You are here

Home » Content

Beyond Post-Islamism: Transformation of Turkish Islamism Toward ‘Civil Islam’ and Its Potential Influence in the Muslim World

Journal Name:

  • European Journal of Economic and Political Studies

Publication Year:

  • 2011

Key Words:

Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
Turkey have been seen as an almost unique case as far Islam-state-secularism-democracy relations were concerned but the recent transformation of Turkish Islamism coupled with the global turmoil in the post-9/11 world has made the Turkish case much more important. Dynamics that affected the change in the Turkish Islamists’ Islamic normative framework have not been analyzed in detail. This paper endeavors the answer the question what kind of factors causes a change in political Islam in Turkey. Thus, this study endeavors to analyze the main factors behind the newly emerged tolerant normative framework of the JDP leaders who were formerly Islamists. After showing that there are historical reasons arising from the Ottoman experience of secularism and democracy and arguing based on a brief theoretical discussion of the plurality of Islamisms, this paper arg ues that the Turkish Islamism has always differed from the other Islamist experiences. Therefore, in this study, a detailed evaluation of the Turkish Islamist experience starting from the Young Ottomans is undertaken. Then, this paper attempts to show that Islamic groups’ physical and discursive interaction has been a crucial factor in the Turkish Islamism’s transformation. Main premise of this paper is that the Gülen movement’s ‘Civil Islam’ has been an influential factor that has helped the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, hereinafter referred as JDP) leaders to develop a more tolerant normative framework and to eventually jettison their Islamism. It is of course difficult to establish casual relationship between two social phenomena but one can underscore correlations. As the main hypothesis is that the Gülen movement has been an influential factor in the normative transformation of the former Islamists’ mental frameworks and their religio-political worldviews, this paper provides a comparative discourse analysis between Fethullah Gülen’s and Islamists’ ideas on several issues that have been relevant for both Islamism and newly-emerged post-Islamism. In addition to having been influential in Turkey, Gülen’s understanding of Islam, one can expect, will also be influential in the wider Muslim world in parallel to the increasing influence of both Turkey and the movement on a global scale.
Bookmark/Search this post with
FULL TEXT (PDF): 
PDF icon arastrmx_25821_4_pp_245-280.pdf
  • 1
245-280
  • English

REFERENCES

References: 

