslimist indi-
vidual orientation presents the theological primacy of the individual
with respect to spiritual decisions and moral behavior. This theologi-
cal inclination toward the individual branches out to shape Muslimist
cultural preferences and core political metaphors and values. Relative
to social relations and religious community, Muslimists cherish indi-
vidual autonomy and welcome self-expression and uniqueness while
moving away from communitarian/traditional religious establish-
ments (i.e., cemaat) that minimize individual agency and marginalize
self-expression.
Relative to the political sphere, on the other hand, they tend
toward a liberal state model that allows individual agency, choice,
and autonomy with respect to religious, economic, political, and civic
action. This particular political setting requires separation of state
and religious affairs. Neither a religious state nor a secularist state can
provide such freedom, for each equally eliminates and violates indi-
vidual autonomy—the former, for example, by enforcing veiling and
the latter by banning it. Thus, while not state-centered, Muslimism
is neither a mere cultural expression. On the contrary, it articulates a
distinct political ethos and attempts to influence political actors and
political change in line with this ethos.
In this book, I tell the story of this emerging form and its main
architects, “Muslimists.” I examine the historical conditions that
made this new form possible and introduce its substance and content
based on empirical research.
Encounters of the Pious with Modernity

“Some of our daughters who are not sufficiently educated wear head-
scarves under the influence of their social environments, customs, and
traditions—without giving any special thought to it. Yet it is known
that some of our daughters and women who are educated enough to
resist their social environments and customs wear headscarves just
to oppose the principles of the secular Republic, showing that they
INTRODUCTION 7
adopt the ideal of a religious state. For those people, headscarf is no

longer an innocent habit, but a symbol of a world view that opposes
women’s liberty and the fundamental principles of our Republic.”6
This statement was made by the Turkish Council of State in 1984
to end the controversies on the headscarf ban following the Council of
Higher Education policies that expelled veiled girls from universities.
The statement on the headscarf reveals that the Turkish state viewed
Muslims either as “innocent victims of tradition” or as “Islamic fun-
damentalists” threatening the secular/modern character of Turkey.
This particular view of religion is certainly not unique to Turkey. It
finds its broader expression in the almost three-centuries-old secular-
ization paradigm and its normative binaries that continue to inform
contemporary social theory and public policy on religion: “religion
versus modernity” and “cultural versus political.”
Stepping Out of the False Divides:

Religion versus Modernity, Cultural versus Political
The Western adherents of the secularization paradigm as well as
the modernizing elite in the Muslim world presumed a sharp divide
between religion and modernity. According to this divide, as modern-
ization penetrated in societies, religious institutions were to withdraw
into the private sphere. Faced with an increasing plurality of value sys-
tems, the modernized self would eventually lose its faith in religion,7
leading to religion’s permanent decline. These presumptions were
normatively advocated as well; secularization was promoted as the
engine of individual and societal progress.
The late-modern context, however, presented contradictory evi-
dence. Since the 1960s, religiosity has been growing, not declining,8
and, from the 1980s onward, instead of becoming more and more
limited to the private realm, religions and religious groups have moved
more and more into the public space,9 taking on new public roles.10
More recently, religions have also begun to organize beyond the ter-
ritories of the nation-state, exerting influence on and being acknowl-
edged by intergovernmental organizations11; for example, some
religious international non-governmental organizations (INGOs)
now hold consultation status with the United Nations (UN).12
Modern proponents of the secularization paradigm view the con-
tinuing presence of religion in contemporary societies as an anomaly
that requires special explanations: religiosity must be epiphenome-
nal—a tool to express all sorts of social and economic crises13 —or a
feature of a selected few whose modernization is incomplete or has
seriously failed. While seeking special explanations, the modern pro-

ponents of the paradigm14 also extended the normative privileges of
“secular,” presenting it as the automatic solution for complex issues
surrounding contemporary societies and governance, from relations
of state and civil society, to democracy, justice, and pluralism and to
interstate order, multi-culturalism, immigration, and globalization.15
In the last few decades, however, there have been several attempts
to rethink the legacies of the secularization paradigm.16 New meta-
theoretical frames, such as New Social Movements,17 Religious
Market theories,18 Political Processes Perspective,19 as well as the con-
textual 20 and constructive approaches21 used by various disciplines,
have shifted our scholarly attention from special explanations to orga-
nizational aspects of religious mobilization and social movements,
state formation and structure, religious market regulations and ratio-
nal choice, post-industrial demands, and questions of identity and
identity production.
Another line of work addressed the short sightedness of the reli-
gious versus modernity divide more directly22 and highlighted that
religion and modernity can, in fact, coexist. Evidence of coexistence
has been observed even among conservative and orthodox religious
formations. James. D. Hunter, a prominent figure in the sociology of
American religion, did an empirical study on American Evangelicals
that has shown, for example, that a substantial portion of contem-
porary American Evangelicals has been moving away from literal-
ist readings of the Bible while experimenting with political civility,
cultural tolerance and tolerability, and even feminist sensibilities.23
Aspects of modern cultural and political order have been ingrain-
ing themselves within segments of Orthodox Judaism, as well (e.g.,
pursuit of secular occupations, encouragement and institutionaliza-
tion of secular learning in arts and sciences, tolerant attitudes toward
broader culture).24
Similarly, in the Muslim context, discussions about “post-Isla-
mism,” most notably in the works of Asef Bayat 25 and Gelles Kepel, 26
renowned scholars of Islamic movements, have brought to academic
and public attention Islamic groups’ departure—even of strictly
Islamist groups, such as the Muslim brotherhood of Egypt—from
anti-modern and radical Islamic idioms. Islamist rejections of democ-
racy and popular will as alien constructs “westoxificating” Muslims
are no longer appealing, especially for the globally connected and
educated pious youth of the Middle East.
Other works, moreover, have called the normative assumptions
of the secularization paradigm into question, showing that religious
INTRODUCTION 9
groups were not only able to adapt to the pluralist nature of the public
sphere, but they actually contributed to it. Christian democratic par-
ties in Western Europe, for example, incorporated Catholic masses
into a pluralistic political frame and accommodated Catholicism
with democracy.27 In other places, including the US, Latin America,
Eastern and Western Europe, India, Iran, and Indonesia, religious
groups have acted as progressive civil forces, challenging authoritar-
ian states, extending borders of the public sphere, and siding with
prodemocratic forces.28 Within the international arena, as well, reli-
gious groups have managed to enact and observe universal values
(e.g., rationality and pragmatism)29 and, at times, have even contrib-
uted to global problem solving.30
The Turkish case poses more dramatic challenges to the normative
divide of the religious versus the secular. Studies on Turkish mod-
ernization and Islamic movements are now saturated with critiques
of Kemalist-secularism (laïcité/laikli k). These critiques, most vocally
coming from liberal intellectuals, point out that secularism in Turkey
is too assertive31; rather than separating state and religious affairs,
it actually oppresses religion, thus failing to observe principles of
democracy and pluralism. On the other hand, it is “too Sunni and too
Muslim”; by marginalizing religious and denominational minorities,
it fails to accommodate principles of impartiality and neutrality.32
Other studies direct our attention to the flipside of modern
Turkish history: pious groups. These works discuss how religious
actors, especially in the last decade, have been engaging global pro-
cesses and universal values and norms of human rights or democracy
more effectively than the non-religious segments.33 These engage-
ments certainly help religious actors to secure and open up space for
religion in the public sphere; however, such engagements have also
influenced the national polity at large, at times by broadening the
scope of civil rights, and at times by directly challenging the rigid and
state-oriented nature of laicism in Turkey.
Works that have paid close attention to such complex realities of
religion and secularism in contemporary Islamic and Western contexts
have undermined traditional presentations of religion and modernity
as two opposite cultural categories that are sharply separated from
each other. They showed, in contrast, that modernity and religion
interpenetrate and converge and that the boundaries thought to sepa-
rate them are, in fact, blurred. These observations have opened up
new epistemological space for the social scientific study of religion in
which we can finally step out of the religion versus modernity divide
and rethink both categories along new lines.
This book and my work on Muslimism find its place in this new
epistemological space. Yet, by defining Muslimism as a “new religious
orthodoxy,”34 the book also attempts to expand this new space and to
push the rethinking of religion and modernity to a deeper level.
Despite the current attempts to rethink religion, especially Islam,
discussions mainly criticize the false separation of religion versus
modernity at a conceptual level. When it comes to examinations of
actual religion-modernity interactions, however, most studies resort
back to a binary analysis, expecting religion to choose between “a
sterile conservation of its pre-modern characteristics and a self-effacing
assimilation to the secularized world.”35 In other words, the general
perception is that, in response to modernizing processes, religions
will either become fundamentalist orthodoxies, rejecting modernity
with an impulse to protect authenticity, or liberal formations, secular-
izing tradition to accommodate modernity.36
In studies of Islam-modernity encounters, these prescriptions
(accommodation and rejection) become slightly modified. This
is partly due to the depiction of Islam as an “exceptional” religion
(Islam is intrinsically anti-modern, secularization-resistant, and
political)37 and partly due to the domination of the religious field of
Muslim countries either by Islamist or by secularist establishments.
Accordingly, the academic observations of Islam-modernity inter-
actions have been mostly confined to a narrow spectrum polarized
between extreme examples of state-imposed secularization, aggres-
sively pushing religion into private/cultural spheres, and state-im-
posed Islamization and its theocratic designation of public/political
spheres. In the case of Turkey, for example, until the early 1990s,
we would mainly find either Kemalist (secularist) appropriations of
Islam, fully submitting Islam to modernity and to the state, or state-
centered Islamist expressions, depicting secular-modernity as anti-
Islamic and hence forbidden to Muslims.
Informed by this framework, within the divide of rejection/accom-
modation, most studies suggest that Islam gears toward a rejection of
modernity, and that this rejection is geared toward a political takeover
of the state. It follows, then, when or if Islam adapts to modernity,
it also simultaneously withdraws from the political realm, making a
social/cultural turn and becoming depoliticized.
Is there really no alternative for the pious individual, Muslim or
otherwise, than totally rejecting modernity or fully assimilating to
it? More specific to Islam, are Muslims stuck between the options
of “political Islam” and theocracy as ways to conserve tradition and
“cultural Islam,” which means abandoning the political sphere and
INTRODUCTION 11
submitting Islam to the foster care of an aggressively secular-state

and public policy?
Muslimism as a New Islamic Orthodoxy:

A Guilt-Free Modernity and Islam
without Apology
Undermining the traditional binary views, Muslimism is a “new
religious orthodoxy” that allows Muslims to embrace modern insti-
tutions and values while observing sacred imperatives. Muslimists
neither reject nor submit to modernity; instead, they embrace aspects
of modern life while simultaneously submitting that life to a sacred,
moral order. More specifically, Muslimism is a hybrid identity frame
empowering engagements between Islam and secular-modernity in
innovative ways.
This hybrid frame challenges the hegemony of the secularist state
in defining modernity and how to be modern and the hegemony
of Islamist establishments on defining “true Islam” and authentic
Muslims. Muslimists transform the forbidden modern38 into a guilt-
free modernity39 in which modernity is no longer reduced to a sum of
evil effects destroying religious sensitivities or offending the Muslim
conscience. For example, for Muslimists, self-styling the Islamic veil
in accord with modern fashion does not degenerate the veil or the
women who wear the veil, nor does a pluralistic public sphere and
desacralization of the state prevent the emergence of truly faithful
individuals and societies.
While reformulating modernity, Muslimists also redefine Islam to
be unapologetic. This is not an exercise of liberal religious reform
accommodating Islam to modernity. Rather, it is an effort to revital-
ize faith in the context of contemporary modern life, in particular
by attempting to filter out traditional practices arrogated to Islam
throughout Islamic history. This conscious effort to free Islam from
tradition most notably includes Muslimists’ active engagement of
intellectual and theological debates across classes and gender. In fact,
Muslimist women often spearhead such efforts; they openly promote
a new Islamic female politics by retrieving evidence from sacred texts,
Islamic history, and figures. The unapologetic Islam, then, frees Islam
from its national and global stigmas; Islam is no longer understood
as the sacred antithesis of modernity. One can be a devout Muslim
woman and still look like Grace Kelly and choose career over mar-
riage, or an Islam-inspired party can be pro-EU and favor a demo-
cratic and liberal national polity at the same time.
In sum, going beyond the formula of “sharia plus electricity,”

the Muslimist hybridization allows Islamic and modern identities to
interpenetrate and even complement each other (e.g., the Muslimist
argument that modernity allows for true Islam by undermining
“incorrect” tradition). Importantly, rather than secularizing Muslims,
hybridity makes Islamic identity more salient by enabling the pious
to practice religion within a secular cultural program without either
rejecting it or submitting to it.
Individual-Orientation
My empirical observations have shown that within this hybrid frame-
work, believers’ orientations toward the social order (politics, reli-
gion, social relations) and its agents (state, community, individual)
are significantly different from what we find within fundamentalist
orthodoxies and liberal-religious frames. Paralleling this, the political
and sociological implications of Muslimism are also significantly dif-
ferent from that of Islamist and liberal formations.
Differing from Islamist orthodoxies, within the compass of
Muslimism, the main aim is not a political takeover of the state to
Islamize the society nor is it the Islamization of the community to
eventually bring on an Islamic state. Thus, Muslimism is neither
state- nor community-centered. The main concern, instead, is to for-
mulate a lifestyle in which the individual believer can be incorporated
into modernity without being marginalized and while preserving an
Islam-observant living. Thus, Muslimism is individual-oriented.
Empirical evidence shows that Muslimist individual-orientation
is filtered through theological notions, specifically the definition of
true faith or true piety as iman. According to Muslimists, true faith
emanates from the individual’s iman (inner belief) and kalb (heart),
and neither iman nor kalb can be controlled or regulated by exter-
nal authority (the state or the community) and its interventions (law
enforcement or societal pressures). As such, Muslimists see faith as a
matter of individual choice, that is voluntary and from the heart, and
they cherish “faith as choice” to be more meaningful and valuable
than faith as forced by state or community. Moreover, when faith is
an individual choice, it also becomes a conscious choice rather than
blind submission to tradition.
Faith as a voluntary and conscious choice or the emphasis on iman
works as an overarching cognitive frame informing the theological
meaning and functions ascribed to the individual, community, and
the state. This theological framing, in turn, configures political and
INTRODUCTION 13
social relationships among the individual, state, and society as well as

their position vis-à-vis matters of faith.
Iman and Individual

For Islamists, external authority is theologically central for establish-
ing and maintaining a true Islamic community and faithful indi-
viduals. The Muslimist emphasis on iman, in contrast, increases the
theological value of the individual while undermining the theo-
logical value and functions of external authorities—the state and/
or community.
This theological shift from external sources to the individual,
however, does not create a vacuum of religious authority (nor did
Calvinist critiques of the Catholic Church). Instead, iman acts as a
much more powerful and effective source of control than external
authority: Iman is constant and ever present, directing the Muslim
self toward hayir (permissible) and away from haram (impermissible).
This function of iman continues whether law/state or community is
present,40 and at the most clandestine and private levels, where exter-
nal control is least relevant and ineffective. Accordingly, Muslimism
depicts the individual as the main locus of faith and religious
conduct.
Iman and Community

As the self becomes key to spiritual decisions and moral action,
Muslimists also move away from traditional religious communities
that minimize individual autonomy and agency. For Islamists, the
community reinforces or takes on the state’s role by conforming to
prescribed conduct and accepted interpretations of such conduct—
for example, veiling in particular formats such as using particular
colors and styles—as external indexes to measure one’s faithfulness.
Deviation from prescribed conduct—self-expression or modifica-
tion—is depicted to be degenerate and inauthentic.
Muslimists, in contrast, redefine and reorganize religious commu-
nity into a sort of a sodality where they can still be strongly committed
to a moral community (umma), a common good, and a shared iden-
tity, but, simultaneously, discover and realize individual choice, pref-
erence, difference, and independency. This process is not a rejection
of communal life per se, but its conservative transformation, a quest
for community’s recognition and legitimization of one’s uniqueness.
This is not an individual self that is autonomous, freed from God
or Islam, either, but from particular communal religious forms that
have accreted power over the ages as socially constructed expressions
of supposed piety. Self-fashioning the veil, forming and joining pro-

fessional and voluntary associations while leaving religious orders
(cemaat), or consulting with theology professors or religious intel-
lectuals instead of submitting to prophetic elites for religious learning
make strong statements about these Muslimist demands for individu-
ation, self-expression, and individual autonomy. These demands have
in fact brought the self into a broader relief by challenging traditional
social codes and relations. Within that, Muslimist women are play-
ing a particularly significant role by questioning patriarchal codes
and notions about gender and womanhood, showing, therefore, the
potent agency of women in transforming Muslim conceptions of the
self and community. These emerging practices also illustrate how
Muslimist theological demands and perceptions result in sociological
demands and shifts.
Iman and Liberal State

The undermining of external authorities (state and community) both
theologically and sociologically, nevertheless, does not indicate an
apolitical orthodoxy or a mere cultural expression. Both Islamists
and Muslimists articulate a political ethos in line with their theologi-
cal and sociological demands, one emphasizing external control and
homogeneity and the other internal ethics and individual autonomy.
Similarly, they both ascribe to the state a theological function. For
Islamists, the state grants Allah’s will by enforcing religion and reli-
gious conduct (e.g., banning alcohol). In contrast, for Muslimists, the
state grants Allah’s will by guaranteeing freedom of choice, allowing
believers to voluntarily choose between haram and helal (e.g., drink-
ing or not).
The theological function that Muslimists assign to the state can-
not be exercised by an Islamic state because it imposes religious con-
duct, thereby eliminating individual choice and violating individual
autonomy. However, this does not remove Muslimists (or Islam) from
the political sphere. Muslimists are also distrustful of the secularist
state for the state’s tendency to co-opt the sacred, equally eliminating
individual choice and violating individual autonomy.
Muslimists find the solution in embracing a state design that would
observe principles of democracy and liberalism, and a separation of
the bureaucratic state from religious organizations and authority.
They push for a state design that would frame its attitudes about
faith and the individual within a liberal polity. As such, Muslimists
attempt to reframe state purpose and effect political change. For that,
they mobilize as civil organizations; attempt to exert civic pressure
INTRODUCTION 15
on political elites and public experts, at times by allying with interna-

tional institutions (in particular, the EU); and give electoral support
to political parties that are sympathetic to their sentiments. During
the period of this empirical study, at the time of the interviews, and
in the few years following, Muslimist support has been given to the
JDP. As I discuss more fully in the concluding chapter when drawing
out current implications, with the seeming drifting of the party away
from core Muslimist sentiments, particularly individual rights, this
relationship likely will evolve. In that sense, while not state centered,
Muslimism is not a mere cultural expression either; it engages the
political arena and seeks to effect political change by attempting to
inform state and political actors.
A Note on Conceptualization
The current academic lexicon presents us with the term “Islamism”
as the main conceptual tool to think about and speak of collective
Islamic action (movements) and expression. However, despite the
generous employment of the term by scholars and pundits, Islamism
is far from being a neutral (or flexible) concept that is usable as an
umbrella term. The term “Islamism” is derived from and definitive
of a particular style of movement. It refers to a religious ideology that
perceives an inherent divide between Islam and modernity, as such
seeking retrieval of an Islamic moral-political order, either by estab-
lishing an Islamic state or by creating an ideological umma.
Representing this quite particular content or form, Islamism is
an analytical category that carries with it particular ontological and
epistemological assumptions. We implicitly reproduce and agree with
these assumptions every time we employ the term to define a given
Islamic movement, whether or not this movement really fits with the
category of Islamism.
Contemporary Muslim engagements of modernity in Turkey dra-
matically challenge the assumptions that are embedded in Islamism,
because they embody a new type of orthodoxy. This orthodoxy devi-
ates from Islamism in its theological, political, and cultural orienta-
tions, as well as its temperaments and attitudes. For example, this
new orthodoxy sees Islam as an identity commitment instead of a
religious ideology, thus opening up space for religious innovation
and reform. It emphasizes inner ethics, rights, and individual choice
over external authority, and it acknowledges pluralism and promotes
cultural tolerance, expanding interaction with the secular and non-
Muslim “other.” Furthermore, in its orientation to the state, this new
orthodoxy tends toward a liberal state in place of an Islamic state,

addresses individual rights vis-à-vis authoritarianism, and favors vol-
untary associational agency and individual enterprise over the state
and traditional religious communities.
These differences reveal how using the category of Islamism as a
general label seriously limits our capacity to think about contempo-
rary Islamic mobilization in Turkey. The category of Islamism blinds
our academic sight to cultural shifts, religious innovations, lifestyle
changes, and the ongoing identity transformations that are translated
into a distinct Islamic expression and orthodoxy in the hands of a
new Muslim status group in Turkey. This new orthodoxy calls for a
new term that can communicate its novelty and that can clearly dis-
tinguish its content from Islamism and its variants.
Other scholars have also recognized the problems with using the
term “Islamism” universally, as they observed the emerging Islamic
discourses and movements that deviated from Islamist discourse and
groups. As a response to these observations, several concepts have
been suggested; the most prevalent one being “moderate Islamism.”
Although this has been helpful in drawing attention to major religious
changes, there are various problems with the term “moderate Islam,”
or “moderate religion,” more generally. For one, moderate Islamism
is derived from the term “Islamism” itself by adding an adjective to it,
hence, confining religious change within the epistemological package
of Islamism. We need concepts that are versatile enough to be open
to religious innovations and novel forms. More importantly, moder-
ate Islamism/Islam still implies that Islam is intrinsically fundamen-
talist; moderate occurs when the “radicalism of Islam” is softened
or pacified. This marginalizes any deeply held religious belief and,
in fact, reinforces the assumed divide between Islam and modernity
while provoking further questions: What sort of religiosity is moder-
ate? Who is acceptable as moderate? Does moderate exclude any pas-
sionately felt religious commitments?
The concept “post-Islamism,” as used by Asef Bayat, has been
more successful in pointing to the emergence of new Islamic move-
ments and expressions in various Muslim contexts that depart from
state-centered and radical Islamic idioms. Nonetheless, although his
description of post-Islamism41 is extremely insightful, the concept says
little about the actual content. On the other hand, Jenny White has
made an efficient break from the category of Islamism by using the
term “cultural Muslimhood,”42 a model in which Islam becomes a
personal attribute in one’s public political identity, replacing political
Islamism.43 Muslimhood, however, is not fully adequate to describe
INTRODUCTION 17
the new orthodoxy in Turkey; it sounds too communitarian and too

cultural (or soft) for an individual-oriented form whose actors con-
sciously promote their view of religion and modernity and are politi-
cally involved.
Based on what I observed in the field and given the ongoing theo-
retical debates, I propose the term “Muslimism” to describe this new
form. Linguistically, by using the term “Muslimism,” I want to com-
municate the individual-oriented nature of this new orthodoxy, sepa-
rating it from state- or community-centered Islamism. Muslimism is
not essentially nor is it reducible to a political ideology. It also is not a
formal social movement; individuals and diverse groups and associa-
tions do not identify as members of a formal movement organization.
Nevertheless, it still is useful to refer to it as an “ism,” as it capitalizes a
particular reading of Islam and modernity, challenging both Islamist
and liberal readings. It also is necessary to use shorthand throughout
this book referring to a Muslimist status group, Muslimist group, or
Muslimist civic association. This phrasing is used only to make the
argument less cumbersome, but I will throughout remind the reader
that these are not self-identified social movements with logos, news-
letters, and meetings that mobilize under the name Muslimism.
As a concept, on the other hand, Muslimism has both an analytic
and empirical status. In the former sense, Muslimism signifies a new
category of religion that cannot be captured by the term “Islamism”
and its epistemological assumptions about religion. As an identifica-
tion of a new religious form, Muslimism brings with it a new set of
possible assumptions about religion: Islamic actors need not be either
fundamentalist or liberal but can engage modern life by using reli-
gion more diversely. Moreover, and paralleling its linguistic usage,
Muslimism suggests that in examining Islamic movements, we need
to focus our attention on agent articulations of religion taking place
in a particular cultural context, rather than treating Islam as a static
category independent of actors who bring life to it by their interpreta-
tions and practices. As such, Muslimism enables us to recognize the
plurality of the Muslim socio-political landscape.
Although not a self-identified, formal movement, Muslimism is
also an empirical category in the sense that it emphasizes a specific
empirical pattern: distinguishable theological, political, and cultural
orientations. Those patterns are manifested in concrete institutions
(e.g., human rights organizations), lifestyles (e.g., fashion, gender
relations), discourses, and a new political ethos and, they are located
in a new Muslim status group cross-cutting sectors of society, such as
university students, civil activists, politicians, and entrepreneurs.
In sum, by using the term “Muslimism,” I draw our attention to an

emerging Muslim religious form practiced by men and women who,
enabled by certain social conditions, have generated a new Islamic
orthodoxy by embracing modern, everyday life institutions, values,
and habits. I also show how these engagements are rooted in deep
Islamic theological and intellectual debates and are more than instru-
ments utilized to open up the public space for the religious. Here,
rather than examining whether Islam intrinsically rejects modernity
(as suggested by Islamist skeptics of modernity and secularist skep-
tics of Islam) or spurs modernization (as suggested by apologists of
Islam), I aim to identify the specific conditions that enabled the emer-
gence of the Muslimist form and to understand the particular content
and substance of Muslimism.44
The emergence of an Islamic expression that is qualitatively dis-
tinct from Islamism, however, does not signify the end of Islamism.
Instead, it indicates that Islamism no longer dominates the religious
field in Turkey and it is losing its previous cultural salience and rel-
evance for a growing number of Muslims. Nevertheless, both cat-
egories co-exist in the society and among devout Muslims, and the
success and continuation of Muslimism and the decline or reversal of
Islamism are ultimately based on historical contingency.
Understanding the Rise of Muslimism

What conditions have led to the emergence and success of Muslimism?
Who are the agents that formulate and exercise it? Where can we
locate Muslimism in the social landscape?
The literature on moderation of Islamic forces in Turkey is bifur-
cated between two streams of thought, one speaking merely of
political mechanisms and the other of cultural mechanisms. This
bifurcation also treats cultural and political processes as forces pull-
ing Islam in opposite directions, either toward the political sphere or
toward everyday life and culture.45
The formation of the JDP by a group of reformist politicians, who
left their previous Islamic parties to form a “moderate” Islamic polit-
ical party, has revived and expanded the classical political approach46
to “Islamic moderation.” This approach attributes Islam’s moderation
in Turkey to Turkey’s well-working multi-party system, secularizing
reforms backed up by a strong army,47 and strategic convergences
between state and Islamic political elites.48 This particular political
context, in which the state has made an openly fundamentalist posi-
tion impossible, yet has given Islamic actors access to the political
INTRODUCTION 19
center, forced Islamic parties to strategically adapt to the democratic

game49 while these tactical adaptations have eventually, but unin-
tentionally, resulted in internalization of value change.50 The JDP,
here, is seen as the main agent of religious change. Some argue that
the party has absorbed revolutionary movements into the political
system and, hence, a passive revolution led by the party moderated
Islam and Turkish Muslims at large.51 In short, this approach finds
underlying mechanisms and actors of religious change ultimately in
the political realm, which then influences (or “moderates”) segments
of religious society.
For a number of scholars who challenge this exclusive focus on
political mechanisms in the post-1980s Turkey, Islam has made
a cultural turn, becoming “cultural (or civil) Islam.”52 For these
scholars, contemporary Islamic movements are increasingly becom-
ing autonomous from the political system. They are interested in
cultural questions and expressions (e.g., identity and lifestyle) and
claim cultural surplus in place of political power, organize around
civil formations instead of political parties, and take on social
action in place of political mobilization.53 This shift from the state
to everyday life is argued to be evident in the flourishing of new
Islamic lifestyles, Islamic civil formations speaking of human rights
or environmentalism, and the rise of an alternative public sphere.54
Extreme interpretations within this approach attribute religious
change to market penetration of Islam and embourgification of
Muslims, generating an Islam of consumerism.55 More specifically,
they associate Muslim engagements of modernity with an Islam-
consumption fusion taking place in the market (e.g., Islamic hotels
and veil fashion).56 In short, this approach confines the content of
religious change to cultural temperaments and counter-poses politi-
cal and cultural actors, placing Islamic actors and expression in
depoliticized or “thin” cultural spaces.
By telling the story of Muslimism, I aim to overcome this bifur-
cated thinking. In particular, I intend to show that Muslimism can-
not be reduced either to political adaptations (or the “moderation of
Islam”), strategic or unintentional, or to the “thinning” of Islamic
discourse as a result of a putative cultural turn or a commodifica-
tion of Islam. Muslimism emerged in everyday life spaces in a quest
to establish new institutions and lifestyles that would allow Muslims
to rework aspects of modernity. Yet, in line with their theological
and cultural attitudes, Muslimist men and women have also articu-
lated a political ethos; acting on their needs, and to bring about this
ethos, they have subsequently moved into politics getting linked to
political parties. The JDP manifested this new Islamic political ethos.
An argument that I pursue is that many Muslimists became active
in the party and influenced it, while other factions, especially those
from the old Movement, simply used a sympathetic language that
appealed to Muslimists. The new style of Islamic politics the JDP
presented in its early terms, in other words, was located in an emerg-
ing Muslim status group and their comprehensive engagements of
modernity. Religious change in Turkey, as such, is not reducible to
the mere effect of a political party, even as it is important to under-
stand how a new Islamic orthodoxy articulated by a broad range of
actors interacts with party politics. This, importantly, also allows us
to recognize the highly conditional nature of the JDP’s discourse and
identity, and make sense of the current shifts in the party without
falling back into the essentialist divide of Islam versus modernity.
The Historical Background of Muslimism

Muslimism emerged in the post-1980s along with financial liberal-
ization, loosening state control over religion, democratization, and a
flourishing of civic associational life. These domestic conditions were
coupled with a favorable international context: the globalization of
markets, the end of the Cold War, and the prospect of EU member-
ship reinforced Muslimism while preventing serious backlashes both
from statist and Islamist frames.
Liberalizing reforms facilitated Muslimism by creating a favorable
context for religious change. By undermining statism, the liberal con-
text provided new organizational sources and new opportunity spaces
for religious mobilization, while shifting the axis of modernity/mod-
ernization away from the state. Notions of the liberal order (i.e., indi-
viduality, market, identity politics, and associational life) became the
new principles defining modern life and replacing statist ones (i.e.,
laicism, corporatism, economic etatism, elitism, and westernization).
This decoupling of modernity from the state dramatically toned down
the anti-Islamic content of modernity, allowing the pious to rethink
aspects of the modern cultural program and to reevaluate modernity
independently from statist definitions.
On the other hand, vis-à-vis the opening up of new opportunity
spaces for religious mobilization and the declining of state control,
Islamist establishments that had developed in the mirror image of and
found meaning in relation to strict state control over religious prac-
tice and production were also weakened. Islamism gradually lost its
cultural appeal and political relevance, creating yet another vacuum,
INTRODUCTION 21
this time allowing pious actors to contest existing religious expres-

sions and rearticulate religious identities.
Liberalizing policies, moreover, generated a new Muslim status
group, ranging from petty entrepreneurs rooted in Anatolia, to civil
activists, intellectuals (theology faculties, in particular), and students.
For this educated, urbanized, and upwardly mobile Muslim group,
neither state secularism nor Islamism is attractive as styles of society
or governance. In other words, these pious men and women, who
are passionate about religious commitments and highly suspicious
of the secularist state, are also at odds with traditional and Islamist
religious establishments. This group is open to religious innovation,
particularly in relation to a lifestyle in which the pious individual can
engage and exercise aspects of modern life while observing a proper
Muslim life.
In the early 1990s, using the opportunities created by the
liberalizing reforms, this new Muslim status group engaged contem-
porary institutions by using Islam to formulate an Islam-observant
life that was also commensurate with modernity. Yet, as they have
prevailed in these institutions, from capitalist markets to political
formations, they also reshaped them into “cultural sites of hybridity.”
These sites are where Muslimism is actually produced. In these sites,
Muslims directly experiment with Islam-modernity amalgamations
and redefine modernity to be “guilt free” and Islam to be “unapolo-
getic,” challenging the Islamist hegemony on defining “authentic”
Islam and “true” Muslim and the secularist hegemony on defining
who and what is “modern.”
Cultural Sites of Hybridity: From Everyday

Life to Politics, Fashion to Liberal State
The cultural sites of hybridity were first crystallized in everyday life.
They include, for example, Islamic hotels with gender-segregated
pools/beaches, free of alcohol and gambling; veil-designing salons
that style the veil (instead of hair); and Islamic restaurants and fit-
ness clubs. They also include character education schools that empha-
size inner discipline and character-building in their curriculum over
mere religious education. We, moreover, find these sites in the form
of business associations that articulate free-market and civic associa-
tional life with Islamic and local values, human rights organizations
that attempt a synthesis of Islamic and Western definition of human
rights, and women’s organizations that promote a new Islamic female
politics by questioning established codes of gender embedded both
in traditional religious interpretations and modern everyday life

practices.
In the sites of hybridity, devout men and women rethink and
restructure various aspects of their everyday life, from body and gen-
der politics, leisure and entertainment, parenting and education, to
character and ethics, faith and religious conduct, production of Islamic
knowledge and religious authority, to civil activism and human rights,
and work and wealth. These renegotiations result in new theologi-
cal (e.g., an emphasis on faith as choice—iman) and socio-cultural
(e.g., individual autonomy) temperaments and demands that dis-
tinguish Muslimism from other Islamic formations, especially from
Islamist expressions. The political accountings of religious change fail
to recognize that religious transformation and innovation are, in fact,
rooted in everyday engagements of Islam and modernity.
Even though the sites of hybridity and Muslimism were first
crystallized in everyday life spaces, they subsequently moved into
the political sphere. This transfer takes place at two levels. On one
level, Muslimists have generated a new political ethos, which, dif-
fering both from Islamist and secular politics, reframes modern
political values to be congruent with Islam and articulates a style
of governance in line with its theological and cultural demands; for
instance, Muslimist demands for individual autonomy and empha-
sis on iman produce positive attitudes about the liberal state and
democracy.
Second and at a practical level, by way of inspiring Islamic politi-
cians, the Muslimist political ethos generates sympathetic elites and
translates its demands into new laws and policies, thus effecting polit-
ical change. It was the JDP that most successfully picked up on the
Muslimist political ethos and articulated aspects of Muslimism into
its program and discourse, getting, as such, support from Muslimists,
even recruiting them. Hence, the party, rather than being the archi-
tect of Muslimism, functioned at the time as a political actor carry-
ing Muslimist sentiments into the political sphere and giving them
visibility.
In conclusion, approaches that view religious change either as a
mere creation of political agents or as a mere cultural expression fail
to provide an adequate interpretation of Muslimism. Challenging
both views, the story of Muslimism reveals the intertwining of
everyday life and politics and the bridges that connect cultural and
political spaces. It shows how cultural actors, civil formations, and
political elites interact with and influence each other and how cul-
tural demands and attributes translate into political ones, traveling
INTRODUCTION 23
back and forth between separate but interconnected everyday life and
political spaces.
The Scope: Entering into Key Muslimist Sites

through the Islamic Three Ds
The cultural sites of hybridity are the empirical spaces where
Muslimism is produced. Therefore, by entering these sites, we can
directly engage producers of Muslimism, analyze the content of
Muslimism, and trace the processes involved in religious change and
innovation.
Based on several months of pilot research (ethnographic mapping
and interviews) with various Islamic civil organizations and political
formations, I selected four organizations as potential sites of hybrid-
ity, which both in practice and discourse, perceptibly challenged both
Islamist and liberal religious accounts, but that also presented what
I call “Muslimist tendencies.” These organizations are the CWPA
(Capital Women’s Platform),57 MAZLUM-DER (Association of
Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People),58 MUSIAD
(Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association),59 and the
JDP. It should be noted that I am not advancing an analysis of these
organizations in their full scope. Rather, these organizations, meth-
odologically, function as “congregating places,” in which I hypoth-
esize Muslimist actors would gather.60 This treatment is similar also to
“targeted sampling.”61 I do not develop here an analysis of the JDP
and its party politics either. Instead, I point to the degree to which
the party at the time of the interviews and the study, coinciding with
its first two terms, articulated Muslimists elements in its program and
discourse, therefore demonstrating how Muslimist sensibilities would
look like at the political level. Furthermore, throughout manuscript,
the Muslimists’ discussions on and the view of the party reflect their
observations of the early periods and style of the party.
By including four organizations, composed of a women’s rights
organization, a human rights association, a business association,
and a political party, I aim to capture two things. First, identifying
Muslimism in these different contexts will reflect the diffuse nature of
Muslimism across sectors of everyday life including politics. Second,
this will help identify differences among Muslimists operating in dif-
ferent spheres of society or to capture any disparate layers/dimensions
of Muslimism.
After my initial entrance into the sites of hybridity through pilot-
research, I developed an analytical framework to systematically
examine the general content/substance and the particular tempera-

ments of Muslimism on my return to the selected sites for formal
research. This framework is based on the notion of the “Islamic three
ds,” corresponding to major dimensions of the Islamic heritage: din
(religion), dunya (this world), and dawla (the state).62
By analyzing how Muslimists design each “Islamic d” (politics and
state, religion and theological aspirations, and everyday life) and how
they configure the relations among the state, community, and indi-
vidual, we can clearly discern the attitudes and temperaments that
separate Muslimism from Islamist formations. For a more detailed
distinction, I further expand the notion of the Islamic three ds by
looking at Muslimist “reality orientations” toward each realm (each
Islamic d): ontology, the meta-view of a given realm, agency, the
actors that are assigned agency to attain a particular meta-view, and
action, the type of action that the agents take up to attain that par-
ticular meta-view. In using ontology as a meta-view, I refer to how
people understand and view and assign meaning to reality, whether
this pertains to religion, the world, or the political. This usage of
ontology follows the leads of cultural analyses that view culture as a
constructed reality.63
To utilize the three ds framework, I developed an open-ended
questionnaire, and upon my return to the selected sites of hybridity, I
interviewed the leaders and founders of the selected organizations.64
The questionnaire, in other words, worked as a compass that gave me
direction within the selected sites and among Muslimists. It bears
repeating that the interviews are snapshots of Muslimist attitudes in
these sites during 2006 and 2008.
In the end, the empirical work in the sites of hybridity has pro-
duced a cognitive map that introduces the main/core Muslimist
political, theological, and socio-cultural temperaments and attitudes.
This map facilitates our understanding of Muslimism not only by
portraying it, but also, through its unpacking of political, cultural
and theological aspects of Muslimism, allowing us to trace the conti-
nuities and transitions between everyday life and political spaces (and
actors), revealing the multifaceted nature of Muslimism. Second, it
situates Muslimism within the broader literature on the content and
discourse of Islamic orthodoxies.
The Outline of the Book

In Chapters 1 and 2, I first explain the historical mechanisms that
have made Muslimism possible. Rather than a historical summary
INTRODUCTION 25
of Muslimism, this chapter is an analytical-historical treatment

that shows how and why certain conditions (domestic and foreign)
favored the successful rise of Muslimism while disfavoring Islamism
in Turkey.
Second, I modify (Chapter 2) the Islamic three ds framework,
developing an ideal cognitive schema that we can use to map the dis-
course and content of religious orthodoxies. I then apply this schema
to Islamist orthodoxy. The mapping of the Islamist formulation of
the three ds is not to redefine Islamism; instead, it is to establish a
comparative base to pinpoint the concrete ways and key issues that
differentiate Muslimist and Islamist orthodoxies.
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 present the empirical findings of my work in
the sites of hybridity. Building upon the Islamic three ds framework
developed in the previous part, each empirical chapter analyzes one
specific facet of Muslimism, together creating the Muslimist cogni-
tive schema.
In Chapter 3, I analyze the theological foundations of Muslimism.
Chapter 4 investigates Muslimist engagements with secular-modernity,
its values, and its institutions in everyday life. In the last empirical
chapter (Chapter 5), I lay out the Muslimist political temperaments
and attitudes.
In addition to showing the contours of particular Muslimist
temperaments, the analysis of Muslimist reality orientations also
revealed micro-processes involved in the production of Muslimism,
in particular, the tensions that emerge as Muslimists engage moder-
nity, how they make sense of and handle these tensions, and the
limits of Islam-modernity engagements. The empirical findings
show that those tensions are especially and more directly experienced
by women. In fact, I have also discovered that women tend to be
more assertive on certain issues (self-expression, personal autonomy,
critiquing patriarchal family and traditional religious codes) sug-
gesting that female agency will be significant for the continuation
and shaping of cultural innovation and theological reform. Overall,
however, Muslimism opens up space for and provokes progressive
theological debates on women, sexuality, and Islam.
The central task of this book is to understand contemporary
religious transformation in Turkey, introduce the content of this
transformation and identify the particular conditions for it. This task
recently has become more pressing with implications of religious and
political changes in the country reaching well beyond Turkey.
The Arab-awakening further intensified scholarly debates about
whether the so-called Turkish model of “Muslim democracy” could
be a viable solution for the region. With the more recent moving away
of factions of the JDP’s leadership from its early commitments to a
liberal democracy, however, debates have taken a new turn, announc-
ing the fall of “Turkish model.”
Either way, in the last decade or so, the global audience has been
treating Turkey as the grand test for Islam’s compatibility with, and
future in modern politics. But viewing Islamic interactions with
democratic values and institutions with an excessive focus on politics,
these debates have also limited the terms of this test to the politi-
cal arena and actors. By showing that the so-called Turkish style of
Muslim democracy is deeply entrenched in comprehensive Muslim
engagements of modernity and broader theological and cultural
changes, rather than being a mere product political mechanisms and
actors, the book offers a crucial starting point for any serious discus-
sion on the changing relationships between Muslims and modernity
in Turkey and what these changes imply for the region in terms of
policy-making and for our thinking about Islam in a late modern
context more generally. The approach developed here suggests that
rather than asking whether the Turkish model can be retrieved and
can be used to channel political development in the region per se, we
need to recognize the rise of a shared quest in the region to break free
from Islamist and secularist prescriptions and divides, and articulate a
new style of society and religion where one can engage contemporary
life and institutions (from extended political rights to economic and
social upward mobility to leisure) while remaining within the sym-
bolic boundaries of a faith.
Relative to Turkey, the future of Muslimism will depend on various
factors. In the years following my fieldwork, Muslimism and the sites
of hybridity have become more institutionalized in everyday life. But
at the political level, Muslimist elements have been less manifested
in government policies. Although the JDP government did initially
bring Muslimist elements to the surface and incorporated them into
reforms and political change, since the beginning of its third term in
the office (2011), it seems to have been rolling back on these reforms.
If the party continues in this direction, Muslimism could lose its
political outlet and general viability, and any number of outcomes
might result, which I take up in the last chapter.
In my concluding remarks, I will moreover suggest looking glob-
ally, Muslimism is not unique in its approach at articulating ratio-
nalistic institutions and religious tradition. There are indications of
religious movements and forms, including non-Islamic traditions
that, similar to Muslimism, are neither liberal syncretism in which
INTRODUCTION 27
individuals pick and chose to form an idiosyncratic religiosity, nor

fundamentalism. Using Muslimism, we can inferentially build to
describe such movements as a potential general type of religious
engagement, “new religious orthodoxies” (NROs),65 which has not
been captured by previous theories.
One prominent example within Islam is the new but rapidly grow-
ing Mipsterz (Muslim Hipsters) movement and fashion in the US
spearheaded by young Muslim immigrants. This emerging blend
between Islam and hipster culture reflects young Muslims’ growing
claim that their identity involves being passionately Muslim but, at
the very same time, already and rightfully modern and American—a
claim that the categories of liberal versus fundamentalist Islam
cannot make sense of or actually recognize. On the other hand,
within Christianity, Evangelicalism, in the US particularly, is an
example,66 and the NRO may be an especially helpful concept in
solving a longstanding problem in the sociology of American religion
of how precisely to categorize Evangelicalism. I conclude the book
by reemphasizing the conditional and historically contingent nature
of Muslimism and by identifying conditions that might undermine
Muslimism.
CH A P T ER 1
From Forbidden Modern to

Guiltless Modernity
Keriman (of Organization X)1 said:

Islam says that nobody is superior over the other; the only superior-
ity is the one related with being a servant [kul ] to Allah. When we
look at the West, we don’t see that . . . After the World War II, the
West . . . made agreements for human rights . . . like United Nations
Human Rights Convention . . . these . . . are not genuine . . . I believe
that the hope for the whole world is in Islam’s understanding of
justice and rights.
Nur (of MAZLUM-DER) said:
When I develop my philosophy or approach to human rights, or when
I express myself, I refer both to Islam and to Western human rights.
I am not putting the Western contracts aside, the Western contracts
of human rights are also my values.
These statements are part of my separate conversations with

Keriman and Nur on compatibilities and divergences between Islam
and modernity (and the West). Both human rights activists, Nur
and Keriman are veiled women who both claim to conduct a life in
Istanbul in careful observance of Islam’s rules. Whereas Keriman
sharply divides Islam and modernity, Nur points to convergences
between the two. Rather than being idiosyncrasies, these views rep-
resent two distinct religious formations in Turkey: Islamism versus
Muslimism.
Keriman’s attitude against modernity fits easily into the com-
mon social theories that assume an incompatibility between Islam
and modernity, and it conforms for the most part to Turkish political
history. For decades, secular Turks defined and understood moder-
nity to be in the opposite direction of Islam, while the religious field
became dominated by Islamist establishments depicting modernity to
be anti-Islamic, and therefore forbidden to Muslims.
What, then, has enabled the rise of a group of pious men and
women who stake a claim not only on Islamic values but also on
modern values, seeing Islam as commensurate with aspects of mod-
ern life? How can we explain, for example, the rise of Islamic human
rights organizations that refer both to Western and Islamic sources to
define human rights, or of pious actors who find not the Islamized
state but a liberal state to be indispensable for establishment of a truly
pious life?
Are these developments results of top-down state secularization
that effectively moderated Islamic forces? Has an ever-expanding
global modernity loosened Islam’s symbolic boundaries, creating a
new-fangled liberal or cultural Islam? Alternatively, is “moderation”
simply a political expediency, perhaps a front for a neo-fundemantalist
wave seeking a bottom-up Islamization?
An adequate interpretation for the rise of Muslimist orthodoxy
requires that we abandon such binary divisions of cultural versus
political, and liberal versus fundamentalist religion, and instead pay
attention to the interplay between political and cultural, and the
changing boundaries between religion and secular modernity. I start
this inquiry by situating both Islamist and Muslimist mobilizations
into their particular historical context.
This comparative historical reading demonstrates that the con-
ditions underlying the upsurge of Islamism in modern Turkey and
those that generated Muslimism are largely different from each other.
Indeed, Islamist and Muslimist forms have developed, thrived, and
gained meaning in distinct “cultural orders.” By “cultural order” I
mean what scholars have called cultural schema of things, 2 an insti-
tutionalized moral order of things,3 and institutional structures,4
each pointing to the symbiotic relationship among culture, institu-
tionalized practices, political and material arrangements, and human
agency.5 More specifically, a cultural order presents “a set of institu-
tionalized identities and binding rules that infuse people and their
actions with meaning and value”6; these rules . . . determine the range
of possible actions and ideologies, thus they constitute actors and
actions.7
In modern Turkish history, we find two distinct cultural orders
that surrounded religious actors with radically different arrangements
of material and nonmaterial aspects of life: bureaucratic republicanism
(1918–1980) and liberal republicanism (1980–present). A product of
the Kemalist revolution that replaced the Ottoman structure with a
modern nation-state, the bureaucratic order was characterized by a
statist polity and secularist policies that sought a total exclusion of
FORBIDDEN MODERN TO GUILTLESS MODERNITY 31
Islam from public and political spheres. In the 1980s, however, neo-
liberal economic adjustments forced the state out of economy and,
subsequently, out of social life. The retreat of statism—reinforced by
international institutions and developments—expanded rights and
liberties, including religious freedoms; generated an autonomous civil
society; and democratized the national polity; thus, it progressively
paved the way for a new liberal order.
The central argument I advance here is that Islamist impulses have
developed within the bureaucratic order vis-à-vis an authoritarian
state and its secularist style of modernity/modernization. Muslimism,
in contrast, emerged in the post-1980s along and in tune with lib-
eralization of the state and economy. This emergence opened up
new economic and political opportunity spaces for Islamic mobiliza-
tion, and the subsequent rise of an urbanizing and upwardly mobile
Muslim status group, who, disenchanted with puritan, traditional,
anti-modern, and anti-state religious establishments, articulated a
hybrid, reformist, and individual-oriented orthodoxy, Muslimism.
The Past and the Present of Islam-Modernity

Encounters: Statism and Islamism versus
Liberalism and Muslimism
The spirit of the bureaucratic order (1918–1980) was characterized by
statism, in which an authoritarian state suppressed societal forces and
assumed full control over economic and cultural production, hinder-
ing the development of civil society and a democratic polity. State
oppression and attempts to control society were aimed at religion and
religious groups in particular, because the state elite perceived Islam
as a threat to Turkey’s cultural and economic modernization.
Early in the bureaucratic order (mid-1920s –1950s), the state
moved to dismantle all Islamic establishments, formal and informal
alike, exiling Islam from the public sphere. Thorough and direct state
oppression resulted in Islam’s migration into the private realm,8 where
informal establishments of volk religion, particularly Naksibendi
tarikat and Nurcu orders, grew and expanded, becoming in fact the
main institutions for accommodation of religious activity,9 from reli-
gious education and moral development to Islamic political mobiliza-
tion.10 Throughout the bureaucratic order, then, Turkish Islam was
largely shaped by informal religious establishments and traditional
religious codes11 (e.g., communitarianism, submission to prophetic-
elites, and traditional gender rules).
The advent of multiparty politics (1950s) allowed the emergence of

the first centralized political Islamic movement, the National Vision
Movement (NVM, Milli Gorus Hareketi). Though a political actor,
the movement was rooted in traditional religious networks, organi-
zationally and economically, and its discourse and aspirations were
fashioned by traditional Muslim concepts.
The rise of the NVM and the opening of its first political party,
the National Order Party (NOP, 1970), allowed Islamic segments
to pursue their own political interests autonomously. Despite the
relative political openings, however, the secularist oppression was
maintained through judicial, economic, and cultural channels. The
state continued to co-opt religion, and several military interventions
(1960, 1971, 1980) cut off any significant Islamic mobilization. The
etatist economic polity systematically privileged urban segments12
and the Istanbul-based state bourgeoisie at the expense of the pious
masses, composed mainly of rural Anatolian segments and petit
entrepreneurs.13
Although it never opted for a violent confrontation with the state
in response to the persistent economic and cultural suppression, the
NVM articulated state-centered political goals and anti-modern and
anti-Western sentiments. The parties and leaders of the movement
depicted the secularist state to be the root cause of Muslims’ moral/
religious depression and economic suffering. They, instead, advocated
re-devising of the political and moral order with Islamic prescriptions
as the main solution for moral and material salvation.
Furthermore, mirroring the image of the authoritarian state, the
movement developed equally authoritarian tendencies.14 It attempted
to monopolize public, political, and even intellectual representations
of Islam by identifying the support for the movement with “true
Muslimness” and by claiming the movement’s interpretation of Islam
to be the “true Islam.” The parties of the movement managed to
dominate Islamic political identity and mobilization until the late
1990s. This monopoly was ended by the formation of a new Islam-
inspired party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP, 2001), by a
group of politicians who defined themselves as reformists and who left
the NVM. The new party was more aware of the emerging demands,
aspirations, and needs of religious groups, and it employed a language
in tune with those changes.
During the bureaucratic order, certain developments (e.g., the
multi-party politics) that weakened statism could have undermined
Islamism and stimulated proto-Muslimist expressions. Nevertheless,
the conditions for Muslimism were partial or weak. They either were
outright repressed by secularist institutions, or they did not find

support among religious masses rooted in traditional segments typi-
cally closed to change and reform. In other words, no source of reli-
gious change from within religious segments or from outside15 could
emerge to challenge Islamism. Moreover, the domestic conditions
for Islamism at home were further enforced by external conditions;
most notably the Khomeini revolution, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the
Russia-Afghanistan war, and the failure of modernization movements
in various Muslim countries.
Whereas Islamist expressions emerged in reaction to an authori-
tarian state and rigid secularist notions and policies, Muslimism
emerged in the 1980s along with the rise of a new liberal cultural
order. The shift from statism to liberalism was set in motion by
Turkey’s transition to a neo-liberal economic model. Deregulation of
markets worked as a major catalyst for liberalization of the state and
political systems. During the 1980s, but especially in the 1990s, eco-
nomic and political spheres became increasingly autonomous from
the state; associational life flourished; disparate political, interest,
and identity groups started to take part in economic and cultural
production; and Turkish society became linked to global markets
and institutions.
The new liberal order and institutions also infused the society with
new values.16 The discourse of rational-individualism, civil society,
globalization, pluralism, and rights and freedoms became the center
of the new cultural order, entering into social accounting of moder-
nity/modernization while undermining state-centric (especially, rig-
idly secularist) conceptions and models of Turkish modernity.
Within this new political framework, religious rights and freedoms
got extended, and Islam regained cultural legitimacy. Moreover, glo-
balization of markets (especially of the Anatolian market) along with
new political openings, enabled Islamic groups’ upward mobility.
Greater economic and political freedoms and opportunities in fact
generated a new Muslim status group. With the changing meaning
of modernity, declining state control, and the emergence of upwardly
mobile religious actors, the anti-state and anti-modern rhetoric of
protest Islamism began to lose appeal and relevance.
The new Muslim status group is composed of people ranging
from pious entrepreneurs, civil activists, students, theologians, pious
intellectuals, and women’s groups. Differing from the economically
and culturally marginalized religious actors of the old order, these
religious men and women are upwardly mobile, urbanizing, globally
connected, and educated in secular institutions. They do not resent
or reject modernity but want to be further integrated with contem-

porary life and institutions, from global economic networks to public
debate on women’s rights and the environment.
The defining characteristic of this new group is its individual ori-
entation, emphasizing individual autonomy and choice over external
authority, the state, religious community, and family. This primacy
of the individual is rooted in theological perceptions; for these new
religious actors, true piety cannot be compelled or defined by exter-
nal institutions, but is integral to the individual, its conscience, and
voluntary choice. This theological inclination toward the individual
also caused the new Muslim status group to aspire to a style of soci-
ety and governance that would heighten individual autonomy, choice,
and self-expression in respect to ultimate spiritual matters as well as
economic, civic, and political action; all of course within a context of
religious submission.
To pursue their theological aspirations, preferred lifestyles, and
political leanings, these religious men and women used Islam to
engage contemporary institutions. This curious engagement resulted
in “cultural sites of hybridity,” in which Muslims resist the established
boundaries between Islamic and modern identities and produce new
compatibilities between the two.
The first examples of sites of hybridity became crystallized in the
market in the form of Islamic fashion, Islamic resorts and vacations,
and business organizations that articulated principles of free-market
economy with Islamic ethical codes and notions. From the market,
the sites of hybridity have spread to other realms of society, shap-
ing women’s movements and human rights associations, intellectual
groups, and inspiring, subsequently, a new Islamic political ethos.
Whether in the form of personalized veil designs or Islamic politi-
cal formations with democratic leanings, the sites of hybridity are
places of identity production where Muslims resist hegemonic politics
of identity and develop Muslimism fostering Islamic engagements of
modernity in all aspects of life.
The Muslimist form continued to thrive despite the challenges
posed by both Islamist (the rise of the Welfare Party) and Kemalist
backlashes (the 1997 post-modern coup) throughout the liberal
order. This successful rise of Muslimism was also catalyzed by exter-
nal conditions. The end of the cold war, globalization of markets,
and, especially, the prospect of entering the European Union (EU)
provided a broader institutional frame reinforcing domestic condi-
tions for Muslimism, while weakening the coherency of statism as
well as reactionary Islamism.
In the following sections, I detail these two different cultural

orders that lay in the background of Islamist mobilization and the
Muslimist emergence. Rather than a comprehensive historical treat-
ment of modern Turkish politics or of Islamic movements in Turkey,
I present a brief historical overview to analytically compare the condi-
tions that generated Islamist versus Muslimist establishments (actors),
expressions, and temperaments, thus, building up to a comparative
understanding of the Muslimist resurgence.
This comparative reading also calls attention to the fact that
Islamic teachings and meanings are not constants producing homo-
geneous actors, actions, and thoughts; conversely, Muslim actors,
their thoughts, and their actions influence and are influenced by the
surrounding context.
Toward “Forbidden Modern”: The Rise of the

Bureaucratic Order (–s)
Between the late-nineteenth century and the 1900s, the Ottoman
elite and intelligentsia were mainly concerned about recovering
the empire from its political and economic decay. The founders
of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal and his followers, a group of
Ottoman military officers also rooted in and shaped by this histori-
cal context,17saw Turks’ regeneration in replacing the ancient regime
with a new state and nation styled in Western ways.18
To westernize and modernize Turkey, the founders adopted secu-
larism and nationalism as the main tenets of the official ideology. The
founding-elite defined “secularity” not only as a matter of political
governance, but also as a civilizational manner.19
To materialize Turks’ makeover, the founding-elite implemented
a series of top-down reforms and regulations (1920s –30s), shifting
the source of state legitimacy from Islamic to secular notions.20 The
modernizing state, moreover, formed a government office, Diyanet
Isleri Baskanligi, responsible for managing all religious affairs.21
This office would keep religious activity within the mere control of
the state.22
The secularizing reforms continued with an equally top-down
and comprehensive restructuring of everyday life.23 The urban
Turk, from his/her clothing, gender relations, and entertainment
styles to arts and music, business, and writing and literature, would
now conduct the affairs of life in Western ways. Islamic sentiments
and behavior would be limited to spiritual matters, with no public
bearing.
In addition to “rationalizing” Turks, the function of the secular-

izing reforms included “nationalizing” them.24 To raise a national
consciousness, the state advocated a “linguistic ethno-nationalism”25
articulated by (state-promoted) linguistic studies and historiog-
raphies—most notably the Sun-Language Theory and the Turkish
Historical Thesis. These theories emphasized great characteristic
of “true,” pre-Islamic, Turkish culture. They pictured pre-Islamic
Turks as founders of various urban civilizations, and as the father of
Ural-Altaic languages. The theories problematized the Euro-centric
discourse that presented Turks as tribal communities and outsiders
to the West, 26 instead suggesting historical affinities between Turks
and Western people.27 As such, these studies established a modern
nationhood and a unifying collective Turkish identity distinct from
the Islamic/Ottoman past. This ideological production of Turkish
nationalism went hand in hand with a thorough oppression of eth-
nic segments, including forced resettlements and severe linguistic
restrictions.28
The elite’s intensive work to create a homogeneous and secular
nation also included promotion of a solidaristic ethic binding the state,
individuals, and groups into one economic and cultural unit.29 This
“oneness” of the interests of the state and people found its concrete
expression in the single-party system under the Republican People’s
Party, and gave the state an “unproblematic” authority. Within this
framework of oneness, the functions of the state, moreover, included
generation of an entrepreneurial class. Rather than becoming an
autonomous force, this Istanbul-based group developed into a state-
bourgeoisie supporting the top-down reforms as the ideological and
economic ally of the state.30
Turkish modernization, in short, was a truly head-to-toe make-
over; it was carried out by the head, the ruling elite, as a top-down
imposition that started with a political updo but went all the way
down to the bottom: the individual, gender self-conception and uses
of the body, lifestyle, and even likes and dislikes. Based on the unity
of society and state, the elite convincingly claimed (and genuinely
believed) that this makeover was a project of liberation of a nation
from obstacles to progress and enlightenment. This state project
for “liberation,” in actuality, produced an authoritarian state and a
weak civil society. Perceiving society’s views and aspirations to be pri-
mordial, the state shouldered the mission of modernizing society. It
monopolized cultural and economic production, deterred ideological
opposition (in the form of ethnic or religious demands), prevented
flourishing of civil society, and restricted democratization; hence,
creating a bureaucratic, statist order. State-modernization and the

statist polity, moreover, resulted in both a monolithic and narrow
definition of modernity restricted to the state’s prescriptions.
The most particular ingredient of this definition was an authori-
tarian, “assertive secularism”31 that drove state policies. A perceived
inherent divide of Islam versus modernity became the mainframe
through which both the elite and society understood and made
sense of modernity. Along with saturation of how to be, think, and
act modern with statist and rigid-secularist prescriptions, there also
emerged an Islamist expression that saw modernity as being “forbid-
den” to Muslims. As much as the state identified and saw religion as a
threat to its modern character, religious segments saw modernity as a
threat to their Islamic character. The bureaucratic order not only pre-
pared the structural conditions for Islamism by oppressing religious
segments, but, by defining modernity in total exclusion of religion, it
rendered meaning, relevance, and legitimacy to Islamism in the eyes
of the devout masses.
First Religious Responses to Modernizing Reforms

The first religious response to top-down secularization took the form
of armed revolts32 by informal religious establishments, Naksibendi
and Sufi orders, against reforms that directly undermined vital aspects
of popular religion (e.g., banning of religious attire, symbols, and
titles used by leaders of religious orders). These revolts were weak and
were immediately stopped by the state, resulting in a more thorough
state control of religious activity.
The state managed to hinder religious mobilization by dismantling
both formal and informal religious establishments and carrying out
its cultural reforms to the full extent; however, the modernization
project came with severe side and reverse effects. Secularizing reforms
in fact set the sociological conditions for, and shaped the character
and content of, modern Islamism in Turkey.
For one, as religious groups were relegated into the private sphere,
they also enlarged the boundaries of the private sphere against the
state and its restrictions.33 Private spaces such as family, community,
and neighborhoods turned into the main locale where people could
preserve and practice faith, and transfer it to coming generations.
Second, the elite perceived undermining of popular religion as a
crucial step to liberate individuals from irrational restrictions of tra-
dition and community-oriented life and to promote, instead, a new
worldview centered on science, rationality, and secular notions of
individual and citizenship.34 In contrast, as private spaces expanded,

Sufi and tarikat orders, commensurate with a traditional view of
society and religion, found a new niche and power in private spaces
of everyday life. These informal religious establishments eventually
became the main institutions catering to people’s religious dealings35
and moral/spiritual development.36 In other words, with the migra-
tion of religious orders into the newly expanded private sphere, not
only did religious morality become more central in everyday life and
social relations, but also people’s understanding of Islam was shaped
through the traditional social and religious codes of informal reli-
gious establishments.
These codes tended to be antihermeneutic (especially regarding
ethical codes), communitarian, and patriarchal. They emphasized
orthopraxy and submission to tradition as the main medium of reli-
gious learning, hindering, therefore, individual autonomy and self-
expression as well as cultural innovation and theological reform.
The traditional religious formations continued to grow through-
out the bureaucratic order, shaping Islamic intellectual debate and
civil activity as well as religio-political mobilization to a great extent.
Playing a large role in the formation of the NVM and its first political
party—The NOP (1970s)—the tarikat networks and norms moved
into the political sphere, while becoming articulated with Islamist
political impulses. This alliance started to dissolve by the 1980s, but
tarikat concepts and values remained to be embedded in the core nar-
rative of the movement. Significant challenges to traditional style and
institutions of the religious orders, however, began to emerge by the
1990s as economic and political liberalization generated a new Muslim
status group at odds both with traditional Muslim codes (especially
communitarianism and literalism) and Islamist expressions.
Attempts for Democratization: The Multi-

Party Politics (–s)
Following World War II, the bureaucratic order was faced with serious
challenges. In the West, liberal democracies were rising, and the US,
seeing Turkey as a strategic ally against the communist rise, was pres-
suring Turkey to open up the national market. On the domestic front,
new socio-economic groups (new entrepreneurs and liberal intellec-
tuals), generated by urbanization and mass education, started to react
against the state. Confronted with such pressures, the Republican
People’s Party (RPP) allowed the formation of an opposition party37;
in 1946, the Democrat Party (DP) was formed.
Differing from the bureaucratic RPP, the DP was composed of

new entrepreneurs, businessmen, professional cadres, and intellectu-
als advocating political and economic liberalism. Overall, the party
had an anti-bureaucratic and anti-elitist outlook. It encouraged rural
families and petit entrepreneurs to acquire wealth38 and extended
religious liberties,39 thus getting support from rural areas, small mer-
chants, pro-liberal intellectuals, and religious segments (including
Nurcu and Naksibendi groups). The party won the elections of 1950,
1954, and 1957. A semi-liberal atmosphere arose in Turkey, challeng-
ing the authoritarian bureaucratic order.
Economic growth and political liberalization led by the DP, how-
ever, did not last long. In the face of Cold War conditions, the DP
reverted back to repressive political and economic measures,40 result-
ing in civic unrest expressed in the right-left conflict. Meanwhile, the
army was disturbed by the consequences of the popular participation.
The electoral victories of the DP exposed that the Republican dreams
for oneness of people and the state, a homogeneous Turkish nation,
and an Islam confined to the “conscience,” did not come through.
In contrast, the societal forces were mobilizing against the state; the
nation was sharply divided along class-based, ethnic, and ideological
lines; and Islam reentered the very center of the political realm under
the wings of the DP.
In 1960, the generals intervened to halt political unrest and to
restore the bureaucratic order weakened by the multiparty system.
The generals used implacable measures (e.g., hanging some leaders of
the DP and desecrating Said Nursi’s tomb) to suppress political oppo-
sition, and they tightened the statist frame shifting the fulcrum of
statism from “parenting the nation” to “preserving the state” against
the societal forces unleashed by multiparty politics. This shift was
embodied in the formation by the generals of the National Security
Council41; the council would oversee the power and course of elec-
toral politics.
The civil rule returned under the newly founded Justice Party (JP;
Adalet Partisi) and its leader Suleyman Demirel, although this also
was short-lived. Ethno-political and ideological (left-right) polariza-
tion was worsening, and the alliance between the center-right and
Islam started to dissolve. As the JP increasingly served the interests
of big industry at the expense of the conservative small bourgeoisie,42
Islamic groups, enabled by the multiparty politics, split from the cen-
ter-right and opened up the NOP (Milli Nizam Partisi) under the
leadership of Erbakan (1970), who got encouragement from Iskender
Pasa cemaat, a branch of the Naksibendi tarikat. The party presented
itself as the spokesman of the petite bourgeoisie, and it accused the JP

of being a tool for imperialist and anti-Islamic forces.
In 1971, the generals intervened once again to halt civil unrest
and to strengthen the state and Kemalism against mobilization of
the economic periphery, the left, and, especially, Islam. The military
disbanded the NOP for attempting to undermine secularism.
Islam and the Multi-Party System

