Turkey and Neo-Ottomanism: Domestic Sources, Dynamics and Foreign Policy

Abstract

All rights reserved. Party is forced to secretly advance its Islamic agenda using the language and symbolism of democracy and human rights. This study argued that the ideas of the AK Party show similarities with the "Ottomanist" thought of the late Ottoman era. With special reference to the preservation of the Ottoman State, Ottomanism in an eclectic way was able to incorporate Islamic principles like freedom, justice and consultation into the political arena which was increasingly dominated by the secular European concepts.Literature on Islam and politics in Turkey, however, disregards the Ottoman roots of freedom and pluralism and tends to reduce the relationship between religion and state into exclusively confrontational struggles. This conceptualization of the political process relies on particular non-Turkish Muslim experiences which do not necessarily represent vii Islam's venture in Turkey. Contrary to the prevailing scholarship, Islamic movements in Turkey, namely, Naqshbandi, National View and Nur, which are discussed in detail in this study, are not monolithic. They all uphold the same creedal tenets of Islam but they have sharp differences in terms of how they conceptualize the role of religious agency in politics. I argue that this diversity is a result of three distinct methodologies of Islamic religious life which are the Tariqah (Tarikat), Shariah (Şeriat), and Haqiqah (Hakikat).The differences between these three approaches represent a typological hierarchy in the formation of the Muslim/believer as an agent of Islamic identity. Through these different if not conflicting modes, the AK Party reconnected itself with Turkey's Ottoman heritage in a post-Ottoman, secular setting and was able to develop an eclectic political identity of Neo-Ottomanism that is evident in the flexibility if not inconsistency of its domestic and foreign policy preferences. 2 definitions of Islamic social movements. Most of them, however, betray a structural bias in explaining the diverse array of social movements, thus limiting our ability to analyse the identities of these social movements in the public sphere. In explaining Islamic social movements, I employ Tarrow's definition, with minor modifications. Throughout this dissertation, a social movement will be considered as a collective understanding and action by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with other social actors. 4Naqshbandi tariqah is the main historical-cultural Islamic movement in Turkey.For the past two hundred years, this tariqah expanded from being one of many Islamic movements into the most influential one due to its methods which proved successful when Turkish political and social life underwent a period of reform. In modern Turkey the Naqshbandi tariqah has branched off into various subgroups under the umbrella of the Naqshbandiyya. 5The significance of the Naqshbandi order becomes clearer when the republican era of Turkish history is explored. From the establishment of the republic in 1923 byMustafa Kemal (d. 1938) ...