Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the role of literacy and the media in the islamic movement 123treated as vocational schools meant to produce a limited number of imamswhose training and education would be controlled strictly by the state. 63 However,the 8mam Hatip schools and the Faculty of Divinity were closed down in1930 and 1933 respectively, as the Kemalists intensiWed their onslaught onreligion and like their erstwhile Bolshevik allies to the north sought to have itdisplaced completely from Turkish society over a relatively short time. 64 TheRepublic in striving for a de-Islamized society sought not only to close downall public religious institutions but also sought to ban furtive private religiouseducation as well. Even an innocuous book by a loyal state bureaucrat, A.Hamdi Akseki, then the deputy director of the Directorate of Religious AVairs,concerning the life of the Prophet Muhammad was banned by the governorof Ankara in 1946. 65After a 15-year campaign to disestablish religion, the legalization of limitedreligious education was considered in 1948, a decade after Mustafa Kemal hadpassed away. There was a lively debate in the Seventh Convention of the CHPon December 2, 1947, over the issues of secularism and religion, since the CHPhad decided to transit into a multiparty system. This new political opening, asan expansion of the opportunity spaces played a key role in the relaxation ofreligious education and religious discourse. Mustafa Suphi Tanrìöver, a memberof Parliament from Istanbul and ex-minister of education, argued thatone day after a debate in Parliament, six serving staV of Parliamentcame to me and said “there is only one imam who serves six villages.We have to keep the bodies of the deceased waiting for days beforethe imam can come to bury them. If you do not send us moreimams, the bodies of our dead will decompose in the open like thoseof animals.” 66After sharp debate, and because of upcoming multiparty elections, the CHPdecided to open 10 8mam Hatip vocational programs to train preachers andreligious functionaries under the authority of the Ministry of Education. Thestate reinstituted courses on religion in public schools and opened a new Facultyof Divinity within Ankara University in 1949. 67 In order to meet the needfor more imams, the new government of Adnan Menderes turned the 10-monthvocational project of training into a seven-year school and opened a series ofschools in 1951 in Konya, Kayseri, Ankara, Isparta, Mara7, 8stanbul, and Adana. 68TevWk 8leri, then the minister of education, two years later opened eight more8mam Hatip Schools in Antalya, Çorum, Elazì;, Erzurum, 8zmir, Tokat, Trabzon,and Yozgat and also opened the high school level of these schools. The numberof 8mam Hatip schools jumped from seven in 1951 to nineteen in 1961.The numberof students increased from 876 in 1951 to 3,374 in the 1961–1962 academicyear (see table 5.1). During the DP period, the publication of books and magazineson religious issues Xourished. 69 The Ministry of Education created a specialDepartment of Religious Education in 1959 to carry out its functions of publicreligious education. 70 In 1959, the Institute of Higher Islamic Studies wasopened within Istanbul University, and a similar institute was opened in Konyain 1962.