The first experiments with multiparty politics, then, failed to unfold
into a full-fledged democracy as two military interventions snuffed
out proto-liberal forces and openings. Participatory politics along
with the DP’s semiliberal openings, however, produced two profound
developments.
First, religious orders (i.e., tarikats and Sufi orders) that went
underground throughout the nation-building years mobilized into
the public sphere. Yet, as they reentered the public sphere, now rede-
signed by urbanization, mass education, and industrialization, they
also gave birth to “religious communities” (cemaat) that embraced
tarikat(s)’ theological traditions, but were increasingly text based,
connecting the devotees through the medium of media and printed
text. Cemaat establishments opened up Quranic courses and read-
ing circles (dershanes). For example, Suleymancilar had approximately
1,000 Quranic courses by 1959 spread throughout Istanbul and
Anatolia.43 Suleymancilar used radio and printing to disseminate reli-
gious ideas, while developing new relations with academics, bureau-
crats, and university students. In the following decades, cemaats
further grew. They established various vakif organizations (social and
welfare charities), private schools, media companies, and businesses.
Forming a large civil and associational network of Islamic groups and
individuals, cemaat circles also became an organizational source and
space for religious political formations.44
Second, the multiparty politics generated new Islamic political
actors that pursued their own interests autonomously from the cen-
ter-right parties. Encouraged by cemaat circles—especially Iskender
Pasa Cemaat, rooted in Naksibendi tarikat45 —Erbakan formed the
first Islamic party, the NOP, in 1970. Although the generals closed
down the NOP in 1971, the formation of the party institutionalized
Islamic identity and protest in explicitly political terms for the first
time. The NOP, in fact, instilled the ideological principles of modern
Turkish Islamism, coding these principles into a political narrative,
the NVM (Milli Gorus Hareketi).
At the core of the “National Vision” narrative lay the divides of

the West versus Islam, and Muslims versus the state. “National” con-
noted, on the one side, the Turkish nation, and on the other, historic
Islamic identity.46 The “national vision” connoted, accordingly, a ver-
nacular, an Islamic-moral order, in cross-reference to the nonvernacu-
lar, the West, and the state that was imitating the West. As preached
and largely shaped by Mehmet Zahid Kotku, the imam of the Iskender
Pasa Cemaat, the aim of the movement was to reverse Turk’s decay
through Islamic-moral development, material growth (i.e., industri-
alization), and to make Turkey the military and economic leader of
the Muslim world while saving her from influences of Western cul-
tural and economic imperialism.
The National Vision and its parties hegemonized Islam’s politi-
cal representation and mobilization until the 2000s: the National
Salvation Party (NSP, Milli Selamet Partisi, 1973), the Welfare Party
(Refah Partisi, 1983), the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, 1997), and
the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, 2001) were directly or indirectly
chaired by Erbakan and embodied the core ideology of the move-
ment. Erbakan, the long-term leader of the movement, often claimed47
that Muslims who did not support the National Vision did not sup-
port the “vision of Islam.”48 As such, the movement attempted to
marginalize Islamic expressions and actors outside its own circle and
monopolize political and public representations (including even intel-
lectual debates) of Islam. 49
Partisanship (–)
The 1971 intervention aimed at halting political violence and
strengthening the state against civic mobilization of the economic
periphery, Islam, and the left. By 1973, the military completed its task
and restored the bureaucratic order. This, however, was short lived.
The 1970s represented an intensification of previous developments.
Growing economic crises (most notably, high inflation, increasing
unemployment, and rural-to-urban migration caused by import sub-
stitution in industry and the shortage of consumer durables in con-
junction with the 1973 world oil crisis) sharpened ethnic (Kurd vs.
Turk), sectarian (Alevita vs. Sunni), and ideological (right vs. left)
polarization, and further politicized the Islamic opposition. Unstable
political collation governments unable to cooperate could not address
structural problems of the country. At the end of the 1970s, partisan-
ship became part of social structure; the populace, public agencies,
and the civic service were acutely polarized.50 Political violence took
over the society. Confronted with severe economic and political cri-
ses, in 1980 the military intervened for the third time.
This time around, however, the generals sought a long-term
solution for political stabilization. The answer was found in major
economic adjustment that would replace the etatist economy with
an export-oriented free-market model, a solution that was also
fiercely pushed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and the World Bank in the wake of Turkey’s increasing geopoliti-
cal importance in the post-Cold War environment. With hopes for
economic recovery combined with Western pressure, the generals
carried out a coup and introduced neo-liberalizing adjustments (i.e.,
24th January measures) proposed by the IMF and drafted by Turgut
Özal, a previous World Bank employee and the head of the State
Planning Organization at the time.
Islam and Partisanship

A short time after the NOP was shut down by the 1971 intervention,
the generals allowed the opening of another Islamic party with aims
of using Islam to counter leftist threat and ethnic conflict. In 1972,
the NSP was formed, bringing the “national vision” and its lead-
ers back into the political arena. The party was closed down by the
1980 intervention, and the NVM opened the Welfare Party in 1983,
continuing to express religious people’s social and political demands
through an Islamist language.
State support of Islam at this time could have stimulated proto-
Muslimist impulses; nevertheless, several factors continued to enforce
the Islamist frame, further radicalizing it. In the 1970s, gaining con-
trol of state by political struggle and anti-Western sentiments became
profound elements of the Islamic discourse.
This radicalization of Islam was partly related to the reinforcement
of state-centered approaches in the wake of intensified politiciza-
tion of the left, Alevitas, and Kurds, and partly related to increas-
ing economic and cultural dislocations caused by rapid urbanization
and migration. Radicalization of Islam was also a result of influ-
ences coming from the Muslim world. In the 1970s, translations
of Mawdudi, Hasan al-Banna, and Sayyid Qutb gained a retinue
among Turkish Islamists. These figures depicted the West as evil and
corrupt, and advocated Islamic governance. Turkish Islamists were
increasingly internationally connected and Umma-conscious.51 This
Umma-conscious political awakening was further strengthened in the
face of Arab-Israeli conflict, failure of modernization movements in

various Muslim countries, Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, as well
as the Cyprus problem (1974). The return of religion in Iran also
reenergized the hopes and demands for establishment of Islamic gov-
ernance in Turkey.
The NSP articulated the economic, political, ethnic, and cultural
dissents and reactions, which overlapped, within its National Vision
narrative. In one vein, and in direct competition with the left, the
party advocated economic justice, integration of peripheral regions
and groups into the economic production in equal terms with the big
bourgeoisie and big cities. It, in fact, was the first party to demand
a state investment program for the underrepresented and neglected
Kurdish southern part of Turkey.52
In another vein, the party pointed to westernization and moral
decay as the underlying causes of economic failures and cultural
dislocations in Turkey, and in the Muslim world more generally;
it depicted the European Economic Community (EEC) as a neo-
imperialist force. The party propagated Islamic-moral growth as
the ultimate solution in the fight against material and nonmaterial
strains. In the 4th Development Plan, the party first time mentioned
the phrase “spiritual [moral] growth”53; the Islamic political iden-
tity now was clearly representing a cultural as well as an economic
opposition.54 As shown by the 1973 and 1977 elections, the NSP’s
presentation of Islamic-moral order as the main road to economic
salvation and social welfare found its highest support among the
conservative and economically vulnerable sectors: rural areas and vil-
lages, artisans, small entrepreneurs and new merchants, migrants to
the big cities, and Sunni-Kurdish provinces.
Overall, throughout the periods of the bureaucratic order, sharp
divisions and conflict defined the relationship between Muslims and
the state, and Islam and modernity. The state sought a full exclusion
of Islam from the public sphere and from economic and ideological
production. Islamic groups responded by developing anti-state and
anti-modern impulses, shown in an equally sharp divide between
religion and secular-modernity. First expressed as scattered armed
revolts, these impulses later were crystallized into an Islamist con-
frontation with the state under the NVM rooted in tarikats and char-
acterized by top-down political and societal goals, and traditional
Muslim temperaments. Each attempt by the statist establishments to
prevent Islamic mobilization further thickened state-centered goals,
while the external conditions reinforced radicalization of Islam. At
some periods, semi-liberal openings could have triggered Muslimist
tendencies, but in each such case, the conditions for Muslimism were
partial or weak; they were either declined through lack of a popular
support or were outright suppressed by military interventions.
Toward Guiltless Modernity and Unapologetic Islam

Central to Turkey’s liberalization was a radical alteration of the rela-
tionship between the state and society, both in economic and cultural
terms. By the 1980s, the statist categories of “modern/progressive
state” versus “backward” nation, and the hierarchical relationship
driven from these categories, were seriously undermined by several
internal and external developments, which when brought together
effectively worked for the dissolution of the statist order, giving way
to a new liberal cultural order.
The Motherland Party of Turgut Özal (1983) played a crucial role
in Turkey’s makeover for liberalization. The emergence of this pro-
liberal leadership, however, was part and parcel of broader domestic
and international transformations. Since the 1950s, electoral politics,
and the expansion urbanization and education, had been allowing
societal forces to move toward the economic and political center. It
was the thoroughly oppressive post-coup military administration,
nevertheless, that really unleashed a societal resistance and mobiliza-
tion against the statist order. In fact, in the course of the three-year
military rule, civil groups that had been violently and overtly politi-
cized in the 1960s and 1970s started to move away from polariz-
ing ideologies55 and converge under a call for the retreat of the state
and military, greater democracy, and respect for human rights.56 The
Motherland Party came to power in this particular context in which
the statist establishments had already begun to face serious legitimacy
crises.
The surrounding international context further reinforced the
national shift toward liberalization. During the 1980s, the decline of
communist regimes, and the shifting of world economy to the neo-
liberal model of free-market rationalism (Thatcherian or Reaganist
models), and then, subsequently, the end of the Cold War, created an
international political discourse. The discourse spoke of etatist states
as obstacles to economic welfare as well as political freedoms.57 This
new global economic framework and its institutions, particularly the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, facilitated and
expedited Turkey’s liberalization by direct pressures, not only for
opening up the national market, but also for democratization of the
political system. Effective pressures for political reform particularly
came from the Council of Europe, the European Commission with
which Turkey signed an association agreement in 1963, and Amnesty

International.58
The Emergence of a Liberal

Order (s –s)
The electoral politics was restored with the 1983 national elections,
which carried the Motherland Party to power and its leader Turgut
Özal to prime ministry by 45 percent of the national vote. Between
1989 and until his death in 1993, Özal served as president.
Under the direct supervision of the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank, the Özal leadership carried out various reform
packages to adopt Turkish economy to the export-led neo-liberal
model in place of the import-substituting etatist economy. Neo-liberal
adjustments (including privatization of state enterprises, reduction in
public expenses, liberalization of domestic pricing, encouragement of
foreign investment, and elimination of trade barriers and state subsi-
dies) removed the state from economic life and opened the Turkish
market to economic globalization. With the retreat of statism, the
globalization of markets, an autonomous economic sphere, and new
economic centers, sectors and actors emerged.
These developments overall stimulated economy from below, reviv-
ing particularly Anatolian cities and segments. In fact, by integrating
Anatolia into the national market and global production, neo-liberal-
izing reforms generated a new breed of entrepreneurs.59 This emerg-
ing group differed from the Istanbul-based state-bourgeoisie both
in economic and cultural terms. Located in Anatolia, this group was
composed of informally organized small-sized ventures dependent
on the market and export activities.60 Moreover, Islam constituted a
salient cultural reference for these entrepreneurs, who came from an
Anatolian and a religious background.61
It was not only the institutional and geographical makeup but also
the cultural spirit of Turkish economy that was changed by neo-lib-
eralizing policies. Free-market rationality, individualism, and a global
orientation became the rising values of economic activity and devel-
opment, replacing the statist notions of corporatism and national
developmentalism. At the same time, pious entrepreneurs generated
by neo-liberal policies introduced Islam as a new economic code and
in the form of new economic networks to Turkish capitalism.
Macrostructural changes associated with financial liberalization
affected the society well beyond the economic sphere and actors.
Expansion of urbanization, industrialization, and education, and the
growth of the upper middle-class, changed the socio-economic pro-

file of the country. At the same time, privatization in media and edu-
cation created a more active and complex society and a vivid public
sphere.62 Moreover, public opinion-making was opened up to non-
state influences, especially that of the media and press, academics and
private universities, and the private sector, thus weakening the hege-
mony of the state on ideological and cultural production.
These same changes, furthermore, brought together human,
economic, and cultural capital necessary for the emergence of civic
associations. By the late-1980s, and especially during the 1990s, non-
governmental organizations grew and pluralized. Disparate groups
from environmentalists, women’s and human rights associations, to
local groups such as neighborhood and school management boards,
started to take up relatively autonomous civic responsibilities in
areas from education and civilian rights to urban development. The
flourishing of associational life introduced Turkish society to a new
political discourse and a normative framework. These changes framed
rights and liberties, autonomous individuals and cultural pluralism
as indispensable components of democratization, material growth,
and modernization, thus challenging the idea that change can only
be generated by the state.
Concomitant to the expansion of civil society was the rise of
identity groups and movements. By the late 1980s, Circassians,
Alevitas, Islamic segments, and Kurds started to push back the ethno-
nationalist and secularist limitations of the statist identity politics.
They highlighted their differences and claimed cultural and political
recognition and acceptance.
The Özal leadership bolstered these shifts in political culture by
legislative changes and political reforms, most notably in the areas
of human rights, identity politics, and state-religion relations. The
government accepted the individual right of petition to the European
Human Rights Commission, and, later, the compulsory jurisdiction
to the European Court of Human Rights, as such subjecting Turkish
courts to international investigation. It also signed the United
Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and set up a Human Rights
Committee in the parliament.
Furthermore, the government removed the restrictions on pub-
lic expressions and performance by minority groups, a move that,
in part, aimed to cut off popular support for the Kurdish guerilla
movement. The new policies allowed the use of Kurdish language
in politics, the media, the arts, and the celebration of Kurdish New
Year,63 as well as public performances of Alevita rituals, and the

opening of Alevita worship houses (cem evleri).64 Alhough limited,
these changes enabled ethnic groups to develop their autonomous
identities.
The surrounding external context catalyzed attempts to improve
and expand human and minority rights. By the end of the Cold
War, as Turkey’s relations were reactivated with Turks beyond
Turkey, from Iraq to the Balkans to Central Asia, Turkish soci-
ety remembered and reclaimed the authentic linguistic, geographi-
cal, and cultural dimensions of Turkish history.65 This recovery
of historical identity contributed to the weakening of statist poli-
tics of identity; at the same time, the lack of a serious external
threat allowed expression of internal differences at home. Turkey’s
quest for European integration (i.e., membership in the European
Community) further and more directly pressured the government
to soften ethnic policies, improve human rights, and democratize
the political system.66
Another aspect of the emerging pluralistic political framework
was changes in state and religion relations. The government removed
penal codes that banned Islamist political activities,67 and pro-
vided religious groups with direct institutional support. Such sup-
port included, for example, allowance of charitable donations to be
used for religious purposes,68 the opening of interest-free financial
institutions (i.e., “Special Finance Houses”), and attempts to lift the
ban on wearing the veil in universities (although these failed). The
government also increased the number of mosques, the number of
personnel of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and the number
of religious vocational schools (training imams), which now would
begin instructions in English. The government carried out its sup-
port for religious groups by a simultaneous cultural reframing that
reinstated religion as a legitimate and inherent part of Turkish iden-
tity and history.
With this official political and cultural support of Islam through-
out the 1980s, tarikat and cemaat structures (especially the Gulen
Cemaat) poured into the newly extended public sphere, spreading
their networks within and beyond national borders. Özal’s promo-
tion of Islam and Islamic mobilization did not alarm the army at
this time. During the 1980s, the generals viewed Islam to be an
important factor for depoliticizing society; at the same time, the
military and the government arguably might have wanted to use
Islamic networks to compensate for the declined social spending
capacities of the state.69
Within a decade, a process of radical social change triggered by

economic liberalization made the self-enclosed statist order not only
impractical but also normatively untenable, giving way to a liberal
and globally oriented cultural order. State agents, such as the judi-
ciary and military, remained powerful and pivotal; nevertheless,
retrieval of the state opened up new opportunity and organiza-
tional spaces for societal groups and collective action. Using these
new spaces autonomous from the state (i.e., markets, civil forma-
tions, charity, politics, media, and education), previously marginal-
ized groups and upcoming segments began to participate in social
production. This participation pluralized political and economic sys-
tems and collective cultural schemas toward inclusion of previously
oppressed and unheard demands, values, and visions—from ethnic
and human rights, feminist and ecological concerns, to Islamic sen-
timents. Muslimism emerged and thrived in this context of eco-
nomic liberalization, a globalized economic and social life, increased
upward mobility of hitherto marginalized groups, and flourishing of
associational life.
The Rise of Muslimism

So far, I have tried to illustrate how a series of radical economic, polit-
ical, and cultural changes set in motion by Turkey’s adaptation to the
neo-liberal regime in the 1980s dissolved statism and created a new
liberal cultural order. But, how is the rise of a new religious ortho-
doxy, Muslimism, associated with liberal reframing of the state? After
all, all existing religious establishments found greater resources and
freedom for mobilization and growth with the decline of statism; yet,
Muslimism not only differed from, but also challenged, these estab-
lished (traditional and Islamist) formations.
In fact, by undermining statism, liberalization also undermined
Islamist discourse and institutions. With the retreat of the state from
economic and social life, for one, state control on religion declined
to a considerable extent. Islam, hitherto marginalized, regained cul-
tural legitimacy and symbolic power, and Islamic segments, hitherto
oppressed, started to experience a significant social upward mobility.
Islam’s reintegration into the politics and economy of official Turkey
in fact resulted in the upsurge of a new and upwardly mobile Muslim
status group.
In this context defined by declined state control, new opportunity
spaces, greater freedoms, and Islamic upward mobility, the anti-state
and reactionary content of Islamist discourse gradually lost strength
and relevance, unable to render meaning for or resonate with the new
Islamic actors generated by the liberal cultural order.
Liberalization further weakened Islamist institutions and impulses
by ending the state’s monopoly on defining the theory and practice of
modernity. Liberalization actually generated a more advanced under-
standing of modernity that challenged the secularist discourse and its
simplistic divides. Such divides as “veiled/religious/backward” ver-
sus “unveiled/secular/modern” continued to be a part of the Turkish
modernity narrative; nevertheless, these divides were weakened
because of having to compete against the rising values of the liberal
order. Human rights, democracy, pluralism, individual autonomy,
associational life, entrepreneurship, globalization, and innovation
became the new terms used to speak of and think about modern life,
conduct, and identity. These new values opened alternative avenues
for Muslims to engage in modern life, and to rethink and reevaluate
its various aspects independent of statist categories. With the chang-
ing meaning of modernity, which no longer required an automatic
dismissal of religious identity or sentiments, the “forbidden modern”
of Islamism also started to lose cultural relevance and appeal.
On the whole, by undermining, on one hand, the hegemony of
the state on defining modernity, and on the other, the hegemony of
Islamist formations on defining Islam, liberalizing reforms opened a
new space, or created a vacuum, for articulation of diverse and alter-
native religious expressions. Muslimism emerged in this vacuum.
Agents of Muslimism: The New

Muslim Status Group
In addition to opening space for religious change and innovation,
liberalization generated the key agents of religious reform, the new
Muslim status group. This new group is composed of pious men and
women from across sectors of society, including veiled university stu-
dents, professionals, technocrats, intellectuals, reformist theologians
(especially women), civil activists, and a large portion of the Anatolian
entrepreneurs—who, in fact, constitute the economic backbone of
this group. They do not identify as a formal movement under the
label Muslimism or any other name, and they do not mobilize as
such, although they can recognize a similar religious orientation
when they are encountered.
Emerged in a context of globalization of markets and politi-
cal liberalization, these religious men and women no longer repre-
sent economically and culturally deprived segments of society. On
the contrary, they are urbanized, educated (in secular institutions),

and upwardly mobile in terms of wealth and cultural capital. They
are connected to global economic and civil networks, and speak the
world-institutional language of rationalism, science, and individual-
ism. They obtain the same high-level skills (e.g., technological know-
how, foreign languages) as their secular counterparts, sharing the
same urban habits/lifestyles and life spaces (e.g., university classes,
professional and civic life). This new group, as such, does not fit
in with the secularist image of Muslims as “rural, traditional, and
backward” people. The new Muslim status group is not peripheral to
modernity; it is already integrated with modern everyday life. Instead
of resenting or rejecting modernity, this group seeks a higher stake in
contemporary modern life and institutions.
Rather than seeking a top-down or a bottom-up Islamization, the
new religious actors of the liberal cultural order are looking for a life-
style in which the “pious individual” can engage and entertain aspects
of modern life, while preserving the Islamic identity. As such, the new
Muslim status group is neither state nor community centered, but
individual oriented; hence, I term this group Muslimists.
The Muslimist individual orientation does not express impulses
for atomistic individualism, but aspirations for individual autonomy.
Narratives I captured in the field suggest that these aspirations are, in
fact, informed by theological notions.
Muslimists understand religiosity/faith to be a matter of individual
choice. They define true religion as iman, having creed by heart; the
heart cannot be told or forced to be religious. In other words, true
religion stems from a voluntary, individual choice made indepen-
dently from external pressures, whether in the form of the state and
law, religious organizations, or family and community.
This condition of true religion does not result in a vacuum of reli-
gious authority, or a style of religion accommodated to individual’s
subjective needs and preferences. The individual is still submitted to
an objective separation between helal and haram, and iman works
as an ever-present guide keeping the individual within these limits,
even at times and places where external control is ineffective or irrel-
evant. Moreover, when faith is an individual choice, it also becomes
a conscious choice; a choice based on tahkik, investigations of the
rational mind asking, “What is it that I believe in, and why?” The
opposite is taklid, submitting blindly to tradition. Faith as iman and
by tahkik, then, undermines external religious authority and tradi-
tion, but results in a stronger creed located in the believer’s voluntary
and rational decision.
This theological emphasis on individual autonomy branches out

to inform Muslimist lifestyles and preferences, organization of social
relations, and core political values and metaphors. Relative to the state,
Muslimists articulate a state design that would allow individual auton-
omy in respect to spiritual decisions (as well as political and economic
action). In specific terms, they tend toward separation of state and reli-
gious organizations; thus, they undermine Islamism. However, they
also tend toward a liberal state, also undermining the secularist state.
The emphasis on individual autonomy puts Muslimists at odds
with traditional religious formations (traditional or cemaat religios-
ity) as well. In fact, Muslimists are increasingly detaching from cemaat
formations. This is a revolutionary shift; Turkish Muslim codes and
practice were shaped to a great extent by Sufi orders, and these orders
constructed religious identity as collective identity. The departure
from cemaat formations, nonetheless, does not leave Muslimists with
out a religious community or solidarity, nor does it lead to an indi-
vidualistic religion and lifestyle. As Muslimists detach from cemaat
circles, they join, for example, professional and civil society organiza-
tions, where they find a sense of collective identity within a religious
community, but at the same time entertain individual autonomy and
personalism. Asli, a veiled women’s rights activist, epitomizes this
Muslimist shift explicitly when discussing why and how she joined
the Capital Women’s Platform Association (CWPA):
Throughout the 1980s . . . people could not even take one step
independent of the cemaat (s); people would follow whatever the
head of the cemaat says . . . by 1990s this changed and people became
more individualized in terms of being able to act and decide indepen-
dently. This is how I view the CWPA platform. Here women are not
tied to anywhere. This is why I decided to become a member. The
CWPA women are women who were able to realize this individuali-
zation. . . . They have different and creative ideas and they can express
these differences. Before, you could not even think about that.
We find the Muslimist inclination for individual autonomy, more

precisely, the desire to “think and decide independently” and to be
able to “express differences” in lifestyle preferences, tastes, and hab-
its (e.g., in women’s veiling styles and accounting of social progress
and economic development). The theological shift from the state or
the community to individual then harbingers broader cultural shifts
from communitarianism to self-expression, homogeneity to plural-
ism, submission to rationalism, tradition to creativity and innovation,
and literalism to religious reform and reinterpretation.
Producing Muslimism: Cultural Sites of

Hybridity
It is this new Muslim status group that has developed the central
aspects of Muslimism. Yet, what are the actual processes involved in
production of this new orthodoxy, and how can we capture these
processes in everyday life?
Muslimism was crystallized in the 1990s as the emerging Muslim
status group engaged contemporary institutions by using Islam in
pursuance of further integration with and higher control over mod-
ern life. This Muslim quest for an Islamic but also modern lifestyle
found its first expression in the economic sphere in the hands of pious
entrepreneurs generated by economic liberalization. Driven by a com-
mercial fervor and defined by Islamic commitments and identity, this
new entrepreneurial group moved into capitalist markets, reappro-
priating modern economy and institutions with Islamic values and
symbols, and forming an Islamic submarket.70
The new economic institutions of the Islamic submarket included,
for example, fashion design companies that combined the latest trends
and principles of modern fashion with rules of Islamic covering, cre-
ating such innovative pieces as the Hashema, Islam-proper swimsuits,
and the Hesofman, Islam-proper fitness apparel. There also emerged
veil design shops, Islamic wedding planning, cosmetic surgery cen-
ters, fitness clubs, and hotels each designed in accord with Islamic
moral teachings. Islamic hotels, founded right next to secular ones,
do not serve alcohol; have gender-segregated pools and beaches; and
while serving open buffet, they warn the clients with signs such as
“israf is haram” (prodigality is impermissible).
The Islamic market included business organizations that embraced
key liberal economic principles such as free market, competition, pri-
vate ownership, and wealth accumulation, but also retrieved Islamic
concepts in an attempt to code and morally regulate commercial
involvement and behavior.71 These pious businessmen consider wealth
a prerequisite to aggrandize the name of Allah (e.g., pilgrimage and
zekat, almsgiving, require wealth), give commercial involvement a
moral meaning based on the Islamic concept of infak (expenditure
done to please God), talk about hayir -seeking competition (com-
peting in doing goodness) in place of self-seeking competition, and
redraw ethical limits of free market based on the concept of israf
(prodigality).
For many in academia, the new Islamic products and services sim-
ply represented the rise of a consumerist Islam along with bourgeois
Muslims expressing Islamic identity through economic networks and

commodified lifestyles.72 Some, on the other hand, suggest that new
pious organizations function to provide a trust-based economic net-
working, while the Islamic submarket as a whole functions to relieve
feelings of religious guilt. “Going Islamic” in the market in this
context means using Islamic banks, shopping at Islamic stores, and
donating to Islamic charities to legitimize Muslims’ becoming this-
worldly, individualist, and indulgent as they enter into markets. 73
The actual complexities we find in the Islamic submarket, how-
ever, go well beyond consumerism. The Islamic submarket instead
functions as a “cultural site of hybridity.” These sites are spaces of
identity production, where Muslims resist hegemonic discourses on
identity and the historically established divides between religion and
modernity. In these sites, religious men and women rework Islamic
identity and symbols by using contemporary notions, and reshape
modern institutions by using Islamic moral concepts and values, thus
producing hybrid identities, practices, and discourses.
Going beyond an escapist consumerism, then, Islamic hotels and
veil-chic designs have shown Turkish Muslims that it is possible to be
part of modern life and entertain modern bodily and cultural prac-
tices while holding passionately to Islamic identity. The submarket has
brought Islamic sensitivities and symbols into modern institutions. At
a broader level, the Islamic submarket presents an alternative economic
model by which Islamic moral teachings and elements are reworked
into the culture and institutions of a free-market economy. Again, the
resulting model is a hybrid that challenges established accounts and
ways of thinking about Islam and modernity; it undermines Islamist
codes that depict capitalism to be anti-Islamic, secularist codes that
depict Islam to be irrational, and traditional Muslim codes that dis-
courage worldly/economic engagement and concerns.74
Although these sites first emerged in the market, by the mid-1990s
they prevailed in the society at large, taking the form of human rights
associations, women’s organizations, schools, and intellectual and
youth groups, each articulating Islam with modern values, practices,
and discourses. The new human rights associations, for example, used
both Islamic and Western concepts in developing their approach to
and practice of human rights. Women’s associations, formed by veiled
women, claimed both a pious and a democrat identity; using progres-
sive Islamic concepts, they not only try to fight against secular-mod-
ern sources of gender discrimination (exploitation of female sexuality
and labor), but also challenge literalist and male-dominant exegesis of
theological sources.
This style of Muslim engagement of modernity subsequently

entered into the political realm, generating a new political fram-
ing or ethos by which Islamic commitments serve as a reference to
embrace modern political values. For example, the theological inter-
pretation of “faith as individual choice” enforces positive attitudes
toward liberalism and voluntary civil action. This ethos was picked
up by the JDP. Like any other Islam-inspired party, the JDP sought
to open more space for religion in public and political spheres. Unlike
other parties, however, it also used a liberal language and attempted
a more or less conciliatory foreign policy within a discourse cen-
tered on Turkey’s global role for modeling a “conservative democ-
racy” (muhafazakâr demokratlar)75 or “Muslim democracy.”76 The
party managed to maintain this style throughout its first two terms
(2002–2011), reflecting how sites of hybridity and Muslimist senti-
ments would look like at the political sphere in this early period.
Whether in the form of Islamic hotels or political formations, the
sites of hybridity are spaces of identity production where Muslimism
is produced in everyday life. In these sites, Muslims undermine the
hegemony of Islamism on defining how to be a good Muslim, and
the monopoly of state-secularism on defining how to be modern.
They, instead, reformulate modernity to be “guilt free”; modernity
is no longer reduced to a sum of evil effects destroying religious sen-
sitivities. They also revitalize faith in the context of contemporary
modern life, redefining Islam to be “unapologetic”; being a devout
Muslim is no longer seen as being at odds with advocating gender
equality, or Turkey’s membership in the EU, or democratization of
the national polity.
This complex process of identity production is certainly filled
with tension; the symbolic boundaries and normative codes of
Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy are preserved and at the same
time redrawn. Aspects of modernity are embraced but submitted to
the sacred Islamic moral order. By entering into the cultural sites
of hybridity, we can more precisely capture the processes and ten-
sions involved in the formulation of Muslimism, and rethink current
Islamic encounters with modernity.
1990–2000 Failed Backlashes: Islamist Resurgence

and the Soft-Coup
In the 1990s, while Muslimism gained prominence among the pious
entrepreneurs and pro-Islamic civic associations, within the political
system Islamic political identity was still dominated and represented
by the Islamist NVM under the Welfare Party. As the post-1980 coup
military rule came to end, the movement and its long-term leader,
Erbakan, returned to politics, this time opening up the Welfare Party
(1983–1997).
Continuing the general discourse and style of the NVM, the
Welfare Party maintained an Islamism versus secularism stance. It
depicted the West and Western secularism as “microbes” that caused
corruption, moral decay, inequality, interest, and high prices. The
party advocated moral improvement by eliminating Western influ-
ences. It depicted the EU as a Christian club, disfavored membership
in the group, and promoted intra-Umma alliances.77 The party was
state oriented, and it assigned religious leaders and Islamic moral-
ity an explicit place in political and economic spheres and in moral
order. It proposed the “Just Order” program, which promoted a com-
bination of Ottoman and Islamic identities. The appeal of the Just
Order came from two things: emphasizing a balance between growth
and economic equality, and using Islam as a guarantee for political
decency and economic development.
The mid-1990s witnessed a strong, though short lived, wave of
Islamist political resurgence. The Welfare Party gained mayorship in
various cities in 1994, became the leading party in 1995, and the
senior partner of a coalition government with the center-right True
Path Party in 1996, carrying Erbakan to prime ministry. The main
electoral support for the party came from lower income groups of
villages, and migrants of urban centers who could not benefit from
redistribution of wealth throughout the transition years.
The party, however, also received some support from Muslimist
entrepreneurs and civil society, contributing to its political victory.
How was it that the Islamist Welfare Party got support from early
Muslimists, who actually challenged reactionary and state-centered
Islamic expressions?
The Welfare Party was the only party at the time explicitly open
to Islamic sensitivities, which made it relatively attractive for early
Muslimists. The alliance between Muslimist grassroots and the NVM,
however, was marked by tension. The Welfare Party and its Islamist
discourse could not fulfill Muslimist expectations in the long term.
Eventually, Muslimists broke off from the movement, shifting their
support to a newly founded political party, the JDP (2001), which, at
the time, used a political language more receptive to and consistent
with Muslimist sentiments and demands.
The formation of this party, nonetheless, had to wait for another
backlash, a Kemalist upsurge, which closed down the Welfare
Party and reasserted statism. It was in fact this battle between two
extremes—Islamists and secularists—that catalyzed Muslimists to
break free from Islamist political establishments and carry their dis-
tinct political views and demands into the political sphere under a
new political party.
 Coup: Attempt to Restore

the Bureaucratic Order and
Unintentional Consequences
Throughout the 1990s, The Welfare Party government extended
Islam’s political and economic presence and externalized Islamic
identity in the public sphere. For example, the Hittite Sun, which
was the Ankara metropolitan municipality emblem, was replaced
with the Kocatepe Mosque; streets were renamed in honor of Islamic
figures; television stations were closed for causing “moral decay”;
and billboards with female figures were removed. The expansion of
Islamist policies toward the public sphere and everyday life alarmed
the military. Mobilizing a campaign among secular media, businesses,
universities, and the judiciary, the army intervened in 1997; it closed
the party and banned Erbakan, the founder and the long-term leader
of the movement, from politics for five years.
The effects of the intervention were complex. More than going
after the Welfare Party, the generals passed the 28-February decisions,
which aimed to reassert statism and the statist version of secularism.
These measures, more than halting Islamist political mobilization,
sought a total exclusion of religion from the public sphere, restricted
religious freedoms, and threatened religious civic society, businesses,
veiled university students, and pious public employees. 78
The rigidity of the 28-February measures intensified critiques
against statist power structures and “shined off the military’s reputa-
tion even in the eyes of those not overtly opposed to its interventions
in politics.”79 On the other hand, by severely weakening the NVM,
the same measures freed Muslimists from Islamist establishments and
leaders, and prevented Islamists from engulfing Muslimist impulses.
Thus, by undermining its own legitimacy and undermining the hege-
mony of the NVM on Islam’s political representation, the military
unintentionally allowed for diffuse Muslimism to frame a new Islamic
politics.
This new Islamic political framework found its expression in a
new party, the JDP (2001), founded by politicians, including veiled
women, who came from within the NVM but were increasingly
disenchanted with the movement and its Islamist discourse. Defining

themselves as reformists and in a quest for a new political platform and
discourse, these political actors developed a political ethos character-
ized by Muslimist elements; they crystallized aspects of this ethos
into a party program and discourse carrying Muslimist sentiments to
the political sphere.
After the closure of the Welfare Party and banning of Erbakan from
politics, the NVM opened two other parties under different leaders:
the Virtue Party (1998–2001), shut down by the Constitutional
Court, and the current Felicity Party (2001). With these succeeding
parties, the movement attempted to tone down its antisystemic and
anti-Western Islamist discourse, but failed to develop a political dis-
course consistent with changing cultural and political expectations
and attitudes of the emerging religious groups. This was reflected
at the polls; in the 2002 elections, the Felicity Party received only
2.5% of the votes, whereas the JDP became the leading party with
34% of overall votes. The JDP maintained its electoral success; in
fact, increased it. In the 2007 and 2011 elections, the party received
46% and approximately 50% of the national vote, respectively, guar-
anteeing itself a third term in the government.
Muslimism in the Political Realm:

Is the Justice and Development
Party Muslimist?
The formation of the JDP was puzzling to most secularists. It was,
after all, politicians coming from the cadres and framework of
the Islamist NVM who formed the new party. Despite its Islamic
roots, however, the new party publicly rejected any affiliation with
political Islamism, identified itself instead with conservative-dem-
ocrat sentiments, and employed a liberal and pro-EU language.
Throughout its first two terms (2002–2011), the JDP managed to
sustain these elements, getting support from Muslimists as well as
liberal factions.
To explain the rise of this new Islamic political actor and its dis-
course, common interpretations suggest that we look solely into the
political sphere and mechanisms, especially to the 1997 intervention
and associated processes.80
The central argument is that, creating an environment of severe
insecurity not only for Islamic political actors but also for Muslim
civil and economic networks, the 1997 intervention made it clear
that in order to survive, Islamist actors had to fully comply with the
secular parameters of the system. Thoroughly pressured for ideo-

logical change by this difficult environment, Islamic actors ostensi-
bly gave up on Islamist political goals (i.e., Islamization of the state)
and toned down Islamist rhetoric (i.e., anti-Western and anti-state
impulses) while embracing such universal values as democracy and
multiculturalism to find legitimacy and security against statist estab-
lishments (e.g., reframing religious rights as human rights, or using
the EU processes to limit the power of the military and the state vis-
à-vis Islam).81
This line of argument, moreover, suggests that the pragmatic ide-
ology change taking place at the political level and among the politi-
cal elite has come down to diffuse moderate religious ideology among
religious grassroots. By strategically using a democratic, pro-EU, and
a liberal language, the JDP, in other words, has reconciled Islamic seg-
ments with global-modern notions and institutions (the EU). Some
have suggested the utilitarian commitment to secular politics might
lead to a genuine internalization of religious moderation among the
political elite and religious society.82
The historical analysis developed in the present chapter suggests
that this exclusive focus on political mechanisms prevents us from
recognizing the ongoing identity change and theological reform that
preceded the rise of the JDP and inspired its discourse.
The Muslimist orthodoxy generated new Islamic lifestyles and
habits, civil formations, and a political ethos. This ethos, more than
questioning the feasibility of Islamism, has questioned and rethought
theological compliance of Islamism to Islam. The 1997 intervention
worked to clear the political sphere of Islamist establishments, thereby
opening space for Muslimist sentiments to move into the political
sphere and influence Islamic political actors. The JDP, as a new party
seeking a new Islamic discourse, recognized Muslimist sentiments
and developed a party discourse in line with those sentiments. The
new Islamic political discourse and style used by the party in its early
terms was neither originated within the political sphere nor was it
confined to it; it was a reflection of a new Islamic orthodoxy under-
way since the late 1980s and located in the new Muslim status group
active in civil society.
Can we identify the party as Muslimist? The argument here is not
that the JDP is essentially Muslimist. Rather, I point to the degree to
which the JDP articulated aspects of Muslimism into a party program
and a discourse. I point to, in other words, the early style of the JDP
as a snapshot of what Muslimist elements, especially hybridity and
individual-orientation, would possibly look like in the political arena

and practice.
During the period of study, which overlapped the party’s first two
terms, Muslimist impulses were most explicitly found in the party’s
attempt to use a language of liberalism and individual rights, par-
ticularly when addressing controversial issues. Within its first term in
office (2002–2007), the party abolished Article 8 of the anti-terror
law and capital punishment, allowed political propaganda and broad-
casting in non-Turkish languages, and took measures against tor-
ture and gender discrimination (e.g., imposing harsher punishments
for honor-killing). Furthermore, the party lessened state control on
non-Muslim religious practices (counting abolishment of the Higher
Council of Minorities, Azınlıklar Tali Komisyonu), and assuaged
procedures for construction of churches and places of worship.83 With
reforms on freedom of association, moreover, Alevi-Bektashi organi-
zations were reestablished, acquiring de facto recognition, and some
receiving funding from the state budget.84 These reforms were also
the harmonization steps for the EU and affirmed JDP’s commitment
to the EU process (starting accession negotiations in 2005).
The party continued its second term (2007–2011) with further
openings in minority rights, especially regarding Alevi and Kurdish
minorities. It launched a series of workshops (2009) aiming to bring
the state and civil actors together in a public platform to establish
a shared identification of the existing problems and how to address
them.85 The openings received mixed reactions from different Alevi
and Kurdish factions,86 and have not significantly improved religious/
ethnic minority rights; nevertheless, they showed the government’s
attempt to include civil actors in the process of policy making.
Within the same term, the JDP government attempted to establish
a civil constitution in place of the current 1982 constitution drafted
under a military junta. The draft was postponed, however, due to
the increasing tension between the party and the military and statist
establishments. In 2007, as the party nominated presidential candi-
date Abdullah Gul, who was the foreign minister at the time and who
had a veiled wife, the military posted an online warning (dubbed an
“e-coup”), implying a possible intervention. One year later, in reac-
tion to propositions included in the draft for lifting the headscarf ban,
the Constitutional Court started an investigation to close the party
(dubbed a “judicial coup”).87 While the move toward a civil constitu-
tion was postponed through a national referendum in 2010, the party
passed various amendments; most notably, it made political-party
closure more difficult and reduced the weight of the military and the
high judiciary on the parliamentary and democratic processes.88
The party’s foreign policy strategies and initiatives were in line
with political sensibilities associated with Muslimism. Differing from
Islamist depictions of Western institutions as “microbes” and from
Kemalist resistance to globalization, the JDP took major steps toward
Turkey’s membership in the EU while working to increase Turkey’s
engagements in the Middle East. Changes in Turkish foreign pol-
icy, moreover, included an expansion in scope with new openings to
sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia,89 showing that the government
sought to strike not only regionally but globally. In fact, the govern-
ment claimed a calling to lead in a new world order and to provide a
model for the future; it especially staked a claim to have a special role
in bridging civilizational divides in the twenty-first century.90
By expanding rights, using a language of liberalism, pursuing
a conciliatory foreign policy, and securing space for Islam in pub-
lic and political spheres, the party presented a political ethos that
articulated with a Muslimist global vision. This does not make the
party essentially Muslimist, but in historically conditioned ways, it
was Muslimism informed by leaders and voters who shared Muslimist
sensibilities. Understanding the influence of Muslimism and the
nature of this articulation could usefully guide us in speculating how
in its third term the party’s seeming shift to top-down policies, ones
specifically at odds with a Muslimist ethos, will affect its relationship
to the diverse Muslimist strata identified here and more broadly affect
the place of Islam in public life.
Conclusion
In the present chapter, I have provided evidence that modern Turkish
Islamic movements have taken different forms and content under
different institutional (material and non-material) arrangements.
Throughout the bureaucratic republican order, Islamic movements
took on an Islamist form. The transition to neo-liberalization and
associated political changes undermined statism and entrenched
Islamism thereby opening up new spaces for Muslims’ economic and
public mobilization, generating in fact a new Muslim status group.
This increasingly educated, urban, and upwardly mobile group artic-
ulated their Islamic identity with modern contemporary institutions,
creating sites of hybridity and the Muslimist orthodoxy. These sites
are found throughout society, and I have focused on business, civic,
and political sites.
At a broader level, the historical reading developed here demon-

strates that Islam is not static and that the divide of Islam versus
modernity is historically constructed. Of course, Muslimists stra-
tegically use the liberal framework to secure and open larger space
for religion in public and political spheres. The Muslimist engage-
ments of global-modern institutions and universal values, however,
are embedded in theological debates and religious change, and are
rooted in everyday life sites. This historical reading also forces us
to go beyond the common divide of political versus cultural Islam,
by showing how a new Islamic expression that is not state-centered
produced significant political consequences, translating its cultural
demands and attributes into political ones.
CH A P T ER 2
Muslimism versus Islamism:

On the Triad of Politics, Religion, and
Everyday Life
The current chapter develops a more precise and analytical defini-

tion of Muslimism. I conceptualize this new form by identifying its
key attitudes in three macro realms, which also constitute the “three
ds ” of Islam in classical Islamic doctrine, namely, din (religion),
dunya (everyday life/lifestyle), and dawla (politics).1 This survey of
Muslimist temperaments provides us with an ideal cognitive schema
or a discursive map.
Next in this chapter, I introduce the core of my empirical work.
By entering into cultural sites of hybridity, I look at the Muslimist
three-d schema more directly to see whether the suggested schema
adequately represents and captures Islamic engagements of modernity
and to elaborate on the nature of these engagements inferentially.
Even though the formal unit, the unit chosen for intensive inferen-
tial analysis, is Muslimism, I also bring Islamism into the analysis
and identify core Islamist temperaments using the same framework
of the three ds. This is not an extensive examination of the Islamist
discourse; instead, I am using Islamism as a “peripheral unit”2 to
establish a systematic comparison between two orthodoxies. It is in
such a comparative context that the novel content and nature of the
Muslimist form are shown.
Conceptualizing Muslimism: Rethinking

the Islamic Triad of Ethics, Everyday Life,
and Politics
The triad of religion, politics, and everyday life found a new niche
in the modern Islamist claim that the sacred, the profane, and the
political (the three ds) are inseparable.3 That is, Islam is not only
a religion but also a way of life (from economic production to the
nature of family) and a way of governance. One line of scholarship
finds the interweaving of the three ds to be intrinsic to Islam, depict-
ing Islam, thereby, as a political and secularization-resistant religion
in its very nature. Others have effectively argued that this holistic-
ity is putative and historically contingent,4 pointing, moreover, to
streams of Muslim scholarship and thought for which Islam has no
claim over politics and “modern politics and economics are more of
a civil domain for the ordinary citizens to ponder and to improvise
upon.”5
Informed by these broad discussions, present scholarship uses
the three ds to examine the content of contemporary Islamic move-
ments/expressions. Common applications of this framework,
however, typically concentrate on how movements construct the
relationship among the triad of religion, everyday life, and politics,
while dealing rather thinly with how religious groups orient to—in
other words, define, organize, and render meaning to—each of
these different realms. Such applications tend to result in a binary
taxonomy of Islamic movements, ranging from fundamentalist/
political-Islamist forms (the sacred is active across social spheres) to
liberal-like theologies/cultural Islam (the sacred is separated from
the arrangements of the mundane and the political), which does not
capture the complexities of the Muslimist form. For example, similar
to Islamists, in Muslimism, the world/reality surrounding the indi-
vidual is also God-given and transcendental. Muslimists too reject
radical autonomy from the sacred (din), and religious precepts influ-
ence and inform social spheres (the sacred actively shapes ways of
life and core political metaphors). In other words, both in Islamism
and Muslimism, religious notions transfer into politics, yet the out-
comes are remarkably different: Muslimist theological emphasis on
the individual politically tends toward the desacralization of the state
and, across social spheres, undermines traditional Muslim codes and
establishments while heightening individual/civil agency and a con-
scious religious identity.
My use of the “Islamic ds,” hence, differs from common applica-
tions. I look at how religious groups understand, frame, and construct
each social realm—religion, everyday life, and politics—by examining
people’s “reality orientations”: ontology, agency, and action. These
orientations encompass important attitudes and practices. Ontology
is a meta-view or a set of general assumptions and interpretations
that constitute and define reality; it specifies how people view the
nature of the sacred, the mundane, and the political and renders that
MUSLIMISM VERSUS ISLAMISM 65
nature with meaning and value. This usage follows cultural analyses
that view culture as constituting reality6 and attempts to capture the
understanding that culture is an order of things within which identi-
ties are embedded and constituted and from which flow local mean-
ings (including self-understanding) and meaningful action.
Agency refers to actors who are assigned significance and agency
to attain and maintain a given meta-view. Different meta-views tend
to stipulate different agents; authoritarian versus democratic polities,
for example, will impose agency on different actors and to varying
degrees (ranging among the individual, organizations, and the state),
whether the agency pertains to economic development or social poli-
cies. Finally, action refers to a set of actions favored/prescribed for the
establishment and maintenance of a given meta-view; we would expect
different meta-views to mandate different types of action (e.g., statist
policies versus civil participation). A conceptualization of Muslimism
based on people’s reality orientations across religious, political, and
everyday-life spheres results in a cognitive-schema that maps out key
Muslimist temperaments.
Muslimist versus Islamist Cognitive Schemas

Following, I briefly introduce the reality orientations of both move-
ments as summarized in ideal cognitive schemas of both orthodox-
ies. To reiterate, my conceptualization of Islamism based on the
three-d model is not intended to redefine Islamism in any way, but
rather to establish a comparison to pinpoint the concrete ways and
key issues that separate Muslimism from Islamist formations.
RELIGION EVERYDAY LIFE STATE
ONTOLOGY Islamism Ideology Puritanism Islamic State
Muslimism Identity Hybridity Liberal State
AGENCY Islamism Orthopraxy/ Communitarianism State

Homogenous centeredness
Community
Muslimism Iman/ Individuation Civic society
Heterogeneous
community
ACTION Islamism Exclusionary Traditionalism State-centered

politics political action
Muslimism Conciliatory Innovation/reform Broad social

politics action
Religious Temperaments (din)

As opposed to Islamism, which orients believers to religion ideologi-
cally, Muslimism views religion in terms of identity and finds true
religion in iman. A heart-felt and voluntary submission to God, iman
cannot be forced nor can it be measured by external sources. This
theological emphasis on internal creed undermines external author-
ity, while ascribing full agency to the individual in respect to spiritual
decisions and moral actions. The autonomization of the individual
believer vis-à-vis external authority results in a heterogeneous religious
community relatively welcoming of self-expression and modifications
(e.g., veiling in different styles and colors), allowing Muslimists more-
over to develop conciliatory politics in their interactions with the non-
Muslim as well as the secular other.
In contrast, the Islamist ideological view of religion—in which
religion takes a Jacobin character and is dominated by political
ideology—finds true religion in literalism. Literalism is embodied
through an emphasis on orthopraxy and rule-following. Religious
practices become quite prescribed (e.g., forms of veiling); prescribed
conduct is then used to determine one’s religiosity and belonging
(e.g., true Muslim women veil!). The emphasis on orthopraxy creates
a homogeneous society closed to self-expressions, empowers external
control (community or the state) over individuals’ moral choices and
actions, and results in exclusionary discourse and attitudes toward
not only the non-Muslim but also the non-Islamist other.
Everyday-Life Orientations (dunya)

We find similarly dramatic differences in the way Muslimists and
Islamists engage the contemporary world and everyday life. For both
orthodoxies, the sacred is active in the mundane; the world, from
laws of nature to human history, is subordinated to the sovereign
God. Informed by a literalist and ideological view of religion, how-
ever, Islamism presumes an inherent incompatibility between Islam
and contemporary secular-modern life. Islam, its institutions, and its
values must be protected—and recovered—from the deforming influ-
ences of modernity. In terms of social order and action, the vision
of pristine Islam unfolds into communitarian and traditionalist atti-
tudes. The community that has authoritative power over individu-
als keeps believers within the borders of correct religion and moral
action, whereas traditionalism functions to conserve and recover pris-
tine religion, or in tandem to reject religious innovation and change.
Muslimist interactions with contemporary modern life, in con-

trast, are marked by a hybrid ontology. Muslimists articulate Islam
with aspects of modernity, reworking the sacred into modern life,
institutions, and values and thereby creating hybrid sites, lifestyles,
and practices. For Muslimists, such actions allow the pious to carry
on Islamic commitments and identities while being part of modern
life, economic markets, or public debates. Related to the social order,
this hybrid ontology undermines traditional religious communities
and traditional Islamic codes. The result is not an atomistic individu-
alism eroding the idea of umma. Instead, Muslimists redefine reli-
gious community to be something akin to voluntary associational life
and believe that the truth of religion can be discovered by reasoning
and investigation (akil/reason) rather than by blindly submitting to
traditional religious authority/codes. These shifts increase individual
autonomy and agency and open up space for religious self-identity
and expressions. Another prominent result of the hybrid ontology
is that Muslimist everyday life is marked by innovative action and
creativity.
Political Attitudes (dawla)

Both in theological and everyday-life orientations, then, the individ-
ual is essential to Muslimism. This individual orientation also informs
key political attitudes. In terms of ontology, it enforces articulation
of a liberal state, using Western categories. The state is not to impose
authoritative control on individuals (either to impose religion or to
limit religious freedoms), but to enhance individual agency, choice,
and initiative. This desacralizes the state and limits its role in the
establishment of a religious-moral society. Muslimists, instead, see
civil society as the key actor across social, political, and theological
activities. Muslimism, as such, is not state-centered. It focuses on cre-
ating life spaces and seeking innovative solutions to carry on Islamic
identity in the modern world. This, however, also includes political
action to affect state structure, which takes the form of civil organiz-
ing and electoral participation.
In contrast to the Muslimist emphasis on the individual (inner-
ethics and choice), Islamist orthodoxy emphasizes external control.
For Islamism, a truly Islamic life and true believers cannot emerge
unless the social order (from economics to everyday life) surround-
ing the individual is entirely designed along Islamic precepts and
teachings. In politics, the emphasis on external control results in
an “Islamic/Islamized state”; the state is to create an Islamic moral
order through laws/regulations, such as compulsory veiling, and to

maintain this order. The state, then, is the main actor responsible
for realigning the profane along with the sacred (enforcing Islamic
virtues and eradicating evil). This enhanced state authority over the
individual is legitimized through the claim that the state simply
implements Allah’s laws, binding to each and all, which also gives
the state absolute authority. Islamism, as such, is state-oriented and
political; its main interest is capturing the state to transform society
along religious lines by political means.
Entering Sites of Hybridity with Three Ds

How can we assess whether the Muslimist form defined here ade-
quately captures and interprets the emerging Islamic lifestyles,
discourses, and identities in Turkey?
In laying out the historical conditions that generated Muslimism,
I have argued that we would expect to find the Muslimist form in
new Islamic institutions, from Islamic hotels to civil and political for-
mations, which attempt a synthesis between Islam and modernity. I
identified these institutions as “cultural sites of hybridity,” where a
new Muslim status group engages modernity by using Islam, produc-
ing religious practices, habits, and discourses that look neither liberal
nor fundamentalist. A thorough examination and understanding of
the actual content of this unconventional engagement requires that
we enter into these sites7 and investigate how actors view and make
sense of their practices. It is an empirical question as to whether we
will find Muslimism. Do they view their activities in modernist terms,
as Islamism, as strategic attempts for survival, or as what I identify as
Muslimism?
After preliminary empirical encounters with various Islamic orga-
nizations in Ankara and Istanbul between 2006 and 2008, I identified
four organizations as “potential sites of hybridity,” each challenging
the binary division between Islamic versus modern and each exhib-
iting hybrid and Muslimist-like tendencies, both in their practices
and discourse. These sites include a women’s association, the CWPA
(Capital Women’s Platform Association, 1995—Baskent Kadin
Platformu Dernegi); a human rights organization, MAZLUM-DER
(Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People,
1991—Insan Hakları ve Mazlumlar icin Dayanisma Dernegi); a busi-
nessmen’s association, MUSIAD (Independent Industrialists’ and
Businessmen’s Association, 1990—Mustakil Sanayici ve Isadamlari
Dernegi); and the Justice and Development Party (2001—Adalet ve

Kalkinma Partisi).8
It should be noted again that I do not treat these organizations as
essentially Muslimist actors, but rather as Muslimist-informed asso-
ciations with Muslimist men and women participating and leading.
As such, these organizations articulate Muslimist sentiments and
crystallize aspects of Muslimism in their diverse spheres. Interviews
are, thus, snapshots of the interviewees’ views of their organization
during the period of study. This is especially important for interpret-
ing the political subjects given the subsequent changes in the Justice
and Development Party’s (JDP) policies.
The core empirical work involved going back to the selected sites
with the Muslimist three-d schema. For that, I developed a ques-
tionnaire, composed of standardized and open-ended questions,9
that would start conversations on each three d and its reality orien-
tations. I interviewed leaders and founders of these organizations
(e.g., congressmen and women, general and branch chairs, section
directors)10 to assess whether my mapping of the Muslimist model
adequately captures religious actors’ discourse and orientations
toward the three ds, while also thickening this model based on infer-
ential findings.11 This methodology parallels targeted sampling,12
and sites of hybridity functioned as “congregating places”13 from
which I recruited individuals through ethnographic mapping.
By engaging religious actors from across social spheres (business-
men, politicians, and women’s and human rights’ activists), we are
able to capture the diffuse and multifaceted nature of Muslimism. At
the same time, documenting Muslimism across various organizations
will suggest that Islamic engagements in distinct spheres (civic soci-
ety, liberal politics, and business and consumer taste) are in fact dif-
ferent manifestations or facets of the same religious phenomena; they
are informed and marked by similar religious, political, and everyday-
life attitudes and dispositions.
Including organizations involved in fashion and in women’s
rights is important. Women and the female body have always been
a locus of the cultural battle between religion and its rival ideolo-
gies (nationalism and secularism), and it is not surprising that gender
politics (and the female body) surface as a significant dynamic in the
Muslimist orthodoxy as well. In fact, from hashema swimsuits to
Islamic fashion shows to gender-segregated swimming pools, we find
that Muslimism constructs the female body as an object of hybridiza-
tion by male-owned companies. By bringing a women’s association
into the analysis, however, we can also examine the role played by
religious women in shaping and disseminating Muslimism. The task
here is to trace how female actors constitute themselves as subjects
of hybridity within a Muslimist frame and thus become agents of
identity change and religious innovation as they rework the sacred
into everyday life.
Key Muslimist Sites

Each organization I bring into the empirical examination of
Muslimism has the legal status of “association” (dernek) and is inde-
pendent from the state. They, in fact, represent the opening of reli-
gious groups to a new type of religious organizing, civil agency and
action for the first time. Historically, Turkish religious groups had
been organized around/by tarikat and cemaat structures that resem-
ble a traditional style of civil organizing. This style continued even
with the retreat of statism throughout the 1980s. The associations
I identify as key Muslimist sites, however, are independent not only
from the state, but also from traditional religious formations (i.e.,
tarikat and cemaat structures). Founded in the 1990s, they have left
tarikat circles and they do not display organic ties with traditional
formations. Some members have connections with tarikats ; yet, in
such cases, this relationship is not defined as devotion but rather as
a personal connection. Using Western categories, they are, instead,
rationalized, professional, membership-based, and voluntary organi-
zations14 with clearly defined goals, activities, and functions and an
organized drive to influence the public debate. Their aims, activities,
and target population are not confined to issues of religion or religious
people. Instead, in a national-historical context in which public space
and agency have been extremely polarized along ideological divides,
these organizations—marked by an attempt to synthesize Islam and
modernity—have created a new style of public agency that cuts across
clichéd camps. This conciliatory attitude at home is also found in
their global orientations and their support of reforms mandated by
the European Union (EU) for Turkey’s membership.
The JDP, MAZLUM-DER, MUSIAD, and the Capital Women’s
Platform Association (CWPA) have each acquired great national
and international attention for their unconventional discourse and
style that do not fit in with Islamism.15 As I have already discussed,
observing the early record of the JDP, many separated the party from
the former Islamist parties, despite it being rooted in the National
Vision Movement. Explanations for why the party broke off from
mainstream Islamism vary, most notably between approaches suggest-

ing a value change and approaches suggesting strategic adaptations.
But the consensus, throughout the party’s early terms, was that the
party abandoned Islamist rhetoric and ideology, and used a politically
and economically liberal and pro-EU language. It indeed managed to
receive support from various factions of society, including liberals, by
promoting a conciliatory politics, thus also legitimizing itself before
Turkey’s Western allies.
I have also already discussed that a new breed of entrepreneurs,
who emerged in Anatolia along with the transition to a neoliberal
economy, has played a large role in the rise of Muslimism by using
Islam to engage capitalist markets. Formation of the MUSIAD in
1990, for the first time, institutionalized Muslim economic activ-
ism, Islamic networks, and submarkets. MUSIAD, just like its social
base, embodies an alternative model of economic development and
has become a hub for many companies that are the innovators of
hybrid services and products, such as the owner of the hashema
swimsuits.
The model presented by MUSIAD articulates free-market and
civic-associational life with Islamic values. It cherishes economic lib-
erties, commercial fervor, and wealth accumulation while attribut-
ing, in a Weberian sense, a religious characteristic and meaning to
these economic impulses. For example, wealth is seen as an escrow,
of which the real owner is Allah16 and, hence, it should be managed
by strict guidance to religious principles, such as fear of God, hon-
esty, fairness, and avoiding prodigality (israf ). Wealth and money
are also seen as prerequisites for realizing two of the five pillars of
Islam, namely pilgrimage and almsgiving. The wealthy, moreover,
take on an inescapable religious responsibility for helping the poor.
This hybrid economic ethos is visible in MUSIAD’s famous slogan:
“high-technology, high-morals.” Similar to this slogan, MUSIAD
refuses the title given to the Islamic business, “Anatolian Tigers,”
and tries to promote instead the title “Anatolian Lions,” suggesting
that whereas a tiger represents a powerful but destructive commercial
attitude, a lion symbolizes powerful but at the same time constructive
and socially responsible businessmen.17
Founded in 1991, MAZLUM-DER was also an outcome of
changes brought on by the liberalization of the state and the econ-
omy. Before the 1980s, left-wing organizations, limited in their agen-
das to political-thought criminals (mainly from the left) and torture
cases, dominated Turkish human rights politics. With the retreat of
statism, however, a new human rights philosophy advocating basic
human rights “as the ethical gauge of any and every political action”18
emerged, opening up Turkish human rights politics to new actors as
well as new conceptual terrains from freedom of religion to consumer
rights.19
Emerging from this context, MAZLUM-DER initially put for-
ward a conventional Islamist discourse, viewing Western notions
of human rights and Islam to be incompatible and limiting itself to
violations regarding Islamic people. It accused the Western approach
of being imperfect, faulty, and unjust, depicting it to be rooted in
laws of atheism and imperialist ambitions. Islamic human rights, in
contrast, were blessed to be God-given, perfect, and universal. With
this divide, MAZLUM-DER based its approach to human rights
on Islamic theological sources in full rejection and exclusion of the
United Nations Human Rights Convention.20 However, this Islamist
stance and discourse were quite short-lived. Around the mid-1990s,
and under a new chair, MAZLUM-DER abandoned the Islamist dis-
course and shifted toward a conciliatory and hybrid politics, causing
former leadership to press claims against the current administration
for losing Islamic identity and sensitivities.21
Along with this shift came a broadening of activities. From reli-
gious issues, it expanded its interests to include, for instance, refu-
gee rights, minority rights, health care and patient rights, consumer
rights, children’s rights, death cases, and women’s rights. It also
reframed its stance on particular issues, for example, starting to
rethink the Kurdish issue within a discourse of multiculturalism and
liberalism, rather than approaching it with an emphasis on the unity
of umma and a concern to prevent polarization within the Islamic
camp. “Today, MAZLUM-DER (sic) aligns itself unequivocally with
a universal vision of human rights, fully compatible with international
standards”22 and seeks cooperation with Western agencies for a more
efficient human rights platform. This is visible in its joint activities
with Western organizations, such as the Human Rights Watch, and
its foundation of a separate commission designed to monitor develop-
ments in the international community, such as the UN, the EU, the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Moreover, my inter-
views with the leaders of MAZLUM-DER revealed they now claim
that they refer both to the UN Human Rights Convention and the
Medina certificate in defining and approaching human rights, that
they promote human rights as a horizontal line (which can cut across
clichéd camps of secular versus religious and Islam versus the West),
and that they stimulate those camps to work together.
Finally, founded in 1995 as a platform, the CWPA received the

legal status of association in 2002. The founders are a group of reli-
gious women who graduated from theology faculties with masters
and doctoral degrees in areas such as tefsir (Quranic interpreta-
tion). Today, however, members of the association come from a vari-
ety of occupational, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds.
Differing from most pro-Islamic women’s associations—that is, either
subcommissions of broader organizations with only a partial interest
in women’s issues or independent associations whose function barely
goes beyond charity and socio-economic development of girls—the
platform is an association with an organized drive to create an Islamic
female consciousness and to produce a new religious women’s politics
to influence the public debate (both nationally and internationally)
on gender issues and problems.
The association states that its mission is to resolve women’s trou-
bles and grievances that stem, on the one hand, from traditional
Islamic discourse and practices, and, on the other, from gender biases
produced by modernity.23 The women of the platform argue that
patriarchy and tradition have contaminated Islamic knowledge and
interpretations of Islam. They challenge male dominant exegesis of
Islamic theological sources (in the areas of tefsir and hadis —oral tra-
ditions relating to the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad—
and Sunnet— customary actions and habits) through re-reading these
sources from a pro-female (not necessarily feminist, however) per-
spective. They also emphasize progressive Islamic concepts, such as
Masalih (consideration of public interest) and ijtihad (independent
judgments and interpretation), aiming to liberalize literalist and tra-
ditional interpretations and to allow one to act based on the current
conditions (especially in debating against practices such as polygamy
and rules of inheritance).
These reformist women not only display a rupture from traditional
religious orthodoxies, but they also problematize the taken-for-
granted positive relationship between secularization/modernity and
women’s empowerment. This includes universal issues, such as the
exploitation of female sexuality and labor, and domestic issues, such
as the ban on the veil. In this respect, they construct a hybrid Islamic
identity that is liberating.
The platform’s activities are not confined to religious issues of
religious women. In fact, the CWPA women complain that because
of their perceived “Islamic qualities” (i.e., the veil), their organiza-
tion is labeled a “religious organization” that deals only with issues
of Islamic women. They, in contrast, define their organization as a
“women’s rights organization” founded by pious women who deal

with a wide range of topics that pertain to women, including Islamic
issues (such as the veil), but also, for instance, traffic murders and
labor law. They even try to generate acceptance for controversial issues
such as organ donation. Similarly, the platform seeks to cooperate
with domestic secular organizations and to start dialogues with the
“other.” To that end, they even hold meetings with lesbian and gay
groups. The platform, moreover, has made global efforts to cooperate
with non-Muslim religious groups and international agencies, such
as Amnesty International, Parliament of the World’s Religions, and
the United Nations’ Habitat II Conference, and to manage projects
under the EU, such as the Network Intercultural Learning in Europa
(NILE) project.
The Islamist Discourse in Religion,

