Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the neo-nur movement of fethullah gülen 181the regional culture, molded Gülen’s personality and his understanding of Islamas national-statist. The Turkish Islam of eastern Anatolia is diVerentiated by itsnationalistic and SuW characteristics. 5Erzurum, formerly the eastern frontier of the Ottoman state, was a zone ofconXict among the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman empires. One of the mainimplications of this geocommunal position is that Islam came to be very muchassociated with the defense of the community. Furthermore, much of the populationof this region is made up of immigrants who Xed the Caucasus followingthe 1878 war with Russia. Moreover, this region experienced one of the bloodiestcommunal conXicts in recent history between Armenians and Muslimsbetween 1877 and 1920. The memories of this communal conXict and Russianoccupation still loom large here. The region was central in the organization ofthe national movement against the occupation of Anatolia during the War ofLiberation. The dominant culture of this region is state-centric, and the peopleof the region, known by their regional identity as Dada7, traditionally have giventhe state priority over religion. Regional Islam, which is marked by Dada7 identity,therefore, is punctuated by the culture of frontier conditions, which stressessecurity over other concerns and identiWes Russia (and then communism) asthe “other” of Turko-Islamic identity. As a result of their historical experience,the people of Erzurum tend also to feel that religion cannot exist if the state isnot in a strong position to defend it. 6 In his memoirs, Mehmet Kìrkìncì, anotherNur leader of Erzurum, constantly stresses Nursi’s heroism in the defenseagainst the Russian and Armenian forces to legitimize the writings of Nursi inthis nationalist region of Turkey. 7 In short, this frontier population treats thestate as a sine qua non for a Muslim society and the survival of Islam. Gülen’sconception of Islam is conditioned by this nationalism and statism.After receiving his informal education in the zone of Dada7 Islam, Gülenwas appointed in 1958 as a state-salaried preacher (vaiz) in Edirne, where a largenumber of Balkan Muslims live. In 1966, he was appointed as the oYcial 8zmirpreacher of the D8B and also worked at the Kestanepazarì Qur’an School in 8zmir.Combining his personal abilities with the social resources in this developedAegean Sea city, Gülen laid the foundation of the most widespread dershanenetworks. Gülen did not limit himself to Nursi’s writings but read the books ofsocially conservative and politically national-Islamist intellectuals such as NecipFazìl Kìsakürek, Nurettin Topçu, and Sezai Karakoç.The Stages of the Neo-Nur MovementIn the Wrst period (religious community–building, 1966–1983), Gülen used theKestanepazarì Qur’an School to tutor a spiritually oriented and intellectuallymotivated core group of students about building an exclusive religious communityin 8zmir. Summer camps became spaces of secular education (history andbiology) and religious tutoring. In these summer camps, Gülen developed atheology of religious activism and encouraged students who would later be thecore group in the movement to engage in faith-motivated civic activism. The