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When the Ottomans commenced their modernizing reforms in the 1830s, they still ruled over a vast empire. In addition to today's Turkey, including Anatolia and Thrace, their power reached over Mesopotamia, North Africa, the Levant, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Sultanate was at the apex of a truly multi-ethnic society. Modernization not only brought market principles to the economy and more complex administrative controls as part of state power, but also new educational institutions as well as new ideologies. Thus new ideologies developed and nationalism emerged, which became a political reality when the Empire reached its end. This book compares the different intellectual atmospheres between the pre-republican and the republican periods and identifies the roots of republican authoritarianism in the intellectual heritage of the earlier period.
This text describes the conflict over the veil as it became a burning issue in the decade following the military intervention of 1980. 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.
In the rising momentum for new and reformulated cultural identities, the Turkish Alevi have also emerged on the scene, demanding due recognition. In this process a number of dramatic events have served as important milestones: the clashes between Sunni and Alevi in Kahramanmaras in 1979 and Corum in 1980, the incendiarism in Sivas in 1992, and the riots in Istanbul (Gaziosmanpasa) in 1995. Less evocative, but in the long run more significant, has been the rising interest in Alevi folklore and religious practices. Questions have also arisen as to what this branch of Islamic heterodoxy represents in terms of old and new identities. In this book, these questions are addressed by some of the most prominent scholars in the field.
Explores the ways in which Muslims relate various forms of religious oratory to authoritative tradition in 21st-century Islamic practice, while striving to adapt to local contexts and the changing circumstances of politics, media and society.
Christian and Islamic sermons from past and present, and their preachers, are analyzed to reveal the socio-cultural dynamics of religious speeches. Part I focuses on the explicit contribution of sermons in socio-cultural transformation processes. It shows how sermons connect with holy texts, religious norms of the specific group, and social-cultural contexts. Part II analyzes the dynamic tension between normativity and popularity. Rather than juxtaposing normative stances and the popularity of sermons, it shows how that normativity can itself contribute to popularity and the quest of popularity carries its own normative stances. Part III explores the ritual embeddedness of religious speech in the sermon in relation to social dynamics, normativity, and popularity, and shows how speech and rituals have a reciprocal relationship.
Exploring the relationship between fiction and nation formation in the Muslim world through 12 unique studies from Azerbaijan, Libya, Iran, Algeria, and Yemen, amongst others, this book shows how fiction reflects and relates the complex entanglements of nation, religion, and modernity in the process of political and cultural identity formation.
Since the formation of the Republic in 1923, Friday sermons (hutbe) have been an important platform that allows the state to engage and communicate with the Turkish people. Sermon topics vary from religious and ethical issues to matters concerning family, women, health, education, business and the environment. Even if politics, in the name of secularism, has been banned from mosques and sermons, questions of how to be a good citizen and honour the Turkish nation have been of utmost importance. With an all-pervading sermon theme of social, national and political unity, Elisabeth Özdalga explores how long-standing religious rituals are utilised and mobilised in the formation of modern political loyalties and national identities.
This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action. The aim of the boo...
Turkish society has been going through institutional and ideological change that has affected its social, cultural and political practices. This book examines these contemporary tensions, which have led to a re-appraisal of Turkey as a nation and Turkish nationalism as it tries to situate itself as a regional and global power. Analysing the internal and external dynamics of Turkey and the role played by nationalism, this book considers how the understanding of the nation and nationalism has changed since the creation of the Republic of Turkey, and how it has now become central to its desire to become a global power. Despite on-going negotiations about entry into the EU, an ambition for Turke...
Debates about military influence on civilian government tend to be partisan and rarely pay sufficient attention to specific contexts. This paper analyses, without condemnation or justification, why and how the military exercises such influence in Turkey and whether it is likely to continue to do so. It argues that the role of the military in Turkey grows out of a specific Turkish context and is more a symptom than a cause of the country's flawed democracy. It examines the Turkish officer ethos, particularly the role of the indigenous ideology of Kemalism, and the broad, though not universal, public mandate for an interventionist role in politics. It contends that the military's influence is ...