Politics, and Everyday Life
I finish this chapter by laying out the Islamist discourse of the
three ds. The historical reading of Turkish Islamic movements as
well as the literature on political Islamism 24 provides a great deal
of knowledge about the content of Islamism.25 I draw a more pre-
cise design of Islamist three ds, however, from my preliminary work,
which included visits to two Islamist women’s organizations and one
human rights’ association. Although these organizations participate
in modern civic action, utilize a modern discourse (e.g., women’s
rights), and engage legitimate channels of public participation, they
are known for their state-centered approach and their “Islam versus
secularism” stance. Our conversations based on the three-d model
revealed that they are also commensurate with an authoritarian and
communitarian style of religion and society.26 Moreover, their activi-
ties are typically confined to religious issues; women’s organizations
focus on the headscarf debate and educational rights, whereas the
human rights’ organizations focus on rights’ violations inflicted on
Islamic people.
In building up to the Islamist cognitive schema, I further bring
into the analysis studies of Islamism, especially a study conducted by
Bayramoglu (2006),27 and two interviews conducted in the course of
fieldwork, which displayed Islamist tendencies. The resulting schema
is consistent with previous studies on political Islamism. Again, my
empirical dealings with Islamist organizations, although comple-
mented by secondary data, negative cases, and previous studies, are
not extensive; Islamism is the peripheral unit. The Islamist three-d
schema, however, allows us to reorganize different aspects of Islamism

and to compare Muslimist and Islamist forms in a standardized way,
thoroughly revealing how Muslimist formulations of the three ds dif-
fer from those of political Islamism.
Islamist Orientations to Religion (din)

Ontology: Religion as Ideology
Islamism orients believers to religion ideologically. This means, on
the one hand, that it defines Islam as much in terms of a political
ideology as in terms of a religion. Piety dictates that a political posi-
tion, and the act of being political, is seen as an intrinsic part of true
faith. In fact, this political stance precedes the spiritual functions of
religion, which is to supply believers with a moral landscape, rules,
and practices that make life meaningful. When asked to describe his
organization’s target population and future goals, a former political
exile and a member of an Islamist civil organization, Ekrem, exempli-
fies this association between piety and political opposition as follows:
“We are in opposition with the system in Turkey. We target anyone
who is in political opposition against the system . . . political opposi-
tion is the common denominator . . . not only on some issues . . . we
oppose to the system as a whole . . . we plan to become more defined
among the Islam-centered opposition against the system in Turkey.
This is the goal.”
The intertwining of true faith and political activism finds a more
specific expression as Islamists describe political action as an “action
of hayir,” which is an action that would gain acceptance of and be
rewarded by God. Ekrem continues: “Competition must be for
hayir . . . For example, to be at front to carry a poster in a meeting, or
to help out for the activities . . . I mean doing things that are directed
towards gaining acceptance of God . . . rather than gaining prestige
or other things in this-worldly realm.” That way, joining political
opposition is turned into a religious imperative, and political action
is sacralized. This radical political position enforces literalism in
theological attitudes. Islamists claim to hold and strive to practice a
vision of pristine Islam and they perceive change—whether pushed
by emerging Muslim factions, globalizing lifestyles, or secularizing
states—as a deformation of pristine religion. In sociological terms,
this dogmatizes religion. Religion is understood to be a set of fixed
values and practices that are fully independent of agents who practice
Islam as well as cultural currents that surround these agents.
Using the example of contemporary Muslim engagements with the

modern economy in Turkey, namely of usury, a former congressman
of the Welfare Party, Niyazi, epitomizes the depiction of change as an
erosion and a loss of Islamic authenticity. He says, “Previously Islamic
groups worked on that [usury] issue . . . we used to call those usu-
ry-free financial institutions. Now this name is gone, and now they
[referring to non-Islamist religious circles] are doing regular banking
transactions . . . especially after 28-February28 intervention . . . there is
erosion among the Islamic people when it comes to religious sensitivi-
ties . . . they are using bank credits and so on . . . this is a loss.”
Such changes pressed by secular modernity are in fact considered
an attack against Islam. Islamists respond to this attack by articulat-
ing a protectionist discourse, stating that it is necessary to directly
resist and control penetrating effects of modernization.
Niyazi: “It is a must to have a supervised change. There is an adver-

tisement . . . it says power without control is not power. Now here
we have a power without control. Modernization is in a state of an
attack, excuse me, but like a furious bull that broke off its cordage.
Society’s defensive reflex is abated here against the attack of the
bull. Therefore, at this point the state [referring to state control] is
a very fundamental mechanism.”
A female chairing an Islamist human rights association, Zehra,

expresses this protectionist discourse similarly, as follows:
I think that specific policies are being produced deliberately to degen-

erate Islam. This is because regardless of all the pressure applied
on Muslims, Islam continues to prevail and Muslims remain to be
Muslims. The only way to avert this is to transform Islam by cul-
tural imperialism [referring to penetration of Western-modernity into
Muslim countries] . . . Media and civil society are used and politics
and education are used for this purpose . . . but non-Islamic value sys-
tems cannot obliterate Islam . . . at the end, every Muslim, till her last
breath, knows that they are being tested by God. As long as I live as
a Muslim, I will continue to nourish Islam, whether Islam today is a
small burgeon or teeming tree. That is it, and Allah is the protector of
his religion. No harm can come to Islam.
Agency: A Homogeneous Community

Relative to community, the prominence of pristine religion results in
attempts to establish a homogeneous religious community. Islamists
understand religious community to be something akin to a homoge-

neous social unit, in which believers follow a code of behaviors and
interpretive frames, resulting in standardized religious performances,
more broadly, lifestyles, and the marginalization of individual agency
and differences.
In everyday life, this standardization is easily established by plac-
ing the emphasis primarily on orthopraxy. Orthopraxy—religious
action and ritual—functions as the primary measure to mark one’s
identity (who is a Muslim?), religiosity (who is a good Muslim?),
and belonging (who is a member of the community?). Discussions
over the veil reveal these functions of orthopraxy clearly. As epito-
mized by Zehra following, veiling is seen as an explicit and imme-
diate symbol for distinguishing one as a Muslim: “When you have
two people in front of you naturally it [the veil] puts a clause for
being a Muslim . . . We had a small group of youngsters visiting
from Ethiopia . . . orphans. We wanted to make them happy here in
bayram —religious festival. One child said, ‘Here you have lots of
Christians!’ We said, ‘No, they are not Christians,’ but we could not
persuade him. He says, ‘No way, Muslims veil!’”
Yet orthopraxy does not simply refer to whether one exercises
religious rituals and practices. True believers do not only strictly
entertain religious rituals; they entertain these rituals in strictly
defined ways. This is particularly true for rituals and practices that
have public visibility and by which others can recognize one as a
Muslim. Such prescribed actions translate into a much tighter separa-
tion between “true Muslims” living Islam in its pristine form versus
“partial or nominal Muslims” deviating from the prescribed codes
and behavior, thereby maintaining and exteriorizing the uniformity
of the group.
For instance, for Islamists, tesettur (Islamic dress code) should fol-
low a certain format both in terms of the tying styles and in terms of
the colors. Importantly, but unsurprisingly, attempts to standardize
veiling styles have gained a particular exigency in response to emerg-
ing fashions of the veil, in which Muslim women design their veils
and coverings, similar to secular clothing, to reflect personal fea-
tures, from eye color and age, to personal likes and dislikes. Whereas
Muslimists welcome individual-based variation, for Islamists, indi-
vidual modifications are improper and at times depicted even as
betrayal. By putting individual differences, choices, and demands for-
ward, self-expression deviates one from pristine or prescribed conduct
and disrupts homogeneity. Through discussions over the veil, we can
clearly capture how orthopraxy and prescribed action sociologically
play out to form the Islamist community and identity, maintenance

of homogeneity, and regulation of change. An Islamist businessman
in Bayramoglu’s study, as such, remarks:
Actually hicab, that is to say, covering of women . . . This is a religious

supposition as important as praying or fasting. Yet, recently, I am hav-
ing difficulty in understanding why many girls are covering . . . you
say I have this belief . . . Okay, you cover for that reason, but you are
careless for other things. The way you tie your headscarf . . . I saw it
in Ankara yesterday, a veiled girl . . . when leaving her male friend,
she shook hands with him and she kissed him . . . Now if you are this
relaxed, then why do even bother to hide your hair? . . . In that sense
there is an incompatibility . . . 1980s and ’90s were not like that. It
[veiling] was a symbol . . . before it was a way of covering, now it is a
way of self-expression.29
Action: Exclusionary Politics

Whereas attempts to protect and recover pristine religion homog-
enizes the community according to orthopraxy, it, in tandem, pro-
duces an exclusionary discourse and actions toward the “other.”
For one, and at the micro level, exclusionary attitudes unfold
into limiting social interaction with the other—non-Muslim,
denominational, and secular alike. For example, an Islamist from
Bayramoglu’s study says: “My religion, I mean Islam . . . brings into
my personal life a “mahremiyet ” [here, referring to limits of inter-
action and intimacy among people]. And, it also draws borders for
my family members in their occasions or relations with non-Mus-
lims. Not only for Christians. If somebody says that he is laic, and
that Islam does not mean much to him, I already put a distance in
my relationship.”30
Second, and at the macro level, Islamists reject integration with
the society at large, whether this pertains abstractly to current glob-
al-modern order or, more concretely, to the immediate society sur-
rounding Islamists. Islam here works as a boundary, putting a clear
and insurmountable distance between Muslims and the existing sys-
tem, its cultural currents, customs, and even laws.
Again Zehra states this clearly: “Being a Muslim makes this clause;
I want to live my life upon Islam wherever geography I am in and
whichever laws I am bounded with . . . I have to administer everything
based on main sources and rules of Islam . . . if one thing is a conven-
tional practice and is against Islam, I won’t do it. Similarly, even if
it is against the laws, I cannot take a step back from Islam because
the law requires so. Because this way you would be two-faced and
hypocritical.”
Third, exclusionary politics are not solely confined to social
interactions with the outside, whether non-Islamist factions or the
society at large. They also pertain to the repudiation of lifestyles,
choices, and habits of the other. This finds its legitimacy, in the
depiction of the non-Islamic other, to be illegitimate. The serious
implications of this radical position unfold as Islamists talk about
practices that are considered haram (impermissible), such as the sell-
ing and drinking of alcohol. These discussions show that Islamists,
in fact, do not consider such actions as “issues of freedom”; such
actions are not subject to individual choice nor are they entitled
to cultural (or political) tolerance. This radical approach then pre-
vents Islamism from developing a conciliatory politics, reproducing
instead the established cultural divides between Islamic and secular
segments in Turkey. As we will see, relative to politics, this cultural
conservatism that marks Islamists’ perception and position toward
the other translates into an authoritarian state model and prohibi-
tory politics.
It is noteworthy that Islamists also attempt to further justify their
rigid position toward the other by pressing claims against the West
for having malevolent intentions against Islam and Turkey, direct-
ing such claims especially toward the EU and the harmonization
packages proposed by the union for Turkey’s possible membership.
Reflecting on new laws that halted compulsory religious education
in state schools, for example, Niyazi contends: “Absolutely this can-
not be accepted . . . I mean the EU has some pressures like . . . the folk
needs the freedom to pick their own religion, and the folk should
live their religion civilly and individually. This is unacceptable . . . the
information we have acquired from within the EU tells us that after
a while they will even demand for banning of ezan (the public call
for prayer).”
Islamist Orientations to
Everyday Life (dunya)
Ontology: Purism
Islamist engagements with secular modern life, its institutions, and
its values are characterized by purist discourse and attitudes. For
Islamism, modernity and Islam are two opposite poles and, based on
this divide, every aspect of life, from social and personal interactions
to economic and governmental systems, to moral values and gender

relations, acquires a completely different nature. Discussions about
whether modernization has degenerated Islam clearly reveal this pur-
ist discourse, as remarked by Zehra: “The understandings of Islam
are complete opposites of any others [referring to non-Islamic value
systems]. Capitalist system has to consume. Islam does not consume
and does not approve israf —prodigality. In the capitalist system,
the foremost characteristic of women is her femininity/sexuality. In
Islam, it is not the physique but the personality. These are only a
couple of examples; there are many and more opposites. When there
is one there cannot be other.” This extreme separation naturally
results in rejections of cultural mixings between the modern and
the Islamic.
On a more practical level, we capture purist tendencies in rejections
of new Islamic everyday-life institutions and practices that attempt a
synthesis between Islam and modernity. One example that strikingly
shows how Islamists press claims against Islam-modernity amalgama-
tions for deforming Islam is the Islamic fashion show, as Niyazi puts:
I have never been to an Islamic fashion show and I would never . . . This
[Islamic fashion shows] is the biggest measurement that shows us the
degeneration and deformation among the Islamic community . . . if we
have to pinpoint a breakdown point, a point of change in Turkey,
what caused tesettur [Islamic dress code] to be degenerated, it is teset-
tur fashion shows.
Paralleling such critiques against hybrid cultural practices, Islamists

also highlight the incompatibility between the Muslim umma and
the West. They advocate reorienting Turkish foreign policy, and
cultural and economic interactions, toward the umma, particularly
Iran—which is praised for its anti-Americanism—while criticizing
Turkey’s attempts to further develop relations with the West, espe-
cially its attempts at joining the EU.
Niyazi: “I am certainly against Turkey’s membership in the EU. Why

did Turkey apply for the membership initially? It was in 1959 . . . By
then, Turkey had to apply to international organizations, which
Greece had also applied. Second . . . when the Turkish Republic
was formed, it was formed as a modernization project . . . today, the
EU is seen to be the continuation of the modernization project
that started back in the Ottoman era, but that supposedly failed.
The EU is now considered as the last round of this project. I don’t
believe that Turkey will benefit from the EU in any matter.”
Niyazi continues: “Iran is such an important force . . . However,

our experts of international relations and seniors do not pay any
compliments to Iran. It is always thought that Iran is a sloppy
country. However, it is one of the rare countries whose borders
have not changed for a really long time . . . another such country
would be China, so China and Iran . . . Iran has a state tradition of
2,005 years. Plus they have the Shi’a tradition and petrol . . . these
all show Iran has been following a coherent politics . . . It bal-
anced the US through its relations with China, Russia, and
Europe, especially Germany and France . . . it has anti-American
politics . . . it balanced its anti-Americanism through allying with
America’s rivals. Therefore Iran is today bringing America to the
heel.”
The polarization of Islam and modernity and the West versus Islamic
umma also emerges in Islamist critiques against the Justice and
Development Party government. Given its Islamic roots and affini-
ties, the party’s aggressive attempts to further deepen Turkey’s rela-
tions with the West, especially with the EU, and its giving up on the
Islamist project are perceived to be strange, disappointing, and, in
more extreme cases, enraging. An Islamist businessmen, again from
Bayramoglu’s study, says:
Now the party is talking about something strange. It says there will
be no Islamic government. Like a broken bone, the pain will come
out later. The party is disturbing electoral segments that brought it
to power.31
Agency: Communitarianism
Related to social order and organization of social relations, Islamists
tend toward communitarianism; they perceive religious identity as
a collective identity and define Islam as a society-religion, hence
empowering the community (cemaat) over the individual. Niyazi
highlights the communitarian aspect of Islamism this way: “Islam
is not something that can be lived by the individual himself. You
don’t live Islam solo; we live Islam together with our community and
friends.” Similarly for Ekrem, whereas individualism is peculiar to
the West, community (cemaat) is central to the Islamic social/moral
order: “The concept of individualism is . . . negative. I think that it is
something propagated by modernity. In Islam, we keep the concept
of cemaat in the front. Not that we ignore the individual, but we
think individualism is rather negative.”
Communitarianism has two concrete implications or it employs

two sociological functions. For one, a community has authoritative
power over individuals’ decisions, which keeps individuals within the
borders of correct moral action (i.e., orthopraxy), especially by mini-
mizing individual agency and expression. Second, and in relation to
the former, a strong community operates as a focal point of cultural
and political resistance against identity change, which is depicted as
deformation by Islamists.
For example, Niyazi accuses the February 28 post-modern inter-
vention (1998) of weakening community pressure on believers, which
then enabled Muslims to pursue their own individual choices and
freedoms, from clothing styles to everyday-life habits, thus deform-
ing Islamic sensitivities: “We observe degeneration everywhere. In
clothing styles and in social relations and everyday life . . . Until the
28-February,32 Islamic circles used to control their followers more
directly and at a greater level; there was an atmosphere of community
pressure. Therefore, people were less comfortable following their own
individual lives. After February 28th, these people started to live their
freedoms. Individualism since then has been coming to prominence
more and more. We see a more conformist approach.”
Furthermore, Islamists find a strong, or authoritative, commu-
nity to be a necessary element for Islamic political contestation. An
Islamist writer, also chairing a human rights organization included
in my field work, fervently advocates that individuals should be com-
munity-oriented and should give priority to the needs and causes
of the community over their individual needs and preferences. He
accuses Islamic circles in Turkey of increasingly adopting a “go with
the flow” approach, that is, pursuing their individual choices, deviat-
ing from the community, and consequently, giving up on the political
battle. He points to the weakening of the Islamic community as the
most fundamental reason underlying the loss in political determina-
tion and ongoing assimilation to the secular system.
Action: Return to Tradition

Relative to day-to-day interactions with contemporary modern life,
its institutions, and its values—from economic activities to bodily
practices—the purist ontology tends Islamism toward traditional-
ist attitudes and sentiments. Traditionalism reveals itself in a call
for returning to tradition to conserve the vision of pristine Islam
and, concomitantly, to reject significant change or innovation that
challenges the authority of this vision.
Islamists realize this call for retention of or return to tradition

through two discourses: a moral discourse defining Islam as a holistic
identity and a political discourse emphasizing Muslim solidarity and
political resistance.
A holistic Islamic identity refers to the expansion of religious sen-
sitivities to every aspect of life strictly, from leisure activities to politi-
cal preferences. Zehra explains this holistic view as follows: “I am a
veiled woman. My veiling shows that I am with Islam. I see veiling as
a symbol of Islam. Being with Islam also means that I have a different
approach against the current world system. It means I define a state
system, a family system, an education system in accord with Islam.”
In the contemporary Turkish context, challenges to tradition no
longer emerge merely from outside (i.e., the secular state), but, more
importantly and effectively, from within. Since the 1980s, emerg-
ing Muslim groups have been engaging modernity by using Islam,
producing new lifestyles and habits marked by hybridity and reform.
In this context, the idea of holistic religious identity finds a particu-
larly significant function. It provides a normative and authoritative
counter-discourse to delegitimize and invalidate emerging religious
institutions and practices that challenge Islamist purism.
The wariness about—in fact, abhorrence of—the Caprice Hotel, a
five-star, pro-Islamic hotel, the first example of its kind, reveals these
functions of holistic Islam quite strikingly. For Islamists, the Caprice
Hotel, and other practices that similarly rework Islam into modern
institutions, corrupts Islam at its very core. For one, although the
Caprice Hotel, with its gender-segregating pools and entertainment
activities, claims to be an “Islamic alternative” to secular vacations,
in reality, Islamists argue, it deforms and sacrifices other moral senti-
ments and obligations that are in fact essential to Islam. It “empties
Islam” by submitting Islam to capitalist logic and Muslims to obscene
individualist pleasures of modernity.
Ekrem reports: “It is something to convey life into a secular form . . . it is

bringing over other things with it, such as consumption within the
capitalist logic. For example, open buffet . . . well, right there conflicts
the capitalist logic and the israf [prodigality] logic, naturally. Now,
tesettur [Islamic dress code] is an Islamic command but there are other
commands too. It is not very easy to define those but these are also
other Islamic commands and laws. We see such things are ignored,
passed by, in such places . . . Some things are being emptied.”
At a deeper level, Islamists decline the very idea of a “modern vacation,”

claiming that the idea and practice of modern vacation—essentially
Western—is to “let loose” from one’s routine and obligations. They

then critique the idea of an “Islamic vacation” as a segment in one’s life
separated from Islam, like a “holiday,” where one not only takes time
away from work and everyday routine, but also lets moral obligations,
worship, and religious sentiments loose. Ekrem states this clearly:
For instance, Caprice Hotel advertisements. It says, for instance,

Caprice Hotel is a paradise . . . we observe here the exploitation of
‘paradise’ by the capitalist system . . . Islamic identity should reflect
all aspects of life . . . There cannot be any separate page like holiday.
Because we look at life with the logic of worship. When resting at a
vacation, this logic still should be there.
For Islamists, then, new practices such as the Caprice Hotel, that
attempt to combine Islam and modernity, which are in essence incom-
patible, create a “partite identity and life,” where some Islamic rules
in certain aspects of life are protected but others are let go. This frag-
mentation in identity and life then triggers a chain reaction, ending
with a losening of morality and a weakening of creed.
The new veiling styles are rejected through a similar discourse.
Islamists contend that when Muslim women fashion the veil, even if
they continue to wear it, they move away from the actual function
and meaning of veiling. This again creates a partite identity, a cor-
ruption in moral action and a loosening of faith. The holistic view
then works against this fragmentation in Muslims’ everyday life and
identity, conserving correct moral action and recovering what is being
deformed.
We, however, also find that tradition emerges not only as a part of
moral but also political discourse. Practices that articulate Islam with
aspects of modern life, in the form of vacations or Islamic fashion, are
detested for enticing Muslims into temporary appetites and pleasures
of modernity and diverting them from the real issue of Islam: the
oppression of the umma and political resistance against the oppres-
sors of Islam and Muslims. One author asks whether Chechnya,
which was under invasion around the same time Islamic vacations
became popular among Turkish Muslims, is visible from the windows
of the Caprice Hotel.33 This sarcastic yet rather strong protest reveals
how traditionalist impulses intertwine with reactions against cultural
change and innovation, increasing class divisions, weakening the idea
of umma, and contributing to the abandonment of political goals
among Muslims in contemporary Turkey.
In addition and in a parallel vein, Islamists, although rather
comfortable adopting Western technology, outright reject
cultural engagements with the West and claim that they enter-
tain this rejection in everyday life by protesting certain Western
products that symbolize Western culture, such as Coca-Cola and
McDonalds.
Ekrem: “According to our Islamic understanding, one thing being

gunah [impermissible] or helal [permissible] is something that has
two edges. But there are some things that are in-between that we
accept as mubah [neither enjoined nor forbidden] . . . now, if you
go buy hamburger from McDonalds, this cannot be an issue of
haram, but you would ask whether it is adequate or not. It is like,
in an atmosphere in which the Islamic world is attacked, we need
to have an attitude against the symbols . . . sort of . . . Plus, for exam-
ple, products that have relations with the US and Israel. We don’t
use products that symbolize American products. For instance, I
don’t go to McDonalds or drink Coca-Cola. But we use the com-
puter, cell phones . . . So, it is more related with symbolic or sym-
bolizing products. We prefer to continue this attitude against such
products.”
Islamist Orientations toward

the Political (Devlet)
Ontology: Islamic State and Top-Down Measures
As demonstrated in the historical chapter, Islamism in Turkey has
gained meaning and strength based on a stance against the secularist
state, which assumed an insurmountable divide between religion
and modernization. In its orientations to religion and everyday
life, we have seen that Islamism has reproduced and even thickened
this divide. In the political sphere, Islamists seek institutionaliza-
tion of this religio-cultural divide through laws and regulations
and understand the state as a coercive political body that wishes
to implement Islam as the only legitimate lifestyle and normative
system. This top-down, prohibitory, and authoritarian state model,
Islamists claim, is laid down in the Quran and in the Sunna. This
is the way that Islamism sacralizes the state, conceptualizing it as
an “Islamic state.”
The following conversation about whether the state should ban
the sale of alcohol shows the Islamist conception of the state:
Zehra: Absolutely, it must!

Author: How about Muslims who want to consume alcohol? What are
they going to do?
Zehra: There is no such freedom. There should not be . . . On no occa-

sion, I do not want the state, which I pay taxes to, misbehave for
my behalf . . . as a Muslim, I cannot approve selling of alcohol any-
where. For me, this [drinking alcohol] is not an issue of freedom.”
In this conversation, more than merely rejecting the legitimacy of

selling/drinking alcohol, Zehra demands that the state ban alcohol,
therefore advocating prohibitory and top-down politics.
We find similar discourse in discussions over whether the state
should ban missionary activities. Niyazi says: “Today’s Judaism and
Christianity are not what they were in their original form. Right
now, Christianity is completely a church religion, and this should be
even taken out of the category of religion. Therefore, for the pres-
ent time, I definitely do not accept the missionary activities or the
church religion promoted by the pope . . . I accept neither Judaism nor
Catholicism . . . I don’t believe that there is a Christianity or Judaism
in a pure sense . . . I believe that they are being used to colonize
societies.”
Interestingly, while Islamists demand that the state limit liberties
associated with secular lifestyles and choices in a top-down fashion,
they claim freedom for Islamic practices and universal acknowledg-
ment of this freedom. Remarkably, they frame this demand using
a human rights discourse, as stated by Zehra: “If there was only
one woman in Afghanistan and this woman wants to wear burqa,
the whole world has to accept and recognize the legitimacy of her
will.”
Similarly, she also condemns the West and Western human rights
discourse and agents, such as the UN, for having a negative bias
against Muslims and not recognizing the freedom of Muslims to
practice Islamic religion:
Europe does not have a pluralist structure . . . This [pluralism] is not

something easy to gain. We have been living this [pluralism] through
experience accumulated over hundreds of years, and we know what it
is. The structure brought with Islam does not exist in Europe; Islam
does not discriminate against any race. Islam says that nobody is supe-
rior over the other; the only superiority is the one related with being
a kul [servant] to Allah. When we look at them [Europe], we don’t see
that; so how are they going to establish it [pluralism]? They can’t! If
Turkey enters into the EU in such an atmosphere, no benefit would
come of it . . . After the WW2, they [European states] sat down and
made contracts for human rights . . . such as United Nations Human
Rights convention. Despite those ‘perfect’ contracts, we still have to
use a quote and quote when we speak of ‘human’; this shows us that
these attempts are not genuine. We already saw that through Iraq . . . I
mean, they buried people in Bagdad, live broadcast. They buried
them . . . I believe that the hope for the whole world is in Islam’s under-
standing of justice and rights.
How is it that Islamists explicitly advocate top-down and oppressive

policies in respect to the other—either secular or non-Islamist Muslim
factions—while disparaging secular and Western biases against the
right of Muslims to freely practice Islam? How do Islamists resolve
the tension that emerges as they simultaneously use a language of
human rights to claim freedom of religious practice and to demand
that the state deny the other rights and freedoms regarding spiritual
decisions and associated lifestyle choices?
Ekrem clarifies this problem. When asked if there is a difference
between forcing veiling and banning it, he says:
We have to be honest. Ideologically speaking, we don’t see our view,

identity, and our religion as something that is created by us [referring
to humans]. This religion is sent by God and sent to us as a book. Marx
tried, so did Mustafa Kemal. Who knows this better? Of course, our
God will determine it. In that sense, we don’t see these [man-made
versus Godly laws] as equals. One is oppression by the human and
the other is the law of God. There is a difference of order. But again,
we are against oppression or force. However, there are some matters
on which individuals do not have the whole control or the capacity
to determine. Some matters have social aspects . . . We don’t consider
any advice that is not against the human nature as oppression. The
Kemalist project has this specialty: It takes some rules or values and it
imposes them on people. For example, the hat reform. It forced every-
body to wear a hat. This is alien to the social life. It is oppression. From
alphabet reform to clothing, everything was alien to the society . . . He
continues: “If something is haram, it is also a wrong thing. It is some-
thing that harms people. I don’t see any difference between banning
of alcohol and of prostitution. Or exceeding the speed limit.
Islamists, then, attempt to legitimize their authoritarian state model

and political order on two bases. For one, they assert that neither
prohibition of certain rights and actions (e.g., drinking/selling alco-
hol) nor impositions of certain others (e.g., the veil) are random or
human-made. Such actions are God-given, binding to all, and hence
cannot be considered oppression. Second, what is prohibited and
discouraged in Islam is depicted to be intrinsically harmful to people;
therefore, it cannot be an issue of freedom nor can their prohibition

be considered as violation of rights. With these assertions, Islamists
not only ascribe to the state an absolute authority, but also delegiti-
mize any resistance against it.
Agency: State-Centeredness
This particular state model suggests that Islamists see the state as
the main agent for realigning the profane along with the sacred or
establishing a religiously defined society and religious individuals.
The political agency of the state is in fact deeply rooted in Islamist
theological precepts. Islamism views the state as a central and intrin-
sic part of a truly Muslim life.
For one, Islamism distinguishes among Islamic teachings that
are related to individual worshipping (e.g., praying or fasting) and
those that pertain to regulation of social order (e.g., judicial and eco-
nomic systems, and the relationship between the ruler and the ruled).
Teachings that fall into the latter category, Islamism asserts, make up
the bulk of Islam (compared with aspects related to individual ritu-
als), and their (proper) practice requires an Islamic state to be present.
Niyazi, for instance, expresses this hierarchical separation by defining
Islam as a state and society-religion.
Second, and integral to this definition, is the idea that a fully
Islamized social order with an Islamic state preserves pristine religion
by extrapolating correct moral action and norms from theological
resources, hence also eradicating subjective interpretations. Such sub-
jective interpretations tend to emerge in secular systems that priva-
tize religion and withdraw the state from religious functions. Niyazi
expresses this concern as follows:
An Islamic state is a must to have a truly Muslim life. Because Islam

is not a sum of worshipping that is done by the individual’s own con-
tingencies. Because essentially when we look at Islam, we see that the
aspects that are related to ‘muamalat ’ [social relations and transac-
tions] of course weigh more than individual worshipping, both in the
verses of Quran and the life lived by our prophet. I, peremptorily, con-
tend that Islam must be lived as a state [through the state]. Because the
alternative may be a religion that people construct in their minds.
Islam is a whole . . . Islam is a society-religion, a state-religion. Not
an individual-religion . . . if an Islamic state is not present, you cannot
fulfill those [referring to social and political aspects] imperatives of
Islam. Look, for instance, at zekat [religious almsgiving]. Today, we
give zekat as individuals. However, in Islam, zekat must be collected
and distributed by the state. The state is absolutely needed for punish-
ments in the criminal law; the decisions must be made by the state.
Imperatives about family relations or inheritance and estate . . . So there
are many and more imperatives that are related with muamalat, and
they constitute the majority of Islamic rules.
Third, the emphasis on Islam being a holistic religion reemerges. An

Islamized state and an Islamized political order are seen to be intrin-
sic to a truly Muslim life, as epitomized by Zehra:
Islam is a system as a whole. So a Muslim life at home but an other-

wise life on the street, a Muslim life in politics, but a different life in
business . . . Such separation is impossible. Islam is a religious system
that intervenes in every aspect of life . . . Thus, we need to establish a
system whereby everything belongs to Islam; this way people can live
Islam properly. Muslims will understand what Islam is better. In addi-
tion, non-Muslims will understand this system better. However, do we
have system like that, a state like that right now? No we don’t.
Just as the political functions of the state—prohibition and coer-

cion—create tension between the authoritative power of the state
and individual choice, so do the theological meanings and func-
tions rendered to it. The tension in particular relates to nonpractic-
ing Muslims, people who claim to be Muslims, but have, in large
part, a secular lifestyle in terms of, for example, dating, diet, and
clothing.
Islamists resolve this tension by using a utopian discourse. When
asked how an Islamic state in a dominantly secular society would deal
with nonpracticing Muslims, Zehra, for instance, says: “The Islamic
rules are defined; what judgments would be applied and used on what
issues are already determined . . . So I don’t think in that sort of a
system [referring to the Islamic state] there would raise such prob-
lems [referring to demands for non-Islamic practices]. In general,
these kinds of problems [referring to the non-Islamic behaviors of
Muslims] emerge in secular systems. Of course, people can make mis-
takes . . . anyways right now everything is mistaken in the judicial sys-
tem; the whole system is broken . . . I don’t think such problems would
occur in an Islamic system.”
In a more explicit format, when asked what would happen to
Muslims, in an Islamic state, who refuse veiling and want to wear
mini-skirts, Ekrem says that “when the structure changes [from sec-
ular to Islamic], then we think there won’t be a meaning for such
demands anyway [referring to wearing mini-skirts].”
Islamists then conceptualize and depict secular preferences and

choices not as the results or reflections of voluntary actions, but as
the deprivation of the influence of the secularizing state and an ever-
expanding modernity. Therefore, when such a system is eradicated,
and the social and political order is Islamized, creating an atmosphere
of piety, secular lifestyles—from alcohol consumption to wearing
mini-skirts—will no longer lure Muslims, and they will conform to
Islamic teachings spontaneously. Individual choice and voluntarism
(the choice between being a practicing and a non-practicing Muslim)
then are dissolved within such authoritarian-utopian dreams of the
Islamist. We can note here that Muslimism challenges this utopian
approach with a rationalist theological discourse, which sees the indi-
vidual as a rational actor fully capable of and, most importantly, fully
responsible for making the right choice whether or not he or she is
surrounded by an atmosphere conducive to piety.
Action: Political Action

The idea that a truly Islamic life and society can only emerge
through Islamization of the political order naturally orients Islamists
toward political action to bring about radical, systemic change. For
that religio-political goal, some Islamist factions advocate a revo-
lutionary method—that is, capturing the state and using it as an
instrument to transform society in line and along with Islamic law
and teachings. Religious men and women I met in Islamist sites in
Ankara and Istanbul, however, advocated, virtually universally, a
bottom-up approach, emphasizing the continuity of this approach
with the sacred historical past and tradition, as put by Ekrem as fol-
lows: “We are thinking of the Turks’ conditions; there are millions
who wear mini-skirts. We are not revolutionary . . . We think there
needs to be a social transformation. The society should be changed,
and then as a result of this change the political structure should be
changed . . . Throughout the Hz. Mohammad era, everything hap-
pened step by step.”
For these men and women, the Islamization of the society
prepares the necessary and solid basis for the rise of an Islamic
state. Formation of an Islamic state is considered to be, in other
words, the final and the highest stage—in fact, maybe a sponta-
neous outcome—of mounting religiosity and Islamic virtue. This
bottom-up approach brings with it a more complex definition
of political action, going beyond forming or supporting certain
political parties or having certain political preferences.
Political action in this discourse refers to a broad “political con-

sciousness,” whereby one realizes that that his or her religious duties
are not confined to having taqwa (a strict vigilance to obey God) and
practicing rituals, but also involve being active in the Islamic political
struggle to achieve the divinely ordained political order and commu-
nity. A well-known author, also a high-level member of an Istanbul-
based, Islamist organization, put this as follows: “Formations that do
not present a perspective for political power, or do present a blurry
projection for political power, are the ones which have lost their
Islamic quality/characteristic. This does not mean political power
will be achieved; but it means one is responsible to demand political
power and step forward for this responsibility.”
The same author, moreover, suggests that this religio-political
duty cannot be shouldered by an abstract Muslimhood, but by a more
specialized persona, which he calls “Islamic persona” or “Islamic self-
hood.” The Islamic persona corresponds to a filtered and more spe-
cific definition of a Muslim-self in which the self is aware that he
or she is fully responsible and liable to God not only for fulfilling
religious duties, but also for political action to bring about radical
change.
In a parallel line for Zehra, her veil gains more meaning and value
as a tool for political resistance/contestation against secular repres-
sion than as simply a religious practice: “I did not give as much
value to my veil as I did after the February 28th processes. I have
given more value and importance to my veil after understanding
the importance and value of Muslim women’s veil to the enemies
of Islam.”
Within this framework, Islamists, not surprisingly, press claims
against “apolitical” Muslim groups for losing their Islamic qual-
ity and deviating from Islamic essentials. In broad terms, apoliti-
cal Muslim groups correspond to Muslim factions who attempt to
live Islam within the framework of existing secular systems and
express Islam through identitarian notions rather than working for
the establishment of a divinely ordained political order and state.
The Islamist author, who redefines the Muslim-self as Islamic per-
sona, for example, sees this current attempt to express Islam through
sociological/identitarian arguments as a great hazard to Islam and
Muslims. Instead, he contends, Muslims should place a political
contestation at the center of all endeavors.
A more specific or concrete target of such criticisms are the
Islam-oriented parties and leaders in Turkey accused of abandoning
essential Islamic sensitivities—that is, political resistance for radical
change—and subsequently adapting to the existing secular system,

especially following the February 28 post-modern intervention.
Islamists view the JDP as the peak of this apoliticization process and
favor successors of Erbakan parties, the National Vision Movement
parties, over the JDP. However, even the movement is criticized for
not pursuing a coherent Islamic politics. Islamists indicate their sym-
pathy for the “old Erbakan” and the “old movement,” referring to the
periods before February 28th, when Islam-oriented parties presented
a more radical and antisystemic discourse.
In this chapter, I have described Islamism and introduced its real-
ity orientations by developing an ideal cognitive schema. In the fol-
lowing chapters, I will document Muslimist values and temperaments
in religion, everyday life, and politics. This Islamist schema developed
here will serve as a counter-reference to describe Muslimism in depth
and thoroughly identify its differences from Islamist ideology and
discourse.
Introductory Remarks before Entering

into Sites of Hybridity
It is impossible to explore and detect the attitudes of Muslimists about
every historical and theological issue that has pertained to Islam and
Muslims. We can, however, identify the general content of Muslimism
and, more than that, specify core temperaments that characterize it.
To that end, in the selected sites of hybridity, using the three-d schema
(see table 2.1) I surveyed Muslimist orientations in the areas of theol-
ogy, culture/everyday life, and politics.
In each of these three areas, Muslimism departs from both Islamism
and liberal theologies. Muslimism is a religious orthodoxy: it per-
ceives God-given moral order (i.e., separation of helal and haram) as
an objective truth to which individuals must submit and live accord-
ingly. The religious truth, in other words, predicates other dimen-
sions of the believer’s life and put its mark on one’s interpersonal
relations, including friendships, marriage, economic activities, voting
and political perceptions, leisure, and bodily exercises. What distin-
guishes Muslimists from Islamists, then, is a claim for autonomy from
the sacred. Instead, inferential evidence we find in key Muslimist sites
suggests that they depart from each other in the way they understand
and orient to religion, which then leads both groups in dramatically
different directions politically (e.g., functions ascribed to the state)
and culturally (e.g., engagements with modern everyday life). I have
characterized these different orientations in religion, everyday life,
and politics as “reality orientations” involving ontology, agency, and

action.
The following chapters (3–5) document the surveying of Muslimist
orientations to religion, contemporary everyday life, and politics,
showing thoroughly and empirically why Muslimism constitutes a
new religious orthodoxy that is neither fundamentalist nor liberal.
Each chapter is organized by discussing reality orientations of ontol-
ogy, agency, and action.
CH A P T ER 3
Muslimist Religious Temperaments
Ontology: Religion as Identity

While in Istanbul meeting with the sector chairs of MUSIAD, I vis-
ited the car dealership of Ersin, one of the sector chairs. The company
sells both new and used cars, ranging from luxury to inexpensive cars.
It provides installment sales by which a car can be bought through
monthly payments, without paying interest (usury). The company also
sells auto insurance (kasko). Ersin told me that when he first entered
into the car business, many warned him that both insurance and auto
credits were haram. One day, a person from Iskender Pasha tarikat
(religious order)—to which Ersin was an adherent in college—visited
the dealership to buy a car and asked for a 36-month installment plan.
Ersin says:
I accepted the offer, but informed this person that he also had to pur-
chase insurance. He said, ‘Insurance is haram, I won’t buy insurance,
but give me the car’ . . . I sold him the car. Three weeks later, I received
another call from the same person. He told me he got in a bad acci-
dent; the car was in bad shape. He said, ‘Can you give me insurance
now?’ I said, ‘No! I can’t, insurance is haram!’
Ersin pauses and smiles. Ersin also owns a medical company and
imports medical equipment, both from India and the United States.
He explains:
When I buy goods, I go to the companies’ websites. I give my credit

card number, my security code, and they email me with my confirma-
tion. They take the money and send me the products. Now, if you
ask hoja [referring broadly to traditional religious authority figures],
‘can I use a credit card?’ or ‘can I do my businesses online?,’ that
would be wrong because today we are doing business electronically.
The hoja will say according to our mezhep [denomination], you can-
not buy goods before [or without] seeing them in real life. But today
it is not like that, and you certainly must adapt to that in this global
economy and world.
Do we conclude from Ersin’s anecdote about the car insurance and

his use of the internet for business purchases that he is a secular
Muslim, whereas the person who refused to buy insurance in obser-
vance of his religious commitments is a religious person?
Contrary to such an assessment, Ersin claims to be a devout
Muslim. He fasts thirty days, prays five times a day, pays zekat (alms-
giving), and has been on hac (pilgrimage). His wife and daughter are
both veiled. He does not drink alcohol. He prefers providing install-
ment plans instead of auto credits. Overall, he claims to try to live
his life according to the boundaries of helal (permissible) and haram
(impermissible).
Other men and women I met in key Muslimist sites also define
themselves as pious people, claim to carefully observe the Islamic pil-
lars, and live in accord with Islamic teachings, from diet to dressing
codes. Nevertheless, similar to Ersin, they also talk about the con-
stant change in social and material realities of life and the need to
rethink early Islamic doctrines in the context of the surrounding cur-
rents. Does this Muslimist concern for rethinking religious doctrine
hint at the coming of liberal or idiosyncratic religion? Are Muslimists
loosening religious teachings to accommodate their individual and
worldly needs?
Observations in Muslimist sites suggest that what underlies the
impulse for reform cannot be reduced to liberal adaptation or secu-
larization; it is, instead, a much more complex change taking place in
people’s orientations toward religion.
I have shown that Islamism orients believers to religion ideologi-
cally. It finds true religiosity in one’s commitment to preserve and
recover pristine religion through both political and religious actions.
This religio-political aspiration for retrieving pristine religion dis-
regards cultural and material contexts surrounding Muslims, closes
Islamism off to significant change—at least, as a discursive claim—
and, consequently, dogmatizes religion.
In contrast, Muslimism views and understands religion in terms
of identity. The focus is not on transforming the current system for
restoration of pristine religion, but rather on finding solutions to
accommodate Muslim identity and life vis-à-vis the existing secular
MUSLIMIST RELIGIOUS TEMPERAMENTS 97
context. This, consequently, opens doors for identity change and reli-
gious reform.
We find concrete expressions of this view of Islam centered on
identity, and how this view differs from ideological orientations, as
we listen to Muslimist discussions about what the veil symbolizes and
means.
For both Muslimism and Islamism, the veil is sacred; it is a symbol
of Islam. However, for Islamism, the veil is also a political symbol
because veiling signifies an ideological position. It bears repeating
that for Zehra, her veil (or veiling) means that she defines “a state
system, a family system, and an education system in accord with
Islam.” “In that sense,” she continues, “yes, the veil is a political
symbol because it is asserts a certain life.”
Perceptibly departing from this religio-political framing of the veil,
Muslimists define and understand veiling as a personal choice to com-
mit to God. For Gulin (of the Capital Women’s Platform Association
[CWPA]), for instance, veiling is an “endeavor to redeem someone’s
here and hereafter; it is not a uniform!”
In fact, Muslimists are not content with the idea that the veil
is a political symbol. On the contrary, consistent among the four
organizations (MUSIAD, MAZLUM-DER, the Justice and
Development Party [JDP], and the CWPA), Muslimists blame
the state’s secularist policies (the long-term ban on the veil) for
transforming the veil into a political symbol, while equally despis-
ing established Islamic political actors (i.e., the National Vision
Movement parties) for using the veil as a political bait and symbol.
Serdar (of the JDP) says:
I don’t discriminate between women who are veiled and who are not.
I think veiling is a personal choice. However, I find the mentality
[referring to National Vision Movement parties], which puts the veil
to the front and uses the veil as if it is a political symbol to defeat its
political rivals very erroneous. The veil is not a political symbol; it can-
not be abstracted from people’s beliefs and reduced to a simple politi-
cal act as such: wear this or don’t wear that.
Some actually perceive politicization of the veil to be against the

essential meaning of veiling. Riza (of MUSIAD) says: “When the
veil is politicized, it loses its meaning. In Islam, there is a concept
called ihlas [sincerity], which means doing it [religious action] for
God. Now if you are doing something for God, you cannot use this
thing as a political symbol. If you do perceive the veil as an issue of,

let’s say, political alliance, this does not match with ihlas.”
Muslimists, then, consider the political/ideological meanings and
notions that came to be associated with the veil to be artificial—
imposed by the state and established by religious institutions. They
attempt to strip such artificial meanings from veiling and to reveal
its “essential” meaning and value: a symbol of Muslim identity and a
sincere commitment to God, showing their view of Islam to be cen-
tered on identity. Reflecting the Muslimist perception and approach
to religion at a broader level, discussions about veiling demonstrate
that Muslimists dissolve the tight intertwining of politics and reli-
gion. Even though they still see political action as legitimate (a point
I will detail later), their orientations to the sacred are not dominated
by ideology.
The Muslimist impulses for reform are grounded in this shift from
ideology to identity. This shift opens doors for identity change and
weakens literalist, purist attitudes, allowing Muslims to reinterpret
religious rules and codes in accordance with the surrounding realities
of modern life.
This does not mean, however, that religious rules or practices
become relative/subjective, nor does it mean that change is indis-
criminate and random. Differing from liberal theologies, within the
Muslimist ontology there remain objectively defined boundaries
between helal and haram, and right and wrong, to which individuals
must submit. Equally importantly, impulses for reform are not moti-
vated merely by pragmatic, worldly urges, but by a religious sensitivity
that seeks solutions to manage and maintain a religious lifestyle in a
context dominated by secular, everyday-life institutions (e.g., a global
banking system that is entirely built on interest).
My conversations with Muslimists on usury and the current state
ban on veiling provide us with lenses through which we can more
clearly observe and understand the actual processes involved in rein-
terpretation and identity change and the concrete ways in which these
processes separate Muslimism from liberal theologies.
Change and Usury

Common across multiple organizations, Muslimists criticize reli-
gious approaches that press for strict adherence to early regulations
of usury, pointing to differences between the historical context of
the original revelations and the contemporary economic context.
Muslimists argue that early definitions of usury do not have full

conceptual relevance in the current economic context, which is set
up on and with different variables and institutions. For example,
Ugur, a JDP congressman, says:
Honestly, I believe that usury and such other concepts should be

redefined. In the past . . . Islamic circles would try to fit a very old
definition into the economic and political relations we live in now.
We were having problems of congruence and adaptation . . . I am talk-
ing about time and the climate of economic and political relations. I
mean the old definition cannot function in a new time and for new
conditions.
Serdar, also a congressman, using the example of money and infla-

tion, more specifically addresses such conceptual discrepancies:
I think the Islamic definition of money is most probably something

of which value is stable. By then, you did not have today’s bank
checks, stock markets, and speculations. So, money was a fixed asset,
a fixed value. And Islam suggested to Muslims, based on this fixed-
value money, not to harden each other’s businesses by taking interest.
However, I think today the conditions are very different . . . Given the
high inflation, today’s ten lira [Turkish currency] becomes five lira
tomorrow and next week it is two lira . . . So basically, people are losing
money. So when we try to protect ourselves against inflation, can this
be usury?
On the other hand, Muslimists also address more practical and insti-
tutional issues. In the current economic system, they argue, it is not
only activities aimed at greater wealth (e.g., business loans), but also
simple necessities of everyday life (e.g., opening a bank account or a
salary deposited in a bank) that automatically involve one in usury.
Given the particular nature of the current economic system, in which
usury is almost unavoidable, strict adherence to early definitions,
Muslimists argue, hampers Muslims as persons and as a collective
group, causing them serious and tangible losses.
Lale (of CWPA) expresses these practical concerns as follows: “I
use bank credits, so in that sense I receive bank usury. In addition,
I work for the state; my salary already includes interest, and I know
that. I mean, if we live in this society, you can’t say, ‘No, I am not
going to use the banks!’ This would be naive!” She continues to ask:
“I mean, in this age, are you going to rent a house rather than taking
bank credit to buy a house? Who is losing and who is winning? So,
usury is a necessity in this time.”
As we go deeper into the Muslimist narrative on usury, we cap-
ture, then, demands for change. Reinterpretations are reflexes of
the Muslimist pursuit of becoming further integrated into modern
life, benefiting from it, and moving toward the center from the eco-
nomic and cultural periphery of the society. This new status group is
dynamic; it assertively seeks to take part and acquire a higher stake in
modern institutions and everyday life.
Yucel, another congressman, expresses this pursuit quite
strikingly:
The economic system we live in is based on usury. Within this system,

I have business with banks. I have an account. I pay and take usury just
because I have an account in a bank. So, in a sense we are forced to be
involved in usury, whether we like it or not . . . But then we have to use
a quote and quote when we say ‘we are forced.’ I mean, no one tells us
to use usury by pointing a gun to our heads . . . But if you do not want
to benefit from money [referring to bank credits], if you don’t want to
prosper and develop, then you might not touch usury. You can go up
to a mountain and live with goats and sheep as a shepherd. But if you
want to prosper and thrive, then you have to somehow interact with
the system and its current rules.
Similarly, for Seref and Riza, both businessmen and members of

MUSIAD, a Muslim approach to usury cannot be a flight from mod-
ern life and economic activity. Instead, Riza says: “Usury should be
reevaluated and reconsidered. We need ijtihad . . . Otherwise, we will
not have a place in the global world . . . and we would fall behind in
this race [international economy and markets].”
To reiterate, although the Muslimist focus is not on preserving
and recovering pristine religion, Muslimist impulses for reform are
not merely pragmatic, worldly urges. The attempt to observe and
accommodate surrounding realities is an attempt to make Islamic
life more possible and Islam more livable (e.g., opening up a bank
account or making internet purchases) while empowering Muslims
to become economically and culturally competitive actors. This
attempt, in other words, is a way to establish an Islamic identity
within everyday life. Furthermore and again, change is neither indis-
criminate nor subjective. In fact, there are certain ways Muslimism
legitimizes change and the stretching or reinterpretation of early
revelations.
Religious Reframing of Change

In demanding reform or revision, Muslimists attempt to draw sup-
porting evidence from Islamic theological sources and historical ref-
erences and concepts. To that end, some use the Islamic concept of
ijtihad, which allows one to embrace individual reasoning and inter-
pretations, creating a legitimate religious terrain for rethinking and
redefining religious rules.
Two congressmen, Musa and Serdar, on the other hand, use a
concept of Islamic jurisprudence, takva (taqwa). Paralleling Weber’s
concept of religious virtuoso, takva means cultivating exactitude in
religious action, including even doubtful matters on which individu-
als could enjoy freedom to improvise. Perceiving usury as a doubtful
matter—given the conceptual differences between the historical con-
text of the original revelations and the current system—and religious
virtuoso as a personal choice, Musa says: “There is something called
‘takva’ in Islam, but certain things are given concessions . . . if you are
someone with strong takva, you would also be quite cautious and
careful. But you don’t have to be very cautious. This is a personal
decision.”
Ugur, another congressman, using the example of car insurance,
expresses how change is articulated or reframed though religious
concepts: “How do we balance auto insurance with the idea of pre-
ordainment, with the idea that whatever precautions you take, you
still are confronted with your own destiny? So we try to find a solu-
tion to that . . . But when you perceive this [auto instance] as an auto
owner’s collective aids fund, then . . . aiding is licit in religion.”
He continues: “You have to do it this way. Either you will change
your beliefs or you will redefine your position towards the social or
economic situations. Over time, we start rebuilding our relationship
with the institutions created by capitalism either through internaliz-
ing them or through changing our positioning towards them . . . I can
say I am more lax now compared to before.”
Others seek religious concessions more directly. For instance, Ersin
(of MUSIAD) and Asli (of CWPA) both think that the religious alim
(authorities and experts of theology) should formulate new regula-
tions for and definitions of usury. Ersin says:
If you are going to engage in commerce, then you have to also work
with the banks. In addition, the state provides long-term stimulus
with low interests. However, due to our beliefs, we, as MUSIAD or
religious people, feel discomfort. Here religious leaders and religious
institutions should pave the way for new solutions. Because if you plan
to prosper and if you want to increase your volume of trade or find
your place in the international market, then you should be able to
benefit from such state incentives and rights for competition. Look
at TUSIAD [a prominent secular businessmen association and civil
actor]: they always rely on state incentives. But MUSIAD only relies
on its own capital and thus we are still characterized by small-to-me-
dium size entrepreneurship. Again, religious leaders should carefully
evaluate this subject and produce a solution . . . And due to your com-
mitments, you have to take a step back, you cannot accede to state
incentives, and you are incapable of upsizing your business. This is an
obstacle.
Finally, we also find that with an attempt to preserve the essential

meaning and the general spirit of the original command, Muslimists
draw new sharp limits around reinterpretations. Specifically related to
usury, loan-sharking is one such limit determining how far one can
go Ugur (of JDP) says:
There is something called ‘opportunity cost.’ If I loan you fifty lira

and a year later you pay me back fifty lira, you make me lose my alter-
native cost. If I was to operate that money, let’s say my fifty lira would
become sixty lira next year. When there is high inflation, the situation
becomes even more complicated . . . So, there is this alternative cost,
which is licit and reasonable. But beyond that reasonable cost, there is
also loan-sharking. Even the market itself does not accept loan-shark-
ing and perceives it as illicit. Both the law and the society would think
of this person as illicit. In sum, I think we can revise Islamic concepts
while preserving the essential meaning of the concepts. I am more lax
now compared to the past.
Change and Veiling

We capture these attitudes and approaches toward change and rein-
terpretation again when Muslimists talk about the state ban on the
veil. An overwhelming majority of men and women I interviewed
in key Muslimist sites contend that, from an Islamic point of view,
it would not be objectionable for girls to take off their veils on uni-
versity campuses and in schools for the purposes of completing their
education. They argue, on the one hand, given the current legal
impediments, veiling causes tangible and serious losses to Muslims
by preventing girls’ education. For instance, for Pinar, herself a veiled
woman, veiling cannot be seen as a farz (mandatory religious duty)
under the current conditions. She contends that “today the banning
of veil is quite institutionalized in Turkey. No one knows when or

if ever, this ban will be removed. I don’t think we have the right to
prevent these girls from education; they should get their education
regardless.”
Paralleling discussions over usury, the emphasis on girls’ educa-
tion illustrates that, rather than seeking greater worldly convenience,
Muslimists attempt to find solutions to everyday-life problems that
are serious enough to hamper such basic necessities of contemporary
life as getting an education in order to carry on Islamic identity and
make it more salient.
Moreover, and again in line with discussions on usury, we find
that while softening religious mandates (veiling) in response to cur-
rent realities (legal impositions), Muslimists draw supporting evi-
dence from Islamic teachings and theological sources, thus striving
to remain within the legitimate boundaries of religion (and estab-
lish Islamic identity within everyday life). Nedim (of MUSIAD) says:
“From an Islamic view, you are not held responsible for not practicing
a religious provision if there are legal impediments against it . . . there
is a verse which says that . . . there is also the fetva/fatwa given by the
alim advising girls to complete their educations.”
On the other hand, it is equally important to note that the few
people who asserted that young women should not take off their veils
did not use religious language to justify their objections. Instead, we
find a critique of the state’s tendency to overstep its boundaries at
the expense of individual rights and liberties. (Not surprisingly, such
reactions come from the human rights organization, MAZLUM-
DER.) In that sense, the content here differs from that of Islamism,
for which taking off the veil is a reflection of weakening political
resistance and religious creed. For example, Zehra, epitomizing the
Islamist discourse, advises young women to “enter universities forc-
ibly with their veils on.”
Through discussions about usury and veiling, I have documented
that, unlike Islamism, Muslimism has a view of religion centered on
religion, which allows it to be open to change and reinterpretations.
The same discussions also demonstrate that in a context dominated
by secular institutions (e.g., education or economy), Muslimists view
reinterpretation as a solution for maintaining an Islamic lifestyle and
making it more salient while empowering Muslims by acquiring a
higher stake in modern life. Moreover, change has certain limits, it
is articulated through specific religious concepts, and believers are
supposed to preserve essential principles of religion (e.g., rejecting
loan-sharking).
Agency: A Heterogeneous Community

The ideological versus identitarian orientations to the sacred come to
inform radically different visions and definitions of proper religious
communities. The disparate orientations to religion especially differ-
entiate moral and sociological functions ascribed to the community
and the main theological criteria for membership and for distinguish-
ing religious community from the larger society.
The theological prominence of pristine religion in Islamism trans-
lates into a vision of the Muslim community as a homogeneous unit.
People are to strictly follow pristine moral and behavioral codes, stan-
dardizing, therefore, people’s religious actions, interpretations, and
more broadly, lifestyles. This uniformity in turn reinforces pristine
codes and prevents significant change.
In everyday life, homogeneity is most easily established (and main-
tained) by controlling and prescribing performative and ritualistic
aspects of religion (orthopraxy). For example, a true Muslim woman
must veil. She must not only veil, however; she must veil in accor-
dance with pristine prescriptions (rule-following). Orthopraxy and
rule-following consecutively become the main theological criteria
for one’s piety and, thus, for one’s belonging. The separation then
is quite strict and straightforward: those who adhere to prescribed
behavior belong and those who deviate from it (either entirely or in
part) do not. The sociological outcome we find here is rather conven-
tional. Homogeneity (and rule-following) brings about a top-down
community. The religious community has authoritative power over
the individual. Concomitantly, the self and individual agency find
little or no legitimate space in religious expression because human
subjectivity threatens prescriptions and homogeneity.
The interviews and observations in key Muslimist sites have
brought out a dramatically different vision of religious community.
Whereas the identitarian view of the sacred allows for reinterpreta-
tions, core Muslimist theological conceptions more directly enforce
a heterogeneous community, welcoming diversity in religious perfor-
mances and styles of living. For example, veiling styles are diversi-
fied. The Muslimist heterogeneity, however, still differs from secular
communities. Muslimists perceive the separation of helal and haram
as an objective truth to which they must fully submit. They claim a
religious identity, and they follow a lifestyle in which Islam delineates
the range and limits of acceptable action and values.
For Muslimists, orthopraxy by itself does not define true religion;
instead, Muslimists find true piety in the consolidation of an inner
ethics, conceptualized commonly as iman (a voluntary and heart-

felt submission to God and his commands). Iman precedes right
behavior and religious ritual. This emphasis on iman (reinforced by
references to being a “good human”) sets up a favorable ground for
a heterogeneous religious community. Iman as something internal
to the individual and invisible to others weakens prescriptions and
makes the separation between true Muslims and others more diffi-
cult and complex. Sociologically, it ascribes agency and autonomy to
the individual in respect to moral decisions and challenges authorita-
tive communities, opening up space for self-expression and human
subjectivity.
Interestingly, the shift from external sources to inner ethics pres-
ents itself in the form of a secular-like moral cosmology as well, in
which Muslimists talk not only about being a “good Muslim,” but
also about being a “good human.” This moral framework, composed
of such values as honesty and compassion, is consistent with Islam,
yet not essentially Islamic. Finally, the emphasis on inner ethics finds
a broader expression in the Muslimist view of the state and society
relations.
Religiosity: Iman versus Rule-Following

Does the depiction of inner ethics as the source of true faith por-
tend that orthopraxy is waning among Muslimists? Not at all. In fact,
both men and women claim to carefully observe behavioral pillars
of Islam (e.g., veiling, praying, fasting) and shape their lifestyle and
manners accordingly. They fast throughout the month of Ramazan,
pay zekat (Islamic almighty), and strive to pray five times a day. Most
have never drank alcohol, though a few have tried it one time. Each
woman I interviewed was veiled, as were most of the wives of the men
I interviewed.
When it comes to orthopraxy, what distinguishes Muslimists
from Islamists is not that the former is less likely to practice Islamic
rituals, but that they render new meanings to religious action and
conduct. Orthopraxy and practice are no longer the criteria for
membership, but are reframed as “religious duties and responsibili-
ties” that must be fully observed if one is to fulfill his or her obliga-
tion before God. Seref expresses this shift rather clearly: “When I
look from the angle of religious identity, I cannot judge non-veiled
women for not being good Muslims. I cannot know that! At the
most, I can look at this issue as people who fulfill this particular
duty, and people who do not.”
If religious ritual is not solely definitive of religiosity, then what

does religiosity mean? A veiled woman, Nur (of MAZLUM-DER),
defines religiosity as follows:
I cannot comprehend the concept of religiosity . . . when we do namaz

[the five-time-a-day prayer], we read the sure ‘Fatiha,’1 which is to ask
God to direct us towards and keep us in the right path. In each namaz ,
in each rekat [one round in a prayer] of each namaz , I am concerned
about being on the right path . . . Now I don’t know what you name
this. Call it ‘religiosity’ or call it whatever you wish.
The common narrative of religiosity we find among Muslimists par-

allels Nur’s concern about “being on the right path.” More spe-
cifically, religiosity gets conceptualized with the Islamic term iman.
Referring to the internal belief in Allah without any hesitations,
iman also gets expressed through such concepts as conscience, gen-
uineness of piety, truthfulness of intentions, and the kalb (feelings,
heart, and emotions). For instance, for Orhan and Ugur, both JDP
congressmen, religiosity cannot be determined based on whether
one practices certain rituals because religiosity has a kalbi (heart-
related) side, which is unfathomable by any human measure.
Each of these conceptualizations points to a theological concern
and apprehension that go beyond orthopraxy. This theological con-
cern is the devotee’s internalization of the religious belief and his or
her constant attempts to be pious genuinely and in the heart. This
striving is a more decisive component of religiosity than “to veil or
not.” The rituals and actions gain meaning only when they follow such
an inner morality and genuine intention. Nur (of MAZLUMDER)
further crystallizes this prioritization of the internal creed and moral-
ity over external rituals and actions by presenting Islamic history as
evidence:
When the first revelation came, it was not about the veil or cover-
ing. The first revelation was about the principle of tevhid [oneness
of God]. In other words, renouncing polytheism and acknowledg-
ing monotheism . . . so, it was not like, ‘Here, cover yourself and pray.’
Before any of that, it is the principle of tevhid. Believe in Allah, stop
worshipping effigies, be just and be good, and such other moral and
belief-related statements came before anything else. The covering
and so came afterwards. Thus, I think a good Muslim is one with
good morals. One of my non-veiled friends was much more virtuous
than any of my veiled friends. I have many non-veiled friends that I
respect.
As further developed by this quotation, for Muslimists the most

immediate concern is acknowledging Allah and being righteous and
moral by means of this acknowledgement. This emphasis on inter-
nal creed challenges Islamism’s rule-following and standardization.
It makes a true separation between good Muslims and others rather
uneasy: who is to say a non-veiled woman has not acknowledged God
in her heart?
A Muslimist heterogeneous community first arises on this widen-
ing of theological focus from mere orthopraxy to the consolidation
of an inner ethics.
Sovereignty of God and Individual Autonomy

