Ataturk, Islam, Modernity and Turkish Education a Comparative, Historical Analysis

Atatiirk, Islam, Modernity and Turkish Education:

A Comparative, Historical Analysis

by

Jennifer Ashkenazi (Coburn)

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of The requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

(Educational Policy Studies)

at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

2007

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A dissertation entitled

Atatiirk, Islam and Modernity in Turkish Education: A Comparative-Historical Analysis

Submitted to the Graduate School o f the University o f W isconsin-Madison

in partial fulfillment o f the requirements for the degree o f Doctor o f Philosophy

Jennifer Ashkenazi (Coburn)

Date o f Final Oral Examination: May 11, 2007

Month and Year Degree to be awarded: M ay/August 2007

Approval Signatures o f Dissertation Committee

Signature, Dean o f Graduate School


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Abstract iv

Chapter 1 Theoretical, Methodological and Historical Considerations 9

M ethodology 10

Current State o f Research 14

Chapter 2 The Shifting State of Islam in Education: Transitions from the 31

Ottoman Empire

Religion and State Power within the Ottoman Forces o f 32

M odernization and Nationalism

Islamic Education 35

Ottoman Education 39

Chapter 3 Secularization and the Presence of Islam in Early Turkish 51

Education

Life in the New Turkish Republic 52

Kemalism 57

The Philosophy o f Ziya Gokalp and Kemalist Ideology 66

Kemalist Disestablishment o f Islam 71

Education in the Republic o f Turkey 78

Organization o f Schools 86

Chapter 4 Ambiguities of Islamic Values in Turkish Educational Policy 91

in the Single Party Era

A New Brand o f Islam: Kemalism and National Educational 93

Policies

Religious Courses 103

Degrees o f Control: The Uneven Penetration o f Secular Kemalism 112

in 1920s Turkey


ii

Chapter 5 Politics and Religious Education in the 119

Multi-Party Era 1960-1980

The M odernization o f the M ilitary and Keeper o f Kemalist 120

Secularism

Turkish Society and Politics 1950-1980 124

The 1961 Constitution 129

International Relations 130

Religious Education Reform 1946-1980 131

Imam-Hatip Schools 133

Chapter 6 Ozalist Paradigm of Modernity: Sanctioning Religious 137

Education

The Last Sultan in Republican Clothes 138

The 1980 Coup 139

The 1982 Constitution 142

Ozalism 146

Turkey's Economic Transformation and Foreign Relations 150

The Turkish Islamic Synthesis 155

Ozalism M anifested in Turkish Education 158

Universal Ideals and Globalization in Educational Reforms 162

Chapter 7 Return to Islamic Heritage: Compulsory Religious Education 170

Religious Education Policies after 1980 170

Special Committees on Religious Education 173

The Reports o f Atay and Giirta: Arguments for Compulsory 175

Religious Education

Turkish Conferences on National Education and Special Seminars 178

for Religious Education

Religious Education and the 1982 Constitution 185

Turkish Ideology in 1980s Curriculum 189

The Regulation o f Religious Education in 1980s Turkey 195

Turkish Religious Education Abroad 202


Chapter 8

Conclusion

Bibliography

Revival of Islamic Education or Revival of Kemalism? A 207

Comparative Review of the Atatiirk and Ozal Eras

The Secular and the Neo-Liberal Kemalism: Discontinuities w ith 211

Kemalist Past

Ozal and Tempered Secularism 214

Continuities o f Kemalist Ideology and Religious Education during 219

the Ozal era

Ongoing Challenges Facing Turkish Educational Reform 227

233

239


ABSTRACT

The Turkish Republic has experienced a rise in Islamic influence in contemporary

politics and in society, culminating in popular support for the Islamic Justice and

Development Party and their new Prime M inister in the 2002 elections. This influence

questions the 'project o f modernity' and the secular ideals upon which the Republic was

founded in 1923. As part o f this 'project o f modernity' Turkish education was centralized

under state control and made secular in 1924; however, Islamic elements continuously

reappear in schools and curriculum and have consequently caused serious public debate

regarding the role o f Islam in state education. Indeed, the relations between religion and

national ideology delve into Turkish infrastructure and reveal a unique view o f the

changing ways Turkish officials have regarded Islam.

In this study I compare national educational reforms during two vital historical

junctures, with particular reference to Islamic and religious education: the Kemalist

Paradigm (1923-1938) and the Ozalist Paradigm o f Modernity, (1983-1993). O f

particular interest for my study is how the changes in secular and traditional values are

expressed in state educational policies. During the years o f Kemalism, Islam was

considered an impediment to instituting western reforms. Islamic elements were removed

from curriculum; religious courses were cancelled; and religious schools were shut down.

The disestablishment o f Islam consequently changed the face o f the Republic. The Ozal

era o f the 1980s relaxed the secular state policies and slowly reintroduced Islamic

elements to official public Turkish life. This period was marked by the Turkish-Islamic

Synthesis - a new element in Turkish society - and a result o f the growing politicization


o f Islam in the state. During this period a new Constitution, drafted in 1982, reframed the

place o f Islam in Turkish society. I analyze the balance between Turkish secular ideals

and traditional Islamic values and seek to explore how they are expressed in educational

reform. In a broader sphere, this study alludes to the manner in which Islam operates in a

m odem and westernized society, the historical changes in the nature Islam in the 20th

Century, and the role o f Turkish education in the construction o f a Turk.


1Introduction. A Comparative Study of Modern Turkish Education:

Islamic Traditions and Western Ideals

"Generally speaking, educational systems and school organizations are

found to be resilient to change and reform. Along with technical

difficulties o f reform and change efforts, educational systems are social

domains where there exist deeply embedded beliefs, myths and symbols

facilitating root causes fo r resistance.

Since its establishment in 1923, the Turkish Republic has dramatically

changed. Modem and western forms of governance and social organization as well as

economic development have launched Turkey into the global market and international

politics. Many scholars attribute Turkish modernization to its programs of progressive

education and secular nationalism, both instituted to counter the religious policies of

the declining Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk introduced secularism to the

Republic when he claimed power in 1923. The states commitment to secularization

notwithstanding, the Turkish government today is struggling with how to reconcile

the religious and national identities of its citizens. Even though the young Republic

"dismantled" Islam as the governing force after 1923, it preserved the presence of

Islam in the social and cultural life in the country.2 This dissertation examines the

Turkeys national educational policies since 1923 in order to shed light on the

1 Weick, 1976, in Hasan Simsek and Ali Yildirm, "Turkey: Innovation and Tradition," G lobal Education Reform , ed. Iris Rothberg (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004) p. 29.

2 Soon-Yong Pak, At the crossroads o f secularism and Islamism (Turkey) (Unpublished Dissertation, University o f Wisconsin, Madison, 2002).


ambiguous relationship between Islam and Turkish modernization. The secularization

of the states educational policies, I will argue, paradoxically affected the program of

modernization and the preservation of cultural and moral aspects of Islam in modem

Turkey. In this work, I emphasize the ambiguity of Turkeys secular reforms. I also

highlight the role of religion in the formation of the allegedly secular state (and, by

extension, its educational system), as this issue remains a problem in contemporary

Turkish society.

This study compares two periods in modem Turkey history: the first is the era

which has been called the Kemalist Paradigm of Modernity, under which the secular

Turkish Republic was established and developed in the 1920s and the 1930s; the

second is referred to as the Ozalist Paradigm of Modernity, under which the religious-

Kemalist synthesis was introduced following the 1980 coup.3 These two eras strongly

defined the relations between religion and the state in modem Turkey and the

influence is still felt today, as Turkey endeavors to enter the European Union as the

first Muslim country.

In his efforts to create a modem and democratic nation-state, Mustafa Kemal

Atatiirk called for secularization, or the separation of religion from state, as well as

the institution of Western civic and legal practices. Atatiirk aimed to disestablish the

powerful role of Islam and Islamic elites in Turkish society in order to further his

western reforms. The new Turkish customs, however, remained intertwined with the

old Islamic traditions, and so continued to affect cultural preferences, moral behavior,

and daily practices. Atatiirk believed that the constmction of a national, secular form

of education would play a key role in the creation of new Turkish citizens.

