The Spatiotemporal Turn in the Secularization Debate

By the end of the twentieth century, the secularization debate in sociology seemed to have reached an impasse. On one side of the standoff was the classical secularization paradigm, which emerged in the postwar period to argue that various forces of modernity would unavoidably bring about the decreased social significance and increased privatization of religion (Berger Reference Berger1967; Bruce Reference Bruce2002; Wilson Reference Wilson1966). On the other side was the religious economies paradigm, which arose in the 1980s and used a neoclassical economic framework to document that individual religiosity was in fact livelier than ever, thus declaring the death of the secularization perspective (Hadden Reference Hadden1987; Stark and Finke Reference Stark and Finke2000; Warner Reference Warner1993). Sensing the impasse early on, neosecularization scholars came to meet the criticisms against the classical paradigm with qualifiers and clarifications. Distinguishing between micro/meso/macro levels of analysis and latent/manifest processes of secularization, they argued that secularization does not imply a linear, irreversible, or uniform phenomenon of religious decline, but rather encompasses a complex process of religious change occurring unequally in various spheres of society, and across different polities (Dobbelaere Reference Dobbelaere2004; Sommerville Reference Sommerville1998; Yamane Reference Yamane1997).

More specifically within the neosecularization perspective, a growing body of scholarship made a call to shift the terms of the sociological debate with particular attention to place and time. This is because the geographical scope had been restricted mostly to the Western world, and the historical methods and processes were not predominant in either paradigm. To historicize the debate, Gorski (2005: 175; Reference Gorski and Dillon2003b: 122) suggested treating secularization as the “contingent outcome of particular events involving particular actors” and considering the “sociopolitical conflicts” that brought it about. Casanova (2006: 9; Reference Casanova1994: 17), likewise, proposed conducting “comparative sociological analyses of historical processes of secularization” and refocusing “the attention beyond Europe and North America.” In short, cross-religious and cross-regional historical inquiry was highlighted as a promising avenue of research for a context-sensitive and politically informed understanding of secularization (Altınordu Reference Altınordu, Bender, Cadge, Levitt and Smilde2012; Katznelson and Jones Reference Katznelson and Stedman Jones2010; Pickel Reference Pickel2011).

Many macrosociological case studies and comparative works emerged in the last decade to contribute, directly or indirectly, to historicizing secularization in Western as well as non-Western geographies (Akan Reference Akan2017; Başkan Reference Başkan2014; Buckley Reference Buckley2016; Cady and Hurd Reference Cady and Hurd2010; Grzymała-Busse Reference Grzymała-Busse2015; Hibbard Reference Hibbard2010; Künkler et al. Reference Künkler, Madeley and Shankar2018; Kuru Reference Kuru2009; Mayrl Reference Mayrl2016; Saeed Reference Saeed2017; Smith Reference Smith2003; Zubrzycki Reference Zubrzycki2016). To be sure, the works of these authors follow neither a particular theory nor set of methodological guidelines to study religion and secularity. What I call the spatiotemporal turn denotes what Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein2009) calls a “family resemblance” of approaches—historically and geographically sensitive accounts that defy the homogeneous and teleological understanding of secularization. While such a perspective may be commonplace among historians, the turn represents a notable historicizing shift within the sociological debates. The comparative-historical agenda underscores the varieties of secular experience, or “multiple secularities” constructed through contentious, contingent processes, where each secularizing trajectory has different priorities and guiding principles (Burchardt et al. Reference Burchardt, Wohlrab-Sahr and Middell2015; Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt Reference Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt2012). As such, secularization is arguably one area of academic inquiry today in which the historical and sociological disciplines forge a more intimate dialogue than they did two decades ago.

Critical Junctures: Secularization in State Building

The spatiotemporal turn in sociology led to a heightened interest in studying critical junctures of state building. Critical junctures refer to relatively short, politically uncertain historical phases where “the decisions … of key actors are freer and more influential in steering institutional development than during ‘settled’ times” (Capoccia Reference Capoccia, Mahoney and Thelen2015: 150). In such intervals, a series of highly contingent events set into motion “the adoption of a particular institutional arrangement from among … alternatives” (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2000: 513). Once consolidated, the new system produces path-dependent outcomes, laying out fairly fixed institutional frameworks and practices that become gradually difficult to change over time (Pierson Reference Pierson2000: 257). Expressed in terms of the secularization canon, critical junctures create “secular settlements,” that is, “relatively stable sets of policies governing the role of religion in particular social domains—in each country” (Mayrl Reference Mayrl2016: 2). Künkler et al.’s (Reference Künkler, Madeley and Shankar2018) comparative volume on non-Western secularities conclude that “foundational moments … like the end of colonial rule, civil war, or revolution … create path dependencies in religion-state relations” (Künkler and Madeley Reference Künkler, Madeley, Künkler, Madeley and Shankar2018: 380).

Despite such interest, the literature rarely investigates those foundational moments in a conceptually consistent fashion. This may be one of the reasons why ideational explanations, such as the positivism narrative in the case of Turkey, take precedence over the analysis of actual processes. Ahmet Kuru’s insightful comparative-historical work involving Turkey, for instance, concludes that “ideas and ideologies come first” in the analysis of state policies toward religion, causing him to fall back to the positivism account (Kuru Reference Kuru2009: 10, 83, 214; for a critique, see Akan Reference Akan2017; Başkan Reference Başkan2014). For a better understanding of the causal mechanisms in critical junctures, “it is important … that secularization theory be complemented” (Pickel Reference Pickel2011: 15). Here, I offer to do that with the scholarship on state formation.