Intrinsic to the emphasis on iman is the principle of “clandestine-
ness”; iman and heart are visible and known to no one but Allah.
Asli (a veiled Muslim woman from the CWPA) says this about
clandestineness:
I believe that whatever you do [referring to rituals], if you cannot

gain the consent of Allah, you cannot attain anything. By veiling, I
am trying to fulfill only one command. But I don’t and cannot know
what this means for and before Allah. I also believe that there are
people who are not veiled but who are doing other things that I do not
or I am not able to do, maybe their kindness or even things that are
insignificant and small. Again, I cannot know what these mean for and
before Allah. Therefore, I cannot know who is a better Muslim.
Gulin (another veiled Muslim woman from the CWPA) says:
One cannot measure another’s religiosity; there is secrecy of inten-

tions and aims. It is only God who knows one’s heart and who knows
who is close to him or not. The statements you can make about the
other can only be confined to visible features and actions; however,
you cannot know how much the other worships Allah, how close he or
she is to Allah, and if he or she is turned toward Allah.
Paralleling these women, Musa (of JDP) says:
Religiosity is about morality, and we cannot claim that a veiled person

is more moral than a non-veiled person . . . As I said before, the scale is
not in our hands. The scale belongs to Allah . . . A non-veiled women
might be more virtuous than many veiled women; she might stand at
a higher level in the afterlife.
Given the secrecy about one’s heart—of which only Allah has full
knowledge—the legitimacy of external sources (whether it be the
community or the state) in deciding who is a true believer and who
is not becomes rather weakened. In other words, the conception of
Allah as the only, inimitable, and indisputable authority “holding the
scale” undermines the community’s coercive power and prescriptions
while it heightens individual autonomy vis-à-vis the community with
respect to religious actions and decisions. As such, the direct and
mystical-like relationship between the self and Allah again impels and
softens Muslimists toward self-expression and heterogeneity, expand-
ing once more the boundaries of the Muslimist community.
More on Self-Expression: Fashioning of

the Veil and Women’s Autonomy
At a practical level, we observe this dynamic interplay among inner
ethics, self-expression, and heterogeneity through conversations
about veil fashion and the proliferation of veiling styles. Islamists and
groups that exhibit Muslimist patterns respond to the emerging veil
fashion in opposing ways. Islamists outright reject the idea of styl-
ing the veil and detest it for desacralizing the veil and denigrating
traditional Muslim gender codes. (At the local level, an authoritarian
community enforces patriarchal relations, men policing women; that
is, men mostly define veiling formats.) Yet, sociologically, what we
find underneath this rejection is a more pragmatic problem.
The new veiling styles make strong statements about individual-
ity, self-expression, and individual difference. For Islamists, women
who cover in personalized styles disrupt prescribed (putatively pris-
tine) codes and threaten the social cohesion and homogeneity of the
community.
In contrast, Muslimists are welcoming of the emerging veiling
styles and the idea of self-fashioning the veil. Especially through the
veiled women of the CWPA, we find that rather than simply address-
ing a need for beauty or aesthetics, veiling fashion has become a new
channel for religious women to claim and exercise their individuality
and autonomy (self-styles replace prescriptions, which, to reiterate,
tend to be determined by men).
For example, Gulin, who used to be critical of colorful veiling
and eye-catching tesettur outfits, now thinks differently: “I think we
should be more flexible. How many veiled women we have is how
many types of veil we have. I believe that veiling style is just like dress-
ing style.”
Similarly, Pinar says: “Plus, there is the age factor. Why would
a sixty-year-old grandma and a fifteen-year-old girl wear the same
things, tie their scarves similarly, or use same colors? I think it should
be diversified. The diversification based on age or taste is natural
anyway.”
Thus, Muslimists do not see the new veiling styles as a threat;
instead, it is a “natural outcome and reflection of individual dif-
ference,” from marital status to physical features to personal pref-
erences. This demonstrates that individual difference, the self,
and human subjectivity find a new interest and legitimacy among
Muslimists.
Lale pinpoints this positive attitude toward human subjectivity
by criticizing traditional religious circles for trying to “format the
veil.” Academics may easily depict the common talk that “everyone
has a different favorite, a color, a style, or a cut” as superficial dis-
course of beauty and consumption, yet this discourse allows women
to show their muscles and be assertive and strong in demanding
moral autonomy (self-styling the veil) and expressing individual
difference.
Within the Muslimist framework, in sum, with the emphasis on
iman and the recognition and legitimacy this emphasis confers for
individual difference, women acquire a greater flexibility and free-
dom in self-styling the veil from colors to overall outfits. Because self-
styling is about individual differences, when self-styling is welcomed,
so are individual differences. It is in this frame that Muslimism once
again extends its borders toward a heterogeneous community in
which individual differences generate (and are allowed to generate)
varying religious performances and manners of living.
Inner Ethics as Social Morality

So far, I have documented the Muslimist theological shift from rule-
following to inner ethics (iman) and discussed the implications of
this shift for individual autonomy, self-expression, and heterogeneity.
Regarding questions about moral parental duties, however, we real-
ize the Muslimist understanding of inner ethics also covers a type
of moral cosmology that is consistent with Islam, yet not exclusively
Islamic. Some values and norms that make up this moral cosmol-
ogy, as exemplified in the following paragraphs, include honesty,
patience, justice, strong character, kindness, tolerance, humani-
tarianism, respect and self-respect, love, and hard work. (The same
debate produced a religious discourse among Islamists; for instance,
teaching children to practice Islam in its correct form.) When asked

what they wanted to teach their children, Muslimists had a number
of things to say. For example, Serdar (of JDP) says: “To help oth-
ers whenever they have the chance, to share with other people, and
honesty. I try to teach my children to love their country and to love
people including people of other religions and people of different
ethnic origins. I mean to love humans. And also I want them to be
moral persons.”
Sule (of CWPA) says: “I would like to teach them respect. I want them
to respect everything from humans to animals to the environment.
And, of course, self-respect.”
Pinar (of CWPA) says: “We aim to teach them to be honest and not
to lie. We want them to appreciate how precious each human being
is . . . and to be aware of goodness and to pursue goodness. This is
the character I want my kids to have.”
Overall, Muslimists have picked up values that do not exclude Islam,

yet they do not solely define the traits of a “good Muslim” either.
Rather, the answers portray the traits of a “good human”—shaped by
the modern cultural, political, and economic conditions and senses,
such as citizenship and nationalism, market expansion, individuality
and the self, and rationalism.2
Seref (of MUSIAD) further details the content of this social
morality. He thinks that the parents’ main duty is “to build a strong
character in children.” To that end, Seref proudly says he is sending
his daughter to Hayat Koleji (literally, the “Life College”). Hayat
Koleji, founded in 2003, is a private school that attracts children
from mostly religious circles. Despite its religious identity, the school
advertises itself as being a school of “character establishment and
development.”
Hayat Koleji understands and uses the concept of character as
“inner discipline.” It states that in place of establishing external con-
trol, the mission of the character education program is to cultivate
inner discipline (character) in children.3 (This is rather striking, given
the influence of the equally authoritarian Kemalist and traditional
Muslim codes in Turks’ perception of schooling.) To build inner dis-
cipline in children, the program promotes nine traits through educa-
tional curriculum and activities. These traits again are consistent with
Islamic moral cosmology, yet not essentially Islamic: responsibility,
friendship, compassion and respect, justice, integrity, patience, self-
confidence, and leadership.4
In conclusion, and as the character education program of Hayat

Koleji exemplifies, Muslimists are moving away from external control
and toward inner ethics. This shift is not only theological, but also
finds its expression in social moral values and language. Reinforcing
one another, iman and character undermine authoritative religious
communities and prescriptions, portending a greater acceptance and
theological legitimacy in the Muslimist community of individual
autonomy, individual difference, and the self.
Inner Ethics, the State, and Society

The importance ascribed to inner ethics (both theologically and
socially) comes to the fore once more, yet this time extending from
individual and communal relations to state and society relations.
Muslimists suppose that societies, just like individuals, have an inner
morality, and they consider society’s morality to be more important
and valuable than external religious disciplining. More specifically, for
Muslimists, state-imposed religiosity, which can only be exercised at
the level of orthopraxy—iman can neither be measured nor enforced
by an external authority—does not lead to a moral society or to pious
individuals. It is through discussions on post-revolutionary Iran and
its so-claimed Islamic governance that we capture this separation of
external control/the state versus social morality/society.
Some Muslimists crystallize this dichotomy through a quite strik-
ing analogy: the “streets” of Iran represent the state and its authorita-
tive power, whereas the “home/house” represents the inner morality
of Iranian society. They contend that the “Islamic state” is “clean-
ing up the streets” (e.g., compulsory veiling), though this street-level
control does not lead to the cultivation of a strong morality (under-
stood both in theological and secular terms). Musa (of JDP) says:
“Yes, in Iran there is an Islamic state. But you have every sort of
disgrace inside homes. Maybe this is not visible outside, on the streets,
but it is inside the houses. For me, the most important thing is to raise
societies with strong morality.” Riza (of MUSIAD) says: “I have lived
in Iran and did some business there. Inside everyone’s houses, there
are mahzen [underground rooms] where there is no morality. It is
ridiculous; it is nothing other than hypocrisy.”
As these direct quotes show, for Muslimism, just like the true reli-
giosity found in iman, the good society is one with a social con-
science and morality; neither can grow out of external coercion (i.e.,
external Islamization), whether of the state or the community. (In the
documentation of Muslimist political temperaments, we will further
see how Muslimists relativize the state, ascribing it a limited agency in

the establishment of a religious moral order and society.)
Action: Conciliatory Politics

The Islamist impulse to protect pristine religion and homogeneity of
the community crudely translates into an exclusionary politics and
discourse. Islamists limit social interaction with the other (whether
this be the secular other or the West and non-Islamic religions), deny
legitimacy and freedom to non-Islamic (more truly, non-Islamist) life-
styles and political codes (e.g., alcohol consumption or the secular
state), and reject integration with the surrounding society and the
global institutional order (at least discursively). Similar to Islamism,
radical secularism also promotes equally factious and polarizing
politics.
Differing both from Islamists and secularists, in key Muslimist
sites we find a conciliatory and pluralistic discourse. Muslimists aspire
to expand social interactions and start a cultural dialogue with both
the secular and the external other in a quest to understand diverse
political and lifestyle choices, preferences, and demands. This con-
ciliatory attitude is expressed through a language of democracy and
cultural tolerance.
There is, however, a range for and certain limits to how much
Muslimist orthodoxy is willing to tolerate; such symbolic limits
emerge as Muslimists face difficult issues related to social morality,
such as homosexuality or premarital sex. Despite the remarkable chal-
lenges that arise naturally as religious people claim a democratic dis-
position, Muslimists still seek to further integrate into the modern
public sphere.
We further capture the conciliatory attitudes in Muslimist aspira-
tions to become global actors and to take on global roles. Whereas
as individuals, Muslimists openly claim a religious identity, as civil
actors in a quest for global roles, they claim that their public agency
and roles are not filtered through religion (e.g., the services and goals
of Muslimist organizations are not solely confined to religious issues
or to the issues of the religious). This attempt at somewhat neutral
public agency is in part stimulated by discrimination that Muslimists
feel that they themselves experience in everyday life and in the public
sphere, which is still sharply polarized along the lines of religious
versus secular.
Pluralistic sentiments prevail in electoral choices as well, inform-
ing Muslimists’ perceptions of self-identity and how they position
religious identity with respect to such other belongings as citizenship

and national identity.
Democracy and Cultural Tolerance

Conciliatory attitudes surface quite notably in Muslimists’ defini-
tions of, and meanings and virtues they ascribe to, democracy.
Across organizations, Muslimist men and women understand and
define democracy as the acknowledgment and recognition of diverse
societal segments and lifestyles that exist within the larger national
body, and the ability of these groups to express and realize their dis-
parate political and cultural preferences, choices, and demands. For
instance, Seref (of MUSIAD) identifies the most important char-
acteristic of democracy as the “establishment of a common ground
on which each segment of the society can present and express itself,
share its demands and claims with others.” Based on this defini-
tion, Muslimists press that to consolidate its democracy, Turkey must
“extend liberties and rights,” referring not only to an extension of
Muslim freedoms, but to that of ethnic, denominational, and reli-
gious minority groups as well.
Developed within a historical context marked by top-down and
monolithic identity politics, the Muslimist definition of democ-
racy strategically tries to open up space for religion and religious
groups in the national discourse and public sphere. However, beyond
such political and pragmatic engagements, we discover that Muslim
engagements with democracy are cultural; democratic attitudes
appear to be already anchored within the Muslimist worldview, life-
style, and values.
In this cultural context, “being democratic” gets reframed as
“having tolerance.” Tolerance becomes key not only for democra-
tization of the state, but also for everyday-life relations and social
interactions of disparate groups. Again, this shows that their inclina-
tion toward democracy is not merely political/strategic. As put by
Sule more specifically, democracy requires tolerance, and tolerance
starts from the social interactions of everyday life, such as neighbor-
to-neighbor relations, reaching up to the relationship between the
state and various social (and political) groups. Sule (of CWPA) says:
“In Turkey, there is something like ‘democracy happens only if what
I want happens’ . . . thus we have no tolerance or sympathy towards
each other. This starts from the smallest interactions. I mean, parents
have no tolerance of their young children or the young, or neighbors
show no tolerance of each other.”
It also appears that Muslimists recognize and acknowledge the

role they need to play in the normalization of democracy and the
fostering of tolerance in Turkey. They importantly find these self-
imposing limits in Islamic precepts, as put by Asli (of CWPA) this
way: “I believe it is time that we have a democratic society. I am also
referring to my religious beliefs when I say that. When Allah tolerates
everyone, I mean, everyone is free, whether they choose to follow his
rules or not. I don’t have the luxury of not tolerating other people.
So, I don’t think we can discriminate.”
Conciliatory Leanings and Public Agency

Attempts to self-democratize find more concrete and practical expres-
sions as Muslimists explain the type of public agency that their orga-
nizations aspire to promote and exercise. These men and women
proudly claim that, going well beyond issues of religion, the organiza-
tions they belong to have a wide range of activities and goals and that
they cater not only to religious people, but also to various societal
segments that make up the nation.
For example, the JDP congressmen described the party as a cen-
ter party that aims to go beyond conventional polarizations emerg-
ing throughout Turkish modernization (e.g., rural versus urban,
Kurd versus Turk, Sunni versus Alevita, religious versus secular).
As Serdar, a congressman, puts it: “The JDP’s target population is
the whole Turkey; it is indeed the sixty-seven million people who
live in Turkey. Even though some circles try to limit the party to
a certain ideological position, we define this party as the party of
the Turks, Kurds, Alevitas, Sunnis, social democrats, liberals, and
conservatives.”
Paralleling Serdar, Ayla says that MAZLUM-DER, as a human
rights association, targets “the whole Turkey . . . indeed the whole of
humanity.”
Despite being proud of the inclusiveness of their organizations,
Muslimists do not denounce their religious identity. Quite the con-
trary, they candidly express their religious orientation and iden-
tity as people or as individuals. It is at this point, though, where
Muslimism reveals its novel form and where cultural tolerance gains
genuine meaning. Muslimist organizations find inspiration in Islam,
but their actions, services, and target population are not confined to
issues of religion or to religious people only. They aim to take part
in modern and rational collective action as people whose service is
inspired by religious sensitivities, yet not filtered by it. Nur and Ayla
(of MAZLUM-DER) express this as follows:
In 2005 . . . our Istanbul branch received 706 applications. Among

these only 27 were about the veiling issues. The rest were spread
among different segments of the society who have various grievances
and problems. We had applications of tortured people, unjustified
arrests, robbery and violation of employer or employee rights, and
so on.
We [MAZLUM-DER] are a religious group; we have an Islamic
identity. We believe and our religion also tells us this: a Muslim must
be just to any and everyone. We aim to serve any and every human
being. For us one person is one world.
The willingness to open up to the other, on the other hand, brings

with it significant challenges, and such challenges test and determine
the actual capacity of Muslimist orthodoxy in practicing the messages
of tolerance it preaches. For how long can democratic aspirations and
the simultaneous claim for a religious identity get along? Where do
they clash and begin to undermine one another? Put differently, at
what point must one stop tolerating the other and start preserving
the orthodoxy?
Through my formal and informal meetings with the CWPA, I
learned that this religious women’s organization has worked with
the K AOS-GL, a Turkish gay, bisexual, and transgender rights
organization.5 Pinar informs us that the interaction between the
CWPA and the K AOS-GL started at the BISK (Women for Peace)
platform, where these two groups ended up collaborating on a proj-
ect. Nevertheless, this not-so-deliberate interaction was followed by
a rather deliberate visit paid by a lesbian group to the CWPA Ankara
quarter. I invited the women to reflect on their feelings and thoughts
about this visit, and their answers allow us to map the tensions that
emerge between genuine intentions to be tolerant and accepting
(both as individuals and as public actors) and to faithfully submit to
the (perceived) moral codes of Islam.
The CWPA women explicitly express that they neither support
homosexuality nor think it is a licit sexual behavior (they have, in
fact, difficulty making sense of it). They repeatedly express that the
CWPA does not represent the K AOS-GL or promote the normal-
ization of homosexuality. This defensive discourse works as a line
that draws the limits of tolerance and acceptance. Nonetheless, once
this sharp line is drawn, or within these limits, they try to exercise
acceptance. Although they do not view homosexuality as legitimate,

the CWPA women say that they have welcomed this unconventional
guest, wanted to start a dialogue with an open heart, get to know
them, and understand their grievances and demands.
Pinar says: “After working together and after these meetings, a dia-
logue started and this made it possible for us to have more sympa-
thy and understanding. We felt the need or the urge to get to know
them. When the lesbian groups visited us, we all sat down and
open-heartedly talked and listened to them and discussed many
issues.”
Furthermore, even though the CWPA women believe that homo-

sexuality is not the “right” way, they do not consider gays to be a
group that needs to be oppressed. Gulin says: “I hope God helps
them and I am not sure how to explain homosexuality. But I certainly
think that they also have human rights. Nobody should try to exclude
them, cast them out.”
Other women, like Gulin, at the point where democratic aspira-
tions and religious commitments clash, try to resolve this tension by
emphasizing the universality of human rights (in terms of negative
rights). In part, this emphasis emerges from (and is internalized by)
the discrimination that Muslimist women themselves experience.
Yasemin, one of the public faces of the platform, has said that in the
various women’s platforms and meetings she has attended, some sec-
ular women abandoned the meetings, refused to work with veiled
women, or created other difficulties when they saw the CWPA’s
veiled members in the same room or around the same table. Yasemin
contends that the CWPA does not want to be part of such polarizing
behavior; rather, it seeks tolerance and conciliation.
Conciliation and Identity

A question that inquired how Muslimists, as religious people, describe
their self-identity and how they position religion in respect to non-
religious belongings (ethnicity or nationalism) again reveals inclina-
tions toward conciliation and pluralism.
To begin with, different organizations have chosen different types
of belongings to define their self-identity. This discursive variation is
not unexpected because Muslimism is diffuse and not centralized.
The businessmen of MUSIAD mostly identify themselves as
“Turkish and Muslim,” understanding, however, these two categories
to be separate and independent from each other. Neither category has

priority over the other. Seref, for example, says: “Being Turkish and
being Muslim are two different belongings. In one, there is a heredi-
tary belonging and in the other there is a belonging that comes by
choice and consent . . . I don’t think we can compare them. It is wrong
to prioritize one over the other. I don’t find it meaningful to create a
hierarchy between the two.”
The JDP congressmen use a similar language, considering identity
to be composed of multiple layers. Each layer gains meaning in a
different context. Again similar to MUSIAD, for the congressmen,
different layers of identity, including religion, are not rivals or alter-
natives of each other. Ugur, a Kurdish congressman, articulates this
through an analogy:
A Few days ago a friend of mine asked me, ‘Are you first Kurdish or
Muslim?’ If I said I was first Kurdish, he was going to accuse me of
being a Kurdish nationalist. If I said I was first a Muslim, then he was
going to accuse me of being an Islamist. I said, you should not ask
this question. Because what you are asking is, would you wear pants
or would you wear shoes? I wear both because they are two different
things.
The CWPA members and MAZLUM-DER refer to more universal

categories, such as “being a woman” and “being a human.” The pious
human rights activists claim that they do not feel an urge or a need
to put forward a particular identity, as laid out clearly by Nur (of
MAZLUM-DER):
Indeed, I am not concerned about putting forward a particular iden-

tity. For me what is important is being a good human being, and that
is how I would like people to define me. I would like people to define
me as this person who is always just and who always tries to do good-
ness . . . Other than that, I mean, of course, we have some sub-identities
such as Kurd, Turk, or whatever. My dad is from Malatya and I was
born there. I don’t care about these things . . . I might as well have been
an Asian or Kurdish.
Another activist, Said (also of MAZLUM-DER), claims: “I don’t care

about people’s religion or race. I see everyone as humans.” Similar
to Said, Seyfullah says: “I have never felt the urge to define myself
through any particular identity. I am a human being.”
In sum, different organizations have chosen different belong-
ings that create a spectrum, ranging from nationalist sentiments to
more universal categories. The important point here, however, is that

on this spectrum, religious identity does not come to subdue non-
religious commitments and belongings nor does nationalism subju-
gate other belongings, whether religious or ethnic. This absence of
a hierarchy between religious identity and non-religious belongings
differentiates Muslimists both from Islamists and secularists. (This
may also suggest that the categories of both “Turkish” and “Muslim”
become flexible, allowing such diversity as “non-Muslim Turks” or
“Kurdish Muslims.”)
This inquiry into Muslimists’ view of self-identity has revealed fur-
ther that conciliatory attitudes extend from the axis of religion and
secularism toward non-religious belongings. Even segments marked
by nationalist sentiments avoid nationalistic discourse that promotes
ideological conflict and polarization. Ersin (of MUSIAD) expresses
this as follows:
If we divide people into categories, this will create an environment of

conflict. People do not have the freedom to choose their gender, their
nation, or ethnicity; these things come by birth. Moreover, there is
no such thing as supremacy of one race over the other. The fact that
I am Kurdish and the fact that you are Turkish were not our choices.
Therefore, everyone should be seen equal.
More strikingly, some conceptualize a nationalism that creates polar-

ization and conflict as “negative-nationalism.”
To support this idea further, Muslimists across different organi-
zations use historical language that points to Turkey as a multi-
cultural land historically. For example, according to Musa (of JDP):
“For 6,000 years, this has been a land on which various civilizations
were established and emerged. From the very beginning of human
history, this land has been multi-cultural.”
Along similar lines, Cevdet (of MUSIAD) says: “I think multi-
culturalism is a positive thing, like it is in the US. Turkey is a multi-
cultural society because we are the inheritors of the Ottoman
tradition. Ottoman is an alchemy, which harbored Circassions
[cerkez], Laz people, Turks and Kurds, and many other linguistic and
ethnic communities.”
Yet, within this multicultural discourse, nationalistic orienta-
tions reemerge, this time getting couched in terms of citizenship.
Some participants see “being from Turkey” (not ethnic Turkism
but citizenship) as a supra-identity, whereas ethnicities are seen as
sub-identities. Reflecting this divide, they press for policy change
to liberalize ethno-linguistic policies. Erol and Asli illustrate this

discourse as follows:
Erol says: “I think we need to extend liberties. There would be an

official language but in addition to this language, every ethnic
community can speak in their own language . . . I don’t see how
keeping a language alive and practicing it can harm anyone. We
have to liberalize.”
Asli says: “I think people should be able to speak, broadcast, and
publish in their own language. Nevertheless, I also think that
once education starts, everyone should also learn Turkish; they
should learn both their own language and the official language.
And we have to help people who do not speak Turkish. For
example, someone who is from a Kurdish village in the south-
east Turkey should be provided [by the state] a translator when
needed.”
Conciliation and Electoral Choices

Uniformly among organizations, Muslimist men and women think
that the Turkish political system is still marked by polarizing poli-
tics, and they detest established Islamic and secular political actors for
reproducing and maintaining this polarization.
More specifically, Muslimists find the established secular and
Islamic political elite, namely, the Republican’s People Party (RPP)
and parties of the National Vision Movement to be overtly ideologi-
cal—in fact, fanatical—and criticize them for addressing only certain
social segments and demands, at the expense of and by leaving out
the other. Crystallizing Muslimist claims against the RPP, Kemal (of
MUSIAD), for example, argues that because the party has been stuck
with the same monotone discourse (i.e., “laicism is under threat”), it
is unable to produce a new vision or to promote social and political
congruity. In a similar vein, Orhan (of JDP) argues that the National
Vision Movement has transformed conservatism (i.e., religious sen-
timents) into ideological fanaticism and, as a result, alienated itself
from society.
Muslimists, instead, seek a political party that is receptive to reli-
gious sentiments, but, at the same time, is one that uses a language
of pluralism. Consistent among organizations, Muslimist men and
women find the JDP to be the closest candidate to this type of politi-
cal language or style of politics. Universally, Muslimists prefer giv-
ing electoral support to the JDP over the parties associated with the
National Vision Movement.
Muslimists think that while the JDP still holds on to and protects
religious values, it has distanced itself (and religious sentiments) from
extremism and ideological fanaticism. This has enabled the party
to open itself to new ideas and to promote conciliation rather than
polarization. Kemal, a businessman, puts it as follows: “I am content
with the JDP because it opens its arms to many different groups. It
embraces everyone. It opens it arms to the social democrat, to the
religious, to the atheist; excuse me, but this prime minister [Tayyip
Erdogan] is the prime minister also of the prostitutes.”
Seref explains why he left the National Vision Movement cadre to
join the JDP in 2002:
It was impossible to do politics within the frame of the National

Vision Movement. The Movement cannot open itself to the society. It
is bound to conservative values, but this bond is way too stringent. I
think the NOM was never able to get over its fanaticism . . . For exam-
ple, you never would see people with new ideas there. I find Tayyip
Erdogan more open, more oriented towards the society; therefore, I
decided to continue to do politics with him.
In sum, Muslimists during the period of study in which the JDP first
emerged saw the party as a political actor that could replace polar-
ized politics with political conciliation and tolerance. This played into
Muslimist aspirations to extend interactions with the other, while
implying an additional point: Muslimists seek to influence the state
and political processes by becoming linked to electoral politics.
The External Other: Non-Islamic Religions,

Globalist Objectives, and the EU
These conciliatory sentiments gain further depth in narratives regard-
ing the external other and in expressions of global orientations and
objectives. On these points, differences between Muslimists and
Islamists again are noteworthy.
For Islamism, Islam thoroughly restricts not only Muslims’ per-
sonal but also social interactions (e.g., doing business) with non-Mus-
lims; non-Islamic religions are viewed as irreversibly damaged and
deviated from their godly origins. In contrast, Muslimist men and
women are open to and positive toward developing social interactions
with non-Muslim groups.
Consistent across organizations, Muslimists indicate that they can
be friends with people of any religion, even with atheists. For instance,
Muhammed (of JDP) says that he already has Jewish, Christian, and
Buddhist friends. Nur (of MAZLUM-DER) sees no problem in mak-
ing friends with people of non-Islamic religions, and she informs us
that she roomed with an atheist in college. Nur continues, “she was a
very virtuous person.” For others, ethics and morality also function as
a common ground that allows and legitimizes interactions, including
personal ones, with the non-Muslim other. Adem (of JDP) articulates
this very well: “I prefer to be friends with people with good morals.
I would not care whether someone is Jewish or Muslim. I try to go
beyond that and see if they are people of good morals. People might
be atheists, but they might also be morally straight.”
Similarly, Fevzi (of MAZLUM-DER) thinks:
You can find goodness and kindness anywhere you go. You don’t
have to call this ‘Islam.’ I believe, and the history also shows us,
that among, for example, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians, there are
people who are more genuine than most Muslims when it comes to
kindness, humanitarian values, and ideals. The name or the label is
not important. What is important is to embrace such ideals and values
genuinely.
Equally striking is that, when asked if they would like the govern-
ment to ban missionary activities of non-Islamic groups in Turkey,
Muslimists have universally objected to that proposal. Although
they have some reservations, regarding, for instance, the secrecy of
missionary work in Turkey, they contend that such a ban would be
a violation of the rights and the liberties of the non-Muslim other.
Beyond an interest in inter-religious dialogue that one may find in
a variety of religious groups, Muslimists then acknowledge the life
space and demands of the non-Islamic other. A congressman, Musa,
further presses this point. A friend called him, requesting back-up for
a nationalist youth group that was preparing to beat up a missionary
group in town X, in case they got into trouble with law. Musa con-
tinues: “I refused. I told him in no way could I show such support.
I advised him to tell these young kids what they were thinking was
absolutely unacceptable!”
Global Orientations
At a broader level, the motivation to reconcile with the external
other discloses itself in the globalist objectives Muslimists take on.
They aspire to become internationally known civil actors, engage
international projects, work with foreign groups and agencies, and

further integrate into the global society.
For example, businessmen believe that MUSIAD provides its
members with the opportunity to enter into global economic and
social networks, thus opening them up to the world. MUSIAD’s
future plans include further integration into the world market while
protecting Islamic commercial values and aspirations. In a parallel
vein, Yasemin says that since its formation, the CWPA has been able
to introduce itself to the international arena. She considers this an
accomplishment, especially because the CWPA is a religious women’s
association. Along the same lines, Pinar thinks that being a religious
women’s organization, the CWPA has successfully proved that it does
not limit itself to a certain (i.e., devout Muslim women) group and is
able to understand different perspectives. The CWPA women aim to
attain international recognition as a part of their upcoming five-year
plan. MAZLUM-DER members share similar globalist objectives,
indicating that they hope to multiply their international recognition
and involvement.
Concomitant to this global orientation is also a disenchantment
of Muslimists with isolating politics and anti-Western sentiments of
Islamism, as revealed in claims against Iran for stimulating animosity
and polarization between Muslims and the West. One of the most
explicit criticisms comes from Erol, a JDP congressman:
Iraq pulled the US towards the Middle East and now it seems like
Iran is inciting the US even more. Iran is defying the US, the whole
world, and everyone. But this is not politics, this is not diplomacy!
Politics requires handling things with conciliation and seeking diplo-
macy . . . Iran is not doing politics; they are swaggering. It is almost like
this man [referring to Ahmadinejad] is a provocateur.
Iran is also criticized for isolating itself from the global society and
for ignoring the current realities of the global order. According to
Namik (of MUSIAD), in an increasingly globalizing world, Iran’s
attempt to isolate itself is a political lapse.
EU Membership
Attitudes toward Turkey’s possible membership in the EU yet again
illustrate Muslimist global orientation and the desire to reconcile with
the West (as well as its disenchantment with anti-Western sentiments).
Almost universally, Muslimist men and women support Turkey’s
membership in the EU. Importantly, beyond economic and foreign

policy benefits, the support for EU membership finds its raison d’être
in the improvement of human rights and democracy. More specifi-
cally, Muslimists expect EU membership to help Turkey in its normal-
ization of democracy, strengthening of the rule of law, improvement
of human rights, and extension of civil liberties, all playing into the
broader narrative of conciliation and tolerance.
For example, Orhan, a JDP congressman, says: “The EU has been
our dream for so many years. We want to join the union especially
so that we can improve human rights.” Similarly, according to Pinar
from the CWPA: “Right now the EU is showing us only the carrot
[referring to slow-moving negotiations]. Nevertheless, even within
this period, we were able to benefit a lot. I believe the more we are
involved, the more positive outcomes will emerge.”
Serdar, a JDP congressman, believes that joining the EU will not
only stimulate democratic development, but will also help Turkey to
increase its standards, from economics to foreign policy to education
to environmental consciousness:
I contend that this would benefit Turkey. There will be economic

benefits. Right now, most of Turkey’s import and export activities
are with the European countries. The EU countries have the most
stable economies in the world and they are also politically stable.
Thus, it is quite important for Turkey’s political and economic future
to be part of such a stable union. Most importantly, the living stan-
dards in the EU countries have the highest quality. The EU is the
highest point reached regarding standards of economics, education,
and health, freedom of thought and expression, and also quality of
aliment.
Nevertheless, Muslimists still have some reservations about mem-

bership, including the EU’s concerns about Turkey’s young popula-
tion and labor movements, and historical issues such as the Cyprus
Island. Nonetheless, they do not consider these issues to be reasons
to abandon the EU. The Muslimist discourse on EU membership,
then, is dramatically different from that of Islamism. Reflecting the
Islamist approach to the EU and the West, more broadly, Niyazi,
for example, argues that joining the Union is against the needs of
Turkey’s economic and democratic development and foreign policy.
He compares the membership to “imprisonment,” which he thinks
will prevent Turkey from becoming a regional power. In contrast,
Muhammed (of JDP) contends that Turkey will be able to integrate
into the global system and become a global player through her mem-
bership in the EU.
Summary
This chapter has described core religious temperaments that char-
acterize Muslimism, by mapping reality orientations (ontology,
agency, and action) onto the three ds (religion, everyday life, and
politics). As opposed to Islamism, which orients believers toward
religion ideologically, Muslimism views religion in terms of iden-
tity (ontology). This particular orientation to the sacred allows
Muslimists to retreat from literalism and to reinterpret religious
principles based on surrounding currents. Rather than this-worldly
comfort, this reformist impulse seeks ways to make Islamic life and
identity more possible in a secularly designed society while claim-
ing a higher stake in modern life. Moreover, adaptation and rein-
terpretation are not independent from formal theology, but find
their legitimacy and, more importantly, their specific instructions
(terms) from it.
The identitarian orientation toward the sacred, which allows for
reform, also results in a somewhat heterogeneous religious com-
munity, promoting diversity in religious performances (e.g., veil-
ing styles) and lifestyles, more broadly (agency). The definition of
true religion as iman (inner ethics) further reinforces this style of
community, legitimizing human subjectivity and self-expression.
Iman —as something integral to the individual and thus as some-
thing that cannot be regulated or forced by the community or the
state—undermines external disciplining while heightening individ-
ual autonomy. Similarly, the good society is defined as one with a
social conscience and morality, which, again, cannot be developed
by state-imposed religious disciplining. This theological shift from
external to internal discipline and ethics gains further depth in a
parallel but universal-like moral cosmology that is consistent with
Islam, yet not exclusive to it (e.g., being a good human).
This emphasis on morality (both theologically and socially) creates
a common ground on which believers can extend their interactions
with the other, both secular and external (the West and non-Islamic
religions), and develop conciliatory politics (action). Conciliatory
politics includes, importantly, a language of tolerance as well as self-
imposed limits. Muslimist organizations claim a public agency that is
inspired but not filtered by religion (or biased toward the religious).
Tolerance and neutrality, however, have certain limits, which emerge
regarding matters about which Islamic injunctions are rather clear

(e.g., homosexuality). However, even regarding such difficult mat-
ters, there is a significant attempt to resolve the tension between com-
mitments to religion and tolerance. In terms of the external other,
we find that Muslimists are globally oriented and increasingly dis-
enchanted with Islamists’ anti-Western sentiments and isolationary
politics.
CH A P T ER 4
Muslimist Cultural Orientations and

Everyday Life
For religious orthodoxies—“orthodoxy” denoting a commitment

to a sacred truth—religious truth, embodied in a theology and per-
ceived to be objective, is not just a spiritual exercise. It also dictates
arrangements of the mundane, providing the believer with a package
of values, attitudes and beliefs through which she sees and under-
stands the surrounding world, and fashions her conduct and way of
life. As such, marked by radically different theological orientations
and attitudes, Muslimist and Islamist orthodoxies also differ from
each other in cultural orientations and temperaments; these differ-
ences are, again, remarkable.
As I have already discussed, a purist ontology defines Islamist per-
ception of and interactions with the secular modern world. This purist
ontology rejects any cultural mixing between Islam and modernity,
depicting modernity (modern life and world) to be anti-Islamic, thus
forbidden to Muslims. Muslims, as Niyazi, a former congressman of
the Welfare Party, has stated, should resist modernity and fight against
“its destructive attacks.” I have illustrated that this purist ontology
(meta-view) reinforces communitarian attitudes and traditionalism in
everyday life and in the social order and relations. An authoritative
religious community is to keep the boundaries between Islam and
modernity intact, whereas tradition (its retention and, at times, rein-
vention) provides a normative shield to push back any change (under-
stood as modern contaminations) that significantly challenges these
boundaries.
Muslimism, as a religious orthodoxy, is also suspicious of the
surrounding secular modern order, in which a multiplicity of value
systems can openly and legitimately compete against religion for indi-
viduals’ passion and loyalty. This pluralistic nature of contemporary
modern life confronts the faithful, all faiths alike, with the same chal-
lenges, which at times can be deliberately offensive. Consider, for
example, the use of a cross by Playboy as a sexual symbol; the con-
troversial caricaturization of Prophet Mohammed; and the recently
launched veiled baby dolls in the form of a suicide bomber advertised
with the words, “she will blow your brains out!”1
Yet, my conversations with Muslimists on modernity have dem-
onstrated that in attempts to deal with the challenges posed by the
surrounding modern order, this new status group undertakes a com-
plicated task. Sule epitomizes this complex undertaking with an
arresting statement: “We cannot live in a separate planet; we have
to find compatibilities and common grounds. However, this does
not mean we have to accept modernity with all its negatives. We
can file or filter out these negatives, and make it more suitable for us
(emphasis mine).” I have expressed this Muslimist attempt for “creat-
ing common grounds between religion and modernity” in broader
terms throughout the book. Neither fundamentalist rejection nor
liberal submission, Muslimists embrace aspects of modern life, while
submitting that life to a religious-moral order and creating hybrid
institutions, discourses, and practices. In contrast to Islamism,
then, Muslimist encounters with modernity are defined by hybridity
(ontology).
Following the three-d schema, we find that in everyday life and
social relations, this hybrid posture toward the modern world (ontol-
ogy) undermines traditional religious codes and authorities, enforc-
ing a process of individuation and rationalization (agency). It marks
Muslimism, moreover, with innovation and creativity (action), as
embodied in formulations of a “guiltless modernity” and an “unapol-
ogetic Islam.”
A few words of caution are necessary here. Although Muslimism
distinguishes itself by its hybrid ontology, the phenomenon of hybrid-
ity is not exclusive to the Muslimist form. Actually, in early Islamic
contexts, including Turkey, and within Islamism too, we find prints
of hybridity2 (e.g., Islamist demands for a sovereign Islamic state).
The point, however, is that although modern influences have infil-
trated Islamism (language, notions, and inspirations), Islamists reject
any charges for hybridity and assert that they are custodians of pris-
tine religion.3 For Muslimism, in contrast, hybridity seems to be a
voluntarist and conscious notion. Muslimists problematize the divide
of Islam versus modernity not only in discourse, but also in practice,
as embodied in the formation of hybrid everyday life institutions and
civil and political formations.
MUSLIMIST CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS 129
Ontology: Hybridity
Similar to Islamists, Muslimists also acknowledge that modernity
and associated processes perceptibly and tangibly affect local cul-
tures, including religion. Differing from Islamists, however, they
conceptualize influences of modernity as “social change.” They
understand this change to be natural and inevitable, and depict
Islamist reactionary and anti-modern discourse as “narrow-mind-
edness,” “fundamentalism,” and “unnecessary conservatism.” Ugur
(of JDP) expresses this critical view clearly: “I disagree with concep-
tualizing these interactions as degeneration or assimilation . . . But
if you say ‘change,’ if you say modernity has produced significant
changes, then I certainly agree.” Lale (of CWPA) similarly thinks
that “modernity influences local cultures and religions.” She con-
tinues, however, to state that: “I do not consider these changes as
losses, or signs that tell us that our society is going down . . . Change
is inevitable.”
Muslimists further develop this view when they claim that moder-
nity has provided Turkish Muslims, and Islam more broadly, with new
opportunities and benefits (both material and cultural). Representing
this line of thinking, Yucel suggests, for example, that modernization
and globalization have raised new questions in Muslims’ minds and
opened them up to new approaches: “Going to the U.S. and seeing
all those magnificent buildings . . . or going even to Moscow and see-
ing the big streets, parks, and hospitals that are inherited from the
Communist era . . . you start asking questions that you would not or
could not have before. With modernity, Muslims are now gaining
new approaches towards other values and lifestyles. . . . ” In the same
way, Ugur asks: “ . . . Why should not we change? . . . I mean we have
a lot of negativities that we realize when we interact and compare
ourselves with other societies and cultures . . . I am not in some sort of
unnecessary conservatism.”
On the other hand, for CWPA women, like Derya and Gulin,
“contemporary freedoms and liberties are extensions of moder-
nity,” and “rather than eroding local identities, modernity enables
identity-finding and identity-formation.” These positive functions
ascribed to modernity emerge, especially when the CWPA women
distinguish the identity and style of their organization from other
organizations of religious women in Turkey. They claim that the
CWPA aims to promote a new Islamic female politics; it is indepen-
dent both from cemaats (religious orders) and political parties; it has
both a religious and a democrat identity (e.g., as reflected in their
meetings with lesbian groups); and it challenges traditional religious

authority and codes. Modernity or modernization, by extending lib-
erties, these women believe, has provided the necessary conditions
on which this new Islamic female politics and identity can be formed
and exercised.
More strikingly, some Muslimist men and women assert that,
instead of contaminating Islam, with its emphasis on the ratio-
nal mind, modernity provides Muslims an opportunity to purify
Islam from the corruptive inf luences of traditional interpreta-
tions and codes, and to retrieve the essences of religion. Nur (of
MAZLUM-DER) puts this claim as follows, when asked if she
would agree with religious groups that indict modernity for cor-
rupting Islam:
If they are saying that modernity is degenerating tradition, then yes

it does . . . I think everything is actually getting better . . . In Turkey,
Muslims are generally traditional Muslims; this is called taklid [imi-
tation] . . . people imitate what they see from family and community.
On the other side, there is tahkik [enquiry or quest]. Tahkik is when
you investigate, when you ask what it is that I believe. Now, I believe
modernity degenerates and challenges taklid, but it encourages people
to investigate and to ask. This is inevitable, and, I think, good and
necessary.
Fevzi (of MAZLUM-DER) expresses this particular function of

modernity equally thoroughly, asserting, “the understanding in the
West” actually “saves Islam” from the historical damages given to it
from within (by traditional interpretations):
I think Islam has been degenerated starting with the Umayyad,

because since then it has been taklid [tradition and imitation] not
the rational mind that was put forward . . . Islam was corrupted due to
the traditional and taklidi interpretations. So degeneration was from
inside not from outside. In contrast, the understanding in the West
actually saves religion from these degenerations.
As we delve deeper into the conversations on modernity, however,

we find that this affirmative discourse on modernity (and its virtues)
goes hand in hand with a simultaneous talk about “making moder-
nity inoffensive to” and “suitable with” Islam. It is in this uncon-
ventional interaction, in which Muslimists use Islam to reshape
modernity, that we see the rise of a new religious form (its institu-
tions and lifestyles), marked by hybridity. Congressman Ugur (of
JDP) and businessman Cevdet (of MUSIAD) exemplify this new and
hybrid posture toward modernity as follows:
I think that we can again and again re-produce and re-define moder-
nity and its concepts based on our own cultural experience and val-
ues . . . we cannot disregard or ignore our own cultural heritage; that
would be assimilation, and this is not approvable. But, we can combine
the two. Why not? Why should not we change?
And: “We can make modernity suitable to our own identity and
essential values . . . we can be integrated with the universal modern
values without breaking off from our roots.”
What is advocated in theory translates into praxis as Muslimists
interact with the surrounding modern life, from markets to everyday
life, showing that hybridity is not confined to an abstract intellec-
tual exercise or a discursive claim. Looking at two practical dimen-
sions, modern economy and day-to-day life, we can more closely
examine Muslimist attempts to find common grounds between
Islam (as the only true source of meaning and truth) and modern
life (as the “planet” in which Muslims are to live), and identify the
particular processes as well as tensions involved in the production
of hybridity.
Hybridity and Markets

An ardent criticism of the traditional religious mentality defines
Muslimist engagements with modern capitalist markets. The criti-
cism condemns seeing economic ambitions and aggressive work
as too much involvement with the world, depleting one in her
worship, otherworldly concerns, and creed. This mentality, more
broadly, is a stance of renunciation toward the world and its intrin-
sically perishable content—from material gain and power to the
needs of the body (pleasure or beauty regimens) to entertainment
and leisure.
For Muslimists, this particular view of the world, and the sharp
divide of worship versus work embedded in it, are driven not from
Islamic sources but from traditional moral codes and readings; it is
ignorant, erroneous, and, in fact, contradictory to the very essences of
Islam. Muslimists argue that by simply looking at Islamic history and
historical figures, one can easily recognize the falsehood of “sanc-
tifying deprivation.” Representing this line of argument, Nedim, a
businessman, says, for example: “Being rich is very important in our
religion. Our prophet’s first wife, Hatice, was one of the wealthi-
est in Mecca and so was Hz. Ebubekir. . . . ” Similarly, Ugur (of JDP)
contends:
“Wealth accumulation is definitely very important in Islam.” He con-

tinues to criticize, more broadly, the traditional moral orientation
to the world and its sacralization of ascetism: “ . . . I think everyone
should be able to live comfortably; everyone came to this world with
sixty or seventy years life-time and then all of us will leave. And I
don’t think there is any meaning to sanctify living these sixty years
miserably. . . . ”
Along the same lines, Riza (of MUSIAD) says that “being rich is
not a dishonor” and for Nur (of MAZLUM-DER), “richness is God’s
blessing.”
For Muslimists, then, economic aspirations and earning wealth (more

broadly, engaging the surrounding world) do not harm or lessen
one’s piety or Islamic sensitivities. Can this simply be a pragmatic
response to legitimize Muslims’ commercial fervor heightened by the
post-1980s economic realities? There seems to be more than what
appears on the surface.
First, the criticisms of traditional Muslim interpretations of eco-
nomic activity are part of a larger attempt and concern to model true
faith on a conscious and voluntary choice instead of traditional codes
and standards. Second, whereas Muslimists denounce traditional
codes and embrace aspects of capitalism using concepts of Islamic
theology, they utilize the same theological discourse and concepts to
differentiate their economic conduct and ethic from coarse capital-
ism. More specifically put, they also repudiate such coarse capitalist
values as individual benefit, self-maximization, class distinction, and
luxury, and reframe economic aspirations and impulses with Islamic
values and concepts, working Islamic identity and principles into
modern markets.
In modeling an Islam-proper economic framework and conduct,
Muslimist organizations especially use the concepts of zekat (giving
2.5% of wealth and assets each year to the poor) and infak (any kind
of spending that is done to please God). They note that infak and the
fulfilling of zekat, one of the five pillars of Islam, are possible only
when the believer achieves a certain level of wealth. Sule (of CWPA)
expresses this religious posture as follows: “If I take Islam as my refer-
ence, then money and being rich is very important. Because then you
can give zekat and help others. I take Hz. Ebubekir as my model. He
was very wealthy, but he always shared it with people; thus, he is at a

very high standing.”
MUSIAD businessmen more heavily assert this reframing of
wealth with Islamic inspirations; Nedim and Seref, respectively, epito-
mize this:
Our religion encourages work and wealth . . . Islam preaches us shar-

ing, and you cannot share if you don’t have something to share. First,
you have to acquire some power, you will work, and you will gain.
Then you share . . . If Islam was to look down on wealth, then why
would we have the pillar of zekat or of pilgrimage? These both can be
fulfilled only by the rich, and it is only rich who are responsible for
those pillars.
Wealth is of profound importance. In order to fulfill zekat, you
have to be rich. In order to do infak, again, you have to be rich. In
other words, wealth exists as a precondition for fulfilling a religious
order. We consider wealth to be important in that aspect.
Similarly, for Riza: “Aggrandizing Allah’s name is possible through

possessing material power.”
In this discourse, wealth accumulation is not merely about making
money or personal profit; beyond that, it allows the believer to follow
Allah’s commands. It may be helpful to see this particular develop-
ment as broadly comparable to the Protestant “vocation as a calling.”
As much as wealth was part of methodical work for the glory of God
in Protestantism, the concepts of zekat and infak, within Muslimism,
ascribe religious importance to, and articulate an Islamic-moral take
on, commercial impulses. Nevertheless, even though Muslimists are
able to somewhat rework market and economic relations around
Islamic principles, their engagements with capitalist economy still
harbor severe tensions, particularly regarding the ethical coding of
wealth or richness and associated conduct. This tension, in fact, pres-
ents another parallel with both seventeenth-century English Puritans
and seventeenth- to eighteenth-century American Puritans, who
while arguing that Christians should work hard and methodically in
praise of God, also preached about avoiding feeding one’s passions
and against gluttony, luxury, and lust. The retreat from luxury was
the only way to tell if someone was working for God’s glory or for his
own greed.
Similarly, one common concept Muslimists use to resolve such ten-
sions, and to draw boundaries to separate what is morally acceptable
from what is not, is the concept of israf (prodigality). Consistently
among their organizations, Muslimists emphasize that they should
avoid prodigality and gluttony. Nedim, a businessman, expresses

MUSIAD’s take on israf and luxury as follows: “Wealth is important
but not so that you can have luxury. Luxury is what is beyond the
essential value. This is called israf. In our religion, israf is discour-
aged. Besides, anybody who has a conscience would not be involved
in israf, while, all around the world, people are dying of hunger.”
Pinar (of CWPA) in a parallel vein argues that: “Wealth is impor-
tant, but wealth that invests in cars, villas with swimming pools,
magnificent houses is one that invests in the ‘show-off culture.’ I
don’t think these are ‘needs.’ Me and my husband, we don’t invest
in such things.”
Despite this common depiction of luxury as being repulsive and
alien to Islam, Muslimists seem not to have a clearly articulated defi-
nition of what exactly constitutes israf versus licit expenditure. This
ambiguity suggests, more fundamentally, the lack of a definitive
doctrinal framework that can clearly guide one’s economic affairs,
ambitions, aspirations, and conduct.4 There is, however, a number
of attempts to resolve this issue. Although such attempts are more or
less substitutive, they still help Muslimists to gain a sense of moral
propriety and a binding moral address.
For example, MUSIAD members insist that their definition
of aff luence has “a social aspect” to it. Ersin puts this particular
approach as follows: “MUSIAD’s idea of wealth is society ori-
ented. Our wealth should be one, which builds up equality, jus-
tice, freedom, and welfare for the whole society. It is due to those
functions that wealth is important for us. In making our wealth,
our concern is not making more money and having more in an
individualistic way.”
For the businessmen, doing “honest business,” “generating and
spending wealth in helal (permissible) ways,” and “producing high-
quality products” constitute other such boundaries that are to ethi-
cally inform commercial behavior. Hudaverdi, a manufacturer of
commercial and residential elevators, says: “ . . . being rich is God’s
blessing. But there are some rules to it . . . whoever purchases my prod-
uct, they should benefit from it, and I would like my customer to
remember me as a man with hayir [good deeds]. . . . ”
MAZLUM-DER members have a similar position, but use a
larger expression. They see wealth as God’s escrow; wealth, there-
fore, intrinsically harbors other people’s rights and entitlements. One
should observe and oversee these rights and share his or her wealth,
which ultimately belongs to God, with the poor. This emphasis on
the social aspects of wealth importantly holds Muslimists back from
openly claiming and seeking an elite status or class distinction,5 and

this self-censure works as yet another moral boundary.
The Muslimists’ belief that their perception of wealth has a
“social aspect” emerges one more time in discussions over prin-
ciples of liberal economy, especially individual entrepreneurship and
competition. It is noteworthy that even though Muslimists cher-
ish liberal economic models for allowing individual autonomy and
self-realization, they insist such sentiments should not translate into
individualistic economic impulses. Aspirations for wealth, and for
greater wealth, should seek to benefit the whole society and should
exclude self-seeking and selfish impulses. An economic system that
lacks occasions for sharing wealth is criticized for creating “anar-
chy-capitalism.” Along the same lines, Muslimists discuss that the
positive aspects of competition emerge only under a moral and just
competition. Seref (of MUSIAD), when asked how he perceives the
concept of economic competition, defines this style of moral com-
petition as follows:
Competition by which people crush each other lacks, or misses the

ethical aspect. Competition when exercised under honest rules and
under equal conditions is always good. The one who promises more
goodness and beyond simply being concerned about making more
money, the one who aims to do the right thing would always win. This
is fundamental and as long as you follow this you are not crushing or
harming anyone else . . . This is how we think of competition.
Overall, then, Muslimists do not view the modern economy and

markets through traditional filters. They embrace Western-capitalist
notions and values such as rationality, competitiveness, pragmatism,
and individual enterprise and liberty; but they submit these values
to religion, thus sculpting a hybrid economic ethic. At another level,
this style of religious engagement in markets would indicate that what
Muslimists seek is not the establishment of an Islamic economy to
replace the modern capitalist system. Instead, Muslimists are con-
cerned with finding ways to fulfill and to follow the commandments
of God while operating, both as producers and consumers, within
the current economic system.6 This is a striking contrast to Islamism;
for Islamists, Islamic moral codes and duties, such as israf and zekat,
cannot be adequately realized within the parameters of the modern
economic and political system. To reiterate, however, the process
of hyrbridization (or engaging modern markets through Islam) is
marked by dynamic episodes of tensions.
Hybridity and Lifestyles

Both religious and secular groups with a purist ontology presume
that clear and fundamental distinctions can be made between reli-
gious and non-religious ways of life and day-to-day conduct, from
bodily practices to entertainment to aspirations about self and life.
Following the 1980s in Turkey, Muslims’ growing relationship with
markets started to dramatically challenge this presumption. Markets
have become the economic backbone and a host for new Islamic
everyday life institutions and lifestyles at the convergence of Islamic
and modern life. By the late 1990s, everyday life spaces and habits
that used to exclusively define secular modern lifestyles, from sum-
mer vacations, fashion and design, beauty regimens, and fitness clubs
to honeymoons and wedding planning, were already part of Muslims’
day-to-day existence; though they were now re-appropriated along
Islamic moral codes.
For conventional scholarship, this intermingling between Islam
and modernity in markets presents a one-dimensional relationship,
in which an ever-expanding modernity transforms Islam into its own
cultural program through market forces and consumption. (More
recently, aggressive pro-liberal economic policies of the JDP have cer-
tainly thickened this line of interpretation.) The conclusion for this
line of thinking is a new genre of Islam, one that constructs and
expresses identity through infusing consumer goods with religious
significance.
Similarly, for both Islamists and secularists, with purist ontol-
ogies equally informing each, the blurring of the boundaries
between pious and secular lifestyles means contamination of one’s,
presumably, “exclusive,” “uncontaminated” habitus and life by the
other. For instance, in the eyes of the secularists, women swim-
ming with hashema(s) at Turkey’s popular beaches violate and
threaten the symbolic integrity of beaches as exclusive spaces for
modern, urban, and upper-middle class Turks. Emerging and rap-
idly proliferating syntheses of Islam and modernity equally disturb
Islamists. Epitomizing this purist ontology, Islamists, as we have
discussed briefly, view the Caprice Hotel, opened in 1996 with a
promise for an “alternative vacation,” as an outright corruption of
Islam. Islamists contend that although “alternative vacation” has
supposedly rearranged the use of space Islamically, it is fundamen-
tally built on Western modern notions. Most notably, the notion of
“letting go” of all moral boundaries from sexual laxity to excessive
consumption to indulgence in pleasure is condemned by Islamists.
Although the hotel is observant of some Islamic rules, it injects

these alien and morally condemnable Western notions into Islam.
Muslims who stay at the hotel, in this view, vacation not only from
work routines, but also from their religious devotion, duties, and
sensitivities.
Muslimist discussions over the Caprice Hotel differ remarkably
from that of Islamists, showing, once more, that Islam and modernity
relations are not predestined to swing between submission and rejec-
tion, but can take the form of a hybrid engagement. Second, these
conversations also show that Muslimist interactions with modern
everyday life go well beyond consumption and involve a rethinking of
sophisticated cultural issues, such as ascetism and wordly existence,
work and recreation, bodily practices, gender and public space, nature,
aspirations and definitions of the good life, and Islam and the West
relations. Consumerism is certainly part and parcel of these everyday
life engagements of modernity; yet, it is neither the main mechanism
underlying, nor the foremost filter shaping, Muslimist interactions
with modernity.
When we look at the content of the discussions over the Caprice
Hotel, we find a multi-layered discourse. To begin with, Muslimists
think that vacation is a necessity within the overwhelming routine of
modern work and daily life. Though seemingly secular, this need to
rest, relax, and, indeed, enjoy life flows from concepts and sources of
theology. For example, Muslimist women refer to nature (sea, sun, and
sand beaches) as nimet, blessings Allah created for the joy of humans.
They argue that because of gender-segregated beaches, pious women
are allowed to make use of and enjoy God’s nimet. Accordingly, they
criticize Islamist rejection by asking, “Why should not Muslims ben-
efit from these blessings?” (This shows, again, a departure from radi-
cal ascetism.)
In a parallel vein, Nedim, a businessman, refers to hadith and asks
sarcastically: “ . . . there is hadith which advises us to teach our chil-
dren how to swim or ride horses. How are you going to teach your kid
to swim, in the bathtub?” The problem of vacation, for Nedim, how-
ever, is part of a much larger issue; that is, how to correctly respond
to new cultural currents that religious provisions do not address
directly—be it vacation or technology. “ . . . for example, multi-story
buildings . . . Islamic sources do not inform us about multi-story
buildings. Does that mean we should not live in such places? . . . such
thoughts would take us to erroneous interpretations.”
What we infer from this discussion is that Muslimists reject the
presumed sharp divide of Islam versus modernity (and the West). Asli
(of CWPA) and Cemal (of MUSIAD) more clearly express this rejec-
tion: “I do not separate Islam and the West as two opposite poles . . . I
mean today we are arguing about vacations . . . a century ago people
[Muslims] were having the same arguments on silverware, which was
seen as a Western and alien custom. I find these arguments ridic-
ulous. I am open for anything that would not violate my religious
boundaries.”
“A Muslim desires to take vacation with his family within the
boundaries of helal. He wants to leave the city he lives in and go
enjoy the sun and the sea. I find people who are against this abnor-
mal . . . Such things are windows for Muslims to live a Muslim life.
Otherwise, imprison the Muslim in his house, tell him sports are
incompatible, vacation is incompatible . . . then what? Then he will
end up being a couch potato sitting with a big belly. I don’t think
this lifestyle is desired anymore. Europeans built those hotels,
and if here we shape these hotels in accord with Islam, what is the
harm?”
Here we further see that while embracing contemporary institu-
tions and life, Muslimists are also clearly concerned about remain-
ing within religious boundaries and reshaping modernity along
Islamic lines—this results in hybrid institutions and practices.
Hybridity, as it does in markets and in everyday life, bears acute
tensions; to resolve these tensions, Muslimists try to draw guiding
boundaries.
Although endorsing the idea of an alternative vacation, Muslimist
organizations commonly recognize that such practices work as social
filters for class distinction and prestige. Muslimists are disturbed, or
at the very least ambivalent, about such aspects of emerging Islamic
everyday life institutions as luxury and status seeking. This is espe-
cially strong among MAZLUM-DER members. Even for these
Muslim human rights activists, however, the issue is not that new
institutions such as the Caprice Hotel corrupt Islam, but that they
should be available to all Muslims rather than being exclusive to the
wealthy.
For others, including the ones who have already stayed at the hotel
and ones who would consider staying, the common argument (or the
boundary drawn) is that their interest in the hotel is not related to its
luxurious style, but in its various “Islam-proper services.” They find
Islamist criticisms harsh and unrealistic, especially since there are no
cheaper alternatives. In this discourse, distinguishing one’s self from
status seekers, and maintaining modesty in behavior (e.g., at an open
buffet) and in perception while on vacation, become the focal points
of ethical codes. For example, Nedim (of MUSIAD), who stayed

twice in the Caprice Hotel with his daughters and wife says:
I stayed there twice and there are things I don’t approve also. For
example, it is not Islam-proper that people fill up their plates with
amounts of food that they cannot finish, just because they paid for it,
and dump the rest of the food . . . Yes, the hotel is an expensive hotel
but . . . I find these criticisms [referring to Islamism] quite harsh. You
cannot tell people not to go to Caprice Hotel because the hotel is
expensive; especially given that there is no other alternative.
In sum, Muslimist endorsement of alternative vacations and, more

generally, of new Islamic institutions and lifestyles is not a liberal
submission. Instead, Muslimists engage contemporary institutions
by using Islam. Moreover, this engagement does much more than
make it morally acceptable for Muslims to consume and to entertain.
The Caprice Hotel, for example, by making it possible for Muslim
women to take part in activities such as swimming, which used to
be off limits for the veiled women, provides pious women with new
public agencies, exercises, and recognition. Instead of sitting at the
beach, watching Muslim men swim as passive observers of the public
realm (or, similarly, sitting at home, watching men establish careers),
for instance, veiled women can now also take part in swimming (a
culturally charged activity), becoming active participants of the pub-
lic realm. Consumption is certainly part of this, but the alternative
vacation is, more significantly, a cultural exercise that dramatically
alters and reregulates what one can do in (and with) a Muslim female
body.
Hybridity, Islam, and the West

Embedded in the Islamist rejection of modernity is a denunciation
of the West. Islamists contend that as Muslims engage modernity,
in markets and in everyday life, they also become engulfed in the
Western culture. Muslims becoming modern/Western in their life-
styles, tastes, and habits not only threatens Islamic moral order (the
Western civilization in its entirety, from family relations to political
ideals, is morally corrupt), but it also threatens the collective Muslim
identity as a distinct group of people. Anti-Westernism, which pres-
ents itself in everyday life in the form of rejection of Western lifestyles
(e.g., fashions and vacations), translates in politics into harsh critiques
against the JDP’s attempts to deepen Turkey’s relations with the West
and its pro-European Union (EU) attitude. Turkey’s Muslim iden-

tity, instead, Islamists contend, requires it to focus its energy on the
Muslim umma.
Throughout Muslimist discussions on modernity and/or modern-
ization, in contrast, we have already encountered various hints sug-
gesting that the assumed sharp divide between Islam and the West is
already waning among Muslimists. They, instead, put forth a hybrid
posture. This posture comes forward more directly as Muslimists
refer to Turkey’s “in between” character; Turkey is seen to be both
Muslim/Middle Eastern and modern/European. Muslimists relate
this in-between position and identity of Turkey, in part, to its geo-
graphical position and history (in reference to Ottoman invasions
of Europe). More importantly and interestingly, however, they
find Turkey’s hybrid identity in Turkey’s style of life, society, and
politics.
Fatma (of CWPA) epitomizes this discourse rather well, as follows:
“Our upbringings and lifestyles are closer to Europe . . . Our heart
is Middle Eastern but our minds are European. When we go to the
Middle East or to the Turkic areas . . . we are not really like them.” In
a similar vein, Orhan (of JDP) says: “We are right in between Asia
and Europe. I think we are a bridge connecting these civilizations.
On one side, we are European, and, on the other side, we are Asian.
So, being Turkish is nested and multifaceted.” Along the same lines,
Seref, a businessman, also says: “We are at a central position. We are
Europeans; we went to Balkans reaching to Vienna, Austria. But, we
are also Asian, Middle Eastern. We have borders with the Middle East
and historical bounds with the Turkic Republicans. With our culture,
our land; we are right in between two civilizations.”
For Muslimists, then, being Muslim and being Western, as two
broad categories of civilizational identities, do not automatically
exclude or negate one another. In relation to political discourse and
aspirations, Turkey’s being a Muslim country does not mean it has
to turn its face away from the West. Conversely, alliances and deep-
ened interactions with the West do not require suspension of relations
and historical bounds with the Muslim word. This discourse, clearly
hybrid, is further reinforced through discussions over the EU and
Turkey’s possibly becoming the only Muslim member in the union.
Muslimists acknowledge that Turkey’s Islamic identity and commit-
ments distinguish it from the rest of the union, which is composed
of countries with a Christian tradition. However, considering the EU
as a regional rather than a religious union, they also think that dif-
ferent religious commitments between Turkey and Europe do not
constitute insurmountable obstacles in the way of membership. In

fact, they argue that Turkey’s “membership in the union as the only
Muslim country would build a new model of conciliation as an exam-
ple for the rest of the world . . . while at the same time ascribing Turkey
a significant international role in promoting global conciliation.”7 Ali
(of JDP) crystallizes this common discourse as follows:
There are no more borders in the world. Turkey’s membership as

the only Muslim country will result in new openings for Turkey and
for the whole world; it will be an example to Muslim countries and to
Western countries. It will be a model of congruence and conciliation
among various cultures and religions. That is why Turkey’s entrance in
the EU is very important.
Although positive toward the West, in general, and the EU, in par-
ticular, Muslimists certainly do not refrain from harshly and openly
criticizing Western foreign policy in regions as diverse as Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, and Chechnya. They criticize, moreover, the
EU’s attitude on certain historical issues (e.g., Cyprus, Armenia) and
conservative wings in the EU itself, which aim to exclude Muslim
Turkey from “Christian Europe.” They, however, do not consider
these issues as reasons to abandon EU processes, nor do such issues
result in an anti-Western, anti-global discourse. Instead, Muslimists
separate these criticisms from their general approach to the West,
its values and institutions. This is more broadly, as already noted, a
telling indicator of the hybrid nature of the Muslimist orthodoxy;
it embraces aspects of the modern world polity,8 values, thoughts,
forms of action, lifestyles, and habits, while submitting those aspects
to the Islamic moral order (and Muslim interests).
Agency: Individuation
Along with such heavyweights of contemporary fashion as Donna
Karan and Oscar de la Renta, the 2007 New York Fashion Week
also featured an eco-friendly line from Rabia Haute Couture —a
French title given only to high-quality, expensive fabric sewn with
extreme attention to detail and finish. The artist behind the pro-
vocative gowns that mixed, as one fashion commentator described,
“strong silhouettes and powerful colors of the West with the delicate
intricacies of the East,” 9 was a veiled Turkish Muslim woman named
Rabia Yalcin (also a mother to a young veiled girl). Though known
as a “gown guru,” Rabia also designs veils and Islamic clothing, and
makes public appearances to advise veiled Muslim women how to

“show the beauty of the flower, while covering the flower.”10 Earlier
I introduced some of Rabia’s advice for chic-covering. Rabia’s motto
for fashion, going above and beyond any rule of aesthetics, secular
or Islamic, however, is that: “Fashion should not confine women,
but . . . nurture their ‘individuality’ and enhance their unique beauty
and spirit.”11 Rabia’s emphasis on “nurturing one’s individuality and
uniqueness” is not surprising because, although a veiled Muslim, she
is also a designer well established in the extravagant and eccentric
world of fashion design.
What begs further inquiry, however, is that Rabia’s attention to
individuality and unique expression of personality is also shared by
many CWPA women in normal walks of life. Sharing her journey
through the stages of Turkey’s economic development and her per-
sonal experience of veiling across different stages of her life, Yasemin,
for example, remembers that as a young girl attending college, she
was never able to find pieces, styles, or colors that reflected in any
way “who she was.” She could find nothing that she considered suit-
able for her age and body type, or expressive of her taste in color
and style. When she was in college, there were no specialty stores for
veiled women. What the market offered was both highly conventional
and confined to dark colors: black, brown, and dark green. With the
economy becoming global and the associated rise of an Islamic sub-
market for fashion, things began to change. By the 1990s, the new
Islamic textile industry and tesettur -fashion stores were already tai-
loring Islamic clothing to individual desire. Today, Yasemin says, she
can veil (dress) in accord with “who she is”—that is, something that
represents her style, is appropriate to her age and body figure, and
puts forward her artsy and assertive personality. She continues, “I am
a person who takes care of herself . . . and this is not only for public.
Even at home, I try to look good. This is about my self-respect, self-
confidence, and me liking me.”
Personalization of aesthetics of veil then, importantly, represents an
individually crafted sense of style and is a symbol of a unique identity
that women can display as they pursue their life and career goals and
plans. Similar to Yasemin, Pinar, looking back at her college years,
says that tesettur attire (Islamic covering) in Turkey was almost like a
uniform. “Now,” she says, “we are getting out of that”; though to her
mind the veiling styles in Turkey are still too uniform in nature. Jale,
on the other hand, despite her profound dislike of restrictive con-
ventional garb, remained loyal to the codes of convention and wore
the pardesu, a topcoat that reaches to the ankles, hiding any garment
worn underneath. Recently, however, she has abandoned the pardesu

to pursue a personal favorite style: loose jeans and long jackets that
represent, she says, her outgoing but nonchalant personality.
As an object that has become a visible symbol with which Muslim
women can assert or proclaim their own personality and preferences,
the veil poses alarming issues for Islamists. To reiterate, the purist
ontology of Islamism advocates a shared belief in strong communal
attitude and behavior. In order to affirm the tightness of group
solidarity, an authoritative community polices moral boundaries
and suppresses individual freedoms, differences, and preferences.
Fortification of the individual self, in this view, unleashes a pro-
cess that weakens communal ties and diminishes the community’s
power over the individual. This, in turn, creates a void in communal
Islamic moral authority. Once having fallen into the vacuum created
by individual expression, there is a possibility that these individuated
beings can pass the stain of self-expression to other believers, who
consequently question the certitude of communal authority, breach
moral boundaries, and in the end corrupt the “shared” purity of
Islam.
What is one to make of the fashion consciousness and self-expres-
sion of Muslimist women? Why is it important for Muslimist women
to veil (dress) as an expression of “who one is”? Is the desire for one’s
having and expressing personal taste simply spurred by the expansion
of a capitalist fashion industry and a vanity to “modernize,” style,
and commodify Islam? Islamists and secularists, and many social sci-
entists, seem to agree: This taste for fashion among the women of the
CWPA is secularization or westernization. In this view, the practice
of Islam has to follow a highly stereotypical model.
The personalization of aesthetics of the veil is in fact a telling
indicator of much deeper and broader changes taking place in con-
ceptions of the Islamic self and community. The direction of this
remarkable change has been toward a sharpening of the individual
and of the unique self vis-à-vis, and in resistance to, authoritarian
kinds of religious communalism, its religious codes and institutions—
most notably, cemaat structures and the traditional family. In other
words, traditional conceptions of the self and community are being
undermined. In contrast to Islamist claims, this assault, however, is
not an instance of atomistic individualism, referring, in the classi-
cal sense, to prioritization of self-interest over community. Instead,
the growing orientation to the individual among Muslimists reveals
itself through claims for self-realization, self-actualization, creativ-
ity, and independency within community bonds, and the quest for
that community’s recognition and legitimization of one’s uniqueness.

