Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

islamic social movements 27man rights and pluralism by drawing on the charter of Medina as laid down bythe Prophet Muhammad.This reimagination creates a perpetual controversy between the customarymeanings and practices associated with Islamic identity and the modern issueswith which contemporary intellectuals must contend. This conXict is well illustratedby my model of the vertical and horizontal axes along which debates ofIslamic authenticity and identity are argued (see table 1.1). The emergence ofnew opportunity spaces on the horizontal axis preserves and at the same timeundermines traditional Islamic doctrines. It rearticulates them, allowing themto respond to changing social circumstances. However, this process also raisesthe issue of whether there are any limits on or guidelines for the reinterpretationof tradition and whether this opening up of discursive spaces to a wide rangeof interpretations is not undermining the long-term stability of tradition and itsvery survival. Such fears lead to attempts to reimpose some scriptural controland oversight by recognized traditional religious authorities on the vertical axisof this paradigm.Islamic movements, as actors of social change, shift their goals and tacticsas a result of two intertwined processes. First are the new structural conditionsthat either shrink or expand opportunity spaces, which in turn shape the goalsand strategies of Islamic movement as “withdrawal,” “confrontation,” or “participation”in politics and the market. Second are the abilities of intellectuals orcommunal leaders to use opportunity spaces to frame everyday issues in termsof the shared cultural idiom of their community. Frames and the process offraming, which are shaped by the discursive practices of Qur’anic and prophetictradition, face the uncertainties of editing, interpolation, and contamination bysubsequent events and ideological currents. These two conditions address thequestion of why Muslims mobilize and how they do it. These movements reasonablycould be referred to as “identity movements” because they carry certainmeanings, lifestyles, and identities that challenge state-centric identities. 46 Bybringing the concept of imagination to the forefront, I seek to stress the socialconstruction of identities and resources by societal groups. In the case of Turkey,an Islamic ethos together with religious networks (mosques, SuW orders,the textual reading circles) “supply” a powerful notion of justice and identity toexpress the “demand” of contemporary Turkish society for something that canovercome its ideological vacuity. 47Horizontal and Vertical Islamic Political Movements and IdentitiesTwo distinct and opposing understandings of identity movements have developedin Turkey. This diVerentiation is based on each group’s goals and strategiesto produce change. Their goals range from state-oriented to societal-orientedchanges, and their strategies range from legal to illegal. Although some socialmovements can be placed along a continuum, the classiWcation suggested hereoVers four generic typologies of Islamic movements. At one end is a stateorientedand elite-based vanguard movement that is more ideological and stat-