3 Andreas Kazamias uses these terms in his recent book, The Turkish Sisyphus: Atatiirk, Islam and the Quest fo r European Modernity (Athens: Centre o f Comparative Education, International Education Policy and Communication, 2006).


3Nonetheless, education did not only serve to foster a new, ethnocentric, Turkish

national identity; the Turkish education system under Atatiirk continued to uphold

essential elements of Islam.

Kemalism, with its emphasis on secularism and Turko-centric nationalism,

remained a sacrosanct ideology in the post-Atatiirk era. Yet, the military coup of 1980

marked a turning point for interpretations of secular Kemalism. The coup and the civil

regime that followed it, under the leadership of Turgut Ozal, initiated a new era of a

state-sponsored tolerance for Islam. The military leaders and Prime Minister Turgut

Ozal, of the Motherhood Party, made religious lessons a compulsory element of

national curriculum and endorsed, to a limited extent, an Islamic presence in Turkish

society. This Islamic presence was in part based on the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis

(TIS), a philosophy developed in the 1980s. My study will analyze the impact of the

TIS in national education and how Kemalism was re-interpreted to accommodate

Islamic values.

My research focuses on two, key historical junctures in modem Turkish

history, in which education policies were considered of primary importance. I will

compare and contrast the role of Islam, and religion in general, in the educational

policies in the Kemalist Paradigm of Modernity and Ozalist Paradigm of Modernity,

within their respective historical contexts. One of my main objectives is the

investigation of the rise of Islamic education, especially after the 1980 coup.

Particularly, this study focuses on the ways education was used as a tool by the state,

under both the Kemalist and the Ozalist Paradigms of Modernity.

In analyzing the continuities and the discontinuities of Turkish education

between these two eras, this study uses the methodological tools of the comparative-

historical approach, which will be discussed in the first chapter below. My


4examination comprises three main parts: 1. Investigating the presence of Islam in

Turkish educational reforms after its official dis-establishment in 1924; 2. Portraying

the nature of Islam's reappearance in educational reforms after the 1980 coup; and 3.

Articulating, by way of a comparative analysis, the features and implications of the

continued presence of Islam in the general educational system of Turkey during both

eras. Furthermore, this work explores the ways in which secularism and Islam have

interacted and have been expressed in educational reform.

Although sixty years separate them, the two time periods examined here share

key elements: both Atatiirk and Ozal used the tension between modernity and religion

as a means to advance a national ideology and regain social order. They differed in

their approach to secularism, however, with Atatiirk aiming to expunge Islam from

the Turkish society, and Ozal trying to synthesize Islam with the secular Turkish

identity. This comparison of educational reforms in two different epochs in one

country, with an emphasis on their variant paradigms of modernity, reveals changes in

the essential perception of the Turkish national movement and its implementation in

politics. Existing studies of secularism and the modernization process in Turkey have

placed relatively little emphasis on the role of religion in Turkish policy, especially in

the national education policy. My study provides a example of how these policies

offer insight into the development of Islam in Turkish society.

Since 1923, Turkey has designed its education program to achieve the singular

aim of transforming Turkey from a traditional and religiously conservative society

to a modem and western nation. The Ozalist Paradigm of Modernity is the most

recent development in a series of three modernization/westernization reform

movements that have helped shape the current form of Turkish nationalism. These


5three reform movements, which will be presented below, are significant for their

illumination of the changing attitudes of the Ottoman-Turkish regimes toward Islam.

This study opens with a survey of current approaches in comparative

education analysis, and is followed by a sketch of the the main traits of the Ottoman

educational reforms. This sketch will help to situate the context of educational

development in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. The Ottoman modernizing reform

movement occurred under Islamic authoritarian rule, toward the end of the 19th

century. Efforts were made to westernize the Ottoman administration, as well as the

economic and education systems; secular curriculum was expanded with the aim of

educating a larger population, outside of the religious and political elites. The Sultan,

Abdtilhamid II (1876-1908), tried to harmonize Islamic and western traditions, but

was unable to gain support from his subjects. Due to the powerful influence of the

Islamic religious elites, the ulema, his efforts at reform were largely unsuccessful.

Next, this study depicts the second major modernizing/westernizing reform

movement: the Kemalist Paradigm of Modernity, which came about in 1923 under the

leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk. Atatiirk developed Kemalism as a new national

ideology. Kemalism was organized according to six principles that were formulated as

guidelines for the new Republic: nationalism, republicanism,

reformism/revolutionism, secularism, etatism, and populism. He shifted the new state

from its Islamic beginnings towards a western, secular Republic, thereby

disestablishing the traditional place of Islam within state administration and asserting

a new, western national ideology. Atatiirk achieved this by abolishing the Sultanate

and the Caliphate and by creating the Directorate of Religious Affairs in 1924, which

was supposed to regulate Islam within Turkey.


6An important tool for the implementation of these reforms was an improved

educational system administered by the state. Kemalism, upon which the newly

formed educational system was based, called for new loyalties - to the Turkish state -

to replace religious and dynastic loyalties of the Ottoman Empire. Education became

the prime transmitter of the Republics new national culture and was therefore

important for cultivating a new intellectual elite. Thus, secularism implied a shift in

Turkish identity from one rooted in community and religion to one bound with

country and nation.4

The actualization of the Kemalism depended upon a modem and western

educational system that would prepare the new citizens to participate in their state.

The stmctures and forms for the new Turkish Republic were modeled after the

political and economic practices of western Europe and the Soviet Union. The

Republican Peoples Party, the ruling party during Atatiirks years, closed the

religious schools, the medreses, and uprooted Islam from the public sphere in the

Republic. Religion was (supposedly) officially eradicated from public school

curriculum in 1928, when the clause stating that Islam was the state religion was

removed from the Constitution.5

This second period of reform lasted the duration of Atatiirks leadership - the

Single-Party Era - from 1923 though 1946. Some of the most important educational

reforms during that time were those that sought to centralize education under the state.

To manage these new duties, Atatiirk established a Ministry of Education and

Directorate of Religious Affairs to enforce the states new regulations and control

secular and religious education. After the introduction of multi-party rule in 1946, the

4Bemard Lewis, The Emergence o f Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961) 134.

5Niyazi Berkes, The Developm ent o f Secularism in Turkey (New York: Routledge, 1998) 477.


government adopted a more lenient approach towards religious education.

Nevertheless, the Kemalist military upheld the strict secular policies. The influential

military leaders did not allow significant deviations from the secular values written

into the Turkish Constitution.

These early Republic reform movements, one which aimed to harmonize

Islam and westernization in the Ottoman Empire, the other which strived to

westernize the Republic by removing Islam from state policy and governance, provide

important context for understanding the development of the third reform movement in

the 1980s. Recalling the considerable social unrest preceding the coup of 1980, Islam

was reintroduced into the Republics westernized political system and educational

policies in an attempt to unify the Turks. Prime Minister Turgut Ozals main

challenge at the time was to integrate a neo-liberal economic world-view -

encouraging initiatives in an age of globalization - with the conservative sentiments

of a large part of the Turkish population. Furthermore, Ozal and his military allies

wished to uphold the Kemalist secular ideology. After lengthy examination, I argue

that Ozals efforts at compromise, to create a religious-Kemalist synthesis,

accomplished more as a slogan than as an implemented policy.

Major Turkish historians - such as Howard Reed, Andreas Kazamias, and

Joseph Szyliowicz - regard Islams role in the education reform movements as crucial

for understanding contemporary Turkey.6 The last part of this study presents a

comparison of the role of Islam within the educational policies of the Atatiirk and

Ozal periods. In order to assess this role, we will examine the ways in which the

6 Howard A. Reed, Atattirk's Secularizing Legacy and the Continuing Vitality o f Islam in Republican Turkey, ed. Pullapilly Cyriac K., Islam in the Contemporary World (Notre Dame: Cross Road Books, 1980); Andreas Kazamias, Education and the Quest fo r M odernity in Turkey ( London: George Allen & Unwin LDT, 1966); Joseph Szyliowicz, Education and M odernization in the M iddle East (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973).


modernization of Turkish society affected education reforms. Considering these

developments, as well as the specific socio-economic situations at the time, this

section presents an alternative interpretation of the role of Islam in Turkeys path to

modernity.