The comparative-historical/political sociology literatures emphasize two interrelated master processes inherent to modern state formation, overlapping respectively with the primary concerns of Weberian and Marxian accounts: building internal/external national-sovereign state capacity and geographically specific trajectories of class formation/dynamics. The first refers to central governmental capability to rule, monitor, and transform society (Mann Reference Mann1984). The scholarship on state capacity is rich and variegated, focusing on the coercive, extractive, administrative, and developmental aspects of the phenomenon (Hendrix Reference Hendrix2010; Soifer Reference Soifer2008). The underlying premise of these works is that infrastructural power is conditioned upon the ability of the state “to maintain sovereignty … over a geographical territory,” where “state organs … are able to hold competing power centers at bay” (Bäck and Hadenius Reference Bäck and Hadenius2008: 3, 15). This requires “eliminating or neutralizing rivals” inside and outside the national territory through war, diplomacy, civil conflict, and so forth (Tilly Reference Tilly, Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol1985: 181). The second master process denotes the struggles and alliances between social classes in the establishment of the national state, that is, “the varied political roles” played by different societal strata “in the transformation from agrarian societies … to modern industrial ones” (Moore Reference Moore1966: viii). State formation is viewed here in primarily socioeconomic terms, where the modern governmental apparatus emerges in the transition from a feudal/precapitalist to a capitalist mode of production, shaped by the complex interplay of class dynamics specific to a given social formation (Anderson Reference Anderson1974). The distinction between the Weberian and Marxian accounts corresponds in general terms to the territorial and capitalist dimensions of power, which are related but not analytically reducible to each other (Arrighi Reference Arrighi1994: 33–34; Harvey Reference Harvey2003: 26–31). Despite their differing emphases, the two accounts converge on the idea that modern state formation is ultimately linked to economic development, creation of an efficient administrative structure, and autonomy from other institutions (Gorski Reference Gorski2003a: 165, 160).

Other scholars have also emphasized the significance of modern state formation for secularization, especially in non-Western cases like Turkey where Secularity 1 occurred rather swiftly, and was directed largely by political authority (Başkan Reference Başkan2014: 7; Demerath Reference Demerath, Beckford and Demerath2007: 73; Keddie Reference Keddie1997: 40; Künkler and Madeley Reference Künkler, Madeley, Künkler, Madeley and Shankar2018: 435). These works converge on the idea that secularization cannot be taken as an isolated variable, but as a multifaceted phenomenon that is “greatly affected by the surrounding social context” (Hamilton Reference Hamilton2001: 204–5, my emphasis). Underlining the analytical processes of internal/external sovereignty and class struggles/alliances aims to conceptually systematize the various dimensions of that surrounding social context. Applying this heuristic perspective to the late Ottoman and early Republican reality, the next section outlines the general trends for the unfolding of secularization in Turkey, followed by a detailed sequential narrative of major events and processes.

Ottoman Lands at the Turn of the Century: An Overview

In the year 1900, social power relations in the empire were divided along ethno-religious lines. Contrasting the mainly Muslim imperial civil-military bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie of the Ottoman lands was composed predominantly of a non-Muslim commercial class concentrated in coastal regions, serving as the intermediary of global capitalist integration since the previous century (Kasaba Reference Kasaba1988). Yet unlike their European counterparts, Greek and Armenian capitalists did not, and in many ways could not, directly influence Ottoman state power for market-based transformation. Instead, these groups increasingly saw their political opportunities in nationalist-separatist agendas, tied closely with their respective ethno-religious backgrounds and dealings with the Great Powers (Keyder Reference Keyder1987: 77). Muslim notables, on their part, were still too weak and disorganized to lead a national-capitalist advance, although they had grown in size during Abdülhamid II’s rule (1876–1909). Composed of landlords, small/medium-sized merchants of local trade, and other Sunni elites and ulema of interior Anatolia, the political priority of this “Muslim Block” was toward preserving the religious-patrimonial empire and curbing non-Muslim privileges rather than modernizing state power (Emrence Reference Emrence2012: 57). Working-class formation was scant and insignificant, and the dispersed small peasantry could only indirectly impact politics, if at all. Such class dynamics in the first quarter of the century were superposed by internal and external conditions of political conflict, war, and violence on an unforeseen level, which often manifested itself as an internal/external Muslim-Christian antagonism. Leading to its collapse, the empire witnessed a series of separatist movements intersecting with ruinous battles in Tripoli (1911) and the Balkan Wars (1912–13), followed by the European offensive in World War I (1914–18) and the War of Independence (hereafter WOI) (1919–22). In this intricate setting characterized by ethno-religious domestic strife, Western military encirclement, and the absence of politically leading class forces, it was the Young Turks who spearheaded national-capitalist state building in two phases, first led by the Unionists (1908–18) and then by the Kemalists (1919–38).

