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The New Islamists’Understanding of Democracyin Turkey: The Examples of AliBulaç and Hayreddin KaramanMichelangelo Guida aa Department of Political Science and PublicAdministration, Fatih University, Istanbul, TurkeyPublished online: 21 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Michelangelo Guida (2010): The New Islamists’ Understandingof Democracy in Turkey: The Examples of Ali Bulaç and Hayreddin Karaman, TurkishStudies, 11:3, 347-370

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Turkish StudiesVol. 11, No. 3, 347–370, September 2010

ISSN 1468-3849 Print/1743-9663 Online/10/030347-24 © 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14683849.2010.506728

The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey: The Examples of Ali Bulaç and Hayreddin Karaman

1

MICHELANGELO GUIDA

*

Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey

Taylor and FrancisFTUR_A_506728.sgm10.1080/14683849.2010.506728Turkish Studies1468-3849 (print)/1743-9663 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis1130000002010MichelangeloGuidamguida@fatih.edu.tr

A

BSTRACT

Even though reaching a conclusive point seems impossible, debate on the rela-tion between Islam and democracy is one of the most foundational discussions in politicstoday. Turkey is frequently seen as a positive example demonstrating the compatibilitybetween Islam and democracy. Especially after the democratic reforms undertaken by theIslamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdo

[gbreve]

an and his effective governance. Erdo

[gbreve]

an’sparty, the Justice and Development Party, seems to represent the Turkish Islamist intellectu-als’ political response to international and internal pressure toward democracy. Although itis true that the majority of contemporary Turkish Islamists have accepted liberal democracy,their devotion to its values has only been in form of a very pragmatic and functional approachrather than a true commitment to democracy.

This paper will briefly focus on the international and internal pressures on conservativeintellectuals toward democracy. More extensively, Ali Bulaç and Hayreddin Karaman, twoliving Islamist authors, their intellectual careers, interpretations of democracy and theirproblematic approach to democracy will be thoroughly discussed. The two authors defenddemocracy and civil rights. However, democracy is only taken as a set of representative insti-tutions and a free electoral system, and not pluralism, civility and tolerance. Yet at the sametime, it is this contradiction that has been one of the major obstacles to the development of atrue democracy in Turkey.

The establishment of the Justice and Development Party (

Adalet ve KalkınmaPartisi

, AKP) in August 2001 marked a profound transformation of methodologyand tactics of Islamist political movements in Turkey.

2

A more pro-democratic, pro-market economy and less Islamist strategies have permitted the AKP to gain themajority in the 2002 general elections and to dominate the political scene in thefollowing three electoral contests.

The AKP’s policies have demonstrated a commitment to democratic reforms. Onone side, there is certainly a pragmatic approach to democracy. Accordingly, to winthe national and international consent, politicians and intellectuals adopted demo-cratic rhetoric and values. On the other side, international demands and mainly

*

Correspondence Address

: Michelangelo Guida, Department of Political Science and PublicAdministration, Fatih University, 34500 Büyükçekmece, Istanbul, Turkey. Email: mguida@fatih.edu.tr

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M. Guida

internal pressures on conservative intellectuals have imposed a revision of method-ologies and a sincere re-evaluation of liberal democracy. It is this re-evaluation thatcharacterizes the mainstream intellectuals’ debate on democracy.

This paper intends to present the life and works of two prominent public intellec-tuals—Ali Bulaç and Hayreddin Karaman—who are representative of the evolutionof Muslim political ideas in Turkey and their new attitudes toward democracy sincethe 1980s. Despite the fact that the two authors have completely different careersand ideas, Bulaç and Karaman are very influential personalities among conserva-tive circles. The former is a prominent columnist in the best-selling

3

newspaper

Zaman

, writer, publisher, and is co-presenter of a live cultural show on

Mehtap

channel. The latter is a retired professor of

fıkh

[Islamic law] and the most authori-tative living Muslim scholar, very close to AKP circles in Turkey. Nevertheless, aswe will see, the ideas of these two authors present certain unsettled incongruitieswith the principle of democracy.

Internal and External Factors

Internal and external pressures have influenced Muslim public intellectuals and theirviews on democracy. Since the end of nineteenth century, the emergence of Islamistideas has been affected by political transformations in the West. For instance,Namık Kemal (probably the first Islamist thinker at the core of the Ottoman Empire)accepted Western electoral and parliamentary system in late nineteenth century.Indeed, elections and parliament were seen as representative of the Islamic principleof

[scedil] [umacr ]

rà

(consultation), “forgotten” by previous Muslim generations. Later in theSecond Constitutional Era (1908–19), the great majority of Islamist intellectualsagreed on the need for a parliament and free elections.

4

Today, no Islamist intellec-tual in Turkey would deny the importance and the rightfulness of elections and ofthe representative system.

In the 1970s, probably influenced by socialist discourses, Muslim intellectualscriticized Western democracies for their imperialist and capitalist stands rather thanfor their representative institutions. However, with the collapse of communistregimes and the affirmation of the two global trends of democratization and identityassertion, the Islamist critiques against liberal democracy are increasingly becomingmore tenuous.

The process of Turkish accession to the European Union (EU) has also beeninfluential. Reforms have not been driven, however, by the disinterested and diffi-dent grassroots forces. Moreover, “without pressure from the outside, it is highlydoubtful that such reforms would have been adopted.”

5

Indeed, the AKP appears tobe committed to the Copenhagen criteria only functionally. The EU membershipand its possible economic benefits have helped the party to improve its image inter-nationally and among moderate voters in the country. Furthermore, EU integrationprocess has avoided a major military intervention in politics. As the Ergenekonscandal

6

has shown, a plot against the AKP involving members of the armed forcesand the secular intelligentsia is a real threat.

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The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey

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Islamist intellectuals share this functionalist approach to the EU. Bulaç’s under-standing to the question may be representative; in 2001, he published a bookhighly critical of the Turkish application to full membership. He is convinced thatTurkey belongs to the Islamic world and that the country has a deep-rootedMuslim culture incompatible with the “Christian, capitalist and democratic EU.”

7

With a pro-European policy, Erdo

[gbreve]

an was able to soften these criticisms.However, in a public lecture in January 2008, he was asked about his new favor-able position towards the EU; Bulaç argued that the Union may help the country inovercoming all internal resistance towards full liberalization of the system and inmarginalizing the military and Kemalist bureaucracy. And at the same time, hedefended his earlier remarks on the incompatibility between Turkey and the EU.He concluded that a cultural or religious problem with the Christian EU wouldnever be experienced because Europe would never grant full membership toTurkey. On the other hand, however, Turkish opposition may only obfuscate theimage of the country and of the moderate Islamist movement.

This seems to be a tactical approach to attain the political and economical benefitsprovided by the EU rather than a true commitment to democratic reforms. Hence,foreign pressures failed to promote a deep grassroots revolution.

8

However, itappears that internal pressures forced Islamist public intellectuals to review theirpositions by starting a process of lackadaisical—but steady—change of values.

The deep social transformations have inevitably altered voters’ attitudes towardsreligion and democracy. The modernization process has modified the shape ofTurkish society and people’s understanding of religion. Undoubtedly, urbanizationand industrialization have changed the structures and dynamics of society. Since the1980s, for the first time the great majority of Turkish population now lives in urbanareas. In 1970, the total population was 35.6 million and 22 million of them lived inrural areas whereas according to the 2000 census, the Turkish population haddoubled to 68 million, with only 24 million living in rural areas. Istanbul, for exam-ple, in the decade of 1990–2000 had a yearly average growth of 33.6 percent, thanksto unregulated immigration and a high birthrate.

9

Moreover, since the 1980s,Turkish society has clearly expressed itself as a profoundly religious society.

10

Since 1983, the political scene has been dominated by center-right conservativeparties and the leftist parties have been forced to abandon a strict interpretation ofsecularism. However, despite the fact that religion has re-emerged in the publicsphere, only a tiny minority of the population (8.9 percent) would like to seeShari’ah enforced in Turkey.

11

Furthermore, many people question the basic principles of Islamic law, such asunequal division of inheritance between sons and daughters as well as polygamy.

12

In numerous polls, Turks appear to be much more concerned with problems linkedto economy (unemployment, inflation, instability), education, and security ratherthan problems linked to religion (the veil, the establishment of an Islamic state, etc.).

Secondly, the September 12

coup d’état

and the “28 February process” are thetwo recent events that imposed a complete revolution of methodologies. TheSeptember 12, 1980 military intervention put an end

manu militari

to harsh and

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M. Guida

frequently violent ideological clashes. All Turkish intellectuals were forced to refor-mulate their ideas as well as to realize that Turkish society was radically changing.On the Islamist front, public intellectuals started to search for alternatives even if thepolitical movement started to change only after another intervention by the Turkishmilitary in 1997.

