International Relations and Islam Diverse Perspectives 2013

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International Relations and Islam



International Relations and Islam:

Diverse Perspectives

Edited by

Nassef Manabilang Adiong



International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives,

Edited by Nassef Manabilang Adiong

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Nassef Manabilang Adiong and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-4896-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4896-1



Table of Contentsvi

Chapter Seven ......................................................................................... 139

Accommodating Islam into IR: The Case on “Nation-State”

Nassef Manabilang Adiong

Index ....................................................................................................... 145



LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

NB. All figures and tables are from Chapter Four authored by

Dr. Alessandra L. González

Figure 4-1 Islam is a Source of Motivation for me to Fight for

Women’s Rights (by Gender)

Figure 4-2 I Consider Myself a Feminist (by Gender)

Table 4-1 Male Islamic Feminist Descriptive Statistics

Table 4-2 Binary Logistic Regression of Feminist ID on

Demographics, Religiosity Measures, and ReligiousSocialization Variables (by Gender)

Table 4-3 Principle Components Factor Analysis of Social and

Political Attitudes by Gender (Varimax Rotation)



CONTRIBUTORS

Jessica L. Daniels holds a Masters Degree in

Historical Studies and a Bachelor’s Degree in Social

Inquiry, both earned at The New School of Social

Research in New York. Her research has been

primarily focused on The Middle East and Iran pre-

revolution in particular. In June of 2012, Jessica

relocated to Boston and hopes to find a careerwithin International Relations. For now, she is

writing, creating websites and teaching yoga.

Jessica is available to be contacted at

<[email protected]>.

Didem Doğanyılmaz is currently a PhD candidate

in Historical Societies at Rovira I Virgili University

in Tarragona, Spain. She is also one of the projectresearchers in UNESCO Chair of Intercultural

Dialogue in the Mediterranean. She completed her

Masters degree in the same university in the

department of Mediterranean Cultural Studies,

while her Bachelor’s degree was from Mimar SinanFine Arts University in Istanbul in the department

of Statistics. Her main research interests are

interrelationships between state and religion,

laicism, secularism, and religious identity. She is interested in the complexrelations between Islam and laicism concentrating on the history of

Turkey. In addition, she focuses on Alevism, its history and a sociologicalapproach to Alevi identity. You may contact her at




Contributorsx

Gökhan Duman is currently a PhD student in

historical societies, land and heritage at the University

of Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. He is alsoone of the project researchers in UNESCO Chair ofIntercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean. He

completed his Masters degree in Mediterranean

Cultural Studies at the same university, while his

Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and

Administration (French language as the medium of

instruction) was from Marmara University. The

Mediterranean is his region of specialization, with research interests in

nationalism, minorities, terrorism, Middle East, and Turkish foreign

policy. He can be reached at <[email protected]>.

Alessandra L. González is a post-doctoral research associate at John Jay

College, City University of New York, and a non-resident research fellow

at the Institute for the Studies of Religion at Baylor University in central

Texas. She is the principal investigator of the Islamic Social Attitudes

Survey Project (ISAS), a study in conjunction with Baylor’s Institute for

the Studies of Religion (ISR) on Islamic Religiosity and Social Attitudes,

including Women’s Rights Attitudes in the Arab Gulf Region. She has publications in “Women’s Encounter with Globalization” (Frontpage

Publications), the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Annual

Review of the Sociology of Religion, and an op-ed on Islamic Feminism

in the Dallas Morning News. She has presented her research at the Center

for the Study of Islam and Democracy‘s Conference on “The Rights of

Women in Islam,” the American Council for the Study of Islamic

Societies, the Dialogue of Civilizations Conference hosted by the Institute

for Interfaith Dialogue in Houston, the Gulf Research Conference at the

University of Exeter, and various other academic settings. Her most recent book manuscript on Islamic Feminism in Kuwait is expected for

publication this year. Dr. González’s email address is




International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives xi

İştar Gözaydın is a professor of law and politics at

Doğuş University, Istanbul. She received her MCJ

(Master of Comparative Jurisprudence) at NewYork University, School of Law, in 1987; and herPh.D. at İstanbul University. Her publications

include Regulating Religion in Turkey, University

of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2013 (forthcoming);

“Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı,” in John L. Esposito

(ed): Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford

University Press, February 2009; “The Fethullah

Gülen Movement and Politics in Turkey: a chance

for Democratization or a Trojan Horse?”, Democratization, vol. 16 no. 6

(December 2009), 1214-1236; “Religion, Politics and the Politics of

Religion in Turkey”, in Dietrich Jung & Catharina Raudvere (ed.),

Religion, Politics and Turkey’s EU Accession, Palgrave-Macmillan,September 2008, 159-176; “Diyanet and Politics”, The Muslim World,

vol. 98, no. 2/3 (April/July 2008) 216-227; “Turkey: A Women’s

History,” in Bonnie G. Smith (ed): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Women

in World History, v.4, Oxford University Press, 2008, 255-258; “Adding

Injury to Injury”, in Evil, Law and the State: Issues in State Power and

Violence, ed. John Parry, Rodopi Press, 59-69, Amsterdam/New York,

2006 (ISBN:90-420-1748-1). You may contact Prof. Gözaydın at<[email protected]>.

Ari Varon holds a Ph.D. in political

science in a joint program at Sciences Po,

France and Tel Aviv University, Israel. He

focuses his research on the developing

contemporary European Islamic identity. Ari

analyses the internal debate of Muslimintellectuals in Europe as they integrate, or

not, European and Islamic values when

defining religion-state relations, as well as

the effects on political mobilization and social integration. He has

presented his research at conferences and universities throughout Europe

and the United States. Ari can be reached at <[email protected]>.



Contributorsxii

Nassef Manabilang Adiong is the founder

of the IR-IS Research Cohort, an online

community interested in advancingcomparative research between InternationalRelations and Islam. His research interests

include theories of International Relations

and their major debates and contemporary

discourses, conceptualizations of and

debates about ‘Nation-State’ and

‘Civilization’ phenomena in IR and Islam, and relations between religion

and politics concentrating on ‘Political Islam’. He is the author of

numerous articles, including “Nation-State in IR and Islam” in the Journal

of Islamic State Practice in International Law, “The U.S. and Israel

Securitization of Iran’s Nuclear Energy” in The Quarterly Journal of

Political Studies of Islamic World , “The Palestinian Refugee Question: AConstitutive Constructivist Interpretation” in Alternatives: Turkish Journal

of International Relations, “Ideology that Spawns Islamist Militancy” in

Frank Shanty’s Counterterrorism: From the Cold War to the War on

Terror , and encyclopaedic entries such as civilization, nation, nation-state,

Turkey, International Relations, nationalism, Qatar, and Suez Canal for

various publishers including ABC-CLIO, SAGE Publications, Inc., Oxford

University Press, and Wiley-Blackwell. He can be contacted via hiswebsite at <www.nassef-m-adiong.com>.



I NTRODUCTION

I NTERNATIONAL R ELATIONS AND ISLAM

NASSEF MANABILANG ADIONG

This edited book is a follow up of a two-part panel proposal for the2011 Middle East Studies Association annual meeting. The authors whosubmitted their articles were the participants of the proposed panels. Mygoal was to present and put forward the idea of finding a middle way

between two bodies of knowledge which were conceived from twodifferent hemispheres of the world. International Relations (IR), a socialscience discipline conceived in the UK and the US (comprising the West),and Islam or Islamic Studies which was conceived in the Arab world anddeveloped in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and many non-Arab countries (comprising the East).

If scholars and members of the English School of InternationalRelations were able to associate and converge their thoughts onconceptualizing International Relations with Christianity (of course themajority of them are Christians and so Western Europe is), then it is a

precedent and an indication that along the strand of the Abrahamic Faiths,Islam is putatively feasible and probable to understand and interpretInternational Relations (IR) and vice versa. Though the danger of this ideamay suggests a myriad adherence to two extreme poles of risky

paradigms: (1) those IR scholars who totally ignore Islamic concepts, and

(2) those Islamic scholars (ulama and Islamicists) who aim for theIslamization of knowledge. This is a matter of how we are going to findtangency or via media between Islam and IR without committingsubmission to those extreme poles.

The proposed idea is on the study of relations between InternationalRelations and Islam, which primarily presents the title of this edition,“International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives.” This wasinitially conceptualized with the aim of looking at their conceived

perceptions side by side; how Islam is interpreted by IR scholars, and vice

versa. It has been the proponent’s quest to feasibly and scholarly presentIslam as non-alien in the Western discourse of the IR field.



Introduction2

The aims of this initial initiative are to show juxtaposed positions ofmutual perceptions or diverse perspectives between Islam and IR based on

conceived notions of contested conceptions, to eliminate deplorable and pejorative (mis)conceptions of IR scholars towards Islam and vice versa,and to add Islam to the epitome of global discourse of internationalrelations as a major causal factor that affects the behaviours of actors(states, sub-state system, individuals, international and regional organizations,and multinational corporations) in the international community, particularlythose who have an interest in and peculiar relations to the Muslim world.The process of constructing this initiative involves selecting perspectivesand categories to bring to bear on the research idea.

Contemplating the Idea of an Islamic IR

The title alone of this book will surely cause havoc in the Westernacademia of IR, particularly those who were trained in an American IRschool. European IR schools are somewhat more pluralistic in terms ofhow they view IR, as compared to their American counterparts. Thisinitiative (an edited book project) is not an ‘all-knowing’ term project, butit is delimited by an ‘interrogative’ descriptive structure of explanation. Itwill be about various perspectives and cases on the complex relations of“Islam and IR”; how both conceptions perceive each other; its repercussionson implicit and explicit notions of human and society; and whether thereare mutual or reciprocal relations or even relative relatedness, or in short,‘interrelationships’ constructed.

But this question is apparently not the primal concern of IR; it may bemore significant to sociology, psychology, theology and political science.However, we cannot deny IR’s multidisciplinary approach as an academicdiscipline. For many years since the interwar (interbellum) period, a bulkof IR scholars’ research work has been dealing with statecraft, war andconflict studies, state-to-state relations, and the international system,

paying little attention to human affairs, human-to-human, or human-to-society relations concomitant with the roles of culture, religion, language,and other determining ‘given’ identities. Only then, at the post-Cold War

period, were these matters given importance, of course, ignited by theconstructivist project in the US.

Looking for an Intellectual Patronage

In the first year of my graduate studies, I did some little research on thefaculty list of the IR department and noted those who may help me in this



International Relations and Islam 3

endeavour. I initially talked to the chairwoman during the registration period and she told me that she did not know if my proposed thesis (this

was done verbally not the formal process of submitting a thesis proposal)was feasible enough because, in her view, ‘Is there a need to formulate aninternational relations theory based on religious perspective? If this is so,then there should be Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Jewish conception(s)of IR.’ I replied that this is not the point; it is as if you are saying thatIslam is similar or identical to other religions or ideologies.

Further, I lamented, ‘Why can Western scholars, particularly the pioneers of the English School of IR, associate their thoughts withChristianity?‘ Was this because of the Peace of Westphalia‘s resolutions todisputes between Catholics and Protestants, later leading to theestablishment of ‘sovereign’ nation-states, whereby sovereignty has been aword so used (rehashed) for research by IR scholars which resulted ingrand concepts like anarchy, self-help system, balance of power, nationalinterests, power, and complex interdependence, among others? Thoughthis is not to mean that when the notion of sovereignty emerged, the grandconcepts that I mentioned immediately were conceived. Simple causationhere is not enough, but a complex method of correlation is the appropriatestructure of explanation.

Another professor just shrugged me off and answered that my proposal

was too ambitious (period). In my mind, there is no ‘ambitious’ research proposal; it is only those who have concluded their research and failed todefend their work that make it ambitious. A few other IR professorsresponded to my inquiry that they could not help me in my research work

because, simply, they are not experts on Islam, but instead, gave me linksand other important resources salient to my research. However, when Iapproached a certain professor (we had an interesting discussion thatlasted an hour or so), it gave me hope and widened my thoughts to many

possibilities.

First, he was asking me several questions regarding what was on mymind. He talked about vehemently avoiding two extreme poles which Idiscussed in the beginning. I asked: “Can we find a via media or a middleway from these two ends of a spectrum?” because I do not want to patternmy research in a pendulum-style way, wherein I might become tooadherent to one or other of the extreme poles. And he answered that it is

possible if we can rework (adjust) its ontological propositions and find ordiscover appropriate epistemology. The thing that I can think of is to use amethod that is immune and has defensive mechanisms in avoiding or is

capable of avoiding these extreme poles.



Introduction4

But for now I will focus first on asking questions, observing the phenomena, and gathering a plethoric survey of literature. Secondly, he

suggested possible research undertakings, like looking into the works ofEdward Said, Mohammed Arkoun, Giorgio Shani, al-Zuhili, and he gaveme Sabet’s book to make some reports. Though I criticized Sabet’s bookat first, suddenly I was overwhelmed by the arguments he presented in hisconclusion. He presented a conundrum style of inquiry (like puzzlesdesigned to test lateral thinking) and basically in those puzzles you canfind answers. And lastly, he humbly suggested that perhaps I might altermy research inquiry; instead of developing an Islamic theory of IR, whynot divert my attention to postcolonial studies, because (in his words) it isappropriate and plausible.

International Relations and Islam, Strange Bedfellows

International Relations and Islam, two intricate terminologies; but howcan I make them tangent (meeting along the same line or point)? This isnot to sound like an orientalist, projecting the “incompatibility enterprise”thus you cannot find harmony; or manipulating the study based onupbringing or normative biases, e.g. using Western culture as a point ofreference and making it superior to oriental culture. The orientalist hasdone such a great deal to make Islam incompatible, or worse, hostile toWestern values, ideas, norms and traditions, declaring and pronouncingIslam’s incompatibility with democracy (hinting at Western “democratic

peace theory” that democratic countries or democracies do not go to warwith one another, though this argument can also be associated withopposed totalitarian governments), human rights, particularly of womenand gay rights, and international law, etc.

How can we advance our scholarship if we already have a preconceived perception, notion, impression and bias against Islam and its adherents, i.e.Muslims? Why did most IR scholars write that the area studies of theMiddle East in the US failed miserably? According to them, experts ofMiddle Eastern studies in America failed to predict the war in Afghanistanand Iraq; failed to warn the West about the rise of radical or fundamentalIslamic revivalist movements; failed to suggest and give guidelines for

policy making procedures or to their foreign policy that would have prevented wars or mitigated hostilities or tensions between the West withthe Muslim world.

I would argue that the reasons above were not the causes that made

Middle Eastern studies vulnerable. There is a remarkable preconceived perception that Middle Eastern experts were unimportant in policy




making, and moreover, most of them were neoconservatives with‘attached’ Israeli propaganda on their belt, e.g., Daniel Pipes (director of

the Middle East Forum and Taube), Fouad Ajami (Harvard CIA/NadavSafran Chair on Middle East Politics), Mark Steyn (a self-proclaimedexpert on Muslim culture), Ibn Warraq (founder of the Institute for theSecularisation of Islamic Society), among others.

Other reasons were my following assumptions or hunches: (1) youcannot penetrate the government’s circle of advisers to the president, theCongress, and the Judiciary if your views are pro-Islamic world, (2) youcannot survive academia in the US if you are straightforwardly criticizingIsrael, of course with an exception of being established with the security oftenure, e.g. Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, and (3) you cannot be sooutwardly visible and outspoken in the US in your rants against its foreign

policy towards the Middle East and Israel. Anti-Israel has become a“taboo” in the public and academic spheres of the US.

Even Edward Said experienced the orientalist backlash. It was rightafter the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, many reports were pointing outthat the suspects were of Middle Eastern origin. Said’s office was

bombarded with calls and emails from the media who wanted to know hisopinion regarding the matter while he was in Canada giving lectures. Saidthought that the reason they were calling him was because he was

apparently from the Middle East; he was a Christian Palestinian. Little didthey know that the suspect(s) was/were home-grown white Americancitizen(s).

How can we avoid, mitigate, and solve this “orientalist enterprise?” Isuggest that Muslim countries or even non-Muslim countries whosympathized with the goals of Muslim countries can create a multilateralagreement condemning anti-Muslim acts. Muslim countries can invest inthe international media to establish a worldwide News company vis-à-visBBC or CNN. Invest more in popular culture by creating movies, TV

series, documentaries, concerts, and other tools propagating orgerminating informative means that would directly hit or influence peopleabout the stories in the Muslim world. Muslim countries, particularly theArab world, can extensively invest in ‘international education’ by fundingresearches about Islam, the Middle East, and Muslims around the worldwithout political strings attached to them. However, this all changed afterthe events of 9/11.

Moving on, we should intensively and rigorously look into theetymology of International Relations and Islam. If we talk about Islam, are

we referring to the religious aspects of it or to political Islam? Are wespeaking of Islam as a total way of life that transcends its religious status?



Introduction6

How will Islam provide a structure of explanation in interpretinginternational relations theory? Is IR embedded within the realms of Islam

naturally or constructively? IR scholars see Islam as ‘the Other,’ whilemost of the Islamic scholars interpret IR as alien. I think this is because ofthe dogmas or fatwas imposed by the Hanafi school of law, whichdelineated Muslims from non-Muslims by identifying two abodes: theabode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the abode of war (Dar al-Harb).Sometimes most of the early Muslim jurists relegated the abode of war asthe abode of unbelievers (Dar al-Kufr).

We should be careful in contextualizing these terms and applying themto the present. During the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim jurists placed athird abode which is at the middle or between the first two abodes: theabode of covenant (Dar al-Ahd). It refers to non-Muslim governmentswhich have a peaceful relationship (through binding agreements ortreaties) with Muslim governments that prioritize protection and securityof Muslims’ land and property. The abode of Islam does not only refer toMuslim nations or states, it also refers to Muslims practicing their faith innon-Muslim countries. The concept of ijtihad, or making someindependent interpretation for legal decisions, had greatly impacted Islam.Since the inception of the four schools of Islamic laws and jurisprudencewithin the strand of the Sunni tradition, the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’I, and

Hanbali have developed Islam (on a positive note) as more colourful andevolving.

But, on the other hand, this has weakened Islam because of theirdifferent legal interpretations concerning the hadith (sayings of ProphetMuhammad), and sometimes they no longer refer to the source of Islam,the Holy Qur’an. They made conflicting and contradicting fatwa (bindingor nonbinding) and legal decisions implemented under Shari’ah law, acombination of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah (practices of ProphetMuhammad). But how will this affect finding a convergence with

International Relations? Declaring and imposing different interpretationsof Islam by Muslim jurists themselves made it possible for other Muslim

jurists in other parts of the world, e.g. in China, Malaysia, Indonesia,Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, etc., to give their own interpretations,sometimes basing them on their own culture to express appropriateness orapproximation, applicability, and adjustment.

IR scholars tended to perceive and study Islam in the prism of thesecularist epistemology of great Judeo-Christian tradition, i.e. the conceptof separation of Church and government. How is it possible to find a

middle ground between two ends of a spectrum? In Islam, religion and politics are in unison, in contrast with IR, where religion and politics are




totally separated. It sounds like a melodramatic sentiment with theingredients of Rudyard Kipling’s famous saying, “Oh, East is East, and

West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

Finding a Remedy?

If we are going to look for some putative solution and avoidhindrances, whether ascribing Islam as an ideology or religion towardsinternational relations, then we might find answers. Katerina Dalacoura’stext on “Political Islam and International Relations: A Dangerous Case ofMutual Neglect?” in 2004 talks about the concept of globalization as a via

media framework. She argued that “Islamist movements can be seen asexamples of non-state actors par excellence and their impact on theinternational system can be understood in their capacity to bypass the stateand establish direct relations with other societies.” The problem I see hereis how she will be able to differentiate those movements that were state-driven with irredentist motivation from those with Islamicatecharacterizations. In the context of globalization, it is still debatable howMuslim societies are affected and of course how they respond or react toit.

The remedy I can think of is to construct or reconstruct ontological propositions and find appropriate epistemology to decipher Islam in the‘schema’ or views of a specific or certain international relations theory;

put all possible ideas and concepts together and initially develop atheoretical or conceptual framework. It will guide me in determining whatthings or variables I should look for. Though I do not want to use the word‘variable’ because it is a scientific term, I do however see it as a usefulword for this initiative to denote cases supporting my claim or main idea.Consequently, most of what I have written here are inquiring ideas that

bedazzle my mind regarding Islam and IR.



Introduction8

Chapters Presentations

Two various divisions are presented, the first one being general perspectives from different backgrounds or cases: the veil, feminism, andEuropean polity. The second one is a specified case in Turkey, withvarious perspectives: significance of Turkey, its democratic experience,and the role of a scholar/practitioner.

Daniel’s take on the meaning and political symbol of the veil is to“challenge the Western stereotype that the Islamic veil is oppressive, andoffer new avenues of insight – illustrating that the symbolism of theIranian revolution is relevant today.” The article on Islamic feminismauthored by González “addresses the demographic profile of Islamicfeminists based on a pilot study of Kuwaiti college students.” Varondiscusses the debates and discourses that are taking place in Europe ofwhether there can be “various levels of integrating Islamic and European

principles into a Muslim’s daily life.”Doğanyılmaz’s article tells the unique story of Turkey‘s international

relations. Duman deciphers the relations of Islam and democracy via theArab Spring and Turkish experience. And lastly, Gözaydın’s biographicalrepresentation of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, AhmetDavutoğlu, details his scholarship and its impact on Turkey’s foreign

policy.The chapters were alphabetically arranged by the author’s surname,

e.g. chapter 1 – Daniels, chapter 2 – Doğanyılmaz, chapter 3 – Duman,etc. Please be advised that it is the sole discretion of the chapter’s authorregarding how s/he expresses his/her posited claims, arguments, and facts.However, for any erroneous grammatical or typographical words, phrasesor statements, the editor expresses full responsibility. Mea maxima culpa!



CHAPTER O NE

VEIL: MEANING AND FAILURE

OF A POLITICAL SYMBOL

JESSICA L. DANIELS

Abstract: In academia, as in the political realm, discourse divides the world between two cultural poles: East and West, where historic Orientalist positions reaffirm Western cultural superiority and Eastern inferiority. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pervasive practice of veilingamong Muslim women, which has stimulated a great deal of debate sincethe 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 symbolicallyrejected the Eurocentric ideology that one must conform to Western

stereotypes in order to follow Western models of change. The followingstudy first brings attention to the rise of Islam in political rhetoric, and theconflicting interests which it breeds. I end with a discussion of veiling,discussing relevant scholarly works. My foremost aim is to challenge theWestern stereotype that the Islamic veil is oppressive, and offer newavenues of insight – illustrating that the symbolism of the Iranianrevolution is relevant today.

Key Words: Veil; Hijab; Niqab; Burqa; Orientalism, Iranian Revolution.

The political map of the Middle East was redrawn to a large extent byEuropean colonial powers in the first half of the twentieth century.Conventional wisdom assumed Middle Eastern regions and territorieswould adopt the European model of a nation-state through colonialtutelage, or at least, through contact with the West. Underlying this claimis the assumption that ideologies, such as modernism and nationalism, areEuropean in essence, as any attempt made by non-European nations toadopt these ideologies is an explicit attempt to copy the West. Thisdichotomy nonetheless leaves the Middle East in a bind: it is unable tomaintain the current state of affairs or to initiate change without invitingaccusations of harbouring colonialist aspirations. As historian ReinhardSchulze explains, “it demands that the Islamic World be on principle



Chapter One10

excluded from the history of modernities because it is bound to a religionwhich it has not traversed the ‘politico-ideological progress that made

Europe into a ‘historical idea.’”

1

Here, Schulze illustrates the complexdivide, while also drawing attention to the historical context ofsecularization, which engendered the modern world, and thus erased fromthe history of political entities that did not follow a similar trajectory.

The imperialist design that gave rise to the contemporary Middle Eastdirectly influenced the understanding of modernity in the region. Historieswritten on behalf of modernization theory produced a style of writing andthinking about the Middle East that became prevalent throughout theDeveloping World.2 Edward Said illustrates this relationship in Covering

Islam. He warns that the history of the West’s efforts on behalf ofmodernization and development in the Middle East can never beunderstood unless it is noted how the policy itself produced a thought andhabit of seeing the region in a certain way, a way which increased the

political, emotional and strategic investment in the idea of modernization.3 Engagement with the meaning of modernity became the primary meansthrough which imperialism impacted the Middle East.

Since to be modern meant to have a modern state, the early years of thetwentieth century saw the nation-state concept evolve into the ideologicaland political focus of the Islamic world. There is no doubt that the rise of

imperialism and creation of nation-states during the nineteenth centuryEurope dramatically impacted history; but it is false to presume thatsocieties that have not followed the same trajectory are less progressive.For instance, the majority of contemporary writers assume that ideologicalmovements that occurred in Europe were exclusively of European origin,whereas similar aspirations in other parts of the world are regarded asEuropean imports, and evidence for the superiority of Western thought.For this reason, revolutionary movements in the Middle East are oftendepicted as backward, regressive and undemocratic. As Edward Said puts

it, “given the current state of academic studies of Islam, there is not toomuch to be found there by way of rectification… generally, this hasdisqualified it to cover Islam in ways that might tell us more than we areotherwise aware of beneath the surface of Islamic societies.”4 The Islamicdoctrine can be seen as justifying capitalism, socialism, militancy,fatalism, ecumenism, exclusivity, or a tremendous lag between academic

1 Reinhard Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World. p.2.2 Formerly known as Third World.

3 Edward Said. Covering Islam. ( Vintage Books, 1997), p.3.4 Ibid, iv.



Veil: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol 11

descriptions that particular realities to be found in the Islamic world becomes apparent. In other words, scholarship on the Middle East tends to

be biased, causing an extremist or militant view.Many academic experts on Islam fail to admit the offensively politicalcontext of their work.5 The study of Islam is situated within a biasedcontext as many writers fail to present the objective truth in what they say,emphasizes Said. “Objectivity is accustomed to inhere in learned discourseabout other societies, despite the long history of political, moral, andreligious concern felt in all societies, Western or Islamic, about the alien,the strange and different,” he writes.6 For this analysis, I will follow JoanWallach Scott’s interpretation of discourse, which she finds to refer to areading, “to the imposition of meaning on phenomena in the world.”7 While it is false to say that all discourse on Islam and the Middle East iscoloured by the political, economic and intellectual contexts in which it

begins, the majority of academic writing is devoid of regional perspectives.Prime among such misconceptions is the deployment of religious

terminology in contemporary ideologies in the Islamic world. Generallyspeaking, there is a consensus on ‘Islam’, which takes the form of makingit a scapegoat for everything we do not happen to like about the world’snew political, social, and economic patterns. There is evidence within thediscourse of broad generalizations, without sufficient knowledge of the

region and culture. Accordingly, the radical acts of a few politicallymotivated Islamists (commonly referred to as fundamentalists) are adeclaration of the intent of the majority, and the actions of the few havecome to represent the voice of all Muslims. This notion of a fixed Muslimculture obscures the realities and complexities of the civilization at large.For example, in recent years “Islamic Fundamentalism” has been portrayedin Western media as a major world threat. The term fundamentalist hascome to imply a singular identity for the region and religion at large, whenit does not provide an accurate account of reality.8 It is thus impossible to

approach the Islamic world without first disaggregating the history fromits historiography.

As such, it is important to begin with a discussion of this discourse,and the connection between power and knowledge in the modern world, asevidenced in the manifold linkages between academic writings on the

5 Ibid, Ivii.6 Ibid, Ivii.7 Joan Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

2007), p.7.8 http://www.twf.org/News/Y1997/Fears.html.



Chapter One12

Middle East and the formulation of foreign policy in the Western world.Studying this political discourse is best understood through specific

political and historical contexts in order to grasp the implications being putforth. In order to grasp the implications of the ideas being advanced it isimportant to look at the way in which ideas are expressed and implementedin an effort to highlight the local nature of the global conflict betweenIslam and the West. Consider, for example, the Iranian revolution of 1979,wherein Islam rendered itself a chief adversary to colonialism, andcompeted directly and explicitly with liberalism and socialism, rather thanwith Judaism or Christianity. In this instance, the discourse containingIslamic terms and symbols are not necessarily religious. Here, Islam is notcommunicating with other religions, but with a European political discourse.9

Scholarly Rhetoric

For the abovementioned reasons, the following analysis is primarilyfocused on Iran, as the Iranian example highlights the importance ofconsidering religious, political, and ideological principles. The case of Iranshows that, while it is surely inevitable that such styles of politics will befavourably and unfavourably compared, taking a one-size-fits-all approachto politics for such diverse cultures is not an effective approach. Theconsistent failure to introduce Western societal norms into the regionabundantly illustrates this point. Iran embodies both the essence of Islamiccomplaint against the West, while representing its unique culture separatefrom its neighbouring nations. Iran, for example, has its own language andis the only nation, aside from Iraq, that is predominantly Shi’ite.

Yet it is evident that Western misinterpretations of Islamic politicallanguage have had a number of effects on the historiography of the MiddleEast. Among the many misapprehensions that persisted in modernizationtheory was one that seemed to have a special pertinence to the Islamicworld, namely, that before the advent of the United States, “Islam existedin a kind of timeless childhood, shielded from true development.”10 Schulze further emphasizes the tendency of scholars to undervalue changewithin the Islamic world. He criticizes views that argue that Islam is anauthoritarian, homogenizing structure that lacks basic citizenship rightsand freedom, and instead embodies a “world in which human life does nothave the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy,

9 Ibid, p.10.10 Said 30.




openness and creativity are alien.”11 Propagated by the media and withinacademia, the East/West dichotomy reinforces the negative stereotype

because the complicated West/East division enables simplistic equations to be made. The separation evidently fuels and shapes European andAmerican political projects within and outside of the region which shapethe primarily Muslim Middle Eastern citizens, into an other to be fearedand separated from.

Of all the culturalist explanations that are invoked to “explain” thealterity of the Islamic world, none is more poignant and loaded than thestereotype of an oppressed Muslim woman. From apologists to detractors,the field of Middle East studies is obsessed with either disprovingallegations of Islamic misogyny, or confirming the validity of suchgeneralizations. In the absence of serious studies that aim at understandinghow Muslim women figure out their status within what is – like all othersocieties – a complicated social fabric, most of the current discourse either

bemoans the stigmatization of gender in Islamic law, or seeks to shieldwhat must be a “helpless” Muslim woman from being deployed as a pawnin the existential conflict between the West, and its imagined nemesis, theIslamic world. “Brown women,” we are told, “do not need the white manto save them from brown men.”12

This paper will address the political undercurrents of various aspects of

the discourse on the veil, which is used principally to highlight theoppression of women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is a particularlyfecund site for exploring culturalist explanations of political events, notonly because it is at present considered the West’s single greatestchallenge, but also because it is quintessentially well-suited to the clash ofworldviews that dominate international relations today. Brought to powerin the aftermath of the twentieth century’s last great revolution, the Islamicgovernment in Iran offends not only America’s global hegemony but alsoattacks liberalism and socialism with equal zeal. It is a game-changer, and

its very existence undermines uncritical investigation. If the veil is seen asthe symbol of Islamic oppression, it thus binds religious difference,cultural and societal diversity, and varied political motives into one solidrepresentation that receives the most scrutiny. As Scott describes, the

11 Asef Bayat. Making Islam Democratic. ( Stanford: Stanford University Press),2007, p.3.

12 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak? (Turia + Kant, 2000), p.287.



