Thoughts on the Special Relationship between Nationalism and Islam in Particular the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republican Era
Thoughts on the Special Relationship between Nationalism and Islam in Particular the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republican Era

Summary/Abstract: Due to the strong position of Islam in Turkish context the issue of secularism is the first and foremost significant principle of modern Turkey that has always remained on the national agenda as the most polarizing political problem. In my opinion Islam in Turkey was never completely abandoned but in fact has been continuously and strategically used in Turkish political life for pragmatic reasons. I think it is deeply related to Islam’s symbolic power, its potential to provide a sense of belonging and cohesion as well as present a code of ethics for people that think of themselves as sharing a way of life. So there is no exaggeration to say that the secular Turkey's most successful political ideologies, trends contains noticeably Islamic ideas, elements. In this paper the relationship between Turkish nationalism, identity and Islam is examined in the Turkish nationalist debates of the late Ottoman and early Republican era. I focus only those disputes in which the compatibility between the ideas of Islam, nationalism and modernism is proven. I analyze the two most significant thinkers of the late Ottoman era because they influenced the dominant thinkers of the officially secular Kemalist era which created the ideological basic of the present Turkey.

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