9Chapter 1. Methodological and Historical Considerations

This dissertation uses a comparative historical approach to suggest a new perspective

on major developments in Turkish education and to enhance our understanding of the

imbrications of religion and Westernization within the modem Turkish education system.

The aim of this section is to situate my study within the field of comparative education, and,

particularly, within the historical comparative approach. In the following pages I present my

methodology vis-a-vis comparative education methodology and the current state of research

in modem Turkish education.

National education, as it was envisaged in Turkey in the 1920s, was one of the

building blocks of the development of Turkish nationalism. Education was a channel through

which modem notions of nationalism and secularism were promoted and could be extended

to the wider Turkish population. During this era, Islam was allegedly removed from all

official state statutes; most notably Islam was removed from the Turkish Constitution in

1928. In keeping with the spirit of secular nationalism, Islam was officially removed from

Turkish national education. Since education was perceived as a significant tool for the

nationalization of the Turkish people, most studies of Turkish education have focused on its

role in the creation of the secular Turkish nationalism. Nevertheless, this study reveals

intricate relations between Turkish education and Islam. The examination below underlines

policies and documents of Turkish education authorities to show the continued presence of

Islam within the Turkish education system. It demonstrates the ways in which Islam

remained part of the nationalization project and, in some respects, was exploited as an

effective tool within this project.


10

The familiar narrative of modem Turkish history reveals that after Islam was

disestablished within the public spheres and the official policies by Atatiirk, it was

reintroduced in the early 1980s, under the auspices of the military leaders and the

government of Turgut Ozal. This study compares these two time periods to argue in a

different vain. Indeed, the short-lived military dictatorship and the subsequent leadership of

Turgut Ozal initiated noteworthy reforms regarding the reemergence of Islam in the Turkish

society: Islam was written back into the revised 1982 Turkish Constitution and into national

education; Turkish national education was officially considered a principle tool for verifying

and spreading the new reforms. Although the Kemalist ideals of secularism and nationalism

were at the same time strengthened and reified, Islam was recognized as an inseparable part

of Turkish society. However, my comparison of education policies during the Atatiirk and

Ozals eras shows that the reforms of the 1980s were actually a matter of recognizing

patterns that existed and continued in Turkish society since the 1920s. The presence of Islam

was not a new phenomenon, nor was the inclusion of compulsory religious lessons in Turkish

schools. Alongside of the state policies, my comparison highlights the ambiguity of the

language surrounding Islam in official documents and the implicit tolerance towards the

presence of Islam in the state regulated spheres, schools in particular.

Methodology

This dissertation is a comparative historical study of the interactions between

education, politics and religion in these two important periods in modem Turkish history. My

study combines the fields of comparative education and policy studies in an examination of

the Turkish educational policies; the benefits of such a juncture have been recently explored


11

by Val Rust.1 Underscoring the interrelations between these fields, this study examines a

broad view of the role of Islam in educational laws and reforms and, in particular, in the

educational developments in two influential periods in Turkish history: the 1920s period of

nation building and secular national development; and the 1980s period of reaffirmation of

Turkish heritage, including the prominence of Islam. Such an analysis enables a relatively

detailed examination of the time periods, which will further enhance our understanding of the

reforms and their significance within the broader context of Turkish education and society.

This methodological approach highlights the role of the historical contexts - the

national, the regional and the global - in the development of an educational system. Many

comparative studies of education have followed one of two distinct paths of research: inter

comparative, in which different states or specific aspects of different states are compared; or

intra-comparative, in which similar or different things of the same nation are compared.2 My

study of Turkish national education falls under the second option, comparing the national

education system of one state, Turkey, in two different time periods, the 1920s/30s and the

1980s. Adhering to Michael Sadlers premise, my comparative approach underlines the need

to incorporate a historical analysis of the society, the things outside school - its cultural,

intellectual, and religious venues - into the comparative research of education.3

The placing of the educational reforms of Turkey within their broader national and

historical contexts enables a multi-dimensional comparison. An important aspect of

comparative education is the premise that the historical development of education has an

influence on the continuing development of the present educational system. As Sweeting

concludes: "[...] by comparing events, ideas and attitudes within one period or between more

1 Val Rust, "Educational Policy Studies and Comparative Education," Learning from Comparing: NewDirections in Educational Research, eds. Robin Alexander et al, (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2000).

2 4.10.06, interview with A. Kazamias in Athens, Greece.

3 Michael Sadler quoted in George Z.F. Bereday, Sir Michael Sadlers Study o f Foreign Systems o f Education, Comparative Education Review (Feb. 1964) 310.


12

than one, a researcher is able to reach reasoned conclusions about such matters as continuity,

change and development."4 In an investigation of Turkish educational reforms the 1920s and

the 1980s, a historical framework provides a fascinating lens through which scholars can

identify the degree to which the proposed reforms were actually executed.5

This study will focus on the implementation of secularism, the separation of religion

and state, in the Turkish Republic.6 Specifically, I will highlight the interaction of Islam and

secular educational policies. The study begins with a review of Kemalism, or the ideology of

Atatiirk, and an examination of the ways in which culturally significant elements of Islam

remained part of the school system and influenced the education of the new Turkish

citizen. The first part of my analysis examines the social and economic conditions in the

Republics early years, including an examination of the six arrows of Kemalist ideology

and the nature of major educational reforms until 1949 (the year religious courses were again

allowed into Turkish public education). This section will also cover the specific

constitutional measures and the state reports that dealt with educational reform.

The second part of my analysis will examine the reforms that occurred in the Ozalist

era of the 1980s. Paradoxically, during these years the secular Turkish military promoted

Islam in national education in order to re-establish popular control. The education reforms

between 1980 and 1990 show a fascinating development in educational policy formation and

policy implementation, one in which Islam played an important role. The hidden influences

4 Anthony Sweeting, The Historical Dimension: a Contribution to Conversation about Theory and Method inComparative Education, Com parative Education 41.1 (Feb. 2005), p. 29

5 There are limited studies dealing with the issues and challenges facing rural Turkish communities from the Atatiirk Era through the later 1950s; the ones existing are concerned primarily with agriculture or population fluctuation. Therefore it is relevant to look at the policies and laws concerning education in order to deal in a productive manner with Turkish educational reform. Please see John F. Kolars, "Community Studies in Rural Turkey," Annals o f the Association o f American Geographers 52.4 (Dec. 1962).

6 The notion o f secularism as understood in the Turkish Republic will be discussed at length in Chapter 2 below.


13

of Islam found within the official Turkish ideology and the strong local presence of Islam in

rural areas lie at the very heart of my analysis.

My research about Islam and the educational reforms in Turkey is based on an

examination and comparison of various primary historical sources. These sources include: (a)

the 1924 Turkish Constitution; (b) the 1924 The Basic Law of National Education No. 1739;

(c) the 1924 Unification of Education Law; (d) the 1982 Turkish Constitution; and (e) the

1997 Law No. 4306 for 8-year Compulsory and Uninterrupted Education. These laws are the

primary documents concerning educational legal aspects and policy in Turkey, and hence, are

the foundation upon which the role of Islam in Turkish education has been officially

constructed. Additional primary sources include official state publications dealing with

educational reforms and the subject of religious education from the Ministry, of Education,

the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and the Council for Higher Education. These include the

Tebligler Dergisi (Communication Review) published by the Turkish Ministry of Education

on a bi-weekly basis, the publications of the national conferences organized by the National

Security Council, the Ministry of Education and/or the Directorate of Religious Affairs about

religious education development; the 1990 Report on Education conducted by the Turkish

National Business Association; and various reports released by the Turkish government

about the status of national and religious education (publication dates spanning from 1919 to

2005).