Chapter One14

symbolism of the veil reduces differences of ethnicity, a culture “thatstands in opposition to another singular entity.”13

My analysis seeks to break the cycle of ridicule and present an outlookwhich is grounded in Iranian history, taking into account pluralities withinIslamic culture, and the nuanced political language of Islam, which isseeking to redress imperialist and domestically generated politicalinjustice. By focusing on Iran, I will show that one of the means throughwhich Middle Eastern political movements can create solidarity isembracing authentic cultural practices that are alien to the culture they areopposing, as well as using Islamic political symbolism to foster socialcohesion and nation-building among Muslims. To make sense of how therevolution in Iran still holds relevance in contemporary politics, I willshow how the political discourse created a community of identification forMuslims that might not have existed otherwise. The veil became a rallying

point, something to defend, which had symbolic value even for those whodid not wear it.

Section 1: Iran in Historical Context

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran sparked a shift in socialscholarship regarding the effects of the reinvigoration of Islam in theIranian state, as well as the relationship of Islamic values to the formationof modern nation states. Reza Shah Pahlavi became the leader of Iran afteroverthrowing the Qajar king in 1925, establishing the Pahlavi Dynasty(which ended with his son, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was forced to leaveIran in 1979). Reza Shah’s attempt to establish a modern Iran centred onthe idea of the nation-state as the central form of political organization.Characterized by centralized authority and military strength, the Shah’s

plan was part of a general engagement with the meaning of modernity that became the primary concern for Iran in the early years of the twentiethcentury. As the Iranian government consolidated its rule, much of the

propagated rhetoric regarding women’s rights was contrary to the visionthe electorate.

The role of women within society was of considerable importance forthe modernizing aspirations of the Shah. Inspired by Kemal Ataturk’sdrastic reforms in Turkey, and impressed by his modernizing policies,Reza Shah encouraged the formation of a ladies’ centre. His mission in

13 Joan Scott, The Politics of the Veil , p.17.




building this was to prepare the grounds for unveiling women in 1936.Accompanying that were several changes made to personal status laws in

Iran, hitherto the domain of the Islamic shari’a. Arzoo Osanloo explains,“legal developments [under Reza Shah’s rule] included the formalcodification of laws for the first time. Personal status laws, including lawson marriage, divorce, custody, guardianship, and inheritance, wereintegrated into the civil legal system and codified in increments during this

period.”14 He instituted policies that affected women’s lives within the public sphere (including laws on marriage, divorce, etc.) as well aswomen’s dress.

Further, the growing gap between socio-economic classes, caused bythe Mohammad Reza Shah’s top down modernization policies, paved theway for growing opposition to his rule. As a result, many liberal andIslamic groups began to expand, as well as many Islamic groups callingfor a reversal of unveiling and reforms throughout the 1960s and 70s.15 As

Nikki Keddie states, “it became clear that unveiling was part of a classcultural division with modernized middle and upper classes wearingWestern styled clothes, and in popular bazaar class returning to allcovering chador , though without face veils.”16 There was thus an evidentdistance from those who benefited from Western influence and those whodid not.

Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution, argued that therevolution would pave the way for an Islamic Republic, which in timewould lead to an Islamic society, adhering to the tenets of Islam. Khomeinisought to transform the educational and judicial systems and make themcompatible with Islam, thus demonstrating to the world true social justiceand true cultural, economic, and political independence. As such, womenwere encouraged to take up the chador to show that there has been arevolution of profound change in Iran distinct from any revolution that

previously occurred in the United States and Europe.

Beginning of the Pahlavi State

World War I ended with the growing influence of British and Russianmilitary and political nobles in Iran. The country did not have a standing

14 Arzoo Osanloo, The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2009), p.25.15 Nikki Keddie, Women in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2006), 88.16 Ibid.



Chapter One16

army and, therefore, lacked the military power to resist their Europeanadversaries and to prevent the country from becoming a pawn between the

two superpowers.

17

Keddie describes the political climate of this time in Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution: “when war began, theIranian government declared neutrality, but Iran was strategically locatedand four powers used it as a battlefield. The Turks moved intoAzerbaijan18 in the fall of 1914 after the Russians withdrew. The Germans

played on anti-British and anti-Russian sentiments.”19 With Russianinfluence spreading in the northern part of the country, Reza Shahsuccessfully overthrew the standing Qajar monarch in 1921.20

The condition of the state under the rule of Ahmad Shah Qajar (r.1909-25), the last ruler of the dynasty, was weak and decentralized. TheIranian monarchy’s lack of initiative regarding reforms crucial to

preventing foreign intrusion led political interest groups to considerregime change. Among them were the Majlis – the parliament, the lowerhouse of the Iranian government that came into power at the conclusion ofthe 1906-07 Constitutional Revolution; the ulama – the religious scholars;and the bazaris – urban merchants involved in small scale production,

banking and trade. Though these political groups have continuouslyaligned together throughout history to prevent foreign intrusion andcorrupt government practices, this time they diverged on specific issues of

reform and the means of limiting Qajar power.21 The coup d’état that eventually saw the appointment of Reza Pahlavi to

the throne marks a turning point in modern Iranian history. Reza Shah’ssuccession came at a time when international powers posed a significantthreat to the country’s territorial integrity. Because of the rise of Europeanimperialism in the Middle East at the conclusion of World War I, hisattempts at state building were favoured by political elites who saw astrong central government as the surest guarantee of Iran’s independence.If Iran was to withstand further European interference the government had

17 Anasri notes: Ulama is the plural of ‘m,’ a learned individual, more commonlyassociated with religious scholars, and generally utilized with reference to theclerical class; see Ali Ansari, Modern Iran since 1921: The Pahlavis and After (Longman, 2003). Majlis is literally translated as ‘Assembly,’ or more commonlyas ‘Parliament.’ Ibid, pp.ix, 12-13.18 Azerbaijan is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Iran to the south, Armeniato the west, Georgia to the northwest, and Russia to the north.19 Nikki Keddie. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New York: YaleUniversity Press, 2006), p.73.

20 Anasri, Modern Iran since 1921, p.32.21 Anasri, Modern Iran since 1921, p.13.




to change, and the weak Qajar dynasty (1779-1925) to be deposed. Thus,the early years of Reza Pahlavi’s ruling were spent on a series of

opportunistic moves directed toward maintaining government control andgaining support of the political elites and intellectuals. The monarch’sreliance on military force as the way to build a strong centralized state isone of the main defining characteristics of the of Pahlavi autocracy.

By 1923 Reza Shah was the prime minister and was pushing throughfundamental social and political reforms in the country. In Modern IranSince 1921, Ali Ansari draws attention to the work of M.R. Ghods whostates, “In the early years of Reza Khan’s rise to power, he was seen as amodernizing reformer who could give Iran national unity and restore thecountry’s pride and independence.”22 There was initially no markedopposition to the reform measures by Reza Pahlavi, and the Maljisterminated Qajar rule.23 A month later the Majlis invested dynasticsovereignty in him.

Although the Shah’s power was met with little opposition from the Majlis and political elites, the reforms initiated by the Shah were contraryto his promises, acting conversely with the orders of the ulama.24 Forexample, he established ten new ministries including Financial Affairs,Justice and Education. Anasri points out that the Shah’s changes, includingthe registration of family names and the adoption of a new calendar, were

viewed by the ulama as a break with the country’s traditional governmentand the reordering of society to a Western model.25 The Shah also imposedthe draft as an instrument to state building. The Shah’s relationship withthe ulama, the Majlis and the bazzaris was further severed with theinitiation of a universal conscription program. However, this program wasmet with opposition from the bazzaris who would be deprived oflabourers. As Anasri puts it, “needless to say this enthusiasm for themilitary, it is primacy over all other organs of government, and the generaltrend towards the militarizing of society which is presaged did not bode

well civil-military relations in the Pahlavi era.”26 Therefore, in establishingan army aimed to centralize state power the government was met withopposition.

The army’s grasp on civilian life and the lack of representativegovernment formed the basis for political opposition to Pahlavi rule to

22 Ibid.23 Schulze. A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.85.24 Anasri, Modern Iran since 1921, p.38.

25 Ibid, p.45.26 Ibid, p.28.



Chapter One18

come throughout the twentieth century. Schulze states, “The new Shahdeliberately gave himself a military appearance, and the army itself

controlled vast realms of the bureaucracy and was in practice the executive body of the various reforms.”27 The most profound change enacted by theShah was the elimination of the veil. On Jan 8, 1936 Reza Shah announcedthe law according which wearing chador was against the law, therebyofficially outlawing the veil. From that day, the police were ordered toforcibly remove the veil from women if necessary.28 This clasheddramatically with many of the religious and moral values of Iraniansociety. Moreover, an Islamic society was resistant to changing itsattitudes towards veiling because of the law. Consequently, policies suchas this led to the decline of Reza Shah’s popular appeal. Laws requiringunveiling were later enforced by literally pulling the veil off women’sheads.29

The Shah’s regime remained absent of a political compromise that could protect a balance of power and simultaneously legitimize the regime. Theexistence of the government was based on strong militaristic rule, and hadnot succeeded in convoking a national congress that would depart from thetradition of the Majlis.30 Although Reza Pahlavi’s reforms wereundertaken to create a unified nation, incremental centralization was metwith increased resistance. As Evrand Abrahamian tells in Iran Between

Two Revolution, “the Pahlavi state, in short, was strong inasmuch as it hadat its disposal powerful means of coercion. But it was weak in that it failedto cement its institutions of cohesion into the class structure.”31 Subsequently, Ansari notes that while the Shah sought to suppress thetraditional elites they were not and could not be eliminated.32 The weakconnection between the monarch and the bureaucracy, along with his over-reliance on the military as the predominant instrument of governanceeventually created an authoritarian dictatorship in Iran. In other words,although the monarchy was preserved, the country lacked a representative

counterpart. The Allies deposed the Shah in 1941 as he displayedincreased affinity for the German bloc in the early days of the Second

27 Schulze. A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.85.28 http://www.fouman.com/history/Iranian_History_1936.html.29 Nikki Keddie, Women in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 2006), p.87.30 Ibid, p.84.31 Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions. (New York: Princeton

University Press 1982), p.149.32 Ibid, p.44.




World War.33 In his stead, the Allies promoted his young son, MohammadReza Pahlavi to the throne (r. 1941-79).

The Young Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Reza Shah’s detached and dictatorial style of government is seen as themain reason for why the Allies took control of Iran on August 15, 1941.The disposal of the Shah was not met with opposition because he was notable to maintain the loyalties of the three previously mentioned groups:bazaaris, ulama and Majlis. Schulze affirms that when “Mohammad RezaPahlavi succeeded to the throne of Iran…major landowners, businessmen

and constitutionalist ulama formed an energetic opposition to the imperialfamily, which was still dependent on the army.”34 Even though the newShah initially made efforts to reform the government, his image remainedtarnished, mainly as a result of the public’s lingering distrust of hisfather’s policies.

The period following the oil nationalization crisis marked a turning point in the development of the Iranian state. Throughout the Cold War,the Shah laid down the foundation for a centralized state. For the nextquarter of the century, the Shah consolidated his rule by suppressing theopposition, enlarging the army, and establishing a secret police. Keddiedescribes “the Shah himself, who had earlier struck outsiders as anuncertain young man who had grown up fearing his harsh father, wasincreasingly prepared to engage in repressive and dictatorial acts.”35 Incoming to power, the Shah initiated policies aimed at preventing anoppositionist movement like Mossadeq’s from succeeding again.

In December 1953, the Iranian government restored diplomaticrelations with Britain, and the following year concluded a new oil programin the following year that reversed Mosaddeq’s nationalization policy.From the 1950s onward, the Shah increasingly sought to expand statecontrol over the economic and social spheres. However, like his father, theShah did little to develop the political system and concentrated his reformson the armed forces, court patronage and state bureaucracy, which fosteredincreasing resistance to his dictatorial regime. The Shah attempted toconsolidate his power, strengthen his regime and institutionalize themonarchy by creating the Resurgence Party (1975).36 This move was

33 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.85.34 Ibid. p.141.

35 Ibid, p.133.36 Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, p.442.



Chapter One20

intended to create a single political party, which would serve as the onlychannel for political activity in the country. Abrahamian argues that the

overall goal of the Resurgence Party was to “transform the somewhat oldfashioned military dictatorship into a totalitarian-style one-party state” bymeans of mobilizing the public, monopolizing the links between theregime and the government, consolidating control over office employees,factory workers and the rural population, and the extension of state intotraditional bazaars. 37 The army was a critical focus for the Shahs efforts atmodernization; it allowed him to position himself above the state.

The authoritarian rule of the Shah prevented Iranian social groups from participating in the Iranian government and also undermined the ulama.Ansari claims that the Shah pushed ‘political Islam’ to the side-lines andrestricted religious festivals and other practices of public life, the judiciarywas entirely reconstructed, modern educated lawyers replaced traditional

judges, and French civil codes took the place of most Islamic laws. 38 ThePahlavi regime was continuously whittling away the ulama’s power andinfluence.39 For example, the Shah cut government subsidies for the ulama and secularized the education system.

In 1963 protests against the Shah gathered stream. Ansari writes,“reformist intellectuals…had been witness to an on-going struggle betweenthe dominance of the state-often personalized by an autocrat-and the rights

of the individual, with those rights inevitable becoming subjected to thewill of the autocrat.”40 Those involved were met with repression (i.e.

jailing and torture) and the “cooptation of oppositionists,” which offeredgovernment jobs to individuals who resisted the government, contingenton an agreement preventing them from publicly opposing the regime.41 It

became increasingly clear that an opposition movement could appeal tothe masses. In May 1964, a group of lawyers protested the rushed changesin the judicial system. Two months later they demanded an end to thespecial courts and strict encroachment in judiciary affairs by the executive

branch. By October, the protests turned directly against the regime.42 Bythe end of 1977, numerous incidents of “mysterious” beatings and

bombings of oppositionist and protesters were attributed to the Shah.43

37 Ibid, p.441.38 Ibid.39 Keddie, Modern Iran, p.333.40 Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, p.251.41 Keddie, Modern Iran, p.134.

42 Ibid, p.216.43 Ibid, p.217.




Islam had emerged as the dominant representation of revolutionarythought in the early 1970s. Among the earliest was the Freedom

Movement, founded in 1961 and led by Mehdi Bazargan and AyatollahMahmud Talequani. Keddie argues that the movement intended to linkShi’ism to modern ideas.44 The leaders altered the traditional interpretationof Shi’ism, “deciding that true Shi’ism opposed not only despotism butalso capitalism, imperialism and conservative clericalism.”45 As suggested

by Keddie, parts of various opposition groups, predominantly middleclass, “remnants” of the National Front, students and workers, had ties tothe growing resistance who voiced their views and concerns in Islamicterms – the “religious opposition.”46

Historians have made the case that the Shah underestimated thecountry’s problems and overestimated his ability to solve them, eventuallyleading to the revolution of 1979.47 For example, Keddie argues that theShah miscalculated the strength of the religious opposition, which would

be one of his most “fatal missteps.”48 The revolutionary movement alignedwith the bazaaris, who also resisted the West and the spread of Westernways. Schulze posits that the critique of the West was “no longerdefensive but offensive.”49 By using Islamic discourse in political rhetoric,he sought to make Persian society an object of its own history. In order forchange to occur, the Shah’s injustice needed not only to be known but also

to be widespread. Schulze argues that the Islamic language used byreformers “acquired radical forms in intellectual discussions in Iran, wherethe gap between a military dictatorship disguised as an empire on onehand, and a bourgeoisie society on the other, had steadily depended after1973.”50

Throughout the 1970s, tension was personalized. On one side was theShah and his military, and on the other, Khomeini, the ulama and theMuslim community. Khomeini gained popularity as his refusal tonegotiate with the monarchy and his claim that the problems could be

solved by a return to Islam appealed to the masses. Other oppositionmovements lost momentum due to the “uncompromising Khomeini in

44 Ibid, p.220.45 Ibid.46 Ibid.47 Ibid, p.135.48 Ibid, p.225.

49 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World. p.222.50 Ibid, p.222.



Chapter One22

revolutionary circumstances.”51 Keddie attributes Khomeini’s success tohis remarkable familiarity with the political aspiration of the Iranian

populace, and not necessarily those of its elites.

52

At this juncture,Khomeini, who had been expelled to Iraq from France on October 6, 1978,called for the overthrow of the monarchy.53 Even though he was in exile,his expulsion helped motivate the rebellion, and he was able to spreadmore rhetoric from outside the country than from inside.

From 1977 to 1978 Khomeini’s popularity grew and his wordsdetermined revolutionary action. There were more demonstrations and anincreased number of protesters. After more attempts among urban nationaliststo reactivate the 1906 constitution and give the bourgeoisie a voice insociety, the Islamic opposition succeeded by the end of the year,“exploiting the frustration of the population over the economy.”54 BySeptember 1978, as a response to growing protests, the regime imposedmartial law. Iran’s military was placed in control of civil administrationand maintenance of the public peace. In the ensuing weeks, the army killedmore than 3,000 people.55 The protests grew into a popular rebellionagainst the regime.

As the symbol for revolutionary ideology, Islam had a vast mobilizingeffect in uniting the disparate elements of the Iranian opposition to theShah. Schulze explains, “ideological thought or, the thought of Islam as

ideology, was essentially different from the classical religious experienceof the world.” It aimed at the recognition of truisms and standards whichwere accepted as established indisputable principles of social development,which could respond to harsh societal conditions.56 The Islamic discoursewas practical and not theoretical.57 Islam was no longer bound to theulama, but rather, Islamic ideology connected dispersed revolutionaryideologies. For intellectuals, ideas derived from the teaching of the Qur’anwere an affective force of unifying political action.

51 Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. (New York: YaleUniversity Press, 2006), p.232.52 Ibid, p.233.53 Ibid, p.225.54 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.224.55 Ibid, p.224.

56 Ibid, p.249.57 Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, p.200.




Secular Islamism

By the mid-1970s, the angered ulama and their followers continuouslyreacted against the monarchy’s unpopular ideology and consolidation of

power. The ulama transmitted their ideological and political views to formthe essence of change that would reach its climax at the end of the 1970s.58 It was in this context that Khomeini emerged as a leading member of theopposition, offering an ideological critique of the Pahlavi regime, anddrawing on his religious standing to mobilize popular support. Khomeinihad first entered the political life of Iran in the early 1960s, when he wassent into exile as a result of his sermons blaming the regime for itsunabashed espousal of Western values and its desire to sever Iran from itshistorical and cultural roots. His writings were by then widely available inIran through underground channels. Khomeini claimed it was the duty ofIslamic scholars to mobilize and communicate with the people. Since theShah had taken away the ulama’s authority in the government, Khomeinisought to bridge the gap the Shah had created between the intellectuals andthe clergy. He viewed the clergy as the only part of society that did notgive way to foreign influence.59 As a collective authority, Islam lent avoice that could overcome other ideologies.60 Islamic language “acquiredradical forms in intellectual discussions in Iran, where the gap between

military dictatorship disguised an empire on one hand, and a bourgeoissociety on the other,” had steadily depended after 1973, argues Schulze.61

Previously, the political elite had been divided, but Khomeini was ableto channel mass political action with a visibly uncompromising moralleadership.62 Schulze claims that “Islam contained the pivotal ideas of allWestern ideologies and in addition the solutions to their inherentcontradictions, which were due to their ‘inadequacy,’ the different variantsof these ideologies were contained in Islam, which would neutralize themall.”63 Islam, therefore, was no longer bound to the ulama but rather was

instituted to be the channel for liberation. This new interpretation of Islam,mainly supported by the intellectuals, overcame other revolutionary forms.

58 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.221.59 Ruh Allah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, tr. & annotated Hamid Algar(Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981), p.30.60 Ibid.61 Ibid.62 Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.274.63 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World. p.221.



Chapter One24

Islamic language, therefore, served as the language for independence.64 Because the Qur’an and Islam are not limited temporally, Khomeini used

Islamic language to validate and authenticate his political persuasions. He purposely integrated Qur’anic language to strengthen the opposition’saspirations, and he used that vocabulary in innovative terms. For example,he used the word Caliph, when speaking about government rulers, whilethe term is most commonly used when speaking about the political head ofan Islamic community. In this manner, he highlighted the illegitimacy ofthe political elite, arguing with much acuity that it was impossible for aruler to head a veritable Islamic community unless the law of Islam isdominant and the ruling elite are the custodians of that law, namely, theulama. In other words, Khomeini cleverly attributed the political demise ofthe Islamic world and its subjugation by colonial powers, which hascharacterized Islamic societies since the mid-seventh century. Further, heeffectively painted this demise as poor by insinuating that it deviated fromIslamic norms, and was therefore secular. Khomeini reconfigured secularhere as not liberated from religious obligations but as a perversion of idealnorms of governance.

Islam was both organizationally and culturally decisive in the makingof the Iranian Revolution against the Shah dictatorship. Khomeini targetedthe government that favoured non-Iranian trade and industry, and carious

plans for “modernization,” which weakened political and economiccohesion.65 He believed the only solution to combating corruption was toeliminate European influence, and urged the necessity of an Islamicgovernment.66 In his work, Islam and Revolution, Khomeini speaks of thedisunity within the Islamic world as part of the objective of the imperialist

powers in the Middle East. In order for Iran to gain control over its ownauthority, reflective of the will of Iranian citizens, there could not be anycompromise. For Khomeini, any message that acted as welcoming toforeign powers was seen to undermine Iranian authority. In order to

eliminate foreign domination, Khomeini believed Iran needed to unify anentity political system essentially foreign to the West. For that reason,Khomeini’s message of nativism overrides all other authorities foreign toIran.

Khomeini criticized the institution of monarchy itself. He referred backto the 1906-07 constitutional movement, when there was a popular questfor democratic principles; he argued that Islamic ordinances were added to

64 Ibid, p.223.

65 Keddie, Modern Iran, p.226.66 Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, p.175.




what was in essence a Western code of law to deceive the people.67 TheShah’s regime took advantage of these cosmetic Islamic components to

mislead the people and to enhance its legitimacy. Foreign powersencouraged Muslims to deviate from their own culture, and denounced thecredibility of Islam as a method to further political and economic aims.68 Khomeini endorsed a “government by jurists,” led by the ulama. Thisinstitution ran parallel to the civil order and assumed the character of anIslamic government.

Theda Skocpol’s “Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the IranianRevolution” suggests that “revolution was straightforwardly the product ofsocietal disruption, societal disorientation, and universal frustration withthe pace of change.”69 Skocpol held the Pahlavi policy responsible forcurbing clerical influence in Iran, explaining that the success of Khomeiniwas that he was able to channel mass political action in a “visiblyuncompromising moral leadership.”70 Therefore, the question of legitimate

political leadership was not a question that could be measured by a“Western or technical standard,” but rather in a medium that would

possess or could attain the appropriate political resources.71 As such,Khomeini’s message emphasized the need for Iranian nationalism to

position itself separate from the West and speak for itself. This influencedKhomeini to target the monarchy, who favoured nondomestic trade and

industry, and various plans for “Westernization” and “modernization,”which weakened the country’s political and economic cohesion in order togain more power.72

Islam became the actor of liberation, the liberating authority, to changethe revolutionary fight for society, rather than the state. It separated itselffrom other opposition groups and established its own political public thatwould surmount the ideas of the earlier generation. For this argument, it isimportant to emphasize that Islam is a bonding force, rather than a singularunit of authority, and not an all-encompassing unit. The discourse born out

of the Revolution of 1979 was not against contemporary, ‘modern’ politics, but rather in opposition to the connection between Europeanimperial politics and the prior intellectual advocacy. Therefore, it is

67 Ibid, p.32.68 Khumayni, Islam and Revolution 1: Writings and Declaration of Imam Khomeini, p.30.69 Skocpol, Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revolution, p.267.70 Ibid, p.274.

71 Ibid, p.77.72 Keddie, Modern Iran, p.226.



Chapter One26

inaccurate to represent Khomeini as a repressive figure seeking to return toa medieval past because he refused all things foreign to Iran.

Khomeini’s government, summarized in the concept of theguardianship of the Islamic jurist, “velayat-e faqih,” was able to unify thenation because it was not an alien or foreign idea. Velayat-e faqih drawsattention to the necessity of an authoritative government to deliver a justsystem. Velayat-e faqih represents a concept necessary to protect and

preserve Islam and deliver a just government reflective of the will of the people. The undisputed hegemony of Islamist political language inmobilizing popular support was recognized by Khomeini’s political foes,who chose to align themselves with the Islamic groups in their attempt to

bring down the Pahlavi state. Keddie explains, “even secularist liberal andleftist groups and parties were willing to ally with Islamists and greatlyunderestimated the possibility of their political ascendancy as the oldgovernment was overthrown. Some adopted the veil as a form of

protest.”73 Unlike the Shah, Khomeini put his personal authority behind the need

to establish a republic. The Islamic government is a governmentcontingent on law.74 Khomeini sought to bind the idea of an Islamic stateand a republic, which would create an Islamic republic.75 Concepts such asmajority rule, social contract, and representation were taken into account

and bound with Islamic principles. Khomeini expressed uncompromisingabruptness the restoration of the constitution. He writes that Islamicgovernment is constitutional, but “not constitutional in the current orWestern sense of the word, i.e., based on the approval of laws inaccordance with the opinion of the majority. It is constitutional in thesense that the rulers are subject to a certain set of conditions in governingand administering the country.”76 He further explains, “the law of Islam,divine command, has absolute authority over all individuals and theIslamic government.”77 Furthermore,

The body of Islamic laws that exist in the Qur’an and the Sunna has beenaccepted by the Muslims and recognized by them as worthy of obedience.This consent and acceptance facilitates the task of government and makes

73 Keddie, 240.74 Khumayni, Islam and Revolution 1: Writings and Declaration of Imam Khomeini p.56.75 Anasri, Modern Iran since 1921, p.13.76 Khumayni, Islam and Revolution 1: Writings and Declaration of Imam

Khomeini, p.56.77 Ibid.




it truly belong to the people. In contrast, in a republic or a constitutionalmonarchy, most of those claiming to be representatives of the majority ofthe people will approve anything they wish as law and then impose it on

the entire population.78

The principles for the Islamic republic were found in the Qur’an. Sinceit was based on laws in accordance with the opinion of the majority of theclerics it was able to rule over society.79 Islam, therefore, represents anestablished executive power in the same way that it has brought laws into

being.80 In the past three decades, since the conclusion of the Revolution,there has been an urgent attempt by Iranian feminists to prove thatdemands for women’s rights in Iran are not simply a foreign import. This

quest for authenticity by the women’s movement developed as a result ofthe anti-West discourses by secular nationalists and also of the Islamistswho took power in 1979. The history and internal dynamism of Iraniansociety, particularly the social praxis of Iranian women, has led to anincreasingly harsh critique when it comes to questions of women’sfreedom. In the vast constellation of issues that concern the legal andsocial standing of women in Iran, none has been more salient than debatesof wearing the chador.

The veil is without doubt the unprecedented allegory of the differences

between Western feminism and Islamic feminism, as well as betweenEurope/America and the Middle East/North Africa. Above any othersymbol of Muslim identity, the veil is viewed by Westerners as a dominantsymbol of oppression of women and the Muslim woman’s subservience tomen. Criticisms of the veil within the context of repressive measures bythe government and the importance and significance of the veil have beeninterpreted according to the social and political conditions of Europeansocieties. Many argue that the veil was a representation of power andvictory by the Islamic government, and a symbol of the subordination of

Iranian women. As noted in the previous chapter, to consolidate power, thegoverning elite used veiling and unveiling as an instrument of control.After the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Islamic government’s political andcultural tendencies refuted Western influence. Mandatory wearing of thechador became obligatory, sparking revolts between 1979 and 1980against the dictum.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid, p.55.80 Ibid, p.41.



Chapter One28

During the post-revolutionary decade of the 1980s, any resistance tothe mandates throughout the revolutionary decade (1970-80) were, for the

most part, ignored and branded as Westoxification by nationalists andIslamists. The ruling clerics under Khomeini prescribed and dictated auniform and exclusively Islamic identity for women, modelled after keynon-Iranian Islamic women (e.g. modelled after Fatima, the daughter ofThe Prophet Mohammed).81 Ali Shari’ati presented an activist, modernIslamic position, and supported this view in revolutionary Iran. Heconsidered the oppression of women a result of cultural imperialism,depriving Muslims of their values in order to exploit them. He encouragedwomen to veil and embrace Iranian indigenous culture rather than

becoming “western dolls,” distracting men from an opposition andencouraging a Western-style consumerist society.82

While it is true that during the first decade of the Islamic regimesecular women and feminists experienced brutal repression anddemoralization, resulting in passive resistance after the Iran-Iraq war andKhomeini’s death in 1989, it is not accurate to assume that the Islamic veilis wholly oppressive. Secular activism, especially put forth by women,

began gradually in artistic films, literary, historical and journalisticwritings. This is a paradox—on the one hand the veil is reintroduced andfamily law is changed, women are barred from running for the presidency,

etc. However, there is a constant, reliable stream of highly-acclaimedfilms, and women novelists shock the market by producing one bestsellerafter another. Examples include films directed by Tahmineh Milani,Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, and novels by Shahrnush Parsipur, Zoya Pirzad,and Fattaneh Hajj Sayyid Javadi. In a society that seeks to bar women,they have found avenues of self-expression.83

Scholarly Representation of Muslim Women

The following chapter identifies the impacts of global contact,especially connections with international feminist discourse and women’smovements, in scholarship on the Islamic World. It is essential to note,however, that this model has remained contradictory and irrelevant to

81 Nikki Keddie, Iran and the Surrounding World. ( New York: University ofWashington Press, 2002), p.20.82 Keddie, Women in the Middle East. 112.83 “Fiction: Post-Revolutionary Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica,

<www.iranica.com>; Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad, Politic of Iranian Cinema; Film andSociety in the Islamic Republic (London: Routledge, 2010).



Chapter One30

revolutionary Iran.90 (2) Mandatory veiling causes Muslim women tooccupy a subordinate status. Disobedient women, according to Islamic

logic, are subject to various forms of oppression. In accordance with theunderlying theory of the veil, women should be invisible in order tomitigate their danger to Muslim society as they are assumed to be thesources of temptation.91

Views such as the above mentioned, are enabling inflexible viewpointswith regard to the Muslim world, creating a seemingly huge divide

between “us” and “them” based on the treatment or positions of women insociety. Consequently there has been a reaction to responding to thecriticisms of Middle Eastern society apologetically. The apologeticresponse tends to ignore other problems women faced in the Middle East,or as Keddie describes, “that economic stagnation in the contemporaryMiddle East is importantly related to women’s status” (including lowlevels of education, health, labour-force participation).92

Such narrow perspectives misinterpret Islamic societies, assuming thatthey are homogenous, immutable, and forced women into a subordinatestatus. When transmitted into political contexts, the perceived discriminationemerges as an encompassing view, and Muslim women become symbolicof the war on terrorism, for example.93 Furthermore, if the veil is viewedas the symbol of oppression and women as symbols of domination, it

reinforces an image that society at large should be sympathetic to theirexperience, thus legitimizing the position that Westerners have a moralobligation to interfere with the sovereignty of another nation in order toliberate a segment of the population from subjugation.