The Young Turks represented the latest installment of the reformist faction within the Ottoman bureaucracy, which had been going through a “defensive modernization” to gradually split up between traditional and modernist cadres since at least the Tanzimat Reforms (1839–76) (Black Reference Black1966: 71; Findley Reference Findley1980: 149–50). They were a professional-military stratum educated in Western-style imperial colleges, whose primary ideal was “to strengthen their states in the face of internal and external threats” (Gelvin Reference Gelvin2011: 71–72). Based on this priority, they developed a bifurcated relationship with Islam long before they took power. On the one hand, Islam was a threat to sovereignty. The legitimation of Abdülhamid II’s absolutism with abundant Islamism (Deringil Reference Deringil1999), along with the rejuvenation of the religious-traditional bureaucracy at their expense, solidified the Young Turks’ view of religion as an obstacle to modernization. They saw a “‘lack of fit’ between [the] value of ‘state preservation’ … and the shabby residues of an imperial-Islamic structure” (Mardin Reference Mardin1977: 285). On the other hand, Islam simultaneously emerged as a condition for sovereignty. The overlap of non-Muslim separatist movements and Western military intervention in the Russian War of 1877–78 (known as the “War of 93” in the Islamic calendar), costing the empire 40 percent of its land and 20 percent of its population, was particularly traumatic for the Young Turks (Zürcher Reference Zürcher2010: 287). As the new century began, they were gradually convinced that territorial integrity required a Muslim social basis, and a “national bourgeoisie” recruited from its ranks (Toprak Reference Toprak1982). Underlining this bifurcated association with Islam, Barkey (Reference Barkey, Katznelson and Stedman Jones2010: 106) notes that “many of the best early Young Turk thinkers wrote that the social ills of the empire were caused by increased power of the ulema, but urged maintaining a Durkheimian vision of religion as the source of social cohesion.” The concern for sovereignty explains the divided view.

After they took power with the Revolution of 1908, the unfolding of events accentuated the national state builders’ twofold relationship with Islam. Table 1 outlines the major Muslim- and mon-Muslim-affiliated sociopolitical contentions, internal and external, that the Unionists and later the Republicans faced in the 1908–38 interval, which were to have a direct bearing on the course of the secularizing process.

Table 1. Major religiously affiliated contentious episodes in national state building (1908–38)

The various intersections of Muslim/non-Muslim and internal/external contentions, which will be expanded on in the subsequent sections, created the conditions for the following general tendencies:

A1: The recurrent articulation of Islam as a source of opposition at home bolstered secularization as an essential sovereign state-building strategy. Against the religiously legitimated resistance of the traditional Ottoman bureaucracy and allied Muslim notables, the secularizing reforms were a means to “cripple the ability of the old ruling class to organize and fight back” and were part of a “concrete struggle against one of the primary impediments facing the establishment of bourgeois social forms” (Margulies and Yıldızoğlu Reference Margulies and Yıldızoğlu1988; Savran Reference Savran2010: 80–81).

A2: The decades-long politics of pan-Islamism centered on the Ottoman Caliphate, utilized by Abdülhamid II and later by the Unionists, was firmly rejected by the Republicans. Pan-Islamism failed catastrophically in World War I, and continued to be a major liability for external sovereignty by placing the young Republic in direct opposition to the Franco-British presence in the Middle East. Besides its relevance for domestic politics, abolishing the caliphate secularized foreign policy and “eliminated one possible source of frictions with great powers of the period” (Başkan Reference Başkan2014: 68).

B1 and B2: Western military offensives and endorsement of Christian separatisms brought forth Islam as a “cultural defense,” a countervailing force against a secularizing trend where “religion often provides resources for the defense of a national, local, ethnic or status group culture” (Bruce Reference Bruce and Haynes2009: 152–53). At the expense of Armenians and Greeks, and the recognition of the Alevi minority as a distinct entity, national state builders privileged a homogenizing conception of Muslimhood in their demographic politics and bourgeoisie creation, and embraced a Sunni Islamic identity and rhetoric, which complicated secularization. By contrast, Western powers directly facilitated secularization in other instances. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, for instance, bound Turkey to provide equal status to non-Muslims, directly impacting the 1926 Civil Code.

Distinguishing between internal and external forces is analytically significant to account for the multiple factors that shape secularization (see, for instance, Demerath Reference Demerath, Beckford and Demerath2007). Yet the hierarchy between them should be acknowledged. In what follows, the historical analysis of the Turkish case confirms the theoretical assertion that “domestic forces” are more influential than external ones “as the drivers of secularization processes” (Künkler and Madeley Reference Künkler, Madeley, Künkler, Madeley and Shankar2018: 372–73). Moreover, underlining these general and often counteracting trends is not to imply that secularization was simply a pragmatic response to short-term state-building concerns. Instead, by offering an “eventful” historical sociology (Sewell Reference Sewell2005), the rest of the article demonstrates how this series of internal and external events in the critical juncture of 1908–38, as well as the national state builders’ interpretation of those events, influenced the development and institutionalization of laiklik in Turkey.

Unionists’ Incongruous Religious Policy (1908–18)

Soon after coming to power in 1908, two major challenges confirmed the Unionists’ bifurcated affiliation with Islam: the Islamically articulated 31 March Revolt (1909) and Christian defeat in the Balkan Wars (1912–13). Spearheaded by the ulema and other components of the traditional bureaucracy, the 31 March Revolt embodied the resentment of Anatolian Muslim notables and the Naqshbandi order, both of whom feared losing their privileged status under Abdülhamid II. The Unionists were shocked that a revolt in the name of Islam could shake the foundations of the new regime so easily (Jäschke Reference Jäschke1972: 95). The Balkan Wars, on their part, represented the very own “War of 93” for the Unionists by fusing Christian domestic separatism and external invasion to cost the empire 83 percent of its land and 69 percent of its population in Europe. Around this time, the Unionists fully gave up on the idea that “minorities could be kept within the empire” using Ottomanism, and they turned firmly toward Turkish nationalism with clear Islamic undertones (Shaw and Shaw Reference Shaw and Shaw1977: 289). With the loss of the Christian Balkans, the emphasis on Islamic solidarity became essential for survival. The Unionists’ incongruous religious policy, which welded a strong secularizing thrust with the privileging of Islamic authority and social groups, makes sense in this context.

