Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium

11. Defining (and Enforcing) Islam in Secular Turkey

203 11. defining (and enforcing) islaM in secular turKey Kim Shively The place and role of Islam in the public sphere has long been an issue of intense contention in Turkey.This conflict finds persistent expression in the media, political and public discourse, as well as in private conversations and religious discourse. The debate about religion in Turkey has tended to crystallize around several key points of conflict: the nature of religious education, the presence and role of the tarikats or cemaats (religious organizations) in public life, and the “headscarf question”—when and where are women permitted to don the Muslim veil, if they so choose. Religious education of all types has progressively come under greater and greater state control, thereby limiting the dissemination of unauthorized religious knowledge. The cemaats have been officially outlawed but still continue to be popular and wield considerable social and political influence .And finally,regulations restricting veiled women in public institutions have spurred street demonstrations and political conflicts that have brought down political parties. The Kemalist establishment1 —especially the military and the judiciary—has been concerned that allowing certain Islamic practices in the public sphere would endanger Turkish-style laicism, and so has been diligent in maintaining at least the semblance of control over religious activities and 204 Anthropology of Religion and Secularism in the mena practices. On the other hand, those who oppose government policy agitate for the freedom to practice religion as they see fit. This debate about the role of Islam in Turkish society arises, in part, from very different understandings of what Islam is.The state’s laicist interpretation of Islam maintains that certain unauthorized religious practices should be confined to the private sphere of the practitioner, if not completely eliminated. Yet this characterization of Islam is based on a Western, especially Protestant, concept of religion, where private individual faith is emphasized over social religious practice, such as donning the Islamic headscarf in public or participating in independent (non-state) religious education. Such an interpretation conflicts with other understandings of Islam thriving in Turkey, especially those that maintain that ritual and public practice are essential to genuine Islam.Yet, it is the Turkish state that has the authority and control over legitimate violence to enforce its form of Islam, over and against the wishes of many of its citizens. The various perspectives in popular discourse regarding the nature of Turkish Islam presented here derive from interviews and participant observation research in various communities in Ankara—as well as one community in Istanbul—and close observation of electronic and print media. The key data are drawn from participant observation research of a women’s Qur’an course in Sincan, a famously religious provincial town near Ankara (1997–1999 with subsequent visits in 2004, 2006–2008, 2010). The Sincan Qur’an course was led by Meryem,2 a charismatic, intelligent, and articulate young woman (she was nineteen when I met her) who had a substantial following among women in the local neighborhood and had in fact worked as a preacher at a local religious radio station before I met her. The course students were generally young, and their educational and economic situations varied: some only had rudimentary formal education, some had graduated from primary school, some from high school, and occasionally a small number of college students took part as well. While the focus of the course was on reciting, memorizing, and understanding the Qur’an, Meryem’s sermons and the subsequent discussions almost always turned to political matters. The course often became a platform for analyzing the state’s attitude toward religious practice and discussing the ways in which to live a “clean” (temiz) form of Islam despite state limitations. Home-based Qur’an courses like the one in Sincan have become increasingly popular in Turkey as part of the Islamic Revival or Islamic Awakening that has blossomed in Muslim-majority societies around the world since the 1970s. Yet in Turkey these courses are technically illegal because they might serve as Defining (and Enforcing) Islam in Secular Turkey 205 arenas in which the wrong (“unauthorized”) kind of religion is taught. Even though the laws against these courses are rarely enforced, the Sincan Qur’an course participants were well aware of the state’s power to impose its will. A few months before I began my field research, Sincan had been subject to military threats (tanks rolled through the streets) after...