Unfortunately, however, there is a misunderstanding with regard to theveiling of women, and how it is oppressive and at the same time has not

barred Iranian women from participating in society. The act of coveringthe hair voluntarily has become controversial, as many feminists questionthe legitimacy of a woman’s decision to do so. Within the discussion there

arises a paradox between the religious and the secular, where examinationof either relies on a paradigm shift with regard to such social and

psychological issues as oppressive and helplessness ideas. This argumentholds true for many scholars and feminists, who have given much attention

90 Shilandari, Farah, “A Forum on Human Rights and Democracy in Iran.”91 Ibid.92 Keddie, Women in the Middle East, p.273.93 Lila Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Reflections on

Cultural Relativism and its Others”: American Anthropologist, 104:3 (2002), pp.783-90.




to the historical oppression of women focusing on the issue of veiling.Most prominent among these opponents of veiling are Islamic feminists.94

Many analyses oppose the veil and void of the experience of women whochoose to cover and feel reduced by Western women. Thus, much of theexisting body of research reduces the culture to a level of comparison tothe economic relations between “developed” and “developing” countries,the question of women is denied any specificity.

Symbolism of Veil

The hijab, chador, burqa, or veil is one of the few Islamic traditions

that Muslims share across multiple ethnic, cultural and social divides. Theveil symbolizes the resistance narrative and emphasizes the dignity andvalidity of native customs “in particular those customs coming underfiercest colonial attack, the customs relating to women, and the need totenaciously affirm them as a means of resistance to western domination.”95 As the symbolic value of the veil became prominent in politicalmovements, it simultaneously was contested, and arguments formed two

poles: those who regard the Western woman as superior, and those whocriticize secular reforms. In Iran, Western women were also a symbol of“military strength, participation in government [and] increased citizen andgender equality.”96 Contrastingly the Islamic “traditional” positionsuggested that these symbols were often associated with old regimes andways of life, and only after these regimes were overthrown could a newversion of Islam and tradition become politically potent. The symbolism ofthe veil, Joan Wallach Scott explains, reduces differences of ethnicity, a“culture that stands in opposition to another singular entity.”97

The assumption, as presented in the above paragraph, assumes the veilcovers a woman’s true self, forming a kind of uniformity through whichindividual differences disappear. Such assumptions represent women ascondemned by the dominant Islamic culture and construct an identityreflecting a denial of free will and choice. The veil, however, cannot beconfused with a lack of agency or even traditionalism. If this narrow viewof veiling is the consistent assumption for the Islamic woman, than anattempt to create a social construct of what it means for women to cover

94 Fatima Merissi (1997, 1991) is often acclaimed the most prominent Muslimfeminist.95 Joan Scott, The Politics of the Veil, p.11.

96 Ibid, 12.97 Ibid, 17.



Chapter One32

their head, when, in fact, the reality is not one-dimensional. Further, the problem with the aforementioned view is that it reinforces the binary of

“us” and “them,” using the notion of difference as a marker to makeIslamic culture seem more patriarchal and detrimental to the lives ofwomen, dangerously functioning as an agent of oppressed Muslim womenin need of rescue.

Anthropologist Marina Lazreg’s work is relevant for the reason that itcompiles many of the debates regarding Muslim women and the veil,however, her work is full of contradictions and reveals prejudices and

preconceptions of the author. Lazreg’s analysis fails to see the symbolism,and instead, speaking in broad generalizations gives the veil a voice and

power of its own. She argues that the veil, whether it is imposed orvoluntary, has “unrecognized psychological effects on its wearer.”98 Heroverall conclusion, that the veil is too politicized and signifies oppression,fails to recognize that forced removal in the modern women’s movements

politicized the veil even more (e.g. France’s burka ban). Lazreg does notacknowledge the central problem: that Muslim women should have thechoice regardless of furthering one type of system or another.

Take, for example, Lazreg’s Letters to Muslim Women, where she claims,The West is a constant referent for veiling advocates. Its enduring role in

women and men’s imaginary needs to be demystified. It is one thing tooppose western prejudices against Islam and Western incursions in Muslimcountries. It is another to conflate women’s capacity to seek respect and bodily autonomy with men’s incapacity to change their worldviews orcreate viable political and economic institutions. In fact, the reveiling trenddeflects attention from the problems such as the elusive political rightsonto a resymbolization of the veil. To think that veiling oneselfconstructively assuages anger at the West is illusionary.99

Lazreg, perceiving voluntary veiling as a return to the past, fails to

legitimize Islam as a discourse and avoids the complex history andreligion.100 So while she claims to argue that there are manymisunderstandings regarding Islam, she fails to speak without anapologetic tone, thus delivering one more Orientalist misunderstanding tothe complex Islamic culture.101 So while her initial claim was to not “fray”on one side or the other of the for/against debate, she clearly does not

98 Joan Scott, The Politics of the Veil, p.11.99 Ibid. pp.121-122

100 Ibid. p, 122101 Ibid., 11.




represent Islam with a validity or reverence, and reinforces a worldvieworganized in terms of good versus evil, civilized versus backward, morally

upright versus ideologically compromised, us versus them.

102

This paradox is best explained through the example of the War onTerrorism declared by the American government in the aftermath of theterrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Anthropologist Lila Abu Lughodfocuses on the relationship between cultural forms and power, the politicsof knowledge and representation, and the dynamics in Middle Easternculture.

In viewing her preparatory notes for an interview she was doing withLaura Bush regarding Muslim women in Afghanistan, Abu-Lughod seemsto assume ignorance on the part of Western women regarding theconditions of Afghan women. Laura Bush’s plan of action was to sendAmerican troops over to Afghanistan and liberate these oppressed women.Abu-Lughod highlights the danger of linking imperialistic, economic and

political motives with the liberation of women. She notes that Americanclaims of “liberating” and “saving” Afghan women in its “war on terror”against the Taliban, refers to the old history of such rhetoric from theWest.103 The fixation with constructing differences with other cultures onthe basis of a piece of clothing is detrimental because there are moreserious issues at hand.

Laura Bush couches the rhetoric of liberating the Muslim woman interms of human (specifically women’s) rights, “the fight against terrorismis also a fight for the rights and dignity of women,” 104 she claims. Thiscreates a power dynamic associated with Westerners being established assaviours coming to save the poor woman, creating a false representation ofthese women. Similar to the missionaries of the early twentieth century,

liberal feminists feel the need to speak for and on behalf of Muslimwomen in a language of women’s rights or human rights. They writehistories, proclamations, or Letters to Muslim Women, evidently seeing

themselves as an enlightened group with the vision and freedom to helpsuffering women elsewhere receive their rights, to rescue them from menor oppressive religious traditions.

Abu-Lughod argues firmly for a more egalitarian language of alliances,coalitions, and solidarity, instead of salvation:

102 Ibid, p.19.

103 Abu-Lughod, p.784104 Abu-Lughod, pp.784-85



Chapter One34

Instead of questions that might lead me to the exploration ofinterconnectedness we were offered ones that worked to artificially dividethe world into separate spheres – recreating an imaginary geography of

West verses East, US verses Muslims, cultures in which First ladies givespeeches verses others where women shuttle around silently in Burqas.105

A more productive approach would consider making the world a more just place. A world not organized around strategic military and economicdemands; a place where certain kinds of forces and values that we maystill consider important could have an appeal and where there is the peacenecessary for discussion, debate, and transformation to occur withincommunities.

When we choose to examine women who cover their hair from aregressive position, we risk overlooking the choice embedded in thedecision. In doing so, we reduce her choices to social behaviour ratherthan personal behaviour.

Returning to Lazreg, the problem with her use of gender inequality, asa category of analysis, is that it assumes an ahistorical unity amongMuslim women based on the notion of their subordination, analyticallylimiting what it means to be a Muslim woman. She states, “Consequently,consciously or unconsciously, a woman who takes up the veil accepts her

essentialized difference from men (valued negatively)….furthermore sheenfolds herself in a gamut of behaviour patterns stemming from theunacknowledged self-deception that veiling entails.”106 What is false in herclaim is the way in which she totally denies the validity of the veil inMuslim culture. She states, “many of the women who have taken up theveil have argued that they have done so willingly either at as a deliberatedecision to display pride in their culture or out of religious conviction. Ihave argued that there is no compelling reason to make the veil the solesign of pride in one’s culture.”107

When authors argue for justice for women from a regressive perspective, they risk overlooking the choice embedded in the decision. Indoing so, they reduce the choices that exist in their experiences to social

behaviours rather than to personal behaviour. As Abu-Lughod puts it,“people wear the appropriate form of dress for their social communities

105 Abu-Lughod, p.784.

106 Lazreg, 107.107 Ibid,124.




and are guided by socially shared standards, religious beliefs, and moralideas, unless they deliberately transgress to make a point.”108

A more productive approach, then, would be to ask the question, whydo women choose, voluntarily, to veil? Or why, when government choosesto ban the veil there is opposition from Muslim women? Denying the veiloutright is a denial of one’s culture.

Conclusion

We have seen in the previous inquiry that the Middle East has led to problematic conclusions regarding the relationship between the rhetoric of

Islam and premises of disciplinary theoretical knowledge. Political motives,as well as women deciding to veil, are often written about regressivemovements reverting into an allegedly traditional past. Scholars have yetto offer a cohesive understanding without an overwhelming bias. Perhapsthis is due to conflicting theories on what it means to be modern and the

place of Islam in political discourse. However, if understanding the cultureof the Middle East is done only in contrast with the West, the historicalcontext is predisposed to a nominal and essentialist understanding.

The example of veiling verifies that manipulation of language, whichis an inherent part of the misconstrued history of the Islamic revolution.Explaining history in this manner ultimately fails because it cannot capturethe complexity of the actual historical process and cultural differences. Inthe West, for example, we insist on a specific form of modernity anddemocracy as well as a need to make them prevail in the world, thuscreating a demonist view of culture in other parts of the world toultimately appear as self-defeating. This particular perception has atremendous impact on the understanding of women and veiling, as it failsto recognize that women identify with Islam as a legitimate base of

political and moral values. In many cases, the voice of Muslim womenwho choose to cover their hair is ignored.

In “Lying in Politics,” Hannah Arendt writes, “The notion of…’a tiny backward nation’ without interest to ‘civilized’ nations…which is,unhappily often shared…stands in flagrant contradiction to the very oldand highly developed culture of the region. What [the nation] lacks is not‘culture,’” but strategic forces, such as an army or military that can target

108 Abu-Lughod, p.785.



Chapter One36

foreign threat.109 In this context Arendt draws attention to America’sinfluence in the Vietnam War; however, her point can speak to a wide

range of historical accounts written with inherent contradictions andmisconceptions. When looking at the Iranian revolution there is a sense ofhistorical rupture when speaking of the revolution itself. The history is

presented with a bias and labels such as backward, medieval, regressiveand undemocratic, thus misconstruing the lens in which the revolution isviewed. Labelling historical movements in this way sets them in a senseopposed to liberation movements and denies causal effect of individualsand society within political change and treats the revolution as a simple

phenomenon. When revolution is seen along a singular path or process itsets up secularism as the end of a historical process.

Therefore, this analysis which seeks to break the way the Westapproaches the East thus proves to be problematic. My analysis on womenis intended to encourage deeper historical analysis to a multi-layeredinterpretation of Islam, and a closer look needs to be taken of the way inwhich and whom we listen to when understanding Islam, as well as thesymbolic practices of Islam and the use of symbols in social movementsmore broadly. Responding to imperialism, the exceptional and controversialnature of Islam, embodied by the revolutionaries, in this capacity, servedas an emblem of democratic populism that located true patriotism in a

commitment to solidarity. Yet Islam represented an appropriation of politics, and the public mostly reacted, perceiving hostility, as a countryrefusing modernity.

The act of veiling is codified a set of assumptions that supply a visualshort hand. Above all Islamic symbols, the hijab has been the symbolhistorically contested and targeted by dissidents to express opposition toIslamic practices. My point in noting the divergent paths of East and Westis not to commiserate with the Middle East and turn against the West.Rather, it is to show the relevancy of the East/West dichotomy and draw

attention to the way in which rhetoric plays a role in our media, educationand understanding of the world.

Schulze claims that, in the context in which “Eastern” is contrastedwith “Western,” “Eastern” yields an inferior, “sick man” aura and the onlyway to be strong again is to adapt to the “European stereotype”. If weunderstand women only in this context, we can see striking similarities inthe way in which we approach political movements of the Middle East and

109 Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics, Civil Disobedience on

Violence, Thoughts on Politics, and Revolution. (New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1972), pp.31-32.



CHAPTER TWO

TURKEY:WHERE EAST AND WEST MEET

DIDEM DOĞANYILMAZ

Abstract: “The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, laic and social stategoverned by the rule of law...” When the first constitution of the republicwas declared in 1924, the aforementioned second article used to have areligious definition of the newborn republic: “The religion of Turkish Stateis Islam…” Apart from the minorities who were defined within religiousdistinction, society was mobilized with a common religious identity andthereby the Muslim subjects of the abolished Ottoman Empire became theethnic Muslims of the Republic.

The M.K. Atatürk Government made a series of reforms on legal,educational and sociological orders in order to form a new state, and themost important reform became the abolishment of definition of the“religion of state” from the constitution in 1928, which should beconsidered as a huge progress on the way of laicization. Eventually in1937, the article ended up with its final version that defines Turkey as alaic, democratic and social republic. Herewith, the newborn republic possessed a westernized characteristic both with regulations and this finaldescription, while society has its own cultural and religious traditions. Inother words, Turkey became a country where a majorly Muslim society

welcomes western values as a unique example in the world and a bridge between two continents; Turkey possessed a challenging role to connecttwo different worlds.

Today, with its powerful economy and active political relations not onlywith its neighbours but also with EU and with Middle East, Turkey plays asignificant role in world orders. Within this role what is the importance ofIslam? Is it a tool to improve relations? Even better; within its stronghistorical relations with West and its territorial connections to East, withthe perspectives of both Western and Islamic world, how do “they” define

Turkey’s role on international relations? Key Words: Turkey; religion; Islam; laicism, international relations.



Chapter Two40

The term laicism, originally “laïcité” in French, refers not only thereligious invasion to the governmental offices but also the governmental

involvement in the religious order. It is not just a political term and acriterion for a state, but is also influenced by the social structure of societyand a concept linked to the process of secularization of modern societies.The term began to be used in the late nineteenth century, understood as thefreedom of public institutions from the influence of the ‘Catholic Church’on the road to modernization.

When we examine the term laicism, we will face two differentapproaches: the supporters and the critics. Supporters argue that laicism initself does not necessarily imply hostility of the government with regard toreligion. In other words, it is a concept that the issues of government andits policies should be kept separate from religious organizations and issuesin order to protect not only the government from any possible interferenceof religious organizations, and to protect the religious organization of

political disputes and controversies. On the other hand, critics argue thatsecularism is a disguised form of anticlericalism and the individual right toreligious expression, and instead of promoting freedom of thought andreligion, prevents the believer from expressing their religion publicly.

As is always mentioned, laicism has a significant connection withmodernization and westernization as a consequence of being originated

from the separation of the state from the ‘church’. Modernization inTurkey began during late Ottoman Period; however, it gained a concrete

body with the establishment of the laic Republic of Turkey. With the helpof the regulations, the social, cultural, political, constitutional, andeducational orders were affected by revolutions and eventually became astate with modern, laic, and westernized values. However, the most salient

part of Turkey’s structure is its majorly Muslim population. With thischaracteristic, Turkey possesses the importance of being a unique examplein the world where western values such as laicism function in a state with

(majorly) Muslim ‘society’.During the first two decades of the establishment process of the

republic, the intention was creating a new identity based on ‘modernizedWestern’ values. Releasing the new identity from religion should beconsidered as a significant step, because the people of the former Empirewere tied to a religion-based identity as a result of the “Millet” System inwhich the communities were differentiated just by their religiousdistinction. On the other hand, the Empire with its ‘caliphate’ title, used to

possess the leadership mission of the Muslim world and herewith the role

that the Empire was given by the Western states was that it was an Empirewith Islamic identity in the borders of the ‘Christian’ Western World.



Turkey: Where East and West Meet 41

Accordingly, the newborn state tried to cut ties with religion andArabic culture, which is directly related to Islam, in the perspective of

political order, in order to prove that it would not be a continuation of theformer Empire. Indeed, it would be an entirely ‘new’ political form whichhas no relation to its past, and the mission was accomplished with a seriesof implementations. The laicization of state and abolishment of caliphategave the chance to the Republic of Turkey to show itself in political andsocial scenes as a modern and laic state. This particular release of the statefrom traditional Islamic-Ottoman identity will be explained in detail withexamples in upcoming lines.

As the new ‘Turkish identity’ came into the scenes with the republic, itwas purified from all religious components; instead it was based on amodernized-nationalistic structure. This identity was not only a significantactor of political but also sociological orders. The government intended toappear with its modernized, ‘western’ and egalitarian form in theinternational era. Within this perception, the attendance at the world

beauty contests, building a new hotel with western style architecture inorder to host the ‘international’ delegates and representatives right next tothe new building of assembly in the capital city, in Ankara, and building anew city within a secular form of urbanization as the capital of thenewborn laic state can be considered as significant proofs for the new

vision in the international gaze, as was mentioned by Çinar (2005).When we arrive in the 1990s, the government possesses a new

‘unofficial’ view for the ‘Turkish identity’ which goes back to theOttoman era and is based on Islam, and accordingly, the religious identityhas become a new concept that is used not only in domestic but also ininternational discourses more than before. In this study, the role of religion(in other words the Islamic faith and the variation of the discoursesregarding the religious identity) will be examined during the history of therepublic, and within the frame of the recent and actual political world,

then, an analysis of the role that Turkey itself possessed will be carriedout.

From Empire to the Laic Republic: Role of the Religion

If the origin of ‘Turkish identity’ should be analysed, it will beunpredictable to mention the Turkish nationalism idea, and accordingly weshould go back to the Ottoman “Millet” System. According to the system,the non-Muslim groups were defined as other ‘millet’s (literally, nation)

within a religion-based system as a result of the lack of nationalistidentities, and they were entirely free to practice their religion and cultural



Chapter Two42

rituals. Besides, they were free to establish their own educational systemas well, with a condition to pay a special tax which forms a significant part

of the total empire revenue (Atasoy, 2009:38). These non-Muslimreligious groups were; Greek-Orthodox, Jews, and Armenians.As quoted by Soner Cagaptay (2006:8), Ziya Gökalp expressed that, in

times of great political disasters, national feeling gains utmost ascendancy.During the abolishment of the Ottoman Empire, while the aforementioned“millet” system was falling apart, the idea of Turkish nationalism emergedas a political component, and it was possessed by the Muslim ‘subjects’ ofthe former Empire because there was no other identical component exceptthe religion as a result of the sociological structure of the Empire. Besides,it is possible to say that the newborn ‘nationalism’ idea, which includedIslam, was affected by the exterior offences. In the last decades of theEmpire during its weakness, the future citizens of the unborn republicwere linked with religious identity against the exterior hostility. Theinvasion plans to Anatolia by the western ‘Christian’ states after WorldWar I caused the transformation of the Ottoman-Muslims into a ‘national’community, furthermore, after the 1924 Constitution, which is the secondconstitution of Turkish state, the Muslim society was privileged withconstitutional support.

On January 20, 1921, the first constitution (the Turkish Constitution of

1921)1 was declared in order to make an official explanation that the new‘state’ did not recognize the Ottoman dynasty and their government,without any explanation regarding to any “nation” nor any identicalspecifications. It prevailed for less than three and half years and duringthis period, the Turkish War of Independence was gained (it was endedofficially with the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923), and a new formof state, the ‘republic’, was declared on October 29, 1923.

After the republic, the first constitution came into force on April 20,19242. The reason why we mentioned the privilege of the Muslim society

was the first form of the second article of this constitution. It was writtenthat “The religion of the state is Islam, the official language is Turkish andthe capital is Ankara.” This ‘state religion’ explanation brought more

predominance to the Muslims than the other religious groups with thesupport of a new religion-based minority concept which was acceptedwithin the Treaty of Lausanne (according to the Treaty, the ‘millet’ of the

1 The whole constitution is available at

<http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/anayasa/anayasa21.htm>.2 Turkish Constitution of 1924 <http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/anayasa/anayasa24.htm>.




former Ottoman Empire became the ‘official’ minorities of the newbornrepublic.)

According to the constitution, the state used to have a religiousidentity; however, the ruling group (M.K. Atatürk and his companions)aimed to laicize the political structure. Because, as Dönmez mentioned(2010:29), laicism was seen not only as a political term of globalism,accordingly within the transformation from the Ottoman ‘millet’ system tothe nation-state structure of the Republic, ‘laicism’ started to beinstitutionalized and it started from social life.

In this part of the study, the implementations which were done in orderto be adapted to the Western World and to achieve a laic structure, will beanalysed in chronological order with their outcomes. On March 2-3, 1924,a new law (Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu) came into force in order to unify theeducational system. This arrangement caused the closure of Islamicseminaries (medreses), which were the Islamic schools, and accordingly itwas considered as an important stroke to the religious education. With thisimplementation, the next generation was targeted in order to be educatedin a laic perspective that is totally released from religious influence.

On March 3, 1924, the government declared the abolishment of theCaliphate. With this implementation, not only the Turkish, but all theMuslims were affected. Because of the “leadership” mission of the

caliphate for all the Muslim World, it can be considered as a significantstep on the way of laicization. In this manner, the Republic was“disconnected” from Islam in the political order and disqualified itselffrom the leadership mission. Consequently the government was savedfrom any probable obstacle against the laic implementations which mightcome from the ‘Caliph‘.

The implementations did not aim just at the social or the politicalstructure. The appearance was also targeted, and the encouragement

process was supported with laws. When the government declared the Hat

Law on November 28, 1925 as a part of the Law of Outfit Costume, the people had already gotten used to wearing it as a result of M.K. Atatürk‘sappearance in his meetings, where he encouraged society in wearing a“western style” hat, as was mentioned by Cagaptay (2006). With thisimplementation, any kind of religious costume was prohibited (such ascassocks, and turban cloths, cübbe and sar ık in Turkish), and the Muslimwomen were discouraged to wear an Islamic veil. The Hat Law was justone of the implementations in which the state intervened related to theappearance of the society toward instituting laicization, and Westernism in

the public sphere, as was expressed by Çinar (op cit , 57).



Chapter Two44

She also added that (ibid , 60), as the most significant issue in European perception, the Empire was strongly related to orientalist conceptualizations

of Islam represented by images of ‘veiled women’ who were also hidden behind the harem walls. There was no better way to improve the seculariststate, which has its own ‘modern’ characteristics and clear borderline withthe Ottoman-Islamic identity, than the modernized image of women in the

public sphere. M.K. Atatürk himself paid serious attention to promote theimage of the “new Turkish women” as a “symbol of the break with the

past” by personally encouraging women’s public visibility and made personal appearances together with his wife and adopted daughter at socialoccasions and official ceremonies before and after the official declarationof the law, as Çinar exemplified (ibid , 65). Additionally, it would be

beneficial to support the aforementioned encouragement with the words ofM.K. Atatürk (cited in Atasoy, op cit , 155) in one of his speeches, inInebolu on August 28, 1925; he stated that:

The Turkish nation ought to prove that it is civilized in its mentality andintellect. The Turkish nation ought to demonstrate that it is civilized in itsfamily life and ways of living ... Is our clothing national? Is our clothingcivilized and international? No, no... Can there be a nation, friends, withoutclothing? What is the meaning of showing the most valuable jewel to theworld if it is covered in mud? ... In order to reveal this precious gem, it isabsolutely imperative that we cleanse ourselves from the mud... Civilizedand international clothing is very valuable and worthy for our nation.

In the same speech, M.K. Atatürk also spoke against women’s facialcoverage:

In my travels, I observed not in villages but in towns and cities that theladies are covering their faces and eyes with great care. This must inflictthem with pain and a great deal of suffering, especially on hot summerdays such as these. Male friends, our own selfishness, is part of the causeof this outcome... Women should show their faces to the world, and theyshould see the world with their own eyes.

As we can see, the references given by M.K. Atatürk were not about just domestic vision of the society; instead the emphases were done for aninternational sphere. On February 17, 1926, The Grand National Assemblyof Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi – TBMM) declared that theyapproved a secular civil code to form the issues of marriage, divorcement,inheritance and adoption. With the support of this law, the egalitarian

structure of the society has been institutionalized. On October 4, 1926, thegovernment annulled the Shari’a (Islamic) courts, by declaring that the




Islamic law was null and void. From the constitutional perspective, theShari’a courts could have been an obstacle to a Westernized state, so the

annulment decision should be considered as a significant step.In spite of the fact that the government intended to carry out legalregulations in order to achieve a planned laic level, the state was definedas a possessor of Islam as its ‘official’ religion. On April 10, 1928, thegovernment declared one of the most considerable revolutions, which wasthe elimination of Islam as Turkey‘s state religion from the second article.Consequently, the Muslim predominance was decreased among all thesociety, and the relation between being a Turk and being a Muslim wasintended to be removed.

As we have explained, the general intention was not only separation ofthe state from religion but also cutting the relations with traditionalOttoman-Islamic identity. Accordingly, on November 1, 1928, anarrangement was carried out in order to abandon the Arabic alphabet and toshift to a Latin-based alphabet instead. This was one of the regulations thathad been considered as against Islam because the targeted new generationwho were already away to be educated in Islamic schools would not beable to learn how to write and read in the language of the Quran.

In order to cut ties from traditional Ottoman applications, the languageof the call for prayers (ezan) was switched to Turkish, from Arabic, on

July 18, 1932. It was translated into Turkish by the Turkish LanguageAssociation (Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) founded by M.K. Atatürk and firstchanted in Santa Sofia ( Ayasofya) Mosque in Istanbul. The reason Istanbulwas chosen instead of the capital city, Ankara, as the first place for thisimplementation might be the significant Ottoman-Islamic identity of thecity in M.K. Atatürk’s perception. Because, as a result of being a capital ofthe Empire for almost a half of a millennium, the city consists of a strongIslamic identity with its architectural and sociological structure,accordingly it would be a good starting point for another cut from the

Ottoman identity. This can be considered as an important reason for thechoice. Çinar also expressed that (op.cit :17) the implementation carried astrong nationalist identity approach. However, this implementation couldnot be popularized among the public and consequently it was abolished bythe Democrat Party regime in 1950.

On February 5, 1937, the government declared a complementary lawfor the way of laicization of the Republic. The second article of theConstitution, which was cleared from religious definition nine years ago,was renewed within a more laic perspective. The new form of the article

was ‘The State of Turkey is republican, nationalist, populist, statist,secularist, and reformist. Its official language is Turkish. Its capital is



Chapter Two46

Ankara.” Hereby, the laicism with other basic components of statehappened to be supported by the constitution with all other previous

implementations. With this regulation, the Republic of Turkey has beenthe first ‘laic’ state with its majorly ‘Muslim’ society, which still possessesits importance in the present time.

Until now, we have tried to explain the official implementations whichwere supported by laws. However, the laicization and Westernization

process were not limited with them. As Çinar exemplified (ibid :147), forTurkish national history, a book named ‘The Outline of the TurkishHistory’ was published by the Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih

Kurumu, TTK) founded by M.K. Atatürk in 1931, with 467 pages. Withinthis total, the Ottoman rule and the caliphate as representatives of theIslamic legal-political system take up twenty-six pages. The Ottomanhistory, which extended about 600 years, was mentioned in just 5 percentof the total of the aforementioned book. The intention was clarification ofthe Turkish history from a significant Islamic identity. In upcoming years,this book was developed and started to be taught in all public schools as ahistory book for secondary education.

Furthermore, as Çinar mentioned (ibid :104), the urbanization processwas carried out within a laic, modern, and westernized concept in contrastto an Islamic model. For instance, the reason the capital was changed from

Istanbul to Ankara was explained as a consequence of an intention ofcreating a new identity free from any religious component. Furthermore,the city did not possess any significant marks of Islam and had not playedan important role in either Ottoman or Islamic history.

As another example, which is considered as a supporting point for theencouragement by M.K. Atatürk for women’s modern and westernizedvisibility in public and international spheres by Çinar (ibid :70), is theattendance of a young Turkish girl at the World Beauty Contest of 1929.As the new image of Turkish women was demonstrated in an international

scene, the Republic proved a significant change from its past, from itsOttoman identity. On the other side, whatever implementation had beencarried out, the laicization was not meant to cut the ties of people fromreligion as the critics mentioned. The society was free to live the faith,instead. The religious components were separated from political andgovernmental issues; indeed religion was taken under the control of thestate with the establishment of the Presidency of Religious Affairs( Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi) (2011:9) on March 3, 1924.

With the help of the legal implementations, the religious identity

vanished from the political order. However, it would not be possible to saythat Turkey has had a stable history within this perspective. One of the




young Turk intellectuals, sociologist Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924), isconsidered as the father of Turkish nationalism within the Ottoman

perspective, which includes the religious identity. Gokalp’s writings aboutthe creation of ‘a modern Muslim Turkish nation’ have clearly influencedthe nationalist-Islamic ideological orientations. Eventually, Gokalp’sTurkish-Islamic based nationalist idea found its concrete form in the‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’ ideology of the 1970s.

The generals of the 1980 military coup instituted the Turkish-IslamicSynthesis in the state structure. Ideological connections and political

practices related to laic Kemalism and Islamic orientations are much closerthan is assumed, as mentioned by Atasoy (op.cit :54) and accordingly, asshe added (ibid .:91), the post-military coup government sought to combineIslamic values and Turkish nationalism by mixing a faith-based ethos withthe virtue of state-amplification and national unity. Consequently, asGuvenc et al described (cited in Atasoy, ibid .), the 1930s concept oflaicism described with the contents of religion, faith, ritual and privatespace was reinterpreted and possessed a new formation with the name ofTurkish-Islamic Synthesis, which aimed to unify the public space withIslamic religion. Therefore, the self-identification of individuals withIslamic values and morals has been the increasing approach within thesociety. This movement can be considered as the awakening of Islamic

identity among the public and political spheres.When we come to the 1990s, we see the Welfare Party ( Refah Partisi)

as a member of the coalition government in Turkey‘s political history. TheIslamic identity promoted by the Welfare Party was formed for theTurkish Muslims, because it takes Islam not only as a religion but a cultureoriginating from the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, it promotes the idea ofa traditional Ottoman-Islamic civilization as Turkey’s true national culturein contrast to the country’s official laic, West-oriented and ethnic-basedidentity, as Çinar expressed (op.cit .:12). Furthermore, this could not be

considered as a return to the golden age of Islam, instead, the reformationof the true Turkish culture. This ideology cannot be differentiated fromany other kind of nationalism that places at its core, not an ethnic orlinguistic component, but an identity that belongs to the regional religious

basis.The emergence of an Ottoman-Islamic identity as an alternative

nationalist movement was expressed by the former Mayor of Istanbul(between 1994-1998) and the actual Prime Minister Recep TayyipErdogan during the third Traditional Youth Festival, as it published in one

of the magazines of Istanbul named Istanbul Bülteni – December 1996(cited in Çinar, ibid : 160):



Chapter Two48

As the grandchildren of a nation that has always been at the forefront in thequest for civilization, you have to put an end to mimicry. If Turkey is toreach the height of contemporary civilizations, it can only do so with its

own civilization. The youth has to return to its true roots.

As Çinar (ibid.) stated, the civilization that the mayor referred to hereas being Turkey‘s own is the Ottoman-Islamic civilization, which he

presented as constituting the true source of Turkish national identity.In 1998, the Welfare Party was closed ( Milliyet 2008) and the Mayor

of Istanbul R. T. Erdogan was put in prison (Bardakçi, 2002) by theConstitutional Court as a result of the Islamic implementations anddiscourses with the accusation of undermining the laic structure of the

Republic. Afterwards, the Virtue Party ( Fazilet Partisi) was established;however, as a result of being the continuation of the banned Welfare Party,it was closed by the Constitutional Court a short time after itsestablishment. When the party was closed, the members were divided intotwo different groups and consequently two new political parties were born.One of the parties is named the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) which wasthe continuation of the Virtue Party with the ideology of “National View”( Milli Görüs).

