An analysis of Imam-Hatip schools in Turkey and how they contribute to the Islamization of the country at both the high and grassroots levels of politics.

"How do centralized, institutional religions make peace with the modern state's displacement of their traditional prestige and power? What are the factors that can promote the mutual acceptance of religious communities and the secular rule of law? These are the questions posed in Jonathan Laurence's new book, which argues that Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam have trod surprisingly similar paths in their respective histories. Contemporary Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam both descend from religious states and empires, the Papacy in the case of Catholicism and the Caliphate in the case of Islam. As religio-political orders, the Western Church and the Islamic Caliphate ruled vast territories and populations. Each set of religio-political institutions made law, controlled land, and governed people for roughly four centuries. Yet both suffered three similar upheavals and challenges: the end of empires, the rise of the modern national state, and significant outward migrations from the "home base" of the religious tradition. Laurence suggests that the historical experience of Catholicism offers a useful model for those concerned about the contemporary Sunni Muslim leadership's attitude toward the modern state. Just as Catholicism worldwide benefited from the survival of the Vatican micro-state and its ability to exert guidance over the religious belief and practice of Catholics worldwide, so (argues Laurence) Muslim-majority states should continue exert control over mosques, imam-training, and religious education -- to reconcile Islam with the rule of law and thus with the authority of the secular state. This book is based on prodigious archival research in Vatican and Ottoman Archives and on interviews conducted with senior officials responsible for Islamic affairs or public religious education in Algiers, Ankara, Casablanca, Istanbul, Oran, Rabat, Tunis; and with senior interior ministry and foreign ministry officials in various European capitals responsible for relations with North African, Turkish, Qatari, and Saudi ministries of Islamic and religious affairs"--

In the Turkish elections of December 1995, the Islamic Welfare Party became the biggest Party in parliament and for the first time in history, an Islamic party had come to power by means of free elections. The rise to power of the Turkish Islamists is a result of several decades of revivalism. In this process the veil has been a prominent symbol of the new religious puritanism, causing resentment among those who regard the bare-headed woman as the symbol of progress and emancipation. In the light of a century-long conflict between secularism and popular Islam, the present study describes the conflict over the veil as it became a burning issue in the decade following the military intervention of 1980 and remains to this day a matter of controversy. While focusing on the issue of veiling, the author also considers the wider picture of tension between official secularism and popular Islam in present-day Turkey. Although this tension is not discounted, the author argues that the fact that the Islamic movement is on the rise does not mean that it threatens the very foundations of modern Turkish society. Whereas the controversies of the nineteenth century could be described as a 'clash of civilizations' (between Islam and the West), those of today have shrunk into conflicts over certain cultural symbols that are part of the same globally-expanding technological civilization.

This Handbook discusses the new political and social realities in Turkey from a range of perspectives, emphasizing both changes as well as continuities. Contextualizing recent developments, the chapters, written by experts in their fields, combine analytical depth with a broad overview. In the last few years alone, Turkey has experienced a failed coup attempt; a prolonged state of emergency; the development of a presidential system based on the supreme power of the head of state; a crackdown on traditional and new media, universities and civil society organizations; the detention of journalists, mayors and members of parliament; the establishment of political tutelage over the judiciary; and a staggering economic crisis. It has also terminated talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); intervened in and occupied mountainous border areas in northern Iraq to fight that organization; occupied Afrin and strips of territory in northern Syria; intervened in Libya; articulated an assertive transnational politics toward “kin” across the world; strained its relations with the European Union and the US, while developing relations with Russia; flirted with China’s intercontinental Belt and Road Initiative; and carved out a presence in Africa, to name just a few of the most recent developments. This volume provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the making of modern Turkey. It is a key reference for students and scholars interested in political economy, security studies, international relations and Turkish studies.

A fascinating ethnography of the Diyanet's women sessions in Istanbul illuminating the current reconfigurations of Islam in Turkey.

"This third edition of Ira M. Lapidus's classic A History of Islamic Societies has been substantially revised to incorporate the insights of new scholarship and updated to include historical developments in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Lapidus's history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion to Africa, Spain, Turkey and the Balkans, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and North America, situating Islamic societies within their global, political, and economic contexts. It accounts for the impact of European imperialism on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present. This book is essential for readers seeking to understand Muslim peoples."--Publisher information.

This text is an attempt to study Turkey's national and secular identity in light of the challenges posed by Kurdish nationalism and political Islam.

Despite their close geographic and cultural ties, Indonesia and Malaysia have dramatically different Islamic education, with that in Indonesia being relatively decentralized and discursively diverse, while that in Malaysia is centralized and discursively restricted. The book explores the nature of the Islamic education systems in Indonesia and Malaysia and the different approaches taken by these states in managing these systems. The book argues that the post-colonial state in Malaysia has been more successful in centralising its control over Islamic education, and more concerned with promoting a restrictive orthodoxy, compared to the post-colonial state in Indonesia. This is due to three factors: the ideological makeup of the state institutions that oversee Islamic education; patterns of societal Islamisation that have prompted different responses from the states; and control of resources by the central government that influences centre-periphery relations. Informed by the theoretical works of state-in-society relations and historical institutionalism, this book shows that the three aforementioned factors can help a state to minimize influence from the society and exert its dominance, in this case by centralising control over Islamic education. Specifically, they help us understand the markedly different landscapes of Islamic education in Malaysia and Indonesia. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Education and Comparative Education.

This book represents a major study of the development and present state of education in Turkey. Turkey offers a unique context for studying education because of the tensions that exist between secularization and Islam, top-down social engineering and democratization, and economic growth and social justice. Education in Turkey brings together some of the leading educationalists in Turkey, as well as a number of scholars from other disciplines. The topics covered include the development and structure of primary, secondary, vocational and adult education, the role of education in shaping citizenship and national identity, human capital, economic growth and educational inequalities. This significant volume will be of particular interest to policy makers as well as researchers and students in education, economics, politics, and Turkish studies.