Secularization helped weaken the Ottoman traditional bureaucracy and transfer its prerogatives to the emergent national state. The sultan-caliph’s authority to make laws and ratify international treaties was abolished; two-thirds of the palace budget was eliminated. The institution of the caliphate was redefined along temporal rather than religious lines (Ardıç Reference Ardıç2012: 144–45). The office of the Şeyhülislam, the highest Islamic authority in the empire, was removed from the cabinet in 1916; its temporal powers on education, legislation, judiciary, and finance were reassigned to secular ministries. The sway of sharia courts was diminished in 1911 using tighter regulation, and a secular inheritance law was enacted in 1913. The first Family Code of 1917 brought restrictions on polygamy. The content of primary education was partially secularized, and an initiative to adopt the Western calendar and clock was undertaken. Some Young Turk publications of the era voiced even more systematic reforms echoing the Republican policies that were to follow.

Simultaneously, and somewhat paradoxically, embracing Islam helped war mobilization efforts and entrenched the social basis of the regime vis-à-vis non-Muslims. The Unionists officially declared the Great War a jihad against the Christian West. After 1913, they followed an aggressive demographic policy of Islamization carried out through the deportation and massacre of Armenian and Greek Christians (Dündar Reference Dündar2011). In the process, they also systematically downplayed the distinct identity of the Alevi minority, whose recognition was sacrificed to “the creation of a homogenous Muslim population and public” (Dressler Reference Dressler2013: 107). With a view to engendering a loyal capitalist class, the properties of the Christian bourgeoisie were confiscated and redistributed to the Muslim-Turkish notables. Throughout the war, Muslim landlords, artisans, merchants, and bankers were enriched through state incentives and quotas, while Christian bourgeoisies faced dispossession and expulsion (Göçek Reference Göçek1996: 109–10). The result was that while in 1913 1 in 5 people in Anatolia was a non-Muslim, by 1925 this rate would fall down to 1 in 40 (Keyder Reference Keyder1987: 79, 69). The evident Islamic partiality of the Unionists, most of whom were ironically devout positivists, can be explained by the ethno-religious clashes inherent to the Turkish state-building process.

Fight for Islamic Legitimacy in the War of Independence (1919–22)

Islam once again emerged as a strong source of domestic opposition in the 1919–22 interval, especially due to the “multiple sovereignty” (Tilly Reference Tilly1978: 191) between the nationalists in Ankara and the Ottoman rule in Istanbul. In 1920, days before the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT), the Ottoman government issued the Istanbul Fatwa declaring the nationalists in Ankara traitors, and called for their slaying as a “religious obligation based on sharia” (Cebeci Reference Cebeci2009: 233–34). The Fatwa caused a series of revolts against the Ankara government, while Istanbul formed a “Caliphate Army” to fight the nationalists. Despite the Islamic challenge, the nationalists knew that the WOI could only be successful to the extent that it mobilized the Muslim majority. The war was fought as a Muslim-Christian, military-diplomatic conflict against the Greeks (in the west) and the Armenians (in the east) as well as European occupiers. The nationalists needed the Anatolian propertied elite and ulema to help rally the peasantry for war efforts, to which they complied due to fear of losing their wealth and status acquired during World War I.

There is no other period where Mustafa Kemal and his circle rested so heavily on Islamic rhetoric and symbols. In the 1919 national congresses, for instance, the “brotherhood” of all Muslims in the territory was stated to “prevent the fatherland from being trampled under Greek and Armenian feet” (CHP 2014: 45). Responding to the Istanbul Fatwa, the nationalists issued the Ankara Fatwa soon after, where they claimed to be the true representative of Islam, fighting for the captive caliphate. Committees of religious functionaries informed and incited the masses for Ankara’s cause. The GNAT was opened on a Friday with prayers, and it passed many conservative laws such as banning alcohol. Islamic language also helped secure the financial support of Muslims in Central Asia and India in the name of the caliphate (Hanioğlu Reference Hanioğlu2011: 104). A quantitative study of Mustafa Kemal’s speeches indicates that his utilization of Islamic references in the April 1920–June 1923 interval was approximately 11 times more than in the July 1923–November 1929 period that followed (Akyol Reference Akyol2008: 548–49). The religious character of the war was further validated in the aftermath of the Turkish victory, as they implemented the 1923 population exchange with Greece along exclusively confessional lines between Muslims and Orthodox Christians.

Transfer of Islamic Authority to the Republic (1922–24)

Secularization came forth as a key process in the foundation of the Republic. As it abolished the Ottoman Sultanate on 1 November 1922, the Ankara government made a point of separating this institution from the caliphate, and reducing the latter to a nonpolitical entity of symbolic-spiritual status. Mustafa Kemal’s speech that day underlined the difference between the two powers (TBMM 1 November 1922: 311). Yet at the same time, the nationalists pursued a transfer of the empire’s religious authority and legitimacy to the national state, especially as a means to neutralize political opposition and appease the Muslim majority. This process had already started during the Unionist period and the WOI, but its legal-institutional framework was constructed in the 1922–24 interval. In 1922, the assembly referred to the caliphate, now separated from the sultanate, as “the legitimate right of the Turkish Government” and promised to “liberate it from the foreigners that enslaved it” (Decree no. 307, no. 308, 30 October–1 November 1922). Moreover, November 1 was proclaimed a holiday, as that year coincided “the birth of the Prophet with the proclamation of national sovereignty” (Decree no. 309, 1 November 1922). The caliphate now belonged to Ankara.