It reflects a nationalistic-religious vision and has been the key concept

in the ideology of the Islamist parties in Turkey, according to Çarkogluand Rubin (2006:63). The other one is the Justice and Development Party( Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi – AKP) which is the actual party in power,with the Prime Minister R.T. Erdogan as its leader. The AKP wasestablished with the explanations that it gave up the National Viewideology in order to mention that the ties with the banned Virtue Partywere cut, and instead R.T. Erdogan declared the “conservativedemocratic” identity of the party (cited in Yüksek 2003). However, sinceits establishment, the party is considered as a pro-Islamist/Islamist party,

as mentioned by Zaman (2007), and as running Islam-sensitive policies, asexpressed by Atasoy (op.cit : 5), especially after its second period as the party in power, as argued by Arikan (2010: 51).

Turkey in International Scenes

Since the establishment of the republic, Turkey played a significantrole in the Western World with its Western allies. During the twentiethcentury, Turkey has applied and has been a member of several ‘western-

originated’ supranational organizations in order to adapt to the regionalformations. On October 25, 1945, the United Nations (UN) wasestablished by 51 countries including Turkey (2011:1); in 1952 Turkey




became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); andsince 1959 Turkey has had a strong relationship with European Union

(EU). As can be seen, for the regional unions the ‘Western World’ led the process and Turkey has been one of the active members of it.However, in this part of our study we will focus on the international

relations of Turkey within the millennium period, since the Islamicidentity started to be used in domestic and international issues, approaches,and policies in order to see whether there is an ‘axis shift’ in Turkey’sinternational politics from West to East, or not. As aforementioned, theAKP was established after the ban of National View holder, the VirtueParty, and within fifteen months it was elected for the mission ofestablishing the fifty-ninth Turkish Government in 2002. With the newgovernment, Turkey started to carry out more ‘active’ and more‘companionable’ relations in the international scenes. Additionally, withthe support of its developing economy, this active role is strengtheningwithin mutual relations and trade agreements. Within this perspective, theinternational partnerships and the national role that has been possessedwill be analysed with examples of Turkey’s AKP period.

The Middle East will be a pivotal part in this study with it havingterritories of the former Ottoman Empire, like Turkey. The relations have

been improved within the emphasis of the ‘common culture’ and ‘common

history’ under the Islamic-Ottoman identity, which had not beenmentioned as an official identity by the Republic until the aforementionedIslamic ‘awakening’; instead it had contra-distinctive formation ofidentity. However, it is significantly clear that the improved mutualrelations cannot be limited just within the Islamic awaking, because itcannot be limited just with the Muslim Middle East in a territorial

perspective. It is possible to see a visible improvement with allneighbourhoods as a result of the Zero Problem Policy, which wasdeveloped by the actual Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu, as

was argued by Çiçekçi (2011:10). This international policy of Turkey has become an approach in which the mutual relations have been developed,even though sometimes it was considered as inefficient to solve allregional problems. However, as Çiçekçi added (ibid), it possesses theimportance of Turkey holding the initiative in mutual perspectives.

When we take a look at Turkey‘s relations with its neighbours, we maystart with Syria, with Turkey’s longest border, 877 km, on the southeastside of Turkey. The high-tensioned mutual relations, which go back to the1990s, have been improved since the end of the decade, and in the time

when this article is written, the two countries carried out concreteoutcomes as a result of the improved relations. The visits at governmental



Chapter Two50

level have been one of the reasons for territorial integration within aneconomical perspective, such as the Free Trade Agreement, and, thanks to

the conditions of the agreement, the mutual abolishment of visas after2009 increased the number of tourists. While the number of Syrian touristsin Turkey has been seven-times greater than the number in 2002, a growthof four-times has been recorded for the Turkish tourists in Syria for thesame duration.

According to the official declarations of the statistical offices ofTurkey and Syria (MFA, 2011), the visa arrangement caused 76 percentand 127 percent increase, respectively, in the number of tourists in a oneyear period. This outcome is both a political and a sociological benefit for

both countries. This new era was expressed by A. Davutoglu as “CommonDestiny, Common History and Common Future!” (cited in Global Securitywebsite, 2010). In this perspective, it would not be wrong that the common‘history’ would be the basis of the improving relations, which it is

believed will be even better in the future, however, nowadays the relationswith the Syrian government are critical because of the Syrian uprising.

The aforementioned Free Trade Agreement is not bilateral betweenTurkey and Syria; instead it was signed also by Lebanon and Jordan inorder to establish a common trade and visa-free area in 2009, and it wasexpected to achieve a significant development on the economical

perspective of the relations among these four countries (cited in Turkish NY website, 2010). According to some analysts, it is an agreement thatmay turn into a pact with political elements. In this economic agreement,the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized the historical and the culturalresemblance in its official web page among the peoples of these fourcountries (MFA, 2011).

Apart from the Arab World, when we consider the relations with Israel,we can see a ‘switch’ within a negative perspective in recent years. Thetensions go back to 2009 to the Davos Crisis (cited in Aljazeera, 2009). As

a growing power of the region, Turkey had possessed the role of being amoderator of the Israel-Arab relations in 2008, however, before the

process came to an end, the Gaza War started and the issue was put on thetable in the Davos Meeting of January 30, 2009. The meeting ended upwith R.T. Erdogan leaving the meeting room in ‘anger’ at the moderator,right in front of the international press.

After this ‘challenging’ behaviour towards Israel, R.T. Erdogan wasmet at the airport in Istanbul/Turkey with Palestinian and Turkish flags asa ‘hero’ with success in the protection of the rights of ‘Muslim’ Palestinian

people, and this welcome ceremony was cited both in national (Radikal,2009) and international press (Arsu, 2009). A year later, the Gaza Flotilla




Raid, which caused the death of 9 Turkish activists, became a reason foranother crisis between Turkey and Israel, and the Prime Minister R.T.

Erdogan mentioned the raid as a cause for war. However, they still possessa patient approach (Fraser 2011).With this declaration, Turkey showed a ‘strong stand’ for the issue and

gained more admiration from the Arab World and strengthened its highlevel position in the region because the discourses made from Turkish sideresembled the Arab World’s intention, which is based on the abolishmentof the dominant “Israeli culture” from the region (Çiçekçi, ibid.).Furthermore, regarding the Palestine-Israel problem, it would not bewrong if one says that there is a competition between Turkey and Iran.Why? Because, so far, the only one who has been the possessor of achallenging position against Israel is Iran under the Shia rulers. However,the new Turkish strategy, which is in favour of the ‘Muslim’ part of theissue towards Israel, became a challenging model for Iran’s monopoly inthe region. Additionally, it is possible to say that a (majorly) Sunni

populated Turkey is more ‘welcomed’ than a Shia Iran as a power withinthe western states’ perspectives.

The strong position on the Middle East was supported by the peacefuldiscourses (Yavuz, 2010) about the nuclear threat issue which wastargeted at Iran, even though it was not clearly declared, during the United

Nations Security Council meeting which was held in Lisbon/Portugal, on November 19-20, 2010. The strategy of Turkey that was carried out duringthe meeting was considered as a positive and mediatory approach betweenwestern and eastern countries, by both sides. Turkey played a significantrole in the way of contacts with Iran (Bila, 2010).

As a result of this positive acceleration in Turkish foreign policy, aconcrete sympathy towards Turkey has occurred among the MiddleEastern countries. Moreover, the Islamic references, such as a Friday-

prayer break in the Istanbul Summit in December 2010 with Afghan and

Pakistani leaders (Altuncu & Çitak Koygun, 2010), or visits to the tombsof religious leaders such as R.T. Erdogan’s visits to the tombs of CaliphateAli as the first Sunni leader and the tombs of two of the Twelve in Iraq inMarch, 2011 (Muderrisoglu 2011), or appearing on the media after Friday-

prayers (Star, 2011), are considered positively in the Muslim MiddleEastern perspective.

Accordingly, a global charm has occurred regarding Turkey‘s position, because of its demonstration of laic and democratic values’ capability tofunction within a majorly Muslim populated country, as mentioned by

Keyman (2010:5). Turkey, as a laic, democratic, economically ascendant,internationally admired, and (majorly) Muslim populated country, and



Chapter Two52

with R.T. Erdogan as its leader who is also a “real Muslim”, have been popular visions of world politics (Ghosh, 2011). On the other side, these

characteristics are being strongly discussed not only by many politicalanalysts in Turkey and the West, as added by Ghosh (ibid.), but alsoamong the laic Turkish society regarding going back to the Ottoman-Islamic identity and meanwhile undermining the westernized laic one.

Today, the world is facing an awakening on the southeast coasts of theMediterranean, referred to as the Arab Spring, which started in Tunisiawith a micro name, the Jasmine Revolution (Eltahawy, 2011), which justreferred to that country. Muhammad Bouazizi, an unemployed twenty-sixyear old Tunisian, set himself on fire on December, 17, 2010, in order tomake himself heard for his complaints about the inefficient social andeconomic conditions (cited in CNN, 2011). His activity caused an end tohis life; however, he became the ‘spark’ and the reason for the futureevents and mobilization of the Tunisian people against the twenty-threeyears old Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali government. Eventually, on January 14,2011 he left power and abandoned the country (Hürriyet, 2011). TheTunisian people managed to change the government; the state should beengaged with a new government with new policies and better conditions.But it was not just the Tunisian people on the roads; the Tunisian JasmineRevolution spread to the Arab World, and accordingly it was named as the

Arab Spring.After Tunisia, the Egyptian and Libyan people hit the streets for the

same reasons; they were all tired with the long-term dictators who weregoverning the state within acute economic, social, and political conditions.The main reasons that caused the people’s mobilization were thegovernmental policies, the unemployment rate, the governmental intentionto decrease the minimum salary rate, poverty, and lack of freedom ofexpression (Zayan, 2011). From January 24 until February 11, the protestmeetings were held in Egypt and it ended up with Hosni Mubarak leaving

power, and he left the government to the military (Radikal, 2011). InLibya, the process was extended to a larger period, the protest movementsstarted on February 15, and were also referred to as the “Libyan CivilWar”, as mentioned by Cockburn (2011), because of the long-term andstrong attacks between the government and protesters, who were alsosupported by NATO (cited in Euronews, 2011). The ‘war’ ended withMuammar Gaddafi’s death on October 20, 2011 (Radikal, 2011). Today,the Syrian people are on the streets, shouting for their demands and askingfor their rights. They also want a change of the government in order to

have a ‘new’ one with more freedom, and in the meantime to be releasedfrom the Asad Family.




As a result of the popularity among the region, Turkey, AKP and R.T.Erdogan were always visible in protest meetings with the support that was

declared by the government, with posters, and with Turkish flags. Beforethe revolutions, Turkey was an example with its growing power amongeconomic and political orders with its westernized state formation, andaccordingly after the revolutions a discussion started to be heard both indomestic and international press: Is there a possibility to ‘copy’ theTurkish political formation to the Arab states as their new politicalsystem? This possibility was discussed by academics, political scientists,and historians; it was even possible to hear it in the streets among thesociety.

When we take a glance at Turkey, it seems possible to make a copy forthe new Arab governments as a result of the ‘little’ similarities among thesociological structure of the societies; however when we go deeper we willsee the ‘significant differences’ and accordingly the impossibility.

Turkey, after its ‘common history’ with the Middle Eastern countries,as is always mentioned by the actual government, carried out a long

progress of a westernized identity with its ‘own’ values and reformed themin its ‘own’ way. As a result, the Republic of Turkey possesses its properidentity, which consists of both western and eastern values. Eventually,Turkey has demonstrated that a laic and a democratic system, which

causes a general fear among the Muslim society, can function with aMuslim society for the favour of the same state. On the other side, theArab states hit the streets because of the lack of modernized values, suchas democracy, the weakness or even the ‘absence’ of citizens’representation in politics, and weak economic conditions. The reason theyadmire today’s Turkey is its strong position in all these values listedabove, the close feelings about the common historical ties, and mostimportantly, religious affinity. Accordingly, it would not be functional ifTurkey were to be taken as an exact example for the future of the Arab

states. Instead, it should be used as a reference point.Briefly Turkey, which had enjoyed being the eastern part of the west

with its foreign policy and its westernized identity during the twentiethcentury, has possessed the role of being the western part of the east withinthe new millennium. Today Turkey has become the ‘intersection area’

between the eastern and western worlds; while attending the Arab Leaguemeetings, Turkey keeps on with negotiations with the EU.



Chapter Two54

Conclusion

Across its history, the Republic of Turkey has been playing animportant role in international scenes as a consequence of its geopolitical

position and political structure. With the mission of being a connection point between the east and the west, Turkey possessed stabilized relationsnot only with its neighbours, but also with other international actors. Itwould not be wrong if one says that the bilateral and the multilateralrelations of Turkey with its Western neighbours were stronger than theEastern ones, however, it has changed after the last decade and now therelations have been equalized between both sides of the state. In otherwords, relations with the Eastern World has been strengthened and nowthe stabilized relations are carried out in a more developed way at a higherlevel with concrete outcomes. The worldwide economic crisis played asignificant role in the rising level of the mutual relations, as a result ofTurkey’s developing economic conditions.

As we have mentioned, the religious identity has become a significantconcept of domestic and international discourses, and this situation has

been the most important tool for developing relations with the EasternWorld. The consciousness of religious sentiments brought Turkey togetherwith former Ottoman Empire territories within the perspective of the same

‘history’. Furthermore, under the conditions of the Arab Spring, which is being actualized in the aforementioned territories that used to belong to theformer Empire, Turkey should be a reference point for the Arab countieswith its economic power, laic, and democratic system. But perhaps itsgreatest virtue, in the eyes of many Middle Eastern beholders, is that theTurkish model was forged by an Islamist: R.T. Erdogan and his AKP havetraditionally drawn support from the country’s religious and conservativeclasses and are regarded with suspicion by secular absolutists, as was cited

by Ghosh (op.cit.).

Accordingly, it is possible to say that Turkey‘s new position is totallywelcomed in the region as a leader, both with being in efficient economicand political situations, and with possessing a protective mission for thesociety’s rights who took to the streets for better conditions of living. Infact, the general belief is in favour of Turkey because instead of Shia Iran,Sunni populated Turkey is more acceptable as a ‘power’ in the region. Thenew ‘role’ that Turkey has possessed for the Muslim World is consideredas beneficial for the Eastern states; however, it caused discussions aboutthe Turkish identity in the West. As a result of the usage of religion as a

‘tool’ in discourses as a resemblance based on Islamic-Ottoman identity,the Christian Western World had a suspicious approach to the situation.




The accusation about the Islamic identity of the AKP, which is denied bythe party – instead they declared that it possesses a ‘conservative’ identity

– is growing stronger and these Islamist discourses are considered assupporters of this idea. Moreover, Turkey is considered as a state that isheaded to the Muslim World as a result of the denial from the Westernone, with the example of the long-term candidature period for theEuropean Union which is considered as a ‘Christian Club’.

As we mentioned before, the stability for international relations has played a significant role on Turkey‘s agenda; accordingly, the actualsituation can be considered as positive progress. However, it is sure thatthe Islamic identity of the AKP is assumed to be the most significantfactor of the increasing popularity of the party among the Muslim World,in other words, in the former Ottoman territories, which causes strongdiscussions among the secular society, and it seems that the importance ofthese kinds of discussions will keep their importance. In these conditions,would it be wrong if one says that the ‘neo-Ottomanism’ can be aninspiration point for the actual policy of the AKP?

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Keyman, F. (2010), Türk Dı ş Politikasında “Eksen” Tart ı şmalar ı: Küresel Karga şa Ça ğ ında Realist Proaktivism, Seta Analiz. Ocak 2010, 15.

http://www.setav.org [accessed November 2, 2011].Khaddaj, A. (2011), Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and Jordan Join New Economic Forum, Al-Shorfa. http://www.al-shorfa.com [accessedOctober 30, 2011].

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—. M ı sır’da Devrim, Radikal, February 12, 2011. http://www.radikal.com.tr [accessed September 29, 2011].

Müderrisoğlu, O. (2011), Hz. Ali Türbesinde Bir İ lk , Sabah, March 30,2011. http://sabah.com.tr [accessed November 1, 2011].

Najam, S. (2011), United Nations in Turkey, United Nations.http://www.un.org.tr [accessed November 4, 2011].

—. Refah Partisi de Aynı Gerekçelerle Kapat ıld ı, Milliyet, March 15,2008. http://www.milliyet.com.tr [accessed November 5, 2011].

Republic of Turkey Ministry for European Union Affairs (2011), Historyof Turkey – EU Relations, Brief History. http://www.abgs.gov.tr[accessed November 18, 2011].

Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2011), Joint Political Declaration on the Establishment of the High Level Cooperation

Council among Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, Press andInformation. http://www.mfa.gov.tr [accessed November 6, 2011].

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Turkish NY (2010), Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria’s Economic Sizeto Reach $1,1 Trillion, English News. http://www.turkishny.com[accessed November 6, 2011].

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http://www.radikal.com.tr [accessed November 7, 2011].



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Zaman, A. (2007), Erdogan’s Islamist Party Wins Turkey‘s Election, TheTelegraph, July 23, 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk [accessed

November 7, 2011].Zayan, J. (2011), Egypt Braces for Nationwide Protest , AFP, January 25,2011. http://www.afp.com [accessed October 25, 2011].



CHAPTER THREE

ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY:ARAB SPRING AND THE TURKISH EXPERIENCE

GÖKHAN DUMAN

Abstract: Uprisings in the Arab world make us question the concept of“democracy”. From a Western perspective, the concept of democracy has asignificant importance on people’s government. Since the Ottoman Empire period, Arab countries always had rulers. Following the dissolution of theOttoman Empire, they could not have put democracy in its place. Some ofthem might have had some sort of elections, but with missing crucialcomponents, such as the presence of a viable opposition group.

Western scholars have always questioned the relationship betweenIslam and democracy. The ones belonging to the Orientalist camp claimed

that Islam and democracy cannot coexist, since Islam, with its legal system based on “Sharia”, is a method of governance itself, and it does not giveany room for democracy. On the contrary, modern Turkey proved that it is possible to have democracy and human rights in a Muslim society. TheRepublic of Turkey stands as an example whereby a country with anoverwhelming (98%) Muslim majority and has a multi-party politicalsystem with a functioning democracy.

In this context, the Turkish case was widely debated following theArab uprisings and questions such as “Can Turkey be a role model to theArab countries?” “Does Turkey have a “Western” democracy?” etc. were

asked frequently. Besides these questions, there was an implicit assumptionthat the Arab countries need a role model in their quest for democracy.Turkey’s relations with its neighbours make her an ideal candidate in thedebate for a ‘role model’. Although Turkey might serve as a model with herdemocratic credentials, the Turkish trajectory should be studied closely tounderstand how she reached that situation. What are the fundamentalcharacteristics of the Turkish Revolution (1923 – 1938)? What is the legacyof Ataturk? How did he create a country from scratch, and more importantlyhow did he make democracy work in a country with a Muslim population?

Key Words: Turkey; Democracy; Arab Spring; Islam; Ataturk, TurkishRevolution.



Chapter Three60

Democracy is one of the most contested terms of politics since ancienttimes. Diamond and Platter (2006:168) defined democracy simply as equal

rights of adults and a right to vote for every man. Like every politicalconcept, democracy has also evolved throughout time from ‘directdemocracy’ to a ‘representative democracy’ of today. In modern societies,the “right to vote” is considered as one of the fundamental civic rights.Irrespective of their race, religion, language, gender, social status, every

person is equal before the ballot box.More commonly, democracy is more and more associated with the

“western” conceptualization of governing. In the West, presidents, primeministers or politicians are elected through a fair and impartial election

process. People vote for candidates, in other words they transfer power to politicians for representation in the structure of state. The mechanism ofrepresentative democracy can be considered as the best way to include

people in a political system. With the existence of democracy, a politicalsystem can be a direct democracy, such as in Switzerland; a parliamentarydemocracy, like in Turkey; a presidential one, as in the USA; or a semi

presidential democracy, like in France. In most of these, rules of the gameare similar; voting rights for adult citizens, existence of political parties,fair and impartial elections, and limited time of power for elected

politicians. The source of the power, the People, can re-elect a certain

political party or take the power back in the next election. The main ideaof democracy is ‘nobody rules forever’; but people will always stand at thecentre of the system.

When we take a glance at today’s world, it is possible to say that themain understanding about democracy is that it is limited to the ‘western’world. Right at this point, the main questions arise: Why is democracyinstitutionalized just on the western side of the world? What are therequirements of a functioning democracy? What are the missing

components in eastern countries in the western mind?

A “Functioning” Democracy

It is clear that ‘democracy’ is a well-known term all over the world.However, even though it is well known, I personally believe that repeatingits requirements will be helpful to see the big picture of Arab Countries. Itis generally argued that the first condition for a democratic system is a‘right to vote’. However, to be able to vote in fair and impartial elections,

political parties are required. In this case, it would not be wrong to saythat political parties are the main actors of democracy. In a democratic



Islam and Democracy: Arab Spring and the Turkish Experience 61

country, people have the right to be a member of a certain political party,form a new one, work for a political party and engage political activities

like propaganda before the elections. A multi-party political system gives people the right to choose their representatives freely. On the other hand,in some political systems, the electoral system might also cause thedisappearance of some votes, especially if the electoral system requires acertain percentage of election thresholds. In such a system, the political

parties that fail to secure a prescribed amount of votes, cannot representtheir electorates in the parliament.

Respect for and protection of civic and political rights; as mentionedabove, the right to be a member of a political party, right to form a

political party, right to vote, right to be candidate, right to elect and to beelected are among fundamental civic and political rights. A genuinedemocratic system is expected to guarantee these rights, and provide

protection for people who intend to use these rights. For instance, if onegoes to vote and another one tries to stop him or criticize him, the systemhas to protect voters. It is true that in democracy, not to vote is also a right,and one can make propaganda about it, but nobody can stop the otherusing his right to vote. For the maximum participation of people in politicsand political debates, other civic rights like freedom of assembly and

peaceful demonstration, freedom of speech and union are also important.

Without the freedom of opinion, nobody can think, talk or act in a politicalsphere.

Elections; in a democratic system, regular elections need to be heldfrequently in a fair and competitive manner. In today’s democratic system,elections take place every 4 or 5 years, and it provides accountability tothe voters. By elections, the voters can exercise political control over the

party in power and provide room for alteration of the political party in power.

Separation of powers; in a functioning democracy, executive power,

legislative power, and judicial power need to be separated clearly. Each ofthem has its own duties, responsibilities, and limitations. According tothese limitations, none of them can affect or even try to manipulate theother. Within this separation of power, every single one can focus on itsduties which provide a legitimate environment for politics.

Freedom of press; in a democratic system, the press is a fundamentaltool to monitor and understand what the government does during its ruling

period. It would not be wrong if one says that it is the main tool for peopleto learn about governmental policies and their implementations.

Nowadays, besides conventional media channels, social media and the



Chapter Three62

Internet have become essential tools. Especially the Internet is beingconsidered as a “free world”.

All these elements listed above are the main building blocks fordemocracy. In the West, almost of these requirements of a democraticsystem have been considered established and institutionalized. Repeatingall these bricks of democracy before going further into the Arab Spring,was important to see the big picture.

“Arab Spring”: A Quest for Democracy

Since early 2011, the world started to hear a call from Arab countries,

first in Tunisia, then Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and even some of theGulf countries. People from the aforementioned countries raised similarconcerns for freedom, democracy, end of corruption and nepotism. One ofthe most striking common features of the outcry from many countries wasthat they were raised by ordinary people who constitute the core of thesociety. They were not politicians; they were the “people” who occupiedstreets and stayed there all day long. They have demonstrated to theoutside world that people now possessed power.

The “Arab Spring” initiated as protest movements, but then itgradually converted into “revolutionary movements” seeking to change thestatus quo. After decades of repression and political manipulation, the

people wanted to take charge, and demand a change in their politicalsystem. They asked for a genuine democracy and questioned the realmeaning of terms like ‘democracy’, ‘people’, ‘freedom’, ‘vote’ and so on.They have also shattered the widespread perception in the West regardingthe irreconcilability between democracy and Islam. However, the initialresponse from the West was highlighting the dangers for the authoritarianrulers to be merely replaced by radical Islam. This has ultimately increasedthe already existing trends for ‘Islamophobia’.

When we look at the initial results of revolutions, especially in Tunisiaand Egypt, it can be argued that these countries have passed a crucial stagewith an organization of recent elections. Elections after the uprisings havedemonstrated Arab people’s long suppressed demand and eagerness for ademocratic system. In Tunisia and Egypt, new political parties have beencreated, and most of them competed in elections. Thousands of candidatescompeted for a place in the new Parliament. And new NGOs have beenestablished after Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak fled fromtheir countries. People started to be a part of the new political systems in

their countries. Until these elections, they did not have real political‘freedom’ due to the authoritarian regime created by their ‘dictators’.




Forming political parties or even NGOs was virtually impossible. They didnot have freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. In the aftermath of

their revolution, they wanted be a part of the political system, and theycreated a new political scene for the future of their countries.Some of the countries that experienced the uprisings already had

elections for the office of the President and/or the Parliament. However,these elections were conducted under the absolute control of the rulers. Inthis respect, the Arab people were also disillusioned about the electoratesystem, the practice of having rigged elections without any real effect onthe political system. As the system lost its legitimacy and credibility in theeyes of the electorate, Arab people demanded more than cosmeticmodifications. That is to say, having an election is not proof of democracy.If people lost their credence in the system, then that system needed to berevised. In this point, the call from Arab Countries and their strugglestarted a new era. In this environment, the question is, can Islam anddemocracy go together?

Islam‘s Compatibility with Democracy

Compatibility between Islam and democracy is yet another hotlydebated topic in the field of political science. While scholars belonging tothe Orientalist way of thinking argue their incompatibility, the ones in theopposite camp question the credibility and legitimacy of democracy in itsWestern sense. Some even claim that democracy is a foreign conceptwhich does not belong and cannot be integrated to any Muslim society. Inthe meantime, they claim that democracy is also a tool to cut the line

between people and religion because democracy mainly needs asecularized system, which is often considered as “not having a religion” inthe eastern perspective.

For ‘western’ democracy, the control of the system belongs to the people, in other words to the voters, which brings the total sovereignty of people. For some of the Islamic thinkers, there is only one sovereignty inthe world, and that belongs to their ‘God’. The rulers of Islamic countriesare often considered as the “shadows of God” or “hands of God”. Hence,

putting the sovereignty of people at the centre of the political system, inother words having a democracy, is often considered as the denial ofGod’s sovereignty. In this line of thinking, elections are deemed as“unnecessary”. Since, it will not be possible to replace the sovereigntyregardless of the elections results, Radical scholars consider democracy

and elections as ‘sins’ against God, and if one keeps talking about theseconcepts, he can be accused of not being a good Muslim.



Chapter Three64

There are, however, some other arguments in the Muslim worldfavouring the concept of democracy and arguing the inherent democracy

embedded in Islam. They believe that it is possible to have an “Islamicdemocracy”. For them, it is not possible to adapt the western democracy, but a democracy which contains certain important elements of Islam can be formed and put into action in Muslim societies. Even today, when theArab Spring is happening and re-shaping the region, this discussion is stillon the agenda of eastern thinkers.

As with the eastern thinkers, many scholars from the West also arguethat Islam and democracy cannot be compatible. Even after the Arabuprisings, some argue that autocrats will simply be replaced by politicalformations favouring radical regimes. The most powerful opposition toentrenched leaders in many Arab nations is Islamists who are the groupsthat embrace a political view of Islam and reject secular forms ofgovernment. However, if we take into consideration the elections inTunisia and Egypt, it is possible to say that the majority of these new

political parties do not seem to have a secret agenda to lead their countriesinto radicalism. For instance, a significant number of women were electedin Tunisia; even the parties that are considered as Islamist did not maketheir propaganda around Shari’ah or head-scarf. They often tried toconvince their people and Western observers that they would not interfere

in the lifestyle of people or people’s freedom.From the beginning of the Arab Spring, scholars from East and West

are talking about the future of the region. While discussing the future ofthese countries, most of them make frequent references to Turkey as amodel. With its Muslim majority society, the Republic of Turkey has afunctioning democracy within laic state structure and this characteristic

places Turkey at the centre of debates about the future of the region.

The Turkish ExperienceTurkey is an enormous country, with a population of 75 million. With

its laic, social, democratic state structure, the Republic of Turkey isgenerally perceived as a democratic country in a Western sense. Todaywith its growing economy, Turkey is an important actor in world politics.Consequently, the Turkish experience became a case study for the debateabout “Islam and democracy”. Proponents of the compatibility betweenIslam and democracy indicate the success and viability of the Turkishcase. When we take a glance at the Middle East, it would not be possible

to talk about another democracy which functions and puts people’s will atthe core of the system. But for Turkey, it is quite common to say that it is a




“bridge” between the east and the west which holds regular elections, and puts people as sovereign of the territory of Turkey.

Within the perspective of these discussions, today’s popular questionis: can Turkey be a role model for Arab States in which transformationsare being actualized right now? There is no certain answer for thatquestion. In order to provide an insight for the abovementioned question,one should also take into consideration the evaluation of the Turkishmodel.

The Republic of Turkey was built on the Ottoman Empire’s heritages.During the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan was not only a ruler but also aCaliph, the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. Islam was the religion ofthe Empire, and Shari’ah was the fundamental law for a long time. At theturn of the 19th century, the Empire was heavily exposed to the ideasstemming from the French revolution, like freedom, equality and fraternity.With the growing national awareness and aspirations of differentethnicities, the Ottoman Empire imposed a comprehensive modernization

programme. After a long period of an absolute monarchy under theguidance of Islam and reign of the Sultan, fundamental rights and libertiesof the Ottoman subjects belonging to different religions were protectedwith the promulgation of the Noble Rescript of Rose Bower (GülhaneHatt-I Şerifi) in 1839, the Imperial Rescript (Islahat Fermanı) of 1856 and

the first Ottoman Constitution of 1876.With the so-called Tanzimat (Reorganization) reforms, rights of non-

Muslims had been guaranteed. With the modernization programme, themillet system1 took a significant importance in the Ottoman structure. Forinstance, the Sharia courts were joined by special commercial courts and acriminal code. The adoption of the first Ottoman Constitution could beconsidered as the first attempt to adapt the concept of “constitutionalcitizenship.” Right after this brief information, it is certain to say that theuniversal terms like constitution, freedom, and rights were not alien terms

for the Turks even during the Ottoman Empire. And the TurkishIndependence War against the imperial powers of the period hadsignificant repercussions on the future of the modern Turkey.

The Turkish Revolution led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, contained aseries of political, social, economic and legal reforms. These reforms wereimplemented in order to modernize the new born Republic and create a

1 The Millet system is a way of governance in which every Millet (ethnic/religiousgroup) was taken care of by individual leaders. The millets were lay states within a

state; they had a certain degree of autonomy, their own taxation system and theirown set of laws, in return for unswerving loyalty to the Empire.