These impulses highlight the Muslimist urge to break free from the
oppressive religious communalism that suppresses personal choice in
the most private aspects of the self: one’s plan and goals in life, one’s
likes and dislikes (e.g., mating preferences), and one’s taste (e.g., fash-
ion). This is not an individual self that is autonomous, freed from God
or Islam. Quite the contrary, it is an individual self that has submitted
to God, but is freed from particular communal religious forms that
have accreted power over the ages as socially constructed expressions
of supposed piety.
The important point, therefore, is that Muslimists’ pursuit of self
is shaped by and filtered through the symbolic realities and theologi-
cal notions of their faith. For Muslimists, blind submission to tradi-
tion cannot achieve the truth of religion; one has to work through
it—in fact, ascend to it—with investigation, reason, and intellectual
thought. To affect these functions, however, the self also must be
freed from the strictures of authoritarian communities and tradi-
tional readings of scriptures that demand individual submission and
obedience to the group.
Briefly, then, the process we find here is not that of individualiza-
tion but individuation; that is, marking of one’s difference, becom-
ing one’s self, developing an individual personality. This process is
not a rejection of communal life per se but its conservative transfor-
mation. As Muslimists move away from traditional (and somewhat
romantic) conceptions of community, they redefine and reorganize
religious community to be something akin to voluntary associational
life, a sodality, where they can still be strongly committed to a moral
community, a common good, and a shared identity, but, simultane-
ously, discover and realize individual choice, preference, difference,
and independency.
Furthermore, the sharpening of individual identity within this
community brings the self into a broader relief. While undermining
traditional codes and pressures, it also pushes back against a secular-
ist stigma that classifies pious Muslims in such a way that they are
expected to dress, act, think, and vote in certain homogeneous ways.
For example, the veil now conceals a Muslim woman who enters the
public arena having fashioned her own aesthetics and personal taste,
choice, and preferences. This publicly challenges both Islamist and
secularist attempts to make sweeping generalizations about Muslim
women. Importantly, what creates this individual space of resistance
to religious communitarian and secularist totalization is the new
hybrid ontology, one that allows Muslims, as we have already dis-

cussed, to not only transgress established boundaries that separate
Islam and modernity, but also to simply ignore them.
Cemaat and Submission versus Individual

Autonomy and Akil (Reason)
The Muslimist resistance to traditional conceptions of the self and
community become noticeable in discussions over cemaat structures.
Overall, Muslimists stand at a critical distance from cemaat forma-
tions, and this distance seems to be growing. This is a revolutionary
development. Historically, Sufi orders have played a large role in shap-
ing the conception and practice of Islam in Turkey, while they have
also functioned as the main hub for the cultural and political orga-
nizing of religious people. Although there are significant numbers
of Muslimist men and women who maintain relations within cemaat
circles, these relationships are becoming increasingly limited to social
networks and interpersonal relations, rather than taking the form of
devotedness to a cemaat or a seyh.
The conversations over cemaat establishments clearly exhibit the
significant decline (a loss in plausibility and legitimacy) of the tradi-
tional image and conceptions of the Islamic self among Muslimists.
For this new status group, the self does not blindly submit to and
readily internalize religious or cultural codes that are imposed on it.
The self, instead, is an objective, critical, and sophisticated thinker,
intellectually curious and creative—it questions established codes,
received knowledge, and conservative hierarchy. Moreover, the indi-
vidual is not simply a dull image of community, but has its own dif-
ferences, unique assets, and traits. Unsurprisingly, in practice, this
particular conception of the self translates into a visceral aversion to
authoritarian cemaat formations, for which any strong orientation to
the self opens up a threatening distance between the individual and
community, undermining collective identity and religious purity. As
such, these traditional establishments attempt to subjugate or sub-
merge the self to the totalistic group and the group’s authoritative,
homogeneous identity.
Yucel (of JDP) crystallizes the Muslimist critical stance toward
cemaat formations rather well. He presses claims against cemaat
establishments for imposing stagnant formulae of possibility of the
self that prevent individuals from discovering and expressing their tal-
ents and their creative capacities. According to him, such a mentality
limits and prevents not only the advancement of individual Muslims

but that of Muslim societies as well:
Within the cemaat structure and culture, they don’t let you
think . . . They don’t let you express your ideas freely . . . This is the very
dead-end in which Muslim societies are stuck in today; Muslim societ-
ies do not think . . . because cemaat(s) say, this is sinful or that is shame-
ful, and they accuse you of disobedience and being a rebel. And God
forbid if you are a rebel . . . then your head is at stake.
Asli (of CWPA) criticizes cemaat structures in a corresponding

way, as she discusses why and how she joined the Capital Women’s
Platform Association: “ . . . throughout the 1980s, the religious scene
was dominated by the cemaat (s) and tarikat (s). People could not even
take one step independent of the cemaat (s); they would follow what-
ever the head of the cemaat says. By then, also, if you were religious, or
veiled, people would expect you to have or accept certain rules or ideas
[emphasis mine].” She continues with explaining why she has chosen
to join the CWPA platform:
By the 1990s, this changed, and people became more individualized

in terms of being able to act and decide independently [emphasis mine].
This is how I view the CWPA platform. Here women are not tied to
anywhere. This is why I decided to become a member. The CWPA
women are women who were able to realize this individualization.
They neither belong to a cemaat nor to a political party. They have
different and creative ideas, and they can express these differences.
Before, you could not even think about that.
At the same time, the changing notions of the self and commu-
nity are not radically individualistic, viewing collective identity,
or communal obligations and ties, as problems and threats to the
individual and her interests. What Muslimist men and women do
reject, however, as Asli describes strikingly, is the submergence of
the individual in the authoritarian community and its authorita-
tive collective identity, leaving no space for individual freedom. In
fact, Muslimists are still committed to the notion of the Muslim
umma and the communal sentiments and ideals this divine notion
preaches. These ideals are as diverse as Muslim solidarity and unity;
having a vivid sense of belonging to the geographically and histori-
cally (the dead and the living) diffuse Muslim community; to more
practical issues, such as collective religious rituals or children’s
socialization.
The Muslimist fundamental belief in community and belonging

may seem paradoxical, if we consider it only from the standpoint
of rejecting a deeply religious communal experience based on an
equally deep religious conviction. In fact, theological notions actu-
ally provide the basis of legitimacy of an autonomous self that has
potent agency. I have discussed previously that for Muslimists, faith
cannot be externally imposed: embodied in iman, it is a voluntary
individual choice. Additionally, what we see here is that this volun-
tary choice is also a conscious choice. More specifically, faith is not
something that “occurs” unconsciously, nor does it “just come” to
the individual by virtue of submitting to a cemaat (or any tight reli-
gious community) and following its teachings and religious norms.
Quite the contrary; one has to think through, question, and investi-
gate (i.e., tahkik), “what is it that I believe and why?” Thus, akil (rea-
son and intellect) replaces blind acceptance of inviolable norms. This
conscious engagement of faith also means one’s relationship with
God (and Islam) is personal and unmediated. Within the cemaat
structures, however, where one’s faith is associated with the level
of his or her conformity to community (as the mediator) and to the
religious norms it offers, neither a conscious Islamic self nor a direct
relationship with God can be cultivated. When asked if they were
following any cemaat, several spoke of these theological concerns
directly. Seref (of MUSIAD) said:
“I don’t evaluate my relationship with religion in the frame of becom-

ing a follower of a cemaat, because I am capable of establishing a
direct relationship with religion by reading, observing, and reach-
ing to a variety of theological sources. Thus, I don’t feel the urge to
be a part of a cemaat.”
Kemal (of MUSIAD): “I am angry at cemaats . . . There is the Quran
and there is the hadith. Our prophet tells us this: I am entrusting
you two things; one is the Allah’s book, the Quran, and the other
is hadith. And he says, if you embrace these two, you will remain
in the right path.”
Said (of MAZLUMDER): “No. When there is Quran, it is wrong to
seek for any other source. Allah says in Quran that Quran is explicit
and straightforward. Just like Bible and Torah, I believe the Quran
is also very explicit . . . why would I go to someone else when there
is Quran?”
Nur: “No. Never! I find cemaat very erroneous and I think they
exploit religion . . . When I was confronted for first time with the
ban on veil in college I realized that traditional religiosity did not
mean anything, or that it did not give me anything. I had a faith
that came from tradition by then. Therefore, I stopped all my other

readings and started reading Kur’an Meali (translations of Quran).
What do I believe in and why? Is the veil really an order of Allah,
or is it nonsense? Now, my main source is the Quran . . . Allah has
given us akil (reason and intellect) and the skills and capacity for
reasoning. Allah always says in the Quran: ‘Are you not thinking?
Are you not using your akil ?’ I mean, Allah has created us with the
necessary and efficient equipment to reason and question what we see
and what we hear and to dig out the truth among all that we hear and
we see [emphasis mine].”
As Nur most remarkably states, then, for Muslimists, the truth of

religion is revealed only when the individual engages religion directly
via akil and by tahkik. This is a “means centered” concept as much as
an “ends directed” one; whereas it is about what tahkik questions—
the ultimate object of tahkik —it is equally about the fact of tahkik
itself. Akil and tahkik compete with traditional inherited knowledge
and conformity to community to define the ways to develop a mature
faith. This emphasis on reason, intellect, and skepticism as paths to
faith are the theological notions on which changes in attitudes about
the self and community take place, and on which the self (whether
in the form of self-expression, a direct relationship with God, or
individual uniqueness) is defended vis-à-vis oppressive religious com-
munalism. What seem, on the surface, to be symptoms of atomistic
individualism (spurred by fashion, capitalism, and secularization),
are actually rooted, motivated by, and expressed in symbolic realities
and notions of Islam: self-autonomy and using one’s akil are divine
imperatives.
Individual Autonomy and the

Religious Scholar
As Muslimists undermine traditional conceptions of self and com-
munity, they also significantly alter the scope and basis of religious
authority. More specifically, as akil and tahkik become new standards
for true faith, replacing traditional codes (received knowledge and
submission), the Muslimist men and women also become skeptical
of the traditional religious elite (shaikh or hoja) and their ability to
compose and define religious knowledge and commands. They are,
instead, increasingly turning to “religious scholars,” described as the
alim (an expert or a scholar) who establish (in fact, earn) their author-
ity and credibility via formal education and studious work in Islamic
theology. Lale epitomizes this change in the nature and scope of
religious authority as follows: “I believe in Allah, but . . . I also believe

in science. I highly respect and believe in people who investigate and
interpret Allah’s kelam (Allah’s utterance and knowledge), and view
theology as a science.”
The undermining of the parochial elite attached to traditional
institutions, values, and manners is a conventional outcome we would
find where tradition undergoes a general erosion.12 Nevertheless,
what really stands out for us is that the increasing turn to alim works
nicely along and in line with the Muslimist demands for a conscious
engagement of faith, an unmediated, personal relationship with God,
and heightening of self-autonomy and expression.
In some respects, it is rather easy to see that the characteristic of
the alim embody or impersonate in an idealized form the very traits
and attitudes on which Muslimists try to remodel the Islamic self
and redefine the standards for true faith. Establishing his vocational
association with the Islamic orthodoxy through formal education,
the alim is an autonomous thinker (at least, ideally). Comparable to a
scientist, in the Muslimist view, the alim seeks the correct interpreta-
tion—the religious truth. Furthermore, in articulating and compos-
ing the correct interpretation, he uses methods and ways legitimate
to Muslimists: intellectual endeavor, educated investigation, rational
thinking, and questioning.
More than reflecting the Muslimists’ formulae of the self, this
persona of the alim has striking practical implications; it allows the
establishment of a particular type of relationship between the self
and religious authority. Within this relationship, the self is no longer
to submit to the authority, and the authority is not a mediator to be
blindly followed; the alim is a guide to be learned from via a con-
scious reading. This, then, is a flexible relationship in which the self
can still have an intellectual space to critically engage and question
(via tahkik and akil ) what the author presents. The individual, as such,
remains as the main agent of his or her own faith; one still has to “dig
out the truth” and think for oneself religiously. Nur (of MAZLUM-
DER) describes this relationship arrestingly: “ . . . not everyone can
be a doctor or a sociologist or an economist or a theologian. Thus,
we must have ‘alim (s)’ we trust and we learn from . . . However this
must not be in the form of being tied to one person, or following a
cemaat . . . You read the books and works of these alim, and you evalu-
ate these through your akil and your evaluation.”
Finally, the Muslimist attraction to the alim is also partly related to
its hybrid ontology—the complicated task of creating common grounds
between Islam and modernity—and, within that, its renunciation of
radical asceticism. Differing from the image of charismatic traditional

religious leaders dismissive of worldly affairs, the alim is aware of the
larger world. He is an expert on matters of religion, but is also famil-
iar with science and rational thinking. Moreover, given this duality,
he is also aware of and experienced in the conceptual and practical
challenges modernity poses to and surrounds Muslims with. Kemal
(of MUSIAD) and Hakan (of MAZLUM-DER) exemplify this part
of the Muslimist attraction to religious intellectuals, respectively:
“These people understand the Quran deeply; they have formal edu-
cation and knowledge of the Quran and theology . . . But, they also
have education in sociology, logic, and philosophy.”
And: “they can combine this world and the other world. They do
not by pass this world. So, the Muslim intellectual is a Muslim and
an intellectual.”
Overall, this shift of authority from parochial leaders to the alim is
both an illuminating and a reinforcing illustration of our core obser-
vation that Muslimists push for a new formula of the self and com-
munity that emphasizes a conscious faith, individual autonomy, and
self-expression.
Individual Autonomy and Traditional Family

Although grounded on strong religious convictions and notions, the
influences of the changing attitudes about the self and community
have gone beyond matters of faith. One prominent place into which
this transformation has spilled and started recognizable changes is in
family and interpersonal relationships. This is not coincidental, but
an extension of growing orientations toward the self and personal
freedoms. Muslimists challenge and resist any social (and political)
institution that subjugates the individual to the authoritative power
and impositions of external authority, including traditional family
and social relations.
Muslimists perceive the informal social pressure exerted on the
individual through immediate family members, relatives, and neigh-
bors to be severe; such pressure, they contend, undermines self-de-
termination, expression, and actualization. They think that within
the traditionally styled bonds of familial and communal life, indi-
viduals cannot realize or determine their own life, preferences, and
interests. Instead, they are expected and forced to abide by externally
determined lifestyles and life choices, even regarding the most private
decisions, such as marital and mating preferences, and occupational
aspirations (and for women, whether or not to have a career). This
style of society and life, according to Muslimists, creates unhappy

and incompetent individuals. Beyond that, however, the web of hier-
archical relations that restrict and constantly police one’s life under-
mine individual skills, talents, and enterprise, thus preventing market
growth, civil initiate, and cultural progress. A male human rights
activist, Nedim, and a congressman, Nihat, epitomize this critical
discourse as follows: “Turkey is still a closed-society. Our close rela-
tives constantly police what we do; our families, relatives, and neigh-
bors . . . Therefore, people are forced to watch every step they take.
This unfortunately is still going on in Turkey.”
And: “Even when it comes to choosing occupations and [marital]
partners, I don’t think people can decide or act freely. And this brings
lots of sadness and unhappiness in people’s lives. I also believe that
various potentials people have cannot be economized and many tal-
ents disappear under these pressures.”
At the core of the Muslimist critique of traditional familial and
interpersonal relationships, then, are demands to heighten individual
choice and autonomy; importantly, both men and women share and
equally express these demands.
Nevertheless, differing from men, for women, the defense of
the self (and of individual choice and self-determination) involves,
as a reflex, a battle against patriarchal constructs and definitions.
Muslimist women claim that by defining womanhood entirely in
terms of motherhood and wifehood, patriarchal gender roles and
expectations prevent women from discovering and developing their
self-identity, autonomy, and agency. This conflict finds a clear expres-
sion as married women critically reflect on their marital and personal
life. These women say that they often feel the need to have personal
time and space outside their roles as mothers and wives to discover
who they are, to realize and explore their personal goals, inspira-
tions, and interests. Exemplifying this discourse, Pinar (of CWPA)
says: “One should have personal-time and personal hobbies. And I
find it quite wrong for women to have a life that is dependent on
husbands and kids.” Similarly, Gulin (of CWPA) says: “ . . . I really
do have the need to have personal time and space, and so do many
women. Actually, sometimes I want to take vacation with a friend. I
have fun with my husband and kids, but I think one really needs to
rest her mind apart from them.”
The tensions between a woman’s quest for her independent iden-
tity and autonomy, and the patriarchal codes of family and woman-
hood, emerge more directly from a question that investigated how
Muslimists feel about unmarried young women living by themselves
apart from parental families.13 Women’s reactions, overall, are star-

tlingly progressive. They strongly endorse this type of female mobil-
ity, and, in fact, consider it as a necessity for young women to develop
their personal identity, find out who they are and where they want
to go, be independent and competent, understand what life means,
and develop their own life strategies. Several women, a few of whom
left their parents’ house for their college education, spoke about this
directly:
Ayla (of MAZLUM-DER): “Yes. Living apart from the parents before
marriage is actually necessary for women to be able to stand on
their own feet, to understand life, to be competent individuals and
to gain individual autonomy.”
Gulin (of CWPA): “This would allow women to stand on their own
feet. I left home to go to college myself.”
Lale (of CWPA): “Never, never! Girls should not stay at home till
[they] get married.” She continues sarcastically: “ . . . actually there
should be a law or something that would put an age restriction.
Maybe twenty-five. After that age, girls must leave the parent’s
house and have their own place. When you look at the unhappy
marriages, you see that the main reason is girls’ urge to get out
[of the] home. I mean in the home girls are incapable of self-
actualization, self-realization. Then they think marriage might be
a solution; but when they get married they still cannot actualize
themselves or embrace their autonomy.”
Asli (of CWPA): “Throughout college, I lived apart from my parents.
When I graduated, I got married. I wish I had the opportunity to
live by myself, to have my own life and home after graduation. But,
I was not working by then. I really want my children, girl or boy,
to be able to do that.”
It seems, then, that to many Muslimist women, they can find agency
and autonomy only by stepping outside the patriarchally designed
parental and marital spheres. The discourse, however, does not sug-
gest that Muslimist women seek to abandon these spheres and their
roles within them. The period of living alone is rather a transition—
between leaving home and getting married—where, temporarily lib-
erated from patriarchic definitions of and expectations about female
identity and life, woman can find out who they are and establish their
independence. Whether this transition period in fact becomes a foun-
dation on which Muslimist women shape their marriage in accord
with their needs once they linger in temporary autonomous spaces
and become empowered, or whether it turns out to be an isolated
period in their life and an involuntary agreement to widespread patri-

archal norms, is an interesting question to be pondered.
On the other hand, Muslimist men have, overall, also shown a
relatively positive stance toward this type of female mobility; never-
theless, for men, the acceptability of this is limited to and conditioned
on pragmatic reasons, most notably, education (e.g., attending uni-
versities in other cities or in foreign countries).
In some respects, the pragmatic reasons or necessities that socio-
economic realities impose, such as education or better education,
work to soften men’s patriarchal conceptions; yet, in term of cultural
values and attitudes, men still seem to be committed to patriarchal
aspects of the traditional family, whereas women try to challenge it.
This contradiction reveals deeply gendered lines splitting men and
women apart in the practical realities of everyday life as they seek self-
autonomy. Men and women, in other words, have to engage different
battles to open up space for personal freedoms and independency,
and in one such battle, they are put in conflict with one another.
Importantly, this confrontation occurs despite the fact that men are
also critical of authoritarian qualities of the traditional family, and,
more interestingly, despite the lack of a clear gender separation in the
Muslimist theological formulation of the self. After all, a conscious
faith, a personal relationship with God, and tahkik are divine impera-
tives both for male and female Muslims.
The splitting of men and women along gendered lines as con-
formist versus progressive agents, moreover, suggests not only that
women’s agency may portend a more general and widespread erosion
of patriarchal norms and values (considering, especially, the rise of
religious women’s civil movements and theological agency), but also
that women’s agency and activism will be significant in determining
the fate and future of Muslimism.
Action: Innovation
The 2006 issue of Cerceve, the official journal of MUSIAD, was dedi-
cated to a particular theme: innovation. Overall, the articles endorsed
“innovation” for ensuring company growth and long-term survival,
strengthening companies’ competitive portfolios and power, and as a
necessary component of branding. The articles then introduced busi-
ness owners to micro-level and concrete strategies, and how-to reci-
pes for stimulating innovation, from financing options to the use of
human resources. In most cases, nevertheless, a caveat was added to
the recipes presented: innovation was not just an economic strategy
exclusive to companies. It was a cultural value for individuals and

societies to live by and by which to approach the world in order to
further social and cultural development; cultivation of innovative
economic behavior was possible only in such a cultural atmosphere.
In an article titled, “Real Change Requires NPR (new perspective on
reality),” this intertwining of culture and economy surfaces clearly.
In his opening paragraph, the author writes: “ . . . each political and
economic endeavor that has left a deep trace in history is a result
of the ‘NPR’—new perspective on reality . . . On this axis, Bill Gates,
or Nicholas Hayek, are relatives of Alp Arslan [the second sultan of
the Seljuk dynasty] and Osman Ghazi [the founder of the Ottoman
Empire].”14
The author continues to argue that what makes Bill Gates and
Osman Ghazi relatives is that they each have looked at reality with a
new point of view. He suggests that at a time when Anatolian beyliks
viewed power in terms of jackman and arms, Osman Ghazi realized
that power also required a vision of the future, knowledge, and eco-
nomic strength. Whereas other Anatolian beyliks disappeared from
the scene of world history, with his innovative approach to power,
Osman Ghazi made an empire out of a beylik. Just like Osman Ghazi,
the author writes, Bill Gates also looked at reality with a new per-
spective. This new perspective—a vision that imagined personal
computers—became the grounds for the establishment and success
of Microsoft.
The message is clear. Innovation was neither foreign to Muslim
Turks, nor was it threatening; after all, it was the Ghazi’s “new per-
spective on reality” that laid the ideational grounds on which Turks
would establish a centuries long and glorious history that continues
to thrive today. What we needed to do was simply awaken that histori-
cal spirit.
Is this endorsement of innovative action and creative thinking an
ephemeral fashion led by and confined to economic actors looking at
the world from their market-oriented positions? The evidence indi-
cates a much broader phenomenon: innovation, in fact, is a prominent
cultural feature of Muslimism.
Self-Claims for Being Innovative

It bears repeating that groups marked with a purist ontology are
mainly concerned with attaining a pristine vision. Turkish Islamists,
too, have focused on recovering and attaining a pristine vision of
Islam in the image of, and in continuity and connection with, the
sacred past, its institutions, practices, and community. This attain-

ment is particularly sought through purifying Islam from modern
and/or Western contaminations. In the social order and relations,
this focus has espoused authoritarian-communal attitudes impressing
Islamism, moreover, with traditionalism.
In their dealings with the present, and its material and nonmaterial
realities, Islamists’ recourse is to the past; they reject any change that
significantly challenges the authority of this past (and the pristine
vision of Islam derived, presumably, from it).15 The extent to which
Islamists resort to the valued past to deal with today’s affairs can be
rather extreme. The normative limitations on change and innovation
involve a rejection not only of apparent attempts to reinterpret reli-
gious rules in the light of current conditions (e.g., usury), but also
of new habits and institutions that did not exist in the lives of the
original community. The debate of the late 1990s on the removal of
urinals from certain public buildings stirred by some Welfare Party
bureaucrats is an illuminating example. The discussions that revolved
around whether urinals, and men urinating standing up—a bodily
practice that modern technology, standards of hygiene, architecture,
and use of space transformed—violated Islamic rules of sexual moral-
ity demonstrated the degree to which Islamists grant authoritative
power to the past over the present. Moral purism meant doing things
as they were done in the original community. Although the “original
practices” were not always divinely dictated, the technological and
cultural standards of the past shaped them.
Islamists are not alone in their referral to the pristine practice
and community; Turkish secularists, too, have traditionalist tem-
peraments. They, too, take recourse in a valued past, its norms,
vision, and personage, as their main reference to defining secular-
ism. The rejection of any innovation that may stretch this defini-
tion put Turkish secularists, as such, in conflict with democratic
and liberalizing demands. In any case, the stronger an ideology is
oriented to purism, the more it tends to rely on the past; and as it
further resorts to the past, it tends to become more traditionalist
and authoritarian.
The hybrid ontology, on the other hand, distinguishes Muslimists
with cultural features that run counter to those purist styles.
Hybridization undermines authoritarian-communal codes and estab-
lishments, and stimulates a process of individuation and rationaliza-
tion, marking Muslimism, furthermore, with innovative action and
creativity. Actually, in contrast to Islamists (as well as secularists), who
claim to be the custodians or bearers of tradition (i.e., the original,
pristine forms), Muslimist men and women define their organizations

as “reformist and innovative organizations,” and position themselves,
in a self-conscious manner, as “actors of social change.”
For example, the JDP congressmen referred to the founders of
the party as “reformist” people, who have realized that the exist-
ing Islamic political framework (referring to the National Outlook
Movement) is no longer meaningful. With this self-critique, these
reformist politicians, congressmen claimed, have broken ties with the
old politics and its leaders, and articulated an alternate Islamic politi-
cal framework. This new framework has been more viable for Turkish
Muslims; it is in touch, or in congruence with, the contemporary
economic and cultural realities, and it is compatible with Turkey’s
secular regime. Congressmen Serdar and Yucel expressed this line of
argument as follows:
The JDP emerged when a previous movement [referring to the

National Vision Movement] arrived at a disjunction. At this disjunc-
tion, a group of people felt the urge to express themselves in a differ-
ent, novel way. Why did they feel this urge? . . . These people realized
that the discourse and doings of the previous group do not match with
the realities of the existing regime. They decided that they should pro-
duce a new discourse, a new vision by revising themselves and also by
adapting to the realities of the regime.
The JDP realized that the previous parties, the Welfare and the
Virtue parties, have not been able to produce efficient solutions and
that it was necessary to have a new vision and new openings. The JDP
cadre for that reason was called the ‘reformists’ . . . Within the process
of 28-February, a group of reformists made a self-critique and they
thought that they should renew and renovate themselves, and save
Turkey from the conventional polarizations.
Similar to the JDP congressmen, for the human rights activists of

MAZLUM-DER, their organization embodies a new human rights
philosophy. It has stepped out of the old politics that were char-
acterized by polarization and, instead, promoted human rights as
a horizontal line that can cut through passé camps of Islamic ver-
sus secular, both in praxis and in theory. The CWPA women also
view their platform as different and novel. They claim the platform
has formed a new style of Islamic female politics, which resists both
traditional and male-dominated interpretations of Islam and gender
discrimination caused by various economic and cultural practices of
modernity. Paralleling others, MUSIAD businessmen assert that,
through mobilizing and institutionalizing the enterprising spirit

of Anatolia (and the pious), MUSIAD has portrayed a new type
of bourgeoisie. Capitalist urges and Islamic concerns motivate this
new group; it is truly local (Anatolia-based) but globally connected.
Although it is autonomous from the state, it is oriented to social
wealth and national growth. According to Seref, the organization’s
motto, “high technology, high morals,” sums up the unique person-
ality and the innovative spirit of MUSIAD and of the new Muslim
entrepreneurial class.
Importantly, this shared desire to overcome the old politics and
realign the societal order (its institutions, discourses, and norms)
based on new notions—for example, a conciliatory human rights dis-
course or a moral capitalism—goes hand in hand with an emphasis
that renewal does not at all mean, nor does it require, abandonment
of “essential identity.” Exemplifying this protectionist discourse,
Osman (of JDP) says that: “ . . . it is necessary for us to compete with
the world, while preserving our religious identity. This does not mean
that we should imitate the past. I mean we cannot wear carsaf [burqa]
or salvar [a rural male attire] like the Ottoman, or like our elderly
did . . . We should adapt to new conditions . . . We should modernize
and accommodate but also protect who we are.”
In the same way, the following headline is written on the front page
of the July 2006 issue of Cerceve: “Preserve the Essence, Encourage
Innovation.” While praising and encouraging innovation and change,
the authors also consistently remind the reader that change is desir-
able and advantageous only when it is built on and around societ-
ies’ own identity and culture. This particular approach is presented
not only through a normative cultural narrative but also through a
highly technical and economy-oriented discourse. In that sense, it
is not a coincidence that various articles suggest Japanese capitalist
development as a model for Turks; the crux of the Japanese legacy
laid, to the mind of these authors, in its ability to successfully articu-
late change and innovation (i.e., Western modernity) with its own
cultural ethos. One author summarizes this model with a capturing
statement: “Future is in the roots!”
In the 18th century, it was the Samurai spirit that saved Japan from
its isolation from the world and from the bloodcurdling feudal fight it
had fallen into. The Samurai considered money and commerce . . . to be
immoral . . . How did, then, these patriots who fought against the cruel,
just like our own Koroglu and Dadaloglu [Turkmen folk heroes] did,
become the architects of the 20th century Japanese capitalism? . . . What
did motivate the Samurai to abandon the sword and become the back-
bone of giant companies like Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo? It was
the understanding that it was time for the Samurai to come down from
the mountains and harvest its values in new areas. Western capitalism
was necessary, but it was also necessary to give this Western form a
Japanese ethos . . . The Samurai spirit was called upon by the dynasty to
do the job. Future was in the roots ! [emphasis mine].16
Overall, then, across organizations, we find an affirmative dis-

course on innovation that is also cautionary. Muslimists think of
themselves as dynamic actors of social change; with this self-claimed
position, they differentiate themselves from Islamists. Yet, while
endorsing innovation, they also clearly reject radical notions, which
assume change requires abandonment of the fundamental (i.e., reli-
gious) identity—expressing, as such, a critique of the secularist state
and its modernization project. Instead, Muslimist men and women
find the crux of successful societal and economic renewal in a recipe
that articulates innovation with Turkey’s cultural and, most impor-
tantly, religious heritage.
This discourse, however, attends to only the surface of what inno-
vative action covers. As Muslimists articulate a new economic ethos
or a new human rights discourse, more substantially, they under-
mine the hegemony of Islamism over defining Islam, and how to
be a Muslim, and the monopoly of state secularism over defining
modernity, and how to be modern. This is quite revolutionary. Under
the hegemony of Islamist and secularist formations, both Muslim
and secular identities (or ways of being) have turned into blueprinted,
almost frozen categories that a web of purist taboos and normative
limitations define. Individuals were simply to follow these categories
in shaping their lives (pious or secular). They were to adapt what
categories have prescribed in terms of political choice, aesthetics,
life plans, and recreational activity—a sharp divide of Islam versus
modernity was the underpinning prescription for all else. With their
innovative visions, Muslimists think and act outside these pre-estab-
lished identities and ways of life, and invent alternative definitions.
Freed both from Islamist and secularist prescriptions, they formulate,
specifically, a guilt-free modernity —where modernity is no longer
reduced to a sum of evil effects destroying religious sensitivities—and
an unapologetic Islam —where Islam is freed from its various global
and domestic stigmas (e.g., anti-modern, oppressive, fundamentalist,
uneducated, rural).
Snapshots: Guiltless Modernity and

the Muslim Body
The body is the most concrete site through which Islamist and
secularist ideologies form, exhibit, and compete their hegemonies.
Therefore, through an examination of the changing Muslim body
politics, we can more candidly observe how Muslimists weaken exist-
ing prescriptions and reconstruct both Muslim and modern identities
in alternative ways. The Islamic textile industry, and its effects on uses
of the Muslim body, is a particularly appropriate angle to identify
cultural and material processes involved in reformulation of modern
life, institutions, and identity.
“The man who made Muslim women swim” is the nickname
Islamic circles have given to Yunus, the first producer of hashema
suits. From this epithet, we can easily infer the historically estab-
lished cultural distance between the Muslim female body and
swimming—secularist aesthetics and norms dominate this bodily
exercise.
What inspired Yunus to come up with a product that did not
confirm to, and in fact ignored, this historical distance constructed
equally through secularist and Islamist formations? For conventional
sociological theories, the answer may be hidden in urges spurred
by Islam’s integration into the markets, and the relaxation of reli-
gious commitments to take advantage of this integration. Yunus,
nevertheless, presents us with a different story, one that is related to
the reconstruction of the Muslim self and identity through resisting
against “normalizing” categories:
We first started with producing male swimsuits. Actually, here is what

happened: whenever I went to swimming with my friends [males], some
would cut their jeans, and some even their pajamas, into half and swim
that way. All of these looked really ugly to me. I said, let’s embellish
these, and let’s find a solution. So, I did the ‘mid-cuffed shorts.’ But,
by then there was nothing like that . . . and just like slips looked ugly
for us, the long-shorts made the other guys [seculars] say ‘who would
swim wearing that?’ Actually, at some point, our shorts were being
sold under the table, as if they were black-marketed Marlboro . . . By
1992, there were demands coming from women . . . People started to
make more money, they started to spare more time for vacations . . . the
betterment of transportation, opening up hotels like Caprice; all of
that was resulted in an increased demand for the type of products we
make and sell.
The sociological implications of mid-cuffed male shorts and the

hashema suit have been remarkable. With these innovative products,
Yunus undermined secularist aesthetics and norms that have exclu-
sively delineated and defined the normative limits, forms, and codes
of swimming. The traditional formulae and rural aesthetics also
disturbed and disgruntled him. As a pious urban Muslim and an
owner of a textile company, Yunus, repulsed by both slips and half-
cut pajamas, was urged to find an alternative. (Further buttressing
this urge was the fact that secularist norms included formally dic-
tated ones; entrance to most pools and beaches required appropriate
swimwear.) He found the solution in crafting a new aesthetic. This
new form was modern; it followed the quality standards of modern
textile and catered to modern fashion. moreover, in line with the
specialized world of modern fashion, his products were specialized
outfits crafted for swimming only. Nevertheless, these products,
while modern in terms of aesthetics and style, were also proper for
Islam.
Yunus has extended these innovations to other products, and cre-
ated Islam-proper tracksuits: the hesofman. This was, of course, asso-
ciated with the growing opportunities and demands in the market for
Islamized products and services. But, the effects again went beyond
business and consumerism. The hesofman freed fitness and sports
from the hegemony of secularist norms and standards of normality,
or acceptance. It covered the body properly; but, it was a specialized
gear, and it had an urban feel to it with its neon colors, modern cuts,
and air-circulating, dry-fit texture. Fitness and sports could now be
practiced in ways that did not offend Islamic principles, but that also
rose to modern standards.
More than expanding pious Muslims’ wardrobe, these inventions
have become tools to realign the ways in which bodies and modern
spaces and activities (swimming and sports) have been connected to,
or disconnected from, one another; they revolutionize, as such, what
one can do, where one can go, and how one can live in a Muslim
body. At a broader level, Muslimist inventions strip modernity of its
thorns, and convert Muslim fantasies and desires for a modern-but-
pious life into a pleasant, guilt-free, inoffensive reality. Put sociologi-
cally, these changes shorten the distance between the Muslim body
and secular everyday life, both literally, in terms of spaces, and cultur-
ally, in terms of lifestyles, allowing the pious to participate in core
institutions of the society.
Implications of this sociological development have been especially
potent for the Muslim female body. Since early modernization, the
secularist ideology confined pious women to the image of rural,

uneducated, oppressed women. Kemalist women, in contrast and
exclusively, represented the image of liberated, independent, and pro-
gressive women, owing this superior image to, among other things,
having greater access to modern spaces and agency. As innovative
products remove restrictions on the Muslim female body, however,
they change the parameters of this ranking. The pious women now
become increasingly visible in modern life and space. As they swim,
and actually compete, in Olympic pools, follow fashion, graduate
from college, and own businesses, they take their place in the image
of intellectual, urban, chic, and fit women; thus, the cultural superi-
ority of their Kemalist counterparts is weakened.
This realignment is not just symbolic, but structural, causing per-
ceptible tension and competition for cultural and material resources
of modernity between religious and Kemalist women. As a reflex to
growing Muslim participation in what used to be exclusive to secular
bodies, the Kemalist women try to maintain their superior position.
In that, they use the “covered body” (e.g., bikini versus hashema)
as a line to draw a distinction between “genuinely modern,” secu-
lar women and the “under-achieved modernity” of Islamic women.
Comments directed toward Muslim women include, “yes, they now
swim, but don’t they look like ninja-turtles wearing the hashema?”17
Interestingly, while mocking the Muslim women for not being “mod-
ern enough,” the same secularist response also criticizes any attempt
from Muslim women to become “more modern” at a loss to their reli-
giosity; Muslim women playing tennis, swimming at Olympic pools,
or looking chic are derided for not being “religious enough.”
For the Muslimist women, however, this ironic secularist response
is nothing but evidence that pious women have indeed managed to
fracture historically established hierarchies, and that they may in fact
be in a position to claim not only equality but “superiority.” Pinar (of
CWPA) exemplifies this line of interpretation as she responds to secu-
larist reactions to Muslim women’s growing participation in modern
life and practices:
On whose behalf, are they [Kemalist women] speaking? Is it on the

behalf of religion? Are they telling us to obey religion? . . . I guess
when the veiled women look ugly and untaken care of this helps their
stigmatization and makes it easy for them. Because then, they can
say: Look, they look like freaks! But when Muslim women look as
chic, well taken care and attractive as they are, then you both become
equals, and you might even look prettier than them.
The Muslimist innovative action raises tensions that are certainly

not limited to those emerging between secular and religious camps.
Innovation creates contestation, disagreement, and dissidence among
Muslimists as well; not all readily accept or equally endorse every
novel idea. Discussions about cosmetic surgery open up a window for
us to more closely examine such internal tensions.
Almost universally, Muslimist men and women do not consider
cosmetic operations to be against Islam. This particular interpreta-
tion seems to be extracted from a broader belief that Islam does not
reject but values the desire to look attractive and healthy. As long as
one remains loyal to clearly defined boundaries of helal and haram
(in diet and sexual ethics), one has autonomy (or tenure) over one’s
body. Yet, many men and women who agree that Islam does not for-
bid such bodily regimens still oppose plastic surgeries. What does
this non-religious critique tell us about innovative action? For one, it
demonstrates that clashes and dissidences are integral to innovation.
Yet, what requires careful attention is the content of this critique.
Those men and women repudiate such bodily practices of modernity
on the basis of and by a commitment to other cultural references of
modernity: specifically, environmentalism, anti-genetic modification,
anti-ageism, and naturalism. Nur (of MAZLUMDER-DER) exem-
plifies this post-modern stance as follows:
We should be at peace with who we are and how we look. Yes, we are
getting older, but Botox or face-lifts damage human originality . . . I
like everything in its original form. I don’t eat genetically modified
tomatoes, not because it is not a tomato but because things that are
not original damage the chemistry of humans . . . why don’t we let our-
selves to live lax and chill? Let’s just get older and have wrinkles!
Clashes and tensions emerge, too, not always (or merely) from dif-
fering religious interpretations of a given modern phenomena.
Interestingly, they may emerge due to different factions’ favoring and
selecting out certain aspects of modernity over others, producing as
such competing imageries of modern life (e.g., cosmetic surgery ver-
sus anti-ageism).
Unapologetic Islam and Tradition

As Muslimists engage the modern world with innovation and cre-
ativity, they challenge and undermine not only existing secular mod-
ern forms but religious forms and identity as well. The questioning
of established religious views and practices, nevertheless, does not

signal radical theological reform, or a fundamental departure from
the orthodox heritage. On the contrary, Muslimists claim to retrieve
essences of religion. They argue that, throughout ages, socially con-
structed mores, practices, and beliefs have infiltrated into Islam,
become sacralized, as if they were divine, and contaminated people’s
practice and understanding of Islam. The task is to clean out these
customs and retrieve Islam’s original form, and thereby revitalize
Islam and piety. The core of our discussion here is not whether this is
theologically correct, but that Muslimists reconstruct Muslim iden-
tity and life through a critique of tradition (in the broad sense of
habitual practices, including political tradition) at a level of clarity,
urgency, and determination that perhaps did not exist in previous
generations. Derya epitomizes this sharp critique of the ways of the
ancestors and tradition quite clearly:
In the Quran, Muslims are repeatedly warned against submitting to

the path of the ancestors . . . Not only in the Quran, this is also in the
Bible. The Bible heavily criticizes submission to ancestors and tradi-
tion instead of the Word of God. For example, Hz. Isa [Jesus] was
healing people on Saturdays, and Jews reacted against this, saying that
Saturday is a holy day. The Bible narrates this in sort of a sarcastic way.
The same applies to Muslims and to Quran.
Yet, theological purism is not the only issue that shapes this con-
scious effort to filter out customary beliefs and mores; tradition poses
a much more severe problem. According to Muslimists, habitual and
cultural practices that have taken the guise of Islam are indeed to
blame for erroneous religious interpretations and for stigmatization
of Islam as a category of religion that is intrinsically fanatical, intol-
erant, and prone to violence. Gulin (of CWPA) represents this line
of argument as follows: “We experience lots of negativities due to
improper interpretations and applications of Islam. This ranges from
ethnic discrimination to social violence. But, there are no such things
in our religion. Right now, we should carry out studies that will pro-
vide correct interpretations and provide correct guidance.”
With this separation, Muslimists undertake the task of freeing
Islam from its negative stigmas, hence redefining it to be unapol-
ogetic vis-à-vis modern life. It is noteworthy that issues related to
women constitute a prominent place in attempts to destigmatize
Islam; Muslimists, both men and women, are especially passionate
about making a distinction between traditional customs and Islamic
principles regarding women and gender. Representing this press-

ing concern, Osman (of JDP) says that: “It is impossible to approve
traditional practices such as honor killings or berdel [sister-swap-
ping] . . . such practices cannot be found in Islam . . . the honor-killing
is the perfect manifestation of that. It is very beneficial to sort out
traditional beliefs or practices that do not match with Islam, because
such things really deform Islam.”
Unapologetic Islam and the “Hadith Project

According to Subjects”
This call for “studies” to “sort out” traditional customs was put into
practice in 2006 with the launch of the “Hadith Project According to
Subjects ” by the Directorate of Religious Affairs in cooperation with
a large number of hadith experts, including women theologians. The
directorate has stated that the aim of the project is to revitalize Islam’s
message.18 The terms of this “revitalization” involve, most notably:
explaining hadith in a new style and with new methodology; reject-
ing literalist reading of the Quran and the hadith by paying attention
to the particular historical context in which each hadith was revealed;
and establishing a connection between hadith narrations and current
thinking and scientific data.19 Within this framework, well in line
with Muslimist sentiments, the project pays particular attention to
identifying erroneous hadith regarding women, which subordinate
women to men or discriminate in the favor of men (e.g., rules forbid-
ding women’s travel without a male companion).
The directorate clearly attempts to differentiate its project from
liberal, radical revisions, arguing that the goal of the project is not
to reform Islam, but to classify, clarify, correct, and re-codify the
hadith. 20 Furthermore, the directorate states that while establish-
ing a connection between hadith narrations and current think-
ing, it avoids judging the past using today’s political and cultural
categories.21
Without doubt, reinterpretation of hadith has been common
throughout Islamic history. Yet, the hadith project, which will be
published in multiple volumes, is still radical. The project is system-
atic and comprehensive; it is led by a state institution; and it has given
considerable space to women theologians in its proclaimed attempt to
revitalize the message of Islam.
A broader argument, which is that the directorate, a state institu-
tion, is launching such a project indicates that the Muslimist desire
to renegotiate Islam into an unapologetic, destigmatized religion, has

made its way into the official religious discourse. Yet, while Muslimist
sentiments have influenced official religious policies, with the institu-
tionalization of “unapologetic Islam,” aspects of Muslimism may in
turn spread out toward pious masses in Turkey.
The project may actually reach and influence Muslims beyond
Turkey, in the region and in the West. The re-codified hadith will
be published in various languages, ranging from Arabic to English to
Bosnian. Moreover, Turkey’s current economic and political rise in
the region, though ambiguous and unstable at best, may allow and
encourage the country to seek spiritual leadership as well. Without a
doubt, this will depend on various factors, including developments
within Turkey and in the region more largely. Yet, international reac-
tions have already been received. Some clerics in the Middle East,
and also in Turkey, 22 have depicted the project to be heretical; some,
in contrast, welcomed it, viewing Turkey, and the Turkish interpreta-
tion of hadith, as an antidote for state-centered, political Islamism.
In terms of sociological theory, this, again, indicates that continual
episodes of tensions mark innovation (and hybridity), involving not
only religious and secular factions, but also various religious groups,
which, within the discourse of their ontology, press claims against
others for drifting into fundamentalism or liberal religion (or, even
to heresy).
Similarly, among Muslimists, too, some may find the project as a
shift to liberal religion. It would be interesting to see how those iden-
tifiable as Muslimists in different spheres of life react to the publica-
tion of the volumes. Variation in responses would illustrate the nature
of Muslimism falling within itself on a spectrum, some looking more
liberal (or more strict) than others.
Summary
Orthodoxy is not merely a theological matter. The sacred truth
dictates an entire life-ethic. It provides the faithful with a mor-
ally binding guide to interpret and to make sense of life—its nat-
ural laws and history—and to conduct life’s affairs—from bodily
regimens and recreational activity, to interpersonal relationships,
to sentiments about the self and community, to attitudes toward
change. Orthodoxy, thereby, is a cultural matter. Orthodoxy here
is an orthodoxy in practice, and thus usefully understood also as an
orthopraxy.
In this chapter, I have examined the Muslimist “reality orienta-

tions” toward modern everyday life in order to map out its core cul-
tural features. In that, I more precisely detailed the most striking
feature of Muslimism for social theory on religion: it is marked by a
hybrid ontology. That is, rather than resenting and rejecting moder-
nity or submitting Islam to it, the Muslimist group uses Islam to
engage modern life, in markets and in everyday life, as such rework-
ing modernity to be suitable with Islam. This unique engagement
challenges the pervasive Islam versus modernity (and Islam versus
the West) divide at a breadth and depth that perhaps did not exist
before.
The hybrid ontology (and its rejection of stereotypical divides)
has had far-reaching effects on social order and relations. It has
spurred a revolutionary transformation in conceptions of self
and community; it has sharpened the self and individual vis-à-vis
authoritarian religious communities (most notably cemaat forma-
tions). This preoccupation with the self, however, is not geared
toward an individualist religion, or rejection of a deeply religious
communal experience. Instead, Muslimists, both men and women,
pursue a type of sodality that would open up space for personal
freedoms and autonomy, self-expression and difference. The result-
ing conception of self is not freed from God either; quite the con-
trary, this transformation finds its requirements, authenticity, and
meaning in theological concepts; akil (reason, consciousness) and
tahkik (investigation) become new standards for defining true
faith. Yet, along with the growing theological orientation to the
self, Muslimists have brought the self into a broader cultural relief;
this is embodied in the personalization of aesthetics of the veil, as
well as in challenges posed to traditional family and interpersonal
relationships.
Hybridity, moreover, marks Muslimism with creativity and
innovative action. Whereas Islamists proclaim to be custodians of
tradition, Muslimists define themselves as dynamic actors of change.
Change here refers to a desire to go beyond old politics of secular-
ism and religion, and articulate new discourses and approaches,
whether in markets or in the area of human rights, gender poli-
tics, and everyday life. More substantially, with their innovative
action and vision (and products), Muslimists renegotiate both reli-
gious and secular identities, lifestyles, and standards of normality.
Muslimists formulate, more broadly, a guilt-free modernity and an
unapologetic Islam. These new formulations may have an influ-
ence beyond Turkey as aspects of Muslimism penetrate into official
religious discourse—as the hadith project of the directorate dem-

onstrates. It bears repeating, nonetheless, both international and
domestic reactions to the project, and more broadly to Muslimist
innovative action, demonstrate that hybridity and innovation coin-
cide with continual episodes of tensions. Such tensions involve reli-
gious versus secular groups, as well as different religious factions,
each thinking and acting in accord with their own ontologies.
CH A P T ER 5
Muslimist Political Ethos
A standard formula continues to shape most analyses of religious

political mobilization: passionate religion enters into the political
sphere to take over the state in order to submit society to religious
traditions. This formula especially characterizes analyses of Islamic
political mobilization given Islam’s global image as a “special” reli-
gion: Islam is inherently fundamentalist and inexorably desires the
state to implement the fundamentalist agenda. This “special” theol-
ogy then spawns an equally “special” political culture and orthopr-
axy, marked by authoritarianism, misogyny, a militant intolerance of
moral and cultural diversity, extremism, and a tendency to violence.
These aspects of Islam explain, it is maintained, why Islam is a clash-
ing religion and why Muslim countries fail to adopt such universal
norms as popular sovereignty or human rights.
In Turkey, too, committed secularists insist that Muslim politi-
cal participation is geared toward a radical control of the state and
society. Actually, any civil organizing Muslims undertake, be it in
economy or be it for women’s rights, is viewed as a petty instrument
or an extension of political mobilization. Secularists maintain, there-
fore, if religious actors (civil or political) are not reined in, they will
capture the state. What aligns Turkey as one with Europe, a civilized,
modern nation from its secular laws to everyday life liberties, will be
banned, suppressed, and lost.
This image of Islam and the fears associated with it are not ground-
less. The Islamist men and women I have interviewed, for example,
assert that the state should ban alcohol; and for them, such a ban does
not indicate authoritarianism, nor does it violate individual liberties
and moral diversity. This is because in banning alcohol, the state,
according to Islamists, would simply be executing Allah’s law, and the
divine law is not subject to individual choice. As this example dem-
onstrates, the religio-political framework of Islamism tends to forge
an intolerant and exclusive socio-political order (marked also with

patriarchal and authoritarian communal dispositions).
Muslimism is political too. It has articulated a particular politi-
cal ethos, and it sees political action as necessary and legitimate.
Muslimists seek to reframe state purpose and to affect political change
in line with its political sensibilities. What does this tell us about
Muslimists? As conventional approaches would have us conclude, if
Muslimists are politically involved, are they also oriented to capturing
the state to forcefully remake society? A survey of Muslimist political
attitudes reveals otherwise. Muslimist politics do not fit into, but in
fact challenge, this prevailing global image of Islam. What is then
the nature of the Muslimist political ethos and political involvement?
How is it different from that of Islamism?
The individual conscience is key to Muslimism, and this has broad
effects across social and political spheres. In social order and rela-
tions, as I have documented, the theological primacy of the individual
undermines traditional religious authority and codes and sharpens
self-identity and individual agency. In the political, the implications
are rather similar. In terms of ontology, the individual orientation
points Muslimists toward a polity that separates the bureaucratic state
and religion while heightening individual choice, development, and
agency. This particular ontology of the state reinforces other political
elements. Muslimists press for civil organization across social spheres
and activities (e.g., establishing the moral order, market growth,
democratization) and concomitantly limiting the role of the state
(agency). While not state centered, however, Muslimists are politically
involved and engage in political affairs. Within the limits of their
ontology, Muslimists focus not on a takeover of the state, but on the
fostering of Muslim interests through pluralizing the public sphere
and the political system for the inclusion and accommodation of reli-
gious demands and needs (action).
Through detailing core elements of Muslimist political ethos
(ontology, agency, and action), this chapter reveals once more the
unique—that is, neither state-centered nor apolitical—nature of
Muslimism. At a broader level, this chapter also demonstrates that,
just as the practice of Islam is varied, its political manifestations
are also varied. In other words, the political can take various forms
within the framework of Islam, even within the framework of pas-
sionately felt Islam.
The focus of the present chapter then is the political ontology and
ethos of Muslimism. To reiterate, the Justice and Development Party
MUSLIMIST POLITICAL ETHOS 171
(JDP) is not Muslimism; its earlier terms were a manifestation of the

Muslimist political ethos, but Muslimism and its political ethos are
not reducible to the party. Neither, of course, is the party as a political
organization oriented to the realpolitik of party politics reducible or
essentially constrained by Muslimism. The JDP party was formed, in
part, through the work of individuals who were oriented to Muslimist
elements, and the party as a whole was informed by Muslimism. But
the party’s evolution is not determined by these sources. However,
the data and interviews related to the party’s formative and earlier
period are crucial for our understanding of Muslimism because they
give us a picture of how Muslimist elements inform political practices
and language.
Ontology: Searching for

the Good State
What is the proper state? Both for Islamists and strongly secular
approaches, defining the proper state (its nature, sources of author-
ity, and responsibilities) is a relatively straightforward process. For
Islamists, the divine law clearly reveals forms the political can take.
It dictates, most notably, the establishment of a political body—
using modern terminology, a state—that would officially interpret
and implement God’s law, and cultivate truly Muslim societies, indi-
viduals, and ways of life. The proper state, hence, is an Islamic one
(“Islamic” as understood by Islamists).
For strong secular approaches, any insertion of religion into the
political sphere is an enormous problem. Religion essentially works
on passions; it, therefore, leads to totalitarian political views, under-
mines state sovereignty, and disrupts rational action and cooperation.
A proper state relegates passionately felt religion to the private realm
and sanitizes public and political affairs from influences of the super-
empirical; indeed, the modern political system was established pre-
cisely to exclude the transcendent.1 In political traditions in which
secularization has been top-down, the state generally subjugates
religion.
For Muslimists, however, the process of shaping the political is
much more complicated, requiring them to articulate and to over-
come complex tensions. For one thing, the theological primacy of
individual conscience means that one cannot be forced to be reli-
gious; external institutions are not to compel or to define a reli-
gious society. The state and political arrangements are as such
desacralized. The sacred does not mandate a specific, fixed model to

which all must conform; the forms the political (e.g., state and pol-
ity) can take are open-ended. Yet, on the other hand, individuals are
still to submit institutions and life to the sacred; they are to follow
general moral imperatives while avoiding certain forbidden forms.
This means moral demands limit the process of shaping the politi-
cal and how much agency individuals have in this process. There is,
then, tension between openness (and individual agency) and moral
demands.2
The desacralization of the state creates yet another tension.
Whereas Muslimists revitalize the state, they also carry deep suspi-
cions of the secular state for over-stepping its authority relative to reli-
gious freedoms and moral diversity (e.g., banning the use of religious
symbols, restricting religious practice and education, and intervening
in lifestyles).
Forming the political or, more specifically, defining the proper
state, requires Muslimists to overcome these tensions. Neither an
Islamic nor a secularist state is a viable option to resolve such con-
flicting elements, because each relies on external authority, and each
equally violates individual freedoms. So, what is the common solu-
tion Muslimists formulate politically? What is the proper polity that
can balance these conflicting elements for individual agency, moral
imperatives, and external authority?
The empirical evidence suggests that Muslimists prefer separation
of political and religious authority and frame attitudes about indi-
vidual choice and agency within a liberal polity. The separation of
the state and religion works to prevent both religious institutions and
the state from subjugating one another and from violating individual
choice; the liberal polity further ensures that the secular state rec-
ognizes and respects religious rights and demands. The interviews
reported in this chapter suggest that Muslimists are political but reject
a state-imposed religious society. In fact, they consider desacraliza-
tion of the state within a liberal polity to be indispensable for a truly
Muslim life. Iman, to reiterate, is integral to the self, and the proper
polity is to allow faith to be a matter of individual choice, with exter-
nal authority neither oppressing it nor forcing it.
These aspects of Muslimist political ontology surface in vigor-
ous critiques against both Turkish state secularism and the so-called
Islamic state. In line with a critical rejection of these political forma-
tions, Muslimists then try to refashion the relationship between state
and religion in Turkey, and to articulate a general formula for the
proper state.
Contesting State-Secularism
Both Islamists and Muslimists are critical of the secularist policies of
the Turkish state; however, the content of these critiques differ sub-
stantially from each other. For Islamists, the problem is not limited
to the ways in which the state treats religion. The problem in essence
is secularism itself: the separation of state and religion is incompat-
ible with, in fact a rejection of, Islam. The Islamist critique of state
secularism, then, is more broadly an anti-secular posture negating the
idea of secularism—any form of it—based on religious grounds.
Muslimists, on the other hand, are not debating whether or not
secularism is compatible with Islam. Instead, they bring into question,
and protest against, the ways in which secularism has been, and con-
tinues to be, understood, defined, and practiced in Turkey. Overall,
Muslimists assert that, in Turkey, along with the top-down modern-
ization of the founding elite, secularism has acquired an authoritarian
character; it does not separate religion and state, but subordinates
religion to the state, stepping over its authority relative to individual
moral freedoms.
To evince the rigidity of the existing polity toward religion,
Muslimists refer to the February 28 process during which, they argue,
state institutions and the army not only aimed at ousting Islamic
political actors, but also suppressed religious civil society and individ-
uals. Muslimist women, for example, complain that the effects of the
intervention, especially its furthering of restrictions on the veil, went
well beyond institutional issues spilling over into personal lives; it
cost veiled women their education, career plans, and actual life plans.
The intervention demonstrated moreover, Muslimists insist, that the
state still refuses to view religious groups as part of civil society and
excludes the religious from its definition of patriotism and citizenship,
creating a sense of exile, isolation, and estrangement among pious
Muslims. Asli (of CWPA) epitomizes these reactions in a capturing
statement as she reflects back on the February 28 intervention:
I felt a serious urge to rearrange my life due to the atmosphere created

by the 28-February. I had to change my career plans and my view of
life. I wanted to stay in the university, and right before 28-February
veiled instructors recently had started to teach in smaller towns, if not
in central ones . . . I thought I could teach. But throughout the 28-Feb-
ruary, I realized that this was not an option anymore, and I drew
myself a new path . . . I had panic attacks after the last coup . . . you turn
on the TV and you watch programs picturing you as the enemy . . . But
then you think wait! I am a citizen of this country, I want to live in
this country, and I was born here. This brings with it an estrangement
and discomfort.
This critique of state secularism, importantly, is not confined to a

defense of religion and religious rights vis-à-vis the state. Muslimists
perceive the secularist polity to be only a manifestation of, yet a clear
evidence for, a more generally authoritarian state and political order
that oppresses any collective identity challenging the official ideol-
ogy. In other words, the problem is not limited to the state’s treat-
ment of religion. The problem is the state’s attitude toward individual
rights, which in turn shapes how the state approaches civil demands
and liberties, whether they pertain to religion, or ethnic matters, or
non-Muslim identities. This leveling of religious and individual rights
surfaces through several statements made by Muslimists on a ques-
tion that inquired how they perceive the contemporary state’s posi-
tion toward religion:
Asli (of CWPA): “I think Turkey is a country that is built on para-

noia . . . When the founding elite formed the nation-state every-
thing from what Albanians said to what Arab, Greek or Bulgarian
did or religion . . . all . . . became so problematic . . . It still is. Few
years back they declared that Sabiha Gokcen, Ataturk’s adopted
daughter (manevi evlat) was of Armenian origin. What is wrong
with that? . . . I think it is great because it shows Turkey’s integrat-
ing structure. But, the army interpreted that as an insult against
Ataturk . . . This delays us from progress.”
Muhammed (of JDP): “ . . . starting by the formation of the Republic
of Turkey, everything has been interpreted as threats . . . perceiving
ethnicity as a threat, perceiving religion as a threat, and perceiving
religion as fundamentalism . . . and then perceiving the neighbor-
ing countries as enemies . . . There is no neighbor, all of them are
enemies!”
Yucel: “ . . . A Muslim does not have the right to provide education
to his kids in the way he wants or to send his kinds to whichever
school he wants . . . A Christian does not have the right to school
his own priest. A Jew does not have the right to school and train
his own rabbi . . . We made big mistakes between 1923 and 1928 by
sending out our Christians.”
This commitment to and focus on individual rights is not limited to

religion; it emerges again over questions that inquired Muslimist per-
ceptions of the state’s ethnic policies. When asked, for example, how
he views the European Union (EU)’s liberalizing policies regarding
Kurdish minorities, Nedim (of MUSIAD) says: “ . . . It is as if the more
democratic rights you have, the more threatened the republic is . . . I

think extension of freedoms will safeguard the regime itself . . . But
in this country, unfortunately, rights that are given to some are not
given to the other; the other is confronted with barriers.”
Similarly, Pinar (of CWPA) contends that: “ . . . Turkey is a multi-
cultural society. But the top-down politics seek to recognize only a
monolithic culture, identity. I think each cultural, religious, or ethnic
group should be given the freedom to carve out their own cultural
space . . . to realize their own language, music, and publications, and
to open up their own institutions. Without being feared and feel[ing]
threatened . . . including Kurdish.”
To summarize, the Muslimist critique of state secularism does
not embody an anti-secular position depicting the state as evil or
heretical. Instead, contestations of the secularist polity are articu-
lated with a liberal political discourse pushing for pluralization of the
political system and extension of political freedoms. Greater political
freedoms would strategically mean greater religious freedoms. Yet,
the important point is religious rights are understood, framed, and
“sub-categorized” within the broader framework of individual rights
and liberties.
Discussions over religion and state relations gain another dimen-
sion as Muslimists attempt to refashion the narrative and polity of
secularism. Muslimist men and women insist that the state and reli-
gious authority should be separated. This separation, they insist,
nevertheless should ensure not the state’s domination of religion, but
that both religion and state have autonomy vis-à-vis one another. This
coincides with protection of religious diversity and freedoms vis-à-vis
external control (secular and religious alike).
Reformulating Secularism
Consistently across organizations, Muslimists argue that the ways in
which contemporary state institutions understand secularism are not
true interpretations of secularism. A congressman, Muhammed, crys-
tallizes this distinction Muslimists make between true secularism and
state secularism:
I highly value democracy, freedom, and secularism. These are the

highest points reached by the human experience. But, I think there is
a huge difference between secularism and the way secularism is oper-
ated in Turkey. I think the way secularism is implemented in Turkey is
completely wrong . . . For me, secularism is disengagement of state and
religious affairs, it is where the lifestyles and standards of people are

respected and not interfered . . . It is where the state stays at an equal
distance from each faith group, regardless of what faith this is, and
gives each group opportunities to realize their faith. I am against
imposing secularism like a religion, or like an ideology.
Similar to Muhammed, for several others true secularism means

individuals have freedom to decide what type of life they want to
pursue (or how to live), and that the state is neutral toward each faith
group, securing moral and religious diversity. Another congressman,
Erol, says: “Secularism means everyone is capable of deciding what
lifestyle they want. Within that frame, no one should be interfered
[with], whether in the social or public realm. This is what secularism
means to me.” Moreover, considering the US model to be closer to
true secularism, Nur, a female HR activist argues that:
In Turkey religion has always been exploited by the laic

wing . . . Secularism in Turkey is not objective; it continuously seeks to
regulate the life-space of the religious and it harasses religion . . . If we
look at the secularism in Turkey, I can never be a secular . . . but if what
you mean is separation of religious and state affairs . . . secularism . . . is
objectivity. If this is so, if it is objectivity, of course I am a secular.
Now how should a state handle religion? I want the state to be neutral
and objective before its nation and people . . . I think the U.S. has been
realizing that more or less.
We are able to more closely and thoroughly identify the Muslimist

definition of true secularism through deliberations about the
Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs). This is not surprising
for the Diyanet, as a controversial institution both in terms of its
compatibility with secularism and Islam, encapsulates various issues
facing Turkish secularism in its advancing toward a more democratic
model. The funding elite established the Diyanet as part of a series
of top-down secularizing reforms, and was given the official assign-
ment for regulating religious affairs of the nation. The regulation
involves both administrative tasks (e.g., managing mosques) and
spiritual ones (e.g., giving fatwa/religious ruling).3 One controversy
surrounding the Diyanet revolves around questions of whether its
existence is justifiable with regard to separation of state and religion,
and with regard to state neutrality (considering the lack of repre-
sentation of non-Muslim religions and non-Sunni sects within the
Diyanet).
With respect to these questions, committed Kemalists claim the

