Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

130 islamic political identity in turkeyConclusionThe impact of print in shaping identity and ideology in Muslim societies dependson the level of literacy, the saliency of the arguments put forth by charismaticWgures and intellectuals, and the commodiWcation of books and knowledge. Theimpact of these discursive spaces is therefore uneven in diVerent sectors ofsociety. However, print-based discursive spaces have been at the core of Islamicpolitical activism and have resulted in the invention of a new Islamicself-understanding in Turkey. Even the traditional SuW orders could not divorcethemselves from the impact of print and therefore have entered the publishingmarket with their own journals and magazines after a period of hesitancy.The revolution in print and modern technologies of mass communicationhas had profound consequences for the revitalization of Islamic discourse incontemporary Turkish society. The opening up of discursive spaces has beeninstrumental in promoting a new dynamic Islamic consciousness that is implicatedin virtually all discussions of state, society, and culture in contemporaryTurkey. The popularization of Islamic discourse as reXected in the veritableexplosion in the publication of newspapers, magazines, and journals paradoxicallyhas undermined any eVorts at establishing a single hegemonic Islamicdiscourse. The market in print and the mass media can be viewed as forces foremancipation and pluralization as various Islamic and non-Islamic ideologiesand viewpoints must contend with one another continuously in the hypercompetitivemarketplace of ideas.By raising new questions and challenging dominant perspectives, the mediahas allowed the diVerences among Islamic groups to become public knowledge.To put it diVerently, as a result of the media, diVerences are freed bothwithin the Islamic worldview and also between competing nonreligiousworldviews. Moreover, small and idiosyncratic diVerences concerning the readingand interpretation of Islamic doctrine and history easily can constitute aseparate magazine-based intellectual circle. This phenomenon leads to constanttransmutations and splits within Islamic groups. The text-centric Nurcu movement,unlike the SuW groups, has been divided into more than 12 such subgroups.Each interpretation of the standard Nurcu text, the Risale-i Nur, oVers aground to compare variances in reading and understanding.The text-centered Islamic groups are more prone to the processes of swiftdissemination and quick fragmentation because what Said Nursi wrote and whatthe reader understands are not the same. The war of interpretations over thesoul of Nursi’s writings illustrates that no single voice can speak authoritativelyabout Nursi’s works. Certainly diVerences of age, gender, class, political context,and educational level play a role in the fragmentation of an authoritativeconsensus in the movement, but this awareness of the lack of consensus at apopular level only becomes public with the spread of mass communication.As the Nurcu and Nak7ibendi groups venture to arrange the boundaries ofinterpretive communities through their periodicals, they become further fragmented.In a liberal political and economic context, the Islamic groups are more