Chapter Three66

modern, democratic and laic state. The reforms began with themodernization and adaptation of the constitution to the Western political

system. Turkey has taken legal texts in Europe as an example andimplemented them, like the Civil Code of Switzerland, AdministrativeLaw from France, and Criminal Law from Italy. This was followed by athorough modernization of the state apparatus and society, with a dueemphasis on the educational system. The core of these reforms was the

belief that Turkish society had to westernize itself both politically andculturally in order to be modernized.

Ataturk’s political reforms included a number of fundamentalinstitutional changes that would bring the end of the Ottoman legacy.These reforms had been done within a carefully planned programme.Political change was implemented to unravel the complex system that haddeveloped over the centuries. One of the main ideas was the separation ofreligion from state affairs. This process was commonly known as“secularization”, but the Turkish implementation resembled more theFrench model of laicitè. Some eastern thinkers, who consider Islam as anobstacle against democratic development, point to the separation ofreligion from state affairs as the crucial difference between Turkey and therest of the Muslim societies. For that reason, it is necessary to differentiatethe terms of secularism, and laicitè. The English word secularism may be

misleading since it is often used in the context of anti-religious philosophy. The term used in Turkish is based on the French word laicitè,and it indicates the principle of separation between religion and the state.Accordingly, adapting laicism to the system cannot be considered as anti-religious or anti-Islamic.

In a laic state structure, the state controls religious affairs in order to provide equal rights for every religion. In the Turkish case, the new laicstate’s position on religion was demonstrated by the establishment of theDirectorate for Religious Affairs (Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Ba şkanl ı ğ ı),

which was created to execute the works concerning the beliefs, worship,and ethics of Islam, enlighten the public about their religion, andadminister sacred worshipping places. Even though the state is supposedto provide equal rights for every religion, the Directorate for ReligiousAffairs provides information for Sunni-Islam believers.

The new Republic has respected the equality of religions and freedomof conscience for all Turkish citizens in their own private space under the

protection of the Republic. The changes were both conceptually radicaland culturally significant. The religious education system was replaced by

a national education system on March 3, 1924, and the Caliphate, whichwas possessed by the Ottomans since 1517, was abolished on the same




day. Apart from adaptation of laicism, another important reform was theintegration of sovereignty of people. As such, the reform process was

characterized by a struggle between progressives, represented by Ataturkand his reform-minded military-bureaucratic elite and conservatives,represented by proponents of the ancient Ottoman structures. The changesmeant the end of the millet system of religious/ethnic communities. Underthe new reformed system, official recognition of the Ottoman millets waswithdrawn. It was replaced by a common, laic authority.

Another significant reform was extending social and civil rights towomen. In line with Ataturk’s conceptualization of equality between menand women, the Turkish Constitution stated the equality of everyoneregardless of their sex, race, religion, language and ethnicity. Women’s

position was strengthened when the Swiss Civil Code was adapted in1926. In 1930, women were permitted to participate in local elections, andin 1934, they were given the right to vote and be elected in nationalelections. The new Turkish Republic could not institutionalize a multi-

party system in Ataturk’s lifetime despite a few unsuccessful attempts.Finally, with the formation of the Democrat Party in 1945 and first multi-

party elections in 1946, Turkey had a genuine political competition between parties. The first peaceful alteration of power took place in 1950,as a benchmark of the consolidation of multi-party democracy in Turkey.

The Turkish experience, the modernization process which goes back to theOttoman Empire, shows a lot of things about the modernization of acertain structure and how a new-born state can become democratic withreforms. Revising the brief information about the Turkish experience will

be helpful for the last part of this study.

The Role of Turkey in New Era

Arab uprisings have indicated the beginning of a new era in World politics. Following the protests in Arab countries, we saw people whooccupied the streets in some European countries like Italy, Spain, etc. The‘Arab Spring’ represented the success of collective actions; most importantly,that actions without violence could change certain political systems. Withthe Arab uprisings, Muslim societies understood that they are at the coreof their states; they are the sovereign ones, not the rulers.

Poverty, corruption, unemployment, and other socio-economic factorsmade people occupy the streets. They wanted to be heard by their rulersand become the main actors for change. The direction of the change was

important as well as the change itself. From the beginning of the “JasmineRevolution”, the most commonly used terminology for the Tunisian




common element for different variations. Each country has a differentmodel of democracy based on their historical trajectories and political,

economic, as well as societal peculiarities. For this reason, no country canserve as an “ideal template” or “role model” for another one. Every societyhas its own dynamics, and democracy needs to be adapted according todifferent conditions. In this regard, having a Muslim majority populationdoes not make Turkey a role model for other Muslim countries.

A “copy-paste” democracy is not possible. Even if you ‘copy’ certainlegal provisions or institutions of a country, they will probably be rejected

by the society when you ‘paste’ them over. Thus, copy-paste democracycannot be considered as an option, which dissolves the theory aboutTurkey being a role model for Arab countries. Furthermore, arguments

propagating Turkey as a role model are generally constructed without a proper analysis of Turkish political history. Without taking account of theOttoman legacy, 19th century modernization efforts, and Ataturk’sreforms, Turkey’s peculiar characteristics cannot be understood in theirentirety. The Ataturk period was, and still is, important to understandunder what conditions Ataturk and his companions created a nation fromscratch and placed the laic state structure in its place – in a highly-religious society which had the Caliphate. If Arab nations want tounderstand modern Turkey, they need to study the fundamental

characteristics of the Turkish Revolution. Nonetheless, Turkey still provides insights for the Arab people and the

newly elected governments of these countries by telling them about herown transformational history. Turkey might serve as a source ofinspiration for these countries with its success story. Its strong democraticcredentials, increased economic relations with the Middle East, more

people-to-people contacts, and cooperation between civil societyorganizations, and cooperation between national assemblies, may also

provide efficient channels for these countries to understand the Turkish

Experience.In conclusion, countries affected by Arab uprisings do not need any

role model in their journey towards democracy. Having a Muslim majorityis not an obstacle on the way to democracy and the concept ofsecularism/laicitè is very central for both the transformation andconsolidation of democracy in the Arab world. While studying the relativeadvantages and disadvantages of the Turkish model of a functioningdemocracy with a Muslim majority, the aforementioned countries shouldcreate their own systems for an effective separation of religion from state

affairs. Thus, as a final thought to this study, Turkey is capable of being asource of inspiration rather than a role model for Arab countries.



Chapter Three70

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CHAPTER FOUR

WHO IS AN ISLAMIC FEMINIST AND WHAT DOES HE LOOK LIKE?

ALESSANDRA L. GONZÁLEZ

Abstract: While much scholarship on Islam has been done by scholarsfrom outside the Muslim context, current trends in the sociological study ofIslam have recognized the benefits of asking Muslims in majority Muslimcontexts to speak for themselves. Studies such as that of Esposito andMogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? (2007), and Isobel Coleman’s Paradise Beneath Her Feet (2010), challenge many assumptions that politicians and policy makers, and even academic wisdom might have about who themajority of Muslims are, what they want, and what they look like.

Previous research on Islamic religiosity (González 2011) and Islam andgender (González and Al-Kazi 2011) has found that many perceptions ofthe Muslim faith and gender attitudes must be reconsidered. In this paper, Iwill address the demographic profile of Islamic feminists based on a pilotstudy of Kuwaiti college students. In this paper, “Islamic Feminist” isdefined as someone who agrees with the statement that “Islam is a sourceof personal motivation for me to fight for women’s rights.” Preliminaryresults show that although women appear more liberal than men on somewomen’s rights issues, a significant percentage of men, particularly thosewhose mothers have attended at least some amount of college, also

consider their Muslim faith a motivation to fight for women’s rights. Ademographic profile of the male respondents who identify as Muslims and believe that their faith is a source of motivation for them to fight forwomen’s rights is also discussed.

Key Words: Gender; Politics; Feminism, Kuwait.

Introduction and Background

While much scholarship on Islam has been done by scholars from

outside the Muslim context, current trends in the sociological study ofIslam have recognized the benefits of asking Muslims in majority Muslim



Chapter Four74

contexts to speak for themselves. Studies such as that of Esposito andMogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? (2007), and Isobel Coleman’s Paradise

Beneath Her Feet (2010), challenge many assumptions that politicians and policy makers, and even academic wisdom might have about who themajority of Muslims are, what they want, and what they look like. Beforethe current wave of populist revolutions swept throughout the Middle East,the seeds of change were planted and growing. The data for this studycome from a sample of Kuwaiti College students, who in 2007 wereexcited to talk about the new possibilities for women in their country afterwomen were allowed to vote and run for parliament there since May 2005.

The fact that Kuwaitis could explore new roles and responsibilities forwomen while retaining their Islamic cultural and religious identity makesthis case study particularly timely and relevant. This chapter fits into avolume that explores how International Relations academics understandthe field of Islamic Studies, as well as how Islamic scholars perceivecomparative analysis in International Relations. A study of similar

juxtapositions is found in the case study of male, Muslim, and pro-womenactivist youths in a majority Muslim context. At the very least, exploringthe concept of Male Islamic Feminists, who they are, and how they differfrom Female Islamic Feminists, will serve for future research on thesubject. This study contributes to the sociological fields of Religion and

Gender from an International Relations Perspective, and also informsIslamic Scholars who can provide additional insights for discussion.

Previous research on Islamic religiosity (González, 2011) and Islamand gender (González and Al-Kazi, 2011) has found that many perceptionsof the Muslim faith and gender attitudes must be reconsidered. This paperaddresses the demographic profile of Islamic feminists based on a pilotstudy of 1139 Kuwaiti college students. In this study, “Islamic Feminist”is defined as someone who agrees with the statement that “Islam is asource of personal motivation for me to fight for women’s rights.” As is

elaborated further in this study, results show that although women appearmore liberal than men on some women’s rights issues, a significant

percentage of men, particularly those whose mothers have attended at leastsome amount of college, also consider their Muslim faith a motivation tofight for women’s rights. A demographic profile of the male respondentswho identify as Muslims and believe that their faith is a source ofmotivation for them to fight for women’s rights is also discussed.



Who is an Islamic Feminist and What Does He Look Like? 75

Recent Trends in the Study of Islam and Gender

A number of recent scholars have brought back a focus on the Muslimwoman as an agent in her own “liberation” from patriarchal oppression,supposedly woven into the tapestry of her Islamic culture and religion. Inactuality, much of the latest focus on Sociology of Islam and Gender hasstarted to set aside previous conceptions of the compatibility of Islam andfeminism, and has begun to create new categories and definitions out ofthis particular focus of study. Some such literature includes studies ofMuslim women within the study of Islam and political change(Moghadam, 2006; Atasoy, 2009), Islam and International Relations(Kruase, 2009), globalization (Byes and Tohidi, 2001), and Muslimwomen in comparative perspective (Bodman and Tohidi, 1998). A

particular focus has been to analyse politically active Islamist Muslimwomen, a seeming paradox for outside scholars of feminism, who havelong held markers such as the Muslim headscarf as an inherent symbol of

patriarchal oppression. That some educated women would fight for theirright to wear the Islamic headscarf, such as in Turkey, has generated muchstudy (Sundal, 2005).

Male Studies as Feminist StudiesScholars of women and gender, as well as scholars of Islam, have

recently come together to break through academic biases and paradigmsthat pit pro-women agendas against religious sensibilities, and which

purport an incompatibility between Islamic identity and a progressivewomen’s rights agenda. This bias is particularly held of men intraditionally patriarchal, majority Muslim societies. The current studyexplores the paradoxical concept of a Male Muslim Feminist identity andoffers ground-breaking empirical analysis into this little-knowndemographic. It should be emphasized that this sample of Kuwaiti CollegeStudents is neither representative of Kuwaiti Muslim Men nor Muslimmen as a whole, but what it does offer is a case study into the possibilitiesof the compatibility of Islam and a pro-women’s rights agenda, andinsights into how this plays out differently for politically active men andwomen in majority Muslim contexts.

The fact that this chapter is also particularly focused on male subjectsin a discussion of feminist paradigms in itself offers a paradigm shift fromtraditional feminist studies in the West. A male-focused study of gender

supports the latest wave of research within gender studies that focuses onmen as equally important to and in tangential relationship with the shifts of



Chapter Four76

roles and responsibilities for women (Coltrane, 1997; Baumeister, 2010;Kimmel, 2008). In effect, with so many changes and possibilities for

women that have never been offered before, the rights, roles, andresponsibilities for men have changed as well, and should also beconsidered an important matter of study.

Aims of the Current Study and Selection of Variables

There are two aims of the current study: First, to present evidence thatmale Muslim feminists do indeed exist, and second, to explore who thesemale Muslim Feminists are, what they believe, and how they differ from

female Muslim women’s rights activists in the Middle East. Exploringthese two questions makes a contribution to the growing literature onIslamic Feminism, expanding current definitions of what it means to be“pro-women” and religious, particularly in a majority Muslim context.

Naturally, the selection of variables is related to the aims of the study.In order to select the demographic of interest, we see who of the sample of1139 Kuwaiti College Students agrees or strongly agrees with thestatement “Islam is a source of personal motivation for me to fight forwomen’s rights.” This answers the definition of “Islamic feminist” assomeone who is an activist for women’s rights from within their Islamicreligion. This is an interesting question to ask of college students (thedemographic of the sample) in a majority Muslim context (the Gulf stateof Kuwait, where the data was collected). Figure 1 shows the breakdownof “Islamic Feminists” in the sample by gender.

Data: ISAS Kuwait 2007. N=733.




It also drastically reduces the number of respondents by almost half, but nonetheless provides a sizeable sample with which to conduct the rest

of the analysis.

1

Another way to define a “feminist” is by self-ascription, which isdisplayed by gender in Figure 2:

Data: ISAS Kuwait 2007. N=832. *In the Arabic translation, the term “feminist”

refers more closely to a belief in “gender equality.”

These respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Iconsider myself a feminist.” However, in the Arabic translation distributedto the students, the statement addresses more of the subject of a belief in“gender equality.” This second measure of “feminist” is a valid one, but isnot as pertinent to the consideration of the importance of religiosity to thedefinition of an Islamic feminist. So for the purposes of this study, theMale respondents who fit the definition of Islamic feminist as outlined in

Figure 1, those Male respondents who agreed that “Islam is a source ofmotivation” for them to fight for women’s rights, are the ones selected forfurther analysis. An extensive profile of these Male Islamic Feminists isdisplayed in Table 1.

1 The question of Islamic Feminism came towards the end of the survey, and

respondent fatigue is a likely cause of the drop in the number of respondents to thisquestion.



Chapter Four78

Data and Methods

The data for this study come from the Islamic Social Attitudes Survey(ISAS) data of 1139 Kuwaiti College students collected in 2007 (see alsoGonzález, 2011; González and Al-Kazi, 2011). The data were collected in58 undergraduate classes from 11 different departments (anthropology,sociology, psychology, statistical consultation, liberal arts information,English, electrical engineering, political science, education, business, andlife skills) at all three campuses of Kuwait University (Shwaikh, Keyfan,and Khaldiya). Kuwait University is the oldest and largest university in thecountry.2 The survey was distributed to students during class time (2263surveys were distributed), and students were invited to take the surveysduring the class period (participation was voluntary). The survey was inArabic. The ISAS English version was translated by a local team oftranslators and edited by social science faculty involved with this project.The data was then entered into a database by the Statistical Unit at KuwaitUniversity and analysed using statistical software packages SAS andSPSS.

Sixty-one percent of respondents are female, and half are in their earlytwenties. About 45% are in their last year of college. Over half (58%)come from families that earn between $40,000 and $100,000 annually;

16% are married; and are 78% Sunni. These students come from highlyeducated families, as evidenced by the fact that more than half of therespondents’ mothers have attended at least some amount of college. TheISAS focuses on the measurement of religiosity, political attitudes andcivic engagement, and contains some religiosity items approximate tothose in the Baylor Religion Survey (Bader et al., 2007). The ISAS forKuwait has a total of 159 items, including modules on religious practice,

belief, behaviour, belonging, religious networks, spiritual experience, andfamily religiosity. Social attitude modules include questions on women’s

rights, minority rights, attitudes about democracy and relations with theWest. For this chapter, most of the analysis was done selecting only the

2 A comparison by field of study indicates the sample had fewer natural science,liberal arts, education, and law majors, while having more engineering and Islamicstudies majors. No discipline was oversampled. We did not distribute any surveysto the faculty for Sharia and Islamic studies, so the fact that there were proportionally more of these majors in my sample than the proportion of majors inthe university population as a whole must be considered as part of the sampling

error. In other respects, such as sex and sect ratio, the sample matched theuniversity population.




male students from the sample who also responded that they “agreed orstrongly agreed” with the statement “Islam is a source of personal

motivation for me to fight for women’s rights.”In order to address the research question “Who are Male IslamicFeminists?”, first a descriptive analysis was conducted to exploredemographic, religiosity, socialization, women’s rights and politicalattitude variables. Second, a Binary Logistic Regression of FeministIdentity was conducted on demographic, religiosity, and socializationvariables. This analysis was conducted by gender to determine whichfactors increased the likelihood that the male or female Kuwaiti Muslimcollege student would identify as someone whose personal faith motivatedhim or her to fight for women’s rights. Third, a Principle ComponentsFactor Analysis of Social and Political Attitudes was done by gender tosee where Male Islamic Feminists differ from Female Feminists on various

political and social topics of interest.

Findings: What Male Islamic Feminists Look Like

First, a descriptive analysis was conducted to explore demographic,religiosity, socialization and women’s rights and political attitudevariables (Table 1) which serves to answer the question “Do Male IslamicFeminists Exist?” in the affirmative, and gives us leads on the question ofwhat Male Islamic Feminists look like.

The data show that most of the male Kuwaiti college students whoidentified themselves as Islamic Feminists, are between the ages of 21-25,have never married, live in a household with less than USD $50,000annual income, and would have a college-educated mother. The point ofmother’s education is one worth highlighting here because of the likelyinfluence on the male student’s perceptions of the range of possibilities forwomen in their societies. 95.3% of the same male students report that theirmothers wear the hijab, or Muslim headscarf, which may indicatesocialization towards the compatibility of Islam and higher education forwomen, as was provided by the example of their mothers.

On issues of individual religiosity, only 10.2% of the Male IslamicFeminists wear a beard, but almost 90% wear the traditional Arabheaddress (called a ghutra in Kuwaiti Arabic), which begins to shake someof the superficial stereotypes about male Muslims uniformly wearing

beards in the example of the Prophet Mohammed, or of the incompatibility between traditional dress (such as the ghutra for men or hijab for women)

and progressive attitudes about women’s rights. More than half do attendthe mosque at least once a week (a ritual more prescriptive for Muslim



Chapter Four80

Table 1. Male Islamic Feminist Descriptive Statistics

Valid Percent N Demographics

Age 18-20 42.2 21021-25 55.2 -26-36 2.5 -

Marital Status Married 12.3 236

Never Married 87.7 -

Household Annual Income

Less than $50 K 43.9 221$50 K to $100 K 23.5 -

More than $100K 32.6 -

Mother’s Education High School or less 33.0 230

Some College or More 67.0 -

Religiosity

Wears a Beard 10.2 236Wears Traditional Arab Headdress (Ghutra) 89.4 235

Attends Mosque at Least Once/Wk 54.7 234Reads the Qur’an at Least Once/Wk 36.9 236

Prays at Least Once/Wk 14.0 214Considers Self a Religious Person 61.8 228

Sect Sunni 71.6 232

Shia 28.4 -

Religious School of Thought Salafi 17.8 236

Muslim Brotherhood 10.2 - Najaf – Shia 13.1 -Qums – Shia 5.1 -

Muslim – No Affiliation 36.9 -




SocializationParents are Religious 86.9 229

Raised Religiously 82.6 236Mother Wears Hijab 95.3 234

Female Friends Wear Hijab None 22.7 216A few 19.9 -

About Half 13.9 -Most 8.8 -

All 8.3 -“I don’t have close female friends.” 26.4 -

Major in School Natural Science 5.2 232

Engineering 26.3 -Social Science 23.3 -

Medicine 3.0 -Arts 0.4 -

Business 1.3 -Education 23.9 -

Sharia and Islamic Studies 27.2 -Biology 0.4 -

Women’s Rights Attitudes

Woman Can Be a Good Muslim and Not Wear Hijab 67.5 232Political Islamist 30.6 235

Islam is Compatible with Women’s Political Leadership 74.2 213Equal Contribution to Income 71.4 231

Personal Status Laws Unfair 31.4 188

Political Attitudes

Political Activity Score0 34.7 2361-4 37.2 -5-7 28.0 -

US Right to Invade Iraq 65.7 213US Should leave Iraq Immediately 57.6 205

Note: Data come from the ISAS Kuwait Survey 2007.



Chapter Four82

men than women in majority Muslim contexts) and almost 62% considerthemselves religious. Religious Salience is a measure found consistently to

be a good measure of individual religiosity (Glock and Stark, 1966) and ishelpful to our exploration of the salience of religion to these Male MuslimFeminists. The breakdown by sect mirrors the general breakdown inKuwait (about 70% Sunni, about 30% Shia, according to the Kuwait entryof the CIA WorldFactbook). Interestingly, about 37% identify as Muslimswith “no affiliation,” while the rest are distributed between other Schoolsof Thought in Islam, indicating some ecumenicalism that mightaccompany the ideological liberalism of this Male Islamic Feministdemographic.

When it comes to socialization, these Male Islamic Feminists arecertainly raised with religious sensibilities. About 87% say their parentsare religious, and about 83% say they were raised religiously. Aninteresting variable to note is whether or not, in a Muslim society wheregender segregation in public is the norm, do these Male Islamic Feministshave close female friends at all? Of those, are their female friendsreligious or not? For the sample of Male Kuwaiti College students who weidentify as “Islamic Feminists,” about 26% say they do not have closefemale friends, and then about 23% say of their female friends, none wearhijab, and 20% say only “a few” of their female friends wear the

headscarf. These are interesting findings because they show that theseMale Islamic Feminists are not strictly conservative Muslims (or moremight have responded that they did not have close female friends), but arenot so secular or Liberal as to avoid having any female friends with hijab.There are possibly other factors that influence the opportunity for thesemale students to select possible female friends, but as it is not the focus ofthe study, we simply note a diversity of social networks ranging from nofemale friends, to a few wearing hijab.

College majors of Male Islamic Feminists vary, but among the top

majors are Sharia and Islamic Studies (27%), Engineering (26%),Education (24%) and Social Science (23%). A minority (31%) identify asPolitical Islamists. This is important to note because it is possible thatreligious and pro-women Muslim men may not identify as politicallyIslamist because of the tendency of those parties to incorporate traditionaland non-progressive roles for women into their political platforms. Alongwith the large percentage who did not identify with a particular religiousSchool of Thought, it may be that scholars and statisticians have difficultyidentifying religious and pro-women men (and women) in Muslim

societies because they do not fit under the political label “Islamist” andmay not get picked up by secular or Liberal political candidates either.




As expected, Male Islamic Feminists tend to support Liberal or progressive positions on various women’s rights attitudes, including the

belief that “a woman can be a good Muslim and not wear hijab” (67.5%),and that women should have an equal contribution to household income(71.4%). Interestingly, only 31% of Male Islamic Feminists agree thatPersonal Status Laws are “unfair” in Kuwait, which differs from theresults of the Female Islamic Feminists (see Table 3). Personal StatusLaws in Kuwait are based largely on the Islamic Shariah, or “IslamicLaw” which does discriminate by gender on matters such as settlementand child custody in the event of a divorce, ability to own property,

percentage of inheritance of wealth, ability to pass citizenship to children,and various other social and political status issues (Al-Mughni, 2005).

Lastly, these Male Islamic Feminists span the gamut of politicalactivity, ranging from absolutely no participation in political activities(about 35%), to participating in 1-4 political activities (37%) or

participating in 5-7 political activities (28%), which include running as a political candidate, volunteering on a campaign, text-messaging, flyer-distribution, forwarding an email, writing a letter, making a phone call,attending an informational meeting or conference, marching, protesting,donating money, or voting in a political, religious, or women’s rightscampaigns (ISAS 2007). Most (65.7%) believe both that the US was right

to invade Iraq in 2003 and that American troops should leave Iraqimmediately. Remembering that the data was collected in Kuwait, acountry which had been invaded by Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 1990,might help to interpret these seemingly paradoxical results by emphasizingthat for this sample of Male Kuwaiti college students, global politics, aswith matters of religion and gender, may hold various strong beliefs intangent and tension.

Findings: Who is More Likely to be an Islamic FeministSecond, a Binary Logistic Regression of Feminist Identity was

conducted on demographic, religiosity, and religious socializationvariables. This analysis was conducted by gender to determine whichfactors increased the likelihood that the male or female Kuwaiti Muslimcollege student would identify as someone whose personal faith motivatedhim or her to fight for women’s rights.



Chapter Four84

Table 2. Binary Logistic Regression of Feminist ID on Demographics,

Religiosity Measures, and Religious Socialization Variables (by

Gender)

Males Only Females Only

B (SE) Odds Ratio B (SE) Odds RatioConstant 1.536 (1.844) 4.645 1.425 (2.318) 4.157

DemographicsAge -0.007

(0.080)0.993 -0.098 (0.104) 0.0907

Income 0.064 (0.360) 1.066 -0.533 (0.355) 0.587Mother’s Education 0.681 (0.345) 1.976* 0.116 (0.334) 1.123

Married 0.848 (0.737) 2.334 0.888(0.432) 2.429*

Religiosity MeasuresWeekly Mosque Attendance -0.279

(0.358)0.756 0.708 (0.808) 2.031

Daily Qur’an Reading -0.158(0.373)

0.854 0.326 (0.325) 1.385

Daily Prayer 0.609 (0.514) 1.838 -0.534 (0.423) 0.586Wears a Beard/Faceveil 0.383 (0.628) 1.466 -1.152 (0.480) 0.316*

Religious SocializationParents are Religious -0.204

(0.295)0.816 0.835 (0.262) 2.305***

Raised Religiously -0.383(0.476)

0.682 -0.162 (0.444) 0.850

Politically Islamista -0.477(0.353)

0.621 -0.488 (0.363) 0.614

Religious Experience 0.060 (0.334) 1.062 0.047 (0.308) 1.048Religious Salience 0.344 (0.340) 1.411 0.611 (0.333) 1.843

Shia b 0.409 (0.390) 1.506 -0.497 (0.391) 0.608 Nagelkerke R2 0.096 - 0.136 - N 227 - 412 -

Note: Data comes from the ISAS Kuwait Survey 2007. “Feminist ID” is defined assomeone who agrees or strongly agrees that “Islam is a source of personalmotivation for me to fight for women’s rights.” *p < 0.05 level; **p < 0.01; ***p <0.001. a Liberals and Moderates were the contrast categories; b Sunni Muslims werethe contrast category.




Interestingly, none of the demographic or individual religiosityvariables had any effect on the likelihood of male respondents identifying

as Male Islamic Feminists, except for the mother’s education, which had a positive effect on Islamic Feminist identification. For women, it appearsthat marital status, wearing a face veil (niqab), and religious socializationof the parents impacted the likelihood of female Islamic Feminist Identity.Being married and having religious parents increased the chance that afemale would identify as an Islamic Feminist, while wearing a face veildecreased the likelihood that a female would identify as a feminist. Here,we make several preliminary conclusions that there are indeed genderdifferences in Feminist Identity, even controlling for the samedemographic, religiosity, and religious socialization variables. While maleinfluences on Feminist Identity are still to be explored, preliminary resultsshow that the mother’s advanced level of education appeared to positivelyaffect Male Islamic Feminist Identity. On the other hand, a select fewvariables from all three areas of influence (demographic influences,individual religious practice, and religious socialization) influenced thelikelihood of Female Islamic Feminist identity.

Findings: Where Male and Female

Islamic Feminists Differ

Third, a Principle Components Factor Analysis of Social and PoliticalAttitudes was done by gender to see where Male Islamic Feminists differfrom Female Feminists on various political and social topics of interest.

From the results in Table 3, we see that Male Islamic Feminists believethat a woman can wear hijab and still be considered a “good” Muslim, andthat it is important that she contributes equally to household income. Asecond factor shows a strong belief that American troops should leave Iraqimmediately (keeping in mind that this data was collected in 2007). Thelast Factor shows that Male Islamic Feminists are politically active. Thisexplains 57% of the variance in select Social and Political Attitudes forMale Islamic Feminists.

Also in Table 3, we see that Female Islamic Feminists believe that theUS was right to invade Iraq and that the US should not leave Iraqimmediately, suggesting a patriotic pro-Western political bias that differsfrom the men. The second factor shows that Female Islamic Feminists also

believe that women can go without their veil and still be good Muslims,and that Islam is compatible with women’s political leadership. This resultmay indicate that for both Male and Female Islamic Feminists, theheadscarf is indeed more of a cultural and political marker rather than a



Chapter Four86

Table 3. Principle Components Factor Analysis of Social and Political

Attitudes by Gender (Varimax Rotation)

Source: ISAS Kuwait Survey 2007. Extraction Method: Principal ComponentAnalysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization.




strict religious requirement. This distinguishes Islamic Feminists fromother more conservative Islamist men and women who would see the hijab

as a requirement for a woman to be considered “good” Muslims.The third factor shows that Female Islamic Feminists believe thatPersonal Status Laws are Unfair in Kuwait, distinguishing them from theirMale Islamic Feminist counterparts. Personal Status Laws in Kuwait are

based on Sharia (Islamic Law) that does discriminate by gender when itcomes to settlement in divorce, custody of children, rights to citizenship oftheir children, and other rights such as property ownership. It appears fromthese results that Female Islamic Feminists may take a more liberalattitude towards Sharia, and view the resolution of perceived injusticesfrom the discriminatory treatment of women under Personal Status Lawsas coming from within their Islamic faith. These characteristics explain51% of the variance in select Social and Political Attitudes for FemaleIslamic Feminists.

Preliminary Conclusions

Some of the preliminary conclusions we can draw from this exploratoryanalysis of Islam and gender in a majority Muslim context include the factthat previous conceptions of the incompatibility of Islam and progressivewomen’s rights are no longer applicable to Muslim youth in contemporarymajority Muslim contexts. Whether it is due to the pervasive availabilityof information in the digital age (Eickelman and Anderson, 2003), the re-configuration of global Islam, or a shift in individualizing notions ofreligious identity into Eastern contexts, the sample of Kuwaiti collegestudents used in the exploratory analysis of this study provides evidence ofa demographic of Muslim youth that is both religious and progressivetowards women’s rights.

Important factors originate in socialization, whether it is the advancededucation and individual piety of the mother, and an individual religiousecumenicalism that is open to re-conceptualizing certain political andsocial attitudes towards women’s rights that are not tied to a particular

brand of political Islam or religious school of thought. A second importantfinding in the study is that, while neither demographics, nor individualreligiosity, but only the high level of a mother’s education influenced themen in the sample to take on the “Islamic Feminist” identity, for females,

being married, wearing niqab (the face veil), and those who claim their parents are religious, were more likely to find themselves agreeing that

their faith was a source of inspiration for them to fight for women’s rights.



Chapter Four88

In one sense, this suggests an equally powerful influence ofsocialization on both genders, where men were particularly influenced by

having a more educated mother. As opposed to the females in the study,the men were unchanged by circumstances later in life (such as marriage)or individual religiosity measures (such as dress). Lastly, genderdifferences in social and political attitudes by both male and femaleIslamic Feminists bring to light the differences in social and politicalagendas that the two may seek when manifesting their belief in “fightingfor” women’s rights.