The following year, the founding of the Republic was also colored by a step that embraced Islam, especially given that the word “Republic” in those days was considered to be equivalent to gavur (non-Muslim, infidel) (Atay Reference Atay2012 [1961]: 470–72). In the same law that proclaimed the Republic, Islam was introduced as a state religion, which was absent in the 1921 constitution (Law no. 364, 29 October 1923). The parliamentary discussion that day witnessed a plethora of Islamic references. One deputy likened the new state to that founded by the Prophet Mohammed, and added: “Fourteen centuries later … Allah chose another nation to deliver his second miracle, and that is the Turkish nation!” (TBMM 29 October 1923: 96, 100). In the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, the Republic was once again cautious to claim exclusive religious authority. The justification for the law argued that alongside the already existing “Islamic Government, there is no need for a separate Caliphate.” Its first article stated that “the Caliphate … is intrinsic to the meaning and notion of … the Republic.” Deputies reassured that the caliphate lived on in the Republic: “We have established [today] that the real seat of the Caliphate is the Grand Assembly” (TBMM 3 March 1924: 28, 66; Law no. 431).

The link between the caliphate and sovereignty merits elaboration. Holding an ambiguous status after the abolition of the sultanate, the caliphate soon became the hub of conservative opposition to the Republic. Islamist deputies and press propagated for the proclamation of the Caliph Abdülmecid Efendi as the head of state, to which he was favorable (Ardıç Reference Ardıç2012: 274). The caliph’s independent reception of official delegates and gifts, participation in Friday ceremonies, and issuing of envoys and statements to the Muslim world undermined Ankara’s authority. In this juncture, abolition was not only a secularizing move but also the definitive end of multiple sovereignty that had been ongoing since the WOI. That the same law also exiled the members of the Ottoman dynasty attests to sovereignty concerns. Externally, abolition represented the rejection of pan-Islamist claims over the Middle East. Arab and Albanian revolts, as well as the manipulation of the caliphate question by Franco-British diplomacy rendered this institution a liability for sovereignty. Republican Halide Edip (Adıvar), for instance, wrote that Western powers either sought to “control the Caliphate and use it on behalf of their own ambitions” or “suspected Turkey … of scheming against” them through its use for pan-Islamism (cited in Kili Reference Kili2003: 356). Either way, the caliphate caused external fragility, as it “might have created undesirable conflicts for the young republic” (Başkan Reference Başkan2014: 68). Mustafa Kemal referred to this situation as follows: “We wish the best for the fellow Muslims around the world. Yet, the administration of this community from a single center is a fantasy.… Instead of increasing the number and pressures of our enemies like that, let us retreat to our legitimate borders” (Atatürk Reference Atatürk2012: 69–70).

Two other laws passed on the same day as the caliphate’s abolition undertook the transfer of religious authority to the Republic. Law no. 429 closed the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Pious Foundations (vakıfs), putting an end to the functions of Şeyhülislam. It replaced this institution with the Directorate of Religious Affairs (henceforth Diyanet) and the Directorate of Pious Foundations. The task of Diyanet was identified as the “management of religious institutions” as well as “Islamic provisions and matters related to faith and worship” (Article 1). With Article 5, Diyanet undertook the administration of all the mosques and masjids as well as the appointment and remuneration of religious officials. Article 7 established the Directorate of Pious Foundations, which nationalized Ottoman foundations and their properties “to serve the real benefits of the nation.” This was a substantial transfer of funds and property to the national state, for it is estimated that at the time, “15 percent of land in Turkey was enclosed by vakıfs and remained out of the market economy” (Ergil Reference Ergil1975b: 250), which consisted of up to “three-quarters of the country’s arable land” (Kuran Reference Kuran2001: 849). Law no. 430, on its part, concentrated all educational affairs and institutions, including former Islamic medreses, in the hands of the Ministry of Education. It also monopolized the regulation of Islamic education by establishing the Faculty of Theology in Istanbul to educate “high religious experts” and by making it the ministry’s task to open imam-preacher schools to train religious officials (Article 4). Also in the spring of 1924, all Islamic courts were closed and replaced with civil ones under the Ministry of Justice. Within six months after its foundation, the Republic had already centralized religious services, education, pious foundations, and other sources of religious authority in its own hands. The new regime claimed exclusive ownership of Islamic legitimacy. A few days after Diyanet’s foundation, its officials were instructed to no longer mention the caliph in Friday sermons, but instead “pray for the salvation and felicity of the nation and the Republic” (RepublicanArchives, 7 March 1924).