Diyanet is, indeed, indispensable for the safeguarding of Turkish
secularism. Like the funding elite, they view the Diyanet as a tool
of the state to advance and transmit an Islam that complies with and
undergirds the secular regime—that is, a privatized Islam with no
public bearings, except promoting national unity and good citizen-
ship (e.g., in martyr funerals, Islam takes a role in the public space
to render meaning to the death of soldiers by sacralizing nationalism
and citizenship4). Secularists also recognize, however, that functions
of the Diyanet have evolved along with changes in national polity,
namely post-1980s liberalization, an increased Muslim political par-
ticipation, and, more recently, a greater acceptance of Islam in the
state polity. As such, while endorsing the Diyanet, they also suspect
it; consequently, secularists reject any amendment that would reform
it into being more than an instrument of the state.
Whereas secularists are anxious about the Diyanet ’s Kemalist loy-
alties, for Islamists the existence of a state institution that monitors
religion is the most tangible evidence for the state’s monopolization
and subordination of religion. They further argue that the institu-
tion fails in providing genuine religious guidance to people; instead
of presenting authentic interpretations, Islamists claim, the institu-
tion bends and befits Islam to the needs of official ideology. More
recently, Islamists have pressed charges against the Diyanet for pan-
dering Western expectations of and interests in a “moderate Islam”5
(consider the reactions against the “Hadith Project”). Consequently,
they tend to advocate the abolishment of the Diyanet to be replaced
by private faith-based communities—a view also shared by Kemalist
Alevi sects, who depict the Diyanet to be a tool for state pro-Sunni
assimilative policies.
The Muslimist stance toward the Diyanet is distinguished both
from secularist and Islamist approaches. Muslimists overall endorse
the Diyanet, but their position is informed and nuanced, with their
emphasis on individual moral freedoms that are in tension with any
official religious institution such as the Diyanet. In endorsing the
Diyanet, Muslimists, on the one hand, talk about the need for this
institution given people’s lack of a solid education on Islam and
their reliance on the Diyanet for religious learning and knowledge.
Furthermore, they believe and fear that the absence of some sort
of regulatory body would lead to religious conflict (various groups
claiming their own version of Islam to be the true Islam and rejecting
others), vulgarization of Islamic knowledge (free floating of extremist,
radically politicized, or erroneous interpretations), and exploitation

of religion by individuals and groups for political and other ends.
Turkey’s social and political realities, they claim, make the Diyanet a
useful institution. Ersin, a businessman, exemplifies this line of rea-
soning as follows:
The directorate is necessary. It certainly should be preserved. Because

then based on what are you going to determine your proceedings?
Now think about this, today you have a mosque in your neighborhood
and what does happen if everyone who has a little of bit of Islamic
knowledge want[s] to be an Imam? . . . what are you going to do? This
needs regulation.
However, they also realize that their pragmatic support of the

Diyanet contradicts with their commitment to moral freedoms. Pinar
demonstrates this deeply felt dilemma with an arresting statement.
She makes a distinction between her identity as a civil activist who
expresses commitments to liberties and rights, and her profession as a
theologian by which she highlights “realities” of religion in Turkey:
The directorate is a state institution and thus it is open to political

manipulations. But despite that, when I look as a theologian, I mean if
I was only a civil activist, I would have said yes the directorate should
be terminated . . . But, in Turkey religion is the most powerful tool that
be can be easily used to exploit people, and because people do not
have a solid religious education and because they seek an institution
to get advice from, I find the directorate useful . . . Many cemaats have
the urge to gain political power and to extend the borders of their
influences. So, if there was not an institution in the middle and if the
cemaats are left loose, worse things can happen in Turkey.
Similarly, Ayla (of MAZLUM-DER) says, “Now, on the one hand we

support privatization but when it comes to this issue, we cannot trust
to people. We cannot trust ourselves. Ok, we know that the director-
ate is manipulated by politics but then if you leave the people without
it, how many groups we will end up having? How many and what
kinds of religious groups? Is everyone going to be fighting with each
other? . . . I think the directorate should be preserved.”
It seems that what, in part, underlies this dilemma is the Muslimist
quest to balance demands for individual freedoms and external insti-
tutions. Their embracing of the Diyanet tells us that they engage the
state, giving it the important function of protecting individuals (as
well as Islam) from extremist and “erroneous” religious tendencies.
Yet they also suspect the secular state for trying to subjugate religion
and to restrict moral freedoms. To address this tension, Muslimists
seek to limit the functions and authority of the state relative to reli-
gion. This attempt is evident in their push for institutional reforms
that would significantly restructure the functions and nature of the
Diyanet, and that of Turkish secularism, more largely.
The reforms Muslimists press for most notably involve univer-
salization of the Diyanet (to represent each faith group equally),
expansion of its autonomy vis-à-vis the state, and its opening up to
the demands, needs, and voices of religious civil society. For exam-
ple, Ugur, a JDP congressman, says: “The directorate should be
expanded and should cover every faith group in Turkey. I mean it
should be transformed to include Jews and Christians . . . I think the
state should also pay salaries to the priests. I mean the non-Mus-
lim citizens pay taxes to this state too, so what about their religious
services? Why does the state pay only for Imams?”
In a parallel vein, Ayla (of MAZLUM-DER) says that: “ . . . the state
should minimize control and liberalize the directorate as much as
possible. I mean the directorate should be able to cooperate with the
civil society and the folk. It should consult the civic society when nec-
essary. And it should address all the people, not some. For instance, it
does not have a bureau for Alevi groups. This is unacceptable.”
Overall, the Muslimist position toward the Diyanet and critiques
of the existing state polity demonstrate that this new form is not anti-
secular. On the contrary, to resolve the tensions between attitudes
about individual moral agency and external authorities, Muslimists
tend toward a separation of state and religion. Secularism in fact coin-
cides with the Muslimist drive to carry out the moral imperative for
a voluntary and conscious faith. We find further, and possibly more
intriguing, evidence for this aspect of the Muslimist political ontol-
ogy: as much as they defy the authoritarian secularism, they also and
quite clearly defy the so-called Islamic state, its concept as well as its
transnational manifestations.
Contesting Islamic Sharia

For Muslimists, there is little practical difference between the
underlying political ontologies of authoritarian secularism and the
Islamic state. To the Muslimist mind, they both seek to impose
their particular values as normative for the whole society, and to
that end, each undermines individual choice. Consequently, the
Islamic state, Muslimists maintain, violates the moral obligation for
religious self-identity and a voluntary faith as much and as equally

as the secularist state.
A businessman summarizes this unambiguous denunciation of the
Islamic state in a poignant statement, as he suggests that a secularist
state’s banning of the veil and an Islamic state’s compulsion of it are
evenly against Islam:
That is absolutely wrong. It is wrong from an Islamic point of view

too. I have never run into in any Islamic reference like hit on some-
one’s head with a wood-stick, or lock them in. Both are wrong! . . . I
mean prohibitions only should relate to things that harm the society.
You would prohibit people from violating personal rights. But, you
cannot enact laws or rules to order or regulate people’s lives. You give
them the necessary education to understand religion but the choice
remains with the individual because Islamically what is essential is the
individual responsibilities.
Erol, a JDP congressman, similarly, insists that external authorities

compelling faith is a form of oppression, and the flourishing of a
pious society instead requires a democratic polity: “If an Islamic state
is what it is in Iran, this is also a regime of suppression. If you can-
not make people believe in something, you cannot make them accept
that something by force in any way. I contend that we can maintain a
religious life under a democratic state, a state of law.” Sule (of CWPA)
also thinks that a truly Islamic life does not stem from an Islamic
state: “States that see themselves or define themselves as Islamic
have not much extras [are not ‘more truly Islamic’] . . . I mean being
Islamic not contributed to them in any significant way. Look at Saudi
Arabia, Iran. If you are violating someone else’s rights at somewhere
else [referring to rights of seculars and nonbelievers], than . . . No sir!
This means you are not living an Islamic life.”
Furthermore, some Muslimists find religion’s conversion to a state
polity as an offense to Islam. Fevzi, a human rights activist, exempli-
fies this as follows: “If you impose a religion, a religion that does not
harbor compulsion and force on someone, first, you would be insult-
ing this religion. You would really be insulting the sacredness and the
reality of this religion . . . I am against enforcement of religion by any
official ideology.”
The substance of these interviews and the general discourse used
suggests that Muslimists advocate a polity that would understand
faith being an individual choice, neither repressed nor imposed by
external institutions. (In fact, the current drift in the JDP toward an
authoritarian and statist approach has disturbed Muslimists by violat-

ing this core element.)
Articulating the Good State:

A Liberal State?
As I have shown, the theological primacy of religious self-identity
and conscience (iman) have significant implications for the politi-
cal sphere. It leads Muslimism toward a separation of state and reli-
gion, and a critical rejection of both Islamist and secularist states.
This core theological element also becomes key in the designing and
articulation of the good state (and proper polity).
For Muslimists, the good state would frame its attitudes about the
individual within a liberal polity; it would accept individual rights
and autonomy with respect to moral decisions, indeed, protecting
and enabling individual moral agency, development, and freedoms
(vis-à-vis both oppression and compulsion of religion by external
institutions). Within the current global-modern context, Muslimists
locate this particular type of polity in institutions and principles of
the democratic nation-state. More concretely put, Muslimist men and
women employ the concept of democracy to define and codify the
proper state, as Lale and Asli, respectively, say:
Contrarily to an Islamic state, what is necessary is a democratic

state . . . A structure that relies on democracy is necessary. If democracy
can be consolidated, everyone will have the chance to live their lives in
accord with their own faith. They will have the chance to practice their
faith as much or as less as they choose [emphasis mine]. This is better
than an Islamic state.
It is not an Islamic state that is necessary to be able to realize an
Islamic life. I think a democratic state is necessary. Because today every
one’s religious preferences and perceptions have varied. Now, in an
atmosphere of such variation and especially when we have an example
like Iran before our eyes [referring to Iran’s compulsion of religion], I
think an Islamic state is not a possible idea. It should be a type of gov-
ernance in which people can tolerate each other, and in which people
do not exceed their boundaries at the expense of the other.
As these pious women’s rights activists epitomize, Muslimist engage-

ments with democracy are shaped and filtered through religious
notions and sentiments: a democratic state structure, in which reli-
gion is neither compelled nor oppressed, enables Muslims to fulfill
the moral imperative for a conscious, voluntary faith. Muslimists then

find an inevitable connection between democratic polity (and the
moral freedoms it generates) and the fostering of true piety.
As a broader implication relative to state structure and polity, this
connection Muslimists find between moral freedoms and true faith
also brings out an acceptance of moral and religious diversity. On the
other hand, acceptance of religious diversity becomes key in open-
ing up Muslimists to cultural and political diversity as well. Indeed,
across organizations, Muslimist men and women construe democracy
as political fairness: a democratic state grants everyone (and each sec-
tor of society) the same rights, and it has the important function
of ensuring that no particular group infringes the rights and auton-
omy of others with respect to either religious freedoms or other civil
liberties.
For instance, Ersin, a businessman, defines democracy as follows:
“In a democratic structure, it is mandatory to provide rights and free-
doms to any and everyone. The borders should be defined and the
state or the government should be at an equal distance from each
group.” “This means,” he concludes, “ . . . regardless of ethnic back-
ground or economic status, a person should be granted the right that
belongs to him.”
In a congressman’s statement, this approach to democracy
surfaces again, yet this time through a critique of contemporary
institutions’ view of democracy in Turkey: “The most necessary
characteristic of democracy is rights and freedoms. This is not fully
realized in Turkey . . . each institution defines democracy, or human
rights, or law based on their own interest. They do not want to
recognize the rights of the other, while they recognize those rights
for themselves.”
Pinar (of CWPA) articulates the same definition in a more dra-
matic way. For her, freedom of thought, expression, and lifestyle
are innate to the very nature of humans: “Democracy is freedom of
thought and of expression, including faith. The most natural thing
to the human person is to think and to express. Thus, it is a natural
right to be able to form a lifestyle and to live in accord with what one
thinks and believes in. To realize this natural right, there has to be
freedoms.” For Pinar, then, democracy coincides with the God-given
nature of human beings.
What this discourse on democracy suggests is not a predisposition
for political fanaticism, or a militant intolerance. Quite the opposite;
it marks the Muslimist political ontology with pluralism and demo-
cratic tolerance. Nevertheless, it bears reminding that Muslimists still
submit institutions and everyday life to the sacred moral order. As

such, certain moral imperatives come to limit democratic tolerance
and how liberal the state polity can be. Such limits become manifest,
especially through discussions over social policies on morality (e.g.,
alcohol and sexuality). Even in such cases, though, Muslimists seem
to seek a pluralistic solution; that is, they refrain from imposing on all
such sensitivities as the political norm in a top-down fashion. Here we
clearly see the working out of the tensions in the Muslimist political
vision.
Social Morality and the Limits

of Liberalism
Just like Muslimists, Islamists also employ a language of human rights
and pluralism. For example, Zehra, who at the time of the interview
was chairing a human rights organization known for its Islamist polit-
ical tendencies, asserts that a Muslim woman’s right and will to wear
burqa must be accepted by the whole world (especially the West) as
a universal human right. Zehra’s contextualization of burqa in terms
of individual will and choice is in line with Muslimist theological and
political sentiments about moral and individual freedoms. Yet, while
framing the will to veil as a universal human right, Zehra does not
recognize a Muslim woman’s will, for instance, to wear a miniskirt
(or drink alcohol) as a subject of individual freedom to be included
within the universal category of human rights.
For Pinar, one of the founders of the CWPA, on the other hand,
this attitude is unacceptable; it is in fact hypocritical:
You find them [referring to Zehra’s organization] in every

democracy smeeting, I wonder how? I mean, they think this way:
‘we should be able to do whatever we want, we should be able to
veil and cover as much we want, we should be able to be religious as
much as we want; democracy should allow that.’ But, when it comes
to anything else, any other person or group, they say: ‘no democracy
should not allow that!’ I think this is hypocrisy, and they think we
are way too lax.
Whereas Pinar labels Zehra’s attitude as “hypocritical,” Zehra, who

wears a pitch-black burqa covering her whole body and a part of her
face, depicts the CWPA women to be “way too colorful.” The label
“way too colorful” means various things: it is a critique of the col-
ored veiling styles of the CWPA women; a critique of the “shortness
of their faith” (evident in their colored veils); and, finally, a religio-

political critique of the CWPA’s “lax” (that is, tolerant) attitude
toward the other.
This fight taking place over the veil and its color is telling of a
broader clash, which has serious implications relative to arrangements
of the political sphere and life. Whereas Islamists understand and use
the notion of rights spatially and in a utilitarian way (rights apply to
“us” only), Muslimists perceive rights and freedoms within a univer-
sal space. According to Muslimists, rights that apply to “us” also and
equally apply to the “other” (after all, universalization of rights in
turn guarantees “our rights”).
Relative to state and national polity, the spatial versus univer-
sal attitudes toward rights produces strikingly different outcomes:
Islamism tends toward exclusivism and political authoritarianism,
whereas Muslimism inclines toward democratic tolerance and plural-
ism. We can observe these strikingly different political arrangements
at a more practical level as well. At the time of the interviews, state
regulations on the veil were quite strict, depriving veiled women and
girls from equal opportunity to education and employment. Despite
that, when asked what they think is the one single human rights
violation in Turkey that requires the most immediate attention,
Muslimists did not pick either the issue of the veil or violations of
other religious freedoms. Answers, instead, included torture in pris-
ons, unresolved murders, and domestic violence against women and
children.6 In contrast, Islamists have picked the violation of religious
rights, particularly restrictions on veiling, as the one single violation
that most urgently required a solution.
Pluralistic attitudes and the acceptance of rights within a univer-
sal space tell us moreover that Muslimists have drawn self-imposed
limits. They are unwilling to force their own religious and political
views on the majority (theologically, this would violate moral free-
doms). Such self-restricting limits become most evident in debates
on policy-making regarding matters of morality, such as alcohol
and the missionary activities of non-Islamic religions in Turkey.
On neither of the two issues do Muslimists favor a state ban; in
fact, they vehemently oppose prohibitory policies—once more, a
quite remarkable difference from Islamists. For example, on mission-
ary activities, Namik (of MUSIAD) says: “No sir! If we are to become
a part of Europe, the world . . . on the one side you raise mosques in
Europe and you open up Quranic courses in Europe, and then you
come here [and they] say: we ban missionary activities. This is not
acceptable. Istanbul is a good example. I have lived in Kumkapi . . . a
church and a mosque is next to each other. It has been like that for
centuries.”
Similarly, but regarding alcohol, another businessman, Seref, says,
“I don’t think prohibition or banning is a meaningful thing to do.
The environment we live in, the position we have, and the vision we
put forward does not entail prohibition. We are not a closed society;
we are a society with self-confidence.”
Paralleling that, Sule (of CWPA) says, “If a person does not think
that it is haram or wants to drink alcohol, no one can take away that
right from him.”
Yet, whereas they oppose state bans on alcohol and missionary
activities, Muslimists also press the state to regulate and oversee
both. For example, although contending that the state cannot take
away one’s right to drink alcohol, Sule continues by saying, “ . . . but
we have to take precautions for children and the young. We need
to educate the young about the harms of alcohol. Alcohol should
be sold, but should not be encouraged.” Like her, others also push
for public policies that would increase the age limit to buy alcohol;
increase taxes on alcohol; ensure that sellers strictly comply with the
age limit; make sure that alcohol is not sold around school zones or
near mosques; prevent the encouragement and pressuring of alcohol;
and educate the young and children. It is noteworthy that the content
of this education is not religious, but focuses on the social and per-
sonal hazards of alcohol and alcoholism. Regarding missionary activi-
ties, Muslimists favor public policy against illegitimate proselytizing,
such as encouraging people to convert by promising material benefits
or citizenship in Western countries.
Within the framework of the Muslimist political ontology, then,
theological precepts come to inform a pluralistic polity; it is impor-
tant for Muslimists to have a sense that they are not preventing moral
freedoms. Yet, Islamic imperatives limit how liberal the state and its
policies can be. Muslimists take public law and social policy seriously
and refuse to relegate religious sensitivities to the private realm. There
is then a tension between moral demands and social and individual
liberties. It seems that by opposing a total ban on alcohol, Muslimists
try to reinforce their emphasis on individual choice (both as a theo-
logical and a political sentiment). By pressing for regulatory action,
on the other hand, they try to influence public policy. Moreover, they
attempt to distinguish sharply such regulatory actions from a desire
to establish religious law. For example, regulations on alcohol corre-
spond with the state regulations on alcohol found in the non-Islamic
states of the West with well-established democracies.
Agency: Civil Society

Within the Islamist political ontology, the cultivation of truly Muslim
societies and individuals requires an external authority that would
interpret, execute, and uphold religious imperatives. Relative to
political agency, this ontological view marks the state as the main
agent that is to submit the profane to the sacred; the state is the
key actor that would create and define religious society and order.
This orientation to the state for moral agency is filtered through and
legitimized on theological precepts and beliefs. For one, and as we
have documented empirically, Islamists claim that the Quran and the
hadith inform Muslims about how they are to shape the political.
Islam, more succinctly put, provides Muslims with a distinct politi-
cal orthopraxy, thought, and norms (expressed as mualamat)—and
these fecund materials, Islamists maintain, build up into a model of
governance and state.
Yet this posture is also enforced, in fact partly qualified, through
the Islamist view of the human person and the self. Although the self
carries certain divine qualities, it is also seen to be weak and vulner-
able to temptations of the devil; and once faced with such tempta-
tions, it is apt to deviate from God’s path. This also implies that
disobedience to God is not seen as a thought out, voluntary choice of
a conscious self, but as the self’s innate weakness. The state’s moral
agency finds its legitimacy at this juncture; individuals who cannot
resist evil by themselves, due to their innate weaknesses, need the
state to keep them in the right path. This task of the state is espe-
cially important in contemporary life, which surrounds Muslims
with infinite types of evil through various channels (e.g., technol-
ogy, privatization of religion, westernization). The state fulfills its
moral function in creating the proper moral order; it shuns evil (e.g.,
controlling sexuality and diet) and orders good (e.g., supervises reli-
gious imperatives) through translating Islamic precepts into laws
and regulations. An Islamist businessman reveals this connection
between the state’s moral agency and the self’s weaknesses clearly, as
he reasons why an Islamic state is necessary for the fostering of indi-
vidual piety: “In Turkey, the minute a Muslim man steps out of his
house and gets out to the street, he starts sinning, willingly or not.
He sees women walking by in miniskirts, or billboards of women
wearing underwear.”
The state, in sum, protects Islam and Muslims from the surround-
ing evil (e.g., “cleaning” the streets from women wearing mini-
skirts). In fact, Islamists contend that once an Islamic system is in
place, Muslims will no longer be lured into wrong and will conform
to Sharia out of their own volition (e.g., no longer see the allure of
wearing miniskirts). It is in this utopian theological framework that
the state finds its qualification and necessity for moral agency and, in
turn, where the self loses his or her agency and moral freedom.
Whereas Islamists orient to the state for moral agency and activi-
ties, Muslimists limit the role of the state and view civil society as the
key actor for realigning the profane with the sacred. This shift to civil
agency is not occurring independently or outside of religious beliefs;
on the contrary, it is infused with and filtered through theological
notions and precepts. Muslimists, believe that, even though Islam
provides general moral principles one has to accept and follow, Islam
does not dictate, neither in hadith nor in Quran, specific and defi-
nite political goals and norms, nor does it code or require a specific
type of state. As a matter of fact, Muslimists, as I have documented,
claim that the majority of Islamic rules concern individual practices,
lifestyle, values, and rituals—expressed as ibadet. Muhammed, a con-
gressman, reflects this interpretation as follows: “Islam does not sug-
gest any sort of a state model. But what it suggests is: be honest,
don’t violate other people’s rights, help people, love human beings
and love God, and love nature . . . But again there is no Islamic com-
mand defining a certain state model, which we should consider as an
alternative to democratic governance.”
Yucel, another congressman of the JDP, asserts that God’s revela-
tions do not address the state but individuals, and that it is not reli-
gion but people who inspire for political power:
In its essence, Islam does not talk about state institutions. Neither
in hadith nor in verses can you find a precept like this. Religion was
not revealed to the states. It was revealed to individuals singly. The
state is not an addressee.” He continues: “And any ways, religions do
not claim political power. It is the people who demand for that. For
instance, our prophet does not tell us: go ahead and be presidents,
prime ministers. Ok? There is no such claim. There are only claims by
the individuals.
This religious interpretation is concerted by a worldly recognition

that the ideal of an Islamized/Islamic state is problematic also at the
level of praxis. Like Pinar (of CWPA), Muslimists talk about the vast
variation in Islam’s practice and interpretation across historical and
contemporary societies, which evinces the ambiguity surrounding
the issue of how to specify the meaning and application of Sharia in
practice: “I don’t think there is a state model defined or suggested

by Islam. In anyway, today there are vast differences among different
Muslim societies and how they interpret religion. There are various
understandings and interpretations. So, according to whom are we
going to define or establish an Islamic state? I mean, I am against any
sort of ideological state.”
There is yet another and more intriguing dimension to the
Muslimist orientation to civil organizing. As I have discussed previ-
ously, Muslimists understand true faith as belief and acting out of
conviction (iman). Only free decisions and choices are Islamically
meaningful and valuable; hence, true faith cannot be compelled by
any external authority. This emphasis on iman undermines the theo-
logical functions of external institutions, while, in turn, marking the
individual as the main agent for moral activities. It is the individual
who is to bring the mundane in line with moral imperatives, and this
individual agency requires not compulsions of the state but personal
submission to Allah. Several statements have demonstrated how this
definition of true faith enforces and upholds individual agency:
Nedim (of MUSIAD): “ . . . from an Islamic point, it is not valuable if

you practice Islam because you have to or because you are forced
to. This is only related with the self, with one’s faith. It acquires
value and meaning only when you practice and believe consciously
and comfortably.”
Serdar (of JDP): “Nothing can be done by force. If it was, when Allah
created the world, he would have created the good things only.
Why would have he created alcohol? If he wanted people just to
do good deeds, he would have created us that way. But Allah has
not intervened in that. He informed us about what is good and
what is bad but he left the choice to the human. Thus, I think the
society should be like that too. If someone wants to drink alcohol,
he should be able to. Because the world is an ‘area of examination’
(imtihan alani) . . . Humans should also have the right to do mischief
and to organize their lives as they wish so that Allah’s will can be
granted (emphasis mine). So, when I look at this issue as a religious
person, I contend that humans should be given the freedom to do
and choose whatever they want to.”
Derya (of CWPA): “ . . . it is very important what we understand from
an Islamic state . . . Because you should be at a position where you
can both do good and bad . . . If the state prevents you from doing
misdeed, this is not Islamic because in Islam you as the individual
are responsible. You should have the actual opportunity to do and
choose badness but you choose not to, consciously and willingly.
Otherwise if you tie someone[‘s] hands . . . Thus, an Islamic state
is not necessary. What is necessary is to protect and maintain the

environment of freedom.”
This discourse also reveals the particular qualities Muslimists attri-

bute to the self, and these qualities seem to qualify and indeed to
enable civil moral agency. For Muslimists, the self, although weak, is
more than a defenseless victim of evil temptations; it is rational in the
sense that the individual is fully capable of understanding and choos-
ing between helal and haram by akil (reason) and iman (conscience).
This capacity, while giving the self autonomy from the state, also
charges the individual with full responsibility for moral decisions and
action. The responsibility for choosing helal remains with the indi-
vidual, not with the state (by the same token, neither with the family
nor the Islamic community); indeed, the individual will be judged
accordingly. Yucel (of JDP) stated, “When the doomsday come[s],
God won’t say; ‘ok, Turkey or ok, Ankara you all get up, reckon for
your deeds, and tell me what you have done’ . . . No . . . everybody will
be judged individually, one by one.”
This does not mean Muslimists fall into a vacuum of religious
authority, or that they promote the letting loose of evil so that one
can prove his or her strength against it. For one, they still accept
the sovereign state as an important actor with an array of mandates
(e.g., collective development, social justice, security, and individual
rights).7 Furthermore, they take public law seriously and push for
public representation of religious values and interests, which include
pressing for certain regulatory public, social policies designed to com-
bat what they consider evil (e.g., regulations on alcohol). Again evinc-
ing the tensions in their ontology, Muslimists claim to want to limit
the state’s role and agency in attaining the religiously defined soci-
ety and individuals. Instead, they emphasize control of the self from
within. The self is capable and thus responsible for remaining in the
right path and disciplining its weakness and vulnerability against evil
temptations; this, indeed, is a Muslim’s examination (and the reason
for its creation) by God. Success requires a self-mastery and respon-
sibility to refrain from haram and follow the right path regardless of
whether or not an external authority judges one’s practice of his or
her’s religious duties.
Secular Conceptions of Civic Agency

Given this nuanced understanding of the state, Muslimists not sur-
prisingly turn to civil society and articulate conceptions of civic
agency. Here again, though, we see the tensions among organizing

for public policy, the agency of the individual, and the moral demands
of Islam—tensions that belie the prevailing simplistic interpretations
of Islamic political action as a simple fundamentalism. What is more,
the pursuit of civil agency is not exclusive to the religious venue.
Muslimists frame civil organizing as the key element not only for
constructing the moral order, but also for engaging economic and
social spheres as well as international space (institutions and debates).
This means religious aspirations for civil agency are integrated
with secular and pragmatic aspirations (e.g., economic growth and
democratization).
In the economic sphere, the course to civil agency crystallizes in
aspirations for a liberal style of economy and the endorsement of the
private entrepreneurship. In general, Muslimist men and women view
private entrepreneurship as the “engine of life” and press for a limited
state in economic production—while still holding the state respon-
sible for the condition of the economic polity (e.g., guaranteeing eco-
nomic freedoms and providing public goods). For example, Erol, a
congressman, argues that:
The state should no longer engage in commerce. Because when it

does, in three to five years, that institution turns into a farm . . . When
a person has his own business, when he is given self-responsibility,
he would not employ even one more unnecessary labor. He would
seek after producing the most with the least number of workers. But,
when it is the state, because so and so is so and so and so’s son,
he is hired . . . there is patronage and nepotism. We are wasting our
resources this way. We are cheating ourselves. You [referring to the
state] employ 100 people for a job that can be done by ten. This coun-
try must no longer cheat itself.
Ayla uses a similar analogy, making a separation between patron

(boss) and mudur (public administrator), where the former embod-
ies the innovative and rational entrepreneur, and the latter embodies
the administrator vested in and restricted by bureaucratic interests
and the political status quo: “We have seen that privatized companies
work much better. We got rid of flooded cadres. It created profession-
alism and this permeated toward every realm of the society, because
you no longer have an officer (mudur) on top of you, but a boss. This
brought in discipline.”
Similar to Ayla and Erol, several others have endorsed private entre-
preneurship through economic criteria. Muslimists associate private
entrepreneurship most notably with economic rationalism, efficiency,
profitability, productivity, high quality, and market growth. Yet, these

economistic impulses do not fully explain the Muslimist aspiration
for a liberal style of economy. For Muslimist men and women, private
entrepreneurship also connotes such cultural values as innovation,
individual freedoms, dynamism, and change, which they embrace and
cherish across social spheres, in religion, in everyday life, and in poli-
tics. Similarly, they consider the private sector as a space where soci-
etal groups can enhance their capacity to act, pursue their interests,
and confirm their identities. This shows that support for economic
self-organization is not couched merely toward capitalistic goals, but
is part of a broader cultural framing and engagement of civil agency.
In social order and activities too, Muslimist men and women lean
on civil organizing, viewing it to be key for shaping and criticizing the
social order, social institutions, and public opinion. It is key especially
for challenging the dominant political culture and for the monopo-
lization of social life by the official ideology. Pinar crystallizes this
function of civil society dramatically, as she argues that it was only
along the rise and diffusion of civil society that competencies for a
“culture of democracy” and “individuals with democratic characters”
have flourished in Turkey:
Since Turkey was formed, there had not been investments in rais-
ing individuals with democratic characters. There had not been such
plan; the plan was to raise monotype citizens, even though the name
of the regime was Republic. The culture of democracy has recently
come to the public attention by people traveling to countries that have
higher democratic achievements and by the EU processes. More cor-
rectly, it has emerged only after the flourishing of civic society and
civic mobilization.
The meaning and appeal of civil society, then, lies in its ability to
challenge the political status quo and to stretch the political system
beyond its existing limits—which, according to Muslimists, are drawn
narrowly by the state along its monolithic ideology. More specifically,
it is through diffusion of civil society, Muslimists contend, that in
Turkey, societal groups have become able to pursue their interests;
diverse identities (ethnic or religious) have found an expression and
legitimacy; and democratic notions have come into public attention.
In brief, Muslimists claim that democratization of modern Turkey
has been accomplished through civil actors and mobilization.
Finally, we also find that the Muslimist commitment to civil
agency is not confined to national limits, but moves upward to the
international space as well; that is, Muslimists view the international

space as a stage for civil action.8 Interestingly, this global orienta-
tion occurs despite a wide distrust of the international (its dominant
discourse and culture) and its well-established superstructures. There
is a wide suspicion among Muslimists, for instance, about the objec-
tivity of the UN International Human Rights Court and the EU
Human Rights Council toward cases and issues related to Muslim
states, groups, and individuals. In particular, Muslimists are dis-
pleased with the courts’ attitudes toward conflict and war in Muslim-
majority regions, and toward Islamic freedoms, such as cases related
to the veil. Yet, despite this wide distrust, Muslimist men and women
indicate that they would still apply to these courts when they are able
and need to.
In Muslimist attempts to articulate this conflicting element, we
come across the belief that engaging the international arena and
actors is part of civil action; Muslimist men and women inspire to
expand their voices upward to the global level and superstructures.
For example, Hakan, Sule, and Yasemin say that regardless of the
court’s objectivity, the philosophy and the logic of civic awareness
require civic demands and action.
Moreover, such international agencies, to the Muslimist mind,
have, in principle, a potential capacity to deal with world problems,
but only if they can adopt an unbiased agenda and enhance their
credibility as well as authority. Representing this line of thinking,
Gulen, a women’s rights activist, contends that: “I don’t think the
courts inspire trust. We have seen that through the wars. Sometimes
they are biased, and sometimes they remain weak . . . But I believe that
the international arena certainly needs such courts and civic agencies,
and I believe that such agencies should be more functional.”
In fact, some even claim that local civic actors can bring out this
potential. Lale, who sees the “weak lobbyism” of Turkish civic society
to be responsible for the courts’ negative biases on certain issues, says,
for example:
I think we should apply, but when it comes to trust there is an issue

stemming from the fact that these courts are directed by people who
are deployed through official [referring to state] channels. The most
obvious example was the decisions made by the AHIM (The European
Court of Human Rights) regarding the veil. They said: ‘the veiled stu-
dents do not have to go to the secular universities. They should go to
other schools.’ But, there is no university in Turkey that is not secular.
This means people who represented Turkey did not inform the AHIM
properly. When we provided them some information about the veil

issue, they were all like ‘Ohh, the person X did not inform us about
any of these.’ I said of course not, because she is a secular, these issues
do not bother her, she doesn’t consider these to be problems.
In that sense, civil actors are seen to have the capacity to transform
and to influence international institutions and debates beyond or out-
side of state control.9 And Muslimists express a moral obligation to
become involved. Muslimists, more specifically put, see themselves as
interlocutors between superstructures and societal groups of which
representation in the international is undermined or marginalized by
the state (e.g., the story of the veil from the veiled girls’ perspective).
They intend to open up space for and to insert new norms, interests,
and narratives—untold or repressed by the state—into the interna-
tional arena, as such challenging the state by means of international
engagements. As put candidly by a woman of the CWPA: “If the lob-
bies were strong enough, they could have been efficient in resolving
the biases.”
What is one to make out of all of this? Overall, the Muslimists’
orientation to civil agency that we have found and documented across
social spheres (moral, economic, and social orders) implies that the
Muslimist engagement of civil organizing is not geared merely toward
securing religious rights and liberties vis-à-vis the secular state, as
conventional theories would have claimed. Instead, they accept and
make sense of civil society in broader terms: it is adopted as the cul-
tural standard for or the morally superior form of acting in the world,
whether to construct the moral order, stimulate economic growth, or
bring about political change, nationally or internationally.
Action: Broad Social Participation

To reiterate, for Islamists, the state is the main executor of God’s
will; using its leviathan powers, it establishes the moral order and
pushes citizens toward pristine religion. This emphasis on the state
brings with it a very narrow definition of what it means to be politi-
cal. Being political means being oriented to the state. This defini-
tion of political in turn brings with it an equally narrow definition of
political action: strategizing and acting to capture the state. In fact,
the religio-political goal of taking over the state constitutes the core
element of Islamism. As such, abandoning this goal (or, the state)
means abandonment of Islamism as well as pristine religion. Ekrem,
a self-defined Islamist political activist who fervently despises what he
terms to be Islam’s sociological expressions, puts this core aspect of

Islamism as follows:
The culminating trend among Muslims to express themselves and

their demands through sociological arguments is a great hazard that
has an immense potential to destroy the main and essential reason for
Muslims’ existence . . . Every single approach, which aims to change the
society completely, has to place political opposition and battle to the
centre of its endeavors . . . Formations that do not present a perspective
for political power, or do present a blurry projection for political power,
are the ones which have lost their Islamic quality, characteristic.
Conventional treatments of Islamic movements in sociology and

in international relations theory, which in their assumptions are
themselves state-centric, also adopt this narrow definition of politi-
cal action and the divide of cultural versus political this definition
enforces. They reframe what Ekrem labels “sociological arguments”
as Islam’s cultural turn and reorientation to everyday life, identity,
and social issues. Many observers celebrate this turn as marking a
retreat from the political and fundamentalism. Given their narrow
definition of political action, both Islamist and conventional scholarly
approaches would insist that if not statist and if interested in social
and cultural issues in everyday life, Muslimism must be an example of
an apolitical, subjective Islam without a capacity and even an interest
for political mobilization.
Nevertheless, the content and agenda of Muslimist involvement
and activities across social spheres challenge these interpretations.
Although not oriented to radical control of the state, or the use of the
state to radically control society, we find that Muslimist social partici-
pation has serious bearings for the public sphere, Muslim interests,
and for societal life—it involves political action and mobilization. As
such, it has significant political implications. Therefore, what is the
agenda of Muslimist social involvement and activities? Moreover, how
does the political play into this agenda?
Sociological Expressions:
What Are They?
For Cemal, the owner of Este World, the desire for beauty is uni-
versal—it is “human nature”; hence, it is neither alien nor offensive
to Muslims. He says: “ . . . your wife might be veiled, you might be
bearded [a practice found in Sunna], but when I look at the mirror, I
would like to see myself handsome, beautiful, and pleasant . . . ” “ . . . In

our contemporary society,” Cemal continues, “there is a great demand
for staying and looking young and healthy.” Cemal also thinks, how-
ever, that Muslims had to lag behind or remain ignorant to this uni-
versal need for a long time, because existing institutions, religious
and secular alike, have counter-posed aesthetics and religion, and
secular norms and institutions have come to dominate notions and
practices about beauty and health. Este World has emerged, Cemal
says, precisely for that reason; it has emerged to reclaim this universal
desire and cater it to Muslims in ways that are filtered through Islam’s
general principles and sexual ethics (i.e., satisfying the preferences of
husbands and wives, protecting marriage, following rules of diet and
sexual modesty).
For conventional approaches, this autobiography of Este World
evinces Muslims’ exit from the political sphere and their settling in
the cultural sphere, where they, consequently, adapt Islam to the cul-
tural program of modernity: Western consumerism, markets, and ato-
mistic individualism. Yet, whereas Muslim investments in the market
is part of Este World’s story, this autobiography of Cemal and the
history of Este World also speak to and dramatically exemplify emerg-
ing demands and needs of a new Muslim status group, who have close
interactions with secular modernity. This new group, rather than
rejecting modernity, aspires to engage and be part of it, while trying
to preserve Islamic identity and commitments.
This aspiration for a lifestyle that conforms to both modernity and
Islam is certainly not idiosyncratic to the story of Este World. On the
contrary, it is found across the biographies of other Muslimist orga-
nizations. Even though these organizations operate in different sec-
tors of society, pursuing markedly different goals and interests, their
stories in fact converge into a single “meta-narrative” that includes
individual biographies of entrepreneurs, human and women’s right
activists, and histories of their organizations.
For example, Nedim and Seref contend that, along with the
intensification of Muslim interactions with markets in the 1980s,
there has emerged a need, indeed a necessity, for Muslim businesses
to organize economically. Yet, neither in state institutions nor in
civil formations, which have historically counter-posed religion and
modern economy, could these new businesses find a space to pursue
their needs and to express their economic ethos characterized by
both capitalist aspirations and religious sentiments. MUSIAD has
emerged precisely for that reason. It was founded as an alternative
to cater and respond to the emerging economic needs and demands
of a new group of Muslim entrepreneurs, who strive to use Islam to

engage markets:
Nedim: “When we look at the profile of the people who started

MUSIAD in 1990s, we would see that they are small-to-medium
sized entrepreneurs, and they share and represent certain values
[referring to religious identities]. The most important factor was
that in that era there was neither a private, civil nor a state institu-
tion in which people with this type of enterprise and this type of
values could express themselves. By then, there was only TUSIAD,
composed of big, Istanbul-centered enterprises. And compatibil-
ity between the values of TUSIAD and of the founding fathers of
MUSIAD was out of question, especially by then.”
Seref: “The factor that urged MUSIAD’s formation was the pres-
ence of a need, an exigency. By 1980s, the Anatolian capital and
Anatolian entrepreneur entered into a process of development.
On the one hand, extension of liberties and, on the other hand,
Turkey’s integration with the world carried the Anatolian people to
a certain level. And, gradually there started an economic mobiliza-
tion, a capital accumulation. But, this was unorganized, scattered,
and it could not express itself. In 1990, by formation of MUSIAD
this Anatolian capital first time ever was institutionalized and orga-
nized. So, in that sense MUSIAD in fact closed a gap and filled in
holes. MUSIAD is a consequence of a process, of a need.”
Just like MUSIAD and Este World, MAZLUM-DER too, according

to its participants, has emerged as an alternative to the catering of
new Muslim aspirations and demands to become part of modern life.
For instance, Fevzi claims that established institutions and actors of
the human rights debate in Turkey have excluded religious people and
rights from the discourse and practice of human rights. MAZLUM-
DER was formed within this context as a solution: to open up space
for the religious to take part in the human rights debate and to influ-
ence and broaden it toward inclusion of any sort of right violation,
including religious rights.
Fevzi: “Our organization was founded in 1991. It was founded

upon the idea of collective action against the pervasive right viola-
tions . . . Before us, there was the IHD [The Association for Human
Rights], however in that era, human rights associations were only
protecting the rights of the leftist people. By then, it was conven-
tional, it was a habit not to talk about or put forward the violations
against the rights of religious or the conservative people. So, in con-
tradistinction to IHD, MAZLUM-DER stressed and focused on
the identity of being a victim, without discriminating against race,

religion or color, and built itself on this ground. MAZLUM-DER
is an organization who resides on the side of the victim regardless
of who the victim is.”
This desire to master modernity as one simultaneously observes

Islamic commitments can be found in various other examples. It is
found at work, for example, in a Muslim girl’s aspirations to delay
marriage to attend college, pursue a career, and discover who she
is, while keeping on her veil (and probably self-fashioning it) and
conducting an Islamic-moral life. At the time, existing religious and
secular formations, nonetheless, were not structured in ways that
could respond to such aspirations; the former, for example, would
despise girls’ interest in fashioning the veil or the legitimacy they
ascribe to the self. The latter would require girls to give up on the
veil if they are to be part of campus life and urban space. Therefore,
these women, just like the participants of Muslimist organizations,
seek and form modalities and lifestyles that would surpass existing
structures.
It is this quest for an alternative path that motivates, directs, and
determines the content of Muslimist activities and involvement in
society. Muslimist social participation is not geared toward using a
unitary state to submit society to Islam. Instead, it is geared to create
life-spaces, institutions, modalities, narratives, and styles that would
transcend existing institutions, all while providing accommodation
for hybrid interactions and the new demands such interactions raise
(e.g., the desire for beauty, and aspirations to articulate a new human
rights discourse using both Islamic and Western notions).
The consequences of this quest are significant. Muslimists rein-
troduce Islam into everyday life and public spaces in new forms and
ways that cannot be easily dismissed as fundamentalist or liberal. This
affects Muslims, the collective life, and the state. It disrupts the secu-
lar homogeneity of the public sphere, and the total conformity it once
had with the state ideology. It also disrupts Islamism, its institutions,
and its discourse. In fact, even though Muslimism is not statist or
ideological, it is still a project in the sense that it capitalizes and strat-
egizes for a particular interpretation and practice of Islam. Yet, there
is more. As much as the cultural, Muslimists also view the political
as an area of action, and view pursuit of their interests and demands
through political channels to be legitimate. Hence, although not
state-centered, Muslimism is not reducible to generalized cultural
identities or to a mere cultural expression; it is political.
Political Involvement
Muslimism is political, for one, in the sense of being characterized by
a certain political sensibility. This is not surprising. For the faithful,
religious orthodoxy is not just an intellectual exercise; it shapes the
entirety of life, including one’s political attitudes and positions. Those
with Muslimist orientation, too, have articulated a distinct political
ethos. For instance, as we have documented, the Muslimist definition
of true faith and the emphasis this definition puts on religious self-
identity inclines this new form toward a liberal polity and toward the
separation of state and religious authority.
Yet, Muslimism is also political in the more practical sense of
directing people to participate politically and be actively involved in
electoral politics. This also is not startling. Consider, again, the defi-
nition of true faith and Muslimist orientation to the individual; it is
only within a liberal polity where this type of moral definition can be
capitalized and exercised. This means, more thoroughly put, to effec-
tuate certain demands (whether pertaining to moral responsibilities
or markets), movements need sympathetic political elites and policies
that would support their demands. Diverse Muslimist organizations,
thus, seek political support and get linked to parties to bring about a
polity that would enable capitalization of their sentiments, demands,
and needs.
As of the years leading up to and during my study, Muslimists
supported the JDP and invested in it electorally. The party, through-
out its first two terms, articulated with Muslimist sentiments and
coded its party program and discourse in line with those sentiments;
it, thus, gained strong support among Muslimists.
We find the evidence for this strategic support for the party during
this early period in Muslimists’ comparisons of the National Outlook
Movement (NOM) parties and the JDP. Muslimists see the NOM and
associated political parties (especially the Welfare Party) as stuck in
“old politics,” lagging behind the changing global and national reali-
ties. These parties could not apprehend, or even recognize, the rising
Muslim demands to abandon (and question) Islamist impulses with
regard not only to politics but also, and perhaps more importantly, to
style of society and religion (e.g., disenchantment with holistic ide-
ologies, authoritarian communalism, anti-EU discourse, and Islam
versus the modernity divide). In contrast to the NOM, Muslimists
believed the JDP recognized broad global and national changes and
spoke to increasing Muslim aspirations to move out of “old politics”
(e.g., the party’s attempts to engage the EU, and opening up space
for different segments of society in the political arena). In fact, the
party, to the Muslimist mind, seemed like an alternative that, just
like Este World or MUSIAD, could transcend existing religious and
secular political institutions while formulating a new Muslim politics
that can reflect emerging Islamic orientations to individual rights,
autonomy, and pluralism.
Congressmen, themselves, also viewed the emergence of the party
as a response to the rising demands and urges of religious people
for a “new Muslim politics.” With this understanding, the party had
intended, congressmen asserted, to develop a new framework for
Muslim politicians, one that preserved religious sensitivities but that
also was compatible with current global and national realities (e.g.,
pluralism, democracy).
The language Muslimists articulate in support of the party,
in sum, demonstrates that, first, the political is not off limits to
Muslimists. They are committed to engage political action and actors
to further their rights and interests as religious people. Second,
through this language we realize once more that Muslimism is a
not an extension or a petty instrument of political actors. Instead,
Muslimists support the party because they view it to be in line with
their demands and sensibilities. This means Muslimist support is
likely conditional.
The Muslimist political involvement and the nature of this involve-
ment lead us toward a central issue; by mapping the Muslimist
political topography, I have shown that, just like Islam’s practice, its
political manifestations also vary. More thoroughly put, Islamism is
not the only response Islam can develop to engage the political—
nor to engage this world—if it is to be passionate, or if it is to pro-
tect symbolic boundaries of the Islamic doxa and praxis. In fact, the
Muslimist political ethos directly challenges Islamist political atti-
tudes. In terms of ontology, with its emphasis on iman and religious
self-identity, Muslimism tends toward a polity that would heighten
individual autonomy and separate religious authority and the state.
This ontology orients Muslimists to civil organizing and agency for
moral as well as economic and civil activities; as such, Muslimism is
not centered on capturing the state. Yet, it is still political, and it is
still a project aiming to capitalize a particular reading of Islam. For
this project, Muslimists create new cultural spaces, institutions, and
lifestyles; they, nevertheless, also develop political sensibilities and get
linked to party politics to bring about their political elements. This
broad social involvement (broad in the sense of covering both cultural

and political spheres) has serious implications. In establishing its own
cultural and political institutions, Muslimism indeed carves out alter-
native public spaces. Just as importantly, by doing so, Muslimism in
Turkey carves out an alternative to Islamism, its institutions, and its
discourses.
Conclusion: Muslimism in
Turkey and Beyond
In this book, I have concentrated on the changing interactions

between Muslims and modernity in Turkey. Instead of defining
these interactions either generically or normatively as “moderate”
Islamism, I have argued that, in content and in practice, they embody
the rise of a new Islamic orthodoxy. I use “orthodoxy” simply to
denote a commitment to a religious tradition by infusing the super-
empirical into everyday life. This orthodoxy is “new,” however,
because it rejects both the attitude that modernity and religion are
absolutely incommensurable and the attitude that there is little con-
flict between global modernity and religion. In other words, it is
neither a liberal translation of religion into modernist terms nor a
fundamentalist rejection of modernity. Instead, it is a hybrid frame-
work that engages aspects of modern life, while submitting that life
to a sacred, moral order.
I have called this emerging orthodoxy in Turkey “Muslimism.”
This is meant to signify that it is neither a variant nor a softened version
of Islamism, but a new category. Moreover, the term “Muslimism”
emphasizes the content: Muslimists are not state- or society-centered,
but are oriented to the individual. They are in a quest for a lifestyle
in which devout individuals can engage aspects of modern life, while
preserving their Islamic identity.
Yet, more than a descriptive label, I use Muslimism both as an ana-
lytic and empirical concept. It is analytic because Muslimism brings
with it a new set of assumptions about religion and how religion
engages modernity. Muslimism is also an empirical category empha-
sizing distinguished political, theological, and cultural orientations
that are embodied in everyday life institutions, lifestyles, practices,
trends, and discourses, and expressed by a Muslim status group. This
does not mean that these people identify with each other under a label
or movement of Muslimism or any other name. Nevertheless, they
promote a particular reading of Islam and modernity, challenging
both Islamist and liberal readings (hence, it is an “ism”), and people

recognize they have in common the same understanding of Islam and
modernity.
The new Muslimist orthodoxy manifests itself in “cultural sites of
hybridity,” in which Muslims articulate Islam with modern values,
practices, and discourses. These sites first emerged in the markets in
the form of business organizations or personalized veiling styles and
Islamic fashion. Going beyond the confines of a market orientation,
these institutions and practices that intersect markets and everyday
life have altered the boundaries that had strictly separated Islamic
versus Kemalist life spaces, lifestyles, and cultural codes. This ori-
entation to everyday life made it possible for Muslims to take part
in modernity while holding passionately onto religion. Engagements
between Muslims and markets indeed reflect remarkable changes
taking place in such core concepts as self and community, religious
authority, moral agency, ascetism and wordly existence, gender and
public space, and perceptions of the West.
Though first emerged in markets, by the mid-1990s, the cultural
sites of hybridity could be found in society at large, becoming manifest
in civil organizations and subsequently in a political ethos. In these
various sites and most explicitly in civic and political ones, Muslims
endorse modern political values by using Islam. This is exemplified by
the belief that freedom of moral choice is thought to be indispensable
for true faith, and this view endorses separation of religious authority
and the state within a polity oriented to individual rights.
Overall, whether in the form of veil fashion or civil formations,
the sites of hybridity are spaces in which Islamist and secularist defi-
nitions of Islamic and modern identities are contested and replaced
with new definitions. More broadly, in these sites, the forbidden
modern is transformed into a guilt-free modernity—modernity is
reworked to be inoffensive to Muslims, and Islam is revitalized to
be unapologetic—cleared from its common stigmas, especially by
filtering out the traditional practices arrogated to Islam throughout
Islamic history.
To portray what this unique form looks like empirically, I entered
into selected sites of hybridity and surveyed Muslimist reality orienta-
tions. These orientations encompass important attitudes (ontology,
agency, and action) across theology, culture, and political spheres
(the Islamic “three ds”), building a comprehensive cognitive schema.
These selected sites included MAZLUM-DER, MUSIAD, the
Capital Women’s Platform Association (CWPA), and the Justice and
Development Party (JDP) during the years 2006 through 2008.
CONCLUSION 203
Interviews and general discourse have demonstrated that Muslimism

differs from Islamism substantially, as well as from liberal theologies.
Chapter 3 documented Muslimist reality orientations toward reli-
gion. As opposed to Islamism, which orients believers toward religion
ideologically, Muslimism views religion in terms of identity (ontol-
ogy). This particular orientation to the sacred opens Muslimism to
reform and weakens the Islamist emphasis on orthopraxy. Indeed,
Muslimists define true faith as iman, a heart-felt, voluntary submis-
sion to Allah, and iman is to herald and give meaning and value to
ritual and externalized behavior.
Reformist impulses and the definition of true faith as iman weaken
the authoritative power of external control over individuals and, more
broadly, model a heterogeneous-like religious community accepting
human subjectivity, religious self-identity and expression, and diver-
sity in religious performances and praxis (e.g., veiling in different
styles and colors) (agency).
The emphasis on morality and iman also inform conciliatory atti-
tudes toward the other, both secular and external, expressed through
a language of democratic tolerance (action). Tolerance and pluralism
create tensions with religious submission, and Muslimists are aware
that such tensions need to be explicitly worked out.
Chapter 4 documented Muslimist cultural temperaments, dem-
onstrating that a hybrid ontology characterizes Muslimist interac-
tions with contemporary modern life (ontology). Muslimists try to
rework modernity to be suitable with Islam, making it possible
for the devout to be part of modern life. This process bears acute
tensions; at times, attempts to resolve such tensions are rather sub-
stitutive, but they help Muslimists to gain a sense of moral propriety
and binding address.
Relative to social relations, the hybrid ontology has sharpened the
self and undermined authoritarian religious communities and codes
(agency). This is not individualist religion, but Muslimists pursue a
type of solidarity that would open up space for personal freedoms and
autonomy, self-expression, and difference. Importantly, this transfor-
mation finds its requirements, authenticity, and meaning in theologi-
cal concepts, most notably, akil (reason, consciousness) and tahkik
(investigation), and it has, moreover, brought the self into a broader
cultural relief, as embodied, for example, in challenges posed to tra-
ditional familial and social relationships.
Hybridity, moreover, marks Muslimism with creativity and inno-
vative action (action). Muslimists renegotiate both religious and secu-
lar identities, lifestyles, and standards of normality; in doing so, they
formulate, more substantially, a guilt-free modernity and an unapolo-

getic Islam. It bears repeating that hybridity and innovation coincide
with continual episodes of tensions between religious and secular
segments, among religious groups, and within diverse Muslimist
factions.
Relative to the political, as demonstrated in Chapter 5, the indi-
vidual orientation pushes Muslimists toward a polity that would
heighten individual autonomy and separate religious authority and
the state (ontology). This ontology orients Muslimists to civil orga-
nizing and agency for moral as well as economic and civil activities
(agency); as such, Muslimism is not centered on capturing the state.
Yet, it is still political. Muslimists create new cultural spaces, institu-
tions, and lifestyles in which Islam and modernity are interwoven.
As a result, both the secular homogeneity of the public sphere and
Islamist institutions and discourse are disrupted. Muslimists also
develop political sensibilities and get linked to party politics to bring
about their political elements and to affect state structure and polity
(action).
Religion as Culture and History

The hybrid and individually oriented content of Muslimism, then,
challenges the established dichotomous thinking about religion, pre-
destining the devout to choose between an accommodation to and a
rejection of modernity. It also challenges the divide of cultural versus
political; that is, it undermines the assumption that religion, espe-
cially Islam, enters into the political arena to capture the state for sub-
mission of society to religion, and if Islam is not state-centered, then
it must be merely apolitical and cultural. In addition, but at a broader
level, the distinct shape Islam has taken in contemporary Turkey
demonstrates that Islam is not manifested uniformly across history
or societies, nor are Islamic actors static agents. Instead, religion, as a
cultural system, is in a constant dialogue with the institutional con-
text surrounding it. This does not mean that as the world changes, so
does the essence of religion. Rather, it means that as religious actors
interact with the world, they reinterpret, re-entertain, and reconstruct
religious thought and practice; as much as they are born into a prede-
termined doxa and praxis, they also give life to the super-empirical.
Put even more specifically, although Islam presents the devout with
an overarching, objective life frame, the ways in which the devout
work this frame out is open ended, resulting in different theological
orientations, lifestyles, and political attitudes.
CONCLUSION 205
In Turkey, conditions for Muslimism were set into motion by

the economic liberalization of the 1980s, and associated political
reforms and macro-structural changes. With the retreat of statism,
economic and political spheres became increasingly autonomous
from the state; associational life flourished; disparate political,
interest, and identity groups began to take part in economic and
cultural production; and Turkish society became linked to global
markets and institutions. Within this new political framework, reli-
gious rights and freedoms were extended. Moreover, globalization
of markets, along with new political openings, generated a new
Muslim status group.
The new liberal order and institutions also infused the society with
new values. The discourse of individual autonomy, civil society, glo-
balization, pluralism, and rights and freedoms became the center of
the new cultural order, entering into social accounting of modernity/
modernization and competing against state-centric (especially, rigidly
secularist) conceptions and models of Turkish modernity. This new
narrative has pluralized the ways in which people and nations could
be defined as modern.
With the changing meaning of modernity, declining state control,
and the emergence of upwardly mobile religious actors, the anti-state
and anti-modern rhetoric of protest Islamism began to lose appeal
and relevance. This undermining of Islamism created a vacuum for
the rise of new and alternative religious expressions. The new Muslim
status group, composed of people ranging from pious entrepreneurs,
civil activists, students, theologians, pious intellectuals, and women’s
groups, has mobilized into this vacuum and articulated Muslimism.
This group is passionate about religion and highly suspicious of the
secularist state, but they are also at odds with traditional and Islamist
religious establishments. These religious men and women are open
to religious innovation; they are oriented to the individual, and they
seek higher stakes in modern life. In the early 1990s, they engaged
contemporary institutions by using Islam. As they have prevailed in
these institutions, from capitalist markets to political formations, they
also reshaped them into “cultural sites of hybridity,” generating life-
styles and practices that are Islam-observant but also commensurate
with modernity.
Importantly, the end of the Cold War, the globalization of mar-
kets, the prospect of entering the European Union (EU), and the lack
of an external military threat provided a broader institutional frame
that reinforced the domestic conditions for Muslimism, while weak-
ening the coherency both of statism and reactionary Islamism.
The Future of Muslimism

Treating religion as embedded within a broader institutional, cultural
context highlights another fundamental question: if Muslimism is
contingent upon a certain historical context, then what of the future
of Muslimism? This question is significant for analytic and normative
reasons. Analytically, if the conceptual framework and interpretation
presented here is accurate, it should guide us in thinking about how
Muslimism will evolve under changing conditions. Normatively, it is
significant not only for democracy and religion in Turkey but for the
region, given the treatment of Turkey as a vivid and ongoing test in
discussions about whether Islam and modernity can be reconciled.
Analytic
Historically, we have seen the conditions that cultivated hints of
Muslimism, but these were quickly quashed due to a resurgence of
statism and entrenched Islamism. Similar, more recent, backlashes,
namely, the resurgence of political Islamism in the mid-1990s, and
the subsequent reassertion of Kemalism through the February 28
intervention, have challenged political liberalism and Muslimism.
Throughout these events, Muslimism has continued to thrive; exter-
nal conditions, too, favored the liberal order as well as the Muslimist
expression of Islam.
Looking first at the original sources of Muslimism, we can assess
that the economic, business, consumer taste, and fashion sites of
hybridity seem to be as strong as ever. Economic recession or inter-
national trade setbacks could adversely affect these sites, but barring
economic reversals, the framework developed here would expect
expansion and diversification of these Muslimist enterprises. Indeed,
increases in exporting and international connections, within the
region and even in Western countries, would further grow these
enterprises.
The illiberal policies of the party during the latter part of its third
term seem to not have encroached into this arena as yet. Nevertheless,
the crucial theoretical point to make is if they did, even with the inten-
tion of supporting Islamic presence, taste, and products, this would
undermine Muslimism because of the incompatibility in ontologies
and ethics. This means, more substantially, that political develop-
ments will also have profound influence on the future of Muslimism.
Beginning with its third term (2011), the JDP has seemed to adopt
a more statist approach, especially in moving away from such key
CONCLUSION 207
elements of Muslimism as its emphasis on individual choice, demo-

cratic tolerance and acceptance of moral and cultural diversity, and a
liberal national polity. Interestingly, the JDP, at this time, continued
some of its progressive policies; within its EU agenda, it has contin-
ued to expand non-Muslim and ethnic (especially, Kurdish) minor-
ity rights; removed restrictions on political party membership and
activity; and provided a new framework for criminal sanctions against
disrespect of lifestyles and hate crimes. However, these developments
have gone hand in hand with a tendency to infringe on individual
rights, to intervene in media, and to use rigid measures to repress cri-
tiques; together, these tendencies risk the party’s own, earlier demo-
cratic achievements.
These illiberal tendencies became evident in the factions of the
government’s handling of cases related to the military and high-rank
officers allegedly involved in a plot to overthrow the government
(Ergenekon and Balyoz cases); in their reactions to Gezi protests; and
in the employment of a polarizing language when enacting impor-
tant policies regarding social-morality issues, such as regulations on
alcohol. Interestingly, the content of new alcohol regulations, from
becoming more serious about people driving under the influence of
alcohol to regulating alcohol licenses, are in synch with Muslimist
attitudes. The regulations are modeled, not on alcohol policies
found in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but on that of the well-established
democracies of the West, especially the US Yet, the party used a
religious and polarizing language in introducing and defending the
new regulations—equating opposition against the new regulations
with drunkenness, for example—resulting in a perception that the
new policies simply meant a religious ban on alcohol. This discourse
created serious reactions among secular segments, but it also dis-
turbed the Muslimist sensitivity about true faith being a voluntary
choice, which requires separation of state and religion within a lib-
eral polity.
A common interpretation is that the JDP has revealed its true col-
ors. It promoted a liberal state to appeal to the Muslimist sensibilities
of the growing bourgeoisie and to make a show to external, especially
European, authorities and institutions. Feeling confident in their suc-
cesses but coming under criticism, they then showed themselves as
Islamist authoritarianists. The problem with this reasoning is that
no subsequent action can be definitive of the “true” intentions of
the formative actors. What is required is more and thorough analysis
of the time period. But more fundamentally, the issue is not strictly
finding true intentions of individuals or organizations, or at least it
does not hinge on some authentic, inner state. The fieldwork and
in-depth interviews of this study present evidence of the Muslimist
qualities of the early JDP. Given its more recent movement away from
many of these elements, if the present interpretation is accurate, we
can hypothesize how Muslimism might evolve, or devolve.
What the present interpretation would suggest is that as the JDP
shifts to a more authoritarian or Islamist style, whether showing its
true colors or undergoing a real change, several possible develop-
ments could happen. One result might be that if the JDP continues in
this direction, it loses Muslimist support. The interviews and general
discourse on the JDP have demonstrated that Muslimists endorsed
the party for using a language that was in line with their core politi-
cal and religious orientations. A dramatic shift from such core ele-
ments may alienate Muslimists. It is, nonetheless, also possible that,
while disagreeing and feel beleaguered, Muslimists may still chose
to support a less liberal regime because they perceive it as the best
of several non-ideal options. After all, the JDP is the most power-
ful political actor that is clearly supportive of religious sentiments
and that can prevent a strong backlash from secularists. In addition,
common electoral concerns, such as political and economic stabil-
ity within a regional context marked by growing sectarianism, eco-
nomic decline, and civil conflict, may continue Muslimist support to
the party. What result would emerge is historically contingent. More
research needs to be done on the social bases and organization of
Muslimism; but based on the current research, anything that estab-
lishes Muslimism’s social bases apart from the state (social, cultural,
and economic including a vibrant Muslimist status group) will more
likely move it away from the party. However, it also would require
independent political mobilization; and here conditions might not be
different from democratic polities in general. In particular, the health
and autonomy of Muslimist-informed civil society actors that are not
co-opted by the party would be crucial conditions.
Beyond these direct, reactive effects, there potentially are more
profound indirect effects that pose challenges to Muslimism. The
shift of the government toward illiberal policies could revive the old
divide of secular versus religion, as well as the traditional enforcers
of this divide. As I have shown, tendencies toward Muslimism his-
torically were undermined or co-opted by Islamist groups precisely
when a strong secular-religion cleavage centered on an authoritarian
state. Historically, the state was secular, but a more Islamist authori-
tarian party would produce the same cleavage with similar results. It
could make openings for committed Kemalist and Islamist actors to
CONCLUSION 209
come back to the public and political arenas, assertively promoting

old binaries. In fact, the old binaries of Islam versus state-secularism
appear to have already found a new energy. In the secularist view, the
government’s Islamic commitments are to blame for the current cri-
ses in Turkey, whereas the old Islamist discourse claims that the party
is not a true religious actor and the current turmoil, both in terms of
national and foreign policy, is caused by the party’s lack of commit-
ment to Islam and Islamism.
Importantly, this rising binary fragmentation has not only
revealed the old actors of Islamism, but generated new ones; most
notably, an anti-capitalist Islamist youth gathered around intel-
lectual formations similar to think tanks. These young men and
women depict the JDP as “ex-puritan Islamists turned into strategic
thinkers.”1 They contend that the JDP has articulated a “Muslim
nationalism,”2 which has completely abandoned religious ethics,
other-worldliness, and the umma in exchange for an orientation to
realpolitik, power, and material Muslim interests. To some extent,
this critique could be useful to balance governmental politics of
identity and economy. Yet, in articulating this critique, this youth
taps into and retrieves the Islamist political thought and its core
thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb to frame an ethico-political proj-
ect that would bring back Islamic injunctions for justice, honest
politics, and equality. These impulses are in line with Muslimist
attempts to rework markets along Islamic lines. This quest for eth-
ics, however, seems to be not merely directed to what is perceived to
be an aggressively market- and power-oriented Islamic party. More
substantially, it pushes against Muslims’ taking part in modernity,
whether in lifestyles or politics. This is because, on one hand, it sees
those engagements as potentially leading to moral corruption and,
on the other (and similar to the committed secularists), it perceives
Muslimist expression and practices as extensions of the party. The
project, as such, may evolve into a purist, ascetic, communitarian,
and overtly ideological Islamist impulse rejecting Muslim attempts
to rework contemporary institutions, and instead retrieving the old
divides of “forbidden modern” versus political Islam.
Finally, external conditions too seem to present a broader insti-
tutional context reinforcing the resurgence of the divide of religious
versus secular in Turkey. The sensibilities and orientations that led to
the Arab Spring were in line with Muslimism, but subsequent events,
rather than bringing about democratic constitutions with mutual tol-
eration between state and religion, either carried Islamists or secular
authoritarian regimes to power. This arguably has generated a wide
global distrust of the capacity of pious Muslim actors to shape a type

of vernacular, modern political system. This current context in the
region, on one hand, and the growing Islamophobia in Europe, on
the other, reinforce the old ideas that Islam and the West are two
different civilizations, and that unless Islam is contained strictly in
the private sphere, Muslims will not be able to adapt such univer-
sal (Western) values as human rights, political transparency, or gen-
der equality in their national polity. In this context, Muslimists in
Turkey are likely to feel further embattled, reinforcing the polarizing
domestic forces.
Normative
What do all of these developments mean for the new Muslimist
orthodoxy and for Turkey, and, at the macro level, for the region?
Looking at these developments, pundits and scholars rush into
announcing the decline and fall of “moderate Islamism” in Turkey
and the possibility of institutionalized democracy in the region. A
turn to authoritarianism or Islamism would alter the political and
broader cultural conditions that might bode ill for Muslimism, but
the shift itself should not be equated with a statement on the capacity
of Muslimism. Such a reductionist and essentialist approach under-
stands religious change solely as strategic ideological change led by
political actors and processes.
In the case of Turkey, I have demonstrated that changes in
religious attitudes are neither led by nor limited to political actors.
On the contrary, historical conditions have favored the rise of a new
Islamic orthodoxy that simply weakened old taboos (and actors
who passionately hold on to these taboos) and allowed Muslims to
embrace aspects of modern life while submitting that life to Islam.
The new orthodoxy was first articulated not in the political arena
but in markets and everyday life. It was practiced not by political
actors but by a new Muslim status group coming from various seg-
ments of society. This group produced hybrid discourses, lifestyles,
and habits, including a political ethos that informed the creation of
the JDP.
The excessive focus on politics is more generally informed by
a divide of cultural versus political, where the political is per-
ceived to be the “serious” and “muscled” dimension of human life,
society, and the interstate system, whereas the cultural is seen to
be volatile and secondary. This is not to deny the importance of
politics and political processes. Political actors, of course, can have
CONCLUSION 211
profound impact on religious orientations such as Muslimism, as

evidenced by the historical actions of the military and politically
oriented Islamist institutions. In addition, the current shift in the
JDP is likely to have profound influence. In fact, the possibility
that Muslimists will lose the JDP as their political outlet is a seri-
ous problem. For Muslimism, this might mean it will retreat from
active participation in affecting state structure and polity. This in
turn may pose a problem for Turkey in consolidating a democratic
or an inclusive secularism because Muslimists, with their defini-
tion of true faith as a voluntary and conscious choice, still seem to
be the most promising actors that could reinforce mutual tolera-
tion and temper the tendencies of Islamism and the secular state to
co-opt one another.
Positive influences of Muslimism may go beyond politics. The
Muslimist definition of true faith as iman also has potential in
challenging traditional religious formations and their emphasis on
taklid and blind submission, while this brings with it a potential
for Muslim women to develop a theologically informed critique of
patriarchal codes. In fact, the gender-neutral emphasis on iman may
serve Muslim women well in claiming their individual autonomy,
whether this pertains to familial relations or theological agency.
More generally, I have demonstrated that Muslimism opens space
for or stimulates progressive theological debates about womanhood
and gender relations; but, women’s activism will be significant in
the articulation of a more precise, distinct gender politics within
Muslimism.
With the ongoing changes in Turkey, it is difficult to see where
Islam and state relations will go. Changes in the middle class and
economy, the Kurdish and Alevite questions, the relations between
Turkey and the EU, and conflict in the region will be effective in
shaping the future direction of state and religion relations. However,
for the continuation of Muslimism, the consolidation of democra-
tization and a liberal polity is necessary. The JDP, as the dominant
party, still has the capacity to advance the democratic transformation
it started to undertake a few years back. If it can retrieve its earlier
discourse and policy and recognize that democracy involves not only
electoral victory but a commitment to democracy, pluralism, and indi-
vidual rights, it can continue the democratic movement. The matu-
ration of liberalism and the institutionalization of individual rights
in Turkey will require a dramatic change in attitudes of the secular
parties and actors, too; it will require them to recognize that the
separation of religion and the state involves a recognition of the right
to belief. Finally, it should be noted that, rooted in a middle class, it

is possible that Muslimists simply follow political leaders or the path
of least resistance. This means the continuation of Muslimism will
also require Muslimists maintaining an early assertiveness of their
core elements, especially their orientation to the individual autonomy
across moral, civil, and political action, and press political actors to
bring about these elements.
Is Turkey Still “Globally Yours”?