After a period of conservative euphoria in the 1990s, the “28 February process”showed the strength of the secular establishment and popular diffidence toward reli-gious movements. An ultimatum in February 1997 by the military and a campaignof protests in the streets and in the media forced the government coalition lead by

Refah Partisi

(Welfare Party, RP) to resign. The “28 February process”, then,strongly reaffirmed that the Kemalist establishment still represented the strong elitein control of key areas of the state apparatus and education. Moreover, RP in the1995 elections obtained 21 percent of the votes, and although this percentage isquite high given the extremely fragmented political scene in Turkey at the time, theparty was only representative of a minority of the population. The majority of theelectorate was scared by the bold attitude of Erbakan’s administration, his open callto reinstate the Shari’ah, and by the violent manifestation of intolerance againstminorities, like the Sivas massacre of Alevis in July 1993. Repression helped toreformulate methods and policies. For instance, Erdo

[gbreve]

an’s decision to establish theAKP came after his months in prison following the repression of Islamist politiciansdriven by the military and the courts. The rapid rise in popularity of moderate

cemaat

such as the Gülen movement—the web of schools and businesses guided byFethullah Gülen that focus in the promotion of knowledge and morality without apolitical agenda—and the attitudes of our two authors are also expressions of thischange among Islamist circles.

In the 1980s, but particularly after the “28 February process”, the Islamist move-ment also realized that a wider consent among the population was crucial to create astronger and more powerful government. Consent is not only needed to win powerin an electoral contest, but also to collect funds and attract volunteers for any kind ofreligious and political activity. Indeed in post-1980 Turkey, Islamist intellectualsand activists are sustained by big economic interests and empires of private educa-tional institutions, which to the Muslim concept of

hizmet

(pious duty for the sake ofGod) add pragmatic economic interests. Political instability and an excessive ideo-logical commitment may only damage educational and economic institutions. Infact, the so-called “Green businesses”—namely the pro-Islamist companies andenterprises—were greatly affected by the “28 February process” because they weresystematically excluded from public bids or contracts in a period of economic crisesalready underway. “Conservative” private schools also were overwhelmed byministerial inspections and red tape.

For secular intellectuals born after the establishment of the Turkish Republic,there is also another factor brought about by secular education. In 1951, to be ableto win the diffidence of the secularists, all Islamic educational institutions had tobe presented as

bilim

(modern science) and not as

inanç

(faith). Thus, inevitablyscholars had to formulate their thought according to the methodology of global

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The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey

351

contemporary academia and had to have a profound knowledge of the scholarlydiscourse in the West. Moreover, by the 1980s, the great majority of the Turkishpopulation was literate and with the introduction of television and the fast develop-ment of communications, people were exposed to political trends of the globalworld. An unavoidable scientific approach, instead of a dogmatic teaching,certainly imposed a different, more moderate discourse on Islamist intellectuals.

Consequently, the generation of Islamists, which emerged after the September 12,1980 coup and the experience of the “28 February process”, had to tackle thoseissues, to reformulate their ideas to win public opinion, and to depart from harshcriticism of democracy. Karaman and Bulaç are representatives of this generationand of the attempt to reinterpret liberal democracy. Karaman is an intellectual andleading jurist with a strong academic background giving him the capability to influ-ence many Islamist activists. Though not as popular as Karaman (some Islamistintellectuals even hate him for his continuous mutations), Bulaç has a sociologicaland theological background, but he is essentially columnist. However, he is the firstpublic intellectual to have understood the possibilities created by the mass mediaand the Islamists’ need to recognize the important changes that Turkish society isundergoing.

Ali Bulaç

Life

13

Ali Bulaç was born in 1951 in the southeastern town of Mardin to a humble Arabfamily. In Mardin, he attended primary school and completed his high school degreeat the

[Idot ]

mam-Hatip

. He also studied for several years in a clandestine

medrese

inMardin where he learned the pillars of religion and

fiqh

. Later, he moved to Istanbulwhere he graduated from Istanbul’s

Yüksek

[Idot ]

slâm Enstitüsü

(Higher IslamicInstitute) in 1975 and from the Department of Sociology at the Istanbul University’sFaculty of Literature in 1980. His mother tongue is Arabic and since he is familiarwith the classical Islamic sources, he wrote a translation

(meal)

in Turkish of theQur’an,

14

and edited the translation of Mawd

[umacr ]

d

[imacr ]

’s famous

Tafh

[imacr ]

m al-Qur’

[amacr ]

n

15

andan edition of Elmalılı’s commentary.

16

Since the early 1970s, he has been a prolific writer. As a columnist, he wrote forvarious newspapers, including

Yeni Devir

,

Millî Gazete

and

Yeni

[Scedil]

afak

; as an editor,he published many reviews, such as

Kitap Dergisi

and

Bilgi ve Dü

[scedil]

ünce

. In 1976, heco-founded the magazine

Dü

[scedil]

ünce

, which departed from Nurettin Topçu’s maga-zine

Hareket

, mentor of the 1960–70s Islamist generation. While Topçu advocatedTurkish-Islamist views, Bulaç refused to apply any differentiation among Muslims.For one year and a half, he joined Topçu’s

sohbet

s (lectures) but was not reallyimpressed by Topçu’s “socialist” and nationalist views.

Dü

[scedil]

ünce

was close to Necmettin Erbakan’s

Milli Selamet Partisi

(NationalSalvation Party, MSP). The review saw in the MSP a movement against Westernizedcapitalists and a chance to finally acquire political freedoms in Turkey.

17

It also used

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a very interesting language to support MSP; a language very close to the one used byfar-left extremists, and representative of those years’ hard feelings and militancy:

MSP is a party that has positioned itself inside the Muslim movement. In the1977 elections,

18

plots against MSP have been organized assembling togetherpeople that, with the intent to liquidate it, tampered with early elections andworked together with European imperialists. Whatever the result, this party isremaining and will remain on its path.

19

In August 1986, Ali Bulaç co-founded the newspaper

Zaman

marking a departurefrom

Dü

[scedil]

ünce

’s positions.

Zaman

’s ideal was to create a newspaper free from partypolitics and religious groups as well as to create a paper readable by almost allclasses of Turkish society. Fehmi Koru—now columnist at

Yeni

[Scedil]

afak

newspaperand

Kanal 7

—was the editor of the paper in Ankara with Nabi Avcı; Ali Bulaçfounded and directed the Istanbul branch.

As Mehmet Metiner, who is a well known Islamist journalist and at that time wasdirector of

Zaman

’s art and culture pages in the Istanbul office, relates, from the startthat there were deep controversies between the two branches.

Zaman

’s first issue wasa huge fiasco in sales because the paper did not have a clear identity and was not ableto attract any support from the Islamist movements. After a few months, Fehmi Koruleft and Alaattin Kaya bought all the shares of the newspaper. In few days Kaya, abusinessman very close to the emerging Fethullah Gülen

cemaat

, took over thenewspaper.

20

Soon after, Bulaç left the paper for

Yeni

[Scedil]

afak

. The reason behind hisresignation, though, was the new board of trustees’ appointment of Mehmet

[Scedil]

evketEygi as the editor, somebody with whom Bulaç “can’t get along”.

21

When Eygi left(he is now a columnist in

Millî Gazete

newspaper, the official voice of Erbakan’smovement), Bulaç went back to

Zaman and became closer to Fethullah Gülen’sorganization, as evidenced by his recent writings.22 In 2003, he published a book,Kutlu A[gbreve] aç, Aydınların Dünyasında Fethullah Gülen (Blessed Tree, Fethullah Gülenin the World of Intellectuals), a collection of his increasingly enthusiastic articles,which appeared in Zaman and Yeni [Scedil] afak on Gülen and his organization.23

In the 2007 and 2009 electoral campaigns, Zaman departed from its neutrality andopenly supported the AKP. However, after Erdo[gbreve] an’s second electoral success,Bulaç became increasingly critical of the party for its liberal economic policies andcompromises with state apparatus and big capitalists.24

The Formative Years

In 1976, Ali Bulaç published his first book, Ça[gbreve] da[scedil] Kavramlar ve Düzenler(Concept and Orders of our Time). It took him five years to write it but it turned outto be a great success: since 1976 it has sold nearly 500,000 copies (a remarkablenumber for Turkey’s limited book market).25

In this book, Mawd[umacr ] d[imacr ] and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s influences areperceptible. For example, he starts his discussion by examining etymology of the

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The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey 353

Arabic word ‘ilm[amacr ] niyyah (secularism), which is not the norm in a book originallywritten in Turkish for a Turkish audience unless Arabic thinkers are the mainsources.26 In his later writings, this influence fades and discourse on secularism ispreceded, rather than by the analysis of the word ‘ilm[amacr ] niyyah, by the study of theAncient Greek word λαικ ς, which is actually the ideological and semantic root ofthe Turkish word laik.