Religious Dissent and Consolidation of the Republic (1924–27)

The highly antagonistic period between 1924 and 1927 witnessed the consolidation of the regime by Mustafa Kemal’s Republican People’s Party (RPP) against various forms of sociopolitical opposition, especially Islamically articulated ones, in which secularization once again became part and parcel of sovereignty building. The social basis of dissent stemmed from among the very Anatolian Muslim notables and ulema, who earlier supported the WOI and now felt that secular Republicanism betrayed their local authority and interests. Represented by “a parliamentary group generally hostile to reforms,” these elements “fought vigorously to maintain the Islamic understanding of the nation … by stressing religious ties” (Karpat Reference Karpat1959: 53). Fronted by landlords, chieftains, and the recently dispossessed ulema, some notables galvanized Muslim peasants in a series of localized rebellions across Anatolia. The closure of medreses, religious courts, and pious foundations in 1924 had deprived the ulema of its main sources of income. Landlords and chieftains, on their part, needed the ulema for the continuation of their dominant rural status. Therefore, there was a “strong correlation” between the distribution, number, and influence of sheiks and ulema and those of “semi-feudal big landlords and tribal formations” (Ergil Reference Ergil1975a: 74).

It is noteworthy that the Sheik Said Rebellion of eastern Anatolia, the biggest rebellion cycle of the period, broke out in February 1925, shortly after the law abolishing the feudal tithe (aşar) was opened for discussion in the parliament. Along with Kurdish nationalism, the rebellion assumed an openly Islamic character, where its leader denounced the abolition of the caliphate, blamed the government for “constantly diffusing irreligiousness,” and called for the annihilation of the Republic as a religious duty for all Muslims (Cemal Reference Cemal1955: 48). In response, the government declared martial law and amended the High Treason Law to criminalize the use of religion for political purposes. During the rebellion, Diyanet was called to action “to prevent the anti-Republican propaganda” by explaining to the masses the values of the Republic (RepublicanArchives, 7 May 1925).

Later in the same year, the government banned all dervish orders in the country and closed their lodges, viewed as a hotbed of insurgency. Closing the dervish orders “helped sever the Ottoman ruling class’ contact with the populace,” which was also a big blow to landlords generating their legitimacy in alliance with local religious leaders (Margulies and Yıldızoğlu Reference Margulies and Yıldızoğlu1988). While transferring the property of the dervish orders to the state, the law allowed some of them to continue functioning provided that they were converted to state-run mosques or masjids (Law no. 677, 30 November 1925). The government additionally outlawed “sheiks, dervishes, disciples, dede, seyyid, çelebi, emir, nakib” and other people who held Islamic spiritual titles and positions in the community. Among these groups, Diyanet was allowed to hire those who were loyal and sufficiently “possessed clerical qualities” (Law no. 1011, 19 April 1927; RepublicanArchives, 5 November 1927).

These laws suggest that as the Republic eliminated the influence of certain groups and spaces related to popular Islam, it also took over and integrated some of its remnants to the new “official” Islam. This is reflected also in Law no. 676 passed on the same day as the closure of dervish lodges, which made it a criminal offence to wear Islamic garments except for Diyanet officials, and further disentitled local religious leaders by depriving them of their symbolic power. On the same week, Law no. 671, known as the “Hat Law,” made it an obligation for all public officials to wear the Western-style hat, banning fez and other traditional headgears. It met with “loud resistance from the clergy and conservative small town notables who enjoyed the status of wearing religious apparel which distinguished them from the common man” (Ergil Reference Ergil1975b: 251). In response to a series of uprisings against the law, the government executed around 70 people by hanging and imprisoned many more. To counterbalance the reaction, Diyanet was instructed to declare the Islamic acceptability of wearing hats, even during namaz (RepublicanArchives, 5 January 1926).

Controlled Diminishment of Religious Authority (1928–38)

By 1927, Mustafa Kemal had broken “the political authority of landlords and religious leaders,” as the “abolition of the political power of the ulema … was also an attempt to undermine the potential political power of a landed class” (Trimberger Reference Trimberger1978: 29). Martial law allowed the elimination of contenders including the Progressive Republican Party and ex-Unionist factions. The Sheik Said Rebellion (1925), the multiple uprisings against the hat law (1925–26), and the assassination attempt on Mustafa Kemal in Izmir (1926) accelerated the removal of the last remnants of opposition against the RPP (Özoğlu Reference Özoğlu2011: 15–154). From this point on, the Islamic undertones of national state building went through a noticeable decline. Having eradicated the old religious institutions (such as the caliphate, Şeyhülislam, medreses, sharia courts, and dervish orders) while partly incorporating their powers and capabilities to the state, the Republic no longer utilized their monopoly to promote Islam. Instead, it opted for the controlled diminishment of religious authority, where the state continued to monopolize religious life and institutions for the purpose of gradually lessening their significance in public life.

The main reason for the shift was that Republican sovereignty no longer needed religious legitimation. European wars and non-Muslims separatisms were over, and domestic Islamic opposition was largely neutralized. In 1927, the RPP statute made mention of laiklik for the first time, that is, “completely separating religion and the world in the affairs of the state and the nation.” The concept entered the party program in the same congress (CHP 2014: 80–81, 103). Although it was proclaimed during the abolition of the caliphate in 1924 that the Republic was the true abode of “Islamic Government,” Islam as state religion was eliminated four years later, along with all other religious references in the constitution (such as sharia or Allah) (Law no. 1222, 10 April 1928). From that point on, the law’s justification held, religion would be a private affair “between God and the individual” (TBMM 9 April 1928, Appendix, 2). In the immediate aftermath of the Great Depression, two events in 1930 substantiated and accelerated the policy change: the Free Republican Party (FRP) experience and the Menemen Revolt. The vast mass support for the FRP, especially from those employing Islamic rhetoric to oppose the secular Republic, led to its closure within three months. Soon after, the Menemen incident exacerbated the anxiety of Islamic challenge, when a Naqshbandi mob in western Turkey rioted in the name of sharia and beheaded a reserve officer. In the RPP congress of the following year, PM İsmet Bey (İnönü) referred to these two events as “reactionary elements openly positioning themselves against the Revolution” (CHP 1931: 5).

