Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

188 islamic political identity in turkeyReligious ends are achieved through worldly actions rather than purely inwardperfection. Gülen assumes that the inner transformation of individuals can onlytake place by exercising full control over modern processes. Indeed, Gülen’smethod of moving from the outer to the inner may be a reaction to the failureof previous Turkish-Islamic movements to move from inner-individual to theouter-public. When one sees the diVerent emphases placed by Gülen on “action”and by Nursi on “belief,” one can see the applicability of AlastairMacIntyre’s view that the relationship between belief and action is internal andconceptual. MacIntyre argues that “it is because actions express beliefs, becauseactions are a vehicle for our beliefs that they can be described as consistent orinconsistent with beliefs expressed in avowal.” 19 Islam, for Gülen, must be representedby actions, and these actions, in turn, are expressions of faith. However,the diVerence between Gülen and Nursi also is related to a newly evolvingsociopolitical context within which Turkish Islam presently is embedded. Socialfactors that impinge on and inXuence this Islamic discourse set the directionof the neo-Nurcu movement.Although both Nursi and Gülen expressed their views on social and politicalissues in terms of a perceived weakening sociopolitical consciousness during theRepublican period, they both oVered diVerent remedies. Nursi, by forming a newreligious consciousness, devalued the world in favor of certain spiritual ideals,whereas Gülen stresses praxis as the totality of all human activities through whicha person seeks to transform nature into a “human world” (cemiyet)—of meanings,consciousness, technologies, and economic forces. One may conceptualize Nursi’sunderstanding of Islam as from the “inside out” and Gülen’s as from the “outsidein.” These diVerent readings of the role of the Islamic religious tradition areresponses to diVerent conditions and needs. In the case of Nursi, the main taskwas the renewal of religious consciousness and the rejuvenation of faith in themidst of a militantly antireligious state campaign, whereas for Gülen reform ofeconomic and social policy is the next important task.The diVerences in stress on individual and community and religion and faithalso diVerentiate Nursi from Gülen. Nursi wanted to free individuals as an objectof the forces of materialism and utilitarianism. Nursi’s goals were the reconstructionof faith in the age of skepticism and the cultivation of an ethically perfect self(insan-ì kamil). In Gülen’s conception of the self, one is deWned by, and maturesthrough, membership in a community where one becomes fully aware of one’sduty to the group and broader society. For Gülen, the constant theme has beenaction (aksiyon) and dominance over material conditions and control over themeans of production and of ideas for the realization of a contemporary religiousconsciousness. 20 Gülen presents himself as a contemporary man of praxis as wellas of spiritual contemplation. In the case of Nursi, however, the prevailing conditionsof Kemalist persecution forced him to turn away from an externalized messageof Islamic reform to an inner contemplative one. The incongruity betweenthe inner and outer spiritual realms conditioned Nursi’s understanding of modernity.According to Nursi, there is only one “home” where everyone can feelequal and free: the religious domain in which believers are fully conscious of theexistence of God. Members of this inner community view each other as equals.