"The Diyanet, the official face of Islam in Turkey, is the 'Presidency of Religious Affairs', a governmental department established in 1924 after the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of Caliphate. In this book, Emir Kaya offers an in-depth multidisciplinary analysis of this vital institution. Focusing on the role of the Diyanet in society, Kaya explores the balance the institution has to strike between the Muslim traditions of the Turkish population and the secular creed of the Turkish state. By examining the various laws that either bolstered or hindered the Diyanet's budgets and activities, Kaya highlights the institutional mindsets of the Diyanet membership. He also evaluates its successes and failures as a state department that must consistently operate within the context of the religiosity of Turkish society. By situating all of this within the two competing - but often complimentary - concepts of religion and secularism, Kaya offers a book that is important for those researching the interplay of Islam and the state in Turkey and beyond."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

A systematic account of the life, works, and accomplishments of al- Kirmani, an important Ismaili Muslim scholar and writer in the fields of philosophy and science who lived during the first half of the 11th century AD

Examining the transformation of Turkey from a traditional to a secular state, this text covers such topics as: the economic and political impact of the West; constitutional absolutism; the secularism of the Mesrutiyet; the birth of a nation under fire; and the secularism of the Kemalist regime.

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.

Why do secular states pursue different policies toward religion? This book provides a generalizable argument about the impact of ideological struggles on the public policy making process, as well as a state-religion regimes index of 197 countries. More specifically, it analyzes why American state policies are largely tolerant of religion, whereas French and Turkish policies generally prohibit its public visibility, as seen in their bans on Muslim headscarves. In the United States, the dominant ideology is 'passive secularism', which requires the state to play a passive role, by allowing public visibility of religion. Dominant ideology in France and Turkey is 'assertive secularism', which demands that the state play an assertive role in excluding religion from the public sphere. Passive and assertive secularism became dominant in these cases through certain historical processes, particularly the presence or absence of an ancien régime based on the marriage between monarchy and hegemonic religion during state-building periods.

Modern Turkey is the site of a powerful Islamic revival, with a strong intellectual elite dedicated to the overthrow of secular modernism. Why have modern Muslim intellectuals turned against the ideals of Kemalism on which the modern Turkish nation-state is founded? What does this reveal about the future of Turkey? And how are Islamic intellectuals in Turkey affected by developments in the Middle East? Muslims in Modern Turkey is the first book to analyse this phenomenon, tracing the evolution of Muslim intellectual thought from the 1980s to the present day. It focuses on six leading Muslim thinkers - Ali Bulaç, Rasim Özdenören, ?smet Özel, ?lhan Kutluer, Ersin Nazif Gürdo?an and Abdurrahman Dilipak - who belong to a single school and share a novel understanding of Islam. They act as public intellectuals, who aim to reform and enlighten society by educating them and raising their awareness of Islamic values, arguing not for the compatibility of Islam and European values but the fundamental superiority of Islam over secular democracy. Sena Karasipahi places the Turkish experience in its broader international context and shows how Turkish Islamic intellectuals are affected by the earlier Muslim intellectuals and revivalists in the Arab world and in Turkey. This important study makes connections with the Islamic revival process throughout the contemporary Middle East as well as with comparable movements in Turkey's own past, making this a crucial contribution to an understanding of contemporary Islamic political thinking.

While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several policy choices have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing social, historical, and religious context for Turkey's singular behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state's position on religion and diversity to its involvement in the European Union. Written by experts in a range of disciplines, the chapters explore the Ottoman toleration of diversity during its classical period; the erosion of ethno-religious diversity in modern, pre-democratic times; Kemalism and its role in modernization and nation building; the changing political strategies of the military; and the effect of possible EU membership on domestic reforms. They also conduct a cross-Continental comparison of "multiple secularisms" as well as political parties, considering the Justice and Development Party in Turkey in relation to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. The contributors tackle central research questions, such as what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire's ethno-religious plurality and how can Turkey's assertive secularism be softened to allow greater space for religious actors. They address the military's "guardian" role in Turkey's secularism, the implications of recent constitutional amendments for democratization, and the consequences and benefits of Islamic activism's presence within a democratic system. No other collection confronts Turkey's contemporary evolution so vividly and thoroughly or offers such expert analysis of its crucial social and political systems.

In this new interpretation of the modernisation & secularization of Turkey, Andrew Davison demonstrates the usefulness of hermeneutics in political analysis, illuminating the complex relations between religion & politics in post-Ottoman Turkey.

As a Muslim-majority country that is also a secular democratic state, a member of NATO, a candidate for membership in the European Union, a long-standing U.S. ally, and the host of Incirlik Air Base (a key hub for logistical support missions in Afghanistan and Iraq), Turkey is pivotal to U.S. and Western security interests in a critical area of the world. It also provides an example of the coexistence of Islam with secular democracy, globalization, and modernity. However, having a ruling party with Islamic roots--the Justice and Development Party (AKP)--within a framework of strict secularism has generated controversy over the boundaries between secularity and religion in the public sphere, leading to parliamentary elections, along with a new mandate for the party, in July 2007. This monograph describes the politico-religious landscape in Turkey and the relationship between the state and religion, and it evaluates how the balance between secular and religious forces--and between the Kemalist elites and new emerging social groups--has changed over the past decade. The study also assesses the new challenges and opportunities for U.S. policy in the changed Turkish political environment and identifies specific actions the United States may take to advance the U.S. interest in a stable, democratic, and friendly Turkey and, more broadly, in the worldwide dissemination of liberal and pluralistic interpretations of Islam.