It is at this juncture that bringing forth Muslimhood as a core element of nation building, prominent since the Unionist period, mainly came to an end (Berkes Reference Berkes1964: 495–96; Hanioğlu Reference Hanioğlu1995: 200–3; Mardin Reference Mardin2011: 76). Comprehensive initiatives to modernize and Turkify Islam, the last one being the proposed Religious Reform Project of 1928, were not taken up, although using Turkish continued to be promoted in the 1930s in Quran readings, ezan, sermons, and worship. As part of a larger shift of emphasis away from religious authority, especially “after 1930, there began a tendency towards constructing a secular, revolutionary morality that would not require resort to religion at all” (Aydın Reference Aydın, Washburn and Reinhart2007: 149–50). The shift was reinforced by the turn toward étatist economic policy, which emerged in response to the Great Depression to uphold planning, protectionism, and state-led industrialism (Boratav Reference Boratav2005). Together, “laicism and étatism summarized the political, cultural, and economic means for elevating the Turkish nation to a position of prosperity” (Parla and Davison Reference Parla and Davison2004: 132).

To reinforce secular authority, Islamic identity was substituted by halkçılık (populism) and Turkish nationalism. Inspired by the solidarisme of the French Third Republic, halkçılık highlighted “social order and solidarity as opposed to class conflict,” and a corporatist “harmony of interests” between all social strata (CHP 2014: 129–30). Nationalism, likewise, offered a nonreligious bond of unity, whose symbols swarmed across schools, squares, streets, ceremonies, and public buildings. Having substantially lost their day-to-day functions such as teaching in schools, arbitrating in courts, officiating marriages, and managing pious foundations, the multiple roles of the imam in the locality were replaced by secular-national authorities—teachers, judges, marriage officiants, and social workers, among others. Other RPP-led institutions established in 1932, such as People’s Homes (in towns) and People’s Rooms (in large villages), sought to create a secular form of association in local communities through various cultural activities (CHP 1942). The Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society, both founded in 1932, served to trace the historical and linguistic roots of the nation away from the Ottoman-Islamic heritage. Meanwhile, religion was removed from the definition of citizenship in school textbooks. Overall, religious authority, both in terms of personnel/institutions and source of legitimacy, gave way to the expanding secular bureaucracy and a governing ideology of Turkish-national unity.

Examples of controlled diminishment span from spheres such as law and education to the budgets, services, and locales related to religion. For instance, although all authority and bodies regarding Islamic education were transferred to the Republic in 1924, religious education courses at all levels were abolished by 1935, along with the closure of imam-preaching schools (1930), the removal of Arabic and Farsi from the school curricula (1929–30), the dissolution of the Faculty of Theology (1934), and the termination of virtually all Koran courses. Within a decade, Islamic education had almost been completely eradicated from the country. In another sphere, the National Assembly, deputies with religious occupational backgrounds dropped from 20 percent in 1920 to 7 percent in 1923, 4 percent in 1927, 3 percent in 1931 and 1935, 2 percent in 1939, and finally to 1 percent in 1943 (Toprak Reference Toprak1981: 70–71).

The most important instance of controlled diminishment was Diyanet, which had emerged by the end of 1925 as the sole legal body representing Sunni Islam. As seen during the 1924–27 interval, this institution played an important role in legitimizing Republican reforms and counteracting the use of Islam as an oppositional force. Besides, Diyanet’s Friday sermons were key in communicating modern national-capitalist values to the masses in religious terms. A book of sermons published in 1927 is full of such examples: teaching lessons on the religious benefits of trade, industry, agriculture, personal hygiene, national defense, and hardworking (Usta Reference Usta2010 [1927]). Notwithstanding such an instrumental use of Islam, Diyanet’s centrality was steadily displaced as the decade came to a close. This is visible in the ratio of the Diyanet’s funds in annual budgets, which plummeted after 1930.

Precipitated by the economic crisis, the tendency of decline demonstrated in Figure 1 continued virtually uninterrupted until the end of the RPP rule in 1950. Parallel with the fall in Diyanet’s budget, the hiring of personnel and opening of new mosques significantly slowed down, which was negatively correlated to the increase in population and growth in the public sector and secular bureaucracy, especially following the étatist turn. After the transfer of mosque administration to the Directorate of Pious Foundations in 1931, there was an initiative to “remove the redundant ones for economizing” (CHP 1938: 491, 483). In 1933, lawmakers similarly decided that vacant positions in Diyanet for preachers and religious teachers would not be filled, but eliminated (Law no. 2171, 8 May 1933). Another law the following year banned Diyanet officials from wearing religious garments outside of places of worship and ceremonies, further limiting the public visibility of Islam (Law no. 2595, 5 December 1934). Nevertheless, Republicans never seriously contemplated relinquishing the administration of Diyanet (or Pious Foundations). Institutional differentiation was an idea mentioned over the years only in passing by a handful of deputies in the parliament, never amounting to a real proposal or debate (Çitak Reference Çitak2004: 255–56). On the contrary, elaborate laws in the 1930s rationalized the organizational structure of Diyanet (Law no. 2800, 14 June 1935) and Pious Foundations (Law no. 2762, 5 June 1935). Trailing a highly regulated path to secularization, the Republic protected its religious monopoly to downplay religious authority and identity, and replaced them with secular ones.

