Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

182 islamic political identity in turkeyall-male camps included high school and university students, who had an opportunityto bring religious and secular ideas and skills of thinking and arguingtogether; daily prayers were performed regularly, and social and ethical issueswere discussed from the perspectives of Said Nursi. One sees the process ofdeepening private religious consciousness and the development of new andnarrow Islamic fraternization among the participants of the camps. The studentslived together within an atmosphere of sincerity and were tutored in a sharedlanguage of Islamic morality to form a common map of action. These camps,along with dershanes, also known as ì7ìk evler (lighthouses), were spaces fordeepening inner consciousness for public use and were the networks of theformation of a powerful sense of religious brotherhood in order to bring Islamicvalues into the public. The Wrst generation followers of Gülen internalized Islamicvalues of responsibility, self-sacriWce, and dedicating oneself to the collectivegood of the Muslim community.Gülen’s knowledge and charisma fascinated these young men and motivatedthem to render their time and knowledge to revitalize the nation’s spiritualand intellectual capital, and this in turn Islamicized the public spaces andpublic debates. In other words, after the camps, the students were asked to formstheir own fraternity network to “bring” Islamic values and practices into thepublic spaces. In the making up of this activism, Gülen evoked the life of theProphet and also the founders of the Ottoman state. The Ottomans, for Gülen,were models to indicate the possibility of becoming “great.” For Gülen, theOttomans were great because they lived in accordance with a liberal interpretationof Islam; if Turkey wanted to become a “great nation” again, it was necessaryto bring “God” back into life, institutions, and the intellect.This was the embryonic period for the formation of the Gülen-centric religious-conservativecommunity. During this period, Gülen wanted to preservehis community from active political involvement in an Islamic political movementand treated political activity as a challenge to his attempt to create a dutifulMuslim community. However, due to the ideological polarization of Turkey,especially the rise of radical leftist movements, the Gülen movement embracedan anticommunist rhetoric and adopted a conservative nationalist position. Themovement avoided active politics but used all its means to get access to educationalinstitutions, media, the market, and other urban public spaces by establishingits own institutions or through its followers. Informal ties were criticalin the evolution and activities of the community-building movement. Due tostate oppression and limited economic resources, Gülen employed tightly knit,informal networks of dershanes that consolidated solidarity and helped to createa shared moral orientation. Gülen tapped both the personalism and informalityof Muslim societies to control the boundaries of religious community.These densely woven webs of dershane networks mobilized new resources andaccumulated powerful social capital that came to be used in a more conducivesocial and political environment.Even though Gülen avoided any involvement in political activities, duringthe 1971 military coup, he was arrested, along with some prominent Nurcus,because of involvement with the Nur movement in 8zmir. This involvement was