Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the role of literacy and the media in the islamic movement 111papers, and radio stations to bring contradictory forces of religion, democracy,and the market together.The CommodiWcation of Islamic KnowledgeIn a free market economy, knowledge becomes a commodity produced for exchange.Muslims, too, are consumers of Islamic ideas. Treating Islamic knowledgeas a commodity demystiWes religious knowledge, and it becomes anothercommodity that competes with other forms of circulating knowledge. Commodifyingreligious knowledge has a profound social and political impact onsociety. Its value becomes evaluated in relation to other forms of knowledge andbeliefs. Since 1983, Turkish Muslim groups have dominated the publishingmarket in terms of the number of books printed. The expansion of educationand the emergence of a new group of intellectuals has led to a Xowering of theIslamic printing industry. Publishing houses that gained prominence and enjoyeda leading position in the publishing market as a whole include Pìnar, 8nsan,Yöneli7 , Beyan, Dergah, Nehir, A:aç, Vadi, and 8z. Although there has been nomajor increase in overall book publication since 1985, most of the new booksbeing printed are about either Islamic religious issues or Islamic history. Sincethe 1990s, these publishing houses have focused on Islamic modernity, a critiqueof orientalism, and new alternative methodologies of the humanities andsocial sciences.The publishing houses earned enough money to reinvest funds in the businessof writing and translation. The wealth generated by this activity providedthe Wnancial basis for the emergence of an autonomous class of Muslim intellectualswho thus were able to write on Islamic and social issues outside of stateor non-Islamic corporate control. One can consider the latest Islamic intellectuals“Islamic entrepreneurs” who articulate the nature and role of Islamic identityin relation to certain political and economic goals. For example, Ali Bulaç,Sezai Karakoç, and Abdurrahman Dilipak have managed to earn their livelihoodsolely from their publishing royalties, an independent source of income thatfosters a degree of intellectual freedom.Islamic intellectuals have responded to this new opportunity by developingarguments for freedom of speech, press, and conscience and the right of associationbecause of the desire to gain such freedoms for themselves. Politicalevents have forced Islamic groups to take positions on issues, and this has ledeither to the building of an issue-based coalition or to further fragmentation.The Gulf War sharpened the diVerences within the Islamic media, reXectingthe lack of consensus on the merits of the conXict in the wider Islamic world,but the war in Bosnia uniWed them and promoted a broader Islamic solidarityand political consciousness. For example, during the Gulf crisis, the Islamicmedia and intellectuals were divided into two groups, so the understanding ofthe Gulf War was constructed within the conWguration of domestic politics, socialpressures, and historical experiences. The debate demonstrated that Islamicintellectuals and groups referring to the same texts and faith can reach radically