Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

print-based islamic discourse 165have to provide an explanation or rationale for their decisions since their authorityto make them was inherent in their traditional title and role. With theempiricism of Republican education and the secularization of the law, Nursicame to the conclusion that there was a need to explain religion to the masseson a communal and personal basis and insisted that individuals must havedirect access to the understanding of religious beliefs. He declared his RNKto be a space for teaching and producing knowledge that would counter positivisttrends in formal education. 43 These “spaces of knowledge” thus weretransferred from the ulema and the SuW lodges to the printed text. Oral discoursestill has a function in Nurcu circles, but textuality and the print mediahas become dominant. 44In attempting to understand the impact of literacy and print on Muslimsocieties, it is important that one not equate literacy with print culture. Mostulema were literate, but they were not part of print culture because they reliednot primarily on texts but rather on the oral mode of communication. Beforethe 1930s, both the printing of books and general literacy in Turkey were quitelow. The trend in modern Turkey is not a straight shift from oral to print culturebut rather a symbiosis of the two. If one examines the interactions betweenoral and print culture, one sees that print culture gradually has become dominant.One of the main implications of this “print dominance” of Islamic discourseat the popular level is that oral exchange does not carry the samelegitimacy and authority as that of written exchange.With the expansion of literacy and Nursi’s insistence on the collective readingof the RNK, the need evolved for dershanes to carry out the activity of interpretinghis texts. Gathering to study Nursi’s work fostered certain practicesamong Nurcus. The RNK and the institution of the dershane helped to form asocial space between the private sphere and the state in which Nurcus organizedthemselves as a public pressure group. This public sphere, à la Jurgen Habermas,was a counterpublic sphere vis-à-vis the one dominated by the secularist stateand its supporters. 45Placing Nursi’s writings into the prevailing discourses of that period suggesta connection between the text and author. However, Nursi’s followers readthe books to answer current questions. Nursi’s message therefore is reproducedwithin the challenges of the present time. This recoding of Nursi’s narrative takesplace either in interpretive circles or in commentary books. Since mass productionof books decontextualizes knowledge, the reading or listening audiencetends to give new meanings to what they read or hear. They engage in the complexprocess of recoding messages, through which internalization takes place.The New “Folk” Club: Dershanes as Reading CirclesAn open-door policy in the dershanes and weekly assemblies facilitated the disseminationof Nursi’s ideas. These institutions are not only centers for readingNursi’s works but also places to reaYrm a particular Islamic identity and exchangeopinions on political issues. Through the dershane structure, the Nurcu