While men focused on rights for women in the private sphere, such asthe ability to choose whether or not to wear hijab and be considered a“good” Muslim, and whether or not they could contribute equally tohousehold income, the women in the group were more likely to focus on

political and social issues in the public realm, such as the role of foreign powers in the region (for example, the U.S. presence in neighbouringIraq), the compatibility of Islam and women’s political leadership, and thefairness of Personal Status Laws for women, which dictate rights in theevent of divorce, death, inheritance, citizenship of children, and otherrights. The factors that influence the likelihood of Muslim youthidentifying as Islamic Feminists, particularly analysing differences bygender, may be many that were not captured by this exploratory analysis,

and should be explored further in future research.

Summary

This study set out to explore the Male, Muslim, and Pro-Womendemographic, termed here as “Male Islamic Feminists.” The study assertsthat, not only is there such a present demographic found here in the casestudy of Kuwaiti college youth, but that they have particular demographic,religiosity, and socialization characteristics. This particular sample ofKuwaiti Male Muslim youths expressed their pro-women beliefs andattitudes both differently and similarly to female Islamic feminists.

For men, having a mother with at least some college educationincreased the likelihood that he would view his Islamic faith as a source ofmotivation to fight for women’s rights. Females were more likely thanmales to fight for women’s rights in the public sphere than solely the

private sphere, emphasizing matters such as women’s political leadershipand Personal Status Laws which discriminate by gender. The findings ofthis study contribute to the increasing literature and empirical study on

Islamic Feminism, and offer potential for future research from both




scholars of International Relations and Comparative Sociology, as well asscholars of Islam and Gender in majority Muslim contexts.

Works Cited

Al-Mughni, H. (2005) “Kuwait” in Women’s Rights in the Middle Eastand North Africa: Citizenship and Justice edited by Sameena Nazirand Leigh Tomppert. New York: Freedom House and Rowman andLittlefield Publishers; pp. 125-139.

Bader, C. D., F. Carson Mencken, and Paul Froese. (2007) American piety: Content and methods of the Baylor Religion Survey. Journal for

the Scientific Study of Religion 46(4):447–64.Baumeister, R. F. (2010) Is There Anything Good About Men? HowCultures Flourish by Exploiting Men. Oxford University Press.

Bodman, H. and Nayereh Tohidi, eds. (1998) Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity, Lynne Rienner Publishing.

Byes, J. H. and Nayereh Tohidi, eds. (2001) Globalization, Gender, and Religion: The Politics of Women’s rights in Catholic and MuslimContexts, Palgrave Macmillan.

Coleman, I. (2010) Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women areTransforming the Middle East . Random House.

Coltrane, S. (1997) Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework, and Gender Equity. Oxford University Press.

Eickelman, D. F. and Jon W. Anderson. (2003) New Media in the MuslimWorld. Indiana University Press.

Esposito, J. L. and Dalia Mogahed. (2007) Who Speaks for Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think . Gallup Press.

Glock, C.Y. and Rodney Stark. (1966) Religion and Society in Tension;Rand McNally and Company.

Kimmel, M. (2008) Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. HarperCollins.

González, A. L. (2011) “Measuring Religiosity in a Majority MuslimContext: Gender, Religious Salience, and Religious ExperienceAmong Kuwaiti College Students – A Research Note.” Journal for theScientific Study of Religion, 50(2):339-350.

González, A. L and Lubna Al-Kazi. (2011) “Complicating the ‘Clash ofCivilizations’: Gender and Politics in Contemporary Kuwait.” Chapterin the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, Vol. 2 edited byPatrick Michel and Enzo Pace; Boston: Brill.

Kruase, W., ed. (2009) Citizenship, Security & Democracy: Muslim Engagement with the West , London & Istanbul: AMSS UK & SETA.



Chapter Four90

“Kuwait.” (2011) CIA WorldFactbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ku.html.

Moghadam, V. (2006) “Women, Citizenship, and Civil Society in the ArabWorld.” Chapter in Yildiz Atasoy and Amr Hamzawy, Human Rightsin the Arab World: Independent Voice; University of PennsylvaniaPress, 2006.

Sundal, F. (2005) “Invisible Women Visible Islam: Engendering EverydayLives of Educated Islamist Women in Turkey,” Anadolu University ofSocial Sciences, vol 5, issue 1, 109-130.

Yildiz A. (2009) Islam‘s Marriage with Neoliberalism: State Transformationin Turkey, London & New York: Palgrave.



CHAPTER FIVE

AHMET DAVUTOĞLU:R OLE AS AN ISLAMIC SCHOLAR

SHAPING TURKEY’S FOREIGN POLICY

İŞTAR GÖZAYDIN

Abstract: There is little doubt that Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey‘s currentMinister of Foreign Affairs of pro-Islamic AKP (Adalet ve Kalk ınmaPartisi), is the major driving force of Turkey’s ‘proactive and multi-dimensional’ foreign policy, even though the foundations for his regionalforeign policy go back to the 1980s; however it was Ahmet Davutoğlu whoembedded this Ottoman reference into a reconsideration of the role of theWest and of Turkey from a decidedly intellectual-Islamist position. Prof.

Dr. Ahmet Davutoğlu is also an academic of political science andinternational relations that has published several books and articles, and isshaping the transformation of Turkish foreign policy in accordance withhis ‘strategic depth’ doctrine. Professor Davutoğlu was granted the title ofambassador by the joint decision of the then President, Ahmet NecdetSezer, and the Prime Minister at that time, Abdullah Gül, in 2003. As anambassador, Davutoğlu was one of the leading actors on behalf of theTurkish government during the shuttle diplomacy for the settlement of2008 Israel–Gaza conflict. In this chapter, I will scrutinize through hisworks how Davutoğlu as a scholar perceives the fields of Islam and

international relations. Thus, I hope to read, at least partially, the role ofreligion in Turkey’s current foreign policies as well, without getting intoDavutoğlu’s politics as a strategist and an implementer, but as anacademician and a theorist.

Key Words: Ahmet Davutoğlu; Turkey; Islam; religion in internationalrelations; strategic depth, soft power.



Chapter Five92

‘ Kuzum, sen bir büyük adam olasın, dünyalar aya ğ ına gele, herkes sanaak ıl danı şa.’ (My lamb, may you be a great man, may the whole world lie

at your feet, may everyone seek your wisdom)1

The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed the return ofreligion to the mainstream of political life in an array of settings aroundthe world. The last decade has been a period that religion got brought intointernational relations. The publication of several books on the topicwithin this period2 signifies the phenomenon. In almost all of the related

publications, it is mentioned that there exists a global resurgence/return ofreligion (Banchoff 2008: 9-13; Falk 2001: 2; Fox and Sandler 2004: 12-14; Haynes 2007: 19; Johnston 2003: 3; Petito and Hatzopoulos 2003: 1;

1 Daily prayer of paternal granny Hacık ızıebe for her only grandson Ahmet. Shetook care of him mostly after Davutoğlu’s mother died when he was four (cited inZengin 2010: 27 and 32).2 For some examples in a chronological listing see, Richard Falk (2001) Religionand Humane Global Governance, New York: Palgrave; Douglas Johnston (ed.)(2003) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik , Oxford-New York: OxfordUniversity Press; Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos (ed.) (2003) Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, New York: Palgrave Macmillan;Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler (2004) Bringing Religion into International Affairs, New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Scott M. Thomas (2005) The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations, NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan; Eric O. Hanson (2006) Religion and Politics in the International System Today, New York: Cambridge University Press; JeffreyHaynes (2007) An Introduction to International Relations and Religion, Essex:Pearson Longman; Thomas Banchoff (ed.) (2008) Religious Pluralism,Globalization, and World Politics, Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 3-121; Scott M. Thomas (2010) ‘A Globalized God: Religion’s Growing Influence inInternational Politics’, Foreign Affairs, 89 (6) pp.93-101; Jeffrey Haynes (2011)

Religion, Politics and International Law: Selected Essays, Oxon-New York:Routledge; Jack Snyder (ed.) (2011) Religion and International Relations Theory, New York-Chichester-West Sussex: Columbia University Press. Some recent books on religion and politics have also sections on religion and internationalrelations; see, Jeffrey Haynes (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics,Routledge, London and New York 2009, pp.271-339 (includes four articles:Jonathan Fox, “Integrating religion into international relations theory”; JeffreyHaynes, “Religion and foreign policy”; Giorgio Shani, “Transnational religiousactors and international relations”; David Wessels, “Religion and globalization”).For an article that investigates the relationship between preferences affected by

Islamic worldview of Turkey’s new leadership and foreign policy through models,see Güner 2011.



Ahmet Davutoğlu: Role as an Islamic Scholar 93

Shani 2009: 311; Thomas 2005: 26-42)3. Upon discussions of Westphalianlegacy (Banchoff 2008: 52-54; Falk 2001: 6-8; Fox and Sandler 2004: 22,

54; Hanson 2006: 17; Haynes 2007: 31-34; Petito and Hatzopoulos 2003:2; Shani 2009: 308-309; Thomas 2005: 25-26; Wessels 2009: 324, 328),changing paradigms of international relations and the rise of faith-baseddiplomacy more or less get to be the common denominator of allmentioned material (Banchoff 2008; Falk 2001; Fox and Sandler 2004;Fox 2009; Hanson 2006; Haynes 2007; Haynes 2009; Petito andHatzopoulos 2003; Shani, 2009; Thomas 2005; Wessels 2009). Religion isunderstood in this context, “as encompassing both the teachings and

beliefs of organized religion and all spiritual outlooks that interpret themeaning of life by reference to faith in and commitment to that whichcannot be explained by empirical science or sensory observation and isusually associated with an acceptance of the reality of the divine, thesacred, the transcendent, the mysterious, the ultimate” (Falk 2001: 30).

Soft power is another concept used in regard to the role of religion ininternational relations; referring to “the capability of an entity, usually butnot necessarily a state, to influence what others do through attraction and

persuasion” (Haynes 2009: 296). In Snow’s (2009: 3) words, “… soft power is not the same as little old ladies sipping tea; it is often used inconjunction with more forceful and threatening forms of compliance and

persuasion.” It is quite recent that religious soft power is considered withregard to foreign policy4 (Haynes 2007: 44-55; Haynes 2009: 296-304;Thomas 2005: 12, 69, 109-110, 214-216). Joseph Nye, who coined theterm two decades ago (Nye 1990), perceives religion in internationalrelations as a persuasive power reserved for same-faith parties. Accordingto Nye, “religion is a double-edged sword as an American soft-power

3 Thomas defines the global resurgence of religion, as the concept is used in thiscontext, as follows: “the global resurgence of religion is the growing saliency and

persuasiveness of religion, i.e. the increasing importance of religious beliefs, practices, and discourses in personal and public life, and the growing role ofreligious or religiously-related individuals, non-state groups, political parties, andcommunities, and organizations in domestic politics, and this is occurring in waysthat have significant implications for international politics” (Thomas 2005: 26).4 John O. Voll uses the term in a “negative” context reminding the readers of areligious impetus in U.S. foreign policy that was reinforced by Bush administrationhad resulted in an increase in the soft power of Osama Bin Laden and otherradicals (Voll 2008: 262-268). It is also interesting to see that in a book on soft power in international relations, religion only finds a place in the context of

‘building bridges to moderate Islam’ in an article titled ‘Dialogue-based PublicDiplomacy: a new Foreign Policy Paradigm?’ (Riordan 2005).



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resource, and how it cuts depends on who is wielding it” (2004: 59); andfocusing on Wahhabism, which he calls a “sorcerer’s apprentice that has

come back to bedevil its original creator”; the Saudi Government (Nye2004: 96). My perception of the concept of soft power is similar insubstance but not identical to the combination of the second dimension(agenda setting) and the third dimension (or the radical dimension) of

power, as expounded by Steven Lukes in Power: a Radical View (Lukes2005, 20-29).5

Turkey is not at all an exception to these developments in theinternational relations. There is little doubt that Ahmet Davutoğlu,Turkey’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs of pro-Islamic AKP (Adaletve Kalk ınma Partisi), is the major driving force of Turkey’s ‘proactive andmulti-dimensional’ foreign policy (Keyman, 2009), even though thefoundations for his regional foreign policy go back to the 1980s. However,it was Ahmet Davutoğlu who embedded this Ottoman reference into areconsideration of the role of the West and of Turkey from a decidedlyIslamic or intellectual-Islamist position (Öktem 2010: 25). Born in themountainous southern part of Konya (Taşkent) in 1959, he attendedmiddle and high school in Istanbul – Istanbul Erkek Lisesi, a prestigiousand old establishment from the end of the nineteenth century, with a strongeducation predominantly in German.

He graduated from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul with a double majorin economics and political science. Davutoğlu completed his MA degreein public administration and Ph.D. in political science and internationalrelations both in Boğaziçi University. Davutoğlu’s residency as Professorof Political Science at the International Islamic University in Malaysia(IIUM) between 1990 and 1995 was a particularly important period in hiscareer, alerting him to the fact that “[t]he majority of people in the worlddo not live in the West, and we have to be aware that their concerns andtraditions are every bit as important as those of the West”.6 He worked in

Marmara University, Istanbul between 1996 and 1999. He was promotedto associate professorship in 1993 and to full professorship in 1999.Davutoğlu was the chair of the International Relations Department atBeykent University, Istanbul from 1999 to 2004. Professor Davutoğlu wasgranted the title of ambassador by the joint decision of the then President,Ahmet Necdet Sezer, and Prime Minister at that time, Abdullah Gül, in

5 For critical views on the concept of soft power see articles of Steven Lukes’ andJanice Bially Mattern’s in Berenskoetter and Williams.

6 Keynote lecture at the Oxford Conference ‘Turkey’s Foreign Policy in aChanging World’, 30 May, 2010 (cited in Öktem 2010: 25).




2003. As an ambassador, Davutoğlu was one of the leading actors on behalf of the Turkish government during the shuttle diplomacy for the

settlement of 2008 the Israel–Gaza conflict. He also worked as the seniorconsultant to the Prime Minister from 2002 to 2009. He has been theMinister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey since May 1, 2009.

Prof. Dr. Ahmet Davutoğlu is also an academic of political sciencewho has published several books and articles. His publications includeAlternative Paradigms: the Impact of Islamic and WesternWeltanschauungs on Political Theory, The Civilizational Transformationand the Muslim World in English, Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth7),and Küresel Bunal ım (The Global Crisis) in Turkish. All throughDavutoğlu’s work (and consequently through his diplomatic career) wemay trace his perception of Muslim culture as not being a subsidiary toWestern culture, but an alternative. In his first book Alternative

Paradigms: the Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory, which is produced from his Ph.D. dissertation,Davutoğlu asserts that the differences between Western and Muslim

paradigms cause an obstacle for the study of contemporary Islam as asubject of social sciences, especially of international politics. He (1994a:5) argues that:

The interrelationship of ontology, epistemology, axiology and politicsmight be a meaningful anchor point to understand the irreconcilability ofthe philosophical bases of Islamic and Western political theories, imagesand cultures. (…) The principle difference between Islamic and Westernweltenshauungs is related to the contrast between the “ontologicallydetermined epistemology” of Islam and the “epistemologically determinedontology” of the Western philosophical traditions. This difference isespecially significant in understanding the axiological basis of politicallegitimacy and the process of justification.

7 Subtitle of the book may be translated as ‘Turkey’s International Position’ (as inBalcı and Miş 2008: 403; Crooke 2010: 19; Hale and Özbudun 2010: 182; Gordonand Taspınar 2008: 105; Kösebalaban 2001: 693; Meral and Paris 2010: 86;Müftüler-Baç 2011: 289; Walker 2007: 35) For some other translations see, Fuller(2008: 169): ‘Turkey’s Place in the World’; Köni (2011: 71): ‘Strategic Analysis’;Larrabee (2010: 178): ‘Strategic Depth and the International Position of Turkey’;Murinson (2006: 962): ‘The Turkish International Location’; Öniş and Yılmaz

(2009: 23): Turkey’s International Standing; Robins (2006: 199): ‘Turkey’sInternational Location’; Sözen (2010: 121): ‘The International Position of Turkey’.



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In other words, Islamic and Western paradigms are incompatible because they are based on opposite relationships between God and

humans. From his point of view, Islamic culture and religion is based onan ontological hierarchy, whereas Western culture is based on ontological proximity. This means that “the conflicts and contrasts between Islamicand Western political thought originate mainly from their philosophical,methodological, and theoretical background rather than from mereinstitutional and historical differences” (Davutoğlu 1994a: 2). Thus, themain thrust of Alternative Paradigms: The Impact of Islamic and WesternWeltanschauungs on Political Theory is to show that what Davutoğlu calls“the West” and “the East” are two radically and fundamentally different

paradigms. The difference between the two paradigms is so irreconcilablethat even translation between the terms of one to the other is impossible;hence one cannot translate dawlah as ‘state’ (Davutoğlu 1994a: 96-109),

shura as ‘parliament’ (Davutoğlu 1994a: 111-134), and not even din as‘religion’. The two paradigms can only be alternatives to each other; soattempts at fusion, modernization or reform along Western lines are doomedto failure. Hence, despite its philosophical sophistication, Davutoğlu’sthesis boils down to be a reverse mirror-image of Rudyard Kipling’sorientalist adage: “ East is East, and West is West, and never the twain

shall meet”.8

As Yusof (2007: 7) points out, “Davutoğlu appropriates Husserlian phenomenology in explaining the evolution and transformation of the ideaor consciousness of God in Western philosophico-theological history”.

Alternative Paradigms: The Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungson Political Theory is based on some bold generalisations; for example,for Davutoğlu ‘the West‘ is based not on Christianity but a ‘proximity toGod’ which blurs the fundamental, ontological difference betweengodhead and humanity, which antedates (and postdates) Christianity.While such generalisations may prove insightful and illuminating at times,

Davutoğlu remains oblivious to variations and some of the major shifts inthe history of Christianity. For example, the whole moral dimension of theAugustinian critique of the “pagan proximity to God” is disregarded.

Something that maybe more relevant for Davutoğlu’s purposes is themajor split within Christianity prior to the reformation. Part of the EasternOrthodox Church’s critique of the Western (catholic) Church’s version ofChrist-centred Christianity was that the latter, with its realistic depictionsof Christ and the Saints, with its understanding of ‘imitatio Dei’ etc.,

8 It is interesting that Davutoğlu himself critically mentions Kipling in Küresel Bunal ım in regards to his White Man’s Burden (2002: 98).




compromised God’s transcendence, and hence made him more ‘proximal’to humanity. This critique can obviously be related to various issues like

iconoclasm, on which the Eastern Church carried marked affinities with,and perhaps influences from Islam.Furthermore, Davutoğlu, while particularly sensitive to the representation

of Godhead on earth (the issue of clergy), does not take the almost totaldisappearance of the figure of Christ (the man-God) from theEnlightenment debate on religion. It is difficult to see how the ‘God ofPhilosophers’ (the Deus sive Natura of Spinoza) preserved his ‘proximityto humanity’ compared to a ‘sovereign’ God who is still conceived of in

personal terms, as in Islam. On the other hand, somewhat surprisingly in astudent of Şerif Mardin, Islam too is seen in extremely monolithic terms;for Davutoğlu Islam is the ‘high sunni tradition’. In Alternative Paradigms:The Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory there exists just a very dismissive and passing reference to “… someextremist factions of Khawarij and Shi’a” (Davutoğlu 1994a: 57), but nosaints of the Atlas, no evliyas, sheikhs, dedes and what is most telling, nodiscussion of that most extreme statement of proximity between man andGod: ‘ En el Haq’.

At a basic, phenomenological (or maybe anthropological) level, thecontrast between a religious attitude based on obedience to a God

conceived as the ‘wholly other’ and one that is based on the veneration ofa Man-God does seem to be useful, but one should probably view thiscontrast more as a continuum rather than a dichotomy as Davutoğlu does.However, even conceived of in dichotomous terms, the poles do not mapas neatly on to existing historical religions or civilizations; not even whenthey are conceived of in as ‘ideal-typical’ ways as Davutoğlu conceives ofIslam and the West. It is probably true that Islam nowhere developedtrinitarian tendencies; however reference to categories of human beings ofvarying degrees of godliness (some of which are influenced perhaps by

Christian examples) abound in the Islamic tradition(s). On the other side ofthe coin, at least some of the (post)Enlightenment unitarian (Deist andTheist) tendencies in the West have been manifestly influenced by Islam.

In Alternative Paradigms: the Impact of Islamic and WesternWeltanschauungs on Political Theory what Davutoğlu seems fail toappreciate is that tawhid itself is an essentially contested concept. Inindulging in such denial, he forecloses any possibility of a process oflearning from each other, which we know to have occurred historically, letalone a synthesis. Despite the impressiveness of the intellectual apparatus

he deploys, Davutoğlu seems to be remarkably ‘innocent’ of any Hegelian



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influences. That comes at a price: he ends up writing, not as a scholar, butas the ‘organic intellectual’ of a political bloc.

In The Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World,Davutoğlu initially makes an analysis of the state of things after the‘pulling down of the Berlin Wall’ (1994b: iii), what he qualifies as acivilizational transformation and crisis. Fukuyama’s thesis (1990) thatlater evolves into his book The End of History and the Last Man in 1992,and which is a reformulation of Alexandre Kojève’s reading of GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, seems to be a trigger for asserting his claimsagainst the ‘theories of endism’ and suggests “Islamic paradigm provides acomprehensive counter-proposal to this civilizational crisis” (1994b: 114).Fukuyama’s second-hand and distorted reading of Hegel apparentlyinfuriates Davutoğlu9 with what I believe to be very good cause; howeverit is remarkable that Davutoğlu refers on several occasions to Hegel in TheCivilizational Transformation and the Muslim World, especially assumingthat actually the writing of this book precedes Alternative Paradigms: the

Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory inwhich the philosopher never gets mentioned.10 It seems that Davutoğlu

prefers to read Hegel along the unfortunate line of Karl Popper and leaveshim aside from his further intellectual realm.11

One may observe the repercussions of his line of perception of Islam

and international relations reflected in Davutoğlu’s first two parts of histhird book in chronological publishing, Stratejik Derinlik (StrategicDepth). In this book, Davutoğlu sets up his ‘strategic depth’ doctrine that

9 Later in his works Fukuyama get mentioned in similar contexts repeatedly:Fukuyama’s assertion of Islam world as a new threatening pole to Western values(Davutoğlu 2001: 136, 253, 294); Fukuyama’s ‘evangelist’ approach (Davutoğlu2002: 8-9, 35-36, 253, 294); Davutoğlu’s criticisms to ‘end of history thesis (2002:6, 11, 16, 18, 42, 62, 70, 80-82, 97-99104, 127, 165-166, 178, 209, 221-222, 249-

250). Davutoğlu points out an ‘imaginative continuity’ from a book published in1926 under the title to Huntington’s thesis (Davutoğlu 1997: 1). For an evaluationof Davutoğlu’s approach to ‘crash of civilizations’ metaphor, see Balcı 2009: 96.10 Davutoğlu mentions in Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World thatit had already been ready for publication in November 1992, however was delayeddue to the urgency of some other projects (1994b: iv).11 Davutoğlu’s negative perception of Hegel later appears in his book Statejik Derinlik when he qualifies the philosopher’s reading of history, and Hitler’sconcept of the 3rd Reich as a “parallel in strategic mentality”. (2001: 29). In Küresel Bunal ım, one observes a neutral or even rather a more positive approach to

Hegel: “limitless freedom” (Davutoğlu 2002: 2); “distorted and victimised ideas inthe name of political pragmatism” (Davutoğlu 2002: 31).




shapes the transformation of Turkish foreign policy for almost a decade. Inthe introduction of Stratejik Derinlik, he lists what he calls the dimensions

in social sciences including international relations: description,explanation, understanding, giving a meaning, and influencing. Accordingto Davutoğlu (2001: 3), while stepping from description to influencing,

paradigms of mentality enter the scene more and more; hence his perceptions of alternative paradigms reappear in his ‘doctrine’ andconsequently in his policies. He formulates a country’s relative weight and

power in international affairs as follows: Power = (constant data + potential data) x (strategic mentality x strategic planning x political will)(Davutoğlu 2001: 17). In this formulation, constant data involvegeography, history, population and culture; whereas, potential data includeeconomic capacity, technologic capacity, and military capacity. Hence the

book develops into an analysis of Turkey‘s weight and power ininternational affairs with its “frontiers” (Davutoğlu 2001: 19) that expand“beyond the homeland in the cognitive map of policymaker’s minds”(Aras 2009: 4). Davutoğlu (2008: 78) argues that:

In terms of geography, Turkey occupies a unique space. As a large countryin the midst of Afro-Eurasia’s vast landmass, it may be defined as a centralcountry with multiple regional identities that cannot be reduced to one

unified character. Like Russia, Germany, Iran, and Egypt, Turkey cannot be explained geographically or culturally by associating it with one singleregion. Turkey’s diverse regional composition lends it the capability ofmaneuvering in several regions simultaneously; in this sense, it controls anarea of influence in its immediate environs.

According to Murinson (2006: 947), the origins of the ‘strategic depth’doctrine can be traced to Özal’s neo-Ottomanism,12 “the multi-dimensional”

12 Alessandri (2010: 14) claims that “Davutoğlu has a particular inclination for

imaging Turkey’s future by relating it to the past, but he nonetheless knows thatTurkey’s success in the years to come critically depends on its ability to come toterms with the new realities of today rather than foolishly hoping to reviveTurkey’s glorious past. In this respect, the fascination with “neo-Ottomanism”should hardly be embraced by anyone seriously caring about the future of Turkeyas the illfated history of the Ottoman Empire is well known”. Gordon and Taspinar(2008: 51) note that Davutoğlu’s “neo-Ottoman” vision is very different from that promulgated in the late 1990s by Erbakan where he sought to create an Islamicalliance with Muslim countries as an explicit alternative to the West, AKP “want toreach out to the east to complement their ties to the West, not to replace them”.

According to Çandar (2009: 5), “… Davutoğlu, (…) has taken great pains to definethe guiding principle as “zero-problems with neighbors” rather than “neo-



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foreign policy of the Erbakan government, and Davutoğlu’s innovativeapproach to geopolitics is reflected in his previous works, like his article

‘The Clash of Interests: An Explanation of the World (Dis)Order’ that was published in a journal of Turkey‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Davutoğlu1998). According to Ulgen (2010: 5), the strategic depth doctrine is basedon a comprehensive historical-cultural reading of Turkey’s position ininternational politics that highlights the country’s Ottoman legacy andIslamic tradition. In Davutoğlu’s reading, Turkey is a “central country,”13

blessed with multiple identities and a location at the heart of Eurasia whereAsia, Europe and the Middle East meet; it is not a “bridge”14 as someclaim (Davutoğlu 2002: 191-193). Basic conviction that Turkey is not a

bridge but a central country (merkez ülke) is a crucial element inDavutoğlu’s perception. Upon these premises, in an article titled ‘Turkeyshould become a central country’ that appears in Radikal , a daily Turkishnewspaper, he asserts what Turkish foreign policy should be based on fiveinterdependent principles (2004):

1. Democratization without risking security and stability (broadeningthe sphere of freedoms and strengthening domestic politicallegitimacy);

2. Good relations (zero problem) with neighbours;

3. Proactive, multinational, and complementary policies;4. A new diplomatic style (self-confidence);5. Transition from static diplomacy to a rhythmic one (to increase the

influence of Turkey in international organizations to become aglobal power).

Davutoğlu suggests that in order to achieve these goals, not only thediplomats and politicians but also the intelligentsia of Turkey need atransformation in mentality; thus he depicts such characteristics as, “in

Ottomanism”, (b)ecause “neo-Ottomanism” is a throw-back to Turkish sentimentsof grandeur and can equally be perceived as expansionism by the regionalcounterparts of that foreign policy”. A defence against “Neo-Ottomanism” can befound in K ınıklıoğlu, 2009. Also for an interview with İ brahim Kalın, chiefforeign-policy adviser to Prime Minister Erdoğan, on neo-Ottomanism see, Kalın2009. For some previous depictions of neo-Ottomanism in Turkish foreign policy,see Duran 2006: 303.13 For a genealogy of the “central state” metaphor for Turkey see, Bilgin 2007:

747.14 For an evaluation of the “bridge” metaphor for Turkey see, 2010: 85-86.




Eastern platforms one who is not uneasy with her/his eastern identity, butis able to face up to this identity and can produce thesis and solutions in

that identity; in Western platforms one that has assimilated Westernnotions and is capable of debating on Europe’s future with a Europeanview” (Davutoğlu 2004). According to Davutoğlu, Turkey’s multipleidentities yield a multidimensional foreign policy that seeks to avoid

privileging one relationship over another. To the extent that Turkeycommands more influence in its own near-abroad, it will have a stronger

position with respect to other power centres as well as global powers.The objective of Davutoğlu’s doctrine is, therefore, to establish Turkey

as an important player in international diplomacy. Beyond the academicdiscussions surrounding Turkey’s potential and place in the world, Stratejik

Derinlik advocates seeking to counterbalance Turkey’s dependencies onthe West by courting multiple alliances to maintain the balance of powerin its region. The premise of this argument is that Turkey should not bedependent upon any one actor and should actively seek ways to balance itsrelationships and alliances so that it can maintain optimal independenceand leverage on the global and regional stage. 15

In Fuller’s (2008: 44) reading of Davutoğlu, “… only when Turkeyovercomes its own internal historical and psychological hang-ups aboutIslam and begins to understand the Middle East in its own psychological

terms can Turkey develop effective relationships (…) in other regions”.Another aspect of such an understanding is as Barkey (2010: 252) notes,“… a Turkey that does not solidify its position in Asia cannot aspire to

being anything more than a minor player in Europe”. The bottom line is“to overcome the contradictions in its identity and reformulate it under the

pressure of globalization, turkey needs to participate in the globalization process as an active agent, drawing on its geographical, historical, andcultural depth, and fertilizing Western modernity with the Ottoman-Islamic civilizational heritage” (Kardaş 2006: 318-319).

15 For a detailed analysis of the foreign policy application of Davutoğlu’s doctrine,see Duran 2008: 88-89. For ‘Turkey’s methodological approach to world affairs’,see Davutoğlu 2010: 3. Fuller (2008: 169) evaluates Stratejik Derinlik as, “… perhaps the most systematic, substantial, and comprehensive vision of Turkey’sstrategic position yet written. It is based on sophisticates and complex – ifcontroversial- reading of history, political cultures, geography, geopolitics, global balances, and national interests. Davutoğlu’s critics accuse him of shaky historicalreadings on many issues, but the importance of the book lies in its broad thrust and

comprehensive vision and not as a history of the world”. For another veryflattering evaluation of Davutoğlu, see Falk 2011.



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Küresel Bunal ım is an outcome of several TV interviews held afterSeptember 11 where Davutoğlu evaluates the state of things and which he

qualifies as a ‘global crisis’. In this context, Ronald David Laing (1927-1989), a Scottish psychiatrist associated with the antipsychiatrymovement, is a source that Davutoğlu refers to quite frequently in regardsto his ideas expressed in his 1966 book The Divided Self . In an interviewdated 26 September 2001, Davutoğlu uses the concept ‘divided self’ in thecontext of problems that have emerged in western ontology and argues indetail that Islam may respond in a positive sense to international order andto globalization (Davutoğlu 2002: 98).