The book’s main idea is that socialism, like communism and capitalism, is anexcrescence of j[amacr ] hil[imacr ] —to use Qutb’s familiar terminology—thought, and thereforecarries all the vestiges of its corrupt origins. Without achieving them, these worldlyideologies stress social welfare and material prosperity at the expense of moralsalvation. Furthermore, the material prosperity given by capitalism is in realityanother form of exploitation:

In capitalist societies built on consumerism, the system’s essential requirementis that labor owns a private car, fridge, television, video recorder, washer, elec-tric oven, and so forth. This is because these products will be pushed and soldin the internal market. Consequently, the employer will push his products in theinternal market first. However, is the labor that buys consumerist products withthe saving from his fixed salary or with deceiving installments, returning hissalary to the system and its patrons?27

Bulaç believes that these inequalities within Western societies have also createdan unfair political system that has nothing to teach Islamic societies. Consequently,liberal democracy is a perverse system that in reality represents just the small groupof wealthy elites who have the tools to campaign and to acquire a good education.Despite rare examples, the working class cannot have the same opportunities.28

In the 1980s, Ali Bulaç matured as a writer. He still strongly criticized Westernsociety for its inequalities, egoism, and materialism. The turning point seems to bethe September 12 military junta that closed down Dü[scedil] ünce. Bulaç himself wasimprisoned for nearly 40 days.

He dismissed the arguments of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had already losttheir appeal by that time. The Büyük Kopuk (Big Break)—the period from 1924 tothe end of CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) one-party regime —made the Otto-man Islamist literature unreadable to younger generations. After the abolition of theCaliphate and closing down of the medreses, there was no formal religious educa-tion and the 1928 Alphabet revolution (the substitution of the Arab alphabet with theTurco-Latin one together with a reform of grammar and vocabulary), made Ottomanliterature impenetrable. Hence paradoxically, Egyptian authors—and preciselythose close to the Muslim Brotherhood—had become in the 1960s and 1970s thehandiest source of inspiration. However, the Muslim Brotherhood represented amodel that was soon demonstrated to be problematic because it was the result of theEgyptian political environment. The Arab movement was more a revolutionaryforce with deep infiltrations in the state apparatus. This was never the case for theTurkish Islamist movement (at least up to the mid 1990s). Furthermore, the Hanefi

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354 M. Guida

school’s approach to politics and Turkish democracy, even with its coups d’étatsand strict taboos, created an environment where the violent taking of power orrevolution was not conceivable. Egypt also lost its enchanting charm with Husn[imacr ]

Mub[amacr ] rak’s era during which no new and influential writers appeared. As Bulaçrecalled, the Arab world produced only militancy that does not really fit the post-1980 Turkish democratic context.29

Moreover, Ali Bulaç discovered the deep changes that the rapid urbanizationbrought to Turkish society and politics. The transformations were so deep that hedefined “emigration as the biggest trauma of recent history for Turkey and the entireIslamic world”;30 for the second time the Islamic world was experiencing a distress-ing urbanization. The first wave of urbanization was in the seventh- and eighth-century after the hegira of the Prophet when nomads took up sedentary life. Thesecond wave was in twentieth century when there was a wave of migration from therural areas to the industrial urban areas.31

Urbanization profoundly transformed Turkish society. It also enhanced andbrought to the public sphere new identities, such as the Alevis and the Kurds, whowere previously marginal. These new identities reemerged in the urban contextdemanding the recognition of their identities and empowerment. In this new envi-ronment Bulaç notes:

In the past, you had well-known circles of people. You had a world… peoplewere known. Yet now you meet with Alevis, you meet with Kurds, you meetwith the Black Sea people, with people who studied in Europe, with peoplewho come from the Middle East, and so on. Here a change of mentality iscrucial: how do you live with all these different peoples, without fighting andwithout clashing.32

Bulaç realized that Islamist movements have to deal with a much different societyand that they must address these new issues. A purely ideological interpretation ofsociety among restricted circles is no longer useful and has not benefited thecommunity. Moreover, immediately after the “28 February process”, Bulaç warnedthat the great danger of an extreme politicization of Islam was its materializationand secularization because it implied the loss of the spiritual dimension of reli-gion.33 Here the author obviously refers to the Islamist movements abroad and alsoto the RP experience.

New social actors also emerged in the modern context. Networks of fellow towns-men (hem[scedil] ehrilik) were initially useful to preserve identities and to unravel problemsresulting from such a rapid urbanization process. However, these networks did not fitthe new hybrid environment of big cities like Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. Religiousgroups (cemaat) were more successful in creating a common modern urban identitythat would help immigrants to become socialized (toplumsalla[scedil] mak). Indeed, moderncemaats created powerful networks of solidarity and helped newcomers to insertthemselves peacefully in an alien society. Cemaats with their values and morals alsohelped the individuals to mitigate the negative effects of capitalist and egoistic

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The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey 355

society.34 Despite the fact that religious groups have been criticized because theyprevent the formation of individualism within society, Bulaç rebuked these criticsand stressed that in Islam the cemaats are voluntary and civil in character. On onehand, cemaats are not alternative to the state because the great majority of Hanefischolars have stated that only the state authority for instance can collect taxes, hanga flag or proclaim jihad. Every individual behaves according to his beliefs in thepublic sphere, and every individual may chose to live his life in isolation, in a groupor in a cemaat. Because of these considerations, Bulaç accepted and praised the newenvironment of Zaman after the takeover by the Gülen Cemaati.

On the other hand, he criticized the liberal understanding because of its focus onthe single individual, who is free but stripped of his identity and alone in front of thegreatness of the state.35 Bulaç is right in stating that individuals have the freedom tochoose a degree of affiliation to a cemaat or to leave it in the contemporary Turkishcontext. However, he failed to understand that the structure of cemaats puts certaincultural and social restrictions on the individual that limit personal freedoms.

In the post-1980 period, Bulaç acquired also a very uncommon breadth of vision:

If a man regards his knowledge (regarding physics, philosophy, humansciences, legal interpretations etc.), which results from his own efforts, assurely true, as a universal certainty, as the only truth, he makes it absolute, andabsolutism is totalitarian and despotic.36

Thus, he refused ideological postulates, and he sincerely called for an open soci-ety and a wide political spectrum. Moreover, he recognized that Islam and all otherreligions, traditions and cultures were equally hikmets (wisdoms), virtues and truths.Therefore, Islam, he argued, with its law and beliefs did not want to unite all human-kind in one religion, yet it desired a common moral practice: “It is wishful thateverybody becomes Muslim, that everybody finds the Prosperity. However, fromhistory and today’s experience we know that this is impossible”.37 Islamic history ismade of coexistence between Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and other reli-gious groups. This is clearly demonstrated by Islam’s proposal for an ideal of excep-tionalism. Starting from these premises, Bulaç saw in the “Constitution of Medina”a political formula for a plural Turkey.

Bulaç’s Reading of the Constitution of Medina

The “Constitution of Medina” is a document or, according to Serjeant,38 a group ofdocuments, consisting of about 50 clauses. It is stated to have been stipulated by theProphet between the Muh[amacr ] jir[umacr ] n, the Ans[amacr ] r, and the Jews during the early days of theMedina period. Obviously, the Arabic text did not define itself as a “Constitution”(that is a modern concept) but as a kit[amacr ] b (prescription)39 or sah[imacr ] fah (sheet), whichBulaç translates as vesika (document) or sözle[scedil] me (contract). Its contents, in brief,are, firstly, the definition of a specific treaty of mutual aid between the religiouscommunities in Medina, the action to be taken against those who break the agreement

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and against people within the allied groups who commit crimes, along with the proce-dure to be observed in dealing with the offenders. Secondly, special sections dealwith the position of the Jews in relation to the other groups.

Bulaç started to write on the Constitution during the years of the violent disinte-gration of multicultural Yugoslavia. He was also under the influence of post-1980sTurkey, which discovered itself as a hybrid, multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic society torn by internal contrapositions. He claimed that the “Constitution” wasa text of great interest today and that it was a strictly practical set of agreed procedures,which could provide a model for a new Muslim society.40 The idea of Bulaç, then,was not to write another Utopia, but to create a project of society for Muslims livingin the “modern” world taking as a source the Qur’an, the Sunna and Islamic thought.According to the author, the modern nation state imported from the West cannotrepresent a viable alternative for the existing conflicts between religious and ethnicgroups.

