Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

144 islamic political identity in turkeydemocratic environment Xourishes, however, followers are inclined to emphasizeother loyalties: to club, union, or business association. Therefore, as Turkeyhas been increasingly democratizing, the 8skenderpa7a has developed newmeans of communication such as periodicals and radio stations to keep its followersinformed of current events. It has also opened new professional associationsin medicine and law. All these activities compete with other loyalties bytransforming Nak7ibendi loyalty into a framework or a ground for accommodatingprofessional loyalties. In this case, solidarity among the followers of the8skenderpa7a order is built through creating a consensus on social and politicalissues. However, the order’s remarkable adaptive powers and pragmatism mayled to its decline, not so much because of state suppression or rivalry from otherorders, but because of its smooth adaptation to capitalism and politics, both ofwhich undermined the spiritual and cultural aspects of the 8skenderpa7a order.The order may come to be characterized as a vacuous commercial enterpriserather than as a SuW fraternity.The Erenköy CemaatiIn 2003, the most inXuential post-Republican SuW order is that established byMehmet Esad Efendi, who eventually settled in the Istanbul neighborhood ofErenköy. 55 Esad Efendi was born in Erbil, Iraq, and trained by Nak7ibendi scholars.His Wrst book, Kenzü’l –8rfan (Treasury of wisdom), attempted to create asystem of morality by utilizing the reported sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. 56In addition to his religious writings, Esad Efendi was also a well-known poet whoused Persian and Turkish in his verses. 57 Because of his support of the YoungTurks against Abdülhamid II, he was forced to leave Istanbul and settle in Erbil.There he collected his exchanges with his followers and other scholars and publishedthese as Mektubat (The letters). 58 Some of these letters reXect the sociopoliticalconditions of northern Iraq in the early 1900s. After the Young Turkrevolution in 1908, he returned to Istanbul and became the sheik of the Selimiyelodge in Üsküdar. 59 He also played a signiWcant role in the War of Liberation butlater became one of the leading critics of Mustafa Kemal’s program of secular socialengineering. Even though there was no direct link between the Menemem incidentof 1930 and Esad Efendi, state oYcials took this opportunity to arrest himand his eldest son, M. Ali Efendi. 60 The son, whom Kemalists feared would becomehis father’s charismatic successor, was hanged; Esad Efendi himself diedin prison on March 4, 1931. His followers believed he was poisoned. 61After Esad Efendi’s death, Mahmut Sami Ramazano:lu (1892–1984), anaccountant by profession, became leader of the community. 62 In the discussioncircle where he met with his followers in the Zihnipa7a mosque in Erenköy, hestressed the importance of Islamic ethics as a “horizon within which Muslimsare expected to determine what is good and bad and what is just and unjust.”Islam, for Ramazano:lu, was not “only an identity to determine one’s locationbut rather a lens through which Muslims must critically evaluate the world.” 63Ramazano:lu succeeded in training and inXuencing a sizeable number of pro-