In this framework, Davutoğlu qualifies another division in self: “whenone (Davutoğlu uses the term ‘mentality’ instead of ‘one’) that has noknowledge of Ottoman classics but of Hegel looks back to her/his culture,certainly experiences fragmentation between her/his self and her/hiscultural identity” (Davutoğlu 2002: 106). He projects this perception inStratejik Derinlik by employing concepts like inner self/embodiedself/false-self to Turkey (Davutoğlu 2001: 59). Davutoğlu’s endeavour tounderstand the self turns out to be as essentialist as his understanding ofthe phenomenological world. Laing’s views of a “wholesome” self lookhopelessly naive when looked at from a more contemporary perspective.The enormous body of work associated with Laing’s contemporary

colleagues, like Melanie Klein, Donald Woods Winnicott and HeinzKohut (among others), view self as being a product of necessary division within the totality of the psychological material. Conflicts and division arenot contingent “errors” that may be superseded, but rather are constitutiveof the self.

Davutoğlu uses the Turkish expression ‘ yumu şak güç’ (soft power)16 inan interview; however, then he refers to it as ‘soft security’ by using theconcept in English, and alternatively using the Turkish ‘ güvenlik ’ forsecurity. He expresses that (translation is by the author ):

I explained about the concept of Soft Security (used in English in theoriginal text ) in a speech of mine at (a) NATO summit. Sincerely,Turkey‘s major contribution to NATO is this. That is Soft Power. (…)There is security provided by military means, and there is also security provided by lowering the tension and through diplomacy. One of the mostimportant countries of NATO to have a Muslim majority population is byitself Soft security (Akyol 2011: 99).

16 Kirişçi and Kaptanoğlu (2011: 711) also claim that Davutoğlu’s “stated goal for

Turkish foreign policy is to transform Turkey into a strong regional, and evenglobal, actor through the exercise of soft power”.




As Fotiou and Triantaphyllou (2010: 99) point out, “indications of (…)a soft power 17 aspiration are seen in (Turkey‘s) mediation efforts between

Syria and Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the United States (US) andIran. These aspirations are also visible in its Caucasus Stability andCooperation Platform initiative proposed during the Russian–Georgiancrisis of 2008, signs of rapprochement with Armenia, its warming relationswith Russia, the steps taken towards resolution of the Kurdish issue, itsrole in Sudan, its accusations against China of committing ‘genocide’against the Uighurs, its co-chairmanship of the Alliance of Civilisations, aswell as its contacts with Khaled Meshal and Hamas, and the Iraqi Shiitecleric Moqtada al-Sadr.” These attempts all coincide with AhmetDavutoğlu‘s contributions to Turkish foreign policy. In all these instances,Davutoğlu the man of action, the politician, the diplomat appear to be farmore sensitive to the varieties of Islamic experience and interpretationthan Davutoğlu the theoretician, the academician who insists on thecohesive unity of Islam as an alternative paradigm.

Concluding, in order to express my concerns over perceiving Islam asa monolithic body, I would like to focus on two separate implementationsof the Justice and Development Party-ruled administrations over the lastdecade in Turkey. Those two implementations are both admittedly relatedmore to internal affairs but which have obvious international repercussions.

The first is the abolishing of various restrictions on the religious (Christianand Jewish) minorities in Turkey, especially those pertaining to purchaseand sale of foundational properties which can be justified in terms of atraditional Islamic paradigm. One could go further and agree withDavutoğlu that a religious rather than a nationalistic framework is far moreconducive to an understanding of the plights of religious minorities, thatonly making peace with one’s own religious background and sensibilities,enable a peaceful co-existence with other religious backgrounds andsensibilities.

However, the celebrations initiated by the present administrationaround the birth of the Prophet Mohammed (kutlu do ğ um haftası: the“blessed birth week”) raise issues of a different order. Despite criticismsfrom more traditionalist circles, the date for the week was determined notaccording to the traditional lunar calendar, according to which all thetraditional religious holidays are determined, but according to theinternational solar calendar. Moreover, the date chosen for the festivities,roughly the second week of April, is far from being “innocent” as it so

17 For Turkey’s obstacles to be a soft power, see Altunışık 2008: 49-50.



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obviously vies for public attention with the Christian Easter and the JewishPassover.

But it is not just about the date. The iconography of the festivitiesclearly derives to a large extent from that of Christmas—though not perhaps Christmas as Christian rite but rather Christmas as a modernistand consumerist cultural ritual. But either way, one would be hard pressedto find a traditional Islamic legitimation or precedent for the occasion; itwould seem to be precisely the syncretistic fusion that makes Davutoğluso uncomfortable.

On his behalf, one could say that such syncretism does not lie at thelevel of doctrine but rather at the level of popular consumption. Such a lineof argument is clearly foreclosed if we really want to interpret Islam, notas a theological orthodoxy, but instead a genuinely universalisticWeltanschaaung, an “alternative paradigm” in Davutoğlu’s terms. Only bycreatively engaging foreign, alien elements rather than by aspiring towardsan artificial coherence can a paradigm become truly universalistic.

I hope it is clear that I am not criticizing the syncretism underlying practices, like the “blessed birth week” – to the contrary. Turkey owes thekind of soft power it exercises not only to its size, geography, or

population, but even more so to the heterogeneous nature of the religiousexperiences it harbours and the creativity with which people and

administrations respond to this heterogeneity. A festivity like the ‘blessed birth week’ would have been unimaginable in, say, Wahhabi Saudi Arabiaor Shiite Iran, however it is precisely the syncretistic nature of TurkishIslam that makes Turkey into such a pliable tool of soft power ininternational politics.

This is a different division, a non-malignant dividedness thatDavutoğlu does not seem to have envisioned but nevertheless exhibits inhis own being. The administration of which he is a part, clearly has suchuniversalistic aspirations and so far has been pursuing them with

remarkable success; but the bookish scholar, more concerned withconsistency and coherence would seem to condemn the dividedness suchsyncretism implies.

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CHAPTER SIX

ISLAMIC IDENTITY POLITICS AND EUROPEAN POLITY

ARI VARON

Abstract: To understand how Islam is shaping the religious discourse inEurope the article highlights the inter-Islamic debate led by Muslimintellectuals as they each relate to a network-oriented framework ofEuropean polity. Muslim intellectuals throughout Europe are suggestingvarious levels of integrating Islamic and European principles into aMuslim’s daily life. As some Muslims living in Europe a priori maintain anon-secular perspective to their identity, religious considerations can attimes challenge the concept of separating religion and state affairs. A closeexamination of Muslims living in Europe shows a dynamic, diverse and

cross-cultural inter-Islamic debate discussing, and at times confronting,conventional definitions of European polity. The paper develops aframework composed of four interrelated levels of analysis comparing andcontrasting the various interpretations of Islamic identity in Europe.Shedding light on the identity integration processes already occurring potentially increases the efficiency of social integration and effective political mobilization for Muslims living in Europe.

Key Words: Islam, Europe, Polity, Integration, Mobilization.

Muslims living in Europe, integrated with Islamic and Europeanaspects of their identity, are confronted with two competing andoftentimes conflicting systems defining comprehensive ways of living life.The following examines the ways in which Muslim intellectuals in Europeaddress the dual tensions and at times promote ideas that confrontfounding principles of the European polity.1 Addressing the challenges of

1 European polity is referred to as the conceptualization of shared multi-levelgovernance binding the normative values of Europe. European polity represents

the social contract defining the relation between civil society and institutionalstructures of Europe, including but not limited to the European Union, defining the



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the dual identity integration occurring throughout Europe, the chapterdevelops a framework of analysis juxtaposing European Islamic identity

and European polity.Analysing the viewpoints promoted by Muslim intellectualsthroughout Europe is gaining increasing importance as European societychanges. Magnifying the social influence of Muslims living in Europe onthe political system are substantial demographic changes. Two trendsspecifically emphasize the influence of Islam on a seemingly mono-ethno-centric European society. First that Islam today is the fastest growingreligion in Europe (Masci, 2005). Secondly, immigration trends suggestthat the largest group acquiring citizenship in EU countries were fromMuslim countries (Vasileva and Sartori, 2008). As the social and politicalinfluence of Muslims in Europe increases, so does the importance ofanalysing the potential effects on political mobilization and socialintegration.

Events on the ground throughout Europe suggest that Muslims aregradually overcoming the ethnic differences from their countries of origin

by recognizing two commonalities: first, that despite theologicalvariations, they are all Muslims; second, despite national differences theyare all European.2 By joining these two qualities, Muslims in Europecreate a mutually reinforcing mechanism formalizing the means to

integrate elements from both the Islamic and European identity. Howeverthe equilibrium integrating the two sources of identity are not equallyrecognized or integrated. Analysing the suggested balance of beingMuslim and European, as proposed by various Muslim intellectuals,uncovers a vivid Islamic discursive debate promoting significantlydifferent interpretations of Islamic identity within European polity.

values, practices, collective identity, legal system and institutionalized concept of

governing within a secular based, nation centric political system. Plato andAristotle's definition the term is: “polity accordingly means the subdivision of thenormal type of constitution which is characterized by the rule of the many: it is therule of the many for the common good: it is democracy turned unselfish, andtranslated, in consequence, to a higher sphere.” (Barker 1959, 311)2 For a select example see: Switzerland, the United Kingdom or France: theunification of ethnically diverse Muslim population to refute the minaret ban in theSwiss referendum (November 2009); the creation of national Islamic organizationsto promote policy to the government such as MCB as well as EU-wide think tanks – such as ECFR – promoting Islamic ideals to all Muslims living in Europe

founded in the United Kingdom (1997); and a national law in France banning the burqa and niqab (April 2011).



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As Europeans, Muslims and non-Muslims alike explore the potentialchanges already occurring within European society. Two questions

become increasingly pertinent for inquiry: How do some Muslimintellectuals in Europe adapt to or confront the principles, values, andnorms of European polity? In what ways are Muslims in Europe blendingIslamic principles into their definition of political mobilization and socialintegration?

The chapter presents a framework of analysis examining multiple prominent Muslim intellectuals in Europe as they view aspects ofEuropean polity. Each intellectual promotes distinct perspectives on howMuslims should adapt, or not, to European principles, values and norms.Some of the intellectuals accommodate, while others present complexchallenges to the common understanding of European polity. Theframework presented below provides an initial approach to elaborateinterpretations and potentially increase the efficiency of social integrationand effective political mobilization for Muslims living in Europe.

A New Framework Analysing European Polity

It is methodologically difficult, if not practically impossible, to definea single agreed upon definition for “European identity” for all Europeansor “Islamic European identity” for all Muslims living in Europe. Europeanidentity in itself is subject to diverse opinions and is constantly changing.However, the formalization of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009suggests a process of institutionalization of “a concept of Europe” unifying

joint ideas, principles and norms under a single institutional structureintimately associated with its member states in a form of supranationalidentity (Europa.eu, 2009). Focusing on European polity, as opposed toidentity, creates an objective framework of analysis shared throughoutEurope as well as reflected upon throughout the various Islamic discourses.

Defining the identity of Muslims living in Europe is no less complex.Within Europe there exist multiple distinct religious interpretations

promoting divergent perspectives defining how a Muslim should live hisor her life in a European context. Issues separating religion-state relationsarise as some members of the social group defined by Islam have, a priori,a non-secular world-outlook on their identity. Moreover, as a non-Christian faith, the Islamic outlook on European polity de facto containsdifferent religious inspiration, principles and ideology than the Christian

based moral principles inherent in contemporary European polity (Kung,

2007). Therefore, analysing prominent Muslim intellectuals throughoutEurope emphasizes broader yet distinct trends and perspectives on social



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and politically sensitive issues from the standpoint of Muslims living inEurope.

At stake is the understanding of how Muslims in Europe view therelationship between Islam within its European context. The relationshipvaries as some Muslims in Europe challenge the secular concept ofEuropean polity by incorporating religious observance in public life. APEW poll from 2006 provides justification for examining Islamicreligiosity in Europe. The poll suggests that Europe’s Muslim minorities“are less inclined to see a clash of civilizations than are some of thegeneral publics surveyed in Europe. Notably, they are less likely than non-Muslims in Europe to believe that there is a conflict between modernityand being a devout Muslim” (PEW June, 2006). Analysing the Muslimintellectuals juxtaposed on a multi-level network-oriented framework ofEuropean polity, highlights the areas of accommodation and confrontationseparating religion from public affairs from the perspective of Muslimsliving in Europe.

The framework of analysis compares and contrasts Muslim intellectualsin Europe according to four network-oriented levels of analysis relating toEuropean polity. The focus on interrelated network-oriented levels, asopposed to rigid categories, recognizes the multi-dimensional nature ofmultiple sources in the process of identity formation (Mishal & Talmud,

2000). Predefining dichotomous categories such as Muslims and Europecreates a framework of analysis predisposed to contradiction. Instead, thenetwork orientation focuses on the intermeshing of the two areas of studycalibrated to address the viewpoints of Muslims in Europe as they viewtheir European context. The four network-oriented levels are conceptual,transnational, national and local.

Throughout Europe, Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals haveconflicting views on the definition and importance of each level ofanalysis, yet simultaneously relate to all four levels. Independently, each

level of analysis reflects a different aspect of the interactions betweenIslam and European society. As a coherent whole, the four levels highlightthe comprehensive relations between a spectrum of perspectives integrating

principles, values and norms defining Islamic identity and European polity. The reflections of both European and the Muslim intellectuals areelaborated below accordingly.

Comparing the perspectives of Muslim intellectuals helps identify the potential areas of confrontation between the Muslim intellectuals andEuropean concepts defining aspects of European polity. As Muslims living

in Europe debate the integration of Islamic and European identity, the fournetwork-oriented levels of analysis contextualize the various perspectives




of Muslim intellectuals towards political mobilization and socialintegration.

Conceptual: Religious and Secular Identity

The first level of analysis focuses on the conceptual differences between the religious and secular basis of identity in Europe. Thefoundation of the liberal Western democratic state clearly separatesreligion from public life. “The ideas of John Locke about the origins of acivil community and the “social contract” theories of Jean-JacquesRousseau required very little commitment to religious belief. Although

they allowed for a divine order that made the rights of humans possible,their ideas did not directly buttress the power of the church and its priestlyadministrators, and they had the effect of taking religion—at least churchreligion—out of public life” (Jurgensmeyer, 2001). As the tenets of liberaldemocracy separate religion from the public sphere, mankind took uponhimself the ability and responsibility for creating his own future, removingthe importance of divine law as a leading source of inspiration in publiclife. As religion was separated from public life, belief, religion and Godconsistently remained tenable as central to personal action of anindividual’s private life.

By why should liberal democracies make a distinction betweenreligious actions in the public or private sphere of life? The central reasonfor such a distinction is that both the religious and secular concepts ofidentity provide order and a hierarchy within society; whereas thecombination of the two together – religion and secularity – createsunfettered tensions. According to Jurgensmeyer, the concept of religionand secular identity are rivals; “either could claim to be the guarantor oforderliness within a society: either could claim to be the ultimate authorityfor social order. Such claims carry with them an extraordinary degree of

power” (Jurgensmeyer, 1995, pg. 381). As Jurgensmeyer argues, wheneither the state or religion assumes full political control by itself, it reducesthe other to a peripheral social role. The dichotomy presented, either asecular or religious hierarchy in society, is thus a-priori inherent in thesecular concept of European polity.

The trends over the past several decades, however, suggest thatreligious institutions and leaders are no longer satisfied with remaining on

peripheral levels of influence from the political decision makers. It is not just the institutions as a whole that are looking for greater influence.

Religious leaders believe their understandings of rights, principles, anddivine law could be of greater utility to the general public. While the role



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of divine inspiration has often been ignored as an important politicalfactor, religion plays a substantive role in European politics, both

internationally and in a member state politics (Fox and Sandler, 2005).Throughout history and apparent today, leaders of religious institutionschallenge the concept of religious neutrality, utilizing their publicinfluence beyond merely providing religious counsel, attempting todetermine the political and social forces comprising a nation’s identity(Casanova 1994).

The relation between the state and religion, including the acceptablelevel of state support for religious institutions, raises many questions as tothe absolute neutrality of European states in religious affairs (Madeley2003). However, by playing a significant role in determining values,norms and perspectives, religion also prepares the ground for“ethnonationalist mobilization;” which can be occupied by other religiousinterpretations or political forces as well (Coakley, 2002). As religion wasrelegated to the private sphere, religious pluralism became a realistic

possibility, and members of diverse religious communities could coexist peacefully within European society (Coakley, 2002).

A European “Identity Crisis”

Adding Islamic perspectives to the debate on religion and state adds anadditional dimension to the discussion incorporating diverse history,culture and religious ideals when defining European polity. It is generallyaccepted that Islam is not just a religious institution, but also represents a

political system as well (Rehman 2007). Muslim intellectuals reflect onthe desired relations between Islam and the state, addressing thefluctuations and implications for concepts such as citizenship, the judiciarysystem and the formation of national identity. According to a Pew GlobalAttitudes Report, throughout Europe Muslims often have a varyingtendency to view the balance between their dual identities of National andIslam:

“Large percentages of Muslims in Europe say they think of themselvesfirst as a Muslim rather than as a citizen of their country. The tendency isstrongest in Great Britain where 81% in the Muslim oversample self-identify as Muslim rather than British, while in Spain 69% do so and inGermany 66%. In sharp contrast, Muslims living in France are far lesslikely to identify first with their faith rather their nationality. While a 46%- plurality identifies first as a Muslim, a nearly equal 42% see themselves as primarily French, while an additional 10% say both equally. The levelsseen in Britain, Spain, and Germany are comparable to those seen in most




of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed. In Pakistan, 87% primarily identify as Muslims; in Jordan, 67% do so” (PEW, July 2006).

A later PEW poll highlights the contrast to the sentiments throughoutEurope that most Christians hold, thinking of themselves primarily interms of their national identity: 90% in France, 70% in Germany, 63% inthe United Kingdom and 53% in Spain (PEW, 2011).

Muslim intellectuals broadly agree that the separation of religion from public life causes a form of “identity crisis” in Europe. An example ofdefining religion’s role in public life comes from Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss

born Muslim European scholar. According to Tariq Ramadan, “the West is passing today through a crisis which we might render “a crisis of

modernity” (Ramadan, 2009). Ramadan believes that the term “secularsociety” is understood differently in the Islamic mind-set than it is here inEurope, stating clearly:

There is no religion or spirituality whatsoever that is not in one way oranother related to politics, to a conception of politics, or to more or lesselaborate discourse about the issue. Similarly, there is no political systemor practice, even in the most secularized and ideologically atheistic,agnostic or non-believing societies, that is completely cut off fromreligious points of reference, even if the latter are only represented in the

society’s cultural background – France is culturally Roman Catholic just asChina is nurtured by Confucianism – and political systems and politicianscannot neglect or ignore those dimensions (Ramadan: 2008, pg. 261-2).

By emphasizing the religious sources of European culture, Ramadaninextricably ties religiosity to European polity. Ramadan suggests that toaddress the crisis of identity, Europe needs a “true dialogue with itself”rather than a cultural dialogue about integrating others into Europe(Ramadan, 2006). The suggested “crisis” is created due to internal

confrontation between modernity and secularism, or specifically, the wayin which European society has distanced itself from religion (Ramadanand Amghar 2001, 220). Ramadan suggests that the proposed “crisis” isthe result of the concept of secularism built into European polity itself.

Following this concept, Amr Khaled, an Egyptian born tele-evangalist,states that every person is derived “from two matters and you have to feedthem both. The Westerners do not realize this point. The two are the bodyand spirit” (Khaled, #880). For Khaled, religiosity is essential; separatingreligion from identity is irrelevant. Khaled thereby calls on Muslims tomaintain Islam as a primary source of their identity.

Yusuf Qaradawi, a popular Muslim religious leader who foundedseveral Islamic institutions in Europe, explores separating scientific



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research from religious authority. Authoring an extensive article titled: dueto its secular nature “Has Western civilization brought any comfort?”

Qaradawi broaches the question of a dual source of identity (Qaradawi,2002). Qaradawi’s assertion is that Islam, not Western civilization, should be at the base of defining morality in society. Islam, and not secularsociety, is the source of identity for society according to Qaradawi.

The concept of an “identity crisis” is problematic on two fronts. First,distinguishing Europe from everybody else, the term “identity crisis”emphasizes the conceptual flaw in separating religion from state affairs.To varying degrees religiosity is identified as a core source determining allaspects of identity, not to be separated existentially from public life. Byemphasizing the existence of an “identity crisis” in Europe, Muslimintellectuals suggest that by integrating religious principles into public life,specifically Islamic principles, the “crisis” could be solved.

Secondly, it refutes the stability of European institutions based on self-determination as developed throughout the Enlightenment. As religion isdeemed to be an important aspect within society, religion and religiousrevelation are positive influences of identity. This signifies the distinction

between the status quo definitions of a culturally secular Europe andEurope’s religious minorities as “Europe” in the traditional sense, which isdefined as suffering from a lack of clarity defining religion and religiosity.

The perspectives of Muslim intellectuals in Europe openly confront thelegitimacy of separating religion in the public sphere. On one hand,Ramadan argues for the inherent connection between religion and politics;he believes that political life without religion is inconceivable. On theother side of the Islamic discursive spectrum, Qaradawi and Khaled arguenot only for the inability to separate religion from all aspects of life, thatdoing so reduces the inspirational value of European culture for Muslims.

Transnational: Trans-European Political IdentityTransnationalism represents the ability of multiple nations to share and

expand upon a common consensus shared by a group of nations.Transnationalism incorporates actors and entities outside of Europe intothe European decision making process. “Transnational networks linkingthe country of origin to the country of residence and promoting

participation in both spaces challenge the single allegiance required by membership in a political community, and lead to a redefinition ofthe balance between community structures and the state. Multiple

memberships and multiple loyalties lead to confusion between rights andidentity, culture and politics, states and nations – in short question the very




concept of citizenship” (Kastoryano, 2003, pg. 14). Kastoryano’s descriptionof transnational networks emphasizes the trans-European influence defining

the identity of European member states. Transnationalism can also bedescribed as “the actual, on-going exchanges of information, money andresources as well as regular travel and communication that members of aDiaspora may undertake with others in the homeland or elsewhere withinthe globalized ethnic community” (Vertovec, 2001, pg. 12). Vertovecrefers to the tangible elements involved in trans-national relations.

An additional definition of transnationalism is the cultural-religiouslink between two ethnically diverse nations. Transnationalism defined inthis way represents the desire, readiness and willingness of including non-European actors to play a central role in determining European polity.Peggy Levitt elaborates that: “studies of transnational religion should notfocus solely on how religion is transformed in the host country setting.They must also examine the ways in which these changes alter sending-country religious practices, and the continuous, iterative relationship

between the two” (Levitt, 2001, pg. 9). Levitt adapts the strict perspectiveof transnationalism to incorporate social and culture sensitivities. Focusingon transnational religious practices, Levitt discusses the ways in whichreligion can alter religious practices within the state. Although Levitt’sdiscussion is about transnational religions, still, her common unit of

analysis is the nation and not religion.Beyond theory flowing into real life, the trans-European nature of

identity relating to Muslims living in Europe is observed between Franceand Switzerland. Former President of France Sarkozy issued remarksfollowing a national referendum in Switzerland on 29 November 2009

prohibiting the construction of Mosques with minarets in the country.President Sarkozy states clearly that “France was able to take the lead inthe battle to change Europe. … Europe’s peoples are welcoming andtolerant; it’s in their nature and their culture. But they don’t want the

nature of their ways of life and thinking and social relations to bedistorted. And feeling you are losing your identity can be a cause of deepsuffering. Globalization is contributing to heightening this feeling”(Sarkozy, 2009). As President Sarkozy emphasizes, social integration and

political mobilization of Muslims living in Europe are a trans-Europeanaffair. The cultural, religious and ethnic issues being dealt with in Franceare also being dealt with in Switzerland, emphasizing the nature ofEuropean politics. By issuing remarks following the referendum inSwitzerland, Sarkozy’s statement was a message to Switzerland as much

as to his own French population.



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Islam in Europe as a Transnational Influence

Influential Muslim intellectuals have the ability to share theirknowledge, experience and expertise throughout Europe, regardless ofnational identity. Tariq Ramadan does not limit his Islamic perspective tothe Muslim community of his birthplace, Switzerland. Following theLondon bombings in 2005, the British government, at the request of thenPrime Minister Tony Blair, added Ramadan as a member of the BritishTask Force when formulating British policy towards the British Muslimcommunity (British Home Office Report, 2005). Ramadan’s participationin formulating official British policy, at the request of the Britishgovernment, recognizes that perspectives from across Europe can assistspecific countries to cope with their own Muslim population.

Ramadan’s participation in forming British policy is trans-European.However, Ramadan does not limit his policy advice merely to Europe.Ramadan believes that “Western Muslims no longer merely listen to the“Islamic world,” they now interpret, query, suggest and the last – in itsturn and in parallel – listens, questions, suggest, and accepts, or disagrees.… we [European Muslims] are at the heart of that transition, beginning tohave an influence on traditional Muslim societies” (Ramadan, 2008).Ramadan also believes that “Muslims belong to a “spiritual community”

based on principles, and if the community or its members betray those principles, their duty is to stop them or oppose them” (Ramadan, 2009).Ramadan’s work influences Muslims throughout Europe on a trans-European level, as well as Muslims throughout the world. Ramadan showshis dedication to the three definitions of transnationalism above. Heformalizes a trans-European connection between Muslim communitiesthroughout Europe, as well as a transnational connection with Muslimsoutside of Europe.

Within Europe, Khaled seeks to create a common Islamic discourse for

all European Muslims, simultaneously linking Europe’s Muslimcommunities and the broader Islamic world. Amr Khaled emphasizes that“the Islamic civilization is the best civilization that ever lived on earth”and part of his work is to assist the revival of the Ummah (Islamic Nation)itself (Khaled, #582). Separating the national elements in defining theIslamic nation certainly allows for greater unification amongst Muslims,increasing cooperation and reducing potential cultural tensions. Khaled’s“goal is no less than a revival of the Ummah itself” (Lindsay, 2004).Muslims should maintain a strong knowledge of Arabic to prevent

dissolving into European societies as well as ensuring a loyalty to theircountry, or family’s country, of origin (Khaled, Life Makers: Episode 6:




Perfection). The transnational connection bolsters the cross culturalintegration of Muslims within and without Europe. The revival of a unified

Islamic nation emphasizes the borderless trans-national nature of Islamicidentity. Recognizing the importance of Muslims keeping culturalconnections to the greater Ummah, Khaled beseeches that subsequentgenerations of Muslims living in Europe not lose their faith or Islamiccultural heritage.

Bassam Tibi, a Syrian born German-educated professor, believes thatIslam‘s Diaspora in Europe is transnational; however Tibi emphasizesEurope has failed thus far in shaping Europe’s Muslim Diaspora along theidentity lines of European polity (Tibi, 2009). Tibi refers to the termtransnationalism according to the Western standard, nation-baseddefinition, emphasizing the potential integration of Muslims into theEuropean social and cultural community. However, even the moderateTibi does not go so far as arguing for abandoning the Islamic definition oftransnationalism defining the integral part of Muslims within the broaderIslamic nation. Tibi defines Muslims as part of Europe, but given thefailure of social integration thus far, they are still referred to within thetransnational definition of “Islam’s Diaspora.”

According to Tibi, Europe has failed to influence the Muslimtransnational Diaspora in Europe; however, governments outside of

Europe have not been so negligent. One example shows how a Muslimcountry strives to maintain cultural contacts with their “Diaspora”communities in Europe. In an official meeting with Chancellor Merkel ofGermany in 2008, Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Erdoğon made a

passionate, and surprise, public request that Turkish Muslims in Germanyremain connected to Turkey and its culture. Erdoğon stated “forimmigrants to speak better German, they have to be able to speak theirown mother tongue first” (Spiegel Online, 2008). Erdoğon’s requestsignals the intimate connection Turkey feels with its Diaspora community

in Germany. The request also indicates that Muslims in Europe aremaintaining close ties with their home countries, while at the same time,their home countries are seeking to maintain close cultural connectionswith the Muslim community too. The question remains pertaining to the

balance of allegiance between the European country of residence and thenon-European country of origin, as well as understanding how the balanceaffects European polity.

Comparing the three Muslim scholars above shows distinct perspectives relating to the transnational influence of Muslims in Europe.

Some intellectuals prescribe that Muslims maintain a clear connectionwith Arab culture and tradition so as to not “lose” Islamic faith; while



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others promote adapting Islam in Europe to its cultural surroundings.Khaled seeks to create a trans-European Islamic identity, Ramadan bridges

between the national definition of European identity and the transnationalunifier Islam provides, while Tibi suggests the national hierarchy should prevail over the religious transnational identity Islam provides. All threescholars reconcile the nationalistic based identity within Europe, however,all three scholars also view Islam as a means of redefining a transnationalEuropean identity.

National: Political Mobilization

Although variations exist, there are two general concepts relating to theformation of a collective identity. The first is that the state creates acollective political identity for its citizens, unifying a diverse group of

people into one nation. The second is that civil society, communities andnon-state actors each, together and separately, determine their own

political identity, the total of which creates the characteristics and identityof the state. The role of the state, whether determining a collective identityor merely an institutional framework for society, influences the specificcharacteristics of political mobilization. If the former is followed, the statehas larger control on social matters, if the latter, then social groups insociety have greater freedom of social change in political mobilization.

The first concept defining the role of the state is concisely defined byErnest Gellner: “Two men are of the same nation if and only if theyrecognize each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words,nations maketh man; nations are the artifacts of men’s convictions andloyalties and solidarities” (Gellner, 2006). For Gellner, what matters is theover-arching body that defines the source of control in a state, demandingthe dedication of its citizens to something larger than the sole individual.Despite the progress and unity in its formation, states are the “drivingforce” of the European Union. “Even though they are submitted tosupranational norms, states keep their autonomy in internal decisions, andin international relations they are the main actors of negotiations. As far asthe nation is concerned its relevance stems from the fact that it remains theemotional unit for identification, mobilization and resistance” (Kastoryano,2003, pg. 14).

The second concept can be described by the competition between non-state actors – local and international – with the state. According to Risese-Kappen, once international or transnational actors overcome the hurdles in

a state-dominated system “their policy impact might be profound… themore fragmented the state and the better organized civil society, the easier




should be the access for transnational actors” (Risse-Kappen, 1995). ForRisse-Kappen, the state is an institutional obstacle to be overcome in order

to influence policy. The state is thus an entity to mould according to theinterests, goals and desires of non-state actors. Civil society represents ateam member to help determine the characteristics of the state, thusdetermining their own relationship with – and confines of – the state.

The debate revolves around the responsibility of the state as the protector of values, ideals and liberty for its people verses the desires ofsociety to shape, mould, and influence the state according to its ideals. Thenegotiation between these two concepts takes place in an active discourse

between the various actors – government and non-government alike –determining the role, responsibility and inherent connection between thestate and society.

Islamic Political Mobilization in Europe

Relating to the democratic essence of political mobilization, Qaradawiencourages Muslims to engage in politics in order to influence theirsurroundings for the betterment of the Muslim community. Muslimsshould have no qualms in taking advantage of their civil liberties andfreedom of speech to advocate for the Muslim community in Europe andaround the world (Qaradawi, 2006b). Political action is promoted inaccordance with a Hadith: “ He who does not concern himself with theaffairs of Muslim can never be one of them” (Qaradawi, n.d.).Subsequently, Qaradawi believes that legislation against Islamic practice,for example the hijab in France, will only feed extremism, and politicalaction entails that the Muslim community utilize democratic mechanismsto prevent and if necessary overturn anti-Islamic legislation and policies

(Qaradawi, 2004).Amr Khaled combines the concept of political mobilizing, and believes

the best way to influence society is through expanding the number of people who view Islam positively (Khaled, Yusuf – 5B:). Khaled promotesMuslims living in the West increasing the knowledge of Europeanstowards Islam (Khaled, Episode 1: A Call for Coexistence). Muslimsliving in Europe should be useful citizens, contributing positively to theirsurroundings socially, culturally and politically by increasing awareness ofthe beauty of Islam; positive political mobilization will help preventEuropean society declare Muslims a burden on society and thusdetrimental to the European way of life (Khaled, Between Integration and

Introversion).