On the other hand, critics of Bulaç believed that the “Constitution of Medina”was indeed an original and authoritative source, yet it had to be analyzed histori-cally, in the light of political events of the late Medina period. When the agreementwas signed, Muslims were fleeing from Mecca, a city whose inhabitants werehostile to the tiny Muslim minority. A few years later, the situation changed dramat-ically and the Constitution became a “historical text”: after a few years, all theminorities disappeared from the city, and relations with minorities in other parts ofthe Arab Peninsula were always unbalanced; Shari’ah indeed dominated all aspectsof life. The new elaborations of the Islamic law brought considerable changes: forexample, the principle that the head of state should be from the Qurey[scedil] .41 Bulaç,however, did not see any inconsistency between the Constitution and the entirecorpus of the Qur’an’s revelations and the Sunna; consequently he intended the textas a definitive source of jurisprudence.

The author indeed saw striking resemblances between Medina’s society andtoday’s Muslim societies; as in the oasis just after the hegira, Turkish society ischaotic and is dominated by mistrust and numerous ethnic as well as religiousconflicts. A minority that represented just 15 percent of Medina society brought apolitical alternative that sorted all the conflicts and, after 120 years of unrest, itbrought peace to the Arabian oasis.

Different religious and ethnic groups came together recognizing, in a sort of“contract,” their differences to realize a lasting, just peace inside a set of principles.The “Constitution of Medina” gives to every (religious, social, philosophical andlegal) group or tribe the right to administrate its community in the way it chooses.Consequently, according to Bulaç, this system grants a high degree of autonomy andfreedom to all minorities; something that democracy cannot provide so effectively.

Indeed, the author felt that a democratic form of government could safeguard andrepresent only the majority of the population. In fact, a 51 percent majority canimpose measures on a 49 percent of the population that has no possibility of defend-ing itself. According to the principles of the Constitution, in a country where theMuslims represent 99 percent of the entire population, the one percent minority can

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adopt a different legislation effective among its members without being subject tothe majority’s will, the “tyranny of the majority”.42

Therefore, in the Constitution, there is no idea of sovereignty (hakimiyet), insteadthere is participation (katılım). An all-inclusive and unitary political organizationwould not have recognized differences and peculiarities. On one side, article 25affirms the unity of the groups in Medina; on the other, every group has to keep itsown religion and every single tribe should be granted equal dignity.

Every group shares the land (article 39) as well as the burden of war and defense(article 24 and 45) and—as article 42 establishes—God and the Prophet are thesupreme arbiters in case of disputes among different groups, otherwise the individualgroups can freely administer justice themselves.43 This means that the Constitutionis a social pact: “As the marriage [in Islamic law] and trade are agreements [akit],political life is an agreement as well; in other words a form of contract.”44 However,it is not like Rousseau’s idea of social contract between individuals since it is formu-lated between religious and socio-cultural blocs, between independent and autono-mous social groups.

Ali Bulaç thought that despite the fact that these verses state a religious affiliation,Islamic law accords a similar status to different practices and behaviors within society.Thus, not only are Muslims, Christians, and Jews all acknowledged as religious groupsbut atheists are also acknowledged in modern times as a legitimate community.

On the other hand, the duties of the central government have to be very limited togive space to the single groups to freely administer education, arts, culture, knowl-edge, trade, economy, civil law, health, sport, and all issues that matter in theircommunity. The central state must be concerned only with representing the unity ofthe state; it must ensure security and internal stability, collect taxes for services tothe entire community, and finally, provide security from external enemies.45

National, local, and civic executive councils might be set up to administer issues ofcommon interest and to represent proportionally the different groups. Inhabitantswould pay taxes to their community and taxes for the common services such asinfrastructures, and internal and external security. Different groups might signagreements with other groups to solve common issues and a Supreme Court with arepresentation of the different elements might be created to sort disputes on agree-ments and to judge major penal crimes.46

Hayreddin Karaman

Life47

Hayreddin Karaman was born in the Anatolian city of Çorum on February 24, 1934.After elementary school, the young Hayreddin devoted himself to the study of reli-gion. However, until the reinstatement of official religious education in 1949, Islamictraining could have been acquired only clandestinely from old medrese teachers or inArab countries. The al-Azhar University in Cairo was the most prestigious place toacquire a religious education48 and Karaman initially planned to go there. For this

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purpose, in Çorum, he took Arabic classes from an old medrese student. Later, heunsuccessfully attempted to smuggle himself to Egypt.

A breakthrough in his life was the opening in 1951 of the [Idot ] mam-Hatip schools;during the liberal years of the Demokrat Parti, Karaman enrolled in the newly estab-lished [Idot ] mam-Hatip school in Konya and completed his studies in 1959. He thenmoved to Istanbul where he joined the Yüksek [Idot ] slâm Enstitüsü, which, after theSeptember 12 coup, became the Faculty of Divinity of Marmara University. After hisdegree, he briefly worked as a teacher in an Istanbul [Idot ] mam-Hatip school. Later, hestarted a brilliant academic career first in Izmir’s Yüksek [Idot ] slâm Enstitüsü and, from1975, back at the one in Istanbul until his early retirement in 2000 amid harsh polem-ics with the university establishment regarding the application of the headscarfprohibition. Karaman energetically contributed to the shaping of Marmara Univer-sity’s divinity faculty as the most important and influential divinity faculty in thecountry. The faculty’s relevance is also to be found in politics demonstrated byPrime Minister Erdo[gbreve] an’s usual participation to the Bayram prayers in its mosque.Indeed, among the 18 MPs elected in 2007 with a degree in divinity (all elected in theranks of the AKP), five graduated from the Istanbul Yüksek [Idot ] slâm Enstitüsü in the1970s and three were also professors at the Marmara University’s divinity faculty.

Hayreddin Karaman is certainly the most representative of the first generation ofscholars educated in the new Republican religious education system.49 Thirty yearsafter the language revolution, the absence of useful textbooks represented the firstchallenge Karaman and his colleagues had to face. As Reed noticed, [Idot ] mam-Hatipschools “have to depend on unsatisfactory, scarce Arabic books, or else on very oldTurkish texts, or hastily compiled new books, often merely on a brief outlineprepared by the Ministry of Education and the Presidency of Religious Affairs.”50

Furthermore, when still in his hometown of Çorum, Karaman struggled to find anArabic grammar because people apparently burned all “old fashioned” books fear-ing state persecution.51 When he started teaching at the Istanbul [Idot ] mam-Hatipschool, with his close friend Bekir Topalo[gbreve] lu, Karaman published six textbooks(including an Arabic grammar and a dictionary). A second challenge was that notypesetter or Arabic type was available in the country. They had to invent a set oflaborious and long techniques to print their books.52 There was also the need tocreate a new vocabulary in accordance with the Öztürkçe (the modern Turkishpurified of foreign vocabulary and grammar), like the word “hadisçi” instead of theold-fashioned “muhaddis” (the scholar of hadis) that Karaman used in his transla-tion of Muhammad Asad’s Islam at the Crossroads.53

Since its reintroduction, religious education was continuously under the attack ofthe secularists. Thus, Karaman has always been proudly active in promoting and indefending the [Idot ] mam-Hatip schools. He was involved in numerous activities for thepromotion of Islam and morality in the country. After some editorial attempts, fromOctober 1976 to September 1980, he actively participated in the monthly Nesil,which had the aim of mobilizing [Idot ] mam-Hatip students as a united generation (inTurkish nesil), which should represent a model of behavior and condemn unortho-dox approaches to Islam.

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Nesil also published the works of its editors and the review was intended to cata-lyze a movement that promoted the Islamization of Turkey through the [Idot ] mam-Hatipalumni. It was intended as a non-political review, a brave position in an epoch ofTurkish history when every nook and cranny of Turkish society was politicized andpolarized. Karaman and his friends were more interested in people’s education:

Everything must be done: (1) Following God’s orders and pursuing Hisapproval. (2) Going down to the people, uniting with them, gaining theirsupport (namely reform [ıslahat] from the base to the top). Our methodologycannot include politics, state government, the top that presses the base. Only tohelp our task, to eliminate eventual obstacles, we may need politics. However,for this purpose instead of entering politics, we may start a dialogue withpoliticians inside certain limits.54

Karaman noticed that those who attempted to reform society from the top—likethe Muslim Brotherhood or Mawd[umacr ] d[imacr ] —failed. Consequently, he preferred to pursue“Islamization from the base through education” and to differentiate himself fromother Muslim thinkers. The first generation Arab Islamist authors like Rid[amacr ] , Abduh,and Arab jurists had a strong influence on Karaman. For instance, Karaman’s bookGünlük Hayatımızda Helâller Haramlar (Lawful and Prohibited in Our Daily Life,first published in 1979) was written on the pattern of the Egyptian Muslim BrotherY[umacr ] suf al-Qard[amacr ] w[imacr ] ’s al-Hal[amacr ] l wa-l-Har[amacr ] m fi-l-Isl[amacr ] m (Lawful and Prohibited inIslam, first published in Arabic in 1960) and was not original in methodology andcontents. However, his following works were increasingly detached from Arabauthors and adopted a more original approach.