In addition to these official documents, one other report will be used here as a

primary source. Halis Ayhan's study Turkiye'de Din Egitim (Religious Education in Turkey)

between the years 1920 and 1998, is a historical document of many ministerial proceedings

in the Ministries of both Education and Religion.7 In this volume, Ayhan summarizes the

7 Ayhan was a civil servant and was present at the majority o f the religious education meetings held in the 1980s. The importance o f this report is found in the numerous summaries o f official proceedings that are


14

different official proceedings and describes some of the unofficial proceedings that occurred

behind the scenes. The debates about the re-integration of religious curriculum in state

schools and the growth of Imam-Hatip schools during the Ozalist era are especially important

for a close examination of popular support (or lack thereof) for later reforms.

Current State o f Research

In modem Muslim societies, where religion finds support in countless formal and

informal contexts, education is often singled out as a vanguard for social change. The case of

education reform in Turkey is a particularly intriguing case study for examining the process

of modernization, and the role of religion, i.e. Islam, within this process. Modernization has

been used by various scholars to denote various social, cultural and technological phenomena

that had a fundamental influence on the changes in social structures and practices in the

recent centuries.8 Since the late Ottoman Empire, the concept of modernization was used by

the advocates of Turkish nationalism; even though they were aware of the diverse notions

related to this concept, they adapted it to suit the national project in Turkey.9 From its first

stages, the reformation of political and social institutions for compatibility with modem

governing methods, technology, commerce and ethics, was shaped in Turkey in a distinctive

way, which correlated with its blend of western and Muslim elements. According to several

scholars, Ottoman and Turkish modernization was shaped mostly as an elite-driven,

consensus-based, institution-building process that took its inspiration exclusively from the

difficult to obtain and not available in other sources. Dr. Halis Ayhan, Turkiye'de Din Egitimi 1920-1998 (Istanbul: M.U.Ihahiya Fakiitesi Yay., 1999).

8 For the different meanings o f Modernity and the difficulties to define it, see: S.N. Eisenstadt, Tradition, Change, and Modernity, (N ew York: Wiley, 1973); Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions o f Globalization. Public Worlds; V. 1 (Minneapolis: University o f Minnesota Press, 1996); M.Chefdor, R. Quinones, & A. Wachtel (eds.), Modernism: Challenges and Perspectives, Urbana, 1986.

9For specific examples o f modem and western reforms in Turkey, see below Chapter 3.


15

West.10 Although the Turkish modernization process had clear practical directives, it has

been comparatively slow in its integration into society beyond the national (or Empire) elite.

This slow and uneven infiltration of Turkish modernization notwithstanding, as Bozdogan

and Kasaba pointed out, by the 1920s, the institutional, ritual, symbolic and aesthetic

manifestations of modernity have become constituent elements of the Turkish collective

identity. 11 Due to its unique geographical location and cultural traditions, modernization in

Turkey took indeed a different path than most European nations; nonetheless, this process

affected - to varying degree - a broad section of Turkish society, and considerably

influenced the nationalization of the Turkish people since the Atatiirk era. The same

geographical and cultural circumstances are accountable for the importance of

Westernization in Turkeys modernization endeavor. For Atatiirk and his disciples, the

ambition to modernize the Turkish state was essentially related to imitation - or, more

accurately, adaptation - of Western European bureaucracy, means of production and

education.12

In addition to Secularization and Westernization, Modernization was coupled in

Atatiirks time to the concept of democracy. During the 1920s the democratization of the

state took several forms. As part of his perception of the national community, Atatiirk

encouraged citizens participation in the social and political realms, and sought to broaden

peoples involvement in public decisions, including planned social and economic reforms.

This national directive of democracy was one of the major values that informed the 1923

Turkish Constitution.13 Officially, citizens were granted numerous rights, including the right

10 Sibel Bozdogan and Re$at Kasaba, Introduction, in their Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, (Seattle: University o f Washington Press, 1997), 3-4.

11 ibid., 5.

12 Keyder, Caglar. State and Class in Turkey: a Study in Capitalist Development (New York: Verso, 1987).

1 Walter F. Weiker, The Turkish Revolution, 1960-61: Aspects o f M ilitary Politics (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980), 222.


16

to form political parties, become members and vote in elections; in fact, the gap between the

official declarations and the actual participation that citizens were permitted under Atatiirk

was fully demonstrated in his disapproval of competing political parties. Indeed, under

leadership of Atatiirk, during the Single-Party era, the democratic process was only partially

applied. Citizens could vote, but they did not have options beyond Atatiirks Republican

Peoples Party. The only other political party that Atatiirk allowed to form in 1930 was

quickly shut down, and a soft dictatorship was maintained in the Turkish Republic until the

Multi-Party era of the 1950s.14

Despite the limited implementation of the democratization o f Turkey, it was an

indispensable part of the national ideology. Much like secular and Western ideals, the

democratic values, as understood in the early Republic, needed to be taught to Turkish

citizens. The further development of modem schools thus became crucial to the process of

Turkeys nation building. Schools were already a key instrument in reforming Ottoman

society, especially in the process of secularizing state institutions. Atatiirks administration

emphasized this function of the schools during and after 1920s. Later, in the early 1980s,

schools had a significant role in the official re-introduction of Islamic elements back into

Turkish public life. A great deal of research about Turkey has revolved around the issue of

whether or not Islamic elements should or should not be included into educational policies.

While this is obviously an important question, other questions, such as continuities and

discontinuities regarding Islam in state policy formation, can reveal tendencies that

contribute to our understanding of different trends of Islam in Turkish society today. Past

studies have failed to fully exploit the combination of a historical and comparative approach;

my study is a venture into how this approach can be useful for further research in Turkey.

14 Ibid., 120.


17

The role of Islam within Turkish education has been examined in a number of studies

in the fields of anthropology, sociology, political science and history. An influential recent

contribution to the field was presented in Islam in Modem Turkey, in which Richard and

Nancy Tapper examine different aspects of education and religion. Among other topics, the

Tappers' book presents reviews of literature and intellectual debates about religion, surveys

the role of religious subjects and Islam in textbooks, and analyzes educational reforms and

the Turkish youth.15 An important chapter in this book is an ethnographic study of Kemalism

and Islamic education in a small Turkish village. In this chapter, the Tappers discuss the

development of Republican ideology, secularism and Islamism in the community and, more

specifically, in the community school. They argue that both Kemalist republicanism and

Islamism can be seen as part of a single ideology, claiming that it is suggested that the

legitimacy of the republican ideology was bolstered through the modern secular education

system, but by means of the appropriation of key concepts from the Ottoman-Islamic

philosophy of knowledge. 16

An additional contributor to the Tappers' volume, Bahattin Akit, wrote about Imam-

Hatip schools, examining the literature surrounding the impact of these schools in Turkish

society. Akits contribution to contemporary knowledge, however, extends beyond his

English writings. In his works in Turkish he examines the rise of private religious education

in Turkey. He recently contributed two chapters to the Turkish reference book Islamcilik

(Islamism), one involving an analysis of the current state of private religious education and

the second about religious influences, including religious education, in Turkish civil

15 Richard Tapper (ed.), Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co., 1991).

16 Richard Tapper & Nancy Tapper, Religion, Education and Continuity in a Provincial Town, Islam inModern Turkey: Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State , ibid. 57.


18

society.17 Akit employs sociological methods in his studies of Imam-Hatips, using surveys

and charts to map the development of the system of semi-private schools. He also examines

the debate about Islamic education in a number of books and religious journals, coming to

the conclusion that Islam remained intact during the Atattirk years "in terms of net works and

symbolic codes" and later, after the end of the Single-Party Era, the expansion of religious

education "signaled (Islam's) re-emergence at an official institutional level."18

Additional studies of religious education during the Atatiirk era can be found in

Ahmet Giirta' 1987 book Atatiirk ve Din Egitimi (Atatiirk and Religious Education) and A.