Ahmed, Akbar. 2003. Islam under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor
World. Oxford: Polity Press.
Aktay, Yasin. 2003. ‘Diaspora and Stability: Constitutive Elements in a Body
of Knowledge’, in M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito (eds. ) Turkish Islam and the
Secular State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press,
pp. 131-155.
Altunoğlu, Ebru. 1999. Fethullah Gülen’s Perception of State and Society,
Unpublished MA Thesis. Istanbul: Bogazici University.
Atay, Rifat. 2007. “Reviving the Suffa Tradition”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds)
Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds
Metropolitan University Press, pp. 459-472.
Ayoob, Mohammed. 2004. ‘Political Islam: image and reality’, World Policy
Journal 21: 3, Fall, pp. 1–14.
Ayoob, Mohammed. 2005. “The future of political Islam: the importance of
external variables”, International Affairs 81, 5, pp. 951-961.
Barkey, Henri J. and Yasemin Çongar. 2007. “Deciphering Turkey’s
Elections: The Making of a Revolution”, World Policy Journal, Fall, pp. 63-73.
Barton, Greg. 2005. “Progressive Islamic Thought, Civil Society and the
Gülen Movement in the National Context: Parallels with Indonesia”, Contributions of
the Gülen Conference, November 2005, Houston, Texas.
Bayat, Asef. 1996. “The Coming of a Post-Islamist Society”, Critique, Fall, pp.
43-52.
Bayat, Asef. 2007a. Islam and Democracy: What is the Real Question?, ISIM
Papers, N8. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Bayat, Asef. 2007b. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bulac, Ali. 2000. Zaman, 4 June 2000.
Bulac, Ali. 2007. “Islam and Politics”, Today’s Zaman, 13 July 2007.
European Journal of Economic and Political Studies
277
Çakır, Rusen. 1994. Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi: Refah Partisini Anlamak [Neither
the Shari’a nor Democracy: To Understand the Welfare Party], Istanbul: Metis
Yayınları.
Can, Eyüp. 1995. Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendi ile Ufuk Turu, Istanbul: AD
Yayıncılık.
Cavdar, Gamze. 2006. “Islamist New Thinking in Turkey: A Model for
Political Learning?”, Political Science Quarterly Volume 121 Number 3, pp. 477-497.
Dagi , Ihsan D. 2004. “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West:
Post-Islamist Intellectuals in Turkey”, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies
(Summer 2004), 13(2), 135–151.
Dagi , Ihsan D. 2005. “Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey:
Rethinking the West and Westernization”, Turkish Studies,Vol. 6, No. 1, March 2005,
21–37
Denoeux, Guilain. 2002. . ‘The forgotten swamp: navigating political Islam’,
Middle East Policy 9: 2, June, p. 61.
Esposito, John L. and John O. Voll. 1996. Islam and Democracy, New York:
Oxford University Press.
Esposito, John L. and Ihsan Yilmaz (eds). 2010. Islam and Peacebuildng:
Gülen Movement Initiatives. New York, NY: Blue Dome Press.
Geertz, Clifford. 1968. Islam observed. New Haven, CT: Yale UP.
Gellner, Ernest. 1992. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London and New
York: Routledge.
Grinell, Klas. 2010. “Border Thinking: Fethullah Gülen and the East-West
Divide”, in John L. Esposito and Ihsan Yilmaz (eds) Islam and Peacebuildng: Gülen
Movement Initiatives. New York, NY: Blue Dome Press, pp. 43-62.
Gulalp, Haldun. 1995. “The Crisis of Westernization in Turkey: Islamism
Versus Nationalism”, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 8 Issue
2, pp. 175-182.
Gülen, Fethullah. 1997a. Interview with Hulusi Turgut, Sabah, January.
Gülen, Fethullah. 1997b. Fasıldan Fasıla III. Istanbul: Nil.
Gülen, Fethullah. 2001. ‘A Comparative Approach to Islam and Democracy’,
SAIS Review Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 133-138.
Gülen, Fethullah. 2004. Nuriye Akman, Interview with Gülen, Zaman, 23
March.
Gülen, Fethullah. 2005. ‘An Interview with Fethullah Gülen – translated by
Zeki Saritoprak and Ali Unal’, The Muslim World, Special Issue, Islam in Contemporary
Turkey: The Contribution of Fethullah Gülen,Volume 95, No. 3, pp. 447-467.
Ihsan Yi l maz
278
Gülen, Fethullah. 2006. Essays, Perspectives, Opinions. Second revised ed,
3
rd
impression. Somerset, NJ: The Light.
Gurbuz, Mustafa. 2007. “Performing Moral Opposition: Musings on the
Strategy and Identity in the Gülen Movement”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim
World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan
University Press, pp. 104-117.
Halliday, Fred. 1995. “The Politics of 'Islam' - A Second Look”, British Journal
of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 399-417.
Heck, Paul L. 2007. “Turkish in the Language of the Qur’an: Hira’”, in Ihsan
Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement.
London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press, pp. 643-649.
Ismail, Salwa. 2001. “The Paradox of Islamist Politics”, in Middle East report,
221, winter, pp. 34-39.
Ismail, Salwa. 2004. “Being Muslim: Islam, Islamism and Identity Politics”,
Government and Opposition,
Kepel, Gilles. 2002. Jihad: The Trial of Political Islam, 2
nd
ed. , London: I. B.
Tauris.
Kepel, Gilles. 2004. The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West,
Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Kosebalaban, Hasan. 2003. “The Making of Enemy and Friend: Fethullah
Gülen’s National-Security Identity”, M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito (eds. )
Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse, New York:
Syracuse University Press, pp. 170-183.
Kuru, Ahmet T. 2005. “Globalization and Diversification of Islamic
Movements: Three Turkish Cases”, Political Science Quarterly, Volume 120 Number
2, pp. 253-274.
Kuru, Ahmet T. 2007. “Changing Perspectives on Islamism and Secularism
in Turkey: The Gülen Movement and The JDP”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim
World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan
University Press, pp. 140-151.
Lauziere, Henri. 2005. “Post-Islamism and the Religious Discourse of Abd
Al-Salam Yasin”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3, pp. 241–261.
Maigre, Marie-Elisabeth. 2007. “The Influence of the Gülen Movement in
the Emergence of a Turkish Cultural Third Way”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim
World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan
University Press, pp. 33-45.
Mardin, Serif. 1962. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the
Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
European Journal of Economic and Political Studies
279
Mardin, Serif. 2005. “Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today:
Continuity, Rupture and Reconstruction in Operational Codes”, Turkish Studies,Vol.
6, No. 2, pp. 145–165.
Mecham, R. Quinn. 2004. “From the ashes of virtue, a promise of light: the
transformation of political Islam in Turkey”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp.
339–358.
Meeker, Michael. 1991. “The New Muslim Intellectuals in the Republic of
Turkey,” in Islam in Modern Turkey, ed. Richard Tapper, London: I. B. Tauris, pp.
189–219.
Ozdalga, Elisabeth. 2000. ‘Worldly Asceticism in Islamic Casting: Fethullah
Gülen’s Inspired Piety and Activism,’ Critique, 17, pp. 84–104.
Rabasa, Angel and F. Stephen Larrabee. 2008. The Rise of Political Islam in
Turkey. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Roy, Olivier. 1995. The Failure of Political Islam. Translated By Carol Volk.
Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press.
Roy, Olivier. 1998. “Le post-islamisme,” Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de
la M´editerran´ee. 85–86, pp. 11–30.
Roy, Olivier. 2004. Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, London:
Hurst and Company.
Schulze, Reinhard. 1998. “The Ethnization of Islamic Cultures in the Late 20th
century or From Political Islam to Post-Islamism”, in George Stauth (ed. ) Islam:
Motor or Challenge of Modernity, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, no. 1, 1998, pp.
187-198.
Smith, Thomas W. 2005. “Between Allah and Ataturk: Liberal Islam in
Turkey”, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 307–325.
Tillich, Paul. 1951. Systematic Theology, volume one, Chicago, University of
Chicago.
Turam, Berna. 2003. “National Loyalties and International Undertakings: The
Case of the Gülen Community in Kazakhstan”, M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito
(eds. ) Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse, New York:
Syracuse University Press, pp. 184-207.
Ugur, Etga. 2007. “Religion as a Source of Social Capital? The Gülen
Movement in the Public Sphere”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim World in
Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan
University Press, pp. 152-162.
Vicini, Fabio. 2007. “Gülen’s Rethinking of Islamic Pattern and its Socio-Political Effects”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al. (eds) Muslim World in Transition: Contributions
of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press, pp. 430-444.
Ihsan Yi l maz
280
Voll, John O. 2003. “Fethullah Gülen: Transcending Modernity in the New
Islamic Discourse”, M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito (eds. ) Turkish Islam and the
Secular State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press,
pp. 238-247.
Yavuz, Hakan and John L. Esposito (eds). 2003. Turkish Islam and the Secular
State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Yildirim, Ergun et al. 2007. “A Sociological Representation of the Justice and
Development Party: Is It a Political Design or a Political Becoming?”Turkish Studies,
Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 5–24.
Yildiz, Ahmet. 2003. “Politico-Religious Discourse of Political Islam in
Turkey: The Parties of National Outlook”, Muslim World, Vol. 93 Issue 2, pp. 187-210.
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2000. “Changing Institutional Turkish-Muslim Discourses on
Modernity, West and Dialogue”, paper presented at the Congress of The
International Association of Middle East Studies (IAMES), Freie Universitat Berlin,
Germany. 5-7 October 2000.
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2003. “Ijtihad and Tadjid by Conduct: The Gülen Movement”,
Gülen’ in M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito (eds. ) Turkish Islam and the Secular
State: The Gülen Movement, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, pp. 208-237.
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2005a. “State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary
Turkey”, The Muslim World, Vol. 95 no. 3, pp. 386-390.
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2005b. “Inter-Madhhab Surfing, Neo-Ijtihad, and Faith-Based
Movement Leaders”, in Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters and Frank E. Vogel, Islamic
School of Law: Evolution, Devolition and Progress, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, pp. 191-206
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2005c. Muslim Laws, Politics and Society in Modern Nation
States: Dynamic Legal Pluralisms in England, Turkey and Pakistan. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2007. “Social Innovation For Peaceful Coexistence:
Intercultural Activism From Rumi To Gülen”, in Ihsan Yilmaz et al (eds) Peaceful
Coexistence: Fethullah Gülen’s Initiatives in the Modern World, London: Leeds
Metropolitan University Press, pp. 25-41.
Yilmaz, Ihsan et al. (eds). 2007a. Peaceful Coexistence: Fethullah Gülen’s
Initiatives in the Modern World, London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press
Yilmaz, Ihsan et al. (eds). 2007b. Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of
the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press.

Thank you for copying data from http://www.arastirmax.com