Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

150 islamic political identity in turkeysystem. Islam, for various Nak7ibendi orders, is an ongoing discovery of revealedknowledge; the diVerent Nak7ibendi orders compete to establish their own hegemonic,yet constantly evolving interpretation as the “authentic” one.At the frontier of state-society interactions, the Nak7ibendis display severalfeatures of great signiWcance. The order articulates rapid social and economicchanges in terms of shared Islamic idioms, thus building a common cognitivemap on which to situate social changes. The Nak7ibendis in the Turkish contexthave managed to reconceptualize the processes of modernity by reimaginingIslam. The Nak7ibendis have accommodated themselves to social, economic,and political changes. Expanding trade created a new middle class that becamethe basis of Islamic activism during the tenure of Özal. The Islamic movementsof the 1980s had a strong middle-class dimension, and the revival of theNak7ibendi and Nurcu movements was a response to the ideological and politicalneeds of the middle class.The Nak7ibendi orders, while serving as the matrix for the emergence ofmajor Islamic movements, also witnessed a far-reaching transformation in religiousdiscourse and associational life that came about with the economic developmentsof the country. The orders have undergone a transition from SuWlodge–based communities to text-based ones as a result of the print and mediarevolutions. This transformation is seen most vividly in the life of the Nurculeader Said Nursi.SuW orders all demonstrate a willingness to appropriate modernity on theirown terms and for the beneWt of the Muslim community with regard to democracy,human rights, and the market economy. These movements do not seek toproject the past into the future but rather to read the past in terms of the needsof the present and the future. At the heart of all these movements in Turkey isthe eVort to articulate new identities as well as a new sense of community thatprovides Muslims with a sense of who they are and that they have intrinsic valuewhich justiWes their existence.