He distinguished himself for his rediscovery of Islamic sciences; indeedHayreddin Karaman “is among those reformist thinkers who believe that reformmust follow the methodology offered by Usul al-Fiqh;”55 namely, a reinterpretationof Islam close to the sources but also aware of modern scientific methodology.Karaman, with his [Idot ] slam Hukukunda [Idot ] ctihad (Ictihad in Islamic Law),56 enlivenedthe debate of the first generation of Turkish Islamists on closure of the “door of icti-had [interpretation].” He advocated that making use of ijtihad was needed to adaptIslam to the modern context and even an imperative (vecibe) for the Muslimcommunity to regulate the aspects not covered by the Qur’an and the hadith. Otherauthors—like the influential Necip Fazıl Kısakürek and before him, Said Nursî—affirmed that the door of ijtihad had to be kept closed, because in the pervertedconditions of the contemporary world there were no scholars able to interpretIslamic law without the risk of misinterpretations or deviations.57

‘Despite Nurettin Topçu having been one of the professors at the Yüksek [Idot ] slâmEnstitüsü in Istanbul and Necip Fazıl being very popular among conservativecircles during the 1960s and 1970s, those two figures marginally influencedKaraman. In fact, Necip Fazıl harshly criticized Karaman’s works on ijtihad andopenly condemned them as “perverted.”58 The polemic by Necip Fazıl opened theway to the criminalization of Karaman by certain wings of the Islamist movement.

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Threats and insults probably encouraged Karaman further in his commitment toavoid active politics and to work on the education of the young generation ofMuslims.

However, the adventure of Nesil ended a few months after the September 12coup. As Karaman explains, there were four fundamental reasons for the closingdown the publication.59 Firstly, the clashes between different Muslim groups wereparticularly harsh and there was an incredible pressure on the members ofKaraman’s entourage. Karaman himself was the object of various death threats andverbal assaults, and he was accused on various occasions of being mezhepsiz (to notbelong to any Islamic law school) and to be a vehhabi (wahh[amacr ] b[imacr ] ). The secondreason was that keeping alive a wide network was quite expensive, particularly forthose coming from the poor Turkish periphery. Thirdly, the restriction brought in bythe military junta also influenced the network. Finally, there was no charismaticleader to maintain relations among the different elements and avoid conflicts.Karaman was regarded as the leading figure and a catalyst in all his initiatives, buthe always eluded leadership and official responsibilities. He even refused the presi-dency of the Diyanet, the state administration that organizes religious life in Turkey,in 1986 offered to him by President Kenan Evren.60

During the 1990s, however, Karaman rebuilt his network even more successfullyand he started lobbying to promote religious education. Ensar Vakfı61 is the mostpowerful structure that came out of his attempts. This structure is involved in educa-tion (it owns numerous student halls and private schools, and holds conferences andcourses), publishing activities, and charity. An important section is dedicated to [Idot

] mam-Hatip students and teachers as well as to divinity faculty students. In 1994,Ensar Vakfı bought the newspaper Yeni [Scedil] afak, which has been a reference point forthe most important Islamist authors. Eventually, the paper was rescued by thewealthy Albayrak family, which is strongly tied to Prime Minister Erdo[gbreve] an, whomediated to keep the editorial policy unchanged (id est strong support of AKP,opposition to the secular state apparatus and influence of Karaman’s network).62 Itis very difficult to estimate the influence of Karaman’s (in)formal network;however, in Turkey, everyone who seeks a career need the backing of a powerfulweb of people and be recognized as somebody “from us” (bizden). It is, then likely,that Karaman’s reference may “help” people in many areas of the conservativeacademia, the Diyanet and state bureaucracy.

An important academic initiative of Karaman was his participation in the estab-lishment of [Idot ] SAM ([Idot ] slam Ara[scedil] tırma Merkezi) linked to the Diyanet. [Idot ] SAM is aleading research center on the Asian side of Istanbul that hosts the most importantscholars of Islam in Turkey, finances divinity students to study abroad, and isresponsible for the [Idot ] slam Ansiklopedisi.

Critique of Previous Islamist Political Attempts

Hayreddin Karaman’s ideas and priorities brought him inevitably to an open contrastwith Erbakan, even if the dialogue between the two remained open.63 Karaman never

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hid his critiques of the RP, which was established after the September 12 coupto replace the banned MSP. In the mid-1990s, Refah had great electoral successesin local and national elections. Its ability to deliver services and relief to thepoorest (particularly in the squatter areas) and to achieve the partial elimination ofbureaucratic corruption granted to Refah a great electoral success in a decade ofpolitical volatility. Conservative circles were generally galvanized by its victories.However, as we have seen, the rapid emergence of Refah and strengthening ofconservative education and business provoked the reaction of the army and the judi-ciary with the “28 February process”.

Karaman did not avoid heavy critiques of Refah even during this period when theparty had huge electoral support. It seems that he provided with his comments theideological grounds for the scission from the movement and the creation of a moremoderate and pragmatic party under the leadership of Erdo[gbreve] an. Firstly,

my personal opinion is that the RP experiment is not an experiment of politicalIslam. If Refah had been left unharmed it probably would have realized aliberal democratic order in harmony with the Second Republic [the newRepublic that emerged after the September 12, 1980 coup], or it would haveworked for it.64

Karaman’s comments are very harsh. As a well-respected Muslim scholar, heaffirms that the most important Islamist party is not “Islamic” and is definitely notthe alternative to the other “secular” parties.

Secondly, Karaman sees Erbakan’s political parties as out of touch with reality.MSP-Refah’s promises of a “Just Order” (Âdil Düzen) appeared unrealizable in theTurkish political and social context. Erbakan’s party did not base its promises on aserious analysis of the Turkish and global economic system. Indeed, when in power,it faced a series of obstacles and conditions not previously considered and he mademany missteps. As early as 1992, Karaman together with Sabahettin Zaim65 partici-pated in a commission promoted by Erdo[gbreve] an to review Erbakan’s economic policy.The final report—ignored by Erbakan—stressed the need both to infuse moralityinto the market and also for the state to maintain only the functions of control andincentive through the construction of the necessary infrastructures.66

Immediately before the ban of Refah, a new party under the name of Fazilet wasestablished. Karaman made the following suggestions:

The party should make a right/realistic analysis and, according to it, shoulddetermine its aims and program. It should shape a structure that conforms to itsaims and program. It should be democratic based on the analysis of the realworld, not a fairy story. There should be no privileges granted because ofsubjective considerations or charisma.67

Fazilet, however, was modeled on the RP and again under the charismatic (yetunofficial) leadership of Erbakan. When Fazilet was also banned because of its

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proclamations against secularism, a new wing—which shared Karaman’s critics ofErbakan—formed the AKP.

Karaman’s View of Democracy

In this last quotation, Karaman accuses the MSP-Refah heritage of being undemo-cratic, and in many of his writings he seems to promote democracy and liberties—even more in the repressive context of the “28 February process.” He certainlypromotes freedom of expression and a reduction of the state intervention in society:

In Turkey, “state [intervention] should be minimized,” as in the economicsphere, also in the sphere of rights and liberties. An order should be establishedonly to preserve the country’s unity as well as a system that has, realizes, andpreserves people’s oneness and union, public order as well as religious free-dom, freedom of conscience and expression.68

Moreover, Hayreddin Karaman does not consider the Qur’anic principle of God’ssovereignty as an obstacle. Because God is indeed sovereign, His sovereignty on theEarth does not conflict with people’s sovereignty. Moreover, God has created manas a halife (viceroy) on the Earth;69 consequently He gave men the responsibility ofgoverning societies with justice.

Despite his commitment to liberties, Karaman also criticizes liberty as a properlyWestern construct. Indeed, he notices that democracy etymologically, conceptually,and in practice does not belong to and emerged outside Islamic culture and civiliza-tion. Humans share many common values and principles; however, the basic philos-ophy of democracy clashes with Islamic principles. In fact, democracy is based onthe principle that individuals are totally free and sovereign. Consequently, individu-als do not recognize any kind of superior authority that may limit their wills.However, Islam does recognize a limit to human intellect and will, and this limit isconstituted by God.70

Their liberty can be limited by their obligations toward the society only becauseMuslims are brothers and form a united body.71 Another limit to our freedoms is theprinciple “emr-i bi’l-maruf, nehy-i ani’l münker” (“Ye enjoin right conduct andforbid indecency”),72 which is a duty placed on the individual, the community, andthe state. At the same time, it represents a symbol of the Muslim community. Thecommunity has also some collective duties—such as fighting poverty and injus-tice—that must prevail over the interest of the individual. Finally, individual free-doms are limited when the individual’s interests conflict with or harm commoninterests of the society.73

Consequently, even if much of its interpretation is left to mankind, the Shari’ahconstitutes an unchallenging limit to national sovereignty:

Government is established with the power given by the people and in name ofthe people. In other words, the principle that sovereignty belongs to God does

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not contrast with the people’s selection of rulers when it is done respectingmen’s wills and the Islamic principles.74

However, in Islam, the sovereign (hâkim) is God, people’s wills are confined byGod’s (through the Qur’an and Sunnah) will. People use their sovereignty in thename of God and according to His will as expressed in His revelation and discov-ered through ijtihad.75

Thus, national sovereignty is not limitless: if it is not limited by God’s sover-eignty, it is limited by the Shari’ah. Indeed, Karaman emphasizes that in democracy,morality and prosperity of society are not absolute. Islam on the contrary, clearlyframes an eternal moral and a clear concept of good and evil. These values consti-tute the common ideology shared by all Muslims and are not a subject of debateamong political parties.

