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| Volume XI, Spring 2004, Number 1 |
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| EXCERPT: An Islamic Reformation in Turkey |
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| Arthur Bonner |
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Mr. Bonner is a former foreign correspondent and television writer/producer. He has published six books including three on Protestantism.
The broad canvas of Islam in
Turkey from about 1850 to 1950
can be reduced to a thumbnail
sketch. The sprawling Ottoman Empire, with the sultan as caliph of the Islamic world, became the superstructure of economic and social stagnation. Its last props were kicked away following Turkey's defeat in World War I and the rise of Kemal Ataturk, who decreed a secular civil society. Sufi brotherhoods were banned, mosques were put under state control, and those who attempted to revive free expressions of religion became straw men to justify curbs on speech and assembly. This was to be a brave new world. Schools were founded, industries mushroomed and Turkey ultimately reentered the world as a member of NATO. But in sweeping away what they derided as backwardness and dogmatism, the Kemalists sentenced a people saturated with religion to the temptations of consumerism under an elitist rule unable to define the ultimate meaning of existence.
Growing numbers of individuals became convinced that they had to develop their own religion through personal renewal in small communities in the hope that these, in turn, might indirectly affect the society at large. They attempted to counter secular normlessness by giving young men and women a scientific education combined with moral values. In the past 25 or so years, the movement has established a half dozen widely circulated newspapers and magazines, a television and two radio stations, and has also founded more than 300 schools and study centers in Turkey and several hundred similar institutions in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans and as far away as South Africa, Russia and Mexico. This is the Islamic brave new world. Instead of rejecting the West as evil, as Muslims previously did, the movement's publications support Turkey's bid for membership in the European Union.
Theorists define social movements as weapons of relatively powerless groups seeking to remedy the wrongs of a society without seeking political power for themselves. Such movements require a constancy of discontent, political opportunity and framing. It is inaccurate to speak of leaders. The movements arise when inspired individuals are able to frame an issue in such a way that others are inspired to acts of courage and selflessness. An ability to change tactics and directions as the times require, without losing sight of their purpose, is their major strength.
As a social movement, this Islam is without an organizational chart or dues-paying members. It does not have a leader in the sense of someone shaking hands, making speeches and presiding over meetings. It does not even have a formal name. Instead, it is called the Fethullah Gulen movement, using the name of the man who currently frames its goals. In essence, Gulen does not want to confine Islam to a private domain but stresses a public religion in the formation of ethics, identity and community.
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