Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the role of literacy and the media in the islamic movement 107my dignity. I subscribed to the magazine so as to discipline mythought. It provides an alternative perspective to understand theevents. 15One no longer needs to go to a mosque to develop one’s spiritual and communaldimension. New Islamic urban intellectuals construct their own versionof Islam and transmit it to the masses with new concepts and genres of literature.These literary public spaces are sites in which diverse role models are explored,and are used as a vehicle through which new Islamic consciousness and practicesare carried to the margins of Turkish society. 16 For instance, the literature ofIslamic novels has played a key role in the articulation and diVusion of sharedframes of reference. Rasim Özdenören, a leading contemporary writer, deWnes“Islamic literature” as “literature, regardless of its topic, expressing the Islamicconsciousness of the author who approaches his subject with Islamic spectacles.” 17Through these novels the writers have sought to address the inner dimension ofthe spiritual self. The most inXuential novel is Hekimo:lu 8smail’s MinyeliAbdullah. The power of this novel lies in its rich folkloric symbolism and ability tospeak to the reader’s sense of alienation and uncertainty in the modern world. Acentral theme of these novels is usually the Wght against injustice and corruption,which is justiWed by appeals to religious morality.Epistemology and AuthorityPrint culture, along with universal education, has helped to undermine the verticalrelationship between the master and the disciple in the construction anddissemination of knowledge, replacing it with horizontally diVused and objectiWedIslamic knowledge. 18 Moreover, within this modern educational systemstudents learn to validate knowledge with proof and to become skeptical aboutreceived wisdom. In the Muslim context, this created a crisis among the ulema,who were not prepared to oVer an explanation for doctrinal faith.Furthermore, the confusion that results from this rapid circulation of ideasundermines “old forms of solidarity and creates exclusion, [and consequently]an immense need for identity is being expressed through the revival of religion,of charismatic father-Wgures, and ‘populist’ politicians who promise tangibleidentiWcations and warm organic relations.” 19 This “revival of religion,” however,is not a return to traditional practices and charismatic father Wgures butrather a construction of new practices and the objectiWcation of previous Islamicones. The expansion of print Islam may be seen as a continuous struggle toeliminate folk/mystical Islam in favor of a more rational, textual urban Islam.Jack Goody argues thatthe fact [is] that writing establishes a diVerent kind of relationshipbetween the word and its referent, a relationship that is more generaland more abstract, and less closely connected with particularities ofperson, place and time, than obtain in oral communication. 20