With the prevalence of a Muslimist political ethos embodied in the
early JDP, many rushed into treating Turkey as a global model of
Muslim democracy. Debates took a new turn with the Arab Spring,
questioning whether the Turkish model (defined with the vaguely
labeled moderate Islamism) could be transferred to the region as
a viable solution. This was expressed through some clerics and
political leaders, too, who claimed that once in power, they would
model their policies not on the Islamist Taliban but on the “moder-
ate” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. With the subsequent
shift in the party, once presumed to be the main actor of Muslim
democracy, away from democratic commitments, many rushed into
announcing the fall of the Turkish model, and more generally, the
failure of the test for Islam’s compatibility with modern politics.
The fading of the Arab awakening and the subsequent rise of Salafi
parties, Islamism, and authoritarian regimes in the region, have fur-
ther enforced this view.
It is also true that during this time the regional support for
Turkey decreased considerably. Whereas in 2010, 80 percent of peo-
ple polled in the MENA region were pro-Turkey (78% of respon-
dents thinking that Turkey should play a bigger role in the region,
and 66% seeing it as a model for the region),3 in 2013 Arab positive
opinion about Turkey decreased considerably. Nevertheless, Arabs
still wanted Turkey to play a bigger role in the region by more than
60 percent (the regional average); and 51 percent still see Turkey as
a model.4 The same survey also revealed that what makes Turkey
a model in the eyes of its neighbors is the perceived success of the
country in blending Islam and democracy. Neighbors are supportive
of Turkey’s EU membership (they think that Turkey’s membership
in the EU will positively affect the region) and the liberalization of
ethnic policies, and they think that Gezi protests have contributed to
Turkish democracy. In addition, surveys find only a limited support
CONCLUSION 213
in the region for extremist groups and an endorsement of both the

institutional and cultural aspects of democracy, such as freedom of
speech and personal freedoms.5
These findings hint that Turkey’s allure for its neighbors is not
simply its politics, but is also its style of society and religion, where
Muslims can take part in modern life, institutions, and values, while
preserving their religious commitments and identity. Meanwhile,
there is a growing quest for new definitions of piety and modernity
that, rather than advocating clashes (and hence requiring Muslims
either to submit to or reject modernity), would allow hybridity and
individual expression, agency, and development.
It is this cultural quest that explains in large part the Arab
attraction to Turkey. In other words, rather than a political model
or formal transnational ideology led by Turkey, Turkey’s allure is
found in its comprehensive engagement of modernity. The ques-
tion, therefore, is not whether Turkey can be a “political” model
per se—if the model has failed and if it can be retrieved. We need
to recognize, instead, this shared goal in the region for a new type
of Islamic expression that does not define the good life and moral
society in counter-reference to a forbidden modern, but allows
Muslims to engage and reshape modernity, making it suitable with
and inoffensive to Islam.
The main question, then, is whether this goal can thrive in the
region. Discussions on this will need to involve an analysis of the
historical conditions that made Muslimist form possible in Turkey
and comparatively identify the conditions in the region that may
enable or prevent comprehensive Muslim engagements of moder-
nity. At this point, it seems that political developments and promi-
nent political actors in the region are lagging behind such cultural
sentiments and may delay their flourishing. Yet, this does not auto-
matically mean Muslim impulses to engage modernity have eroded.
Looking merely at the political arena and actors at the expense of
the cultural, we will miss out on the capacity of broad societal forces
to bring about change, whether in relation to religion or culture and
politics.
Social Theory on Religion: Muslimism and

New Religious Orthodoxies
“New religious orthodoxy refers to a style of engagement that
attempts to articulate a religion with modernity by embracing the
latter but submitting it to the religious tradition.”6 More specifically

put, new religious orthodoxies “embrace modern institutions such
as capitalist markets, nation-states, and individualism (citizenship,
rights, education, subjective expression) and simultaneously sub-
mit them to the sacred, moral order of their religious traditions.” 7
In that, they reject the attitude that modernity and religion are
thoroughly incommensurable and that there is little or no conflict
between global rationalism and religion. Hence, they reject both
liberalism’s translation of religion into modernist terms and funda-
mentalism’s rejection of modernity. Given this tension, “they select
elements of their tradition they identify as fundamentals but use
them to leverage innovative versions of modern practices, as seen in
Muslimism in Turkey.”8
Muslimists in Turkey are not unique in their approach to articu-
lating rationalistic institutions and their religious tradition. Looking
globally and across traditions, there are indications of movements and
political and cultural forms that do not fit neatly into liberal versus
fundamentalist categories. We refer to such movements as “new reli-
gious orthodoxies” (NROs),9 and treat the NRO as a potential gen-
eral type of religious engagement.
Within Islamic tradition, Indonesia is one such case that pres-
ents hybrid engagements between religion and modernity, from
politics10 to everyday life and gender relations.11 Another striking
case is Jordan, where we find civil organizations working as, what
Jung and Petersen have called “social sites,”12 where religious actors
combine Islamic traditions with pluralistic and individualized aspects
of high modernity, and construct individual and national contem-
porary Islamic identity in relevance not in refusal of global social
imaginaries.13
Muslimist-like sentiments are present among Western Muslims,
too. One prominent example is the newly emerging but rapidly grow-
ing Mipsterz , Muslim Hipsters, movement and fashion in the US,
spearheaded by the Muslim youth. The blend between the hipster
fashion and culture, as something nonconformist, politically liberal,
trendy, and Islam and hijab—given its global image to be oppres-
sive—has puzzled many and has been reduced to consumerism or an
exaggerated effort of the Muslim youth to fit in.14 Yet, this puzzle
is what the Mipster youth capitalizes on. This seemingly unconven-
tional blend reflects young Muslims’ growing claims to take part in
modernity, to master it, and to set its trends (from fashion to pub-
lic debate on gender), and their attempts to reintroduce themselves
CONCLUSION 215
as actors who are passionately Muslim but, at the very same time,
already and rightfully modern and American. In fact, the Mipsterz
movement is more generally understood and seen, by the members
themselves, as a “third culture or a place,”15 where home and the host
are blended. Similar to cultural sites of hybridity we find in Turkey,
the “third place” reworks aspects of modernity and American every-
day life in line with Islam. The third place and the proudly Muslim
and rightfully modern identity emerging in it undermine Westernist
stereotypes (e.g., the terrorist other or the oppressed other) as well as
puritan Islamism. Moreover, by embracing the hipster culture, which
cherishes self-authenticity and naturalness,16 within a religious sub-
mission, the Mipster blend demonstrates a growing individual ori-
entation and demands for self-expression and religious self-identity.
Overall, this new blend between Islam and hipster culture attests to
a Muslim claim over modernity, which the categories of liberal versus
fundamentalist Islam cannot make sense of or actually recognize. It
should be noted, however, that the movement’s location in the youth
and its emphasis on social inclusiveness (e.g., already bringing out
such questions as belonging and homosexuality) may make the move-
ment especially vulnerable to liberal adaptation; whether it will take
this route is historically contingent.
Pentecostalism and contemporary American Evangelicalism are in
their different ways examples of NROs within Christianity. In fact,
the NRO may be a particularly helpful concept to solve the prob-
lem of “how to categorize Evangelicalism” that has plagued soci-
ologists of American religion for at least three decades. Similar to
the major revival of Islam in Turkey since the 1980s, contemporary
Evangelicalism has challenged common paradigms. As Smith writes:
“Evangelical sensibilities allow neither complete disengagement from
[as with fundamentalism] nor total assimilation into [as with mainline
and liberal Christianity] the dominant culture.”17 This is the precise
reason why, Smith argues, Evangelicalism has been successful: what
differentiates evangelicals is their ability, unlike liberal and funda-
mentalist movements, to maintain both difference from and engage-
ment with American society.18
Moreover, Evangelicalism also undermines the divide of cultural
versus political. Although they do not try to legislate their particu-
lar religious orientations or to impose a narrowly defined Christian
way of life against the majority’s will, they are politically active, give
legitimacy to religious formations that are involved in politics, and are
willing to legislate on particular moral issues (although many would
argue the latter is legislating a religious will). One of the found-

ing Evangelical theologians, Carl Henry, wrote: “The Evangelical
Christian challenges the current normative model of American poli-
tics. He does so in a manner different than the radical Anabaptist
tradition, which rejects direct political participation and encour-
ages negative criticism. While Evangelicals emphasize the Church’s
distinctive community witness within society, they also advocate
direct political participation.”19
The NRO type of engagement is further found in the changing
attitudes among Evangelicals about work, morality, and the self,
the question of belonging, family and gender roles, and markets, as
James D. Hunter documents extensively (1987). 20 In each of these
areas, from the legitimacy the self has gained to the weakening of
traditional family arrangements, Evangelical living has started to
look different from what early generations understood of it. The
changes are not only qualified by the grammar of Christian faith,
but there is also a robust religious vitality, an explicit defense of the
orthodoxy, and submission of life to the super-empirical. Similar to
Muslimism, in its interactions with modernity, religious tradition
is being worked into it; but tradition itself is also being reinter-
preted in this process. Indeed, Muslimism, like Evangelicalism, is
fraught with different factions that might respond more toward
liberal adaptation or toward fundamentalism, marking a religious
form that is neither homogeneous nor static, but is constantly being
reinvented.
As I come to conclude, for now, the story of Muslimism, I pose
more general questions: how do religions respond to modernity;
how do they make sense of the modern world and act toward it?
Muslimism in Turkey, and the NRO as a broader category, question
the received binaries—secular/religious, internal/external, culture/
political, modern/traditional, liberal/fundamentalist—while calling
for a more cultural and institutional approach to religion, its place in
modern everyday life as well as international relations.
As for Turkey, I have argued in this book that the major revival of
Islam since the 1980s is neither a variant of Islamism nor a variant
of liberal theologies; it embodies a new type of religious orthodoxy,
Muslimism, that is a hybrid and individually oriented. The history of
this distinct form through the rise of Muslimism at the turn of the
twenty-first century suggests that the assumed modernity-religious
divide is not constant or determinative; rather, it is historically con-
structed and conditioned by a full range of institutions including
CONCLUSION 217
state and market. With changes in these institutions, these boundar-

ies are renegotiated and resettled. These negotiations, in the con-
temporary Turkish case, produced new institutions, lifestyles, and
sites, from Islamic fashion to a political ethos, where Muslims not
only can make use of modern life, but can also make claims on it and
shape it.
No tes
Introduction: Turkey’s Muslimists: From Veil-Chic

Women to a New Political Ethos
1. Ayse Arman, “Evdeki Kiyafet Disarda Ofsayt” (What is Worn at
Home is Offside for Outside), Hurriyet Newspaper, July 15, 2009.
2. Al-masalih al-mursala is a principle of Islamic law that allows
Muslims to act based upon the current conditions surrounding them,
in observance of general interest of the community or common good.
For explanations of this principle, see Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam:
Religion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991),
153. Muslims should not “rely too heavily on the elaborations of the
early jurists on matters of political and social organization, because
the current interests of Muslims (masalih) are very different from the
interests of those who lived a nearly a thousand years earlier and who
thus required different rulings and regulations.”
3. A concept of Islamic law that refers to independent and personal
reasoning and interpretation of Islamic rules and doctrines.
4. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1994), 52.
5. “Mannequins Wear a Message for Iraq’s Women,” The New York
Times, 8 February, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/
world/middleeast/09baghdad.html.
6. The Council of State’s ruling on December 13, 1984 (no. 1984/1574),
Ahmet T. Kuru, trans., “Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey:
The Case of the Justice and Development Party,” in The Emergence
of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy and the AK Party, ed. M. Hakan
Yavuz (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006), 147.
7. Bryan Wilson, “Religion and the Churches in Contemporary
America,” in Religion in America, ed. William G. McLoughlin and
Robert Bellah (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1968). See also
Berger [1967] 1990: “The pluralistic situation creates a ‘crises of the-
ology’ and the ‘crises of church’ in contemporary societies” (153).
Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory
of Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1990 [1967]).
8. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776 –
1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992); Roland Robertson and JoAnn
220 NOTES
Chirico, “Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious

Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration,” Sociological Analysis 46,
no. 3 (1985): 219–242; Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004); Stephen R. Warner,
“Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study
of Religion in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 98,
no. 5 (1993): 1044–1093.
9. Peter Beyer, “Privatization and Public Influence of Religion in
Global Society,” in Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and
Modernity, ed. Mike Feathersone (London: Sage, 1990), 373–391;
José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994).
10. See Casanova for an extended discussion of contemporary religious
mobilization into to the public sphere, in particular by becoming
“public religions.”
11. Doris Buss and Didi Herman, Globalizing Family Values: The
Christian Right in International Politics (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2003); José Casanova, “Religion, the New
Millennium, and Globalization,” Sociology of Religion 62, no. 4
(2001): 415–441; Thomas Jansen, “Europe and Religions: The
Dialogue between the European Commission and Churches or
Religious Communities,” Social Compass 47, no. 1 (2000): 103–112;
Sidney G. Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005). Evelyn L. Bush, “Discipline
and Resistance in Diplomacy: Religion and the UN Declaration
of Commitment on HIV/AIDS,” in Discipline and Punishment in
Global Politics: Illusions of Control, ed. Janie Leatherman (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 165–190.
12. For religious INGOs see, John Boli and David Brewington, “Religious
Organizations,” in Religion, Globalization, and Culture, ed. Peter
Beyer and Lori Beaman, vol. 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 203–233. For
a review and critique of conventional understandings that view reli-
gion as a problem in or marginalizes it to international relations, see
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International
Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008) and
Scott Thomas, “Taking Religious and Cultural Pluralism Seriously:
The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of
International Society,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies
29, no. 3 (2000): 815–841.
13. For theories that view social movements as reactions to disorganizing
aspects of change, see Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior
(New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963). For works that interpret
Islamic revivalism as a reaction caused by crises, strains, and stresses
created by modernity and associated processes, see Roger Owen,
State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East
NOTES 221
(London: Routledge, 1992); Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby,

Fundamentalisms Comprehended (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995). For application of this approach on the Turkish case,
see especially Ozav Mehmet, Islamic Identity and Development:
Studies of the Islamic Periphery (London: Routledge, 1990); Ziya
Onis, “The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The
Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective,” Third World Quarterly 18,
no. 4 (September 1997): 743–766; Haldun Gulalap, “Modernization
Policies and Islamist Politics in Turkey,” in Rethinking Modernity
and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdogan and Resat
Kasaba (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). For cri-
tiques on these approaches, see George M. Thomas, Revivalism and
Cultural Change: Christianity, Nation Building, and the Market in
the Nineteenth-Century United State (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1989); Salwa Ismail, Rethinking Islamist Politics Culture, the
State and Islamism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003); Christian Smith, The
Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization
of American Public Life (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003).
14. See, for example, Olivier Tschannen, “The Secularization Paradigm:
A Systematization,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30,
no. 4 (1991): 395–415; Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Sociological
Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Richard K.
Fenn, Beyond Idols: The Shape of a Secular Society (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
15. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1971).
16. See, for example, The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent
Religion and World Politics (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public
Policy Center, 2006).
17. Alain Touraine, “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements,”
Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985): 749–787. Roland Inglehart, “Values,
Ideology, and Cognitive Mobilization in New Social Movements,” in
Challenging the Political Order New Social and Political Movements in
Western Democracies, ed. Russell J. Dalton and Christopher Kuechler
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Alberto Melucci, “The
Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements,” Social Research
52, no. 4 (1985): 789–816. The new social movements’ perspec-
tive became popular among Turkish scholars of Islamic movements
in the 1990s when new Islamic lifestyles flourished, carving out an
alternative public sphere. See, for example, Sefa Simsek, “New Social
Movements in Turkey Since 1980,” Turkish Studies 5, no. 2 (2004):
111–139; Kenan Cayir, “İslamcı Bir Sivil Toplum Örg üt ü: Gökkuşağı
İstanbul Kad ı n Platformu,” in İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri: İslam
ve Kamusal Alan Üzerine Bir Atölye Çalışması, ed. Nilüfer Göle
222 NOTES
(Istanbul: Metis, 2000); Mucahit Bilici, “İslam’ı n Bronzlaşan Yüzü:

Caprice Hotel Örnek Olayi,” in İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri: İslam
ve Kamusal Alan Üzerine Bir Atölye Çalışması, ed. Nilüfer Göle
(Istanbul: Metis, 2000); Nilüfer Göle, “Modernist Kamual Alan ve
Islami Ahlak,” in İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri: İslam ve Kamusal
Alan Üzerine Bir Atölye Çalışmasi, ed. Nilüfer Göle (Istanbul: Metis,
2000). For a critique on new social movements theory, see Nelson
Pichardo, “New Social Movements: A Critical Review,” Annual
Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 411–430.
18. Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the
Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2000); Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, “A Supply-Side
Reinterpretation of the ‘Secularization’ of Europe,” Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion 33, no. 3 (1995): 230–252; Laurence
R. Iannaccone, Roger Finke, and Rodney Stark, “Deregulating
Religion: The Economics of Church and State,” Economic Inquiry
35, no. 2 (1997): 350–364; Laurence R. Iannaccone, Sacrifice
and Stigma Reducing Free-Riding in Cults, Communes, and Other
Collectives (Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution, Stanford University,
1989); Anthony Gill, “Government Regulation, Social Anomie and
Protestant Growth in Latin America: A Cross-National Analysis,”
Rationality and Society 11, no. 3 (1999): 287–316. For an applica-
tion of religious markets theory to the Turkish case, see Massimo
Introvigne, “Turkish Religious Market(s),” in The Emergence of a
New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party, ed. M. Hakan Yavuz (Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006). For a critical overview,
see Frank Lechner, “Rational Choice and Religious Economies,”
in Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. Michelle Dillion
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
19. Zald Mayer and John McCarthy, “Social Movement Industries:
Competition and Conflict among SMOs,” in Social Movements in an
Organizational Society, ed. Zald Mayer and John McCarthy (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1987); Doug McAdam,
Sidney G. Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For application
of the political processes perspective in Islamic and Turkish con-
texts, see respectively Mohammed Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz,
“Violence as Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement,” in
Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, ed. Quintan
Wiktorowicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004) and M.
Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford
20. This approach focuses especially on organizational qualities and lead-
ership, and patterns of state-formation and nation-building in the
study of Islamic mobilization. See for examples, Hootan Shambayati,
NOTES 223
“The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy:

State and Business in Turkey and Iran,” Comparative Politics 26,
no. 3 (1994): 307–331, and Simon Bromley, Rethinking Middle East
Politics: State Formation and Development (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1994), and Lisa Anderson, “The State in the Middle East and North
Africa,” Comparative Politics 201 (1987): 1–33.
21. For an example of a constructive approach on Turkish Islamic move-
ments, see Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey.
22. Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran (New York: Columbia
University Press in association with the Centre d’études et de recher-
ches internationals, 2000); Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The
Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2005); Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:
Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2003); Nilüfer Göle, Islam ve modernlik üzerine melez desenler
(Beyoglu, Istanbul: Metis, 2008).
23. James D. Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987).
24. Samuel C. Heilman, “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy. Part II,”
Modern Judaism 2, no. 2 (1982): 171–198, and also Samuel C.
Heilman, “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy, Part I,” Modern Judaism
2, no. 1 (1982): 23–51.
25. Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-
Islamist Turn (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007). In
this work, Bayat describes the post-Islamist shift (post-1990s) as “a
metamorphosis of Islamism (its ideas, approaches, and practices)”
(10). Moreover, he defines post-Islamism as an attempt to “marry
Islam with individual choice and freedom with democracy and
modernity” (11).
26. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2002). Kepel, like Bayat, uses the term to
point a general yearning for change and moderation where Islamist
groups deviate from Salafism and Jihadi doctrines in favor of democ-
racy and rights.
27. Daniel Philpott, “The Catholic Wave,” in World Religions and
Democracy, ed. Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Philip
J. Costopoulos (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2005).
28. For the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, see
Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World. For India, see
Pratap B. Mehta, “Hinduism and Self-Rule,” in World Religions
and Democracy, ed. Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and
Philip J. Costopoulos (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2005). For Iran, see Daniel Brunger, “Is Iran democratiz-
ing? A Comparativist Perspective,” in Islam and Democracy in the
224 NOTES
Middle East, ed. Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel
Brumberg (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2003). For Indonesia, see Robert Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslim and
Democratization in Indonesia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2000).
29. Boli and Brewington, “Religious Organizations,” 203–233.
30. For example, “the AIDS Education Through Imams program
was not only described in a UNAIDS study as remarkably suc-
cessful . . . but was referred to . . . as a model for other countries
to consider incorporating” (Bush, “Discipline and Resistance in
Diplomacy,” 173).
31. Fuat Keyman, “Assertive Secularism in Crises: Modernity, Democracy
and Islam in Turkey,” in Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age,
ed. Linell Elizabeth Cady and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). For a discussion on the tension between
democracy and laicite in Turkey, also see Göle, Islam ve modernlik
üzerine melez desenler, 61–88.
32. Ibid. Also see Markus Dressler, “Religio-Secular Metamorphoses:
The Re-Making of Turkish Alevism,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 76, no. 2 (2008): 280–311.
33. Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); Keyman, “Assertive
Secularism in Crises: Modernity, Democracy and Islam in Turkey.”
34. For a comprehensive discussion on the concept and use of “New
religious orthodoxies,” see Neslihan Cevik and Thomas George,
“Muslimism in Turkey and New Religious Orthodoxies: Implications
for Theorizing Religious Movements in World Society,” Ortadoğu
Etütleri 3, no. 2 (January 2012): 143–181. “New religious
Orthodoxies embrace modern institutions such as capitalist markets,
nation-states, and individualism and simultaneously submit them to
the sacred, moral order of their religious traditions. They are not
liberal syncretism in which individuals pick and chose to form an
idiosyncratic religiosity, nor are they fundamentalist. New religious
orthodoxies select elements of their tradition they identify as fun-
damentals but use them to leverage innovative versions of modern
practices, as seen in Muslimism in Turkey” (170).
35. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, “Introduction,” in Nation
and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, ed. Peter van der Veer
and Hartmut Lehmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1999), 10.
36. For exceptions, see, for example, Göle, Islam ve modernlik üzerine
melez desenler and Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements
and the Post-Islamist Turn.
37. Fred Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and
Politics in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996); Bassam Tibi,
The Crisis of Modern Islam: A Preindustrial Culture in the Scientific-
NOTES 225
Technological Age (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988);

Ernest Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell,
1994); Frank Tachau, Turkey, the Politics of Authority, Democracy,
and Development (New York: Praeger, 1984); Samuel P. Huntington,
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1997); Ernest Gellner, Conditions of
Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals (New York: Allen Lane/Penguin
Press, 1994).
38. I borrowed this concept from Nilüfer Göle, The Forbidden Modern:
Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1996), 22.
39. I am not using or suggesting this concept as an analytical category
for theory building. I am using “guiltless-modernity” simply as an
empirical concept to describe how Muslimists view modernity.
40. In her empirical study on MUSIAD, Ozdemir discovered similar
findings. See Sennur Özdemir, MÜSIAD: Anadolu sermayesinin
dönüşümü ve Türk modernle şmesinin derinlesmesi (K ızı lay, Ankara:
Vadi Yay ı nlar ı, 2006).
41. See Bayat: “post-Islamism expresses itself as a departure, albeit to
varying degrees, from the Islamist ideological package of universal-
ism, monopoly of religious truth, exclusivism, and obligation, towards
acknowledging ambiguity, multiplicity, inclusion, and compromise in
the movements’ principles and practice” (13). Moreover, post-Isla-
mism “is an attempt to turn the underlying principles of Islamism
on its head by emphasizing rights instead of duties, plurality in place
singular authoritative voice, history rather than fixed scripture, and
the future instead of past” (11). Bayat, Making Islam Democratic:
Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn.
42. Jenny White, “The End of Islamism? Turkey’s Muslimhood Model,” in
Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization,
ed. Robert Hefner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2004), 87.
43. Ibid. Also see, Jenny White, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).
44. These are a number of scholars who also make the argument that
Islam is not fixed, but is contingent upon the Muslim actors, whose
practice and perception of Islam are influenced by the socio-po-
litical context they are surrounded with. For example, Graham E.
Fuller, The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the
Muslim World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace
Press, 2008); Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of
Engagement ; Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and
the Post-Islamist Turn; Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey ;
Göle, Islam ve modernlik üzerine melez desenler.
45. In Between Islam and the State, Turam provides an insightful critique
of this bifurcated approach on “moderation of Islam” in Turkey.
226 NOTES
46. See, for example, Ayse Saktanber, Living Islam: Women, Religion and
the Politicization of Culture in Turkey (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002);
Binnaz Toprak, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey,” Turkish Studies
6, no. 2 (2005): 167–186. Umit Cizre-Sakallioglu and Erinç Yeldan,
“Politics, Society and Financial Liberalization: Turkey in the 1990s,”
Development and Change 31, no. 2 (2000): 481–508.
47. See, for example, Toprak, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey.”
48. See, for example, Metin Heper, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey:
Toward a Reconciliation?” The Middle East Journal 51, no. 1 (1997):
32–45.
49. See especially M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim democracy in
Turkey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
50. Ibid.
51. For a discussion on the JDP and passive revolution, see Cihan Tugal,
Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).
52. For this approach, see especially, Göle, Islam ve modernlik üzerine
melez desenler and Nilüfer Göle, Modern Mahrem: Medeniyet ve
Ortunme (Istanbul: Metis, 1991).
53. Cayir, “İslamcı Bir Sivil Toplum Örg ütü: Gökkuşağı İstanbul Kad ı n
Platformu”; Simsek, “New Social Movements in Turkey Since 1980,”
111–139. Nilüfer Göle’s interpretation of cultural Islam differs from
most scholars in this group for she emphasizes that the cultural turn
does not mean Islam is becoming less political. She argues the new
civic-Islam actually strengthens Islam’s political position by infiltrat-
ing Islam deep in to the social fiber. For this argument, see Nilüfer
Göle, “Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries,”
Public Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 173–190.
54. Ibid. Also see Göle, “Modernist Kamusal Alan ve Islami Ahlak.”
55. Sema Genel and Kerim Karaosmanoglu, “A New Islamic Individualism
in Turkey: Headscarved Women in the City,” Turkish Studies 7,
no. 3 (2006): 473–488; B. K ı l ıcbay and M. Binark, “Consumer
Culture, Islam and the Politics of Lifestyle: Fashion for Veiling in
Contemporary Turkey,” European Journal of Communication 17,
no. 4 (2002): 495–511; Bilici, “İslam’ı n Bronzlaşan Yüzü.”
56. Ozlem Sandikci and Guliz Ger, “Fundamental Fashions: The Cultural
Politics of the Turban and the Levi’s,” Advances in Consumer Research
28 (2001): 146–150.
57. Baskent Kadin Platformu. See organization’s website: www.baskent-
kadin.org/.
58. Insan Haklari ve Mazlumlarla Dayanisma Dernegi. See organiza-
tion’s website: www.Mazlumder.org.
59. Mustakil Sanayici ve Is Adamlari Dernegi. See organization’s web-
site: www.musiad.org.tr/.
60. Robert Weiss, Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of
Qualitative Interview Studies (New York: Free Press, 1994), 25.
NOTES 227
61. In targeted sampling’, a researcher maps a target population and

recruits a pre-specified number of subjects at sites identified by eth-
nographic mapping. John Watters and Patrick Biernacki, “Targeted
Sampling: Options and Considerations for the Study of Hidden
Populations,” Social Problems 36 (1989): 416–430.
62. For a discussion on different Islamic approaches on the Islamic 3ds,
see Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World.
For more on integrism of the 3ds, see Bobby Sayyid, A Fundamental
Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (London: Zed
Books, 1997); L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim
Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
63. Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in
Cultural Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987),
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of
Pollution and Taboo (New York: Praeger, 1966), Clifford Geertz, The
Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books,
1973); Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction
of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1967); John Meyer et al., “Ontology and Rationalization
in the Western Cultural Account,” in Institutional Structure:
Constituting State, Society and the Individual, ed. G. M. Thomas
et al. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987), 12–27.
64. My fieldwork, including the pilot-study, started in 2006. I have con-
ducted 40 formal in-depth interviews and complemented formal
interview data with informal interviews, focus groups, archival data,
and field observations.
65. For a comprehensive discussion on the concept and use of “New reli-
gious orthodoxies,” see Cevik and George, “Muslimism in Turkey and
New Religious Orthodoxies: Implications for Theorizing Religious
Movements in World Society,” 143–181, and George M. Thomas,
“Religions Engaging Globalization: New Religious Orthodoxies,”
paper presented at the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research
Center, Emory University, November 17, 2009.
66. Ibid. For discussions on contemporary Evangelical engagements of
modernity, see, for example, R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters:
Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997); Heather Hendershot, Shaking the World
for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2004); Hunter, Evangelicalism: The
Coming Generation.
 From Forbidden Modern to Guiltless Modernity

1. Both organization X and MAZLUM-DER are human rights associa-
tions funded and run by pious men and women. However, in con-
trast to my interviews with MAZLUMDER, which I identified as a
228 NOTES
potential site of hybridity, in our formal and informal conservations,

the previous and current top-level members of the organization-X
have clearly put forward an Islamist idiom, especially relating to key
issues such as religion and state (e.g., Islamic state is seen necessary for
establishment of a pious life), perceptions of modern political insti-
tutions, values and modern lifestyles, pluralism and freedom of life
choices (e.g., alcohol use and sale), and Islam-West relations (includ-
ing global institutions).
2. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of
Pollution and Taboo (New York: Praeger, 1966), and Pierre Bourdieu,
Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977).
3. Robert Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social
Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European
Socialism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989),
and Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in
Cultural Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
4. George M. Thomas et al., Institutional Structure: Constituting State,
Society, and the Individual (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987); John
W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez.
“World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal of Sociology
103, no. 1 (1997): 144–181.
5. My use and understanding of “cultural order” particularly parallels
Thomas’s (1989) use. He understands cultural order as a set of insti-
tutionalized identities and rules that infuse people, their actions,
and everyday life with meaning and value; they are ontologies that
constitute actor and action. See George M. Thomas, Revivalism and
Cultural Change: Christianity, Nation Building, and the Market in
the Nineteenth-Century United States (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1989).
6. Thomas, Revivalism and Cultural Change, 14.
7. Ibid.
8. For a detailed examination of this process, see Serif Mardin, Religion
and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said
Nursi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).
9. A comprehensive coverage on this can be found in ibid., and Hakan
Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003).
10. Early in the Republic, popular support for tarikats was in large
part related to the lack of formal religious education in the new
schooling system, unless one chose to specialize in religion at the
university level, see Fatma Müge Göçek, The Transformation of
Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the
Modern Era (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 25. Later, informal reli-
gious networks and establishments took on multiple other functions:
NOTES 229
for example, they provided economic support to the poor as well

as sources for upwardly mobile religious segments; assisted rural
migrants and Anatolian-origin university students in settling in the
cities by finding them jobs, residences, or dorms, while watching over
and managing their moral growth and religious performance.
11. See also, Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey.
12. For a discussion of developmentalist states in Latin America and the
urban bias commonly found in their modernizing policies, see Philip
McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2000).
13. See also Göçek, The Transformation of Turkey, and Alan Richards
and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1999).
14. Menderes Cinar, “Kemalist cumhuriyetcilik ve Islamci Kemalizm,”
in Islâmcılık, ed. Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2004), 174.
15. State monopoly on cultural and ideological production also pre-
vented the rise of non-religious ideologies that could compete
against Islamism. See Serif Mardin, Din ve ideoloji (Istanbul: Iletisim
Yay ı nlar ı, 1993).
16. Yavuz writes that “ . . . neo-liberalism in Turkey . . . and has altered
the cognitive map through which people think about society and
state.” Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31. Similarly,
Zurcher sees the neo-liberal transition and associated changes as the
starter of a new period on Turkey, and term this as “third Republic”—
following the previous period of “second republic” (1960s–1980s).
Erik Jan Zü rcher, Turkey a Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris,
2004).
17. For an overview of the late-Ottoman economic and political back-
ground (institutional arrangements and events), see Serif Mardin,
“Religion and Secularism in Turkey,” in The Modern Middle East: A
Reader, ed. Albert Hourani, Philip S. Khoury, and Mary C. Wilson
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 347–374. Also see
Zafer Toprak, Milli iktisat, milli burjuvazi (Besiktas, Istanbul: Tarih
Vakf ı Yurt Yay ı nlar ı, 1995), and Zafer Toprak, Ittihat-Terakki ve dev-
letçilik (Besiktas, Istanbul: Tarih Vakf ı Yurt Yay ı nlar ı, 1995).
18. As much as a rapture, the founders’ vision of what new country
would look like and how to build it presented continuities with the
Ottoman past, from which they wanted to detach Turks; such reforms
as separating state and religious affairs, alphabet reform, promotion
of Western styles of art and entertainment, promotion of Turkish-
nationalism, westernization, or economic statism were already started
in the late-Ottoman era or were debated by the late-Ottoman intel-
lectuals. For a discussion on such continuities see Erik-Jan Zurcher,
230 NOTES
“Ottoman Sources of Kemalist Thought,” in Late Ottoman Society:

The Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (London: Routledge
Curzon, 2005).
19. Nilufer Gole, “Authoritarian Secularism and Islamist Politics: The
Case of Turkey,” in Civil Society in the Middle East, ed. Norton
Augustus (Leiden: Brill, 1995).
20. The reforms in law, judiciary, education, governance, and state struc-
ture, included, for example, abolishment of the Caliphate, the decla-
ration of people’s sovereignty, closing of medreses, and the adoption
of laicism as a constitutional principle.
21. A broader discussion on the Directorate of Religious Affairs, its
responsibilities, and relations with the state can be found in Ismail
Kara, “Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi,” in Islâmcılık, ed. Yasin Aktay and
Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004).
22. Also see Hasan B. Kahraman, “From Culture of Politics to Politics
of Culture: Reflections on Turkish Modernity,” in Remaking Turkey:
Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracy, ed. Fuat E.
Keyman (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 60.
23. These included, but were not limited to, switching to Western calen-
dar, adaptation to Western measurement and alphabet, announcing
public call for prayer in Turkish instead of Arabic, hat reform and
dressing codes, halting pilgrimage trips and closing of shrines.
24. Secularism and nationalism also met at the crossroads of a civil
religion; the state created new public rituals, new sacred festivals,
symbols, songs and texts, and national holidays that were in direct
competition with but more integrating than the religious ones, as
they equally addressed the pious Muslims and the non-pious.
25. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, 66.
26. Sibel Bozdogan, Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish
Architectural Culture in the Early Republic (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 2001), 243.
27. Ayse Gü l Alt ı nay, The Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism,
Gender, and Education in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004), 2–25.
28. For example, “the public use of Kurdish and the teaching of Kurdish
were prohibited. Influential Kurdish landowners and tribal chiefs
were forcibly resettled in the west of the country.” See Zü rcher,
Turkey a Modern History, 170.
29. Serif, “Religion and Secularism in Turkey,” 367.
30. Also see Kahraman, “From Culture of Politics to Politics of Culture:
Reflections on Turkish Modernity,” 61.
31. For a detailed discussion of the concept, see Charles Taylor, “Modes
of Secularism,” in Secularism and Its Critics, ed. Rajeev Bhargava
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 31–53. Also, for conceptu-
alization (and critiques) of Turkish secularism as an assertive mode
NOTES 231
of secularism, see Fuat Keyman, “Assertive Secularism in Crises:

Modernity, Democracy and Islam in Turkey,” in Comparative
Secularisms in a Global Age, ed. Linell Cady and Elizabeth Shakman
Hurd (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Ahmet Kuru,
“Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological
Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion,” World Politics: A
Quarterly Journal of International Relations 59, no. 4 (2007):
568–594.
32. Reported by Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. Hall ı identi-
fies 18 such revolts from Resat Hall ı, Türkiye Cumhuriyetinde ayak-
lanmalar (1924–1938) (Ankara: T.C. Genelkurmay Baskanl ıg ı Harp
Tarihi Dairesi, 1972).
33. See for a broader discussion Mardin, Religion and Social Change in
Modern Turkey and Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey.
34. Mardin, “Religion and Secularism in Turkey,” 367–371.
35. Also see Sencer Ayata, “Patronage, Party, and State: The Politicization
of Islam in Turkey,” The Middle East Journal 50, no. 1 (1996): 40,
and Ibid.
36. The successful expansion of traditional religious establishments was
also related to the lack of religious education in official educational
system, and to the new regime’s failure in generating a narrative that
could respond to spiritual and moral needs of the people—despite
the regime’s attempts to promote a “civic religion” with its own
“blessed” and integrating values/spaces/ or texts.
37. There were two previous attempts to establish a multi-party system;
opening up of the Liberal Republican Party (1930), and the National
Development Party (1945). Both attempts were reversed by the RPP,
however, as each attempt for participatory politics ended up mobiliz-
ing people around religious issues and turning the populace against
the Republican People’s Party, thus jeopardizing the statist frame
and its ideological pillars. See Göçek, The Transformation of Turkey.
38. As opposed to the RPP’s urban bias, the DP paid attention to the
farmers’ needs; it provided cheap credits to farmers, maintained the
high prices for agricultural products, and opened up access to the
villages by constructing hard-surfaced roads, thus connecting cities
to villages economically and physically. For more information on the
DP’ rural policies, see; Zü rcher, Turkey a Modern History.
39. The party allowed the public call for prayer to be read in Arabic
again, put religious classes in high-schools, opened Ankara University
Theology Faculty, and allowed reopening of some shrines/tombs;
there was also an overall increase in the number of mosques and
Quran courses. To secure its position against the DP’s quick suc-
cess, the RPP also displayed a renewed sympathy for religious free-
doms. It established Preachers training centers (Imam-Hatip), put
religious classes in primary schools, and allowed a limited number of
232 NOTES
Muslims to make pilgrimage. For extension of religious freedoms in

this period see; Birol Akgun and Yusuf Tekin, “Islamcilar-demokrasi
iliskisinin tarihi seyri,” in Islâmcılık, ed. Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge
(Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004), 654.
40. See for a more detailed discussion Zü rcher, Turkey a Modern
History.
41. Details on how the coup and 1961 constitution empowered the mili-
tary over the civilians and electoral politics, and expanded its prestige
as well as duties can be found in Ergun Özbudun, Contemporary
Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000) and Zerrin Kurtoglu, “Turkiye’de
Islamcilik dusuncesi ve siyaset,” in Islâmcılık, ed. Yası n Aktay and
Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004).
42. For example, Demirel alienated Anatolian landowners and small
traders and artisans over his proposal for new taxation to stimulate
industrialization, Zü rcher, Turkey a Modern History, 265.
43. Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading
East? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
44. Yasar’s analysis of the transformation of Gumushanevi Dergahi into
Iskender Pasa Cemaati is an illuminating example to understand how
religious orders have adapted to new ways of organizing and insti-
tutional arrangements. Yasar Emin, “Dergah’tan partiye, vakiftan
sirkete bir kimligin olusumu ve donusumu: Iskenderpasa Cemaati,”
in Islâmcılık, ed. Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2004).
45. Rusen Cakir, “Milli Gorus Hareketi,” in Islamcilik, ed. Yası n Aktay
and Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004).
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Examples of Erbakan’s narrative that identified religiosity with parti-
sanship can be found in Ahmet Yildiz, “Politico-Religious Discourse
of Political Islam in Turkey: The Parties of National Outlook,” The
Muslim World 93, no. 2 (2003): 187–209 (endnotes 18–22, and
28) and p. 193.
49. Ibid.
50. Özbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics, 39.
51. Ahmet Cigdem, “Islamcilik ve Turkiye uzerine bazi notlar,” in
Islâmcılık, ed. Yasin Aktay and Murat Belge (Cagaloglu, Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2004).
52. Cemal Karakas, Turkey: Islam and Laicism between the Interests
of State, Politics, and Society (Frankfurt am Main: Peace Research
Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), 2007),14.
53. Ahmet Yildiz, “Politico-Religious Discourse of Political Islam in
Turkey,” 191.
54. I agree with Yavuz’s argument that Islamism, which emerged as a
reaction against the state’s cultural policies, in time, has become an
NOTES 233
economic opposition as well; this, however, does not cancel out the
possibility, or the fact, that Islamism has also been a cultural oppo-
sition. Hakan Yavuz, “Milli Gorus Hareketi: muhalif ve modernist
gelenek,” in Islamcilik, ed. Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge (Cagaloglu,
Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004).
55. For more on civil groups’ increasing shift from ideology to issue-ori-
entation in the post-1980s, and the positive significance of this shift
for democratization, see, Nilüfer Göle, Islam ve modernlik üzerine
melez desenler (Beyoglu, Istanbul: Metis, 2011) and Nilüfer Göle,
“Towards Autonomization of Civil Society,” in Politics in the Third
Turkish Republic, ed. Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1994).
56. Binnaz Toprak, “Civil Society in Turkey,” in Civil Society in the
Middle East, ed. Augustus Norton (Leiden: Brill, 1996).
57. Ibid., 95.
58. İ hsan D. Daği, “Human Rights and Democratization: Human Rights
in the European Context,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies
6, no. 5 (2001): 51–68.
59. Caglar Keyder, “The Turkish Bell Jar,” New Left Review 28 (2004):
65–84.
60. For economic and cultural characteristics of this new bourgeoisie,
see also Ziya Onis, “The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in
Turkey: The Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective,” Third World
Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1997): 743–766, and Ayse Bugra, “Articles—
Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation
by Two Turkish Business Associations,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies 30, no. 4 (1998): 521. Discussions on the links
between this new entrepreneurial group and globalization of pro-
duction can be found in Umit, Cizre-Sakallioglu and Erinç Yeldan,
“Politics, Society and Financial Liberalization: Turkey in the 1990s,”
Development and Change 31, no. 2 (2000): 481–508.
61. Bugra, “Articles,” 521–539.
62. Toprak, “Civil Society in Turkey,” 95.
63. Ali Karaosmanoglu, “The Limits of International Influence for
Democratization,” in Politics in the Third Turkish Republic, ed.
Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994),
130.
64. Martin van Bruinessen, “Kurds, Turks and the Alevi Revival in
Turkey,” Middle East Report 200 (1996): 7–10.
65. For more details on Özal leadership’s ethnic and foreign policy,
see, Berdal Aral, “Dispensing with Tradition? Turkish Politics
and International Society during the Özal Decade, 1983–93,”
Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 1 (2001): 72–88, and Muhittin
Ataman, “Özal Leadership and Restructuring of Turkish Ethnic
Policy in the 1980s,” Middle Eastern Studies 38, no. 4 (2002):
123–142.
234 NOTES
66. For a broader argument on the EU’s role in Turkish political reforms,
see Daği, “Human Rights and Democratization,” 51–68.
67. This was part of an effort to eliminate the legal basis for “thought
crimes,” which aimed to show the European Community Turkey’s
commitment to democratiztaion. See Ibid.
68. Banu Elig ü r, The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 131.
69. See for this approach, Cory Blad and Banu Kocer, “Political Islam
and State Legitimacy in Turkey: The Role of National Culture in
Neoliberal State-Building,” International Political Sociology 6, no. 1
(2012): 36–56.
70. Kuran conceptualizes this as “the Islamic sub-economies” referring
to Islamic enterprises that collectively form an Islamic sub-economy
within the broader economics of the country. See, Timur Kuran,
“Islamic Economics and the Islamic Subeconomy,” The Journal of
Economic Perspectives 9, no. 4 (1995): 155–173.
71. See also Sennur Ozdemir, MUSIAD: Anadolu Sermayesinin
Dönüşümü ve Türk Modernlesmesinin Derinlesmesi (Ankara: Vadi,
2006).
72. For example, Banu Gökariksel and Anna J. Secor, “New Transnational
Geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: The Veiling-
Fashion Industry in Turkey,” Area 41, no. 1 (2009): 6–18; Ozlem
Sandikci and Guliz Ger, “Veiling in Style: How Does a Stigmatized
Practice Become Fashionable?” Journal of Consumer Research 37,
no. 1 (2010): 15–36; Mucahit Bilici, “Islamin Bronzlasan yuzu:
Caprice Hotel ornek olayi,” in Islamin Yeni Kamusal Yuzleri, ed.
Nilufer Gole (Istanbul: Metis, 2000).
73. For this approach, see Kuran, “Islamic Economics and the Islamic
Subeconomy.”
74. See also Ozdemir, MUSIAD and Emin Baki Adas, “The Making of
Entrepreneurial Islam and the Islamic Spirit of Capitalism,” Journal
for Cultural Research 10, no. 2 (2006): 113–137 for a discussion on
how new Muslim engagements of modern economy differs from and
challanges both Islamist and traditional Muslim accounts.
75. For example, Yalçı n Akdogan, AK Parti ve muhafazakâr demokrasi
(Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Alfa, 2004).
76. For example, Gareth Jenkins, “Muslim Democrats in Turkey?”
Survival 45, no. 1 (2005): 45–66.
77. İ hsan D. Daği, Kimlik, söylem ve siyaset: Dogu-Batı ayrımında Refah
Partisi gelenegi (K ızı lay, Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 1998).
78. For details on the February 28 process and measures, see Hakan
Yavuz, “Intricacies of Identity: Cleansing Islam from the Public
Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs 54, no. 1 (2000): 21.
79. Ersel Ayd ı nl ı, “Civil-Military Relations Transformed,” Journal of
Democracy 23, no. 1 (2012): 100–108.
NOTES 235
80. For this line of interpretation, see for instance, İ hsan D. Daği,
“The Justice and Development Party: Identity, Politics and Human
Rights Discourse in the Search for Security and Legitimacy,” in The
Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy and the AK parti, ed.
Hakan Yavuz (Utah: University of Utah Press, 2006); Ahmet Kuru,
“Globalization and Diversification of Islamic Movements: Three
Turkish Cases,” Political Science Quarterly 120, no. 2 (2005): 253–
274; İ hsan D. Daği, “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and
the West: Post-Islamist Intellectuals in Turkey,” Critique: Critical
Middle Eastern Studies 13 (2004): 135–151; İ hsan D. Daği, “Turkey’s
Akp in Power,” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 3 (2008): 25–30;
Soner Cagaptay, “The November 2002 Elections and Turkey’s New
Political Era‚” Middle East Review of International Affairs 6, no. 4
(2002): 42–48. Ziya Onis, “Political Islam at the Crossroads: From
Hegemony to Co-existence,” Comparative Politics 7, no. 4 (2001):
281–298.
81. Daği, “Turkey’s Akp in Power,” 25–30.
82. Daği, “The Justice and Development Party.”
83. For more information on the JDP policies toward non-Muslim
minorities, see Bayram A. Soner, “The Justice and Development
Party’s Policies towards Non-Muslim Minorities in Turkey,” Journal
of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 12, no. 1 (2010): 23–40.
84. Bayram A. Soner and Sule Toktaş, “Alevis and Alevism in the
Changing Context of Turkish Politics: The Justice and Development
Party’s Alevi Opening,” Turkish Studies 12, no. 3 (2011): 419–434.
85. Ibid.
86. A discussion on how different factions within Alevi groups, namely
traditionalist-religious Alevi wing than the modernist-secularist,
responds to JDP’s “Alevi opening” can be found at Soner and Toktaş,
“Alevis and Alevism in the Changing Context of Turkish Politics,”
419–434.
87. See for example, Morton Abramowitz, “Turkey’s Judicial Coup
D’etat,” Newsweek (April 5, 2008).
88. Details for each amendment can be found at Serap Yazici, “UPDATE:
A Guide to Turkish Public Law and Legal Research,” Globalex (2011).
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/turkey1.htm.
89. For an analysis of the changing intellectual, geographical, and stra-
tegic parameters of Turkish foreign policy under the JDP policy, see
Mehmet Ozkan, “Turkey’s New Engagements in Africa and Asia:
Scope, Content and Implications,” Perceptions XVI, no. 3 (2011):
115–138.
90. Burhanettin Duran, “Justice and Development Party’s ‘New Politics’:
Steering toward Conservative Democracy, a Revised Islamic Agenda
or Management of New Crises?” in Secular and Islamic Politics in
Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party, ed. Umit
Cizre Sakallioglu (London: Routledge, 2008), 80–107.
236 NOTES
 Muslimism versus Islamism: On the Triad of Politics,

Religion, and Everyday Life
1. Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions,
Uncommon Answers (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 16;
Mohammed Arkoun, “Locating Civil Society in Islamic Contexts,”
in Civil Society in the Muslim World: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. A.
Sajoo (New York: Martin’s Press, 2000), 43; Carl L. Brown, Religion
and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia
2. For a discussion on the use of informal units in case studies, see
John Gerring, “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good For?”
American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (2004): 341–354. An
informal or peripheral unit can be defined as an “adjacent unit that
may be brought into the analysis in a less structured way. Recall
that because a case study refers to a set of units broader than the
one immediately under study, a writer must have some knowledge
of these additional units (a) to choose a unit for special treatment
and (b) identify plausible causal hypothesis. Case studies are not
immaculately conceived; additional units always loom back in the
background” (344).
3. Arkoun, “Locating Civil Society in Islamic Contexts,” 44.
4. For this view, see Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics
in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991); Mohammed Ayoob,
The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim
World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008); Robert
W. Hefner, “Public Islam and the Problem of Democratization,”
Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology 2 (2003): 166–190. For this
approach in contemporary Islamic thought, see Abd Allah Ahmad
An-Naʻim, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of
Shariʻa (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), and Abd
Allah Ahmad An-Naʻim, “Shari’a in the Secular State: A Paradox of
Separation and Conflation,” in The Law Applied Contextualizing the
Islamic Shari’a, ed. Peri Bearman, Wolfhart Heinrichs, and Bernard
G. Weiss (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008).
5. Ayubi, Political Islam, 63.
6. Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in
Cultural Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987);
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger; an Analysis of Concepts of
Pollution and Taboo (New York: Praeger, 1966); Clifford Geertz,
The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic
Books, 1973); Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social
Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
(Garden City, NY: Penguin, 1967). Indeed, some in macro, global
sociology have specifically used ontology in this manner. See, John
NOTES 237
W. Meyer, John Boli, and George M. Thomas, “Ontology and

Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account,” in Institutional
Structure: Constituting State, Society and the Individual, ed. G. M.
Thomas, J. W. Meyer, F. O. Ramirez, and J. Boli (Newbury Park,
CA: Sage, 1987), 12–27.
7. This should not be confused with the issue of “selection on the
dependent variable”—that is, choosing cases because of their perfor-
mance on outcome of interest, or “selecting only cases with the same
value on the dependent variable.” What we find in such sites inferen-
tially might be either strategic or liberal Muslim adaptations to mar-
kets and the secular political system. We can assess this only through
entering into these sites. For a detailed discussion on this issue see
Berins Collier, James Mahoney, and Jason Seawright, “Claiming Too
Much: Warnings about Selection Bias,” in Rethinking Social Inquiry:
Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, ed. Henry Brady and David Collier
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
8. The idea here is not that we would expect every single individual in
the sites of hybridity to be Muslimist, but that Muslimist discourse
should predominate. In fact, among all interviews only two displayed
Islamic tendencies on some issues. These are males, Niyazi, a JDP
congressman, and Tuna, a businessman from MUSIAD. This is not
surprising given that the declining power of Islamist parties and
organizations might attract Islamist actors, especially political actors
who are seeking new outlets in terms of security and endurance, to
relocate under the roof of Muslimist institutions.
9. Many themes are included in this interview questionnaire, including
perceptions of secularism and religion, political values, the West and
the East, modernity, consumption, individualism and egalitarianism,
children and education, belonging and identity, practical and sym-
bolic values of religion (such as veiling, praying, fasting, and alcohol
consumption), leisure activities and everyday life, wealth and compe-
tition, state and civil society, projections about future, popular cul-
ture and media, public debates, and so on.
10. This is because compared to ordinary members, leaders have more,
easier, and quicker access to organizational sources from access
to information to material resources. Furthermore, organizations
cannot be viewed as a homogenous sum due to the natural variance
among members in terms of ideology, devotion, aims, and interests.
Leaders can provide us at least the general view and the dominant
identity of a given organization. In other words, in comparison to
ordinary members, leaders are more likely to provide a narrative
that can cut through the existing variances horizontally and reveal
a more representative picture of the organization’s identity, aims,
and interests. For example, the likelihood of a Muslimist organi-
zation having an Islamist leader will be lower than the likelihood
238 NOTES
of the same organization having members marked by Islamist

tendencies.
11. The formal empirical work included 36 in-depth interviews comple-
mented further by 2 focus-group meetings (each composed of 10
participants), documentary data (e.g., yearly/monthly publications),
and ethnographic observations. For discussions about the advantages
of qualitative research and small-N studies for achieving a depth of
knowledge as held by a set of individuals and the contingencies that
play upon them—especially in examination of a newly emerging phe-
nomena, Muslimism, also marked by tension and ongoing negotia-
tions and changes—see Gerring, “What Is a Case Study and What
Is It Good For?” and Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case
Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2005).
12. In “targeted sampling,” a researcher maps a target population and
recruits a pre-specified number of subjects at sites identified by eth-
nographic mapping. John Watters and Patrick Biernacki, “Targeted
Sampling: Options and Considerations for the Study of Hidden
Populations,” Social Problems 36 (1989): 416–430.
13. Robert Weiss, Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of
Qualitative Interview Studies (New York: Free Press, 1994), 25.
14. For a similar observation, see Bahattin Aksit, Ayse Serdar, and Bahar
Tabakoglu, “Islami Egilimli Sivil Toplum Kuruluslar ı,” in Modern
Türkiye’de Siyasi Dusunce: Islamcılık, ed. Y. Aktay (Istanbul: Iletisim
Yay ı nlar ı, 2004), 664–681.
15. For studies that have differentiated the JDP from Islamist parties,
pointing to the new style of Islamic politics that it has articulated,
see especially, Hakan Yavuz, The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam,
Democracy and the AK Party (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 2006), and also William Hale and Ergun Ozbudun, Islamism,
Democracy, and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP (London:
Routledge, 2010). For an empirical examination of MUSIAD, its
discourse, and its identity, see Sennur Özdemir, MUSIAD: Anadolu
Sermayesinin Dönüsümü ve Türk Modernlesmesinin Derinlesmesi
(Ankara: Vadi, 2006), and F. Keyman and B. Koyuncu Globalization,
“Alternative Modernities and the Political Economy of Turkey,”
Review of International Political Economy 12, no. 1 (2005): 105–
128. Finally, for works that have separated MAZLUM-Der and the
Capital Women’s Platform Association from Islamist ideology and
civil organizations, see Jenny White, “The End of Islamism? Turkey’s
Muslimhood Model,” in Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism,
Contestation, Democratization, ed. Robert Hefner (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2004); Ayse Kadioglu, “Civil Society,
Islam and Democracy in Turkey: A Study of Three Islamic Non-
Governmental Organizations,” The Muslim World, 95, no. 1 (2005):
NOTES 239
23–41; Gottfired Plagemann, “Tü rkiye’de İ nsan Haklar ı Örg ütleri:

Farkl ı Kü ltü rel Çevreler,” in Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik,
ed. Stefanos Yerasimos, Gunter Seufert, and Nuray Mert (Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2003), 371; Barbara Pusch, “Turkiye’de Islamci ve Sunni-
Muhafazakar Kadin Sivil Toplum. Kuruluslarinin Yukselisi,” in
Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik, ed. Stefanos Yerasimos,
Gunter Seufert, and Nuray Mert (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2003).
16. Also see Özdemir, MÜSIAD.
17. Karen Vorhoff, “Tü rkiye’de Isadam ı Dernekleri: Islevsel dayan ısma,
Kü ltü rel Farkl ı l ı k Ve devlet Arası nda,” in Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve
Milliyetçilik, ed. Stefanos Yerasimos, Gunter Seufert, and Nuray Mert
(Istanbul: Iletisim, 2003), 326.
18. Plagemann, “Tü rkiye’de İ nsan Haklar ı Örg ütleri: Farkl ı Kü lt ü rel
Çevreler,” 371.
19. Bora Kanra, Islam, Democracy and Dialogue in Turkey: Deliberating
in Divided Societies (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), http://public.eblib.
com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=476377.
20. Ibid.
21. Adem Çaylak, “Autocratic or Democratic? A Critical Approach to
Civil Society Movements in Turkey,” Journal of Economic and Social
Research 10, no. 1 (2008): 115–151 (132).
22. Neil Hicks, “Does Islamist Human Rights Activism Offer a Remedy
to the Crisis of Human Rights Implementation in the Middle East?”
Human Rights Quarterly 24 (2002): 378.
23. http://www.baskentkadin.org.
24. Despite the fact that political Islamism takes different forms in dif-
ferent social, political, and economic contexts—which makes it chal-
lenging to reach a general definition for it—scholars agree that it
“implies a conscious, determined choice of an Islamic doctrine,
rather than the simple fact of being born a Muslim, or even being a
pious practicing one” (Ayubi, Political Islam, 68). It promotes holis-
tically Islamic societies, in which different aspects of the society are
shaped along Islamic lines, including political order and the state.
Nilüfer Göle, Melez Desenler: Islam ve Modernik Uzerine (Istanbul:
Metis, 2000) and John Calvert, Islamism: A Documentary and
Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008). Islamism,
in fact, is primarily political. “It is a form of instrumentalization of
Islam by individuals, groups, and organizations that pursue political
objectives. It provides political responses to today’s social challenges
by imagining a future fundamentals for which rest on reappropri-
ated, reinvented concepts borrowed from the Islamic tradition”;
see Guilain Denoeux, “The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political
Islam,” Middle East Policy 9, no. 2 (2002): 56–81 (61). Taking the
Quran as the source of political, legal, and social systems, Islamism
challenges assimilative forces of modernism and westernization.
240 NOTES
Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1998). The claim for a return to past, the Golden
Ages of Islam, lies at the heart of the interpretation of Islam; see John
Esposito, Islamic Threat: The Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), and Patricia Crone, God’s Rule: Government
and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
25. For other studies providing us with a general understanding
of Islamist orientations toward the three ds, see Ellis Goldberg,
“Smashing Idols and the State: The Protestant Ethic and Egyptian
Sunni Radicalism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History
33, no. 1 (1991): 3–35; Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism,
Nationalism, and Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005); Graham E. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (New
York: Palgrave, 2003); Mehdi Mozaffari, “What Is Islamism? History
and Definition of a Concept,” Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions 8, no. 1 (2007): 17–33.
26. I am omitting the names of these organizations for reason of
confidentiality.
27. In drawing out the Islamist design of the three ds, I especially benefit
from Bayramoglu’s empirical study (2007) composed of 40 in-depth
and 50 thematic interviews carried out in 8 cities in Turkey. Based on
inferential data, he identifies four types of religious discourse on the
axis of secularism and religion: hard-core laic wing, moderate laic-
wing, moderate Islamic wing, and hard-core Islamic wing. The latest
category is consistent with I term “political Islamism” in the current
book. Ali Bayramoglu, Algılar ve zihniyet yapıları: dindarlık-laiklik
ekseni: “çagdaslık hurafe kaldırmaz:” demokratiklesme sürecinde din-
dar ve laikler (Karaköy, Istanbul: TESEV, 2006).
28. Following the 1997 intervention, dubbed a post-modern coup, the
army declared a series of harsh restrictions on religious actors aiming
to undermine Islamic political rise and public mobilization. These
restrictions included the closure of the Welfare Party and the Imam-
Hatip secondary schools, illegalizing teaching the Qur’an to children
under the age of 12, discharging state and military officers and fac-
ulty known with their Islamic-sensitivities, and exerting strict control
on veiling in public universities and schools, and, more broadly, on
Islamic civil and economic organizations and newspapers.
29. Reported from Bayramoglu’s interviews. Bayramoglu, Algılar ve zih-
niyet yapıları, 92.
30. Ibid., 91–92.
31. Ibid., 92.
32. See note 19.
33. Ahmet Tasgetiren, “Kapris’ ten Cecenistan Gorunuyor mu?,”
Yenisafak (August 16, 1996).
NOTES 241
 Muslimist Religious Temperaments

1. Sura Fatiha is the first or opening sura of the Quran.
2. For more on sources of identity in modernity, see Charles Taylor,
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
3. See the school’s official website: http://www.hayatkoleji.com/
kurumsal.aspx (accessed April 12, 2013).
4. The Hayat College’s character program is comparable to the “charac-
ter-education movement” in the US, which was highly popular in the
mid-1980s. For example, in 1984, some public schools in Baltimore
County, Maryland, agreed to teach some common core values, which
included compassion, integrity, honesty, responsibility, and self-re-
spect—values Muslimists also see as core to children’s education. See
James D. Hunter, The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age
without Good or Evil (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 208.
5. K AOS GL (Chaos Gays and Lesbians) was founded in 1994 and
became a legally registered non-governmental organization (NGO)
in October 2005.
 Muslimist Cultural Orientations and Everyday Life