Also küfür (the denial of monotheism and of the basic Islamic tenets) is some-thing that cannot be contemplated by any political force in a Muslim politicalsystem.76 Consequently, the Islamic principle of Tevhid (which means that God isthe only and unique creator, the divinity, the sovereign of the being, and ruler)remains indisputable. An example given by Karaman is symbolic of the relevance ofthe principle in politics as well. When still in Mecca, the Prophet was approached byan emissary of the Meccan rulers and offered the most beautiful, intelligent, andnoble girl as well as an influential position as ruler of the city in exchange for hisrenunciation of his plea for Tevhid. The Prophet answered the emissary with thesewords: “I swear by God, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in myleft hand on condition that I abandon this course before He hath made it victorious,or I have perished therein, I would not abandon it.”77 Similarly, a process of “secu-larization of Islam” ([Idot ] slâm’ı lâikle[scedil] tirmek) is unthinkable. Namely, it is impossibleto separate the religious sphere from the worldly affairs. They are linked and reli-gious life is possible only in an appropriate environment.78

Nevertheless, Karaman accepts democracy as a “mechanism”. Moreover, to carryout their moral and religious duties, individuals must be free and protected by alegal system (even if non-Islamic) and democracy seems to provide the best politicalsystem possible. The democratic electoral and parliamentary system also representsthe principle of me[scedil] veret—intended by our author as accountability of the govern-ment and consultative authority—contemplated in the Islamic sources. Muslimsshould, then, elect their representatives, and representative should meet and elect thehead of state that has the executive power.

Here, for what concern the mechanism and the technical aspects, we can findmany similarities. However, we must see and notice the relevant differencesbetween the Islamic government and the secular democracy, which does notaccept God’s interference.79

Thus, democracy as a mechanism is acceptable. Moreover, “you can use thatmedium [araç], if the use of that medium is indispensable [zaruri] to slowly move

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toward Islam in the present conditions.”80 Democracy should be used to move thestate to a better system, to improve it. In this case it does not matter where thesystem originates, but what matters is the proposed aim. The use of democracy isthen a matter of zarûret (necessity) to potentially reach a better condition.81

Zarûret is a state of necessity or danger, when Muslims are allowed to do anaction considered haram (unlawful) by the Shari’ah or that is not contemplated byMuslim jurisprudence. For instance, a Muslim under a death threat can even renegeon Islam. To prevent a disease or to relieve pain, a Muslim can drink or eat some-thing haram. Once the aim has been reached or the threat has ceased, the separationbetween lawful and unlawful must be strictly re-established, though. In case there isthe risk of losing its material, technological, military or economic power againstnon-Muslim societies, the entire Muslim society may be forced to make use ofillegal practices or apply ideas that do not originate from Islam.82

Furthermore, the state is partly created on zarûret anyway. Most of the Muslimscholars (including Karaman) believe that the Qur’an and the life of the Prophetprovide only vague principles on the shape of government. Outside these principles,whatever is necessary to protect the material and spiritual goods and values, orderand justice must be pursued according to the principle of zarûret.83

One of Erdo[gbreve] an’s notorious speeches, before his “conversion” to moderateIslamism in 2002, is similar to Karaman’s discourse. In the 1997 convention ofthe Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA)84 in the USA, when he was stillIstanbul’s mayor, he said: “Democracy will never be a goal. If we look from theintellectual perspective, we would see that is a medium.”85 His denigrators say thatthese words show his intention to use democracy tactically to take control of thestate apparatus and then set up an Iranian-style regime. However, he probably justrephrased what Karaman had been saying all along: in present times, democracy is anecessity and the best possible medium to improve society. However, neitherErdo[gbreve] an nor Karaman appear to know where and when exactly to leave the medium,and in what kind of “Islamic government”.

There is another important criticism made by Hayreddin Karaman. “Democracy”and “human rights” are ideas coming from the European experience into the Muslimworld as an imposition:

If we examine human rights not as a legal concept or a philosophical thoughtbut as a phenomena, since the eighteenth century, in our context rather thanspeaking of human rights we can speak of the rights imposed by the strongest,of those who can speak out, of those who can stand […].

Today, there is an established world order. As they have used religion in poli-tics in the past, the founders of this order now use today’s religion—democracyand human rights—as a tool into politics to colonize parts of the world. Themajority of colonized countries are Islamic countries. The only system thatmight break the order, stop colonization, say no to injustice, and properlyuphold human rights and social justice, is Islam.86

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This is a very common feeling among Islamist writers (and also many secularwriters) Islam is seen as under siege because of its stand against Western imperial-ism. What is particularly relevant is that, despite the fact that the author approvesmany aspects of democracy, he is profoundly suspicious of whatever political ideacomes from an imperialist civilization, and from the EU as well. Suspicion increaseshis ambiguous attitude toward democracy.

The Constitution of Medina according to Karaman

As in Bulaç, an Islamic alternative to democracy can be found in the “Constitutionof Medina,” even though it has not been examined properly yet. In a society wherethe Islamic principles dominate, non-Muslims have two choices: to adopt Islamiclaw or to adopt their own system of laws. The second option was first adopted in thecity-state of Medina. There, every single community sorted its internal conflictsaccording to their own legal system. When their laws were not capable of solvingcontroversies or when conflicts between different communities emerged, theyapplied for “God and His Prophet’s judgment”—namely, to resort to Islamic law.87

In Turkey, some Islamists [he probably refers to Bulaç] propose a relativelyplural model (outside the unavoidable common sphere, multi-cultural, multi-legal) based on the Constitution of Medina. According to us, despite the factthat it has not been fully examined, the dubious points have not been disclosed,and that probably many problems have not been solved, it is worthy to sustainthis model until a better one will be found.88

Karaman’s View on State and Opposition

There is a very interesting metaphor that Karaman makes that is reminiscent a bit ofPlato’s Republic, but it is inspired by a famous hadith of the Prophet who admon-ished the community to work in harmony to remain inside the limits established byGod. Karaman says that the fatherland (vatan) is like a ship with passengers (people,nation, or ümmet) ruled by a captain, a crew, and a route (the government). If theship progresses along the course wanted by the majority of the passengers and thedissenting passengers accept the majority’s will, the ship navigates smoothly. If inthe ship, there is disagreement and opposition, the ship will not progress and a powerstruggle may start. All passengers have the right to dissent yet inevitably they mustrealize the need for the ship to navigate smoothly for the welfare of the entirecommunity (including themselves). If the ship is controlled by a foreign or unwantedforce, the duty of all the passengers is to take control of the ship without harming itspassengers or damaging the ship. Any damage to the ship means that all the passen-gers may drown. Passengers have no alternative; leaving the ship means that theymay never be allowed to embark in the future and they lose the ship forever.

If the captain imposes an authoritarian and unjust regime, the passengers shouldnot neglect their duties or to cause to make a detour. They should appraise all the

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different aspects of the state differently; they should protect the right ones and workto improve the wrong ones. Hence, if a state’s executive or legislation does notconform to Islamic law—as in Turkey—the passengers cannot simply oppose orhinder the ship at the expenses of all the passengers.

Hanefi authors—and Karaman himself—affirm that a country and a society afterits acceptance of Islam, will never turn into a dâru’l-harb (house of war). Conse-quently, if a government practices what is condemned by religion, then it must bedenounced. Yet it can never become an infidel country and violence cannot be exer-cised to overthrow the regime. Moreover, insurrection or violent revolts may provokefitne (sedition). Karaman, in his view, is perfectly consistent with Hanafi jurists, whosee instability and anarchy as fitne—strongly condemned by the Qur’an.89 Moreover,as citizens travel on the same ship, if one of them damages the ship everyone will suffer.