Baki Mert and iner Balâci's 1995 publication Tiirkiye'de Din Egitimi (Religious Education

in Turkey).19 These books were published by the Ministry of Religion and the Turkish

Democratic Vafk, respectively. From a limited treatment of these institutions ideological

paradigm, the books underscore varied aspects of the treatment of religious education in the

Single Party Era. In Gurta' study there is an emphasis on Islamic moral treatise whereas

Mert and Bahâci's study systematically describes the development and policies of religious

education. A third book that offers an alternative to the above includes erafettin Yamaner's

1999 Atatiirkqii Diiiincede Ulusal Egitim (National Education in the Thoughts o f Atatiirk)?9

Yamaner offers a general analysis of Ottoman education traditions which were continued,

albeit modified, in the new Republic. He then goes on to describe the creation of the modem

system of Turkish education, including a description of the juxtaposition of religious and

17 Bahattin Akit & Mustafa Kemal Cojkun, "Ttirkiye'nin Modemlemesi Baglaminda imam-Hatip Okullari" and Bahattin Ak$it, Aye Serdar, Bahar Tabakoglu, "Islami Egilimli Sivil Toplum Kurukujlan," Modern Tiirkiye'de Siyasi Dii.ûnce: Cilt 6- Islamcdik (Istanbul: Ileti$im Yayinlan, 2004).

18 Bahattin Akjit, Islamic Education in Turkey: Medrese Reform in Late Ottoman Times and Imam-Hatip Schools in the Republic Islam in Modern Turkey, Richard Tapper, ed. (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1991) 165.

19 Ahmet Gurta, Atatiirk ve Din Egitimi (Ankara: Diyanet lleri Bajkanhgi Yayinlari, 1987); A. Baki Mert and (hner Bah5aci, Tiirkiye'de Din Egitimi (Ankara: Turk Demokrasi Vakfi, 1995).

20 erafettin Yamaner, Atatiirkgii Diiiincede Ulusal Egitim: D insel ve Geleneksel Egitimden Laik ve Qagda$Egitime (Istanbul: Toplumsal D6niium Yayinlan, 1999).


19

western education. An additional source is Muallim Abdiibaki's 2005 edition of Cumhuriyet

(focugunun Din Dersleri {Religious Lessons o f Republican Children).21 This collection

presents various religious lessons from student's religious (Islamic) books between the years

1927 to 1931, including lessons about holidays, mosques, morals, and Islam in Turkey. A

shorter, but informative, study of religious education in Turkey was completed by Regine

Erichsen.22 Erichsen outlines the major developments and trends from the 1920s until today,

and she analyzes the question of responsibility of a democratic government in a majority

Muslim nation to provide Islamic education to its citizens.

Another comprehensive study of the status of Turkish religious education was

undertaken by Saliha Scheinhardt in her Die Religiose Lage in der TurkeiP Included in her

study is an overview of the debate about the usage of "secular" vs. "laic" in describing

official state policies. She provides a comprehensive summary of the political and social

developments regarding the place of Islam in Turkish society; and the religious education of

Turkish children in Turkey and beyond Turkish borders.

Contemporary advancements in the study of religious education in Turkey have

shown the distinctive importance of the semi-public system of Imam-Hatip schools. A

growing body of literature is devoted to these institutions demonstrates their influence on the

role of Islam in the public sphere o f the Turkish state; these works are best represented by:

1913'den Bugiine Imam Hatip Okullari Meselesi {imam Hatip Schools from 1913 until

Today) by the Nahit Dinner and Tiirkye'de Din Egitimi ve Imam Hatipler {Religious

21 Muallim Abdulbaki, Cumhuriyet Qocugunun Din Dersleri (Istanbul: Kaynak Yayinlan, 2005).

22 Regine Erichsen, "Die Religionspolitik im turksichen Erziehungswesen von der Atatiirk-Ara bis heute," Zeitschrift fu r Kulturaustausch 2 (1988).

23 Scheinhardt first examines the teaching o f religious topics in Turkey, and then moves on to describe thesituation o f Turkish school children elsewhere, primarily in Germany Saliha Scheinhardt, Die Religiose Lagein der Ttirkei: Perspektiven des islamischen Religionsunterrichts fu r tixrkische Kinder in der D iaspora(Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1986).


20

Education and Imam Hatips in Turkey) by Mehmet Ali Goka9ti.24 Recep Kaymakcan of

Sakarya University has also published a number of articles regarding teacher education and

9 Sthe practice of religious education in Turkey. Kaymakcan's comprehensive dissertation

compares the systems of religious education in Turkey and England, focusing on religious

curriculum.26 This study is not only a detailed examination of the history and development in

religious education, Kaymakcan also provides an excellent analysis of the curriculum and

teaching methods of Turkish religious education in secondary schools. He compares the

Single-Party Era and the Multi-Party Era of the 1950s and the situation of religious education

within the political and cultural contexts. Another source for the understanding of Turkish

education within a comparative international framework is the writing of Ghulam Nabi

Saqib, whose book, Modernization o f Muslim Education in Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey

preceded recent developments.27

Recent studies also accentuate the important role of teachers as the intermediates

between governmental policies and actual reality in classrooms. Nurallah Alta of Ankara

University, and a specialist in the field of religion and Islam in teacher education, wrote

(fokkiiltiirluluk ve Din Egitim (Cultural Enhancement and Religious Education), in which he

examines religion in teacher education and explains the methods used in teaching religion in

contemporary Turkey. He details the different methods which have been used in schools

and in religious teacher training programs. Beyza Bilgin, also of Ankara University,

24 Nahit Din?er, 1913'den Bugiine imam Hatip Okullari Meselesi (Istanbul: ule Yayinlan, 1998); Mehmet Ali Gokagti, Tiirkye'de Din Egitimi ve Imam Hatipler (Istanbul: Iletijim Yayinlan, 2005).

25 Recep Kaymakcan, "Religious Education in the Multi-Party Period in Turkey," East/W est Education (1997); "A Shift from Confessional RE towards the Pluralistic RE: Presentation o f Christianity in Turkish RE Textbooks," Conference at LaSalle University, Philadelphia, (July 2004).

26 Recep Kaymakcan, Christianity in Turkish Religious Education, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Sakarya University, 1998.

27 Ghulam Nabi Saqib, M odernization o f Muslim Education in Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey: A Comparative Study, (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1969).

28 Nurallah Alta, fokkulturliduk ve Din Egitim (Ankara: Nobel Yayin Dagitim, 2003).


21

published in 1980 Tiirkiye'de Din Egitimi ve Liselerde Din Dersleri (Religious Education in

Turkey and Religious Lessons in Lises).29 Bilgin devotes most of her study to teaching

methods of religious education and how this process has developed in modem Turkey. She

also published two shorter studies related to the principle of laicism and its relationship to

state and religion in Turkey.30

Another noteworthy movement connected to religious education in Turkey is the

Giilen movement and its system of schools. As shown in M. Hakan Yavuz and John L.

Espositos Turkish Islam and the Secular State,31 the Giilen movement is one of the more

successful Islamic modernist movements that has developed in Turkey in the last fifty years.

Exploring the movement and its schools, Yavuz and Esposito describe the methods in which

Giilens ideology combined Islamic belief with modem forms of learning. The founder,

Fetullah Giilen, is a member of the Nurcu movement, which has roots reaching back to the

Nak?ibandi, a Sufi movement within Islam. Explaining the development of Giilen's ideas and

the construction of his education system, this study enhances our general understanding of

the role played by the ideas of Islam in the secular Turkish state. Of special interest is the

emphasis laid by the authors on the Giilen tendency to avoid an outright pronouncement of

the schools exclusively Islamic nature. However, while the Giilen educational system

illustrates a relationship between private schools with a decidedly Islamic tendency, these

schools do not lie within the jurisdiction of the Turkish Ministry of Education and, hence, the

29 Beyza Bilgin, Tiirkiye'de Din Egitimi ve Liselerde Din D ersleri (Ankara: Emel Matbaacilik Sanayi, 1980).

30 Beyza Bilgin and Regine Erichsen, "Der Religionsunterricht in der Tiirkei und sein religionspolitischer Kontext," Zeitschrift fu r Padigogik 35.3 (1989); Beyza Bilgin, The Understanding o f Religious Education in a Country where there is Separation o f Religion and State: The Example o f Turkey, British Journal o f Religious Education 15 (1993).

