Abstract: Contemporary
Turkey has been witnessing yet
another wave of Islamic resurgence. This time however, instead of
mosques or
religious orders, Islam has established itself in unconventional
institutions.
These include on the one hand 5-star hotels that observe Islamic
teachings on
alcohol and gender-politics, Islamic fashion-shows, and
character-education
schools, and on the other HR associations that articulate UN
conventions with
the Medina Certificate, business associations that moralize principles
of free-market
with Islamic teachings, and pro-Islamic women’s associations that
promote
pro-female readings of hadith.
In my current book project, I argue that
these new
institutions, from Islamic hotels to civil associations, embody a new
type of
Islamic orthodoxy, which I term as Muslimism. Neither fundamentalist
rejection
nor liberal submission, Muslimism embraces aspects of modern life while
submitting that life to a sacred, moral order resulting in a hybrid
identity
frame. Within that frame, the aim is not that of capturing the state
but to
contrive a lifestyle in which the individual-believer can be
incorporated into
modernity while entertaining and preserving an Islam-proper living.
This does
not mean Muslimism is a mere cultural expression. Muslimists engage the
political space by exerting civic pressure, promoting new elites – such
as the
Muslimist electoral support to the Justice and Development Party– and
new
policies—in particular to push state polices and the laic model of
secularism
towards more neutral and democratic lines.
Based on an historical reading, the
project
identified the mechanisms (agents, conditions, and social spaces) that
generated Muslimism, and the empirical analysis (mainly based on
interviews
with leaders of pro-Islamic civil and political organizations that are
identifiable as Muslimists) mapped the Muslimist discourse to identify
its core
characteristics. These characteristics include for example cherishing
of
conciliatory politics, cultural tolerance, political liberalization,
individuation,
voluntary associations, and globalist objectives (both in terms of IR
and
culture) and repudiation of cultural conservatism, authoritarianism,
literalism, polarization, and traditionalism.