What is more appropriate against an unjust ruler is sabır (patience) and temekkün(restraint). While through sabır the believer turns to God with prayers for change,temekkün is to work for an improvement of society without provoking fitne, withoutdisrupting the entire society or condemning it to a worse condition.90

This last position of Karaman is particularly important. The Hanefi approach is toavoid armed struggle against an unjust power, because it would probably lead to thediscredit and hindrance of Islam as well as suffering by the population. This attitudeis one of the main characteristics of mainstream Turkish Islamism that distinguishesit from some wings of Arab Islamism. Violence is disregarded as a political tool andopposition must be done in a more subtle form. There is no necessity to demolish akâfir state (because there are none), but Muslims should uphold the just principles ofthe state and slowly work to improve the others.

Conclusion

The main Islamist wing in the AKP and mainstream Muslim movements in Turkeyseem to advocate the strengthening of the state (even if it is based on false principles)and economy in order to prevent any harm to Turkish society as a whole. Yet at thesame time, they attempt to introduce morality in the system that will progressivelyimprove it. This is a fundamental shift in methodology that considers the complexityof society and the need of trade-offs with different components of Turkish society.This attitude is not takiye as detractors affirm; while takiye implies that Islamistsdisguise their true aim and understanding of the state, they clearly state their position.However, it is unambiguous from their writings that they did not formulate an idealstate theory. The principles stated in Karaman’s and Bulaç’s works are generalvalues and not a specific new form of state because state theory is shaped by theglobal and internal conditions. This understanding of political opposition as well astheir functionalist approach to politics, then, makes them open to a democraticdebate with different components of Turkish society and the global community.

However, in Bulaç’s and Karaman’s interpretations there are some unresolvedissues. Firstly, there is no proper understanding of plurality. Contemporary Turkishsociety’s ethnic, cultural, religious, and ideological cleavages demonstrate its

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plurality. Past and contemporary Islamic experiences around the world also demon-strate that Islamic societies are not monolithic. Karaman and Bulaç recognize diver-sities inside society but also recognize practicing Muslims as one single community.

Indeed, the rediscovery of the Constitution of Medina is an attempt to create aplural system, which, however, seems unlikely to work for a modern state. Today,states are more complex structures encompassing multiple and complicated aspectsof society. Moreover, whereas in Medina we are talking of a small city-state, todaywe have societies of millions dominated by numerous groups, denominations, anddiversities.

Karaman and Bulaç are—in different degrees ümmetçi—namely, they are notTurkish nationalists. Rather they prefer to emphasize the principle of Muslim broth-erhood and consequently do not uncritically admire the Ottoman Empire as the apexof Turkish-Islamic identity. However, the Constitution of Medina recalls the milletsystem of the Ottoman Empire, another example of a multi-faith and pluralistsystem frequently recalled by Turkish Islamists. However, the Ottoman state—atleast until the nineteenth-century reforms—was a very limited state with a veryrestricted set of duties in an environment with no awareness of human rights (asintended in the contemporary world). Today, states need to be actively involved inthe economy and to provide a wide range of services to their population includingeducation and healthcare. Those are essential for granting equality and promotingprosperity. Finally, the Ottoman millet system, the “Constitution of Medina” andour authors consider every individual as necessarily part of a religious group (millet)or a cemaat. They do not consider the fact that individuals may share a religion butdiffer in interpretation, needs and interests. Thus, Bulaç and Karaman criticize theindividualistic culture of Western democracies but fail to understand that without anindividualistic culture it is impossible to grant extended liberties to citizens.

Islamists’ understanding of democracy is positively changing, but there is not yeta formulation of an “Islamic Democracy.” They seem to accept a vague concept ofdemocracy, waiting for a better formulation. Moreover, they usually prefer to under-stand democracy as a mechanism, but they ignore the political culture of toleranceand solidarity needed to let democratic processes work.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank M. Lutfullah Karaman, Sami De Giosa, Recep [Scedil] entürk, andthe anonymous referee for their instructive comments and suggestions on variousdrafts of this paper.

Notes

1. An early draft of this paper was presented at 2008 WISC conference in Ljubljana.2. I will use the term “Islamist”—even if it is terribly imperfect—to define those movements and activ-

ists that openly or indirectly advocate the (re)building of society along the principle of Islam and itsmoral values.

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3. According to the March 2009 figures from the website http://www.dorduncukuvvetmedya.com/.4. The two volumes collection of sermons prepared by Islamist intellectuals close to the Committee of

Union and Progress is a good summary of these ideas as well as the idea of equality: Osmanlı [Idot ] ttihadve Terakki Cemiyeti’nin [Scedil] ehzade Ba[scedil] ı Kulübü Heyet-i [Idot ] lmiyesi Cemiyeti, Meva’iz-i Diniye [ReligiousSermons] ([Idot ] stanbul: Matba’a-ı Amire, 1328 [1910] and 1329 [1911]).

5. Paul Kubicek, “The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey,” Turkish Studies,Vol. 6, No. 3 (2005), p. 373.

6. A court investigation started in July 2008 unveiled a clandestine Kemalist organization, Ergenekon,with ties to members of the military, security forces and the academia that allegedly plotted to rein-state a secular and isolationist regime in Turkey.

7. Ali Bulaç, Avrupa Birli[gbreve] i ve Türkiye [European Union and Turkey] ([Idot ] stanbul: Zaman, 2001).8. Kubicek, “The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey,” pp. 372–374.9. See Devlet [Idot ] statistik Enstitüsü, http://www.die.gov.tr/nufus_sayimi/2000Nufus.pdf (October 29,

2005).10. For instance only 0.9 percent of the population claim to be atheist and 75 percent claim to regu-

larly pray (dua) to God; see Gündelik Ya[scedil] amda Din, Laiklik ve Türban Ara[scedil] tırması [Religion,Secularism, and Veil in Everyday Life], http://www.konda.com.tr/html/dosyalar/ghdl&t.pdf, pp.28, 31.

11. Ali Çarko[gbreve] lu and Binnaz Toprak, De[gbreve] i[scedil] en Türkiye’de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset [Religion, Society andPolitics in a Changing Turkey] ([Idot ] stanbul: TESEV, 2006), p. 75.

12. Ninety-two percent of interviewees said that they agreed on an equal share of inheritance betweenmen and women; 87% did not agree that men could marry a second wife (Gündelik Ya[scedil] amda Din,Laiklik ve Türban Ara[scedil] tırması p. 49).

13. On his life see: Binnaz Toprak, “[Idot ] ki Müslüman Aydın: Ali Bulaç ve [Idot ] smet Özel,” [Two MuslimIntellectuals: Ali Bulaç and smet Özel] Toplum ve Bilim, No. 29–30 (Spring-Summer 1985);Michael E. Meeker, “The New Muslim Intellectuals in the Republic of Turkey,” in Richard Tapper(ed.), Islam in Modern Turkey (London: IB Tauris, 1991); Fatma Botsal Ünsal and Ertan Özensel,“Ali Bulaç,” in Yasin Aktay (ed.), [Idot ] slâmcılık [Islamism] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] leti[scedil] im, 2004).

14. Ali Bulaç, Kur’an-ın Kerim’in Türkçe Anlamı: Meal ve Sözlük [The Holy Qur’an’s Turkish Mean-ing: Meaning and Dictionary] ([Idot ] stanbul: Pınar Yayınları, 1983).

15. Ebü’l-Ala Mevdudi, Tefhimü’l-Kur’an: Kur’an’ın Anlamı ve Tefsiri [Tefhimü’l-kur’an: The Mean-ing of the Qur’an and its Explanation] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] nsan, 1986).

16. Mesut Okumu[scedil] , Nüzul Sırasına Göre Kur’an-ı Kerim Meali [The Meaning of the Holy Qur’anaccording to the Order of the Revelation] (Ankara: Birle[scedil] ik, 1994).

17. See for example: Ali Mehmedo[gbreve] lu, “MSP’nin Tabanını Tespitte Yanlı[scedil] lık,” [The Mistake in theAnalysis of the MSP Grassroots] Dü[scedil] ünce, No. 2 (May 1977).

18. In the last elections before the September 12 coup, MSP number of MPs sharply decreased from 48to 24 seats.

19. Editorial without signature Dü[scedil] ünce, No. 4 (July 1977), p. 11. All translations from Turkish are mine.20. Mehmet Metiner, Yemye[scedil] il [Scedil] eriat, Bembeyaz Demokrasi [Green Shari’a, White Democracy] ([Idot ] stanbul:

Do[gbreve] an, 2004), pp. 259–269.21. Interview with the author, October 12, 2005. On Eygi see: Cemal A. Kalyoncu, “Mehmet [Scedil] evket

Eygi: Hiçbir i[scedil] e yarayamıyorum,” [Mehmet evket Eygi is Useless] Aksiyon, August 22, 2005.22. As an example, we can mention his editorial “Öngörü” [Farsightedness] (Zaman, June 18, 2005)

where he praises Fethullah Gülen’s schools and his farsightedness in understanding the importanceof Central Asia, and in his “Fethullah Gülen, Ulema Gelene[gbreve] inde Son [Idot ] slahatçısı” [Fethullah Gülen:the Last Reformer in the Tradition of the Ulema] (Zaman, Oct. 22, 2005) where he claims that Gülen,like Mawd[umacr ] d[imacr ] , Qutb, and Said Nursi, is an ‘[amacr ] lim-enlightened, because of his profound knowledge ofIslamic and Western sciences.