Source: Data set produced by author (MTL: Million Turkish Liras).

Figure 1. Diyanet’s Share in Annual Budget (1924–44).

Secularization and Capitalist Transformation

Finally, the capitalist nature of national state building and its immediate link with secularization requires elaboration. The previous sections already demonstrated this relationship, as building Republican state capacity meant eliminating the religio-political power of the Ottoman ruling elite and traditional social classes resisting national-capitalist transformation. Secularization was an essential constituent of the process to neutralize Muslim landlords, notables, and ulema, paving the way for the consolidation of bourgeois social forms in a national framework (Ergil Reference Ergil1975a). As Keddie (Reference Keddie1997: 30) emphasizes, secularization in the developing world “was a necessary accompaniment of … economic transformations, which the old religio-legal structures with their lack of modern or secular law and their ties to agrarian society could not cope with.” Turkey was no exception, where laiklik came to be intimately connected to “integrating Turkey into the Western capitalist political economies to promote national economic growth” (Parla and Davison Reference Parla and Davison2004: 118). Accompanying the elimination of traditionalist sociopolitical rivals, Republicans realized this goal through wholesale secularizing legislative action.

In 1926, although the judiciary had been secularized two years earlier, the legal structure of the Republic was a mixture of sharia, local customs, and Western laws. A uniform legal framework to safeguard private property and related social relationships was missing. Toward that end, four foundational laws were passed in the first half of 1926, largely translated from their European counterparts: the Commerce Code (Germany), Obligations Code (Switzerland), Civil Code (Switzerland), and the Penal Code (Italy). These laws exemplify how secularization gets intermingled with the will to create a globally integrated national economic unit.

In his justification for the Commerce Code, for instance, Minister of Justice Mahmud Esad (Bozkurt) wrote that the reform was needed because Turkey “develops and expands its commercial activity day by day in very close relationship with world civilization.” He added that contemporary global economy could not be “managed by customary and traditional practices” (TBMM 29 May 1926: 590, Appendix, 21). Yusuf Kemal (Tengirşenk), Rapporteur of the Penal Code, likewise urged for a law that supersedes the randomness of “Sharia and customs.” On the Obligations Code, Esad further argued that “the primitive rules” laid out in “the [Islamic] Mecelle … paralyzed our economic activity” (TBMM 22 April 1926: 173–75). These views echoed those of deputy Besim Atalay a year earlier, when he spoke during the debate on the adoption of the 24-hour clock system and the international (Gregorian) calendar. Blaming the now abolished Islamic calendar, Atalay protested that “we lag so much behind in economic life; our government accepts the latest and most precise calculations.” Muhtar Bey (Cilli) agreed: “Our transactions with Europe are closely knit,” so “instead of using two separate dates … we will be using the same calendar” (TBMM 26 December 1925: 277–78). The Civil Code, on its part, comprehensively reconfigured individual, social, and family life, which had always been the abode of Islamic law in line with a national-secular culture based on private property. In presenting the law to the Assembly, Mahmud Esad aptly told the deputies that “when you … accept this law, the last thirteen centuries [referring to Islam] will stop; and a new, prosperous, and civilized life will begin for the Turkish nation” (TBMM 17 February 1926: 230). Esad wrote elsewhere that the Civil Code was directly facilitated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, where providing equal status to non-Muslims was put forward by the European powers as a precondition for recognizing Turkey’s sovereignty (Bozkurt Reference Bozkurt1944: 9–10).

In another set of groundbreaking laws in 1928, the Arabo-Persian script was replaced with the Latin alphabet and the international numeral system. The reform not only aimed at cutting Turkey off from its Ottoman-Islamic past, but also eased global economic integration. Minister of Education Mustafa Necati defended this perspective: “By using these numbers … our nation will participate in the international world in the fields of trade and economy,” which would be better for “our merchants and factories.” Recep Bey (Peker) also pointed to the value of the reform for “commerce and the economy … which constitute the point of departure and the essence of life in today’s world.” One deputy succinctly summed up the spirit of the day by saying, “gentlemen, we don’t want Arabic. We want the Occident!” (TBMM 20 May 1928: 204–5).

Another planned economic move was the 1931 Law of Measurements. The law instituted the international metric system, thus abandoning Islamic-customary measurements. Its justification document deplored the coexistence of multiple measurements that caused commercial confusions. This was unacceptable “given that we are intensely integrated with world trade and economy,” and “in export and import, merchants and the people suffer from various losses.” The old system also harmed the “regularity and consistency” of the national economy and the “economic progress of the nation” (TBMM 2 February 1931, Appendix, 1–2). Surname Law of 1934 standardized the use of family names to streamline matters related to private property and inheritance while prohibiting the use of religious-traditional appellations. The 1935 Law on Holidays changed the weekly day of rest from Friday to Sunday. The justification for the law complained that “deviating from the international day of rest [Sunday] … has caused us to effectively lose a day” and “was very costly.” Synchronization of “commercial and economic affairs” was thus necessary. In the parliament, Hakkı Kılıç seconded the resolution: “Gentlemen, the names of days have not descended from the heavens.… It was humans who coined names for them, as for everything else.… The essence of this [law] is directly economic” (TBMM 27 May 1935: 303, Appendix, 2). The legislative documents of the period are replete with such examples.