Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

136 islamic political identity in turkeyMuslim community as a whole was following a path of decadence, and as a cure,he called for the restoration of the sunna and sharia. 16 He was very much worriedby the eVects of syncretic innovation and the social disintegration of theOttoman-Muslim community. He believed that the Muslim community was onthe wrong path and tried to emphasize the signiWcance of the Sunna for sociallife. He maintained that “if the umma had gone astray, it was because of itsrulers.” Thus, following Sirhindi, he seems to have thought that “the foremostduty of Nak7ibendi-Mujaddidi sheiks is to seek to inXuence rulers and bringthem to follow sharia rules.” 17 One of the major reasons that the Khalidi branchmanaged to penetrate the Ottoman state was the religiously orthodox and politicallyactivist doctrine of the order. Both the state and the Nak7ibendis werecritical of heterodoxy in society. The ulema of Istanbul favored the order, too, intheir Wght against the heterodox Bekta7is. 18Sheik Khalid, whose goal was the revitalization of the Muslim communityqua Islam, trained hundreds of disciples to carry his ideas throughoutCentral Asia, Southeast Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Crimea. 19Both Sirhindi and Khalid stressed an imaginative “imitation” of the Prophet’slife and sought to identify the universally applicable intentions of the Prophetin order to learn how to cope with prevailing problems. The durability andsigniWcance of the Nak7ibendi-Khalidi order rests in its organizational structureand theoretical teaching. Sheik Khalid based his community on threecomplementary pillars: rabìta (spiritual bond), zikr (invocation to God), andthe sheik. After expressing regret for wrongdoing, the disciple must proceedto strive for puriWcation through zikr, a method of internal training and selfconstructionthrough which a new consciousness is formed and is expressedin good deeds. 20 In the Nak7ibendi tradition, a believer discovers a universaland substantial self-consciousness that is objectiWed both in the personalityof the SuW leaders and in certain behavioral practices.The contemporary Nak7ibendi orders of Turkey are all diverse branchesof the Khalidi-Nak7ibendis. 21 In the nineteenth century, the Kadiri order wasthe dominant order in which the position of sheik became hereditary. TheNak7ibendi order oVered an alternative, that is, a nonhereditary order, to thosewho did not have the required hereditary lineage for religious mobility. In away, the Nak7ibendis, by issuing hundreds of ijazas (religious decrees recognizingthe right of the named person to exercise independent reasoning) tothose whose fathers were not sheiks, democratized and popularized SuW orders.However, in due time Nak7ibendi orders also adopted heredity as a basisfor selecting new sheiks.Sheik Khalid’s main goal was to “promote the moral and spiritual rebirthof the Muslim community gathered around the Ottoman caliphate, in order tostrengthen its cohesion against external attack,” and he pursued a careful anddeliberate policy to penetrate the state by recruiting ulema and some high-rankingbureaucrats. 22 However, since Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) was alwayssuspicious of charismatic popular leaders and alternative loyalties within thestate, he banned the Khalidi-Nak7ibendi order in Istanbul and exiled its sheiks. 23Under Sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839–1861), the Khalidi-Nak7ibendi’s expulsion