23. Kutlu A[gbreve] aç, Aydınların Dünyasında Fethullah Gülen [Blessed Tree, Fethullah Gülen in the World ofIntellectuals] ([Idot ] stanbul: Gazeteciler ve Yazarlar Vakfı, 2003).

24. Ali Bulaç, “[Idot ] ki Merkez Arasında AK Parti,” [AK Parti among two Centers] Zaman, April 15, 2009.

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25. Ali Bulaç, Ça[gbreve] da[scedil] Kavramlar ve Düzenler [Concept and Orders of our Time] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 2003),p. 7.

26. Ibid., pp. 177–178.27. Ibid., p. 40.28. Ibid., p. 33.29. Ali Bulaç, “[Idot ] slâm Üç Siyaset Tarzı veya [Idot ] slâmcıların Üç Nesli,” [Islam’s Three Expression of

Politics and Islamists’ Three Generations] in Aktay, [Idot ] slâmcılık.30. Ali Bulaç, Din, Kent ve Cemaat: Fethullah Gülen Örne[gbreve] i [Religion, City and Cemaat: Fethullah

Gülen’s example]” ([Idot ] stanbul: Ufuk, 2008), p. 21. This is Bulaç’s most recent book and in it heemphatically praises Gülen.

31. Ali Bulaç, “[Idot ] slam ne Yapar?,” [What Islam would Do?] Zaman, March 29, 2008.32. Interview with the author, October 12, 2005.33. Ali Bulaç, “De l’islamisme au mouvement islamique,” Les Annales de l’Autre Islam, No. 6 (1999),

p. 410.34. Ali Bulaç, “Din, Kent ve Cemaat,” [Religion, City and Cemaat] Karizma, No. 6 (April-June 2001).35. Ali Bulaç, “Özgürlüklerin Bireyselle[scedil] tirmesi,” [The Individualism of Liberties] Zaman, March 16,

2009.36. Ali Bulaç, “Medine Vesikası Üzerine Tartı[scedil] malar (II),” [Discussions on the Constitution of Medina]

Birikim, No. 48 (April 1993), p. 51.37. Ibid.38. R.B. Serjeant, “The ‘Constitution of Medina’”, The Islamic Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 1-2 (1964), see

also Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam (Milano: Hoepli, 1905–26), Vol. I, pp. 391–408. In numerousoccasions, Bulaç shows orientalists’ interest (he quotes both Caetani and Serjeant) for theConstitution as evidence of its importance and reliability. See also Muhammad Hamidullah, TheFirst Written-Constitution in the World: An Important Document of the Time of the Holy Prophet(Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1962). Hamidullah had a great influence on Turkish Islamists andparticularly on Karaman, who participated in many of Hamidullah’s lectures in Istanbul.

39. This is the translation of Hamidullah, The First Written-Constitution in the World.40. Ali Bulaç, Modern Ulus Devlet [The Modern Nation State] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 1995), p. 261.41. For example see the debate reported in “Medine Vesikası”, [The Constitution of Medina] Yeni Zemin

(March 1993) and also M. Akif Aydın, “Anayasa,” [Constitution] in [Idot ] slâm Ansiklopedisi ([Idot ] stanbul:TDV, 1991).

42. Ali Bulaç, [Idot ] slam ve Demokrasi: Teokrasi, Totaliterizm [Islam and Democracy: Theocracy, Totalitar-ianism] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 1995), p. 56–57.

43. Ali Bulaç, “Medine Vesikası Hakkında Genel Bilgiler”, Birikim, No. 38–39 (June-July 1992). AnEnglish translation of this article was published in Charles Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam, a Source-book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 169–178.

44. Bulaç, Din, kent ve Cemaat: Fethullah Gülen Orne i, p. 102.45. Interview with the author Oct. 12, 2005.46. Bulaç, “Medine Vesikası Üzerine Tartı[scedil] malar (II)”, pp. 56–58.47. The best source on his life is his long autobiography: Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar

[Once upon a time: My life and memories] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 2008). See also http://www.hayrettinkara-man.net/.

48. [Idot ] smail Kara, “Müslüman Karde[scedil] ler Türkçe’ye Tercüme Edildi mi?” [Have the Muslim Brethrenbeen translated into Turkish?] Dergâh, Vol. 2, No. 21 (Nov. 1991).

49. Yasin Aktay, “Hayreddin Karaman,” in Aktay, [Idot ] slâmcılık, p. 349.50. Howard A. Reed, “Turkey’s New [Idot ] mam-Hatip Schools.” Die Welt des Islams, Vol. 4, No. 2/3

(1955), p. 162.51. Karaman, Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar, Vol. 1, p. 81.52. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 18.53. Published in Turkish in 1965 with the title Yolların Ayrılı[scedil] Noktasında [Idot ] slam.54. Karaman, Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar, Vol. 1, p. 308.

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55. Recep [Scedil] entürk, “Islamic Reformist Discourses and Intellectuals in Turkey,” in Shireen T. Hunter(ed.), Reformist Voices of Islam, (Armonk: ME Sharpe, 2008), p. 234.

56. Later published by the Diyanet: Hayreddin Karaman, [Idot ] slam Hukukunda [Idot ] ctihad (Ankara: Diyanet [Idot

] [scedil] leri Ba[scedil] kanlı[gbreve] ı, 1975).57. Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Do[gbreve] ru Yolun Sapık Kolları [The Perverted Deviations of the Right

Path] ([Idot ] stanbul: Büyük Do[gbreve] u, 1990), pp. 98–101; Bediüzzaman Said Nursî, Risale-i NurKülliyatı [The Collection of Letter of Light] ([Idot ] stanbul: Nesil, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 212.

58. Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Rapor 6 [Report 6] ([Idot ] stanbul: Büyük Do[gbreve] u, 1979), pp. 38–41.59. Karaman, Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar, Vol. 2, pp. 249–251.60. Ibid., p. 265.61. See http://www.ensar.org/.62. Karaman, Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar, Vol. 2, p. 318.63. Karaman specifies, however, that in this dialogue Erbakan preferred to be the one who talks without

listening.64. Hayreddin Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak [Living Religion in a Secular System] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot

] z, 2002), Vol. 2, p. 86. This book is a collection of Hayreddin Karaman’s editorials from Yeni[Scedil] afak.

65. A leading conservative economist who died in 2008, professor also of President Abdullah Gül.66. Karaman, Bir Varmı[scedil] , Bir Yokmu[scedil] : Hayatım ve Hatırlar, Vol. 2, pp. 335–363.67. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 2, p. 87.68. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 94.69. Qur’an II:30.70. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 198–199.71. Qur’an III:103–105.72. Qur’an III:110.73. Hayreddin Karaman, [Idot ] slâm’ın I[scedil] ı[gbreve] ında Günün Meseleleri [Daily Questions under the Light of Islam]

([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 2003), pp. 864–868.74. Hayreddin Karaman, Ali Bardako[gbreve] lu, and H. Yunus Apaydın, [Idot ] lmihal [Principles of Islamic Practice]

([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] SAM, 2000), Vol. 2, p. 289. Ali Bardako[gbreve] lu is currently the president of Diyanet.75. Hayreddin Karaman, Mukayeseli [Idot ] slâm Hukuku [Comparative Islamic Law] ([Idot ] stanbul: [Idot ] z, 2003),

Vol 1, p. 103.76. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 2, p. 202.77. Martin Lings, Muhammad, His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (London: George Allen & Unwin,

1983), pp. 52–53.78. Karaman, [Idot ] slâm’ın I[scedil] ı[gbreve] ında Günün Meseleleri, pp. 783–784.79. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 2, p. 199.80. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 278. Italics are mine.81. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 279.82. Karaman, [Idot ] slâm’ın I[scedil] ı[gbreve] ında Günün Meseleleri, pp. 784–785.83. Ibid., pp. 859–860.84. After 9/11, MAYA was added to the US Senate list of Muslim groups which “finance terrorism and

perpetuate violence.”85. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IDyCb_Ff0.86. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 1, p. 133–134.87. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 2, pp. 204–205.88. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 92. See also Hayreddin Karaman, [Idot ] slam ve Türkiye [Islam and Turkey] ([Idot ] stanbul:

Ufuk, 2003), p. 39.89. Karaman, Mukayeseli [Idot ] slâm Hukuku, Vol. 1, p. 49.90. Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Ya[scedil] amak, Vol. 1, pp. 221–226.

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