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Khaled promotes a two track form of political activism: the first isinternal within European society; the second is maintaining a strong

connection with Islamic culture and transnational allegiances. As such, heincorporates Islamic goals, principles and interests into its message of political mobilization, all within the guidelines of coexistence (Khaled,Episode 1: A Call for Coexistence). Instead of introverting into their owncommunity, Muslims should be proactive, finding ways to help non-Muslims gain respect for Islam. An additional goal of Muslim politicalmobilization is preventing Islamists from controlling the narrative of Islamin Europe; appropriately guided political mobilization will show the wayof peaceful coexistence in Europe instead of Islamic extremism (Wise,2006).

Tariq Ramadan focuses on the active participation of Muslims insociety, yet recognizes that being Muslim in Europe is a true test of faith.Therefore, Ramadan promotes Muslims getting involved in bolsteringtheir role in shaping European polity as they desire it to be in the future

(Ramadan, 2005). He defines the mobilization of Muslims living inEurope as a “Silent Revolution;” recognition of a new moral and culturalsurrounding that dictates the harmonization of the Islamic faith with

political mobilization throughout Europe (Ramadan, 2007a). For continued progress and success, the Silent Revolution need be based in an Islamic

reform that fits European cultural realty (Ramadan, 2006c). Ramadandescribes the current level of political mobilization as the outcome and

process of over two decades of political evolution combining Muslimthinkers as they understand their European environment (Ramadan, 2010).

Similar to Qaradawi, Ramadan creates a transformative reform of howMuslims living in Europe view their place in European society. Ramadan

believes a central way for social change is through the electoral system,thus he calls on Muslims to be active, including going to vote on ElectionDay (Ramadan, 2004a). All Muslims are invited, and even required, to

participate in this political mobilization (Ramadan, 2004b). Ramadan setsout an agenda of creating local and national initiatives, addressing culturalsensitivities and building trust within the various Muslim communities and

between Muslims and non-Muslims living in Europe (Ramadan, 2006b). Acornerstone of the Islamic political mobilization is not necessarily theremoval of religious signs in public spaces but rather the increasedawareness and education of the importance of religion within a pluralisticsociety; political mobilization through the increased understanding ofreligious cultural dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims (Ramadan,

2007d).




Each of the intellectuals creates a unique agenda for politicalmobilization. The mere promotion of religion as an agenda of political

mobilization does not necessarily represent a confrontation with European polity, however, it does indicate an increasing role of religion influencing political affairs. The form of political mobilization also recognizes the roleof the state in determining social manners; the state either as determining acollective identity or representing a framework for a Muslim to develop aEuropean Islamic identity. The conceptual divide subsequently differsdepending on what level of Islamic values and practices should drive the

political mobilization of Muslims living in Europe. When the state isrecognized as determining a collective identity, religious leaders defermany aspects of determining religiosity in public to the state. When thestate is recognized as a framework for social action, religion, Islamincluded, can be interpreted as holding a larger aspect of identity inEuropean polity.

Local: Social integration

The fourth level of analysis represents the intersection of anindividual’s private actions as a member of society with their public life.The community local level of social network is crucial because politicalidentity shifts over time as the political priorities of liberal democracieschange to accommodate the pressing issues of society (Soysal 2006). Theimportance of community level networks expands beyond the contextualrelevance of just the locality. The community represents the smallest unitof analysis of political identity within society, yet also represents the

building blocks of national and international networks. As Europecontinues its metamorphosis into a large scale transnational entity, theconnection of the community level with the states allows the people livingin Europe to maintain a localized cultural setting intertwined with acommon unified European collective.

The ultimate significance of the social level of analysis is thedistinction an individual determines between the public and private aspectsof life. As religion is integrated into a person’s life on the private level,how he or she then separates or combines religious actions in the publicsphere determine the levels of secularism envisioned by society at large.Although at differing levels, European society places a high level ofimportance on maintaining the separation of religious affairs between

private life and public affairs at the local level (Fetzer and Sopper 2005).

Levitt proposes that “studies of transnational religion focus on theeveryday, lived practice of migrant religion in at least two locations;” both



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at the grass roots social level and home country (Levitt, 2001, pg. 8).Levitt recognizes the inherent connection between the social and national

level of analysis, determining that “religious membership also incorporatesfollowers into an institution that can potentially empower, protect, andgive voice to their concerns” (Levitt, 2001, pg. 12). It is the local level ofanalysis that ultimately drives the communal understanding of secularismthroughout the conceptual, transnational and national levels as well.

The question arises whether or not social integration based on Islamic principles in Europe is acceptable and if so, to what degree and where?The divergent perspectives of Muslim intellectuals relating to socialintegration raises issues regarding the collective relevance of localdecisions in Europe; do some actions of European society become relevantonly for Muslims and not broader society? And if so, how can that

perception be reconciled with the conception of a collective identity foundin the current perception of European polity?

Islamic Social Integration

Social integration for Muslims in Europe is at times guided byreligious moral directives, as opposed to secular social considerations. AsIslamic identity originates from a different religious-ethno-cultural system,it is plausible, and potentially legitimate that different definitions of theconcepts and principles are considered appropriate in society.

Khaled believes that it is impossible to separate religion from dailyacts of worship in Islam, known as Ibadah. Khaled states that:

“Unfortunately, some Muslims make a great separation betweenmanners and Ibadat (acts of worship), and between religion and life. Insidethe mosque, one is straight, women are wearing the appropriate Hijab, youare praying full-heartedly. However, outside the mosque, you are different.

Where are manners then? You will reply, “as long as Ibadat are regularly performed, manners have no importance!” … You think that life is anissue, and religion and performing Ibadat are another. Brothers and sisters,this is an incorrect concept. This separation has nothing to do with Islam.Islam is one unit. Islam is an integral whole” (Khaled, An Introduction toManners).

Khaled views the diversity of social integration currently exhibited inthe Muslim communities of Europe as either fully integrated or totallyintroverted. Balancing those two extremes the discourse suggests a third

way; Muslims should integrate in a positive way without dissolving fullyinto European society (Khaled, Between Integration and Introversion).




Muslims should not isolate themselves but also should not lose theiridentity as Muslims (Khaled, Episode 1: A Call for Coexistence). The

preferred social agenda promoted by Coexistences is thus neither integrationnor introversion, rather coexistence. Coexistence represents mutualinteraction, not enforcing Western culture upon Muslims living in theWest; Europe cannot simultaneously ask Muslims to replicate Europeanculture and coexist (Khaled, Episode 1: A Call for Coexistence); for Islamrepresents the best social agenda (Khaled, Life Makers: Episode 2).Khaled bases his concept of social integration on the Hadith, A believerwho would integrate and mingle with others waiting patiently to beharmed by them is better than a believer who would neither mingle withthem nor would be harmed by them (Khaled, Between Integration andIntroversion).

Khaled ultimately promotes raising awareness of the positive aspectsof Islam and providing reasons for non-Muslims to respect Islam (Khaled,Between Integration and Introversion). Muslims must engage othercultures, such as Europe, but carefully choose elements of those cultures toadopt into Islam; the proper cultural hierarchy for Muslims is based on

preference for Islam according to Islamic values (Khaled, Culture: TheDistinguishing Feature of a People). Khaled thus places an equal burdenon Muslims coexisting in European society and the European state

accommodating such a social agenda.Ramadan perceives the social integration of Muslims living in Europe

through the lens of Islam being a European religion (Ramadan, 2007a).Part of social integration within European polity is that Muslims in Europeremain independent, intellectually, politically and financially, from non-European Islam (Ramadan, 2004a, p. 6). According to Ramadan, asMuslim citizens and residents of Europe are fully European, the socialagenda is not integration into society, but rather positive contribution tosociety (Ramadan, 2010); integration must contribute to the progress and

development of European social norms (Ramadan, 2007c). Muslims inEurope should also strive for religious integration into European culture;while, according to the discourse’s definition, that process has already

begun to take place, as Muslims have made Europe their home (Ramadan,2006b). Ramadan finds legitimate Islamic justification promoting socialintegration in the Quran (60:8) As for such (of the unbelievers) as do not

fight against you on account of your faith, and neither drive you forth from your homelands, God does not forbid you to show them kindness and tobehave towards them with full equity: for, verily, God loves those who act

equitably

(Ramadan, 2004b).



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Yet Ramadan views the concept of social integration as multifaceted;A Muslim’s identity is comprised of multiple elements: nationality,

religion, cultural heritage and other aspects

(Ramadan, 2007b). Balancingthe various identity traits Muslims should make social decisions based onshared principles, not religious identity (Ramadan, 2007c). A principle

based social integration allows Muslims living in Europe to maintain theirsocial obligations to the state as well as to Islam. The discourse suggests

part of the burden of integration is placed on the European state; forintegration to occur, Europe must acknowledge the difficulties it has facedin integrating Muslims, but also must adapt their view towards Muslims asintegrated already (Ramadan, 2007b).

Yusuf Qaradawi bases his concept of social integration on the “Law ofMinorities” intentionally preventing the social integration of Muslimswithin European society (Qaradawi, 2002b). Qaradawi does not promotefull segregation, but Muslims should intermingle into their society onlyenough to avoid being accused of isolating themselves completely fromWestern society (Qaradawi, 2001). Qaradawi elaborates an agenda forMuslims living in Europe defined through three issues: spreading themessage of Islam to Muslims, receiving Muslim converts and defendingthe causes of the Muslim nation (Qaradawi, 1992). He defines relations

between Muslims and non-Muslims based on two verses of the Qur’an: Allah forbiddeth you not those who warred not against you on account ofreligion and drove you not out from your homes, that ye should show themkindness and deal justly with them. Lo! Allah loveth the just dealers. Allah

forbiddeth you only those who warred against you on account of religionand have driven you out from your homes and helped to drive you out, that

ye make friends of them. Whosoever maketh friends of them (All) such arewrong doers (60:8-9) (Qaradawi, 2006a).

For Qaradawi, European culture is aggressive and demands Muslimsembrace a culture different from Islam, causing them to forget the

message, history and values of Islamic civilization; instead the principlesof Islam should guide Muslims in their interactions with European society(Aljazeera, 2004). Beyond integration, part of the role of Muslims living inEurope is to maintain a strong connection with the Muslim majority statesfrom which they or their family originated in order to then againstrengthen the connection between Islam and their European countries ofresidence (Qaradawi, 1992). Directly relating to Islamic identity in Europe,Qaradawi’s “professed aim is to provide a specific interpretation ofIslamic law that both takes into account the local circumstances of

Muslims in Europe and guards the principle of sharia” (Brunner, 2005).




Comparing the intellectuals uncovers a dual challenge: first definingthe appropriate level Muslims should integrate into European society; and

secondly how each of the discourses define a lacking European agendathat needs to fully accept its Muslim minority within the social sphere. None of the discourses promotes full assimilation, the total adoption ofEuropean culture at the full expense of losing of Islamic culture. Each ofthe discourses develops some form of obligations from European societyto assist Muslims to develop an agenda of social integration.

Interesting to note is how two discourses, Ramadan and Qaradawi, citethe same Qur’anic verse, 60:8, in order to justify vastly different agendasfor social integration. Ramadan cites the verse to promote an agenda ofcontributing to European society, while Qaradawi uses the verse to justifymaintaining an Islamic enclave within European society. Therefore, evenQur’anic citations need to be interpreted according to the context of thespecific social agenda each intellectual promotes. If total social integrationis considered a basic assumption of European polity, consensus within theIslamic discourses views otherwise. Each intellectual maintains someadherence to Islamic principles, while the discussion centres on thecultural role Islam should play in a Muslim’s life. Yet, through a clearanalysis, it becomes possible to identify trends and perspectives leaningtowards social integration or segregation within the Islamic discourses.

For many Muslims in Europe, the question of social integrationrevolves around the role of religion in his or her daily life. Azouz Begag,former minister for equal opportunity for the French governmentemphasizes the point stating that “the cultural, social and politicalreference point for Muslims is traditionally the village, religion, and thecommunity, not the individual, as in the West. For Muslims, individualityis often seen as individualism which, if it is misunderstood, can be

perceived as a form of selfishness” (PEW, June 2006).

Conclusion: Islamic Discourse and European Polity

A close examination of Muslim intellectuals in Europe shows adynamic, diverse and cross-cultural inter-Islamic debate at timesconfronting conventional definitions of European polity on multiple levels.Some Muslim intellectuals place a priority on integrating into Europeansociety; others actively influencing the European public discourse suggestthe integration of Islamic principles into their European based lifestyles.

This paper develops a dynamic network-oriented framework of analysis

to better understand the active debate between the Islamic discourses asthey view the multiple layers of European polity. By analysing the rhetoric



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of Muslim intellectuals throughout Europe in a uniform framework, it becomes possible to identify key issues and distinctions that either

promote or prohibit the full integration of Muslims living in Europe intothe European lifestyle. It also becomes possible to identify the variationscontained within the Islamic discourse itself, as different Muslimintellectuals promote and propagate different opinions relating toEuropean polity. A full analysis of the discourses provides a platform fordistinguishing between the broader messages of each of the Muslimintellectuals.

It is not currently clear how Muslims in Europe will fully influenceEuropean polity. As the European Muslim population becomes moreactive in politics it is only natural that issues important to Muslims willgradually shift public opinion and government policy (Savage, 2004). AsGod and religion form an existential, yet segregated, source of inspirationfor life in Europe, it is not farfetched to believe that Islam is already

playing a role in changing norms, perceptions and concepts withinEuropean polity as well. Viewing the analysis of the various Muslimintellectuals through the suggested framework can provide a nuancedunderstanding of the different Islamic voices influencing how the changeis happening.

The consequences of the existence of multiple Islamic discourses in

Europe are beginning to be apparent: greater ability for Europe’s Muslimcommunities to demand and receive rights from the political institutionalsystem (Savage, 2004). The effect on society, the political system andEuropean polity are as yet unknown. Yet, as the participation of Muslimsin Europe gradually increases, they integrate, inadvertently orintentionally, Islamic principles into the conceptual manifestation ofEuropean polity.

Upon conclusion, and in reference to the balance for Muslims inEurope between their dual identities, European and Islam, one last element

becomes clear from the analysis above. Religiously based perspectiveshave a different starting point for defining identity, its contents andcharacteristics than their secular counterparts. The significance of religionfor a religious person is beyond political identity. For the pious believers,religious expression represents the adherence to a direct interpretation ofGod’s will, as well as the maintenance of traditions in that effect; religioustraditions provide “a moral compass and a secure footing in an ever-changing technological and impersonal world. They show us where wehave come from and where we are going, and that is the basis of the

humility of man and the ultimate equality and mutual responsibility of allof us” (Goldshmidt, 2010). For the truly religious, belief in religion, its




textual interpretations, theologians and religious institutions, remain the primary source dictating an individual’s world outlook.

However, from a secular perspective, religious observance is oftenviewed as the Durkheimian term “fait social,” either material or non-material social facts (Durkheim, 1965). Secular Europe tends to observereligious actions apart from a genuine belief in the metaphysical as thesource of identity. That secular outlook views all actions through its ownnarrative, creating a secular discourse for European polity. The outlookignores and even methodologically eliminates the possibility that identityis driven by anything other than a secular perspective. As the non-religiousview religious observance through their personal secular perspective, theconcept of religion as a source of identity, as defined from a religious

perspective, is overlooked, dismissed as irrelevant, or often ignored.Hence a secular or religious world outlook influences more than just aconceptual definition of reality; rather it represents the nerve centre of anindividual’s source of identity, forming the means of communication andassociation with society in general and the state specifically.

A clear understanding of the relations between Islamic identity andEuropean polity sheds light on the broader debate defining the role ofreligion already affecting Europe’s religious discourse. A network-oriented analysis of Muslim intellectuals and European polity identifies

areas of accommodation and confrontation in the integration process ofIslamic and European identities. Understanding how Muslim intellectualsview European polity provides insight as to how the fabric of Europeanidentity is changing from the inside.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

ACCOMMODATING ISLAM INTO IR:THE CASE ON “NATION-STATE”

NASSEF MANABILANG ADIONG

This initiative is a deliberated mental effort of contemplating whetherthere is an Islamic impact in today’s praxis of international relations, i.e.the trends, events, and related dominions (directly or not) influenced bythe practices, actions or movements in the international community orarena. One way to look at it is to specifically consider one element that hashad a significant role in conceiving international relations as an academicdiscipline, whereby debates (major and minor) and discourses (mainstreamand periphery) were centred upon that element.

The element of Nation-State played a prominent part in conceptualizinginternational theories (including International Relations, InternationalLaw, and Philosophy), particularly on the political spectrum, and has been,and will always be, a contentious issue, particularly on its complexcharacterizations and its relations with other elements, i.e., system,structure, agency, actor, society, civilization, etc.

Nation-State is a kind of polity or political unit of analysis. Itcomprised the elements of authority (form of government), nationality (large number of people called citizens), territoriality (juridical set of legal

boundaries), and sovereignty (attained through the recognition bestowed by another nation-state or simply by an international organization such asthe United Nations). Moreover, it is a modern entity (mostly secular innature) that evolved from Greek/Italian city-states, Roman’s res publika (public affairs) to the Western nation-state system, which was conceived

by European political elites and commonly attributed by some political/social scientists as a product of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

In spite of that understanding, Western scholars (orientalists)oftentimes and consciously overlook the contributions of Asian or Middle

Eastern scholars, particularly Islamicists (those who passionately studyIslam and its civilizations based on different bodies of knowledge), to theliterature on the study of the nation-state. The Prophet Muhammad,



Chapter Seven140

subsequent members of ulama (scholars), and jurists, have also contributedto the conception and evolution of the nation-state phenomenon.

Tracing the Significance of the Research Problem

The idea will primarily focus on the vagueness of interpretations andunderstanding on the conceptualization of nation-state in both disciplines:International Relations (IR) and Islamic Studies (IslStud),1 and how a viamedia (middle way) of linkage of understanding may be reached. The

primal research inquiries are how the nation-state originated, wasconceptualized, and operationalized in IR and Islamic Studies. While the

secondary (supporting) query is what the similarities and differences ofIR’s and IslStud’s understanding on the conceptualization of nation-stateare so as to locate a probable via media of understanding.

The proponent hopes to discover an area or element that will show a profound and explicit relation between Islam and IR by studying thesignificant role and meaning of nation-state. Thus, in comparing theconcept of nation-state in both disciplines, the author may lead to thediscovery of their probable mutuality or reciprocity with support of themethod (which will be further elaborated at the methodological section).The null hypothesis is the opposite of it, i.e. it will not help him provideanswers to the posited statement of the problem.

This idea is particularly concerned with contributing to the expanding(and exclusively extant) literature and significantly emerging sub-discipline in the form of relations between ‘Religion’ and ‘InternationalRelations‘. How religion interacts with IR and vice-versa, especially onthe current waves of religious movements affecting the behaviour ofnation-states and their relations with one another. An imperative exampleis the 9/11 event that changed the relations of mostly Western countries(US and Europe, geographically speaking) and Muslim-dominatedcountries (Arab nations, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia,among others).

The scope of the research only dwells on three entities: 1) Nation-State, 2) International Relations, and 3) Islamic Studies. It is delimited bythe relevance of time period (meaning the data and instrumentation thatwill be included, analysed, and examined are works of contemporaryscholars, authors, and commentaries that have similar research interests,

1 Kindly please be reminded that the proponent will abbreviate ‘Islamic Studies’

into ‘IslStud’, which will be used all throughout the essay. It is for abbreviation purpose only, same as with ‘International Relations’ into ‘IR’.



Accommodating Islam into IR: The Case on “Nation-State” 141

written aspects that are relevant to the study, and relatively related pointsof view). So, this is not purely objectively done (caveat), but is

intersubjectively (pertains to sets of similarities, views, consensus, and partially shared divergences on meanings subject of previous contention by scholars) constructed instead.

Islamic Studies is explained (in conjunction with the study) as withinthe parallels or equation of Islamic views on politics, governance,leadership, and to some extent foreign relations experiences. Islamic

philosophy has been excluded and only political Islam and jurisprudencewill be concentrated on.

Contemplating the Theoretical Framework(s)

There is one observation which may help in the progress of the study.That is, observing the nation-state by incorporating two distinctframeworks in a demarcated theoretical phenomenon. Selected mainstreamtheories of International Relations and Islamic politics and jurisprudenceare the focus of its theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

Realism, Liberalism, and Social Constructivism are the selectedtheories on the part of International Relations. Concepts such as ummah,dar al-Islam, dar al-Harb, dar al-Ahd , etc., which are within the tenets of

political and jurisprudential Islamic views will be utilized on the part ofIslamic Studies. The suggested independent variables are InternationalRelations and Islamic Studies, while the dependent variable is nation-state.It hopes to straighten the line connecting these variables.

Seeking and Modifying Method(s) for Appropriation

A preliminary exploratory research (which means it is for the purposeof formulating hypotheses worth testing and complementing the tools usedat Comparative Analysis Method) will help create an efficacy of researchdesign and data collection for the purpose of reviews. To ameliorate ourfocal understanding on a specific operational method, the proponentselected ‘Comparative Analysis Method (CAM)’ put forward by BarneyG. Glaser, A.L. Strauss, and J. Corbin.2 While theirs is called ‘ConstantComparative Method (CCM)’ under the grounded theory -- mine was arenovation of their method which I named CAM. The CCM is a method

2 See: Glaser’s and Strauss’ The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies forQualitative Research.



Chapter Seven142

for analysing data in order to develop a grounded theory. The goal ofgrounded theory is to develop a theory that emerges from and is therefore

connected to the reality that the theory is developed to explain.CAM does not concern itself with extrapolating previous theories andcomparing them with current theories so as to develop a grounded theory.It instead removes the use of constancy by making it a presentation of twovariables and compares them appropriately. CCM uses a parallel verticalapproach of comparing the past to present, while CAM uses a parallelhorizontal manner, regardless of periodicity, historicity, or element oftime. CAM involves coding, the process of going through the data ‘with afine-toothed comb’ looking for themes, ideas, and categories.3 Three dataanalytical or coding stages under CAM will be operationalized: the firststage is the Textual Coding, next is the Arithmetical Coding, and the laststep is the Categorical Coding.

Through these CAM codes, the inferential chart of ‘compare andcontrast’ will compose the result of the data analysis; thus allowing us tocategorically pinpoint inferences of similarities and differences, andfurther it through the use of analytical induction, which is inducingspecific facts or imperative details. The generalization or probableoutcome of this study is to humbly locate areas of via media (middle way)

between perceived extreme poles on the concept of nation-state in IR and

IslStud.

Preliminary Findings

It is quite apparent that the first factor in tracing the comparison orcontrast of the concept of nation-state in both bodies of knowledge (IR andIslStud) is on the notion of ‘level of analysis’. The nation-state is the unitof analysis for the IR, while the Ummah is for the IslStud. However, if youare going to deeply analyse the context, the Ummah is considered as animagined space of community where people believe they are part of thatspace. In the modern context, nation-state is also considered as animagined community where people think and feel they are affiliated withinthe boundary of that community. Thus, nation-state and Ummah aresimilar at a certain degree of understanding, while interpreted in variousways.

3 See: Strauss’ and Corbin’s Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques.



Accommodating Islam into IR: The Case on “Nation-State” 143

Secondly, the notion on sovereignty lies a fundamental difference between them. In IR, it is the government elected/appointed by the

citizenry that has the utmost will of authority over its jurisdiction, wheretheir sovereignty is recognized and respected by other sovereign nation-states and international organizations. Thus, bestowing them legitimacyand accorded rights in the international community. In IslStud, it is theirGod that has the sovereign power, where all believers are subjects andconsidered part and parcel of the whole Ummah (societal) system.Consequently the last clear explicit comparison is that the government hasthe authority in IR’s nation-state interpretation, while God has the soleauthority in IslStud’s nation-state interpretation.

The operationalization of constructivism to the nation-state is primarilyinfluenced by idea, ideology, or set of ideas. These ideas are embeddedwithin the construction of the nation-state. The inhabitants or people who

believed they belong to that nation-state are the ones who formulate,describe, and define what constitutes the characters, elements, andcompositions of it. The juridical understanding of an Islamic nation-stateis purely ideological, where there is a strong emphasis on the essence ofreligiosity, culture, and the claim of being universal.

Concluding SummaryThere are stark differences between the interpretations of IslStud and

IR on the conception of the nation-state. Selected categorical claims underthe selective coding stage include citizenship or membership, limits of

boundaries or territoriality, the jurisdiction of the authority, and thesovereignty issue. For categorical claim of citizenship, the political prismof IR is based on nationality of parents or birthplace of an individual,while in IslStud, it is the individual’s affinity with Islam regardless ofracial or geographical orientations that define his/her citizenship.

For the categorical claim of territoriality, IR respects or is subdued tointernational treaties and agreements, and sometimes via domesticreferendum of the citizenry, while IslStud is finite as long as there are

presences of Muslims. In addition, IslStud submits to juridical divisions of‘dar ‘. For the jurisdiction of authority, IR’s interpretation depends on thestyle of leadership or form of government, whether totalitarian,dictatorship, monarchical, or democratic. In IslStud, there are differentvariations or descriptions laid by scholars, particularly Sunni‘s and Shia’sdifferent political schools of thought, and Sufi’s philosophical description

of a leader. The sovereignty issue is primarily a contestation between the people and recognition from other nation-states and God. Consequently, as



Chapter Seven144

of this moment, the researcher has not found any clear elements forreaching a via media or middle way in their (IR and IslStud)

understandings of nation-state.



I NDEX

Abdullah Gül, 91, 94

Abrahamic Faiths, 1

Ahmet Davutoğlu, 8, 91, 94, 95, 103

Ahmet Necdet Sezer, 91, 94

Alphanumerical Coding, 142

Amr Khaled, 117, 120, 123, 138

Arab Spring, 8, 52, 54, 59, 62, 64,67, 70, 71

Arab world, 1, 5, 59, 69

Atatürk, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 57

Bassam Tibi, 121

burqa, 112

Caliph, 43, 65

Caliphate, 43, 51, 66, 69

Categorical Coding, 142

Christianity, 1, 3, 96

civilization, 48, 118, 120, 139Comparative Analysis Method, 141

Contextual Coding, 142

culture, 2, 4, 5, 6, 41, 47, 49, 51, 75,

95, 96, 99, 102, 116, 117, 118,

119, 121, 124, 127, 128, 129, 138

dar , 141, 143

Dar al-Ahd, 6

Dar al-Harb, 6

Dar al-Islam, 6

democracy, 4, 8, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62,63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 78, 106,

112, 115

Democracy, 59, 60, 62, 63, 70, 89,

106, 107, 132, 135

democratic peace theory, 4

East, 1, 4, 5, 7, 39, 49, 51, 64, 69,

74, 76, 89, 96, 100, 101, 105,

107, 133

Edward Said, 4, 5

English School of InternationalRelations, 1

epistemology, 4, 7, 95

Ernest Gellner, 122

ethnonationalist mobilization, 116

European polity, 8, 111, 112, 113,

114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 121,

124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131

European Polity, 111, 113, 129

European Union, 49, 55, 57, 107,111, 122, 133

feminism, 8, 75

Hanafi, 6

Hanbali, 6

hijab, 79, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 123,

135

Holy Qur’an, 6

human rights, 4, 59

ijtihad, 6

International Law, 92, 107, 139International Relations, 1, 4, 6, 7,

74, 75, 89, 92, 94, 106, 108, 133,

137, 139, 140, 141

international system, 2, 7

Iran, 1, 51, 54, 99, 103, 104, 140

Iranian revolution, 8

Islam, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 39, 41,

42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 55, 56,

59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73,

74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85,87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 95, 97, 98,

101, 102, 103, 104, 111, 112,

113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 120,

121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126,

127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132,

133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139,

140, 141, 143

Islamic civilization, 47, 48, 120, 128

Islamic feminist, 8, 76, 77

Islamic Feminist, 73, 74, 80, 82, 83,85, 87

Islamic feminists, 8, 73, 74, 88



Index146

Islamic Identity Politics, 111

Islamic law, 45, 128, 133, 136

Islamic revivalist movements, 4

Islamic Scholar, 91Islamic Social Attitudes Survey, 78

Islamic veil, 8

Islamicate, 7

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 115

John Locke, 115

Kemal Ataturk, 65

Kemalism, 47

Kuwait University, 78

Kuwaiti college students, 8, 73, 74,

79, 83, 87laicism, 39, 40, 43, 46, 47, 66, 67

Maliki, 6

Middle East, 5, 49

Middle East Studies Association, 1

modernity, 101, 114, 117, 137, 138

Mohammed Arkoun, 4

Muhammad Bouazizi, 52

Muslim intellectuals, 111, 112, 113,

114, 116, 117, 118, 120, 126,

129, 130, 131Muslim world, 2, 4, 5, 40, 64, 131

nationalism, 41, 42, 47, 133

Nation-State, 139, 140

Noam Chomsky, 5

North Atlantic Treaty Organization,

49

ontological propositions, 3, 7

oriental culture, 4

orientalist, 4, 5, 44, 96

Ottoman, 6, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 59, 65,

66, 67, 69, 70, 91, 94, 99, 100,

101, 102, 107

Peace of Westphalia, 3, 139

Political Islam, 7

politics, 7, 49, 52, 53, 60, 61, 64, 67,

68, 83, 91, 92, 93, 95, 100, 104,

106, 116, 117, 118, 119, 123,

130, 131, 138, 141

polity, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 125,130, 131, 139

post-Cold War, 2

Quran, 45, 127

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 47

religion, 2, 7, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46,47, 54, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 69, 75,

76, 82, 83, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97,

111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116,

117, 118, 119, 124, 125, 126,

127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 140

religious pluralism, 116, 132

secular civil code, 44

Shafi’I, 6

Shari`a, 44

Shari’ah law, 6sociological study of Islam, 73

soft power, 91, 93, 94, 102, 103,

104

sovereign’ nation-states, 3

sovereignty, 3, 63, 67, 69, 139, 143

statecraft, 2, 106

Sunnah, 6, 135

Sunni, 6, 51, 54, 66, 78, 80, 82, 84,

143

Tariq Ramadan, 117, 120, 124, 133,136

Transnationalism, 118, 119

Turkey, 1, 6, 8, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45,

46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55,

56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66, 67,

68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 90, 91, 92, 94,

95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104,

105, 106, 107, 108, 121, 138, 140

Turkey’s AKP, 49

Turkey’s foreign policy, 8Turkey’s Foreign Policy, 91, 94

U.S., 88

ulama, 1, 140

ummah, 141

United Nations, 48, 51, 57, 139

veil, 8, 43, 85, 87

Veil, 9

via media, 1, 3, 7, 140, 142, 144

Virtue Party, 48, 49

Welfare Party, 47, 48Welfare Party ( Refah Partisi), 47

International Relations and Islam Diverse Perspectives 2013

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