3IM. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito (eds.), Turkish Islam and the Secular Stale (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003).


22

Giilen institutions do not fully illustrate the process of negotiation experienced between IslamI T

and the Turkish secular state.

Comprehensive historical studies of the modernization of education in Turkey, both

before and after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, have provided important insight into

Turkish education. Andreas Kazamias' study, Education and the Quest fo r Modernity in

Turkey, exemplifies the novel enterprises that dominated the field in the second half of the

20th Century.33 In this thorough study, Kazamias portrays the main tendencies in the late

Ottoman education and the ways the educational system was transformed into the Turkish

system after the founding of the Republic. However, the premise of this work presupposed

the penetration of secularization policies in the Republic; today, this presupposition seems to

require revision.

Other studies addressing the education systems in the Middle East have examined the

ways Islamic traditions have interacted with modernization processes. An interesting

perspective on the topic is presented in the now out-dated work of Joseph Szyliowicz,

Education and Modernization in the Middle East, which examines the issues (religion among

others) raised in education in the modernization projects begun in Iran, Egypt and Turkey.34

This book offers a thorough inspection of the ways traditional Islamic education confronted

the introduction of modernization-westemization practices, and describes the educational

system of each country up to the early 1970s. Although Szyliowicz outlines the successes

and failures of each country's progress in the area of education, his study lacks a more

32 The Giilen movement is the subject o f many debates and studies; however, for our purposes here 1 will list just a couple including Elisabeth Ozdalga, "Secularizing Trends in Fethullah Gillen's Movement: Impasse or Opportunity for Further Renewal?" Critique: Critical M iddle Eastern Studies 12.1 (Spring 2003); Bayram Balci, Missionnaires de I lslam en Asie centrale.lles ecoles turques de Fethullah Gu len (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose; Istanbul: Institut Franc ais detudes Anatoliennes, 2003).

33 Kazamias, ibid., 1966.

j4 Szyliowicz, ibid., 1973.


23

detailed analysis of curriculum and the language of educational reform policies, which can

reveal subtle negotiations between westernization and Islam.

Furthermore, Szyliowicz also adopts similar premise to Kazamias, arguing that

(Atatiirk) moved quickly to destroy form, substance, and institutional bases of Islam. This

[...] marked the end of the dual system of religious and secular schools. At one stroke

Mustafa Kemal eliminated the cause of the cultural separation which had afflicted Ottoman

Society.35 It is interesting to note that the assessment of Atatiirks success in his

secularization policy is still echoed in scholars writing of the early 1990s. J. Stanford and

E.K. Shaw claim, for instance, that Public education now [after Atatiirks revolution] was

completely divorced from religion and religious lessons were forbidden, leaving them to the

family, or, where they existed, to hocas (religious teachers) maintained privately.36

Statements such as this, still common among last decades scholars reflect a time of

transition in the Republic, in which the outcome of the reforms from the 1980s were not fully

determined. These studies, therefore, leave a great deal of room for present-day scholars to

employ a broader perspective and to revise these analyses.

Consequently, a more complicated image of the interactions between Islam, the

Turkish secular regime and the process of modernization is revealed in several recent

historical studies of Turkish education, such as Etienne Copeaux's 1998 Turk Tarih Tezinden

Turk Islam Sentezine (From the Turkish Historical Thesis to the Turkish Islamic Synthsis);

Necdet Sakaoglu's 2003 Osmali'dan Giinuziize Egitim Tarihi {History o f Education from

Ottoman Times until Today) and Giizver Yiliran and John Dumin's 1997 Recent Perspectives

35 Ibid., 201.

36 J. Stanford and E.K. Shaw, History o f the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Reform, Revolution and Republic: the Rise o f Modern Turkey, 1808-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) 386.


24

on Turkish Education?1 These works provide an intimate glance at the actual educational

programs and practices within the Turkish education system. Copeaux examines public

education history textbooks between the years 1931 to 1993. He presents Turkish national

history between these formative years, which included the later period of the Atatiirk era and

the Ozal era. It is a helpful source for my study due to its description of what the Turkish

Ministry of Education included in national curriculum. Sakaoglu provides a rich

chronological survey of general education practices from the modernization attempts duringI D

the Ottoman Empire through the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Yiliran and

Dumin's book is an edition of separately collected studies about different facets of Turkish

education, including a closer look at institutions themselves, educational philosophy,

instruction, and scholasticism in Turkey. Despite the impressive scope of these studies, they

do not focus specifically on an analysis of the relationship between Turkish educational

policy and its cultural and historical context. While incorporating these studies, my research

seeks to look beyond the institutions themselves and address the interrelations between the

governmental tendencies in religious education and the cultural context.

Recent studies of the social and cultural contexts of 20th century Turkey have taken

modernization as a key concept. The juxtaposition of education and modernization is

examined closely in the Turkish intellectual discourse of the recent years.39 In his seminal

study about Turkish education, Turk Egitim Tarihi {Turkish Educational History), Yahya

Akyiiz provides a full historical analysis of Ottoman and Turkish education, including the

37 Etienne Copeaux, Turk Tarih Tezinden Turk Islam Sentezine (Istanbul: Tilrkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi Yayindir, 2000); Necdet Sakaoglu, Osmali'dan Giinumuze Egitim Tarihi (Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi Universitesi Yayinlan, 2003); Guzver Yiliran and John Durnin, Recent Perspectives on Turkish Education (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies Publications, 1997).

38 In fact, this is one o f the few studies which includes photos o f each era that demonstrate the diverse educational practices o f Turkey.

Works such as Fatma Gok's 75 Yilda Egitim (Education at 75 Years) and O. Kafadar's Turk egitim diiuncesinde batildat>ma ( Westernism in Turkish Educational Thought) exemplify the characteristics o f this tendency. Fatma Gok, 75 Ydda Egitim (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yayinlan, 1999); Osman Kafadar, Turk egitim duuncesinde batdila$ma (Ankara: Vadi Yayinlan, 1997).


25

continuities and discontinuities of educational development after the establishment of the

Turkish republic.40 Ismail Giiven's 2000 book Tiirkiye'de Devlet Egitim ve Ideoloji (State

Education and Ideology in Turkey) incorporates various philosophies of ideology and

nationalism before moving on to examine national ideology in Turkish education in the

1950s and after.41 Bozkurt Giiven^'s 1998 History o f Turkish Education: Special Issue o f

Education and Science clearly articulates advancements and progress in Turkish education

and schooling beginning with ancient Turks and ending with modem times.42

Although Giiven? highlights these developments effectively, such a vast time frame

precludes an in-depth inspection. A closer study o f the Turkish Education in the time periods

that are in the core of this dissertation appears in Kemal Inans 2004 book, Egitim ve Iktidar

{Education and Government). This study examines democratic and nationalist values in

Turkish textbooks in periods of political strife and military intervention: 1960-1962 and

1980-1983.43 The focus here is on the relationships between democratic and nationalist

values in textbooks and the political and educational practices of the military regimes.44 Inan

concludes that in the periods of military intervention nationalist values were clearly

emphasized over democratic values in texts. Contrasting nationalist and democratic

tendencies, Inan discusses briefly religion and laicism in the context o f specific democratic

values in Turkish school textbooks and outlines the development of laic values in Turkey.45

A similar study, though smaller in scale, is Barak Salmoni's examination of education and

40This book has been reprinted a number o f times; the latest edition: Yahya Akyiiz, Turk Egitim Tarihi (Istanbul: ALFA Basim Yayim Dagitim Ltd., 2001).