1. Joshua Gardner, “‘She’ll Blow Your Brains Out’: Muslim Girl Greeting
Card Parodies Talking Arab Doll with Terrorist Bomb Jokes,” Mail
Online (May 4, 2013), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-
2319457/Aamina-muslim-doll-Greeting-card-company-uses-toy-
basis-parodies.html (accessed July 27, 2013).
2. Further on this point see, Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion
and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991); Mansoor
Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Ibrahim Kaya, Social
Theory and Later Modernities: The Turkish Experience (Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 2004).
3. For a more detailed discussion see, Azīz Al-A ẓmah, Islams and
Modernities (London: Verso, 1993). Also see, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt,
Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin
Dimension of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999).
4. For a similar argument also see, Sennur Özdemir, MÜSIAD: Anadolu
Sermayesinin Dönüşümü ve Türk Modernle şmesinin Derinlesmesi
(K ızı lay, Ankara: Vadi Yay ı nlar ı, 2006); Sennur Özdemir, “Islami
Sermaye ve sinif: Turkiye/Konya MUSIAD ornegi,” Calisma
Iliskileri Dergisi 1, no. 1 (2010): 37–57.
5. Özdemir, MÜSIAD, 131.
6. Ibid., 171.
242 NOTES
7. Neslihan Cevik and Thomas George, “Muslimism in Turkey and

New Religious Orthodoxies: Implications for Theorizing Religious
Movements in World Society,” Ortadoğu Etütleri 3, no. 2 (January
2012): 143–181, 169.
8. John Meyer, John Boli, George Thomas, and Francisco Ramirez,
“World Society and the Nation-State,” The American Journal of
Sociology 103 (1997): 144–181.
9. Eco-Friendly Couture by Rabia Yalcin at Prestigious New York
Fashion Event, http://www.usafashionshows.com/press/rabiayal-
cin2.htm.
10. Reported in Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, “She Dresses Like This,”
Chicago Tribune News (March 9, 2007), http://articles.chicagotri-
bune.com/20070309/news/0703090141_1_dress-turkish-gown
(accessed July 25, 2013).
11. usafashions.com, http://www.rabiayalcin.com/web/en.asp (accessed
July 25, 2013).
12. More on this process, see Frank Peter, “Individualization and
Religious Authority in Western European Islam,” Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations 17, no. 1 (2006): 105–118; Jocelyn
Cesari, “Muslim Minorities in Europe and Silent Revolution,” in
Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in the Middle East
and Europe, ed. Francois Burgat and John Esposito (New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003).
13. This question was further explored by the follow-up question of:
“Would you allow your daughter to live apart from you before her
getting married?”
14. Mustafa Ozel, “Gercek Degisim FFB (Fenomene Farkli Bakis)
Gerektirir!,” Cerceve 14, no. 39 (2006): 90–94, 90.
15. For a broader discussion on traditionalism, see Samuel Eisenstadt,
“Post-Traditional Societies and the Continuity and Reconstruction
of Tradition,” Daedalus 102, no. 1: 1–27; William A. Graham,
“Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,” The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 3 (Winter, 1993): 495–522.
16. Ibrahim Ozturk, “Samuray, mi Koroglu mu? Yenilikcilige Romantik
Bir Bakis,” Cerceve 14, no. 39 (2006): 105–108, 107.
17. For an example of current secularist stigmatization and the margin-
alization of Muslim women’s engagements with modernity, see Ayse
Arman (2009), where she, upon swimming with the hashema for
a test-drive, wrote a column-piece titled “The Hashema, the Name
of Torture” (translation mine). “Zulumun Adi Hasema,” Hurriyet
(July 13, 2009), http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/12057466.
asp (accessed September 15, 2013).
18. http://www.hikem.net/basinaciklamaeng.pdf (accessed September
23, 2013).
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
NOTES 243
21. Ibid.
22. For an example that finds the project to be heretical, in fact accusing
it to be an imposition of the West, the EU and the US, and Zionism,
see “Diyanetin Hadis Projesi mi Yoksa AB’nin ve VE ABD’nin İslam
Mudahele Sureci mi?” Vahdet Haber (March 2, 2013), http://www.
vahdethaber.com/popup/haber-yazdir.asp?haber=14326 (accessed
July 16, 2013).
 Muslimist Political Ethos

1. George Thomas, “Religious Movements: World Civil Society and
Social Theory,” The Hedgehog Review 4, no. 2 (2002): 50–65.
2. Ibid.
3. Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change
and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2011).
4. Sinem Gurbey, “Islam, Nation-State and the Military: A Discussion
of Secularism in Turkey,” in Secular State and Religious Society:
Two Forces in Play in Turkey, ed. Berna Turam (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011), 48.
5. Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic, 162.
6. Few, on the other hand, refrained from making a hierarchy, saying
that violations of religious rights and other common human rights
violations in Turkey had equal weight.
7. John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O.
Ramirez, “World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal
of Sociology 103, no. 1 (1997): 153.
8. John Boli and George M. Thomas, “INGOs and the Organization of
World Culture,” in Constructing World Culture: International Non-
governmental Organizations since 1875, ed. John Boli and George
Thomas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
9. For a broader discussion on civil agency and public diplomacy in the
global arena, see: Teresa La Porte, “The Legitimacy and Effectiveness
of Non-State Actors and the Public Diplomacy Concept,” paper, ISA
Annual Convention, San Diego, California (April 1–4, 2012).
Conclusion: Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond

1. For a critique of Muslimism along these lines, see Halil Ibrahim
Yenigun, “Turkish Islamism in the Post-Gezi Park Era,” The American
Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 31, no. 1 (2014): 140–154.
2. Ibid., 150.
3. Mensur Akg ü n, Sabiha Seny ücel Gü ndogar, Jonathan Levack, and
Gokce Percinoglu, The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East 2013.
TESEV Foreign Policy Programme (Istanbul: TESEV, 2010).
244 NOTES
4. Mensur Akg ü n and Sabiha Seny ücel Gü ndogar, The Perception of

Turkey in the Middle East 2013: Key Findings. TESEV Foreign Policy
Programme (Istanbul: TESEV, 2013).
5. Pew Research Center, “Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal
Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life” (2012), http://www.pew-
global.org/2012/07/10/most-muslims-want-democracy-personal-
freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/.
6. Ibid., 170.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Neslihan Cevik and George Thomas, “Muslimism in Turkey and
New Religious Orthodoxies,” Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (2012):
143–181.
10. Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and
Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2008).
11. Rachel Rinaldo, Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
12. Dietrich Jung and Marie Juul Petersen, “We Think That This Job
Pleases Allah: Islamic Charity, Social Order, and the Construction
of Modern Muslim Selfhoods in Jordan,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies 46 (2014): 285–306.
13. Ibid.
14. For this approach see Sana Saeed, “Somewhere in America, Muslim
Women Are ‘Cool’,” The Islamic Monthly (December 2013), http://
theislamicmonthly.com/somewhere-in-america-muslim-women-are-
cool/ (accessed August 14, 2014).
15. http://mipsterzinamerica.com/muslim-hipsters/.
16. Janna Michael, “It’s Really Not Hip to Be a Hipster: Negotiating
Trends and Authenticity in the Cultural Field,” Journal of Consumer
Culture doi:10.1177/1469540513493206 (2013).
17. Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson, American Evangelicalism:
Embattled and Thriving (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1998).
18. Ibid.
19. Carl Henry, “Making Political Choices: An Evangelical Perspective,”
in Piety and Politics: Evangelicals and Fundamentalists Confront
the World, ed. Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Cromartie
(Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987), 101.
20. James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Bibl io gr a ph y
Abramowitz, Morton. “Turkey’s Judicial Coup D’etat,” Newsweek, April

2008.
Adas, Emin Baki. “The Making of Entrepreneurial Islam and the Islamic
Spirit of Capitalism.” Journal for Cultural Research 10, no. 2 (2006):
113–137.
Adelkhah, Fariba. Being Modern in Iran. New York: Columbia University
Press in association with the Centre d’études et de recherches internation-
als, 2000.
Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S. “She Dresses Like This,” Chicago Tribune
News, March 9, 2007, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/20070309/
news/0703090141_1_dress-turkish-gown (accessed July 25, 2013).
Akdogan, Yalçı n. AK Parti ve muhafazakâr demokrasi. Cagaloglu, Istanbul:
Alfa, 2004.
Akgun, Birol and Yusuf Tekin. “Islamcilar-demokrasi iliskisinin tarihi
seyri.” In Islâmcılık. Edited by Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu,
Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004.
Akg ü n, Mensur, Sabiha Seny ücel Gü ndogar, Jonathan Levack, and Gokce
Percinoglu, The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East 2013. TESEV
Foreign Policy Programme. Istanbul: TESEV, 2010.
Akg ü n, Mensur and Sabiha Seny ücel Gü ndogar. The Perception of Turkey in
the Middle East 2013: Key Findings. TESEV Foreign Policy Programme.
Istanbul: TESEV, 2013.
Aksit, Bahattin, Ayse Serdar, and Bahar Tabakoglu, “Islami Egilimli Sivil
Toplum Kuruluslar ı.” In Islamcılık. Edited by Yasin Aktay and Murat
Belge, 664–681. Istanbul: Iletisim Yay ı nlar ı, 2004.
Alt ı nay, Ayse Gü l. The Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender, and
Education in Turkey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Al-A ẓmah, Azīz. Islams and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993.
Anderson, Lisa. “The State in the Middle East and North Africa.”
Comparative Politics 201 (1987): 1–33.
An-Na‘im, Abd Allah Ahmad. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the
Future of Shariʻa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
———. “Shari’a in the Secular State: A Paradox of Separation and confla-
tion.” In The Law Applied Contextualizing the Islamic Shari’a. Edited
by Peri Bearman, Wolfhart Heinrichs, and Bernard G. Weiss, 321–342.
London: I.B. Tauris, 2008.
246 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aral, Berdal. “Dispensing with Tradition? Turkish Politics and International

Society during the Özal Decade, 1983–93.” Middle Eastern Studies 37,
no. 1 (2001): 72–88.
Arkoun, Mohammed. Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon
Answers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
———. “Locating Civil Society in Islamic Contexts.” In Civil Society in the
Muslim World: Contemporary Perspectives. Edited by Amyn Sajoo, 35–60.
New York: Martin’s Press, 2000.
Arman, Ayse. “What Is Worn at Home Is Offside for Outside” (translation
mine). “Evdeki Kiyafet Disarda Ofsayt,” Hurriyet, July 15, 2009.
———. “The Hashema, the Name of Torture” (translation mine). “Zulumun
Adi Hasema,” Hurriyet, July 2009.
Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Ayd ı nl ı, Ersel. “Civil-Military Relations Transformed.” Journal of Democracy
23, no. 1 (2012): 100–108.
Ataman, Muhittin. “Özal Leadership and Restructuring of Turkish
Ethnic Policy in the 1980s.” Middle Eastern Studies 38, no. 4 (2002):
123–142.
Ayoob, Mohammed. The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics
in the Muslim World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008.
Ayubi, Nazih. Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World.
London: Routledge, 1991.
Bayat, Asef. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist
Turn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Bayramoglu, Ali. Algılar ve zihniyet yapıları: dindarlık-laiklik ekseni:
“çagdaslık hurafe kaldırmaz:” demokratiklesme sürecinde dindar ve lai-
kler. Karaköy, Istanbul: TESEV, 2006.
Bein, Amit. Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and
Guardians of Tradition. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1990 [1967].
———. “The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview.” In The
Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics.
Edited by Peter Berger, 1–18. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy
Center, 2006.
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality:
A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Penguin,
1967.
Beyer, Peter. “Privatization and Public Influence of Religion in Global
Society.” In Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity.
Edited by Mike Feathersone, 373–391. London: Sage, 1990.
Bilici, Mucahit. “İslam’ı n Bronzlaşan Yüzü: Caprice Hotel Örnek Olayi.” In
İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri: İslam ve Kamusal Alan Üzerine Bir Atölye
Çalışması. Edited by Nilufer Gole, 216–236. Istanbul: Metis Yayinlari,
2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 247
Blad, Cory and Banu Kocer. “Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey:
The Role of National Culture in Neoliberal State-Building.” International
Political Sociology 6 (2012): 36–56.
Boli, John and David Brewington. “Religious Organizations.” In Religion,
Globalization, and Culture. Edited by Peter Beyer and Lori Beaman,
203–233, vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Boli, John and George M. Thomas. “INGOs and the Organization of
World Culture.” In Constructing World Culture: International Non-
governmental Organizations since 1875. Edited by John Boli and George
Thomas, 13–49. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1977.
Bozdogan, Sibel. Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural
Culture in the Early Republic. Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2001.
Bromley, Simon. Rethinking Middle East Politics: State Formation and
Development. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1994.
Brown, Carl. Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000.
Bruinessen, Martin van. “Kurds, Turks and the Alevi Revival in Turkey.”
Middle East Report 26, no. 3 (1996): 7–10.
Brunger, Daniel. “Is Iran democratizing? A Comparativist Perspective.” In
Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (A Journal of Democracy Book).
Edited by Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg,
145–151. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Bugra, Ayse. “Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation
by Two Turkish Business Associations.” International Journal of Middle
East Studies 30, no. 4 (1998): 521–539.
Bush, Evelyn L. “Discipline and Resistance in Diplomacy: Religion and
the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.” In Discipline
and Punishment in Global Politics: Illusions of Control. Edited by Janie
Leatherman, 165–190. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Buss, Doris and Didi Herman. Globalizing Family Values: The Christian
Right in International Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2003.
Cagaptay, Soner. “The November 2002 Elections and Turkey’s New Political
Era.” Middle East Review of International Affairs 6, no. 4 (2002):
42–48.
Cakir, Rusen. “Milli Gorus Hareketi.” In Islamcilik. Edited by Yası n Aktay
and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004.
Calvert, John. Islamism: A Documentary and Reference Guide. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.
Casanova, José. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1994.
———. “Religion, the New Millennium, and Globalization.” Sociology of
Religion 62, no. 4 (2001): 415–441.
248 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cayir, Kenan. “İslamcı Bir Sivil Toplum Örg ütü: Gökkuşağı İstanbul Kad ı n
Platformu.” In İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri: İslam ve Kamusal Alan
Üzerine Bir Atölye Çalışması. Edited by Nilüfer Göle, 41–67. Istanbul:
Metis, 2000.
Çaylak, Adem. “Autocratic or Democratic? A Critical Approach to Civil
Society Movements in Turkey.” Journal of Economic and Social Research
10, no. 1 (2008): 115–151.
Cesari, Jocelyn. “Muslim Minorities in Europe and Silent Revolution.” In
Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in the Middle East and
Europe. Edited by Francois Burgat and John Esposito, 251–269. London:
C. Hurst, 2003.
Cevik, Neslihan and George Thomas. “Muslimism in Turkey and New
Religious Orthodoxies: Implications for Theorizing Religious Movements
in World Society.” Ortadoğu Etütleri 3, no. 2 (2012): 143–181.
Christian, Smith. The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the
Secularization of American Public Life. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2003.
Cigdem, Ahmet. “Islamcilik ve Turkiye uzerine bazi notlar.” In Islâmcılık.
Edited by Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim,
2004.
Cizre-Sakallioglu, Umit and Erinç Yeldan. “Politics, Society and Financial
Liberalization: Turkey in the 1990s.” Development and Change 31, no. 2
(2000): 481–508.
Collier, Berins, James Mahoney, and Jason Seawright. “Claiming Too Much:
Warnings about Selection Bias.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse
Tools, Shared Standards, 229–266. Edited by Henry Brady and David
Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Crone, Patricia. God’s Rule: Government and Islam. New York: Columbia
Daği, İ hsan D. Kimlik, söylem ve siyaset: Dogu-Batı ayrımında Refah Partisi
gelenegi. K ızı lay, Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 1998.
———. “Human Rights and Democratization: Human Rights in the
European Context.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 6, no. 5
(2001): 51–68.
———. “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West: Post-Islamist
Intellectuals in Turkey.” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 13
(2004): 135–151.
———. “The Justice and Development Party: Identity, Politics and Human
Rights Discourse in the Search for Security and Legitimacy.” In The
Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy and the AK Party. Edited
by Hakan Yavuz. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006.
———. “Turkey’s Akp in Power.” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 3 (2008):
25–30.
Denoeux, Guilain. “The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam.”
Middle East Policy 9, no. 2 (2002): 56–81.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 249
“Diyanetin Hadis Projesi mi Yoksa AB’nin ve VE ABD’nin İslam Mudahele

Sureci mi?” Vahdet Haber, March 2, 2013, http://www.vahdethaber.
com/popup/haber-yazdir.asp?haber=14326 (accessed July 16, 2013).
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger; an Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and
Taboo. New York: Praeger, 1966.
Dressler, Markus. “Religio-Secular Metamorphoses: The Re-Making of
Turkish Alevism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76, no. 2
(2008): 280–311.
Duran, Burhanettin. “Justice and Development Party’s ‘New Politics’:
Steering toward Conservative Democracy, a Revised Islamic Agenda or
Management of New Crises?” In Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey:
The Making of the Justice and Development Party. Edited by Umit Cizre
Sakallioglu, 80–107. London: Routledge, 2008.
“Eco-Friendly Couture by Rabia Yalcin at Prestigious New York Fashion
Event,” http://www.usafashionshows.com/press/rabiayalcin2.htm
(accessed April 2015).
Eisenstadt, Shumel N. “Post-Traditional Societies and the Continuity and
Reconstruction of Tradition.” Daedalus 102, no. 1 (1973): 1–27.
———. Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin
Dimension of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Elig ü r, Banu. The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Emin, Yasar. “Dergah’tan partiye, vakiftan sirkete bir kimligin olusumu ve
donusumu: Iskenderpasa Cemaati.” In Islâmcılık. Edited by Yası n Aktay
and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004.
Esposito, John. Islamic Threat: The Myth or Reality? New York: Oxford
Fenn, Richard K. Beyond Idols: The Shape of a Secular Society. Oxford: Oxford
Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776 –1990:
Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Gardner, Joshua. “‘She’ll Blow Your Brains Out’: Muslim Girl Greeting Card
Parodies Talking Arab Doll with Terrorist Bomb Jokes,” Mail Online,
May 4, 2013 (accessed July 27, 2013).
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York:
Basic Books, 1973.
Gellner, Ernest. Encounters with Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
———. Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals. New York: Allen
Lane/Penguin Press, 1994.
Genel, Sema and Kerim Karaosmanoglu. “A New Islamic Individualism in
Turkey: Headscarved Women in the City.” Turkish Studies 7, no. 3 (2006):
473–488.
George, Alexander and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development
in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
250 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good For?” American
Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (2004): 341–354.
Gill, Anthony. “Government Regulation, Social Anomie and Protestant
Growth in Latin America: A Cross-National Analysis.” Rationality and
Society 11, no. 3 (1999): 287–316.
Göçek, Fatma Müge. The Transformation of Turkey Redefining State and
Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. London: I.B. Tauris,
2011.
Gökariksel, Banu, and Anna J. Secor. “New Transnational Geographies of
Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: the Veiling-Fashion Industry in
Turkey.” Area. 41.1 (2009): 6–18
Goldberg, Ellis. “Smashing Idols and the State: The Protestant Ethic and
Egyptian Sunni Radicalism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History
33, no. 1 (1991): 3–35.
Göle, Nilüfer. Modern Mahrem: Medeniyet ve Ortunme. Istanbul, Metis,
1991.
———. “Authoritarian Secularism and Islamist Politics: The Case of Turkey.”
In Civil Society in the Middle East. Edited by Augustus Norton. Leiden:
Brill, 1995.
———. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1996.
———. Islam ve modernlik üzerine melez desenler. Beyoglu, Istanbul: Metis,
2000.
———. “Modernist Kamual Alan ve Islami Ahlak.” In İslamın Yeni Kamusal
Yüzleri: İslam ve Kamusal Alan Üzerine Bir Atölye Çalışmasi. Edited by
Nilüger Göle, 19–40. Istanbul: Metis Yayinlari, 2000.
———. “Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries.” Public
Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 173–190.
———. “Towards Autonomization of Civil Society.” In Politics in the Third
Turkish Republic. Edited by Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2008.
Graham, Fuller. The Future of Political Islam. New York: Palgrave, 2003.
———. The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim
World. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008.
Graham, William A. “Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation.”
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 3 (Winter 1993):
495–522.
Griffith, Marie. God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of
Submission. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Gulalap, Haldun. “Modernization Policies and Islamist Politics in Turkey.”
In Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey. Edited by Sibel
Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba, 52–63. Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1997.
Gurbey, Sinem. “Islam, Nation-State and the Military: A Discussion of
Secularism in Turkey.” In Secular State and Religious Society: Two Forces
BIBLIOGRAPHY 251
in Play in Turkey. Edited by Berna Turam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2011.
Hall ı, Resat. Türkiye Cumhuriyetinde ayaklanmalar (1924–1938). Ankara:
T.C. Genelkurmay Baskanl ıg ı Harp Tarihi Dairesi, 1972.
Halliday, Fred. Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in
the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris, 1996.
Hale, William and Ergun Ozbudun. Islamism, Democracy, and Liberalism in
Turkey: The Case of the AKP. London: Routledge, 2010.
Heilman, Samuel C. “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy, Part I.” Modern
Judaism 2, no. 1 (1982): 23–51.
———. “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy, Part II.” Modern Judaism 2, no. 2
(1982): 171–198.
Hendershot, Heather. Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative
Evangelical Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Henry, Carl. “Making Political Choices: An Evangelical Perspective.” In
Piety and Politics: Evangelicals and Fundamentalists Confront the World.
Edited by Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Cromartie. Washington,
DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987.
Heper, Metin. “Islam and Democracy in Turkey: Toward a Reconciliation?”
The Middle East Journal 51, no. 1 (1997): 32–45.
Hicks, Neil. “Does Islamist Human Rights Activism Offer a Remedy to the
Crisis of Human Rights Implementation in the Middle East?” Human
Rights Quarterly 24, no. 2 (2002): 361–381.
Hunter, James D. Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987.
———. The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or
Evil. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Sacrifice and Stigma Reducing Free-Riding in
Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives.” Journal of Political Economy
100, no. 2 (1992): 271–297.
Iannaccone, Laurence R., Roger Finke, and Rodney Stark. “Deregulating
Religion: The Economics of Church and State.” Economic Inquiry 35,
no. 2 (1997): 350–364.
Inglehart, Roland. “Values, Ideology, and Cognitive Mobilization in New
Social Movements.” In Challenging the Political Order New Social and
Political Movements in Western Democracies. Edited by Russell J. Dalton
and Christopher Kuechler, 43–66. New York: Oxford University Press,
1990.
Introvigne, Massimo. “Turkish Religious Market(s).” In The Emergence of a
New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party. Edited by M. Hakan Yavuz,
23–48. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006.
Ismail, Salwa. Rethinking Islamist Politics Culture, the State and Islamism.
London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
252 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jansen, Thomas. “Europe and Religions: The Dialogue between the

European Commission and Churches or Religious Communities.” Social
Compass 47, no. 1 (2000): 103–112.
Jenkins, Gareth. “Muslim Democrats in Turkey?” Survival 45, no. 1 (2003):
45–66.
———. Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Jung, Dietrich and Marie Juul Petersen. “We Think That This Job Pleases
Allah: Islamic Charity, Social Order, and the Construction of Modern
Muslim Selfhoods in Jordan.” International Journal of Middle East
Studies 46 (2014): 285–306.
Kadioglu, Ayse. “Civil Society, Islam and Democracy in Turkey: A Study
of Three Islamic Non-Governmental Organizations.” The Muslim World
95, no. 1 (2005): 23–41.
Kahraman, Hasan B. “From Culture of Politics to Politics of Culture:
Reflections on Turkish Modernity.” In Remaking Turkey: Globalization,
Alternative Modernities, and Democracy. Edited by Fuat E. Keyman,
47–75. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007.
Kanra, Bora. Islam, Democracy and Dialogue in Turkey: Deliberating in
Divided Societies. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.
Kara, Ismail. “Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi.” In Islâmcılık. Edited by Yasin
Aktay and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004.
Karakas, Cemal. Turkey: Islam and Laicism between the Interests of State,
Politics, and Society. Frankfurt am Main: Peace Research Institute
Frankfurt [PRIF], 2007.
Karaosmanoglu, Ali. “The Limits of International Influence for
Democratization.” In Politics in the Third Turkish Republic. Edited by
Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin, 117–131. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1994.
Kaya, Ibrahim. Social Theory and Later Modernities: The TurkishExperience.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004.
Kepel, Gilles. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Keyder, Caglar. “The Turkish Bell Jar.” New Left Review 28 (2004):
65–84.
Keyman, Fuat. “Assertive Secularism in Crises: Modernity, Democracy and
Islam in Turkey.” In Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. Edited
by Linell Elizabeth Cady and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, 143–158. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Keyman, Fuat and Berrin Koyuncu. “Globalization, Alternative Modernities
and the Political Economy of Turkey.” Review of International Political
Economy 12, no. 1 (2005): 105–128.
K ı l ıcbay, Baris and Mutlu Binark. “Consumer Culture, Islam and the Politics
of Lifestyle: Fashion for Veiling in Contemporary Turkey.” European
Journal of Communication 17, no. 4 (2002): 495–511.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 253
Kuran, Timur. “Islamic Economics and the Islamic Subeconomy.” The

Journal of Economic Perspectives 9, no. 4 (1995): 155–173.
Kurtoglu, Zerrin. “Turkiye’de Islamcilik dusuncesi ve siyaset.” In Islâmcılık.
2004.
Kuru, Ahmet T. “Globalization and Diversification of Islamic Movements:
Three Turkish Cases.” Political Science Quarterly 120, no. 2 (2005):
253–274.
———. “Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice
and Development Party.” In The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam,
Democracy and the AK Party. Edited by M. Hakan Yavuz, 136–159. Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006.
———. “Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological
Struggles, and State Policies Toward Religion.” World Politics : A Quarterly
Journal of International Relations 59, no. 4 (2007): 568–594.
La Porte, Teresa. “The Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Non-State Actors
and the Public Diplomacy Concept.” Paper presented at ISA Annual
Convention, San Diego, California, April 1–4, 2012.
Lechner, Frank. “Rational Choice and Religious Economies.” In Handbook
of the Sociology of Religion. Edited by Michelle Dillion. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist
Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
“Mannequins Wear a Message for Iraq’s Women,” The New York Times,
February 8, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/world/
middleeast/09baghdad.html.
Mardin, Serif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of
Bediüzzaman Said Nursi. Albany: State University of New York Press,
1989.
———. “Religion and Secularism in Turkey.” In The Modern Middle East:
A Reader. Edited by Hourani, Albert, Philip S. Khoury, and Mary C.
Wilson, 367–371. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby. Fundamentalisms Comprehended.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
McAdam, Doug, Sidney G. Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of
Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Mehmet, Ozav. Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic
Periphery. London: Routledge, 1990.
Mehta, Pratap B. “Hinduism and Self-Rule.” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 3
(2004): 108–121.
Melucci, Alberto. “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements.”
Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985): 789–815.
Menderes, Cinar. “Kemalist cumhuriyetcilik ve Islamci Kemalizm.” In
Islâmcılık. Edited by Yası n Aktay and Murat Belge. Cagaloglu, Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2004.
254 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Meyer, John W., John Boli, and George M. Thomas. “Ontology and
Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account.” In Institutional
Structure: Constituting State, Society and the Individual. Edited by G. M.
Thomas, J. W. Meyer, F. O. Ramirez, and J. Boli, 12–27. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage, 1987.
Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez.
“World Society and the Nation-State.” The American Journal of Sociology
103 (1997): 144–181.
Michael, Janna. “It’s Really Not Hip to Be a Hipster: Negotiating Trends
and Authenticity in the Cultural Field.” Journal of Consumer Culture
June 25, doi:10.1177/1469540513493206 (2013).
Moaddel, Mansoor. Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism.
Mohammed, Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz. “Violence as Contention in
the Egyptian Islamic Movement.” In Islamic Activism: A Social Movement
Theory Approach. Edited by Quintan Wiktorowicz, 61–88. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2004.
Mozaffari, Mehdi. “What Is Islamism? History and Definition of a Concept.”
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, no. 1 (2007): 17–33.
Onis, Ziya. “The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The
Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective.” Third World Quarterly 18,
no. 4 (September 1997): 743–766.
———. “Political Islam at the Crossroads: From Hegemony to Co-existence.”
Comparative Politics 7, no. 4 (2001): 281–298.
Ozbudun, Ergun. Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic
Consolidation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
Ozdemir, Sennur. MUSIAD: Anadolu Sermayesinin Dönusumu ve Türk
Modernlesmesinin Derinlesmesi. Istanbul: Vadi Yayinlari, 2006.
———. “Islami Sermaye ve sinif: Turkiye/Konya MUSIAD ornegi.” Calisma
Iliskileri Dergisi 1, no. 1 (2010): 37–57.
Ozel, Mustafa. “Gercek Degisim FFB (Fenomene Farkli Bakis) Gerektirir!”
Cerceve, 14, no. 39 (2006): 90–94.
Ozkan, Mehmet. “Turkey’s New Engagements in Africa and Asia: Scope,
Content and Implications.” Perceptions, XVI, no. 3 (2011): 115–138.
Ozturk, Ibrahim. “Samuray, mi Koroglu mu? Yenilikcilige Romantik Bir
Bakis.” Cerceve 14, no. 39 (2004): 105–108.
Peter, Frank. “Individualization and Religious Authority in Western
European Islam.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 17, no. 1 (2006):
105–118.
Philip, McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective.
Thousand Oaks, Calif: Pine Forge Press, 2000.
Philpott, Daniel. “The Catholic Wave.” In World Religions and Democracy.
Edited by Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Philip J. Costopoulos,
102–117. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 255
Pichardo, Nelson. “New Social Movements: A Critical Review.” Annual

Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 411–430.
Plagemann, Gottfired. “Türkiye’de İnsan Hakları Örgütleri: Farklı Kültürel
Çevreler.” In Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik. Edited by Stefanos
Yerasimos, Gunter Seufert, and Nuray Mert, 361–398. Istanbul: Iletisim,
2003.
Pusch, Barbara. “Turkiye’de Islamci ve Sunni-Muhafazakar Kadin Sivil
Toplum. Kuruluslarinin Yukselisi.” In Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve
Milliyetçilik. Edited by Stefanos Yerasimos, Gunter Seufert, and Nuray
Mert. Istanbul: Iletisim, 2003.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard
Richards, Alan and John Waterbury. A Political Economy of the Middle East.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
Rinaldo, Rachel. Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Robert, Hefner. Civil Islam: Muslim and Democratization in Indonesia.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
———. “Public Islam and the Problem of Democratization.” Islam: Critical
Concepts in Sociology 2 (2003): 166–190.
Robertson, Roland and JoAnn Chirico. “Humanity, Globalization, and
Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration.” Sociological
Analysis 46, no. 3 (1985): 219–242.
Roger, Owen. State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle
East. London: Routledge, 1992.
Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Saeed, Sana. “Somewhere in America, Muslim Women Are ‘Cool’,” The
Islamic Monthly, December 2, 2013. http://theislamicmonthly.com/
somewhere-in-america-muslim-women-are-cool/
(accessed August 14, 2014).
Saktanber, Ayse. Living Islam: Women, Religion and the Politicization of
Culture in Turkey. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.
Sandikci, Ozlem and Guliz Ger. “Fundamental Fashions: The Cultural
Politics of the Turban and the Levi’s.” Advances in Consumer Research
28 (2001): 146–150.
———. “Veiling in Style: How Does a Stigmatized Practice Become
Fashionable?” Journal of Consumer Research 37, no. 1 (2010): 15–36.
Sayyid, Bobby. A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of
Islamism. London: Zed Books, 1997.
Sencer, Ayata. “Patronage, Party, and State: The Politicization of Islam in
Turkey.” The Middle East Journal 50, no. 1 (1996): 40–56.
Shakman, Hurd Elizabeth. The Politics of Secularism in International
Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
256 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Shambayati, Hootan. “The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox
of Autonomy: State and Business in Turkey and Iran.” Comparative
Politics 26, no. 3 (1994): 307–331.
Simsek, Sefa. “New Social Movements in Turkey Since 1980.” Turkish Studies
5, no. 2 (2004): 111–139.
Smelser, Neil J. Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press of
Glencoe, 1963.
Smith, Christian and Michael O. Emerson. American Evangelicalism:
Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Soner, Bayram A. “The Justice and Development Party’s Policies Towards
Non-Muslim Minorities in Turkey.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern
Studies 12, no. 1 (2010): 23–40.
Soner, Bayram A. and Sule Toktaş. “Alevis and Alevism in the Changing
Context of Turkish Politics: The Justice and Development Party’s Alevi
Opening.” Turkish Studies 12, no. 3 (2011): 419–434.
Stark, Rodney and Laurence R. Iannaccone. “A Supply-Side Reinterpretation
of the ‘Secularization’ of Europe.” Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion 33, no. 3 (1995): 230–252.
Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of
Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Tachau, Frank. Turkey, the Politics of Authority, Democracy, and Development.
New York: Praeger, 1984.
Tarrow, Sidney G. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge
Tasgetiren, Ahmet. “Kapris’ ten Cecenistan Gorunuyor mu?” Yenisafak
(August16, 1996).
Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
———. “Modes of Secularism.” In Secularism and Its Critics. Edited by
Rajeev Bhargava, 31–53. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
———. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2004.
Thomas, George M. Revivalism and Cultural Change: Christianity, Nation
Building, and the Market in the Nineteenth-Century United State.
———. “Religious Movements: World Civil Society and Social Theory.” The
Hedgehog Review 4, no. 2 (2002): 50–65.
———. “Religions Engaging Globalization: New Religious Orthodoxies.”
Paper presented at the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Center,
Emory University, November 17, 2009.
Thomas, George M., et al. Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society,
and the Individual. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987.
Thomas, Scott. “Taking Religious and Cultural Pluralism Seriously: The
Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International
Society.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29, no. 3 (2000):
815–841.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 257
Tibi, Bassam. The Crisis of Modern Islam: A Preindustrial Culture in the

Scientific-Technological Age. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,
1988.
Toprak, Binnaz. “Civil Society in Turkey.” In Civil society in the Middle East.
Edited by Augustus R. Norton. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
———. “Islam and Democracy in Turkey.” Turkish Studies 6, no. 2 (2005):
167–186.
Toprak, Zafer. Milli iktisat, milli burjuvazi. Besiktas, Istanbul: Tarih Vakf ı
Yurt Yay ı nlar ı, 1995.
———. Ittihat-Terakki ve devletçilik. Besiktas, Istanbul: Tarih Vakf ı Yurt
Yay ı nlar ı, 1995.
Touraine, Alain. “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements.” Social
Research 52, no. 4 (1985): 749–787.
Tschannen, Olivier. “The Secularization Paradigm: A Systematization.”
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30, no. 4 (1991): 395–415.
Tugal, Cihan. Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to
Capitalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.
Turam, Berna. Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Veer, Peter van der and Hartmut Lehmann. Introduction to Nation and
Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia. Edited by Peter van der Veer
and Hartmut Lehmann. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1999.
Vorhoff, Karen. “Tü rkiye’de Isadam ı Dernekleri: Islevsel dayan ısma, Kü ltü rel
Farkl ı l ı k Ve devlet Arası nda.” In Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik.
Edited by Stefanos Yerasimos, Gunter Seufert, and Nuray Mert. Istanbul:
Iletisim, 2003.
Warner, Stephen R. “Work in Progress Toward a New Paradigm for the
Sociological Study of Religion in the United States.” American Journal of
Sociology 98, no. 5 (1993): 1044–1093.
Watters, John and Patrick Biernacki. “Targeted Sampling: Options and
Considerations for the Study of Hidden Populations.” Social Problems 36
(1989): 416–430.
Weiss, Robert. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative
Interview Studies. New York: Free Press, 1994.
White, Jenny. “The End of Islamism? Turkey’s Muslimhood Model.” In
Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization.
Edited by Robert Hefner, 87–111. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2004.
Wilson, Bryan. “Religion and the Churches in Contemporary America.”
In Religion in America. Edited by William G. McLoughlin and Robert
Bellah. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
———. Religion in Sociological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1982.
Wuthnow, Robert. Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural
Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
258 BIBLIOGRAPHY
———. Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the

Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Yavuz, Hakan. “Intricacies of Identity: Cleansing Islam from the Public
Sphere.” Journal of International Affairs 54, no. 1 (2000): 21–42.
———. Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003.
———. “Milli Gorus Hareketi: muhalif ve modernist gelenek.” In Islâmcılık.
2004.
———. The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy and the AK Party.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006.
———. Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey. New York: Cambridge
Yenigun, Halil Ibrahim. “Turkish Islamism in the Post-Gezi Park Era.” The
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 31, no. 1 (2014): 140–154.
Yildiz, Ahmet. “Politico-Religious Discourse of Political Islam in Turkey:
The Parties of National Outlook.” The Muslim World 93, no. 2 (2003):
187–209.
Zald, Mayer and John McCarthy. “Social Movement Industries: Competition
and Conflict among SMOs.” In Social Movements in an Organizational
Society. Edited by Mayer Zald and John McCarthy, 161–180. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1987.
Yazici, Serap. “UPDATE: A Guide to Turkish Public Law and Legal
Research.” Globalex (2011), http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/
turkey1.htm.
Zü rcher, Erik-Zan. Turkey a Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
———. “Ottoman Sources of Kemalist Thought.” In Late Ottoman Society:
The Intellectual Legacy. Edited by Elisabeth Özdalga, 13–27. London:
Routledge Curzon, 2005.
Inde x
action. See also political action Arab Spring, 209, 212

of Islamism versus Muslimism, 65 Turkish model of democracy and,
agency 25–6
civic, secular conceptions of, armed revolts, 37
189–93 Arslan, Alp, 154
defined, 65 Association of Human Rights
in Islamic discourse, 81–2 and Solidarity for Oppressed
of Islamic state versus civil society, People (MAZLUM-DER).
186–9 See MAZLUM-DER
of Islamism versus Muslimism, 65 authoritarianism. See also external
in Islamist discourse, 88–90 authority
Muslimist versus Islamist, 104–5 Islamic justifications of, 87–8
AIDS Education Through Imams autonomy, 205. See also individual
program, 224n30 orientation
akil (reason), 166, 203 akil and, 145–8
autonomy and, 145–8 clandestineness principle and,
Quran and, 148 107–8
alcohol women’s, 108–9
banning of, 185
Islamists’ position on, 85–6 Balyoz case, 207
Western-style regulation of, 207 Bayat, Asef, 8, 16, 225n41
Alevi sect bureaucratic order (1918–1940)
Diyanet and, 177 1960 coup and, 39
Özal government and, 47 1973 restoration of, 41
polticization of, 42 1997 coup and, 56–7
Alevi-Baktashi organizations, 59 polarizations under, 43–4
alim (religious authority) rise of, 35–8
and reframing of traditional bureaucratic republicanism, 30
views, 101–2 business organizations. See also
versus traditional religious elite, MUSIAD
148–50 as cultural site of hybridity, 52–3
American Evangelicalism, 8,
215–16 Capital Women’s Platform
Anatolia Association (CWPA). See
globalization and, 33 CWPA (Capital Women’s
neoliberal economy and, 45, 71 Platform Association)
260 INDEX
capitalism identity and, 116–19

cultural framing of, 191 politics and, 112–13
Islamic theology and, 132–3 public agency and, 114–16
Japanese, 157–8 Turkey as model of, 141
Caprice Hotel consumerism, Islam of, 19
Islamists and, 83–4 cosmetic surgery, helal-haram
Muslimism and, 136–8 and, 162
cemaat (religious community) coups
domination by, 146 1960, 39
growth of, 40 1980, 42
influence of, 51 1997, 34, 56–7, 240n28
in Islamic discourse, 81 e-, 59
Muslimist attitudes toward, judicial, 59–60
147–8 soft, 54–6
political formations and, 40 cultural order
rejection of, 6 defined, 30, 228n5
submission and, 145–8 in modern Turkish history, 30–1
Cerceve, 153–4, 157 cultural sites of hybridity, 21–4,
change 205, 237n7. See also CWPA;
Islamist views of, 96, 127, 154–5 Justice and Development Party
Muslimist views of, 98–103, 166 (JDP); MAZLUM-DER;
religious reframing of, 101–2 MUSIAD
veiling and, 102–3 in development of Muslimism,
Christian democratic parties, 52–7
contributions of, 9 examples of, 21–4, 34, 202
civic agency, secular conceptions of, Islamic three ds and, 23–4,
189–93 68–70
civic associations, 21, 46 key Muslimist, 70–4
civil constitution, JDP and, 59 marketplace as, 52–3
civil liberties, secular state and, 174 Muslim identity and, 54
civil society politics as, 54
under bureaucratic order, 36–7 research selection of, 23
as democracy precursor, 191–2 cultural-political binary, rejection
polarizing ideologies and, 44 of, 7–11
clandestineness principle, 107–8 CWPA (Capital Women’s Platform
clothing, Islamic styling of, 141–3 Association), 23, 51, 68
communitarianism, in Islamic homosexuality and, 115–16
discourse, 81–2 innovation and, 156
community. See also cemaat international attention on, 70
(religious community); Muslim international collaborations
community of, 74
iman and, 13–14 modernity and, 4
conciliation new Islamic female politics and,
characteristics of, 124–5 129–30
democracy and, 113–14 traditional and modern issues of,
electoral choices and, 119–20 73–4
INDEX 261
dawla (politics), 24. See also Islamic ethnic groups. See also Kurds
state; state oppression of, 36, 230n28
in Muslimism versus Islamism, polarization of, 41
67–8 European Economic Community
de la Renta, Oscar, 141 (EEC), 43
Demirel, Suleyman, 39 European Union (EU), 205
democracy benefits of, 123
civil society as precursor of, 191–2 Islamic discourse and, 80–1
conservative, 2 JDP and, 3, 60
Muslimist views of, 113–14, Kurdish minorities and, 174–5
181–2 membership in, 20
Turkey’s, as regional model, 25–6 Muslimist versus Islamist views
Democrat Party (DP) of, 122–3
formation of, 38–9, 231n38 Muslimists and, 140–1
religious and education Turkey and, 212
opportunities and, 39, 231n39 European Union Human Rights
democratization, multiparty politics Council, Muslimist suspicions
and, 38–41 of, 192–3
din (religion), 24. See also religion Evangelicalism, 27
Islamist discourse on, 75–9 American, as new religious
in Muslimism versus Islamism, 66 orthodoxy, 215–16
diversity, acceptance of, 104–5, everyday life. See also CWPA;
182, 203 marketplace; MAZLUM-DER;
Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi, 35 MUSIAD
controversy over, 176–9 hybridity and, 136–9
dunya (everyday life), 24. See also orthodoxy and, 165–6, 210
everyday life external authority
Islamic discourse on, 79–85 challenges to, 150–1
in Muslimism versus Islamism, 66–7 Islamist and secular states as, 172
in Muslimism versus Islamism,
e-coup, 59 67–8
elections rejection of, 12, 34, 50, 203
1950s, 39
1970s, 43 faith
2002, 2007, 2011, 57 as choice, 12–13, 22
electoral politics, Muslimist new definitions of, 166
involvement in, 198–200 family, traditional, individual
entrepreneurship, private, 190–1 autonomy and, 150–3
Erbakan, Necmettin February 28 military intervention
banning of, 56–7 effects of, 56
National Vision parties and, 40–1 Islamic discourse and, 82
return to power, 55 Islamist resistance to, 91–2
Erdogan, Tayyip, 212 Muslimist perspective on, 173
Ergenekon case, 207 religious restrictions and, 76,
Este World, 194–6 240n28
etatist economy, 42, 44 Felicity Party, 41, 57
262 INDEX
female body, clothing revolution Henry, Carl, 216

and, 160–1 hesofman (fitness apparel), 52, 160
foreign policy, JDP versus hipster culture, 27, 215
Islamist, 60 homosexuality, CWPA and, 115–16
free-market economics, 21. See also human rights
capitalism broadened concept of, 71–2
export-oriented, 42 divisions versus convergences on,
29–30
Gates, Bill, 154 Islamic theological sources
gender, questioning codes of, 21–2 and, 72
gender politics, Muslimism and, Islamic-Western synthesis of,
69–70 21–2, 53
Gezi protests, 207, 212 Islamists and, 29, 183
Ghazi, Osman, 154 MAZLUM-DER and, 29, 156
globalization, 205. See also (see also MAZLUM-DER)
neoliberalization Muslimist versus Islamist
impacts of, 33 priorities for, 184–5
liberalization and, 45 ÖÏzal government and, 46
Gokeen, Sabiha, 174 religious participation in, 196–7
Göle, Nilüfer, 226n53 Western discourse of, 86–7
guiltless modernity, 11–15, 158, human rights associations
202, 204, 225n39 as cultural site of hybridity,
liberal order and, 45–9 34, 53
movement toward, 44–5 Islamic and UN sources for, 2
Muslim body and, 159–62 Islamist, 74
rise of Muslimism and, 48–9 Human Rights Committee, 46
transition to, 29–61 Hunter, James D., 8, 216
Gul, Abdullah, 59 hybrid ontology, 145
agency and, 141–8
hadith, historical reinterpretations alim’s role in, 149
of, 164 autonomy and religious scholars,
Hadith Project According to 148–50
Subjects, unapologetic Islam autonomy and traditional family,
and, 164–5 150–3
hashema (swimsuits), 2, 52, 159–60 cultural features of, 155
Hayat Koleji, 110–11, 241n4 democracy and, 182–3
Hayek, Nicholas, 154 in early Islamic contexts, 128
hayir encounters with modernity and,
defined, 52 128
Islamists and, 75 guiltless modernity/Muslim body
headscarf ban. See veiling, and, 159–62
banning of helal-haram in, 98, 129–31, 203
helal-haram innovation and, 153–8, 155–6
choice and, 189 lifestyles and, 136–9
cosmetic surgery and, 162 markets and, 131–5
Muslimism and, 50, 98 Muslimism and, 166
INDEX 263
state in, 170–2, 179 (see also innovation, 153–8, 203–4

Muslimist political ethos) Islamist resistance to, 154–5
theological precepts in, 185 MUSIAD and, 153–4
versus traditional Islamic Muslimism and, 166
codes, 67 self-claims for, 154–8
unapologetic Islam and Hadith insurance
Project, 164–5 Islamist view of, 95–6
unapologetic Islam and tradition, reframing concept of, 101
162–4 International Monetary Fund
West and, 139–41 (IMF), 42, 44
Özal government and, 45
ibadet, 187 international non-governmental
identity, Muslimist views of, 96–7, organizations (INGOs),
116–19 religious, 7
identity movements, rise of, 46 interviewees, 69, 237n10
ijtihad Iskender Pasa Cemaat, 40, 41
in Islamic law, 2, 219n3 Iskender Pasha tarikat, 95
religious rules and, 101 Islam
iman (inner beliefs), 12–15, 22, 211 absence of state model in, 187–8
characteristics of, 124 of consumerism, 19
clandestineness and, 107–8 context and, 225n44
community and, 13–14 cultural, 19, 226n53
defined, 50, 203 and exile from public sphere, 31
individual and, 13 Hadith Project and, 164–5
liberal state and, 14–15 human rights sources in, 2, 72
Muslimism and, 66, 104–5, 147 as identity versus ideology,
role in civil society, 188–9 15–16
versus rule-following, 105–7 image and fears of, 169–70
as social morality, 109–11 Kemalist revolution and, 30–1
social-political spheres and, 170 liberalization and, 48–9
state and society and, 111–12 modernity and, 3–4 (see also
theological underpinnings of, 6 Islam-modernity divide)
Independent Industrialists and multiparty system and, 40–1
Businessmen’s Association Özal government and, 47
(MUSIAD). See MUSIAD partisanship and, 42–5
individual autonomy, 22 radicalization of, 42–3
individual orientation, 5–6, 12–15, reclaiming essence of, 4
50–1, 141–53. See also iman in reshaping of modernity, 130
(inner beliefs) unapologetic (see unapologetic
Islamist marginalization of, 77 Islam)
new Muslim status group and, 34 as way of life and governance, 64
submission and, 144–8 Islamic female politics, 21–2
veiling and, 141–3 Islamic law, masalih and ijtihad in,
individual rights, 2 2, 219n2
infak, 132 Islamic modesty, veil-chicness
defined, 52 and, 1–2
264 INDEX
Islamic orthodoxy. See also israf (prodigality), 71, 133–5

Muslimism defined, 52
new, 5, 10, 201, 224n34
Islamic political ethos. See also Judaism, Orthodox, 8
Muslimist political ethos judicial coup, 59–60
new, 34 “Just Order” program, 55
Islamic state, 85–92 Justice and Development Party
agency and, 88–90 (JDP), 2, 54, 69
Muslimists and, 179–81 as agent of religious change, 19
Islamic three ds schema, 24, 202. avoidance of polarization and, 114
See also dawla (politics); din early politics of, 2–3, 58–9, 171
(religion); dunya (everyday life) founding of, 56–7
cultural sites of hybridity and, Islam and, 32
23–4, 68–70 minority rights and, 59
as framework, 25 Muslimism and, 15, 57–60, 198–9
Islamist design of, 240n27 Muslimist political ethos and, 22
Islamist discourse in, 74–92 political program of, 59
Muslimism and, 63–5 political shift in, 3, 26, 206–9, 211
political action in, 82–5 secularist/scholar concerns
Islamism about, 3
assumptions about, 15 as site of hybridity, 23
development of, 31 Justice Party (JP; Adalet Partisi), 39
human rights and, 29
moderate, 16 kalb (heart), 12
versus Muslimism (see Muslimism Karan, Donna, 141
versus Islamism) Kemal, Mustafa, Westernization
new orthodoxy versus, 15–16 and, 35
as peripheral unit, 63, 236n2 Kemalism, reassertion of, 206
resurgence of, 54–7, 206 Kemalists
state-centered, 10 backlash by, 34, 55–6
Islamist discourse on three ds, Diyanet and, 177
74–92, 240n27 revolution of, 30–1
agency in, 76–8, 88–90 secularism of, 9, 10
din, 75–9 Kepel, Gelles, 8
dunya (lifestyle), 79–85 Kotku, Mehmet Zahid, 41
political action in, 78–9, 90–2 Kurds
Islamist ontology. See purist JVP and, 59
ontology MAZLUM-DER and, 72
Islamist state, functions of, 186–7 oppression of, 230n28
Islamists, 1997 intervention and, Özal government and, 46–7
57–8 politicization of, 42
Islamist-secularist binary, Welfare
Party and, 55 laicism, Turkish, 9
Islam-modernity divide, 61, 79–80 left, politicization of, 42
bureaucratic order and, 37 Liberal Republican Party, 231n37
history of, 31–5 liberal republicanism, 30
INDEX 265
liberalism modernization
emergence of, 45–9 under bureaucratic order, 35–7
limits of, 183–5 first religious responses to, 37–8
liberalization, 20–1, 60 modesty, Islamic, 1–2
development of Muslimism morality, social, and limits of
and, 205 liberalism, 183–5
international context and, 44–5 Motherland Party, 44, 45
Islam and, 48–9 mualamat, 187
MAZLUM-DER and, 71–2 multiparty politics, 32
Motherland Party and, 44 and attempts at democratization,
Muslim status group and, 49–51 38–41, 231n37
Muslimism’s emergence and, Islam and, 40–1
31, 33 partisanship and, 41–5
radical social change and, 48 MUSIAD (Independent
versus statism/Islamism, 31–5 Industrialists and
Businessmen’s Association), 23,
marketplace 68–9
as cultural site of hybridity, 34, innovation and, 153–4, 156–7
52–3, 131–5 international attention on, 70
new orthodoxy and, 210 Islam and, 194–5
masalih, in Islamic law, 2, 219n2 Muslim economic activities
MAZLUM-DER (Association of and, 71
Human Rights and Solidarity Muslim body, guiltless modernity
for Oppressed People), 23, 68 and, 159–62
aim of, 196–7 Muslim Brotherhood, 8
Caprice Hotel and, 138 Muslim community. See also
human rights and, 29, 156 cemaat (religious community)
international attention on, 70 heterogeneous versus
issues of, 115 homogeneous, 104–5, 124
liberalization and, 71–2 Muslim identity, cultural sites of
military interventions. See coups hybridity and, 54
minority rights, JDP and, 59, 207 Muslim status group, 49–51
Mipsterz (Muslim Hipsters), 27, 214 characteristics of, 33–4
missionary activities Muslim women
attitudes toward, 121 autonomy of, 108–9
Islamists’ position on, 86 erroneous hadith and, 164
Muslimist versus Islamist views Muslimism and, 211
of, 184–5 resistance to patriarchy and,
modernity. See also 151–3
religion-modernity binary Muslim world, anti-West influences
guiltless (see guiltless modernity) in, 42–3
Islam and, 3–4 Muslimhood, cultural, 16–17
Muslimism and, 4–6, 25, 129–31 Muslimism
Muslimism versus Islamism and, as analytic and empirical concept,
66–7 201–2
pious encounters with, 6–11 broader influences of, 211–12
266 INDEX
Muslimism—Continued political involvement and, 198–200

characteristics and goals of, 5–6 reformulating secularism and,
cultural sites of hybridity and, 175–9
52–7 (see also cultural sites of and secular conceptions of civic
hybridity) agency, 189–93
and definition of good state, 181–3 social morality and, 183–5
emergence of, 31 sociological expressions of, 194–7
in everyday life, 21–2 state secularism and, 173–5
external events and, 32–3 Muslimist religious temperaments,
future of, 26, 206 95–125, 203
guiltless modernity and, 48–9 agency, 104–5
historical background of, 20–1, conciliation and electoral choices,
205 119–20
JDP and, 57–60, 171, 206–9 conciliation and identity, 116–19
modernity and, 4–6 conciliatory leanings/public
as new religious orthodoxy, agency, 114–16
11–15, 201, 213–17 democracy and cultural tolerance,
orthopraxy and, 105–7 113–14
in political sphere, 22 EU membership, 122–4
as religious orthodoxy, 92–3 external other and, 120–1
rise of, 18–21 global orientations, 121–2
significance of term, 17 iman and social morality, 109–11
versus statism/Islamism, 31–5 iman and state/society, 111–12
theological foundations of, 25 iman versus rule-following,
three ds and, 63–5 105–7
Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond, ontology, 95–8
outline of, 24–7 political action, 112–13
Muslimism versus Islamism, 63–93 redefinition of usury, 98–100
cognitive schemas, 65 reframing of change, 101–2
key Muslimist sites and, 70–4 sovereignty of God and individual
lifestyle (dunya), 66–7 autonomy, 107–8
politics (dawla), 67–8 veiling, 102–3
religion (din), 66 women’s autonomy, 108–9
shared facets, 64 Muslimist women, leadership by, 11
Muslimist framework Muslimists
analytic discussion of, 206–10 global orientations of, 121–2
normative discussion of, 210–12 and tensions with modernity, 25
Muslimist ontology. See hybrid
ontology Naksibendi tarikat order, 31,
Muslimist political ethos, 169–200 228n10
and agency in civil society, 186–9 armed revolts by, 37
articulation of good state, 181–3 emergence into public sphere, 40
Islamic sharia and, 179–81 in expanded private sphere, 37
ontology of, 171–2 in political sphere, 38
political action and, 193–4 National Development Party, 231n37
INDEX 267
National Order Party (NOP), 32, orthopraxy, defined, 77

38–40 Other
National Outlook Movement Islamist rejection of, 78–9
(NOM), 156, 198 Muslimist versus Islamist views
National Salvation Party (NSP), 41, of, 120–1
42–3 Özal, Turgut, 42, 44–7
National Security Council, 39
National Vision Movement (NVM), parental duties, 109–10
2, 32, 55 partisanship, 41–5
authoritarian development in, 32 Islam and, 42–5
core values of, 41 patriarchy, women’s resistance to,
formation of, 42 151–3
ideological approach of, 119–20 pentecostalism, as new religious
JDP split from, 70–1 orthodoxy, 215–16
tarikat networks and, 38 pluralism, 2, 183
National Vision Party (NVP) polarization. See also religion-
closure of, 57 modernity binary
program of, 43 in electoral system, 119–20
nationalism rejection of, 118–19
Kemal and, 35 political action
secularizing reforms and, 36, as hayir, 75
230n24 in Islamic discourse, 82–5
neoliberalization, 60 Islamists and, 90–2, 193–4
impacts of, 45–7 Muslimists and, 14–15, 198–200
introduction of, 42 political Islamism, characteristics of,
transition to, 33, 229n16 74, 239n24
new religious orthodoxies (NROs), political violence, 41–2
10, 27, 210, 213–17, 224n34 political-cultural binary, 210–11
definitions of, 214 politics. See also dawla (politics);
examples of, 214 specific political parties
Western Muslims and, 214–15 conciliatory approach to, 112–13
nongovernmental organizations as cultural site of hybridity, 54
(NGOs), emergence of, 46 multiparty, 32
Nurcu order, 31 post-Islamism, 8, 16, 223n26,
225n41
ontology private entrepreneurship, 190–1
defined, 24, 64–5 private sphere
hybrid (see hybrid ontology) enlarged boundaries of, 37–8
of Islamist versus Muslimist, 65 Islam’s migration into, 31
of Muslimist religious views, 95–8 privatization, impacts of, 46
purist (see purist ontology) prodigality. See israf (prodigality)
Organization for Economic public sphere
Co-operation and Islam’s exile from, 31
Development (OECD), 42 religion in, 7
Orthodox Judaism, 8 tarikat and Sufi mobilization in, 40
268 INDEX
purist ontology, 82, 127, 136, Republican People’s Party

143, 154 (RPP), 36
secularism and, 127 ideological approach of, 119
of state, 171–2 opposition parties and, 38
republicanism
Quran bureaucratic, 30
akil and, 148 liberal, 30
on submission to tradition, 163 research
Qutb, Sayyid, 209 analytical framework of, 23–4
components of, 69, 238n11
Rabia Haute Couture, 1–2, 141–3 hybridity sites chosen for, 23
reason. See akil (reason) interviewees in, 69, 237n10
religion. See also din (religion); methodology of, 203
hybrid ontology; Islam; questionnaire used in, 69, 237n9
Islamism; Muslimism; purist targeted sampling and, 23,
ontology 227n61
as culture and history, 204–5 revelation, essence of, 106
as ideology, 75–6
Muslimist assumptions about, schools, as cultural site of
17–18 hybridity, 53
non-Islamic, 120–1 sectarian polarizations, 41
religion-modernity binary secularism
historical construction of, 216 and conceptions of civic agency,
rejection of, 5, 7–11, 137–8, 189–93
140–1 (see also cultural sites of Islamist critique of, 173
hybridity) Muslimist reformulation of,
religion-secular binary, revival of, 175–9
208–9 religion and, 171
religiosity secularization
growth of, 7 Kemalist, 9, 10, 35
iman and, 105–7 Muslim oppression and, 32
religious education, lack of, 231n36 Muslimist suspicions of, 172
religious groups nationalism and, 36, 230n24
Özal government and, 47 promotion of, 7
progressive influences of, 9, 224n30 rethinking, 8–9
traditional structures of, 70 top-down reforms and, 35–6
religious orthodoxies. See also new self, Muslimist idea of, 189
religious orthodoxies (NROs) sharia, Muslimists and, 179–81
as cultural, 165–6 social morality, and limits of
everyday life and, 127 liberalism, 183–5
Muslimism as, 92–3 state. See also Islamic state
religious political mobilization, good, Muslimist definition of,
assumptions and fears about, 181–3
169 iman and, 14–15, 111–12
religious scholars, versus traditional Islamist concept of, 186–7,
religious elite, 148–50 193–4
INDEX 269
limiting role of, 170 Muslim-modernity encounters in,

Muslimist versus Islamist 2–4 (see also Muslimism)
attitudes toward, 67–8 regional attitudes toward,
state-religion relations, 6 212–13
Özal government and, 46 Turkish Historical Thesis, 36
statism/Islamism, versus liberalism/
Muslimism, 31–5 umma
submission ideological, 15
cemaat and, 145–8 Muslimists and, 146–7
individual orientation and, 144–8 unapologetic Islam, 11–15, 44–5,
Sufi orders 158, 162–5, 202, 204
armed revolts by, 37 Hadith Project and, 164–5
cemaat and, 51 tradition and, 162–4
emergence into public sphere, 40 United Nations, INGO
in expanded private sphere, 37 consultation status with, 7
influence of, 145 United Nations Convention
Suleymancilar, 40 Against Torture and Other
Sun-Language Theory, 36 Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
swimsuits Treatment or Punishment, 46
hashemas, 2, 52, 159–60 United Nations Human Rights
male, 159–60 Convention (UNHRC), 72
Islamic human rights concepts
tahkik (enquiry), 130, 166, 203 and, 2
defined, 4 United Nations International
Muslimism and, 50, 147–8 Human Rights Court,
taklid (imitation), 130, 211 Muslimist suspicions of,
defined, 4, 50 192–3
takva (jurisprudence), 101 usury
targeted sampling, 23, 227n61 Islamist view of, 76
tarikat orders, 38, 40, 43, 47, 70, Muslimist views of, 98–100
146, 228
tesettur (Islamic dress code), 77–8, veiling
80, 142 aesthetics of, 1–2, 141–3
tevhid (oneness of God), as essence banning of, 6–7, 102–3
of Islam, 106–7 banning versus compulsion of,
textile industry, Islamic, 159–60 180
three ds schema. See Islamic three change and, 102–3
ds schema February 28 intervention and,
tolerance, cultural, 113–14 173–4
tradition, Quran and, 163 Islamism and, 84
True Path Party, 55 Muslimist versus Islamist views
Turkey of, 97–8, 108–9, 183–4
cultural appeal of, 213 political resistance and, 91
as model of conciliation, 141 politicization of, 97–8
as model of Muslim democracy, violence, political, 41–2
212 Virtue Party, 41
270 INDEX
wealth, Islam and, 131–4 women’s fashion, research on,

Welfare Party, 41, 55–6 69–70
challenges of, 34 women’s organizations, Islamist, 74
closure of, 3, 57 women’s politics, new approach
resistance to change and, 155 to, 129–30
westernization women’s rights, research on,
Islamist denunciation of, 139–40 69–70
Kemalist revolution and, 35, workout clothes (hesofmans), 2
229n18 World Bank, 42, 44
opposition to, 42–3 Özal government and, 45
White, Jenny, 16–17
women. See Muslim women Yalcin, Rabia, 1, 141–2
women’s associations, as cultural Yunus, 159–60
site of hybridity, 53, 74. See also
CWPA zekat (giving), 132–5

(Neslihan Cevik (Auth.) ) Muslimism in Turkey and B (B-Ok - Xyz)

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

(Neslihan Cevik (Auth.) ) Muslimism in Turkey and B (B-Ok - Xyz)

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond

T HE MODERN MUSLIM WORLD

Series Editor: Dietrich Jung of the Center for Contemporary Middle

Migration, Security, and Citizenship in the Middle East: New Perspectives

Politics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Islam, Youth, and Social Activism

Transnational Islam in Interwar Europe: Muslim Activists and Thinkers

Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World

Introduction: Turkey’s Muslimists:

Suzan Witzel, and Jenny Gladding for making my residence at Watson

orthodoxies” was a product of our joint work. I am forever indebted

In Turkey, a growing number of Muslim women across classes and

wear for work, dry-fit textured, Islam-proper workout clothes (hesof-

A Distinctive Form: Muslimism

classical sociological theories on religion and contemporary academic

individual-orientation of this new form while clearly distinguishing it

Encounters of the Pious with Modernity

adopt the ideal of a religious state. For those people, headscarf is no

Stepping Out of the False Divides:

seriously failed. While seeking special explanations, the modern pro-

submitting Islam to the foster care of an aggressively secular-state

Muslimism as a New Islamic Orthodoxy:

In sum, going beyond the formula of “sharia plus electricity,”

social relationships among the individual, state, and society as well as

Iman and Individual

Iman and Community

of supposed piety. Self-fashioning the veil, forming and joining pro-

Iman and Liberal State

on political elites and public experts, at times by allying with interna-

orthodoxy tends toward a liberal state in place of an Islamic state,

the new orthodoxy in Turkey; it sounds too communitarian and too

In sum, by using the term “Muslimism,” I draw our attention to an

Understanding the Rise of Muslimism

center, forced Islamic parties to strategically adapt to the democratic

The Historical Background of Muslimism

this time allowing pious actors to contest existing religious expres-

Cultural Sites of Hybridity: From Everyday

in traditional religious interpretations and modern everyday life

The Scope: Entering into Key Muslimist Sites

examine the general content/substance and the particular tempera-

The Outline of the Book

of Muslimism, this chapter is an analytical-historical treatment

individuals pick and chose to form an idiosyncratic religiosity, nor

From Forbidden Modern to

Keriman (of Organization X)1 said:

These statements are part of my separate conversations with

The Past and the Present of Islam-Modernity

The advent of multiparty politics (1950s) allowed the emergence of

outright repressed by secularist institutions, or they did not find

or reject modernity but want to be further integrated with contem-

In the following sections, I detail these two different cultural

Toward “Forbidden Modern”: The Rise of the

In addition to “rationalizing” Turks, the function of the secular-

creating a bureaucratic, statist order. State-modernization and the

First Religious Responses to Modernizing Reforms

individual and citizenship.34 In contrast, as private spaces expanded,

Attempts for Democratization: The Multi-

Differing from the bureaucratic RPP, the DP was composed of

itself as the spokesman of the petite bourgeoisie, and it accused the JP

Islam and the Multi-Party System

At the core of the “National Vision” narrative lay the divides of

Islam and Partisanship

face of Arab-Israeli conflict, failure of modernization movements in

Toward Guiltless Modernity and Unapologetic Islam