Şule Yüksel Şenler: An Islamist Vernacular Intellectual

Abstract

This article is not a contemplation on women and politics. Neither is it a discussion on Muslim women, the hijab, and Islamism. Instead, this is a testimony to and a remark on Şule Yüksel Şenler, an Islamist vernacular intellectual who blazed a trail in the Islamist politics of Türkiye commencing in the 1960s but existed in the Islamism literature rather through her absence. Şenler vernacularised Islamism by mobilising the hijab, public talks, cinema, literature, journalism, and womanhood, amongst other things such as charities, organisations and politics. As a testimony, I begin with a depiction of the context by providing a chronicle of Turkish politics focusing on the 1960s with a biographical note on Şenler. Next, as a remark, I attempt to work her out as a vernacular intellectual who fashioned the context that concurrently moulded her. To this end, I present Grant Farred’s concept of vernacular intellectual. Farred coins the term to account for the particular intellectual figures who emerged from the anti/postcolonial struggles. Then, I narrate the story of Şenler by expanding the vernacular intellectual and vernacular beyond the conventional postcolonial setting.