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intellectuals or politicians, but has been shaped by ali of the mainstreampolitical leaders.With this brief expose of islam in the eyes of mainstream Turkishleaders, two basic questions come to the fore. One has to do with thecompatibility of the secularists' conception of islam and the traditionalone. It has been widely accepted, after ali, that islam does regulate the behaviorof believers in every aspect of their lives and sees the political organizationof the religious community as an important foundation of religionitself. How is it possible to reconcile this with the vievv of islamwhich resolutely rejects any notion of a religious-political communityand the binding character of the Holy Law? Remarkably, some of thepublic figures and politicians have adressed themselves to the problem.According to Erdal İnönü, his was the very reason Atatürk and his associateswere forced to set boundaries betvveen what was regarded as the affairsof the state and the affairs of religion and view islam as a religion offaith and ritual alone 6 . In this sense, Atatürk may have been a religious reformerhimself. Özal, on his part, stated that islam should not actually beseen as one single path but a middle road, and there were many ways ofcompromise betvveen the paths 7 . What was needed perhaps was a freshlok at islam and Evren may have been pointing in that direction when heclaimed that certain Koran verses ostensibly sanctioning outmoded ruleshad not been properly interpreted 8 . The most interesting statement, perhaps,belongs to Demirel, in whose speeches one often detects and intellectualbent. Many times, he said, secularists did not understand islamwhile Islamists did not understand secularism. He admitted that some ofthe laws in islam actually deal with earthly issues and regulate relationshipsbetvveen mand and man, which are, according to the strict secularistapproach, the domain of society alone. But though Turkey may have deviatedfrom this in her legislation, these laws were adapted to the conditionsof the time just like had been done in early islam and just like whatwas done in other Müslim countries. It is true that the Koran refers to therule of God, but the right of a nation to rule itself is not contradictory tothe divine orders of God. In his vvords:Many times in the Koran God telis the Muslims to rule thecountry through justice. God also says give the right to ruleto those who are capable. Here we see that God wants thepeople to be ruled by the people. So, ifyou hand power överto those who are capable of running the country, then youare fulfılling God's wishes. The country may stili be consideredMüslim and is considered so by others 9 .6. TBMM, Tutanak Dergisi. 20 January 1987, B: 56, O: 1, p. 557.8.Cumhurbaşkanı Turgut Özal'ın...Konuşma, 5 March 1991 (Ankara 1991), pp. 18-19.Speech in Van, 24 August 1983. Evren 'in Demeçleri, 1982-1983, p. 422.9. Turkish Daily News, 21 April 1994.200