41 Ismail GUven, Tiirkiye'de D evlet Egitim ve Ideoloji (Ankara: Siyasal Kitabevi, 2000).

42 Bozkurt Giiven?, History o f Turkish Education: Special Issue o f Education and Science (Ankara: Turkish Education Association, 1998).

43 Kemal Inan, Egitim ve iktidar: Tiirkiye'de Ders Kitaplarinda D em okratikve Milliyetgi D egerler (Ankara: Utopia Yayinevi 2004).

44 Ibid., 345.

45 Ibid., 227.


26

democracy between the years 1923-1950.46 Salmoni asserts that education "as both evolving

pedagogic discourse and curriculum affords us one of the best means by which to understand

what official and semi-official Turkey perceived democracy to be, and in what terms they

presented it to the first cohorts of republican citizens passing through a central organ of mass

socialization."47

Despite growing interest of recent scholarship in the interrelations between education

and culture in Turkey, the extensive body of scholarship on the history of Turkish education,

and on religious education in particular, lacks a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship

of education and the growth o f Islamic movements and political support. Research along this

track is important in light of the contemporary process of state reforms in preparation for

Turkey's entrance into the European Union. In studies of Turkish education, scholars have

overestimated the influence of secularization and modernization during the two major

periods of Turkish modernization. Because government policies were organized according to

a top-down model, centered on the elite classes and the state bodies, scholars maintained that

the secular efforts had been successful. The laws were clear about the new role of Islam

contained within national laws and the public face, including social, political and economic

success, had become a model for reform in developing countries. The current situation of

Islamism in Turkey leads scholars to question the validity of these early conclusions about

the 'project of modernity.'

Traditionally, studies of Turkish nationalism and secularism in the early Turkish

Republic, such as Caglar Keyder, Gotthard Jaschke and Daniel Lemer, were enclosed in

discussions of its success or its failure, both from the standpoint of its implementation by

46 Barak Salmoni, "Ordered Liberty and Disciplined Freedom: Turkish Education and Republican Democracy, 1923-1950," M iddle Eastern Studies 40.2 (March 2004).

47 Ibid., 81.


27

the government and its acceptance in society.48 Current studies, like Suna Kilis account of

Kemalism, show that the tendency to treat the Turkish paradigm of modernization, including

the application of secular policies, within a limited frame still attract contemporary

scholarship.49 Further scholarship, however, led by a distinguished group of Turkologists -

including Kemal Karpat, Niyazi Berkes, Erik Ziircher, Andrew Mango, Bernard Lewis, erif

Mardin and Uriel Heyd - have raised questions on specific interactions of Islam and

modemization-westemization within Turkey. Bernard Lewis well-known studies explored

the role of Islam in the development of Middle-Eastern nation-states. Lewis' books The

Multiple Identities o f the Middle East and The Emergence o f Modern Turkey are of particular

interest for our study.50 In this historical study, Lewis describes the events leading to the

establishment of the Turkish Republic, from the late Ottoman era, through the Young Turk

era continuing to the 1950s. He intimates that the laic principles of the Republic were

successful in separating Islam from the state. In his well-known book The Emergence o f

Modern Turkey, he argues, The basis of Kemalist religious policy was laicism, not

irreligion; its purpose was not to destroy Islam, but to disestablish it - to end the power of

religion and its exponents in political, social, and cultural affairs, and limit it to matters of

belief and worship.51 Lewis does not present further details on the subject of the national

policies made about Islam, especially education. While Islam was banished to a large degree

among the modem, elite political and social classes in urban areas, it remained a crucial -

48 Keyder, Caglar. The definition o f a peripheral economy: Turkey, 1923-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Keyder, 1987; Gotthard Jaschke, D er Islam in der neuen Tiirkei (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1951); Daniel Lemer, The Passing o f Traditional Society: Modernizing the M iddle East (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958).

49 Suna Kili, The Atatiirk Revolution: A Paradigm o f Modernization (Istanbul: Ktiltiir Yayinlan, 2003).

50 Bernard Lewis, The Emergence o f Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961) and The Multiple Identities o f the M iddle East (New York: Schocken Books, 1999).

51 Lewis, ib id , 1961,412.


28

and visible - part of the daily life of Turkish villagers in the periphery. Thus, though he

presents a more composite approach, Lewis assessment of the success of the secularization

of the Turkish society resembles the conclusions of other studies on the Turkish Republic.

Kemal Karpat, the author of numerous books and groundbreaking papers, has

contributed significantly to our understanding of political, social and economic transitions

that have occurred in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic.53 In particular, in his

1959 volume Turkey's Politics: the Transition to a Multiparty System and the 1973 collection

he edited, Social Changes and Politics in Turkey: A Structural-Historical Analysis, Karpat

provided an intriguing analysis of the history of Turkish politics.54 In these studies he details

the dialectic between the principles of liberalism adopted by the leaders of the Ottoman

Empire and the Turkish Republic and the autocratic ideals for which their leaders strived. His

more recent publication, The Politicization o f Islam, draws on extensive, often under-utilized

resources to reveal how Islam was a rich part of the tapestry of Ottoman and Turkish identity

in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Karpat argues that Islam remained a deep part of the

changing identities during a period of social, cultural, economic and political transformation;

the politicization of Islam was a process by which Islam was molded into a

political/nationalist ideology.55 Karpats conclusions shed interesting light on several works

that examine the relations between ideology and culture in modem Turkey.

52 This notion is more fully explored in anthropological and sociological studies such as: Jenny White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University o f Washington Press, 2002);Deniz Kandiyoti and A yje Saktanber, Fragments o f Culture: The Everyday o f Modern Turkey (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002).

53 Kemal Karpat, The Politicization o f Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith and Community in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: University Press, 2001).

54 Kemal Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a M ultiparty System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959); (ed.) Social Changes and Politics in Turkey: A Structural-Historical Analysis (Leiden: Brill, 1973).

55 Karpat, 2001, 421. The above mentioned studies are only few examples o f Karpats contributions to ourknowledge o f the interactions between religion and modernism, which construct the amalgamate nature o f theTurkish identity.


29

In his study The Development o f Secularism in Turkey, Niyazi Berkes provides a

pioneering look at the process of secularization that began in Turkey after its founding.56

Berkes claims that on many levels secularization had worked and was contributing to

Turkey's new role in international politics. He includes a discussion of the cultural, social and

economic spheres of Turkish society and examines the successes and failures of the

pioneering attempts of Turkish modernization until the 1960s. Uriel Heyd's works from the

1950s about the Turkish language reform and Turkish nationalism include important

examples of how language was an instrument of the new Turkish state to solidify its goals

and ideology.57 Erik Ziircher, Andrew Mango and erif Mardin's work provide further

analyses of Turkish history and social change, looking at modem Turkish history, Atatiirk'sc o

life and Islamic issues in Turkey, respectively. Javid Saeed's book Islam and Modernization

deals more generally with the question of how Islam is negotiated in modem Middle Eastern

societies, including Turkey.59 Exploring the subject in Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey, within

their respective social and political contexts, Saeed claims that the basic problems

confronting the Islamic world are due to incorrect interpretation and neglect of the Quran,

and he questions the notion that modernization is compatible with Islam (but at the same time

does not make allowances for fundamentalism). This interpretation makes Karpats depiction

of the actual process of the inclusion of Islam within modem Turkish identity all the more

intriguing.

56 Berkes, ibid.

57 Uriel Heyd, Foundations o f Turkish Nationalism, The Life and Teachings o fZ iya Gokalp (London: William Clowes and Sons Limited, 1950); Language Reform in Modern Turkey (Jerusalem: Oriental Notes and Studies, 1954).

58 Erik J. Ziircher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1993); Andrew Mango, The Turks Today (London: John Murray, 2004); Atatiirk: The Biography o f the Founder o f Modern Turkey (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2000); erif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: the Case o f Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University o f N ew York, 1989).

59 Javid Saeed, Islam and Modernization (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1994).


30

While Ottoman and Turkish educational systems and reforms are mentioned in this

last group of historical studies about Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, education is not their

main focus. These scholars mention education as a tool for modernization and

westernization, but do not delve into Turkish educational practices, nor address the role of

education as an important site for examining the process of secularization in the Republic.

