doğmunun 125. yılında mustafa kemal atatürk - Atatürk Araştırma ...

ATATÜRK’S REFORMS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE MUSLIM WORLD 527
the clause that proclaimed Islam as the state religion (April 1925)
and then by removing it altogether (April 1928). Finally, the Turkish
state was described as secular and sovereignty was vested in the
name of the people (February 1937). But this did not imply a shift
towards atheism; it was only an attempt to keep religion and the state
apart as the religious orders had continued to show open defiance. 18
The social reforms, on the other hand, were intended to break the
age-old taboos and make Turkey ‘an integral part of the Western
civilization’. 19 The veil and the red fez were banned and all civil
servants were asked to wear western clothes and hats. In 1926, the
Swiss Civil Code was adapted to Turkish needs to preclude unilateral
divorces and check polygamy. The Islamic calendar gave way to
the Gregorian calendar. 20 The same year, the Perso-Arabic script
was abandoned in favour of the Latin script. 21 Other legal reforms
included the adoption of a penal code modelled on Italian laws and
a business code was copied from Germany. 22 In 1932, the azan was
rendered into Turkish and in 1934 the law of surnames was passed.
A year later, Friday ceased to be a holiday and the weekend shifted
to Saturday-Sunday. 23 And though state grants and waqfa were
still utilized for the upkeep of religious infrastructure Turkey was
thoroughly westernised, which epitomized in the declaration that
Turks were Westerners (1934). The men who controlled Turkey’s
destiny were committed nationalists and yet they chose to fashion the
Turkish society in the European cultural matrix. More importantly,
the reforms incorporated not just the West’s worldview but also its
18 A series of events, such as the Seyh Sait rebellion, the Menemen incident and
the opposition’s role generally, had prompted the action against them. See
ibid., 117-18.
19 M. R. Feroze, Islam and Secularism in Post-Kemalist Turkey (Islamabad,
1976), 86.
20 Ibid., 87. On secularism also see Alisabeth Ozdalga, The Veiling Issue, Officials
Secularism and Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (Richmond, 1998),
esp., 17-31.
21 Ibid., 88.
22 Vamik D. Volkan and Norman Itzkowitz, The Immortal Atatürk (Chicago,
1984), 258.
23 Feroze, Islam and Secularism in Post-Kemalist Turkey, 90-1.