My study draws on these studies as key references for understanding Turkish society, but I

will highlight educational policy for a fresh look at the role of Islam and the process of

secularization in Turkey.

As shown above, the most prominent scholarly literature provides various theories

about the role of Islam in Turkish culture and its influence on education. My study is

complemented by these works, but is also situated in a broader discourse about the potential

and actual relations between Islam and modernization, and about the role of religion in a

"public sphere." Several studies were dedicated to these relations. The works by John

Esposito and F rancis Burgat, Gregory Starrett, Walter Armbrust, Jose Casanova are, of

course, inevitable studies for any scholar of this field. The majority of these studies focus on

the transformation process from the Ottoman Empire into the Turkish Republic. Within this

context, these works emphasize the ways in which Islam was disestablished from official

nationalist ideology.60 Noticeably fewer studies underscore Turkish education in the

periphery and its relations with the process of secularization. As the following analysis will

show, education played an important role in this process, both in national development and

within common culture; indeed, education provided hidden avenues for Islam to retain its

place in Turkish culture.

60John Esposito and Francois Burgat (eds.), Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1998); Walter Armbrust, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, London: University o f Chicago Press, 1994).


31

Chapter 2. The Shifting State of Islam in Education: Transitions from the

Ottoman Empire

The modernization of Turkish education in the Atatiirk and Ozal eras cannot be fully

appreciated without presenting the reforms preceding their development under Ottoman rule.

The intersection of Ottoman and Turkish elements in social and political institutions is

multifaceted, and the intricate development of modern Turkish identity is reflected in the

advancements of the new education system. Despite the radical break with Ottoman society,

it was impossible to impede all formal and informal cultural traditions. In any case, Karpat

pointed out, the Turks identity developed within the frame of the multiple identities of

modernity, Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkishness. Each was based on concrete historical,

religious and linguistic foundations and, despite the state's manipulation of all of these

identities for its own interest; they left a lasting imprint on contemporary Turks identity and

personality. 1 In light of the importance of education in the formation of Turkish national

identity, and the complex influences on this process, this chapter will concentrate on one

significant facet of the intersection of Turkish identity formation and education: the

modernization of traditional Ottoman education, including the prominent role of traditional

Islamic learning.

The Ottoman Empire was established in 1299 and reached its zenith in the 16th and

17th centuries. The basic political structure of the Empire was theocratic in nature; the sultan

1 Karpat, ibid., 2001, 373; for a more detailed analysis, please see chapter 16 "Turkishness o f the Community: from Religious to Ethnic-National Identity," 353-374. Fortna did research on the specifics o f the kindergarten in its transfer from Ottoman to Turkish authority; he makes an interesting case that actually the institution itself did not change after the establishment o f the Republic in 1923; rather with the 1913 education law that declared many o f the existing schools under the Ottoman government. (Benjamin C. Fortna, "The Kindergarten in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic," ed. Roberta Wollons Kindergartens and Cultures (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)).


32

was simultaneously responsible for his subjects religious and national well-being, and in

turn, they pledged their allegiance to him. The sultan was also the Caliph, or the spiritual

leader of Muslims, and he traditionally led the Ottoman people politically, spiritually and

morally. Although it rivaled Europe until the 17th Century, the Ottoman Empire was not able

to maintain its powerful status and was slowly overwhelmed by its economic distress and

military defeats. In the later years, especially in the 19th Century, the need for modem

educational practices became apparent. Conflicts arose, though, as religious leaders opposed

what they perceived as threats to Islamic traditions (and, evidently, to their own authority and

elite position within Ottoman society).2

However, the conservatism was not categorical. Ottoman authorities welcomed

changes that would strengthen Islamic moral and ethical traditions but felt threatened by

reforms which could lessen their intellectual authority, and claimed that new knowledge from

the West might contradict Islamic values and traditions. Modem (European) reforms were

enacted to some degree and with some success in the 1800s, especially in the 1860s. The

reforms, nonetheless, did not succeed in reaching the general Ottoman populace, nor did they

successfully convince religious authorities of the need for strong reform in Islamic education.

After 1923, the Turkish government restructured the educational system according to western

reforms, which did not emphasize Islamic education.

Religion and State Power in the Development o f

Ottoman Modernization and Nationalism

The need to reform the traditional governing structure in the later days of the Empire

revealed the challenge of modem identity perceptions. The threat of European occupation

2 Benjamin Fortna has pointed out in his study that in fact some Islamic education leaders participated and encouraged western developments in the Ottoman Empire, but I maintain that a majority o f the ulema did not embrace many o f the western reforms. B. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.)


33

and the tide of capitalism, which increased in the 19th Century, spurred on new growth and

development in the Ottoman Empire. Under their own internal struggles and the external

pressure from Europe to reform their political systems, the Ottomans were forced to conceive

a notion of collective identity that did not contradict the multi-ethnical nature of the empire

and, at the same time, would strengthen political power under the sultan. Traditional Islamic

social and political systems were reformed in order to preserve other aspects of Ottoman

culture, such as a revised (reduced) role of religion in politics, the introduction of European

trends in the Ottoman education system, the introduction of privatization and reformed

trading agreements. Developed in this historical framework, a new Ottoman nationalism was

thus based on revised social and political groups, which used language and religion to secure

legitimization.

In exchanging the traditional medieval systems of social organization for modem and

western forms, the Ottoman state was faced with tremendous upheaval that lasted until the

founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. The fundamental reforms that were initiated in the

modernization of the Ottoman Empire were economic restructuring, a re-organization of the

armed forces and technological improvement in fighting and weaponry, and the creation of a

modem educational system. The Ottoman state could not implement these reforms very

quickly, due to the complications in accommodating the new systems of education and

military.4 The reform of the millet system is a helpful example in showing the complex

transformations that characterized this phase in the Empires history.

A millet, in the Ottoman sense, was a semi-autonomous cultural religious

community.5 For non-Muslim Ottoman citizens, identity was officially tied to a millet, either

J Karpat, 2001, ibid., 9.

4 Further discussions o f general Ottoman modernization reforms are found in Berkes, ibid.; Bernard Lewis,ibid., 1961; Binnaz Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey (Leiden: Brill, 1981).

5 Karpat, 2001, ibid., 310.


34

Christian, Armenian, or Jewish. Ottoman Muslims were not officially considered millet, but

they conducted their affairs in a similar way. A millet was allowed the freedom to regulate

and organize its communities according to its specific traditions. This system was a

trademark of the Ottoman success and tradition, and many have claimed that its success was

partly due to autonomous communities living together harmoniously. Karpat notes, the

cardinal principle which assured the survival of this type of organization was the separation

of one group from another and the prohibition of free vertical social mobility.6

Karpats examination of the millet reforms in the 19th Century is an enlightening

study of their transformation.7 As the arrival of nationalism to the Ottoman Empire, the millet

system was eliminated as new administrative systems were instituted; the separate systems of

the millets interfered with the uniformity that the Ottoman government hoped to establish in

the 1860s. He argued that, indeed, the overriding goal of breaking up the old system of

millets was to break down local religious loyalties and promote the idea of Ottomanism.

He asserted, however, that the reforms had other consequences as well. The reforms

indirectly promoted secular ideas and facilitated better communication within new

communities, created as a result of the government reforms. Thus, these reforms threatened

the traditional channel of influence the Ottoman authorities used in maintaining their control

over non-Muslim populations. The new communities also had the effect of making stronger

distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims. The millet system of community

organization was a huge hurdle for the reform-minded government official, but the hope was

that those who were not members of the millets would become active members of the

Ottoman state.

6 Kemal Karpat, An Inquiry in to the Social Foundations o f Nationalism in the Ottoman State: From Social Estates to Classes, From M illets to Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973) 7.

7 Karpat, ibid., 91.

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Ataturk, Islam, Modernity and Turkish Education a Comparative, Historical Analysis